The Brunist Day of Wrath: A Novel

by Coover, Robert

  “I know him.”

  “He’s a little hard up just now and could use a job. I thought you might have something there for him.”

  “Well, there is a police job opening up here, I think, but—”

  “Now ain’t that amazing! I thought there might be. And you got problems. You got some lunatic Jesus freaks down there.”

  “They’re outside town and so far they mostly been only bothering each other. But—”

  “But you never know, right? Those people are completely pazzo!”

  “They’re a bit weird.”

  “I know, I gotta deal every day here with spics and sambos and dumb hillbillies, all of ’em mostly bombed outa their dim little melons, either with dope or that yelling they call praying. Count yourself lucky! But you’ll like Charlie. He’s big and he’s brave and he takes no shit from nobody.”

  “Well, he can come in for a—”

  “Except you’n me, right? Shit from you’n me he takes like ice cream.”

  “There are other guys running this town. I don’t have the final say who—”

  “Right, you got that tinhorn ex-shoe salesman down there, what’s his name, Cass-hole?”

  “Yeah, the mayor.”

  “I hear he’s been muscling in on our neighborhood, squeezing our people with some kinda fucking protection racket.”

  “He’s been campaigning.”

  “Well, he won’t be doing that no more, capitano. And you just tell him who you want. I got a feeling he’ll be open to suggestion.”

  “I don’t know. The mayor’s got some powerful backers. The bank, for example. And the bank has recently hired a sharp new lawyer who seems to have his eye on just about everything.”

  “Nicky Minicozzi, you mean. Yeah, we call him Mini-cazzo. Nicky does what we tell him. Hang loose, cugino. Go to Mass. Pray for our souls.”

  “Sure, Dad. If it’s important. I was hoping to stay up here at the fraternity house through graduation. There are a lot of parties going on this weekend. People I may never see again.”

  “I know, Tommy. But I do need your help.”

  “Is Mom worse?”

  “Well, yes and no. But I’ve had to fire the home care nurse and the new one can’t start until next week, so I’m all alone here.”

  “What did she do? Steal something?”

  “I… I guess you could say so.”

  “Dad, you don’t sound good. Are you all right? Dad?”

  “I know. It’s all right. Angela told me. She said she’d helped you find the new person.” All week long she has been thinking about leaving. Ever since the night his car was attacked and he got home and found his wife so ill. It was her fault, really, and she has the feeling others think so, too. There is a scandal of some sort brewing and she is afraid of it. But now, just hearing his voice (he is apologizing for missing their traditional Thursday night together; he seems quite shaken and says he needs her more than ever, and she can hear the need and how much older his voice sounds, and it tugs at her), she knows she can’t go. Not yet. Night of a full moon. She’ll eat alone in her room, unable to bear the smirks of the motel staff. “Tomorrow’s out, too, damn it,” he says. “But Tommy’s coming down from university, so Saturday looks good. We can take that drive we talked about.” He looked absolutely stricken while talking on the phone in his office today, and when she brought in some documents for him to initial, she asked if something was wrong. He nodded, then shook his head sadly, as if it were all beyond him. Her heart was racing but he assured her it had nothing to do with her. He has asked her, more than once, about becoming the new Chamber of Commerce executive director, saying that he needed her business and personal relations skills in that job, her youthful enthusiasm, and, well, yes, her beauty, and though they might see a little less of each other, it would spare them the awkwardness of working together at the bank, but she has always made it clear that when her internship at the bank is over she is leaving. And then they both are sad for a while. “Hello? Stacy? Is Saturday okay?” She felt guilty about keeping him late that night, but she just couldn’t let him go. Somehow it seemed like the last night, and at the door, when he was kissing her good night, she knelt and pulled his pants and shorts down and there went another half hour, and he probably didn’t even know as he pressed his fingers into her hair that she was crying a little. She felt so awful the next day when she heard, she even packed her bags. But then just sat staring at them. The only god she has left from her Quaker childhood is love and he’s not always a friendly god, sometimes even kind of scary, more like a demon, really. When little Angela asked her what she believed in, she joked that she was a holyroller for love, but what she didn’t say was that if religious faith was a kind of dangerous madness, so too was love. “Hello? Are you there…? Stacy…?” “Yes. All right. Saturday then.” “I’m doing all I can.” “I know. I love you. And thanks for the flowers. They’re beautiful.”

