It was a signal for them. All the aimless fury of the moment before suddenly discovered its object. He turned to run. They cut him off, swarmed down upon him. He dodged, spun, rolled, straight-armed, warded off blindly flung blows, but there were millions of them, and ducking one only put him in line for another. He watched feet trampling his camera as branches whaled his body, saw Jones, slyly amused, in modest retreat partway down the hill, photographing it all. He pushed downhill for Jones, but, letting down his guard, got a foot in his gut that doubled him over. He struggled to his feet, but they piled onto him. He swung at them, kicked, butted, but nothing slowed them. They covered him and their heaped flesh choked him. A fat man, that Clegg guy, an erection distorting the front of his wet tunic, leaped, came down like a mountain on Miller’s head. They fought for his trenchcoat and, releasing it, he somehow wriggled free. Wall of their bodies below him, so he switched strategy, bowled straight up the hill, seemed to have lost his shoes, but it helped him gain speed, dove headfirst into a cluster of bodies, felt something flatten his nose in, hit somebody hard as wood. Chorus of screams of horror—something cold struck his face—and as by the hundreds they jumped him, he saw what it was he had knocked over and he lost heart. They dragged him away from her, kicking and punching and whipping him with branches. Distantly, he felt their blows, felt them leap and dance on him, knew he was vomiting, knew he was bleeding, but as though someone were explaining this to him. They are killing you, he said, and though it caused wonderment in him, it could not lift an arm to stop them. He felt them shred the clothes off him, saw the ax, knew, though he couldn’t feel it, that his legs had been splayed and hands had been laid on him. Amazingly, just at that moment, he saw, or thought he saw, a woman giving birth: her enormous thighs were spread, drawn up in agony, and, staring up them, he saw blood burst out. “No!” he pleaded, but it sounded more like a gurgle. “Please!” and a whip lashed his mouth. Where the fuck were the troopers?
And it was done, the act was over. Through the web of pain, skies away, he recognized the tall broad-shouldered priestess with the gold medallion. She issued commands and he floated free. Rain washed over him. He seemed to be moving. The priestess was gone. And then there was a fall. Trees. Muddy cleft and a splash of water when he arrived. At which point, Tiger Miller departed from this world, passing on to his reward.
6
Vince Bonali and the only two buddies he had left in the world, old Cheese Johnson and old Georgie Lucci, sprawled, roaring drunk, upon the red wool expanse of vacant carpet in the lawyer’s house, as the West Condon cops, with Whimple and Cavanaugh and God knows who else, came in and arrested them there where they lay. This time there were no bird dogs to be bought, but, since the facilities were flooded with ecstatic raving Brunists, they let them go anyway. “Listen,” Vince told them. “Listen, I don’t give a shit what you do. Lock me up if you wanna. I don’t give a shit.” But they booted his ass out of there, and there was no place to go but home. Where things were not very good.
He staggered, feeling one with the scum of the earth, right down the rainsoaked middle of Main Street, telling anyone who cared to listen that he just didn’t give a shit, understand? then past St. Stephen’s where he had a kind of grievous heart attack that didn’t quite come off, past the homes of old buddies, Judases all, past the Bruno house, guarded now by burly troopers in white crash helmets, past his whole fucking life into total and eternal oblivion, reeling like an old blinded bull come mad to town.
There had been one moment today, there in the Church of the Nazarene, when, in spite of all his overcrowding misery, he’d been at peace with the world, a wild exhilarating bounce back from his notorious television appearance the night before—now, how had those TV bastards known they were going to go spooking Friday night? Robbins and Castle’d pay for that some day—the unspecified back scenes of which (were his pants zipped up? he’d been scared to look) had not escaped his wife and daughter.
