Robert Coover - The Brunist Day of Wrath

The Nazarene visitors are startled by a noise out on the periphery that sounds like repeating gunfire just as Ben is about to lead them all in singing a verse or two of the hit parade tune “Whispering Hope” (“If, in the dusk of the twilight, dim be the region afar…”), and Wayne explains that vandal-types have been driving by all week and tossing firecrackers and cherry bombs into the camp; it’ll probably tail off after Independence Day. Meanwhile, Colin keeps crying out that he wants to confess. “Not out here under the tree, Colin,” Darren urges. “It’s not right.” “I got something here to calm him down, Darren,” Bernice says in a whisper that carries everywhere, indicating her patent-leather handbag, “but it has to be done with a needle, so if you can—” That sets the boy to screaming hysterically and running off toward the cabins, Darren chasing after to be sure he doesn’t harm himself. Some of the women exchange knowing glances with Mabel Hall, for in her reading of the tarot cards before supper she turned up cards that meant either the destructive use of fire by the clash of opposites (Glenda asked what kind of fire was meant and Mabel said all kinds) or else chaotic unmanageable energy and loss of direction provoked by new family or community arrangements created by exigencies beyond their control, and they know now which was the right one. That’s how it is: mostly bad news in the cards these days. Well, they can only hope…

Hope, as an anchor so steadfast,

Rends the dark veil for the soul,

Whither the Master has entered,

Robbing the grave of its goal…

Whispering hope, oh how welcome thy voice,

Making my heart in its sorrow rejoice…

After the song, Wayne steps forward to read the scripture lesson, which was to have been on the theme of “The present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory to come,” from Romans. But with the arrival of the visitors, he switched — with the help of his wife Ludie Belle, who is a faster reader — to the theme of togetherness. “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them,” he reads, and turns the page. “And then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord!” is the next passage, announcing the Rapture and taken from First Thessalonians, but he just has them caught up together in the clouds without yet meeting the Lord when more pops are heard out at the edge somewhere, and Gideon Diggs interrupts to say, “I don’t think them was firecrackers.” In the brief silence — even the birds have stopped their evensong — they listen to hear if there are more, and there are — not many — and then they stop. They seemed not far away, but sounds travel easily at this time of evening. “Where you suppose…?” Ben asks, cocking his ear, and Glenda Oakes, her one eye staring off into the distance, says, “In the garden.” “The garden?” She shrugs, draws her children closer and other children who have joined her own. “Go see, Wayne,” Ludie Belle says, and Wayne, who has armed himself for guard duty later tonight, sets off toward Mrs. Edwards’ garden, the other men following cautiously behind and, when no more shots are heard, the women follow too.

It is quiet down in the garden and there is no sign of intruders other than a few late-to-bed birds raiding the berry patch. Up in the trees, darkening now against a darkening sky, others are back at their lusty night-warble. The evening air is full of the rich midsummer fragrance of ripening fruits and vegetables. Such an abundance all about! They should get down here more often. And will have to, too, now that Sister Debra has been taken away. The only thing out of the ordinary is that the tool shed door is open. Inside they find Hazel Dunlevy and Welford Oakes with bullet holes in their foreheads. Neither are wearing much. In fact, they are not wearing anything at all. They seem quite peaceful. More souls to pray for, and some drop to their knees and commence to do so. Everyone knows who has done this. “We’ll have to call the sheriff,” someone says. People notice that their Nazarene friends have left. “Look at their hands,” Corinne Appleby says. “Like Jesus’ nail-wounds on the cross,” Wayne Shawcross observes. Corinne shakes her head. “Looks to me like he shot away their life lines.”

After the longest day: the shortest night. But one so steeped in legend, ritual, and superstition — or decayed religion, as superstition is sometimes called by those who do not see all religions as such — that it sometimes seems the longest one. A night of love oracles, fire festivals, fertility rites, and magical cures. Of witchcraft and drunken excess. Of dreaming awake. It marks the birth of the god of darkness, whose power now will wax as the sun god’s wanes, and thus marks the birth of madness and death. The sort of thoughts the amateur folklorist Sally Elliott might be entertaining as she removes her clothes at the shore of the moonlit lake, the deepening sky still faintly aglow — her body, too, for anyone there to see. Even in a rational age, should such a thing improbably exist, these sorts of notions would die hard, nurtured as they are by the common imagination and its craving for solace and meaning in the face of the faceless abyss. Tonight, for example, Angela Bonali has tied nine flowers with pieces of grass (only scattered clumps of it to be found in their muddy unkempt yard, but fortunately long as weeds), and after asking the cement Virgin in the yard for her blessing on them, has placed them under her pillow, hoping to dream later of her future husband — namely, Tommy Cavanaugh, whose picture she has taken from her diary and also put under the pillow just to be sure — because she read about this in a magazine for young mothers loaned to her by Stacy last week before Angela got fired at the bank. The magazine, the unreflecting carrier of these ancient fancies, also had astrology charts and hers told her to expect a change of fortune on the very day (or nearly) that the bank let her go. She is waiting at home tonight for Tommy’s call, which she has thought about so much it’s almost as though it has already happened. He wants to take her to the Blue Moon Motel and dance with her in front of all her friends, even with his face all bandaged up, so she has bathed and shampooed and done up her hair in a different way based on a picture she saw downtown this afternoon in Linda Catter’s beauty shop window (it was wrong to have a double banana split and a whole pizza both on the same day, but she had a desperate craving for them so powerful that it has not abated even with the satisfying of it, and in her condition what can you do?) and tweezed her eyebrows and shaved her armpits and other parts seen only when everything is seen (she has created a kind of fern-leaf pattern down there) and applied blush and mascara and lip gloss and eyeliner and perfumed her bra and panties and put on her most summery and revealing dress and practiced what she will say when he apologizes and begs her to return to him.

In another part of town, Franny Baxter is in like manner preparing for her marriage on the morrow. Her prospective sister-in-law has fashioned a wedding gown for her out of her own old wedding dress plus a couple of yards of white satin, taffeta, and chiffon to accommodate Franny’s more ample figure, and she is helping Franny now, after giving her a bath, with the applying of perfume and makeup (first time ever!). The groom will arrive home shortly before dawn, probably too drunk to stand and stinking of whorehouses and vomited rye whiskey and pizza. Tess will drag him under a cold shower and then present him with his bride, spread out on their marital bed like a lush prairie flower in full bloom, in her wedding dress but nothing else, hoping stupid Stevie has enough jism left after his night of debauchery to do the trick. In case he gets confused or falls asleep, Tess has a steel ruler close to hand to whack his backside and urge him on. Angie Bonali will fall asleep on top of her bed in her party dress, but not Franny Baxter.