Robert Coover - Origin of the Brunists

On the way back to the Chevy, Miller was stopped by the correspondent from UP, just arriving. “Hey, there, Scoop!” he shouted, virtually in Miller’s ear. “Jesus! What’s up, buddy? I just heard—” His eyes were red-rimmed, still baggy with sleep. Cigarette trembled in his fingers. Miller knew just how he felt.

“Brought one up alive, just took him to the hospital.”

“Yeah, shit, I know that, Chief. But who was it?”

“Guy named … guy named Lou Jones.”

“Lou Jones? Where’ve I heard that—?”

“Out here probably. You maybe met his wife, fat old—”

“Oh yeah! I know the one! Big fat one. They had some kids or something, didn’t they?”

“Eight, I think. No, nine. I’m not sure. Better say nine.”

“Yeah! Nine! Great! Jesus, these fucking mining families, eh? What’s their address?”

“I don’t know, but they’re at the hospital. Press conference first thing tomorrow morning.”

“Not till tomorrow.”

“Right. Jones is in sick shape.”

“I’ll bet. I couldn’t live through a conference now anyway.” He laughed and, because he was expected to, Miller joined him. Miller turned to go, but the UP rep grabbed his arm. “Hey, wait, Chief! I forgot! Was he conscious?”

“Who — Jones? Hell, no!”

“Jesus, thanks, scooper! You don’t know how I appreciate it!” He pounded Miller cheerily on the back, turned to run back to his car. Miller had seen the portable phone hookup in it.

“Hey! Hold on!” Miller called. The slap on the back had pissed him off. The UP guy braked, swung around, staggering like a wounded pigeon. “I forgot to mention that Jones was apparently reading his prayerbook when he fell unconscious. They found it beside him when—”

“Oh yeah? Hey, shit! That’s a helluva great angle! Thanks, Chief! Come on over to the town flophouse tonight, I’ll buy a round!” And he ran off at full gallop toward his car.

Gray trees wail flying by, cars blink. Inside the ambulance, all is white, preamble to the race’s object. Only her brother is black, his long gentle fingers black, his fragile eyelids black, his distant breath comes: blackly. His face is spattered with dried blood. Whose—? Then West Condon bursts upon them with a thump and a scream. Out the back window, she sees a small scrap of white paper lifted in the wake of the ambulance — suspended, it flies away from them and turns a corner. Does it fly still? It is impossible to know .

Big Pete was standing like a mountain, still in greasy work denims, still reeking of underground sweat, just inside the door of the Chronicle , when Miller arrived. Miller greeted him warmly, shook his thick hand. Jones bumped through the swinging door from the back shop, lit with one of his uncommon smiles. Changed his whole goddamn face. “Four columns,” he announced.

“Terrific!” Miller said. He asked fat Annie, who bulked by her frontoffice desk like an obedient recruit, to make out a check for twenty-five dollars to Chigi, and, waiting for it, made an impatient moment’s small talk with the man. Enormous guy with black curly hair and big Mediterranean eyes, his face minstrel-black with coal soot, and when he blinked, as he just did, his eyelids looked starkly white. The digging out of mashed and rotting bodies made most men sick, but Chigi was a stoic down there and much admired for it.

As soon as he had left, Miller hurried to the back, found Jones there, standing over the linotypist’s shoulder. Miller scanned the opening lines of the story in a hot galley that sat on a stone about four feet away, counted the galleys already set, gave Carl and John makeup instructions. Carl’s fat back protested with shouldered silence. “No paper next Saturday,” Miller said. “Long weekend.” Carl, enlivened, commenced a round of whore stories, and his hands woke.

Miller, en route to the newsroom, pulled a Coke from the machine, dumped his exposed film in the darkroom. Driving himself now. Front page forming up. No time to ready the photos. Just as well: need them during the collapse next couple days. Put Annie on getting sandwiches and beer sent over from Mick’s, setting up distribution of the Extra. She had already obtained notes on Bruno and his family, following Jones’ arrival with the news, and her information on the other six was longwinded but useful. Good goddamn girl, he had to admit it.

Jones wheezed in and together they worked out a front-page layout. Jones dug up a pile of old cuts, including a couple Miller had shot down in No. 9 about two months ago that they hadn’t used yet, and wrote up a rough summary of Big Pete’s version of the rescue for Miller to polish. Decided to banner it with MIRACLE IN WEST CONDON just to wow the homefolks. Jones seemed to be carrying his belly a foot lower than usual, so Miller told him he could do the rest alone; a moment later, the jobroom sofa received Jones’ hulk with a sigh that was no doubt meant to strike envy into the benefactor’s heart — Jones never took a favor with grace.

Miller called the hospital, learned from Dr. Lewis that Bruno, in a coma, was still hanging on, but that complications, as expected, had set in. In short: “critical.” Read Annie’s notes. Parents born in Italy, old man a retired coalminer. Five children, two sons killed in the mines and a daughter dead of diphtheria, Giovanni and Marcella remaining. Marcella. He printed the letters on his desk blotter, lit a cigarette, and stared down at them. Marcella Bruno. Agreeable images roamed randomly through his forebrain. Eyelids weighted. He smoked. She knew his name. Turns — Christ! Blinked at his watch: nearly two! Attacked the old Underwood. Cursed, typed, cursed. Stubbed out smokes, lit new ones. Food came. Slowly, the bog of his mind hardened and the way became easier. On the jobroom sofa, Jones snored.

When she calls, Rosalia from next door answers. Marcella hears threats and intermittent gunfire. Rosalia says Mama is in bed and resting peacefully after praying at the church all day. Papa watches the television like usual. “I got plenty company here and don’ worry about nothing.” Sure, she knows all about Papa, she has changed him once already, no trouble. More gunfire. “He don’ even know they’s been a accident, child.”

On his way to the Collins house, Miller kept the car radio on to make sure they announced his special and the pickup points. Heard it three times on the short run. Most of their musical library inapt for the funereal occasion, they apparently appreciated anything out there that would eat up time. He found the Collins place, sturdy old yellow frame, broad porch bellying out, big trees in the yard.

He was met at the door by the girl Elaine. Miller introduced himself, asked if he could speak with her mother. The girl was reluctant, but finally pushed the screen door open for him. Her eyes looked clawed and her hair hung loose. Inside, there was a stale vegetable scent that reminded him of his carrier days, those wrecked Saturday mornings when he had to collect for the week’s newspapers, had to step inside cabbage houses and choke while the wide housecoated women searched absently for their purses and fifteen cents and old men in undershirts scratched their beards and glared. While Elaine went for her mother, Miller roamed the room. Not much choice, for the furniture was buried under stacks of laundry. A sentimental religiosity prevailed: evangelist pamphlets, dimestore plaques, cheap Biblical prints. A gold star tokened a war death, and from the pictures Miller gathered it was an only son.

Elaine returned, said her mother was coming. They stood awkwardly to wait. The girl’s front teeth were crooked; she covered her mouth when she talked. She said almost nothing and could hardly be heard, just stared mournfully into corners. She was frankly homely, strawlike hair, patch of freckles on her nose, sallow unhealthy pallor about her skin — her hands were coarsely pink, hands of a woman of forty. A simple print dress hung on her slight frame limply.