It had started at Mass. His old archenemy Red Baxter, that sonuvabitch who’d once called Vince “a mealymouthed henchman for fascists,” had stormed into the Cathedral with all those raving Brunist crackpots, had laid into the altar and organ with a mining pick, had torn down paintings, and had even seemed set to slaughter the old priest. Vince had leaped up, followed by six or seven others, formed a human wall in front of Father Baglione, and held the Brunists to a stalemate. They had finally pulled out, but not before that goddamn Bruno had spit in the Father’s face. Baxter had railed at the congregated, calling the Church a whore: “I tell you, it has become a habitation of demons! and a haunt of every unclean spirit! and by the wine of her lust all the nations has fallen! and the kings of the earth has committed fornication with her, and the capitalists of the earth has waxed rich by the power of her wantonness! But listen here! I tell you, they shall weep and wail over her, when they look upon the smoke of her burning!” Burning! that was too much! Vince had plunged for the bastard, but guys had held him back. “There’s too many of them, Vince!” And Baxter, passing, had called him personally “a drunkard and a Jew and a fornicator, an intriguer dealing in the souls of men!” Vince then had seen what Bruno really was: he’d thought he was just a nut, but he was the very force of evil right in the flesh, the antichrist whose black spirit oozed out of him like an obscene vapor and penetrated all West Condon—could even penetrate the world! This was a battle of the spirit!
So, when it had broken up, they did what they had to do. Gathering up hatches and hammers, rifles, whatever they could find, they went, Vince leading them, to the Church of the Nazarene, about a dozen of them. It was a cheap squarish dump with false brick siding, a kind of one-room schoolhouse with a high loft and a damp crotchy odor. They bashed out all the windows, knocked out the lights, broke up the pews and folding chairs, tore out the wiring, smashed the pulpit and the old upright piano, ripped the songbooks. The thing that frustrated them was that no matter what they did to this dime-store junk, it didn’t compensate for the brutalizing of their Cathedral, but as they worked a kind of exhilaration did sweep over them. This was a holy thing, and they swung with the might of God empowering their bodies. Like a great horned beast in God’s service, they fell upon that place of sin and crushed it. They chopped the doors off the hinges, tore the toilet out of the floor, which caused the place to start flooding, broke into a small office. In there, they found a small desk, Baxter’s probably, almost nothing inside it: they chopped it up. They were sweating and they were feeling good. They dumped the books out of the shelves, heaved the shelves through the window, and tore up the books. Sal Ferrero said, “Hey, Vince! That’s a Bible you’re tearing up!” “But it ain’t a Catholic Bible, buddy!” They found two revolting paintings on the wall which they studied a moment before smashing. One was a grossly sensual male devil, bloated, cruel. The other was a hideous woman with snakes. “My God!” said Guido Mello. “What kind of place is this!” They left it nothing but rubble.
When it was done, they felt fine, they’d labored hard and had a good sweat up, they felt powerful and the axes and rifles swung firm in their hands, but they didn’t feel satisfied. “What next?” they wanted to know.
“Let’s go to the hill,” Bonali said.
Tremendous crowds jammed all the streets, they could hardly get through. Lay down on the horn and bulled ahead. Three carloads in tandem, ax handles and rifle barrels poking out the windows. Two or three guys, seeing them, piled in with them. Vince picked up Chester Johnson. “Hey, boys! didja see me on TV?” he preened, and Vince felt his neck flush. Rough laughter, deep in the throat, from the backseat.
The going was easier once they hit the mine road. Vince, leading, gunned it, had his old crate doing eighty before they reached the mine—“Well now, goddamn, I jist don’t think she’s gonna take off,” Johnson drawled—then saw ahead of him a barricade, slammed the brakes, skidded, nearly spun, pulled her out, shimmied to a halt, jumped out, found the cops and a bunch of shopowners off Main there.
�
��What the hell?” he asked, too loud, but he couldn’t help it. “You not gonna let them get to the hill?” He felt cheated somehow, but his heart was racing like a sonuvabitch, and his hands were sweating.
“Aw sure,” said Maury Castle, grinning at Vince—that goddamn fatface cocksucker! maybe this was the moment! “But, see, we just happened accidental-like to have scheduled our first annual spring carnival out here this weekend.”
Vince didn’t get it at all. “Whaddya mean, Castle?”
“Buck a head, Vince. Games and refreshments for everybody.”
Vince stared at Castle. “You guys always got it figured, don’t you?” Castle only shrugged, stared off. Vince went back to the boys, waiting for him there, half out of the cars. He realized then he was still swinging an ax. “Should we just bust on through?” They didn’t like the idea, seeing the cops there; he felt them shrink back from him. Just then, Vince spied Cavanaugh on the other side of the barricades. Something told him not to, but he hollered out: “Hey, Ted!” He grinned at the others. “Come on, you guys. Ted’ll let us in.”
