Robert Coover - The Brunist Day of Wrath

“Land is only useless, Maury, when it’s not being used. It has electric and phone lines already in place, train rails and usable structures. With the flat land the town owns below it, it has industrial park potential, could be developed for housing or for a coal-burning power plant. Might even be turned into a profitable recreational facility.” It angers him to have to wheedle with this irresponsible third-rate shoe salesman who is only the mayor because Ted has made him so. It angers him even more to think about spending so much money on that worthless piece of land, for which he is only inventing improbable uses. But he hates to get beat. If they lose the mine land and hill to Pat Suggs and those religious fanatics, they’ll never be rid of them. He has heard rumors they plan to build on it and that Suggs may be buying up other property nearby. Creating a complex. His voluptuous doodles show signs of anxiety and irritation. Swirly lines flying off in all directions. Ted glances out onto the bank floor, catches her watching him; she looks away. “And the city doesn’t have to pay a nickel up front. You can float a bond and meanwhile the bank will loan the city the entire amount at bank rate.”

“Nah, I’ll never be able to sell this to the council. Let them fundamentalist loonies have their hill, Ted. Who the fuck cares? They’re even bringing in a bit of business. If they turn up in town, we’ll simply shoot ’em.”

“They’re already in town, Maury. Suggs is letting them occupy some of his prefabs in Chestnut Hills.”

“Don’t I know it. The handful of neighbors who still live out there are bellyaching about the filth and noise and overcrowding. It ain’t clear who’s paying the electricity and fuel bills. There are health and fire hazards. I’ve asked the chief to shut that operation down this week. By the way, Dee mentioned this morning there’d been a break-in in some of the mine buildings out there.”

“Really? What got taken?”

“Dee don’t know, says it ain’t his jurisdiction, but figures it was more like vandalism than theft. Someone heard motorcycles, so it’s probably them same shits who was throwing body parts around last Sunday. Unless the mine owners robbed theirselves to collect the fucking insurance.”

“I’ll see what I can find out.”

“I am disappointed, Mr. Puller. I had supposed this matter would have been taken care of by now.”

“Well, they been laying low, Mr. Suggs. And until now we never really had nothing on them to take them in.”

“Was the slaughter of Mr. Wosznik’s dog nothing? Their outrageous behavior Sunday at the hill? The attack on Cavanaugh’s car? They probably do not even have proper licenses. I know for certain that at least one of them is too young. And some of their motorcycles may have been stolen. Have you checked into that? No, you have waited too long, Mr. Puller, and now we have a serious problem. The theft is undermining my negotiations with the owners for the purchase of the mine. They refer to those bikers as ‘my people.’ This will not do.” “They’re at the top of our agenda now.”

“I should very much hope so, Mr. Puller. We also need your assistance at the church camp. I promised them protection against threatened assaults until they could organize their own security, and I expect you to provide that. Our Patriots organization will be loaning them arms, and perhaps you can make the proper arrangements. You and Mr. McDaniel can provide training. But we have to be cautious. We don’t want to put guns in the hands of unreliable people. And there is no need for powerful weapons, just enough to serve as a deterrent and protect the periphery.”

“I can do that.”

“And we have a possible problem of trespass. The rules of the campsite prohibit use of the main buildings for personal residences, but some of the persons who have come here from elsewhere are presently occupying them. If they do not leave voluntarily, they may have to be removed forcibly.”

“My old faceboss, you mean. Just let me know.”

“I will do so. Now either lock that motorcycle gang up or run them out of here. They are a dangerous threat to law and order. I expect results, Mr. Puller.”

“Dave Osborne?”

“You got him.”

“Dave, this is Ted Cavanaugh over at the bank. How’s it going over there at the old footwear emporium?”

“I’m having a hard time beating away the traffic. Sold a pair of shoelaces just yesterday. Or maybe the day before. You calling for a look at the books?”

“No, this is something else, Dave. There’s been a break-in out at Deepwater. From your time out there as night mine manager, what do you figure might have got taken?”

“Can’t imagine anything worthwhile left behind.”

“What was usually kept there?”

“Tools. Lamps and helmets. Tags. Electrical gear, that sort of thing.”

“Any weapons?”

“I don’t think so. Unless you call old mine picks a weapon. The mine managers on duty got issued a pistol, but I don’t think it’s there anymore.”

Meaning, he took it home with him. “That’s it?”

“Far as I can remember. Maybe some dynamite.”

“Dynamite?”

“Yeah. For shot firing in the old days. It was how coal was loosened from the face. A few years back, we switched to compressed air. A lot safer. We probably got rid of the dynamite, though I remember seeing it on inventories.”

“Dynamite. Holy mackerel.”

“And then Jim got hit by a dead bird and ended up on TV. They’re calling it the Headless Annunciation. God help us if he’s pregnant.” It is Sally’s mother, spreading her daily evangel. “Well, you know Jim, Em. Always in the wrong place at the right time.”

Em does know Jim. Back in high school her mom and dad and the couple who are now the Wetherwaxes used to double date. Only, with each other’s present mates. Who came out best? It’s a draw. Though Archie at least has a real job working for the phone company. They used to park out at the lakes and go for a moonlight swim together. Or anyway they did that once. The family legend. Now the two women talk about their men like pets they keep and clean up after. Sally writes: They were just having fun playing around in offbeat short stories, when suddenly they found themselves in the middle of a hackneyed genre novel. Written by the dim-witted little town whose covers they’re clapped in.

“Jim doesn’t know when to keep his mouth shut, especially if it’s past eleven in the morning and he’s had a couple. And Ted’s got no sense of humor. Have I said that before?” Will she be able to write her own story? Will it be any better? She thumbs through the notebook to find her drawing of the sleeping prince, sketches in a black phone receiver by his ear, and above it writes: Hello? Hello…? “I suppose you heard about those bikers attacking Ted’s car? He was coming back from a business meeting, and when he told Jim about it, Jim said it sounded like a gang of typical wildhair bankers to him and asked whether Ted noticed if anyone he’d been meeting with had any tattoos, and Ted blew up at him, called him a stupid goddamned you-know-what. Jim still doesn’t know why, but since then he’s started drinking at ten instead of eleven.”

Telephones, she writes. The disembodied self as sown voice. Which is more real, speaker or spoken? The spoken can remain, the speaker cannot. Thus: back to gestures, foreskins.

“Yes, I know, Em, Archie can put it away, too. But at least he has to wait until after he’s stopped climbing telephone poles.” Once, when she had scarlet fever, Sally had to lie all day in the dark, her only entertainment the radio. The voices she heard seemed to hover in the dark like real presences. It’s like that sometimes reading a novel. That weird thing called voice. There but not there, hovering over the text. But nothing is disembodied. That’s a religious idea. Writing, radio, telephony: It’s all just a vaudeville act. Like the first phone conversation. Come here. I want you. A novel in five words. “Yes, I heard that. She’s got Wes penned up in her garage. What do you think’s going on there? Oh yeah? Tell me, I’m all ears…” As an image would that be two big ears or a cluster of them, like that fire god who her anthro prof said was called “the thousand-testicled one”? Sitting bored in class, she tried to draw that, couldn’t. A hundred maybe, max. Small ones.