Robert Coover - The Brunist Day of Wrath

“I can’t, Billy Don. I’ve promised a friend I’d go for a ride with her this afternoon. But let’s meet up later. It’ll be light until nearly midnight. My folks are going out with friends and have given me the car and supper money, so instead of ice cream, we can go share a pizza or something.”

“Well, I’ll have to miss the evening prayer meeting, but sure, why the heck not?”

“Okay. Tucker City, in front of the drugstore at eight. Got that hole dug for your prophet?”

“Yup. Two weeks tomorrow.”

“Sounds like a crazy party. I may put on a party hat and sneak in.”

“Well, huh, I wouldn’t…”

“Yes, we heard from the governor, and I suppose we can do this, if proper precautions are taken. But, well, we, ah, treated him surgically to ease his anxieties, Mr. Cavanaugh. The patient won’t give you any trouble, but he may not be of much use to you…”

When Debra opens up the garden shed, she notices that things have been moved around again, but the lock wasn’t broken and nothing seems to be missing. Hazel Dunlevy, who sometimes helps out, has the only other key, so when she turns up, still looking half asleep, Debra tells her about what she found and asks if she saw anyone going in or out. “No, that was probly me,” Hazel says, yawning. “I was jist only tryin’ to ease the wheelbarra out.” Hazel doesn’t do much work, but she’s good to Colin. He shows her his hands every day, and Hazel, with her dreamy freckle-faced smile, tells him something a little different each time. She likes to say that the way the lines cross in his palms is not like other people’s, meaning that he will always have a life different from theirs, and certainly that is true and does not need a palm reader to prophesy it.

It’s a lovely day, perfect for the year’s longest, and her garden is overflowing, all their hard work of the spring now coming, literally, to fruition; but her spirits are not lifted by it. She awoke somewhat tearfully, and she is at the edge of tears still. She tries not to think about it, taking every moment as it arrives, but they could come after her, she knows, at any time. She has followed Christ’s urgent command to the letter and she is about to be punished for it. Her friends here at the camp could not be more supportive, but they, like she, are mostly penniless and living by a different law from that of the world around them. That world, finding such earnest holiness impermissible, would punish them all if it could.

Mr. Suggs has warned her that if the Board of Deacons brings a suit against her and her husband for misappropriation of church funds, he would be happy to pay for her defense, but he did not think they could win. As an alternative, he offered her a flight to any destination of her choice, and enough to live on for a month or two. And she’s ready to leave — the camp’s not the same anymore, not since what happened to poor Elaine. She loved the time without phones or barbed-wire fences, without electricity, the deep woodsy nights unspoiled by artificial light, nothing to be heard but the owls and crickets, and all that is over, it’s time to go. But when she asked, he did not offer money for Colin and she could never leave without him. And now it’s too late. Mr. Suggs is no longer able to be of help to anyone.

She believes she could face this ordeal with a peaceful mind were it not for Colin. A few minutes ago he brought her a little bouquet of marigolds and oxeye daisies from the field bordering the garden, gazing up at her sweetly from under his funny straw hat, and she had to stop herself from wrapping him, weeping, in her arms; she wiped the tear that did escape and smiled, though she knew her lip was trembling, and told him they were beautiful and she loved him very much. And now what will happen to him when they take her away? Can he even survive without her? Having given herself to Christ, she would now willingly sell her soul to the devil to keep Colin safe and happy. Maybe she has already done that. The therapy that he demands and needs, she is well aware, is at best unorthodox, not something she could ever talk about with others, even Ludie Belle. But when, a trembling uncertain child, he slips into her bed at night and folds himself into her and, whispering, calls her mother, it is all so clear and simple, so pure, so innocent and loving. The end is coming. She and Colin will have to face judgment. She is not afraid. She is ready. It is the impending crisis that frightens her. Perhaps she needs to get away from the camp to think about it. Find ways to prepare him for it. Take him over to the state park for a hike, or out to the lakes. A picnic maybe. Yes, she’ll pack a picnic. They’ll take a walk through the bird sanctuary and nature preserve at the edge of the lakes, have an afternoon picnic together at one of the lakeside cookout areas. She looks over at him weeding the pea patch and smiles when he looks up. And he smiles back. Her funny little nuthatch. It will be all right, she thinks. Somehow.

Knocking out the little back window was easy enough, and she threw some towels over the bottom of the frame, but it has taken forever to get rid of all the jagged splinters on the sides and top so as to be able to crawl out of the garage without getting carved up, and even then, in her desperate haste, she misses one small shard, which snags on her artfully torn Mary Magdalene costume and adds an incidental rip down the back. Prissy Tindle races to the house for a quick change and also some chocolate cookies and a glass of milk, but finds the doors locked. That Ralph! Her car raincoat is in the studio, where she took it off last night, and she does not want to crawl back through that window, so she’ll just have to worry about it later. No time to lose!

“The Brunists think their guy is dead, done in by the Jews and atheists who control mental hospitals, so they want to hold a ceremonial mock-burial for him. They don’t know where the body is, so they’re going to bury a mine pick and one of their tunics, a flashlight and other weird stuff that was never his but is now.” They are rolling along through a countryside much prettier than that around West Condon, on their way to a river town on a bluff that Stacy has visited before, a favorite spot of hers and one of her present love’s holy places, though she doesn’t say so. Stacy has told Sally about Ted’s plans to bring the brain-damaged prophet of the cult to his own funeral and said she wondered what all that was about. “The problem is: Mr. Bruno isn’t dead,” Sally says. “So your boss has got up the bright idea of surprising them by bringing the deceased to his own wake.”

“The way you say it, you don’t think it’s going to work…?”

“They won’t believe it. They don’t want to believe it, so they won’t believe it. They’ll figure he’s a ringer, just another dirty trick.” She fumbles about in the glove compartment for a matchbook, lights up again, blows the smoke out the open passenger window. Sally is a tall, gangly girl, rather plain but in a dramatic way, with a darting gaze, no makeup, and snarly hair. She says she likes to wash her hair, rub it roughly with a towel, and then, without looking in a mirror, let it dry any which way. A new hairdo with every shampoo. Not your everyday romantic heroine. Her breasts under her T-shirt, which today reads GOD DOESN’T BELIEVE IN ME EITHER, don’t amount to much, but she goes braless, unwilling to make them amount to more, as though to say she doesn’t give a damn. But smart and funny. Certain guys would go for her. Some girls, too, probably. “So, tell me,” Sally says, “how are you getting on with the big cheese you work for?”

“I don’t think I can do that.”

“I think you can, Maury.”

“Why don’t you have your fucking city manager bust him? I’ll bet a nickel he’s dragging his heels, too, ain’t he, Ted?”