They all climbed out, followed him up to the barricades. Ted came over, looking like a mortgage-holder, and said, “I thought I asked you to stay clear of here today, Bonali.”
Vince went cold all over. Didn’t hate, just felt emptied out, brought down. “I thought you might need me,” he said weakly. He felt his shame radiating behind him.
“Say, what the hell are you carrying there?”
“We just come from the—” But he decided not to mention it. Ted was a Protestant, too. He wouldn’t understand.
“Romano, I don’t want any goddamn weapons out here!”
Romano and Monk Wallace came out from behind the barricade, collected the rifles and axes. “Now, either pay your buck, boys, or beat it,” Romano said.
Bonali, crumbling into ruins, turned to go, but some of the other guys started forking up. “Hey! you gonna go along with that shit?” he hollered at them. It was a gray muggy day and his sweat was sticky on him. Something sick was lodged in his stomach.
“Take it easy, Vince,” said Mello. “This is gonna be pretty funny. I don’t want to miss it.”
As the other guys lined up like a bunch of fucking sheep, Mort Whimple came waddling up on the run. “I just got the word, Ted!” he gasped. “They’re about two blocks from Willow. They’ll hit the mine road in about ten minutes, maybe fifteen.”
“Tell them to slow them down any way they can.” Cavanaugh looked irritably at his watch, then up at the sky. “Flat tire, anything.”
“They tell me Himebaugh’s still not with them,” the mayor said.
“Good,” was the first word of Ted’s reply, but Vince couldn’t hear the rest, because the mayor and Cavanaugh wandered off in a heads-down huddle. Something about the troopers coming by helicopter. Vince looked up. It was going to rain.
“Let’s go get Himebaugh,” Vince said to those who remained.
But the others split off from him. They didn’t make any excuses, they just edged away like he had some goddamn disease, strolled over to the ticketbooth and paid their dollars. “Come on, Vince,” said Sal Ferrero, smiling. Was he digging him? “Let’s watch this awhile, get something to drink, cool off.”
“You chickening out too, Sal?” Sal shrugged, looked embarrassed, wandered away. “Sal, goddamn you, man, I’m asking you for the last time! You coming, buddy, or ain’t you?”
“I’m not coming, Vince.”
“Well, fuck you then, you yellowbellied cocksucker!” Oh Jesus, it all boiled up in him, he was so mad he could have cried, and he could have killed Ferrero right there, could have thrown him to the dirt and battered his fucking brains out, and, trembling, he spun on Johnson and Lucci, the only two guys left—maybe they didn’t have a buck on them—and cried, “Let’s go, goddamn it!” And afraid they were going to bug out too, he added, “Himebaugh was a rich bastard. Maybe we’ll find something.” That kept them with him, okay, but he felt rotten about it. That sick thing was puffing up and filled his belly now.
They made it back to the edge of town just as the first carloads of newspaper and radio people were pulling out on the mine road. Everything was all mashed up. He blared and cursed and inched and bellowed, but finally ran into solid rivers of people who kicked his car and swore at him when he tried to move. They parked and walked, having a rough time of it against the tide, though Johnson and Lucci amused themselves feeling up every foreign female they squeezed by. It was getting dark and Vince thought he heard thunder.
At last they broke free of the mob, found their way back to Himebaugh’s place. Vince felt queasy, looked about nervously for cameras, but Johnson danced around waving at all the trees and shouting out his “earthling Ralphus” lines. Himebaugh’s front door was locked. Vince realized he didn’t know exactly what he was going to do if he found the man inside, but he put his shoulder to the door, and in three or four heaves it gave way. The moment it broke in, a big skinny black cat came streaking out, made Vince nearly jump out of his skin. “What the hell was that!”
“A little good luck,” said Lucci.
“That pussy looked like she might not a had no meat for awhile,” whined Johnson. Johnson wasn’t funny today. Just nasal and grating.
The house was nearly bare. Carpets still down, matted depressions where furniture had sat. A few heavy pieces remained. A couple paintings on the walls, books in the bookshelves. But everything showed signs of a quiet but permanent departure.
