Robert Coover - The Brunist Day of Wrath

Back inside the cabin, Billy Don finds Darren still in his shorts, hastily clearing off his worktable. He tells him the good news, and Darren snaps back: “I know. Why do you think I’m cleaning up here?”

“I suppose we’ll have to make the beds.”

“I suppose we will.”

Darren is clearly not as happy about the return of Ben and Clara as everyone else. He has been the center of attention and getting his way of late, and that’s likely to change. Or else it’s just him Darren’s cross with. Billy Don has remained skeptical about the voice in the ditch, to say nothing of his roommate’s fascination with Mrs. Edwards’ dark angels story and Colin’s crazy nightmares, which Darren believes to be windows onto the sacred, even if they have to do with killing and eating people. Now he has been finding signs that presumably pointed straight at Carl Dean Palmers’ traitorous attack but that they’d failed to decipher until it was too late. Billy Don had guard duty with Pach’ a couple of nights before everything happened, and Pach’ did say things like they both had to learn to knock women off their pedestals, that they weren’t worth it, and he told Billy Don about brutal fights he’d been in in which somebody might have been killed or at least crippled, but he also said at least there was the van. It was the one thing he had in this world, and though it was hard to tell what all was in there after it got burned, it seemed like just about everything he owned, including his driver’s license. When Billy Don pointed that out to Darren, Darren only said: “Don’t be naïve.”

As for those voice-in-the-ditch tapes, Billy Don has listened to them more than anyone other than Darren himself, and he’s pretty sure things are missing now from when he first heard them. Tiny snippets that might have muddied the clarity of the emerging “message.” When he asked about this, Darren looked surprised and said that if anything was happening on the tapes, then it must be the Lord’s doing and Billy Don should try to remember what has dropped out because what’s no longer there might be more important than what remains. Or maybe it was the Devil’s doing, Billy Don said, and Darren, without blinking, said that was possible, but, if so, that made trying to remember what has vanished even more important.

What Billy Don finds most disturbing is in spite of everything that has happened, Darren has drawn close to Abner Baxter. Two weeks ago on Pentecost Sunday he even underwent baptism by fire. Darren says he admires Reverend Baxter’s principled intransigence and believes that he is the most knowledgeable of all the original Brunists regarding theology, history, and interpretations of Revelation. “He knows , Billy Don.” Billy Don accompanied Darren on the first round of taped interviews, and it was true, Reverend Baxter did seem to have clear vehement answers for everything. He was more comfortable speaking of his faith in the divine mission of the Prophet Bruno than even Clara, and was quick to criticize her “softening,” as he called it, of Bruno’s utterances, supplying Darren with what he claimed to be the Prophet’s correct original sayings. He also gave them a blow-by-blow account of their visit on the Day of Redemption to the Roman Catholic Church, led by the Prophet wielding a mining pick — an event that Clara and Ben and most of their friends were not a part of and never talk about. Reverend Baxter described the Prophet’s violent behavior and showdown with the old priest in glowing terms. He said he considered Bruno to have been a true vessel of the Lord, inhabited by the Holy Spirit. Billy Don then made the mistake of asking: “In the same way as Jesus?” Abner Baxter drew back, his face blooming with astonished rage. “Are you being serious, young man? Jesus was the Son of God!” Darren was furious with him and refused to take him along after that — though, later, Sally Elliott said he probably asked the right question.

Billy Don was curious about baptism by fire, just how they did it. Darren said it was a secret ritual and he wasn’t allowed to reveal anything, though he said the ceremony was preceded by intense group prayers. People who were normally stern and stiff-necked seemed almost to melt, many of them becoming tearful and childlike, their group prayers gradually ascending into feverish chants, sometimes shouting the Master’s name over and over, and he found himself surrendering utterly to them. “It was something like those hypnotizing experiments back in the Bible school dorms. I was told if I truly gave myself to Jesus, it wouldn’t hurt, and I believed that.” Darren fell into something of a trance even as he told about it, and watching him, Billy Don got the impression the ceremony had to do with circles of fire, maybe circles within circles, possibly while blindfolded, and was tied up somehow with the Brunist symbols of the Circle and the Cross. “Then, one moment, it hurt. But not really. It was like the hurt was happening somewhere else.” Afterwards, Darren told Colin about it, and having his own turn is all Colin talks about now.

