Robert Coover - The Brunist Day of Wrath

His week was up, he should have left. But spent yesterday brooding about it. Teased himself into thinking maybe hate was love. Then, last night, he waited for her after supper. It was a beautiful evening after the storm the day before — not a cloud in sight, the lowering sun casting a soft movie glow on everything, as though promising a happy ending. He was supposed to be standing guard duty with Travers Dunlevy, but he got Billy Don, with whom he’s been having man-to-mans on the subject of women, to sub for him, saying it had to do with what they’d been talking about and promising him it would be the last time he’d ask and that he’d tell him what happened. Elaine was with her mother. There were a lot of other people standing around, staring, but he didn’t care. This was, he knew, his last chance on earth to get through to her. “Things are going to go bad for you, Elaine. When they do, think on me, and how I loved you and admired you. It will ease the pain some. And if you need me, just shout. Wherever I am in the world, I’ll hear you.” This was what he’d meant to say. He’d practiced it over and over. Didn’t happen that way. He only got the first part out. Her mother asked “What?” and he stumbled on the word “loved” and choked up. Elaine was staring right past him as if he weren’t there. Those dead eyeballs. He was halfway between crying and killing someone. In his desperation, unable to speak or to think what else to do, he lifted his T-shirt and showed her the tattoo over his heart. For a moment then, she did look at him. At it. She let out a yip of alarm and buried her face on her mother’s chest. It was as if he’d pulled his dick out and shook it at her. They were both horrified and there was suddenly a lot of hostility all around. He felt like a complete butthead, hated himself, hated everything and everyone in sight and figured they all hated him back. Before they could move on him, he spun around, nearly stepping on little Davey Cravens who’d come up behind him to hang onto his pantleg, and strode away, fists clenched, charging straight at scaredycat Junior Baxter, knowing then he’d have an open path, and he did, fat Junior crashing into the light post in his effort to lurch out of the way. Down in the parking lot, he hauled his leather jacket out from under the tented tarp where he’d stowed it all week, jumped in his van and drove straight out to the motel where Duke and his woman do their singing, proceeded to get thoroughly scorched on the hard stuff, keeping back only enough money to fill the tank.

While Duke was singing “Take These Chains from My Heart,” he made his mind up to stop back at the camp only long enough to pick up the rest of the gear he had stowed under the tarp and then drive off into the night without further ado, but the booze knocked him down and he fell out on the steel bed of the truck while he was loading up and didn’t come around until an hour ago. He’d so absented himself from his body, it was like a kind of dying, as if something had ended and nothing mattered anymore. Hadn’t even closed the van doors. From his headachy dream of the ghostly Elaine passing by, he awoke to utter darkness and a certain confusion of mind. His dream, if he remembered rightly, was also about being buried, and after the storm, there being still a damp earthy smell all about like that of a freshly opened grave, it took him a moment to be sure he was lying in his van and not in a coffin. He ached, rising, as if he’d been out cold for a year. Not used to that. He rarely dropped off that hard even when stoned. Felt sick and had to step into the bushes and throw up. Needed that cold shower and the walk up to the Point and back just to get the blood pumping again, clear some of the pain and thickness in his head. The shower was a smart idea. Last chance for a while, nothing ahead but wash-ups in filling station toilets.

He needs to finish the packing now and move his ass out of here before the camp wakes up and he gets asked too many stupid questions and he starts sounding off about the total craziness of these damned people and what they have done to his old sweetheart, fucking her mind like that as they’d once fucked his. Maybe she’ll come to her senses some day just as he did, though when he said that to Billy Don a couple of nights ago on guard duty, Billy Don said, “I think she feels like she has come to her senses.” He told Pach’ some of the rumors about what she and Junior Baxter were up to. “They want to be saints,” he said. Hurt him, but didn’t surprise him. It was what drove him nuts out on the Mount of Redemption that awful day and got him sent up: she and Junior whipping each other with switches and then she turning on him, screaming at him to go away. There are pictures of that in that damned book, too, almost dirty pictures what with all those wet bodies rolling around and that old lady with her legs spread and him with his stiff prang slipping its bonds. The boys took the book back before he could grab it and rip it up. Well, he went away that day, all right. Away off to a different fucking world. So now the two of them are back at it. The world changes but stays the same. One of the old guys doing his third stretch in the pen told him that. Makes him wonder about those snapping sounds he was hearing earlier from up on the Point, and he turns his head toward the creek. Forget it, man. Not your problem. Pack up your shit and get out of here.

Billy Don is the one guy he’s been able to talk to here, other than Ludie Belle and Wayne. Ben, too, if it’s not anything important. But they’re older and don’t understand a lot of things, or don’t want to. Billy Don is his own age and his gonads are on the boil like Pach’s own. Wears handles over his overbite, shades even at night to hide his wall-eye, drives a battered coupe the color of green puke, is something of a Jesus freak, but he’s easy to shoot the shit with. When Pach’ offered him a beer, Billy Don said he hadn’t touched a drop since he went a bit wild in high school before giving his life to Christ, Bible College being the best thing that ever happened to him. Pach’ could understand that and said he knew where he was coming from, but he offered it to him again anyway, reminding him that Jesus himself was a wino, and Billy Don didn’t take it but he didn’t say no either and there was a flicker of an embarrassed grin under his handlebars. He is one of Mrs. Collins’ inner circle, but Pach’ recognized him right off as a waverer and was able to open up to him, air out his own doubts and where they’ve taken him, confess the real reason he came here, and the hopelessness of it. Women. They ended up talking a lot about women. Which Billy Don knows even less about than Pach’. Like Pach’, Billy Don has also had to deal with a lot of personal insults in his life, being homely and wall-eyed without much of a chin, but he was born with a cheerful nature the way Pach’ was born with acne, so a lot of it rolled off him. Billy Don has the hots for some long-legged college girl with a dirty mouth who told him religion is for wussies who are too chicken to face reality, but in spite of that he can’t stop seeing her, so he’s pretty confused about things right now. Billy Don told him one night on guard duty about a busload of young Christian folksingers from Florida who visited the camp during the anniversary celebrations and underwent full immersive baptism by light, meaning they took off all their clothes and danced naked in front of a campfire, and Billy Don joined in and said it certainly made him feel close to God, if it also didn’t win him any brownie points with Mrs. Collins. He said if he could sing worth a hoot, he’d go join them, and Pach’ said, if you’re going to get messed up in religion, that’s probably the best way to go. When Billy Don asked him if he believed in God, Pach’ told him, pointing up at the sky, “Sure. Look at him out there. He’s what nature is. Big bastard. But he doesn’t think. Only humans think. You could say it’s what’s wrong with them. God doesn’t have that problem, but we like to think He does.” Billy Don shook his head and asked him what he thought would happen to his soul after he died, and he said he didn’t have one and hated the very word. “The only thing it’s good for is as a cheap gimmick in a horror movie. Stop worrying about it, Billy Don. Go screw the college girl and forget the rest.” Which caused Billy Don to duck his head and finger his rifle like it was his own dingdong and grin sheepishly again.