Robert Coover - The Brunist Day of Wrath

He turns his back on all that shitty history and takes the path down to where he supposes Mrs. Edwards’ vegetable garden to be, a trail somewhat overgrown, evidently not much used, in spite of the heavy traffic in the camp. Still a beautiful walk. Flowers, birds, trees, all kinds of sedges and grasses. Some of them pink now, this time of year. They all have names; he’ll never learn them. Though, if he stays here, maybe he’ll try. Mrs. Edwards had a thing for nature, as he recalls, she could teach him. She was a frequent visitor to the camp when the Baptists rented it. Came to see if they were taking proper care of it, he supposed, but always in a nice way. She was slim and pretty and dressed casually and he had fantasies about her, wishing for a mother like her, and sometimes he followed her around. One day, down in the wild place on the other side of the creek, she took her shirt off to sun her tits. He scrunched down in the weeds, stunned by the amazing sight, waiting and praying (yes, he was praying) for her to take the rest off. She never did, though over the years he saw other things. He used to wonder: What if he made himself known? Couldn’t be done. She was from another world. It was like trying to step into a movie. There was only the watching.

The vegetable garden is amazing. A little farm. Mrs. Edwards is seeding a newly hoed patch when he arrives and introduces himself. She’s older now, has a baggier look and a double chin, but there’s still something fresh and girlish about her. She seems glad to see him, lights up with a cheerful smile. “Colin! Look who’s here!” she calls out. Colin comes over from where he has been setting out stakes alongside a small freckle-faced woman. Colin was always odd looking, but now he’s weirder than ever. Sickly pale and skinny with a wispy Chinaman’s beard, wearing a floppy straw sun hat and rose-colored shorts, his silvery blond hair fluttering about his shoulders like a mad woman’s. The way he moves reminds him of Sissy. Of course. Why hadn’t he realized that before? Didn’t understand any of this back then. A complete greenass. “It’s Carl Dean, Colin!” Colin stops dead in his tracks, his eyes popping, his face twisting up like he’s about to have a fit. “No! It isn’t!” he cries and then runs away, screaming wildly for help. Mrs. Edwards throws down her garden gloves and starts after him, turning back just for a moment to cast Pach’ a dark scowl. “Who are you really?” she demands, then returns to the chase. He shrugs at the freckle-faced woman, who only stares back at him. Well. There went his gardening career.

His building career shows more promise. With help from Ben and the others, all strangers to him, Pach’ has been able to step right in with the crew this afternoon and work beside them. The cabin they are working on, which used to house eight kids in bunk beds, is being remodeled for use as a medical treatment room and two-bed sick bay. There are scores of people hanging about, most of whom seem to have come for last Sunday’s ceremonies and just haven’t gone home again. When they offer to help, Ben sizes them up quickly, assigns tasks to those who seem they might actually contribute something and sends the others off on pointless errands to get them out of the way. Even unskilled as he is, there’s a lot Pach’ can do. The cabin has already been wired up for electricity, and Wayne Shawcross, the overalled guy who let him in here, is showing him how to install wall plugs and light fixtures. Ben has also taken him on as a kind of apprentice carpenter. He’s strong, and that’s appreciated, too. He’s enjoying it, more than any other work he’s done since he got out, and in spite of the luncheon blow-up, he can already feel the urge to want to stay and work with all these guys whom he’s quickly come to like. Get the job done. Be part of something bigger than himself. How much of religion, he wonders, is about this feeling?

At the luncheon earlier, over baloney sandwiches and potato salad, they made a big fuss over him, treating him as a kind of returning hero. It was embarrassing, given his intentions, and he only wanted out of there. Clara made a welcoming introduction and led them in prayer, thanking God for Carl Dean’s safe return, and then prayed for all the other things they wanted. Darren Rector, reciting a little church history, praised him for his brave attack on the powers of darkness, which he said helped many others to escape arrest and carry on with their evangelical work (he didn’t know that), and expressed everyone’s sympathy for his suffering on behalf of them all. Which Rector compared to the ordeals of Daniel and Samson and Paul. Not at all how it was, of course. He supposed Rector was just buttering him up for the interview. Elaine wasn’t there — still avoiding him, maybe — but just as well. He was glad she didn’t have to listen to all that horseshit. Mrs. Edwards wasn’t there either, nor Colin. The word about what had happened in the garden had evidently gotten around; the hero worship was not unanimous. There were surly mutterings here and there, and Junior’s glare was so fierce it could have cut through steel plate, his short-cropped red head looking like it was on fire from inner rage. He’s younger than Pach’, but he’s already getting an old man’s soft heaviness in the jowls and belly and now wears a little red tuft on his upper lip. His kid sister, on the other hand, gave Pach’ a sweet lingering smile. Somewhat vague. It just sort of stayed on her face. Her food had to be cut for her. Not all there.

Then an old fart in a wheelchair rolled away from the Baxter table and wanted to know in a loud voice if he really was Carl Dean Palmers like he said he was. His friend had not only not recognized him, he’d screamed like he’d seen the devil, scaring the whole camp. They’d all seen pictures. He didn’t look like the pictures. So who was he really? Ben said he was Carl Dean, all right. They’d had a long conversation, talking about the last time they were together, couldn’t be anyone else. “The devil is a great dissembler, Brother Ben!” Then Bernice Filbert, the widowed sister-in-law of the guy who owns the garage where he fixed up his van, the lady with the penciled eyebrows and the fancy way of talking who dresses up like Bible characters, vouched for him as well. “He has put on more beard and forehead since he stayed with us, but you can tell by his appetite he is who he is,” she said, trying to lighten things up. “He has just put away his lunch quicker than Ezekiel could eat a scroll, as like I told him then.” She’s the camp nurse and is something of a celebrity today for having got fired a couple of nights ago as the home care nurse for the town banker’s wife. All in some cause or other. Whatever, Pach’ is on her side. It’s enough just because the chump’s a banker. Bastards who rule the world by making money off other people’s money, a kind of legalized theft. They ought to be hung. Or sent to work in the mines. But also because the banker’s dickhead son and his fatcat pals were the ones who laid the nickname of Ugly on him back in high school, getting rid of it being one of the few positives of his prison stretch. “That woman cain’t talk ’thout lyin’,” someone said, and someone else mumbled something about his driving the “devil’s van.” “What I’m asking,” the guy in the wheelchair insisted, “is can he prove it?” Pach’ tossed his driver’s license out on the table and the cripple said that didn’t prove anything, and then everyone started shouting, accusing the geezer of spoiling Carl Dean’s homecoming and trying to sow discord in the camp. On the one hand, Pach’ agreed with the old fossil; he sure as hell wasn’t Carl Dean Palmers anymore, hadn’t been for a long time. On the other, if the cantankerous sonuvabitch hadn’t been in a wheelchair, he’d have popped him. He got up to leave, but Ben put a hand on his shoulder and reminded everyone of their Christian obligations to one another and then put his guitar around his neck and led them all in singing “Shall We Gather at the River?” After a moment, Abner Baxter stood up and joined in, and then, reluctantly, so too did the others at his table. All except the guy in the wheelchair, who spun it around, turning his crooked back on them.