Robert Coover - The Brunist Day of Wrath

Sally lights up and offers him a cigarette. “Nah. Thanks. Training. Unless you’ve got a joint.” She reaches into a ripped pocket and draws out a little stash bag. He grins, shakes his head. “Just kidding, Sal. Gotta stay cool here in the old hometown.” From her other pocket she offers him a hollow chocolate Easter egg, already cracked open, and he breaks off a chunk, brushes away the lint, hands back the glossy remains. The bells are ringing and Sally says: “Hear that? They’re dropping eggs picked up in Rome.” “Who are?” “The bells. They go to Rome to have supper with the Pope and pick up the eggs they’ll drop on their return. Or maybe the Pope knocks them up. Not sure about bells.” “Yeah, I think I read that somewhere. We must have taken the same courses. Leads to egg fights. Better than crawling around in bunny shit, I guess.” She sucks on the cigarette, exhales slowly, drops the butt into the running gutter. “So, are you staying around this summer?” “Looks like it. I had plans for Europe, but Dad wants me here.” “At the bank?” “No. I told him I wanted to stay outside, pool or parks or whatever. No money counting. Keeping books is too much like reading them.” Actually, he would have been happy to work at the bank, it’s air-conditioned and the work’s easy and now Angie’s there, but his dad said there was nothing useful for him to do and promised instead to get him on the city payroll in some fashion. Probably his dad wants him to mix more with the hoi polloi, one of his little civics training exercises. Or else he’s already heard about him and Angie. “Anyway, I’m dropping econ and business school and going for a PhD in sociology.” “No kidding.” “It’s what I’ve got the most out of up at the U. Got me thinking about more than decimal points.” He’s mak ing this up as he goes along, but he likes the sound of it as it comes out. “Now that the Brunists are back in town I may use them as a summer research project.” “What? You’re shitting me! The Brunists are back?” “Yeah, they’re out at No-Name. Where we used to sing ‘God Sees the Little Sparrow Fall’ around a campfire, remember?” “I remember you put your hand on my butt up on Inspiration Point.” “Oh wow! I did? How old was I?” She grins. “About nine. You started young. You pretended it was an accident. So how did those crazies end up in our camp?” “I guess we sold it to them. Some rich guy gave them the money. Looks like they’re making it their home base. Dad got blindsided and he’s freaking out about it.” He fills Sally in on the gossip as picked up this morning from his dad, including stories from the so-called sunrise service, making the most of the lightning bolt that sent everyone skidding down the hill on their asses and the completely nutty behavior of Reverend Edwards, staggering around in the mud like My Son John and spouting gibberish, which gets Sally laughing. “You may get an even daffier Easter story today than usual, Sal.” “Oh, I’m not staying. I heard you were in town, figured you’d be here, just wanted to stop by and say hello, ask about your mom. Can’t bear this infantile nonsense myself. Have fun in the arms of Jesus, Tommy. See you around.”

The church bells are clanging away in concert with the approaching thunder. Time to go back in. “I could use some help,” Ted says to the others, flicking his cigarette butt out into the wet street. “Edwards seems to be going through some kind of nervous breakdown, and anything can happen. Before I left him, he’d got into dry clothes and seemed to be getting a grip on himself, but he kept turning his smile on and off like a tic and muttering to himself. When I asked him what he was saying, he said he was practicing his sermon. At one point he blurted out, ‘I’m doing my best!’, but I don’t think he was speaking to me.”

“To tell the truth, he’s been acting pretty weird for weeks now,” Burt says around a final drag. “Almost smart-alecky. Like week before last when he seemed to just sort of blank out and stare up at the rafters when it came time to give his sermon. And what was all that last week about Jesus and the holy ass? Was he trying to be funny, or what?”

“I thought at first it was a dirty joke, but it was probably just craziness,” Baird says, rolling his eyes. “Yesterday, I saw him walking down the street talking to himself and waving his arms about like he was directing traffic.” He imitates this.

“I know. He has to see a doctor. I gave Connie Dreyer a call over at Trinity Lutheran this morning. We’ll move what we can of today’s other events over there and postpone the rest, and we’ll bring in some guest pastors over the next few weeks. We just have to get through this morning’s service somehow. I’ll make an announcement about all the changes during church tidings before the scripture reading, and I’d appreciate having you guys down front. After Edwards gets going, if you see me get up and go to the pulpit, I want you to join me. Ditto, if he doesn’t turn up at all. Be ready to read the Easter story from the Bible to fill the gap.”

“Oh gosh,” Elliott gasps. “Which book is that in?”

“A couple of them. Luke, I think. Or John.”

“That’s in the New Testament, right?”

“Should be. Check the program. Tommy’s reading a few lines from it.” He glances across the lawn, sees that Elliott’s daughter, who has been talking with Tommy, has wandered off. A real handful, that girl, fast and rebellious, her mother’s daughter, but Tommy’s probably up to the challenge. “I’ve had a talk with Prissy Tindle. She understands the problem. If she has to, she can play another number or two on the organ to fill time. I’ll get Ralph to lead us all in a couple of songs and we’ll have a quick prayer and then get everybody out of there.”

“Right,” says Robbins, dropping his cigarette to the sidewalk and crushing it underfoot as they prepare to re-enter the church. It’s starting to rain again. “Roll that stone away.”

When that bully Cavanaugh, shouldered round by all his fawning scribes and elders, rises in the middle of the opening prayer like a self-righteous Sadducee to silence Reverend Wesley Edwards (was he shouting? Of course, he was shouting, God is deaf as a stump), neither he nor Jesus is surprised. In fact, they welcome it. Such persecutions are to be expected when what is hidden is revealed, and indeed stand as validation of it. What else is the Easter story about — for Christ’s sake? Who concurs: As they persecuted me, they’ll persecute you. A prophet in his own country, and all that, my son. But rejoice and be glad, your reward is great. His immediate reward is to have to sit beside the pulpit, biting his tongue, staring out on the sad blank faces of his congregation, while the banker, having skipped ahead in the proceedings to the tithes and offerings, money being all he knows (and power, he knows power), speaks of the general good health of the church finances, its immediate needs (an assistant minister, for example— urgently! ), and Easter as a loving family occasion. No, no, you idiot! It is a time of rejection of family, indeed of all earthly connections! Have you no ears? If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple! Leave everything— everything! — and fol low me! You ignorant fool! Listen to your own son’s scripture reading: “But who do you say that I am?” Do you not know? It’s all Wesley can do to stop another noisy eruption. The indwelling Christ, too, is aboil with indignation, cursing traders and moneychangers and all their abominable progeny. Look at them all up there! Smirking! A den of thieves! They are polluting the temple! Drive them out! He’s in a state, they’re both in a state.