After breakfast — the prayers today will be thanksgivings: they’re back! — he will clean up the office, which looks great with the new shelves and file drawers and their own mess moved out. Clara should be pleased. First, though, a trip to the can and a quick shower and shave.

Standing alongside four other men, splashing into the metal trough of the men’s urinal, Wayne Shawcross says to the newest arrival: “How close y’reckon y’are to the new restroom being up’n running, Welford?”

“Well, it’s running up right now, but down it ain’t. The water’s plumbed in, but not the waste. Still gotta finish that trench out back for the pipes. I wisht the space was ample enough to haul in some heavy equipment or that the Meeting Hall was closer to the sickbay so’s we could hook up there. But we could turn the faucets on and do a flush to show when Clara and Ben come round and just drain it off out back somewheres if it’s only water.”

“Okay, but seems as how we might as well finish that trench while we’re at it. The ground’ll be soft with all the rain. Can you lend a hand, Billy Don? Uriah?”

“Sure, soon’s I’m done perking up the office. I’ll come round back.”

“Diggin’ is about the only perfession me and Hovis ever learnt, so, heck yes, let’s git it done.”

“Where does this stuff go?” Hovis asks.

“It don’t go nowhere, ’cept prob’ly a pit dug out below. That’s why it smells so sweet back here.”

The others are peeling off and leaving, but Wayne holds back so as to be left alone with Welford. Welford’s a happy-go-lucky sort, a skilled and willing worker and everybody’s pal, but he’s also a little too much like some old buddies in Wayne’s past, back before he was saved. Not bad. Just restless. Reckless. “People ain’t blind, y’know, Welford? Y’better watch out y’don’t git inta hot water.”

Even while he’s saying that, Travers Dunlevy walks in and undoes his fly, and Welford grins and says: “You was saying, Wayne?”

“I was saying maybe we could try’n finish up them new hot water deposit tanks on toppa the showers.”

“Yeah. Hah. Okay, Wayne. Good move.”

Buffet style for lunch is always easiest — let folks help themselves — but with Dot Blaurock present, Ludie Belle decides to dish up the plates so as to be sure there’s enough to go around for the forty or so who’ll be here. Dot has a wild story today about seeing Jesus Christ on Main Street, which is entertaining, but which no one believes. Will Henry has also come out from the radio station on hearing that Ben and Clara are back, and Dot, who made it to the camp with Isaiah and her wild things about eleven this morning and evidently figures that was close enough to 7:30 to qualify for a free lunch, now asks loudly if Will has done any work today. What are the rules around here? She’s a bully and a nuisance, but people laugh tolerantly and let her be, let her pesky kids be, too (the little girl is dragging a filthy pink slipper on one foot and has brought a stray cat to lunch), on account of they’re all feeling so good, rising up today from the down times of the past few weeks. Wayne is near giddy with the joy of Ben and Clara’s return and even erupted in a full-throated table blessing with no food yet on it, many of the others joining in and engaging in what could only be called holy laughter. Ludie Belle has been able to assemble a welcoming lunch of chicken legs, mashed potatoes with chicken gravy, spring peas from Sister Debra’s garden, fresh buttermilk biscuits with honey from the Applebys’ hives (now in full flow), a Jell-O salad with chopped up carrots inside and topped with mayonnaise and canned pears. She has even baked a blueberry cobbler for dessert. The flat-out ebullience of it makes everyone want to sing. “For the bountiful harvest, we praise thee, O Lord!” “Come, for the feast is spread, hark to the call!” “Down in my heart, I’ve got the joy, joy, joy!”