Robert Coover - The Brunist Day of Wrath

The bank explosion sent night duty police officer Bo Bosticker leaping with a scream out of one of his coalpit nightmares, a persistent haunting from his mining days, the leap taking him out of his bed and onto his damaged knees and thence to his face on the floor. He lies there, wondering whether what he heard was real or part of the dream. For Bo, a leap from sleep is a mighty one from the abyssal deep and is violent by nature, for he is a heavy sleeper, known for his powerful snore. He has had a number of women move in with him over the years, then move out pretty quickly with bags under their eyes. He never leaves sleep with a light bounce — it’s more like clawing up from a deepshaft grave — unless rocketed out in terror like today. A glance at his watch tells him it is still early in the day, that he should get in a couple more hours of shut-eye if he’s going to last through the night watch, and he considers doing that right here on the floor where he lies. But his knees hurt and he is hungry and by now he hears the sirens, the helicopters, smells smoke in the air. Not slag smoke. Wood smoke. He also seems to catch a whiff of something that reminds him of entering the mine in the old days after the shotfirers had done their thing. So he pulls on his uniform shirt and pants and launches forth from his little house down by the old railroad tracks to limp into town on his wooden crutches. It is a hot sunny day — the sort Bo rarely sees at this hour o’clock — yet damp underfoot, and he remembers it was raining when he went to bed. Long before he gets to where he’s going, he perceives that there has been a serious amount of vandalism while he’s been sleeping: a grade school with its windows smashed, spouting fire hydrants, a church on fire. The military helicopters overhead seem to be firing at something right in the middle of town.

The closer he gets to the center, the worse the damage is, the thicker the smoke now clouding out the sun. The post office is a smoldering shell. He hobbles in on his crutches for a look. There are people on the sorting-room floor covered with gray mailbags and other people carrying on over them. Bo wants to ask them what’s been happening, but they are mostly too hysterical. “Everybody’s dead!” one of them screams, shaking her fist at him. An older cop he doesn’t know stands guard over the place and Bo asks him what’s up and the guy says he doesn’t know, he just got here himself, something to do with a bunch of religious fanatics. He says he hasn’t seen anything like it since the last war.

That’s what it looks like. An old war movie. Main Street lit up with burning cars and trucks and many of the buildings on fire, their windows smashed, black graffiti sprayed on them. Fire trucks, police cars, ambulances parked at whatever angle, mostly empty inside, their lights whirling. Flat water hoses snaking about underfoot. The helicopters are pounding the old hotel for no clear reason. One of them is parked on top of Mick’s Bar & Grill. The old moviehouse marquee is down, which makes the building look like it has dropped its pants. The bank has also been hit. Seems to have lost its front door, the whole corner just a big hole. Some of the police cars and motorcycles rev up their motors and pull out. Bo asks one of them where they’re going. “Out to the mine hill! The ones who did it are out there!”

He runs into Charlie Bonali loading a bunch of weapons into some young guy’s car. The guns look like they might have come from the station. He should ask about that, but Charlie is wearing a bent tarnished badge and Bo isn’t sure of his authority or even exactly what is going on. “Where’s Monk?” Bo asks. “You’ll find him over at the pool hall,” says Charlie, pulverizing a wad of gum in his jaws. “On one of the tables.” “What the heck’s he doing? Resting?” “Yeah. In peace.” He’s pretty sure he knows what Bonali means by that, but he doesn’t want to ask.

He heads to the station to report in. Looks like it’s going to be a tough day; they’re going to need him early. It has already been a tough day. He figures he should fuel up first with some meatloaf or else a hot turkey sandwich, but at Doc’s drugstore, which is one of the few buildings not burning, they’re bringing a body out. “Dead,” they tell him when he asks. “Shot down in cold blood.” Well, maybe they can call the Italian grocery and have them send something over.