While Lucci and Johnson searched for loot, Bonali hunted Himebaugh. Didn’t want to find him, but he couldn’t quit the idea. Tried to remember the file busting him on the nose. The empty house was getting on his nerves. “Ho-lee shee-it!” cried Lucci just then, and Vince nearly squeaked out loud. “Hey, come here!”
Johnson and Bonali found him in the bathroom, staring into the tub. It was full of water. It was also full of dead cats. “I never knowed you could drown a cat without tyin’ a stone to him,” Johnson said.
“He must’ve held them under,” Vince reasoned. He tried to think of the antichrist, but it was getting all mixed up.
“Well,” cackled Johnson, “the cats are all yours, boys. I got mine.” He held up a bottle. Brandy.
“Jesus! Just what I need!” Vince said.
“Hunh-unh!” negated Johnson, tucking the bottle under his skinny arm and backing off.
“Unh-hunh!” argued Vince, and he and Lucci went for the flask.
“Okay, okay!” Johnson cried, going down hard. “Shit, boys, you’re swingin’ like you’re mad or somethin’!”
They split it, and when it was gone, they looked for more. Lucci found half a fifth near the tub, behind the stool, and Bonali discovered a whole one in the bookshelves. Outside, a storm had commenced to blow, and there wasn’t any point in going out there and getting wet, and that was how it was that the cops found them there in a state only bordering on consciousness.
There was nothing very wonderful about the days that followed either. Vince came down with the flu, which kept him in bed awhile, and Etta, in spite of everything, took care of him like always. When he could get up, he felt weak all the time, not up to anything more strenuous than sitting in his old rocker on the front porch. Ted Cavanaugh never came by about that special committee of course, though in his imaginings, Vince kept seeing that big red Lincoln pulling up at the curb. Out of boredom one morning, he did manage to drag himself back up the ladder and got the whole south side of the house painted. The paint was a little gommy. When he was through, he hardly realized he’d been painting, though he dreamt that night about falling off the ladder and woke up screaming for Angelo. Had no goddamn idea when he’d get to the other two sides.
Sal Ferrero came over while he still had the flu, and they apologized to each other. “I don’t know what happened to me that day, Sal.”
“I know, Vince. It was a crazy time. Anyhow, it’s over.”
It sure was. Sal dropped by about every second or thir
d day after that. They bitched together about being out of work and no prospects, or talked over old times, and sometimes the Brunists came up, though they never felt exactly comfortable speaking about that. Sal filled Vince in on all that happened out there at the hill that day, about the rain and all those naked people, and how they got old Tiger Miller before the cops moved in, how in the big fight they overturned the TV dollies and busted the lamps, and how the bingo tent fell in, crushing a little child to death. “It’s awful, Sal.”
“Hard to realize it ever happened here.”
A lot of people got killed and hurt, and what did they do about it? Nothing. They put that old man Fisher in jail but let him right out again. Didn’t touch Castle. And all they did to Bruno was send him to the looneybin, put old Emilia in a rest home. Sent one kid up for nearly killing a couple cops. But that was all. The rest: scot-free. And now they were showing up on TV and whatnot all over the country. “It is hard to realize, Sal. I still can’t believe it.”
“They say Baxter’s even back in town again.”
“No kidding.” He wanted to explain to Sal about the emptiness, but somehow he didn’t have the words for it. Instead, Sal told him a story that was going around about how, when they still had all those wild wet Brunists packed into the jail here that night, a state trooper slipped into the women’s cell to play the stud bull and got pulled out an hour later half dead and raving mad.
Vince and Etta never went up to the Eagles anymore. He hated to see those faces up there, especially Johnson’s. They called him “The Mayor.” Vince spent the days rocking on the porch, the nights escaping west or into crime on the TV. He wished the daytime programs were better, so he didn’t ever have to do anything else. There was a strain between him and Etta most of the time, but watching TV, they were happy enough, and found themselves talking together about the programs.
They got a letter one day from the Marine Corps, inquiring into the whereabouts of their son Charles Josef, who, the letter said, had been AWOL since the seventh of April. Vince groaned and Etta bawled, but they’d both pretty much guessed as much. They wrote back that he had visited them on Easter weekend but that they had no idea where he had gone afterwards; then sent letters to the other kids in the family to let them know about it, in case he showed up with one of them. “Shit, I’m sorry,” Vince said that day, rocking all alone out on the front porch, and he cried awhile by himself.
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