Robert Coover - The Brunist Day of Wrath

That home care nurse in the beaded headband Tommy pointed out, his mom’s faith healer, looked alarmed when she spotted her, and hiding her head under her shawl which might have been made out of an old bedsheet, quickly vanished, as did Aunt Debra, who did not seem happy to see her. She caught only a glimpse of Colin Meredith before Aunt Debra whisked him out of sight. A wisp of a fellow, rigid smile on his face, thin silvery hairs hanging from his chin. His goggle eyes were darting everywhere, and when they lit on her, they flashed with panic. Which, on seeing his, she felt, too. When she asked, Billy Don said, “He’s a kind of visionary genius, like, and one of the first disciples and about the sincerest, most intense guy I’ve ever known. He almost vibrates like a live electric wire, you know? Sometimes it kind of drives him crazy, but he loves his mother very much and mostly does what she says, and she keeps him from going over the top.” Hmm. Something Sally’s mother didn’t tell her but hinted at: “The trouble with Debra…”

After consulting with each other, the boys showed her roughly where the new Brunist tabernacle temple is going to be built and said in a secretive voice that the great news of the day was that they had just received a really fantastic gift, nearly enough to build the whole thing. They didn’t know where the money came from but supposed it was from their principal benefactor, Mr. John P. Suggs. He was pointed out to her. Not in a tunic. A burly big-skulled man in a gray suit and boots, plaid shirt, no tie, suspenders. He reminded her of the farmer who chased Peter Rabbit in a picturebook she had. Or the nursery rhyme man in brown who tried to net the flying pig, dickery dickery dare. The horsey, strong-jawed woman in the tunic beside him, she learned, was their evangelical leader, Clara Collins. “A saint.” Sally had already noticed her. A bold lady, sure of herself. She didn’t walk, she strode, and wherever she went, there were people around her. Mr. Suggs had unscrolled a large sheet of paper and was showing it to her. Darren said it was architectural plans for the temple, which would be formally presented tonight at their evening prayer service and dedication ceremonies. She asked them if there wasn’t something paradoxical about building a new church when they were expecting the end of the world. Well, the Rapture could come any time, but they didn’t think it would happen for at least two years (“Me and Darren are working on that,” Billy Don said), and this gives them time to build a proper tabernacle wherein to receive the Lord, wherefrom to fly to Heaven. A kind of launch platform, as she later wrote in her notebook. A docking station.

Though they’d told her that the main events in the meeting tent wouldn’t be starting until later in the afternoon, there was already a lot of preaching and singing going on all over the hillside, some of it broadcast over loudspeakers. That was to encourage anyone who wished to join them, Billy Don said, and he added that he sincerely hoped she would make such a decision. They accepted her thoughtful silence. These guys were easy. Clara Collins was a different story. When Sally was introduced to her, she asked bluntly, “Are you here as a believer, child?” “I am here as a seeker after truth, Mrs. Collins.” “Well, so are them reporters down there.” “No, ma’am. They only know their own truth and want you to confirm it. I don’t know the truth and am on a quest for it.” Got that right out of her medieval lit course. “Do you believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, and in the resurrection of the body, and in the Bible as God’s holy word?” “I wish to believe, but I am full of doubts. I am trying to resolve those doubts.” “She’s the niece of Sister Debra, Sister Clara.” Clara gave her a stern look-over, gazing into her thicket of hair as though to search out there the demons who possessed her. “All right, child. But don’t abuse your welcome.”

An invitation to leave. But she wasn’t feeling so great. She needed to sit down. The boys asked her if she’d eaten and she said she hadn’t, so they led her in here under a tent where they had tables of food set out, found a folding chair in a corner, and brought her a white-bread lunch-meat sandwich and a cream soda, and that helped. Sometimes, it’s true, it seems to her that she grasps or is embraced by a great cosmic mystery, and for a moment she enjoys a certain rapt serenity. But usually the mystery eludes her or it evolves into some familiar banality, like the cream soda burp she burped then, and it never comes close to happening when she’s bummed out with the blahs.

A guy walks into the tent now wearing a chocolate Stetson and an unbelted white gown over jeans and dusty high-heeled boots. Looks like some kind of cowboy cross-dresser. Said to be a honcho politician and rich rancher from Wyoming and a bishop from there. She takes out her notebook again and commences a sketch. He grabs up half a sandwich, stuffs it whole into his jowls, and wallows it around in there like a chaw of tobacco. Suddenly, he topples over, knocking his hat off, and starts twitching and yelping out unintelligible noises, spewing half-chewed sandwich. When his tunic falls back, you can see that he’s wearing holstered pistols — he is a cowboy! A crowd gathers. A woman with one dead eye and a gold tooth claims to be able to translate his gibberish. She says the Prophet is inside him and speaking through him. The Prophet says: Prepare! Christ is coming! They all know this, but they gasp and cry out all the same. A whispered chant: Bru-no! Bru-no! Bru-no! All this ecstatic communion: how the fantasy of soul gets made. After a while, the gunslinger gets up, dribbling chewed bread, looking dazed. He doesn’t acknowledge those gathered around him. He straightens his tunic, brushes off his hat and leaves the tent. Singing ensues.

The Great Myth of the Rapture. She’s sitting in it.

Nothing more certain, said Darren solemnly. “The Second Coming of Jesus Christ, his literal physical return and all that means, is referred to 1845 times in the Bible.” She wrote the number down and factors it now just for fun. Three and five and one-two-three.

Another thing Darren said. About the religious calling. She flips back a few pages: An invisible form calling out for substance. One is conscious of this summons and its attraction, without knowing what it is that is calling. Something he read somewhere probably. Now she writes: The writer’s vocation: An invisible form calling out for substance. One is conscious of this summons and its attraction, without knowing what it is that is calling. When she looks up Aunt Debra is standing there, frowning down at the notebook in her lap.

“I’m surprised to see you here, Sally. I didn’t think you were a believer in much of anything anymore.”

“You know me, Auntie Debra. I always have to know it all. How about yourself? I never thought of you as an evangelical sort.”

“Well, I have changed.” Certainly she seems to have lost some weight. In fact, like her mom said, she’s looking pretty good. Settled into herself, at home in her tunic. Tanned and strong. But maybe not so soft and loving as before. More determined, somehow. In control. The opposite of what her dad says. He says Debra has blown all her money and her husband’s too, and she is shacked up with a crazy kid and is completely out of control. Fruitcake is his word for gross dysfunction. She’s a fruitcake. “These are good people who have suffered so much for their simple faith. I love them and have become one of them.”

“But you seem so different from them, Auntie Debra. They’re all so — well — so emotional.”

“I know. I resisted that at first. Afraid of direct communion with God. All buttoned up like a good Presbyterian. I’m past that now. For the first time, I feel like I really have a personal relationship with God and belong in His world and am at last living a truly meaningful life. Everything is suddenly so real!”