Robert Coover - Public Burning

If the hymns — even when rendered majestically by the Singing Saints and recognizably old American favorites like “It Is No Secret,” “The Christian Warfare,” and “No One Ever Cared for Me Like Jesus”—tend to sound like party songs tonight, if Christ’s blood tastes a little like Old Grandad and crotches are more fingered than crosses, that doesn’t signify there’s been a weakening of the faith, a drift into the dominion of darkness — on the contrary, it’s as though it’s all coming together here tonight in a magical fusion, the world of the sacred locking onto the world of the profane like the two images at a 3-D movie, and all these provocative confluences are not only possible, but necessary. One visits the Hiroshima freak show and the belly of the Whale as one would walk the Fourteen Stations of the Cross, treasures stolen panties like relics of the True Cross, exchanges dirty jokes like recitations of the Seder Haggadah, knowing that every act is holy because, only so long as God be praised, it cannot be otherwise, and that, like the President says, “THE ALMIGHTY WATCHES OVER PEOPLE OF ALL NATIONS.” And takes His pick.

Kate Smith comes out and sings “God Bless America,” and then out on stage comes Sister Emma Bennett Fowler, the pride of Perryton, Texas. She squares her frail shoulders, rears back, and lets fly: “God bless America has come ringin’ down the corridors of time ever since the Mayflower landed on our shores! It was in this faith that our forefathers begun to build, feelin’ their way and searchin’ for religious truth! Isaac Watts invented the steam injin, revolutionizin’ travel and much industry!” She feels her way over to the electric chair. “Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin that done the work of fifty men! And Seth Thomas and his podner Eli Terry seen that by mass production they could cut the costs on clocks , enablin’ more people to buy and makin’ more money for theirselves!”

“They seen the light!”

“The Spirit was up- on ’em!”

“Tell ’em about it, Emma!”

“And so it has been through all the ages! Americans have invented thousands of machines, savin’ men and labor, enrichin’ theirselves and the Nation! And so’s it might be known to be of God,” cries Emma, “‘In God We Trust’ was lettered on our coin, and printed on our dollar bills a ‘Pyramid under the all-seein’ Eye a God.’”

“Oh yes, he’s laid us down in the green pastures, Emma!”

“The Eye of God!”

“Shine on!”

“But!” she shouts, and her demeanor suddenly changes. A hush falls. Here comes the good part. “After the First World War, Communists begun infestin’ our guvvamint, schools, and churches! They got a weird creed which they spread by bein’ fanatically inspired by Satan, whose disciples they are! It is with a missionary zeal they spread this pizen all over the world—!”

The people groan and gnash their teeth; women scream, children cry. Everybody is having a terrific time.

“We have refused to live under God’s control, and now live under guvvamint control!” cries Emma over the uproar. The sound-system engineers crank the decibels up to give Emma the power she needs to carry above the racket. “The food for which we refused to give thanks has rose to exorbitant prices! The tithes we refused God we must now pay in taxes! Besides traitors in our own guvvamint everywhere, our allies is trickin’ us and sellin’ goods and weapons to the inimy, and are beginnin’ to ridicule us in the eyes a the whole world!”

“It’s a cryin’ shame!”

“Don’t let ’em get away with it, God!”

“Throw the rascals out!”

“We cannot ignore the fact that it is our boys who have suffered all the atrocities only Satan can conceive,” Emma shrieks, “and that there are millions a Reds swarmin’ all over the world!”

“Get us outa this, God! Give ’em hell, fer Chrissake!”

“Our world is now divided into two groups,” cries Emma: “Communism with hammer and sickle, and America and Christians with cross of Christ! But we have placed ourselves where we cannot grow spiritually! God stands outside the door knockin’ with His nail-pierced hand!”

“Oh Lord, I hear him!”

“I hear him knockin’!”

Indeed, someone is knocking. It is Uncle Sam, behind the set, rapping at Emma to get on with it.

She spreads her arms out to the people. “May God’s richest blessings be upon us and our Nation! Amen!”

“Amen!” the people respond, checking their watches. “Amen!”

“I’ll second that!” affirms Uncle Sam, striding out onto the Death House stage, tipping his top hat, jabbing his finger at the multitudes in that gesture of his beloved by all Americans, draftees sometimes excepted. The people crammed into Times Square roar their welcome. “Thank you, friends and neighbors! Thank you very—!”

“The Lord lift up His countenance unto thee,” the people cry, their hands raised in praise and supplication, like bank tellers caught in a raid by audacious and handsome bandidos, “and accept the sweet savor of thy sacrifices!”

“Thanks! I’m sure He—”

“The Lord lift up His banner—”

“All right, that’s enough now, the shades of night ‘re—”

“…and do battle for thee at the head of thy thousands against this iniquitous generation! The Lord lift up His—”

“SHUT PAN AND SING DUMB, YOU BEAUTIES, BEFORE I REAR BACK AND WHOP AN INIQUITOUS BELCH OUTA YA SHARP ENOUGH TO STICK A PIG WITH!” Uncle Sam’s steely blue eyes are flashing, his red bow tie is standing on end, and his teeth are showing white as hoarfrost in a powerful mean grin. “WHEE-EE-O! I don’t care how much a man talks, if he only says it in a few words! It’s like the monkey remarked tryin’ to stuff the cork back in the elephant’s asshole: A little shit goes a long way! LISTEN TO ME! Do you know that all the great work of the world is done through me? Size me up and shudder, you scalawags! The power to tax involves the power to destroy , and don’t you forget it! I am the Thunderer, Justice the Avenger, kin to the whoopin’ cough on my mother’s side and half brother to the Abominable Snowman, a wonder, a grandeur, and a woe! WHOO-OOP! I am in earnest! I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch; and I will be heard!”

There is a moment of awed silence — then the crowd bursts into a tumultuous frenzy of applause, whistling, wild cheering.

Uncle Sam grins, stuffs his hands in his back pockets, and rocks back and forth on the stage, acknowledging the cheers and winking at folks he recognizes. “All right, then,” he bellows, stilling the roar, “get a muzzle on your passions there, you cockabillies! I know, nothin’ great was ever achieved without enthusiasm, like the Prophet says, but now the day is done, and the darkness falls from the wings o’ Night, as a feather is wafted downward from a eagle in his fright — flight, I mean — so we gotta get crackin’, children! We gotta beat the drum slowly and play the fife lowly, we gotta ring down the curtain, men’s hearts wait upon us, men’s lives hang in the balance — you hear? We gotta bring the flamin’ Jubilee before the hills conceal the setting sun and stars begin a-peepin’ one by one!” Uncle Sam clamps his corncob pipe in his jaws, withdraws a match from behind his ear, and holds it halfway between the two electrodes on the electric chair — sparks fly and ignite the match, which he cups over the bowl of his pipe. “The law,” he hollers, blowing blue smoke: “it has honored us; may we honor it!”

“Ya-HOO!”

“That’s tellin’ ’em, Uncle Sam!”