Robert Coover - Origin of the Brunists

He had just dozed off in front of the television when they came to their door in Carlyle one year ago, and for a woozy moment he hadn’t even been able to remember, staring at the men under his porch light, what town he was in. There had been four of them, their pale mordant faces puddled blackly under the dull bulb. He had invited them in, but they had hesitated, frowned at one another. Eleanor had stepped up behind him, and knowing all too well why they were there, had asked, “What is it, Wylie?”

“These gentlemen …”

“What we got to say won’t take no time, Norton,” one of the men had said. A big man, over six feet tall, with a heavy stomach underbelted, wearing a sport coat with wide lapels, green checked shirt buttoned at the collar, and peering baggily down at them: Mr. Wild, young Larry’s father. A man much like this one had once blackened Wylie’s eye in another town, claiming a similar offense.

“In plain talk, we want you two to get out of Carlyle,” another had piped up, a man named Loomis who owned three beagles that he whipped with gun butts, or so Wylie who had had to treat them after had been convinced. Though much shorter, he had stood behind Mr. Wild, and all you could see were his little red wet eyes and thin blond eyebrows over the big man’s padded shoulder.

“I don’t rightly understand, fellows,” Wylie had said, drawling a little like he had learned to do, showing that he was just a quiet peaceful man … and he was. “We’ve always tried to be—”

“Norton,” Mr. Wild had said bluntly, “you know why.”

Wylie had turned to face his wife, becoming, as it were, their intercessor. “Eleanor …” She had stood pale but erect. The others perhaps had seen only the defiance. Wylie had seen the pain, the fortitude draining away, the higher she lifted her chin.

“But who are you gentlemen?” she had asked. “What is your authority?” A mere delaying tactic. They always had a way, ultimately. She had placed one hand on Wylie’s shoulder, and he had stood firm to support her.

“Excuse me, Mrs. Norton,” a third man had said, a man whom Wylie had recognized as the owner of one of the town drugstores, tall fellow with rimless glasses, a “mercurial” type, as Eleanor would say, oval and merchantlike in the face. “We are not a what you call, ah, legal body , Mrs. Norton, as I am sure you can appreciate.” He had chuckled abruptly, continuing soberly: “We are only you might say interested citizens of this — interested citizens and parents of this community. We have, well, we have been requested by our, ah, our good neighbors to speak briefly if you don’t mind for a few moments with you. Mrs. Norton, frankly, we — that is, all of us, have been frankly asking — have repeatedly asked you to terminate your, ah, your activities as regards all the — as regards the youth of Carlyle, and you have nevertheless persisted. Now, in view of—”

“We’re asking you two to get out of town!” Mr. Loomis had snapped.

“Now, now, take it easy, Loomis,” the druggist had scolded. “Dr. and Mrs. Norton are, that is, they are reasonable people. I am sure that we can be too.”

The short man had grunted, glaring schoolboyishly at the druggist. Mr. Wild had peered down on them all and had said, “I think they get the picture.”

The druggist, while apparently engaged in observing a lone unseasonal gnat knocking at the bulb overhead, had then coughed and dropped the phrase “certain, ah, medical procedures, which might be taken,” and Wylie, turning to Eleanor briefly, had seen that her fight was over. “All right, gentlemen,” he had said, looking at each of them in turn, though only Mr. Wild had returned his gaze. “We liked Carlyle. But we’ll go.”

And so they’d disposed of everything again, everything but what they could pack into the small luggage trailer he had wisely picked up at a country auction about five years before, and had driven out of Carlyle. Young Larry Wild, one of Eleanor’s pupils, had dropped by before they left, the only one in town to do so, admitting that he’d had to sneak away from home, his father having promised him a stiff belting if he turned up at the Nortons’. But he didn’t care, he’d said, he’d wanted to tell them how unfair it was and how he’d always believe in her and in Domiron and in all she had taught him, and that he’d practice all the exercises faithfully. He had showed them then, shyly, a word his hand had written the night before. It was SADNESS, but he’d said he didn’t really know for sure if it came from some other aspect of intensity or not. He had admitted that he felt like he had thought the word before writing it. Eleanor had encouraged the boy to continue to try, but to obey his parents whenever possible and to love the Good. She’d counseled him not to worry too much about his message, sometimes the spirits from other aspects of intensity did act through thoughts instead of, or prior to, writing, and Wylie had admitted he’d not even gotten that far. “Let thoughts pass through your mind,” Eleanor had said to the boy, quoting one of her own favorite messages, one Wylie had heard countless times, “like fluffs of dandelion afloat on an errant breeze, like migrating birds, like purposeless foam appearing and disappearing, but let your mind dwell on none of them. The surface must be barren, the page white, the water placid, the room of the mind empty.” Larry had helped with the last part of the loading, had walked them out to the car to say good-bye. He’d said it didn’t matter if people did see him, they would all find out someday anyway, wouldn’t they?

And now: Was it about to happen all over again? Wylie shuddered, walked to the window. Dark still, and a fog had rolled in. He wondered what Eleanor would make of that. In one thing, they were lucky: there were no kids involved this time, not yet. Or virtually none: it was true, she did have one pupil at the high school, a senior named Colin Meredith, who was now designated a Chosen One and receiving other-aspected instruction, but it was a relaxed and natural sort of relationship, with none of the strain of seeking converts or educating young men from scratch, and luckily he was an orphan. And there was still hope that Domiron would define the disaster as insignificant; after all, he’d said nothing about it before it happened. And certainly she was getting tired of moving around, too, would think twice before carrying things too far again.

On the other hand, the disaster at the mine was anything but a promising sign. Eleanor had not been forewarned, and had been badly shocked. She had hardly slept or eaten since Thursday night, and vivid cacaphonic messages now vibrated from her fingertips almost hourly — as though the disaster might have set off shock waves that were buffeting the entire universe, rebounding through Eleanor’s fingers. And just here it had to happen, where things had been working out so well.

They’d liked West Condon. They’d found inexpensive housing and easy credit, enough clients to keep Wylie busy, and Eleanor had been able to obtain substitute teaching assignments at the high school. In fact, she was teaching practically full time, and they had told her only her lack of a State teaching certificate prevented her from being named permanently to the staff — toward which end she was now taking correspondence courses. Domiron, for his part, had urged caution and continued striving for inner self-knowing, and both of them had been greatly relieved. Eleanor’s long life as a communicant with the higher forces had taken its toll on her, Wylie felt. “It’s the price of the intensity of a Scorpion’s passage,” she always said — and it gave them both great consolation that her voices were at last permitting her this much-needed rest. As Domiron counseled: