Robert Coover - Origin of the Brunists

The mayor announces in the city newspaper, the West Condon Chronicle , that the frequency of the recent “Black Hand” incidents makes it clear that it has become a new teen-age fad, a game, and he asks cooperation from all parents. With that, it does in fact become a teen-age fad, proving the mayor a prophet if not a consummate analyst, and culminates with a “Black Hand Blast” up at the youth center, which is converted at the last moment by the adult supervisors into a “Black Magic Party,” and, as usual, is not much of a success.

“Black Hand” phonecalls tie up the circuits, and letters from same arrive daily at the newspaper office, city hall, private homes. When the newspaper releases the report of two other signatures, the “Black Peter” and the “Black Piggy,” it sets off a rash of new calls and letters, etc., by everything from the “Blackhead” to the “Black Bottom.” “The Black Maria.” “The Blackboard.” “The Black Widow.” “The Blackball.” “The Black Armpit.”

Yes, the mayor admits with a rueful sigh when the suggestion is put to him by several civic leaders: it is really a reflection of the town’s whole general deterioration, and is at the same time contributing to it. A community-wide moral problem. Monstrous. A cancer. Something has to be done, says one. The mayor agrees. A little common sense, says another.

At the city hospital, a nurse, idle, picks up the telephone, waggles it indecisively in her hand a moment, glances down the empty corridor, sighs, finally dials a number.

“West Condon Chronicle.”

“Is Mr. Miller there, please?”

“Whom shall I say is calling?”

“The Black Hand.”

“!”

“Hello?”

“Just — just a moment, please.” Clump clump clump. “(Mr. Miller! it’s some woman says she’s the Black Hand!)”

“Hello, Miller here.”

“This is the Black Hand.”

“Hello there, Black. What a nice voice you have.”

“Do you know why my hand is black?”

“No, why?” Scratch. (Lighting a smoke.)

“Blackness, you will agree, is the absence of light.”

“That’s reasonable.”

“But what is light?”

“I wish I knew.”

“Light is the radiant energy which enables the corresponding organs to perform their proper function. It is transmitted by an undulatory or vibrational movement, the velocity of which, uh, need not concern us here.”

“Aha.” His loose laugh. Makes her catch her breath.

“Tiger?” She rubs her nose to block a sniffle. “My whole me is going black!” She swallows. Don’t get sappy.

His easy laughter trickles through the wires, makes her relax again. Anyway, she hasn’t made him mad. “I’m sorry, Happy. But what more can I tell you? I’m up to my ears in this goddamn project and it just doesn’t give me a minute.”

“Is it about these people who think the Last Judgment is about to happen?”

“How do you know about that?”

“I’m probably the last dope in town to find out. One of my hernia patients told me all about it.”

“Well, yes, that’s it.”

“Any pretty girls?”

Laughter. Too quick. “Nothing but old widows.”

“Unh-hunh. Well, when’s Jesus going to come and get it over with, so I can see you again?”

Laughter again. He likes to laugh. He has told her that no one else makes him laugh so much, laugh so well. “Middle of April or thereabouts, I think. It’s not sure.”

“A whole month!” She pauses. “Listen, Tiger, can I anyway write letters to the editor?”

“Sure.” A little awkwardly. “Listen, Happy, I mean it, I really am sorry. I warned you, though, I had a knack for getting hung up like this. But it can’t last much longer, God knows I’m getting sick of it, and then we’ll see if we can’t do something about that poor hand and so on of yours.”

“It won’t be easy. It’s very very black.” That laugh. “Especially the so on.” She nibbles at the phone cord, hating to let go of him. Any excuse. “But if I write the letters, will you at least bring me the postage?”

A hesitation. “Sure.”

“Cross your black heart and hope to die, never to rise again?”

A pause. “Listen, if my office girl weren’t listening in, I’d even promise to take it out for you and drop it in the slot.”

The nurse giggles, rubs her nose. “Beware then,” she hisses, “for the Coming is at hand!”

“The Black Hand, I assume,” he replies, and, giggling, she hangs up, runs paper into the typewriter beside her.

Common sense. Common sense tells the former coalminer and now small-time farmer Ben Wosznik that where there’s an effect, there’s a cause. Sometimes more than one. A good fertilizer and crop rotation bring on a good harvest. But planting by the almanac helps, too. Maybe somebody’s cigarette caused the disaster that killed his brother, maybe not. The cigarette might have been only a part of it. Now they are having bad times. Common sense tells him it’s no accident, nothing is. He hears about the man who says the world is coming to an end. The man survived the disaster and everybody else, including Ben’s brother, died. Has to be a reason. There always is. Maybe there was more oxygen where he was or maybe he had more resistance. Maybe both. Maybe more. Common sense tells him it’s smart to go see what the man has to say. Can’t hurt. Might change his life. Might save it.

Taking a shower at the high school, Tommy (the Kitten) Cavanaugh kids Ugly Palmers. “Ugly, if you think the world is coming to an end,” he says, “what are you wasting your time here at this jail for? You gonna need American history up there?”

Ugly, soaping his feet, turns crimson. He never really blushes, his acne just flares up. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says. A short guy, kind of a tube, small hump in the shoulders, almost no butt at all. Pretty well hung, though.

“Aw, come on, Ugly, don’t kid me!” Tommy winks at a couple other guys at nearby lockers, lathers up his belly. “The little Collins girl told me all about it.”

“You leave her out of it!” Ugly yells, going red halfway down into his chest. Boy, he is suddenly mad as all get out! Just a lucky guess, too.

Tommy figures he could whip Ugly, but he doesn’t want to get into anything down here, so, as though to soak better, he pivots under the hot spray until he has his butt to the guy. Never shoot a guy in the back. His Dad has a dirty joke about it. A couple guys are grinning, looking on, so he winks again. “Well, so what’s the story, Ugly? Is it really gonna happen, or isn’t it? We need to know, man!”

“What’s it to you, Moneybags?” Really sore, all right.

“Well, gosh, Ugly, I don’t wanna go to hell, do I?” He gets some snickering on that, but not much. Most of these guys are scared of Palmers. He hears Ugly’s shower turning off, decides it might be better politics to face the guy. He assumes a modest grin, and, working the soap between his legs, turns, just as Ugly slaps flatfooted by.

At the edge of the showers, where the lockers begin, Ugly spins around. “I suppose you just think that this is all just a buncha nuts!” he blurts clumsily.

“Who, Ugly?” Tommy counters, blinking innocently.

“You know who.”

“No, listen, Ugly, we don’t know anything. You gotta save us, man!”

Palmers hesitates, his jaws working. “Okay, smart guy, I suppose you never heard of Tiger Miller.”

This time the blink is real. “Sure I know Tiger Miller,” Tommy says. “You’re not trying to kid me that he comes to your meetings.”

“He sure does!” Ugly snaps, gloating now, though his acne is still a bright vermilion.

“I don’t believe it.”