The first face that Angela sees, peering woozily up over her shoulder, is that of her friend Joey Castiglione. He’s holding her hand, which is cuffed to the cot. They’re in some kind of van. She hears a siren. “Take it easy,” he says. “You’ll be all right.” All right? Why shouldn’t she be all right? Where is she? Kicked. She feels like she’s been kicked. Who did that? She’s lying on her tummy, a pillow under her, her numb bottom raised. It hurts, other parts, too, but distantly as though they don’t really belong to her. She can’t move. She thinks her spine may be broken. “Where are we going?” she asks. “To the hospital. We’ll be there soon. Ramona told me you’d gone downtown, so when all hell started breaking loose, I came looking.” “Ramona?” She remembers something happening in the drugstore, people slamming in, she was trying to duck under the table, crawl somewhere. “Joey? Have I been shot?” He grins, gives her hand a little squeeze. “Yeah. But if it was going to happen, you got hit in the right place.” She feels very sleepy. Her eyes keep crossing. “Joey? Thanks a lot, Joey. You didn’t have to do this.” “Hey. It’s worth it just for the view alone.”

When Vince Bonali learns that his daughter is being ambulanced in with bullet wounds, he breaks down in tears. He is down in the dimly lit basement canteen, sitting with the Ferreros and Concetta Moroni (no coffee, the percolators have been turned off to save electricity), and his old friend Sal wraps an arm around his shoulders and says, “Easy, Vince. Easy. It’s gonna be okay.” “It’s too much, Sal!” he sobs. He feels foolish, especially in front of the two women, but he can’t help it. “It’s too fucking much!” He hauls out his handkerchief and blows his nose loudly. He and Sal have brought Father Baglione here in Vince’s car; the old priest is in the emergency room with multiple bullet wounds and is not expected to pull through. Gabriela and Concetta are out here because old Nonno Moroni died last night, and both of them are in a fury about what happened to Nonno’s body (Gaby tears up whenever it’s mentioned) and are talking about asking Gabriela’s city lawyer cousin Panfilo to take legal action. Lights pop on in one corner of the canteen, where Doc Lewis, looking shattered, is being interviewed live for TV news. When they bring Angie in, Vince is waiting at the ambulance door. Joey Castiglione is with her. That’s good news. Joey winks unsmilingly and gives him a thumbs-up. He feels better.

Out on the Mount of Redemption, the self-appointed Brunist Defender Dot Blaurock feels woozy with hunger. Breakfast didn’t amount to much. It’s getting hot and there’s no proper place to relieve yourself out here, though many have been doing so behind the backhoes or their cars or on the backside of the Mount or wherever. Young Darren Rector, still getting a lot of mileage for striking down the false prophet on this very spot two days ago, feels certain that they’re here for a purpose as yet unrevealed, a purpose that may be thwarted if they desert the Mount, and he suggests they open up the mine building restrooms as they did on the anniversary of the Day of Redemption. A good idea, but no one has the key. That guy McDaniel, Mr. Suggs’ strip mine manager and newly appointed deputy acting sheriff, says they should stay here. They could get trapped in the camp, and they’re better off holding the high ground. But what if those helicopters on the horizon should come this way? They’d be sitting ducks on this open hillside. No, Dot is one of those who is ready to call it a day. They’ve made their point, they’ve achieved the summit, they’ve held their memorial service — better to go back to the camp, try to find something to eat. Besides, she has squatter’s rights to the camp sickbay cabin and she doesn’t want anyone taking that away from her. “Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on,” the preachers say, quoting Lord Jesus, the Son of Man, the one they’re all waiting for, “for is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?” Sure. But they’re starving, and they can’t hold it much longer. The Son of Man never talked about what to do if you can’t find a restroom. There’s not much food left at the camp, but they can harvest the rest of the garden, eat it up before the Rapture comes. The camp is full of birds and animals that can be hunted. God will provide. One of her fellow Defenders says they could take up a collection and go pick up some hotdogs and buns and soda pop at the highway supermarket. Several of the women volunteer to do the cooking. Spirits rise. Then some terrified people arrive down on the mine road, jump out of their cars, and come running up the Mount to join them. “It’s the end of the world!” they wail. “It really is!” Sobbing and blubbering, they tell them about the demons on motorcycles, the bombs, the guns, the fires, the slaughter, the destruction. “They’s hunderds of them!” “They’re everywhere!” “They’ve blowed up all the churches!” “Ours is burnt plumb to the ground, Abner!” People start praying in earnest. It looks like a long day. Maybe even an endless one. “Now is the judgment of this world!” cries Abner Baxter. “Mom, when is Jesus coming?” Mattie asks. “Soon,” she says hopefully. And then He does.