Robert Coover - The Brunist Day of Wrath

“No,” says Wesley now to his inner Jesus, while slowly exhaling a pale plume of smoke, “that must have been the dove descending, not the Virgin fleeing the scene of the crime.” She realizes that thinking about Sunday morning has made her dancing increasingly agitated and fluttery, quite out of character with the music, and she has completely lost the thread of her argument, an unfortunate tendency Ralph often complained about. But no time to think about that, for “Clouds” is receding, its grand vistas about to give way to the dazzlingly festive and more earthbound “Fetes” nocturne. “The Dance of Life,” someone has called it, with its sensuous melodies and celebrative processions, and during it she will, as the adoring Virgin, receive, by the silvery light of the falling snow, the Holy Spirit on the living room carpet, which she has earlier vacuumed for just this purpose. In the silence between the two nocturnes, she stoops to Wesley’s floppy little bird and puts it to her ear like an old-fashioned telephone receiver, and Wesley, his hand stroking her bottom as though to say you have found favor, explains to Jesus, “I think she’s trying to hear you directly. Say something.” No, he has misunderstood, but no matter, the power of her touch is having its usual magical effect and the bird is puffing up and pushing its beak against her ear as though to impregnate her as Mary was impregnated. The jubilant procession has begun. The Virgin, making herself prostrate before her Lord, lifts her voice and sings: “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”

“Somebody loves me,” the town travel agent and current Rotary Club president Gus Baird croons, waltzing through the bank, winking at the giggling young tellers and passing out flyers advertising a special holiday rate for flights to Brazil. “I wonder who?” He knows who, even as he points to each of them. No one. It’s a sad song. Gus loves everybody but no one loves him. “Who can she be? I wish I knew!” The girls are used to Gus and carry on; he’s in here every day, telling his silly jokes, dancing his dances. By chance his old WCHS classmate Emily Wetherwax née Hopkiss enters through the front door, and he sidles up to her: “For every girl who passes me I shout, Hey, may-be,” and he does a little shuffle around her, goes down on one knee, “you were meant to be my lovin’ ba-by!” Emily laughs and does a plump turn of her own before continuing to the counter, shaking her head (she turned him down in high school, she turns him down now, it’s a habit, everyone’s habit), and the girls clap and laugh. “Hey, wow,” one of the Italian girls says, “Brazil! Great! Where is it?” Gus strikes something like a bullfighter’s pose or else that of a tango dancer, clicks his heels and sings: “South of the bor-derr , down Mex-ee-co way!” “Gene Autry does that better,” says Earl Goforth, the scarred war veteran who owns the old movie house on Main Street, talking out of the hole in his cheek as he empties a canvas bag of coins at the business counter, “and he can’t sing neither.” The pretty kid from college who’s interning — first newcomer in a decade — is watching Gus with a puzzled smile, so he twitches his shoulders like Jimmy Cagney and, with a glance at a bank calendar set out to help people date their checks and deposit slips, growls with what he hopes is a fair imitation of Bogie, “Don’t mind us, kid. It’s what we do on Thursdays.” For some reason she blushes. That doesn’t happen often. He blushes back.

“Just because some preacher’s a kook, Sal, doesn’t mean the whole religion is crazy.”

“No. On the other hand, if the whole religion is crazy, then every preacher’s a kook, right?”

Sally Elliott is sitting on the Cavanaugh screened-in front porch, having a beer and a toke with Tommy, discussing interesting topics of the day. She has managed to bump into him just about every day and this evening she found him babysitting his sick mom while his dad was away on a business meeting, the home care nurse having the day off, so he was feeling unhappy and more amenable to company than usual. The days are getting longer, the sun’s still out, yesterday’s freak snowstorm is ancient history. There are still a few dirty white spots in dark shadowy places looking like little blisters, but spring is sprung. She is wearing her dirty cutoffs, a faded rose-colored T-shirt, and her grotey trenchcoat, which is not really hers but her father’s, rescued one day from the trash can, redolent with garbage and washed only once since, when her mother stole it from her and tossed it in with a load of golf togs. The shirt reads: THIS IS MY BODY. It’s her handcrafted Easter tee. Earlier, Tommy was staring at it thoughtfully and she wondered if, amazingly, he was admiring those little bumps he used to fondle. She stretched the shirt out so he could read it better, and what he said was: “I was just thinking: How would that look if my mother was wearing it?”

Well, he’s depressed about his mother, she understands that and knows he’s hurting. Little Boy Blue. He is feeling let down, as though the world has double-crossed him. His mother was not supposed to fall apart like this. All of which has led them to the meaning of life, or rather, the meaninglessness of it, and the way that religion steps in to provide a comforting madness (her word). Which is what has been happening to his mother, who has been moving toward the radical evangelical line, much to Tommy’s dismay. He finds he cannot even talk to her anymore; she’s gone completely wiggy. The end is at hand, Christ is knocking on the door, repent before the shit hits the fan, and all that. The problem is, ultimate things are not in Tommy the Jock’s repertoire. The topics of religion and craziness have in turn led them to the lunatic Presbyterian preacher and his dippy wife, the scandal of the day. When the preacher freaked out Sunday morning and stormed out of the church, Tommy’s dad asked Tommy to tail him to make sure he didn’t do himself or others harm, whereupon Tommy ended up out in the country with the rain bombing down and a crazy preacher charging down upon him and sending him straight to hell.

“He kept waving his arms about out there and shouting at the rain. It was weird, man.”

“Tommy Cavanaugh, private dick. Or not so private.” That sounds like the making of one of her Tom and Sally stories. Tom and Sally Play Detectives. Like playing doctors but with magnifying glasses. Tom and Sally and the Case of the Disappointing Universe. “So, imagine, the guy has a gun pointed at his temple. What do you do?”

“I don’t know. Probably look the other way and duck.”

“Your dad asked my parents to visit Auntie Debra. They want her to sign some papers to get Reverend Edwards committed.”

“So I’ve heard. They tell me she’s shacked up out there with some kid.”

“Colin Meredith. She is taking care of him. The blond cutie from the orphanage. The emaciated angel. Remember him?”

“Vaguely. A flake. A pal of Ugly Palmers.”

“Carl Dean? They don’t seem to have much in common.”

“Ugly didn’t have many pals. Meredith was just about the only guy who could stand him. A couple of fucked-up loners. Ugly ended up in the pen, your blond angel in the loony bin. The Reverend’s wife must be even crazier than he is.”

“That’s what my dad thinks, though he only thinks whatever your dad thinks. As far as he’s concerned, they’re all nuts out there. They should just put a fence around the place and send the doctors in.”

“He’s probably right.”

“Yeah, well, they’re all nuts in here, too, and he hasn’t figured that out yet. What do you think? Is he going to lose his Chamber job?”