Robert Coover - The Brunist Day of Wrath

The boys are jumping up and down in their new shoes on their way to the corner drugstore for ice creams (maybe little Johnny can win them a few more concessions if she fumbles a while for change), but Luke, Dot discovers, has stolen one of the pink slippers, though not its mate, and she’s wearing it, dragging it along with a bare foot. She must have left the other sneaker back in the store. The boys have picked up some extra shoelaces, very colorful, probably for ice skates, and two shoehorns, which they seem to perceive as some sort of knightly weapon, attacking each other as they bounce along. She cuffs all three of them, reminding them that it’s a sin to steal. If the man hadn’t locked the store, she’d march them right back there. They’re probably making Jesus very unhappy — whereupon, there on the corner of Third and Main, Jesus himself makes a surprise appearance, rolling down the street in a sky-blue automobile, driven by an ethereal creature who could be the Magdalene herself, though with makeup on! Dot falls to her knees in the street, fearing the worst (they shouldn’t have stolen those shoelaces—“You see, Mattie, you see?” she cries), and she’s ready to let rip with prayers and confessions and talking in tongues, whatever it takes, but the Master drifts on by and turns the corner at the next block and disappears. She remains there on her knees in the empty street for a few minutes reflecting upon this apparition, wondering if she saw what she just saw, until her kids get restless and ask her to stand up. Come on, Mom, let’s go. They want their ice creams.

By the time they get home, Johnny has lost one of his new shoes. Well, give him a change and walk back and look for it. Not something anyone else would want one of. But there are new locks on all the doors; they can’t get in. Locks are no problem for Isaiah, but he’s not here — the truck’s gone — so she breaks a window and passes Mattie through, and he opens up from the inside. Someone has taken all their stuff. The cots are still there, but without mattresses or bedding. Their clothes, collected possessions, the children’s toys, kitchen utensils, the hotplate and electric fan, everything, stripped away. They have not bought any of these things, but still they miss them and feel like anyone else feels who has been robbed. It has happened to others in the neighborhood, she discovers. There have also been some forcible evictions. Some of the men, they say, had on uniforms or parts of uniforms, but they didn’t look like city police. In fact, a couple of them wore bandannas on their faces like cattle rustlers in the movies. One of them was recognized as that big fellow from the church camp, so everyone knows who’s behind this. One of the neighbors has been out to see Reverend Baxter and says they were raided overnight and many had their tents dragged away and ripped up. In protest, Reverend Baxter has cut the wire fence and installed himself in the middle of the new campground, with others positioned around him like encircling wagons, including people from town, and he welcomes all who’d like to come and help defend him. Many say they plan to go there.

Isaiah returns and she shows him what’s happened and maybe he’s angry and maybe he’s not. Always hard to tell with Isaiah. He goes to work. He removes the locks and drops them in his tool box, and he does the same for other people who are still locked out. He taps a light pole directly for electricity supply and spends a good hour making the connection childproof. When it’s connected, he turns on every light in the house even though it’s still day. He visits the city dump and finds some of their stuff recently deposited there, including their mattresses, or some mattresses anyway, as well as some new things. A toaster, for example. Now all they need is some bread. He has also come back with a load of gallon bottles, milk jugs, and gas cans, and he and a couple of the men take these to a public fountain and fill them up, using the water to fill toilet tanks and allow everyone to flush. Praise God, they say.

As the day wanes, the neighbors gather in the Blaurocks’ front yard, bringing along scraps of food to be cooked or warmed up on the recovered hotplate and shared around. The chosen people. Dot sends Mattie to the neighborhood grocery store to buy five loaves of white bread so everyone can have a slice of hot toast, setting aside one loaf for herself to help allay the hunger the day’s exertions have brought on, and Isaiah goes to the pop machine in the movie house and gets cold drinks for everybody with his magic slugs. He had also brought a broken floor lamp from his dump run, and he now wires it up and sets it in the yard — a heart-warming thing to see there, a lonely beacon against the encroaching night. It provokes a round of preaching, praying, and gospel singing. Someone offers up a prayer for Reverend Baxter in his stand against the Powers of Darkness, and everyone joins in. Dot tells them all about her visit to the mayor and her encounter with Jesus on Main Street, and that leads to more prayers and the trading of miraculous visitation stories and speculations about the end times so near upon them, including the opinion that they have already begun, about which Dot is less skeptical than she was before. Little Luke comes shuffling up in her pink slipper and for no particular reason puts her arms around her, takes her thumb out of her mouth, and gives her a sleepy kiss on her cheek. The boys are already in their beds; Luke’s always the last to quit. Isaiah lifts her up gently and carries her into the house. The way Isaiah has got things done this evening, God bless him, has Dot excited. Later she’ll warm up some water on the hotplate, have a quick sponge bath, and then, praise the Lord, it’s a bit of the old garden of Solomon.

“They’re back! Ben and Clara!” It’s Willie Hall, banging on their cabin door. “Let the saints be joyful’n glory, let ’em sing out loud ’pon their beds!” And he’s off to wake up the rest of the camp with his momentous news.

Billy Don pulls on his jeans and steps out into the drizzly June morning. A dismal day but bright in promise. They’re back. He’s surprised how good it feels. The camp has a rich murky smell. Funky. One of Sally Elliott’s words. So different from the sweet toasty fragrance of dry warm days. Although there’s something oddly exciting about this dense odor, something suggestive, almost sinful (it’s the earth, Sally would say with her little one-sided grin — the earth is naughty, Billy Don), he’s always glad when it lifts, especially after it has sunk in for several days. Billy Don likes the sun. Dusty baseball weather. Weather for lighter hearts. He feels it’s the weather they now deserve with the return of Ben and Clara.

They must have rolled in overnight. Billy Don parked his Chevy down there yesterday at suppertime, after his midweek mail run, having met with Sally over ice creams and suffered his weekly dose of chagrin, doubt, and embarrassed longing, and he had paused to stare, as he often did, at the deeply indented space in the lot where their big house trailer had so long stood, anchoring the camp, thinking then, as often of late: Something has ended.

But now, as soon, renewed. Born again: Sally’s T-shirt. A sucker. Yes, he can’t shake his “appetite for hope,” as she calls it. He wants to believe. In the way that Ben and Clara do.

He sees other believers, full of smiles, emerging from the dripping trees, some under umbrellas, coming up into the Main Square: Wayne Shawcross and Ludie Belle; Welford Oakes; Hazel Dunlevy. Mrs. Edwards steps out on her raised porch next door, Colin, still in his underwear, peering over her shoulder with his usual look of giddy alarm. “We’ll wanta spruce things up, Billy Don,” Wayne shouts, grinning broadly. He’s wearing his bib overalls over a pajama shirt. Such a nice guy. Billy Don gives him a thumbs-up. He loves these people. “Take ’em on the grand tour! Show ’em what we done!” Old Uriah appears, Travers, Hovis, all trailing after Willie Hall, Cecil and Corinne Appleby hand in hand, the whole camp gathering, Willie hollering out: “And, glory be, they returned from searching out the land after forty days, Numbers 12:25! Hallelujah!” And there’s laughter and some congenial amen-ing, and Ludie Belle says: “Come along now, I’ll put some breakfast on! Wanda, go fetch up some fresh eggs from the coops! Davey, you scoot along with your mama and help out! Afterwards, Hazel, let’s us go shoppin’ for sumthin nice for lunch.”