Robert Coover - The Brunist Day of Wrath

He pauses, takes a note to that effect, then returns to the book in his hand, which examines the historical evidence behind the four Gospels, finding little, and none at all for the existence of any so-called Jesus of Nazareth. Whereupon, out of the blue and as if in manifest refutation, Jesus appears before him, dressed in a crimson tunic with a dark blue robe over his shoulders and accompanied by a flock of small children. It takes him more than a moment to recognize Wes Edwards. The transformation is quite remarkable. This is not the real Jesus, of course, but the one popularized by Western art: pale, straight-nosed and high-browed, with a well-trimmed beard and flowing auburn locks (has Priscilla been adding highlights?), and costumed straight out of the Renaissance masters and European cathedral windows. “Hello, Wes,” Connie says, standing and offering his hand. Which is not taken. “How good of you to drop by. I was just thinking about you.”

Wesley glances back over his shoulder, frowns. “I think it’s you he’s speaking to,” he says, peering down his nose. “Yes, yes, I know he’s a fool, and foolishness is a sin, but, as has been said, God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise. He believes, as he says, in ‘learned ignorance,’ so let us help him along in his belief.” His focus lifts to rest on Connie. He smiles. His gaze is steely and unwavering, yet mischievous. He picks up the book Connie has been reading, thumbs through it thoughtfully. Much has changed in Wes’ demeanor. He has lost his old crinkly-smile, lip-nibbling manner, is more aggressive, self-assured. He almost is who he pretends to be. When Wes pauses at a page, Connie prepares for a discussion about Jesus’ own existence in history. Instead, Wes tears the page out, folds it into a paper airplane, and tosses it into the still air. It floats gracefully for a moment before dipping to earth, and Wes rips out another page.

“Hey, wait a minute—!”

The children clamber about, tugging on Wes’ robes, asking if they can make airplanes too, and he smiles and spreads his arms and says, “I place before you an open door.” Whereupon, before Connie can stop them, the children snatch up his books, spread out over the back yard, and commence to tear the pages out. Connie manages to grab hold of the last of the books, but the child screams so bloodcurdlingly he lets go of it again.

“Wes! Please! This is terrible! Make them give them back!”

“Wes, I’m afraid, is indisposed. And I am disinclined.”

“But how can you? This…this disrespect for…!”

“Nonsense. There is altogether too much mystification of the written word. Especially that insignificant branch of fantasy literature known as theology. It is right that, like fancy, these pages take flight. Think of them,” he adds, as a paper airplane floats past right in front of his nose — Connie ducks and bats at it as if at a pestering moth—“as angels bearing such pompous human folly on their wings as to fill thy mouth with laughing.”

The big children are showing the little ones how to fold the planes and set them dancing. Meanwhile, they help themselves to his lemonade, drinking straight from the pitcher. A little girl, her cheek bulging, offers him a sticky jawbreaker with her fingerprints on it from a filthy brown paper bag. He fears he might be ill. At which point Priscilla Tindle shows up in a breathless tizzy, wearing only a torn nightshirt. “Oh dear Jesus! Thank Heavens! I’ve been looking all over for you!” she gasps, tears in her eyes. “Come! We have to go!”

“Woman, why weepest thou?” Wesley asks with a faint self-mocking smile, winking over her shoulder at Connie. Connie can see that her gown is ripped down the back and she is wearing nothing underneath it.

“The police have been at the studio!” she cries. “They came to arrest poor Wesley! Hurry! You must save him!” The children gather behind her, pointing and giggling. One of the little boys sails a paper plane in that direction, but it veers away shyly. It immediately becomes a game like pin the tail on the donkey and they are all trying to hit the target with their paper planes. She turns to them. “The police are trying to put Jesus in prison! We have to stop them! Tell them he took a bus out of town! Tell them he ascended into Heaven! Anything! But don’t let them find him!”

After they have all scattered, Connie, somewhat shaken (he was not made for life’s rough and tumble), wanders his backyard collecting books and pages. He has decided to postpone his truth-in-fiction sermon. He is too disconcerted to carry on, and summer is anyway too frivolous a time for it. Besides, let’s be frank: those in his pastorate prefer a simple — and brief — communion service with a few Christian homilies tossed in, caring nothing for these bookish disputes, which just put them to sleep. He is, as Wesley himself has reminded him, only talking to himself.

The drive back from the lakes is a disaster. Debra makes the mistake of trying one last time to talk Colin into leaving the camp with her, taking a sudden turn onto the highway as she’s crossing it, and Colin in panic tries to leap out of the moving car; she has to hit the brakes and grab him. She tries to pacify him in the old way, but he slaps furiously at her hand, shrieking wildly. “Don’t touch me! They won’t let me into Heaven!” She promises him, crossing her heart, that they’ll go straight back to the camp, just please don’t try to jump out of the car again. She drives very slowly, her heart pounding, tears in her eyes, one foot on the brake, Colin glaring at her in terror and gripping the door handle all the way back. As soon as they reach the camp gates, he does jump out of the car, tumbling onto the road, then leaping up and running toward all the people rushing their way, gripping his crotch, screaming hysterically that she’s been doing terrible wicked things. “To this!” My God, has he opened up his pants? She sinks into the car seat, leans her head against the wheel. She only wants to die. “It’s the police!” people are shouting outside her window. “They came to arrest you! Darren kept them out, but they’ll be back! You can’t let them see you!” She doesn’t move. She doesn’t care.

“The Virgin Mary told her that the cancer was eating her mind. If she could kill the cancer in her mind before it was too late, the cancer in her body would just melt away.” Concetta Moroni is in Gabriela Fer-rero’s kitchen with her friends, Bianca and Gina and Francesca. The kitchen smells like a chicken coop with a kind of perfume on top, but they are all used to it by now. The five of them have gathered, as they often do in one kitchen or another, for a late afternoon coffee, drawn together today by the shoe store man who hung himself in his shop window, which Concetta witnessed (she gasps and crosses herself each time that terrifying scene pops back to mind) and Gabriela, picking up her prescription, saw just afterwards, when they were cutting the poor man down, and then Francesca saw the body when they brought it to the hospital. They all agree that it was the bank’s fault, and Concetta expresses her pity for poor Mrs. Cavanaugh, having to live with that cold heartless man who only knows about money and is holding the whole town to ransom. “Mrs. Cavanaugh said the Virgin Mary telling her that was like a dream even though she was wide awake, and I said, no, it was a miracle, a visitation.” Her friends all nod at that, though Gabriela says maybe it’s all that morfiend she’s taking. Gina, who is the mayor’s secretary, wants to know how you cure mind cancer. “Like you cure all cancer, Gina,” Concetta says. “Prayer. The only thing that works. If God wants you to die, there’s nothing you can do, but you can always ask. Mrs. Cavanaugh and I may go to Lourdes to ask up close.” She opens a little silk pouch and shows them the woman’s rings, including her wedding ring, which Concetta is supposed to sell to raise the money for their trip to Lourdes because Mr. Cavanaugh refuses to give her any. Bianca tells about a friend who went to Lourdes and got her hearing back, and Francesca says if the Virgin is visiting Mrs. Cavanaugh here in West Condon, maybe they don’t have to go to Lourdes. Francesca works as a receptionist at the hospital and is therefore their expert on medical knowledge, and she says that the best thing for mind cancer is hot compresses.