Robert Coover - The Brunist Day of Wrath

The talk in Mabel’s caravan, which had been going on before Lucy arrived, was about something mysterious that had just happened and what it might mean. Mabel had that look on her face with her head reared back that always signifies something very dramatic is about to take place, or else something she predicted has just occurred, but they didn’t seem to want to tell Lucy what it was. It was because of Calvin’s job, she knew, and she could understand that, but still she felt hurt. It was Florrie Cox who finally let the cat out, whether because she felt sorry for her or just because Florrie is always apt to blurt out things. It seems that some young female-like person, who may not have been a real person at all, had appeared and vanished all in a whisker, leaving a dead old lady in her wake, all of which signified many different possible things, depending in part on whether the phantasm, if it was a phantasm, was a godly spirit or a diabolical one, the prevailing opinion being the latter and generally supported by Mabel’s cards. Bernice Filbert said that when she first witnessed the creature in her filthy garments hovering over the lawnchair that once held the cadaver of the Prophet’s sister, she saw that while she — or it — was looking down at the chair, it also had a face on the back of its head which was staring straight at her. She said she did not think she was being singled out, but that the face was one of those, like in some paintings, in which the eyes follow you wherever you go, so in effect it was looking at everyone at the same time. Of course no one else saw this and Bernice has a very active imagination, but her stories are always interesting and you can’t help listening to them. The amazing thing, they were all saying, is that a woman named Patti Jo, who is in communication with the dead, predicted exactly all this would happen, right there in Mabel’s caravan the day before. It’s true, many of them were here and heard it, and now Mabel’s cards were saying there was more to come — maybe even the Rapture, or something like it. They were hoping Patti Jo would join them in case she had any new messages, but she didn’t make it before everyone had to leave, though you could hear her singing religious songs on the loudspeakers.

Through the caravan window, Lucy could see her husband’s boss, who appointed Calvin his deputy right after he got elected sheriff. His old partner in the mine. The man’s thick shaved neck bulging out over his collar under his cap is what you saw. He was having an argument with some other people there at the foot of the hill, many of them wearing hats and looking important, but unknown to her. One she did recognize, even in one of those Brunist tunics, was Abner Baxter; she could tell him by his big mouth and his thick jowls, though his red hair had grayed and he was more sunk into himself. But he was carrying on in the old way, shaking his pudgy fist and looking as threatening as ever. Calvin has always been a little bit afraid of him, though he looks up to him, too, even if Abner is a foot shorter. He was Calvin’s faceboss on night shifts. They all came up out of the mine together the night it blew up, Lucy waiting at the main hoisting shaft with the children, the two they had then, and her parents and Calvin’s parents and his sister from Wilmer, and almost as soon as he reached fresh air and could catch his breath, Abner, his face all streaked with black, started preaching against the mine owners. She and the children and all of Calvin’s family were just eager to get home and give thanks to the Lord and relax from all the tension, but Calvin wanted to stay and listen, so they had no choice. Later, poor Ely was found dead and Abner became their preacher at the church. His sermons were pretty scary and she wasn’t sure her children should hear the things he said and some people left the church, but Calvin believed in him, and so she did, too. He’s a good union man is what Calvin always said, and a fierce man of God, and when Abner Baxter told him to do something he usually did it. It was why he was out on the mine road that night the Bruno girl was killed and why they both marched out in the rain with the Brunists the next day. Sitting there in Mabel’s caravan, looking out the window, which was like looking at a big television screen, brought it all back. That one night was as far as it went, though. She and Calvin knew Giovanni Bruno in high school, a peculiar Italian boy who seemed not to have any friends or want any and who stared at everyone like he hated them or was afraid of them. He looked like somebody who might get a gun and shoot everyone — that was what Cal and the other boys said — though they also sometimes teased him as if to see if he would. So when the state police started up the hill that day, they just ran like crazy and they threw away the tunics when they got home and went back to the Church of the Nazarene and never spoke of that weekend again, hoping that as few people as possible saw them there.

And then, while she was sitting there in the caravan, letting her memories roll over her, the most astonishing thing happened. Maybe it was what Mabel’s cards had predicted. A bunch of men in black leather jackets came roaring right past on motorcycles. It was like they just popped up out of nowhere or came flying down from the sky. Several of the women screamed. Maybe she did. They went right down in the ditch and up again and straight at the people standing over there, many of whom started running away while others just seemed frozen to the spot. The riders skidded to a stop all at once and threw some things at the crowd, one of which Bernice said looked like an animal head, though Lucy could hardly believe that. One of the things struck Susanna Friskin’s husband right in the face, and that’s when he sat down. And then the men on the motorbikes came roaring straight back at the caravan, and someone was shooting, and she was so frightened, she ducked and fell right over onto the linoleum, clutching at the doilies on the armrests and dragging them down with her, and there was screaming and praying and crying and a terrifying rattle overhead, but Mabel and Bernice just stood at the window and stared out until they had gone past. Demons from hell. Everyone said so. Mabel said they had red eyes. Without pupils. And Bernice Filbert arched her penciled eyebrows and said in a whisper: You saw that, too! Betty Wilson whimpered she was having palpitations and had to lie down and she did, Linda making room for her on the sofa bed. After that, there was a lot of commotion on the hill and they were all drying their eyes and staring out of the caravan windows, trying to see what was happening, and that’s when she saw Wanda’s new man. It was true, he was everything they’d said he was. A television cameraman had apparently snuck up the hill to poke his camera into one of the tents, and he just picked him up like a rag doll and threw him into the ravine there! A giant!

She can hear the children squabbling. Her private silent time is over. Spats and tears, arguments about what to wear, fever blisters and runny noses. Couldn’t be less like the Heavenly Kingdom. But she’s grateful for it and thanks God and Jesus and sets out the cereal bowls.

Another who, like Billy Don, found himself last night enjoying the fit of palm to palmed — though in his case the cheek cupped was plumper and of a certain age — was the master plumber Welford Oakes. They were pressed together amid the crowds atop the Mount of Redemption, all eyes cast upon the Heavens in anticipation of the descent of Our Lord Jesus Christ in all His glory to establish Heaven on earth, and given the excited jostle, that his hand landed where it did could be seen as an accident, but not that it, without apology, remained there. She turned to frown up at him questioningly, and he smiled and murmured, “I thought y’might care to read my palm,” figuring she’d either knee him where it hurts and walk away, or she’d stay and then something different would happen. What she said was: “I ain’t never studied a palm before whose fate line cut clean acrost the life line like that.” He grinned, gave her a gentle pinch. “That’s what one a them other lines has to say about that,” he said, and moved away. Now, at the sunrise service down by the flowering dogwood tree, they are exchanging frequent glances, trying not to. He understands the risks, but, like it goes in “Amazing Grace,” “The earth shall soon dissolve like snow, the sun forbear to shine,” and that being so, one has to make the best of whatever’s left. Now the worshippers are burying those two headless birds and singing “Wings of a Dove,” and when they reach the love line, he casts a meaningful glance her way. But she is staring fixedly up over her shoulder as if still looking to the sky for a sign of the Coming. He turns to look up through the trees at what she’s peering at: Inspiration Point. When he looks back, she’s already gone.