  “Mom? I’ve decided to come home for the weekend to see you. We’re having a special Friday night supper tonight at the fraternity. One of my profs is a guest. I’ll start down right after. How are you doing?”

  “Well, I’m dying, my dear. Other than that I’m just fine.”

  “I tried to call last night, but the phone was busy or else just disconnected. I suppose you were asleep?”

  “Yes, I am at peace in the Lord, Tommy. My soul has been saved and I rest easy.”

  “Where’d you learn to talk like that, Mom? It doesn’t sound like you.”

  “It is not me, Tommy, not the me you knew. I have been born again. I didn’t know what that meant. Now I do. I am someone new. I surprise even myself.”

  “Mom, what’s going on? Dad seems very upset about something.”

  “Oh, you know your father, Tommy. If the world doesn’t go according to plan, his plan, he gets all hot under the collar.”

  “Why did the home care nurse get fired?”

  “Mrs. Filbert is a pious kind-hearted Christian woman. She has helped me through dreadful times in a way that no one else has and I miss her horribly. He has sent some silly little girl over here today in her place who talks to me like I’m three years old. I think your father did it for spite.”

  “He said you did something bad.”

  “I followed my own lights, as he likes to say and has done for over thirty years, without concern for me or anyone else. I am preparing to meet my Maker, Tommy, and He spoke to me and directed me to free myself of all earthly encumbrances, and I have been doing so.”

  “And me, Mom? Am I an earthly encumbrance, too?”

  “All that is body is, Tommy. Not your spirit. Which I love more than you can know and hope to have near me through all eternity. The world isn’t going to last much longer, which means at least you may not have to suffer what I am suffering. But you may not have much time. You must always keep Jesus in your heart, Tommy, and…(No, dear. Not now.)”

  “Who’s there with you now, Mom?”

  “Groovy, Angie! But, hey, wasn’t Tommy here just last week?”

  “He says he simply can’t stay away from me! He’s just crazy about me, Ramona!” Angela knows this because of the way he looks at her, especially when gazing down upon her just before That Moment, his eyes ablaze then with adoration and awe (she is so beautiful! she knows this!) and tenderness and passionate desire. Tommy! She’s so madly in love she’s just wet all the time! “He told me so!”

  “Oh, Angie, you’re so lucky! Tommy’s a fabulous hunk! And rich! And you mean you’re really calling from his house?”

  “Call me back if you like, and see for yourself. And I’ll be here tomorrow, too.” Tomorrow—Ramona knows this, but she is too stupid and shallow and jealous ever to understand the true deep meaning—she and Tommy will make love in this beautiful house (probably even under this very ceiling: she is calling from the phone in his bedroom, poking about, sniffing at things) which may one day be hers. April 25: She has already marked it on her sacred calendar. She’s desperate
ly close to her period, and that’s scary, but hopefully it will not come until Monday. “Poor Tommy! He’s hurting so! He needs me now.” He’s such a bad boy, though. Last weekend on the way to the motel, a used tampon dropped out on her lap. He made up some wild excuse, saying he’d loaned his car to a fraternity brother up at university who must have put it there as a joke, and he became very sweet in his embarrassment, but all Angela could think was: Did he have sex with a girl during her period? That sounds pretty gross, but if things go wrong this weekend, well, if he likes that, she might give it a try. “I still haven’t got over my own mom passing away, so I know what Tommy’s going through.” Even if Mrs. Cavanaugh is really cranky and always complaining—nothing like her own mom who, even when she was dying, kept wanting to help somehow, and never said a word about her pain or fear, just how much she loved her. Thank goodness the old lady is asleep most of the time, lying there in her wrinkly old gown and plastic shower cap, or else looking through her photo albums with her little wire-framed glasses on the end of her skinny white nose. “When Tommy’s father came to ask me yesterday to help out, it was just such a thrill! Especially when he said he specifically wanted a Catholic home care person. It was like he was reaching out to me, you know? I suddenly felt so much closer to him. He’s a wonderful man, so kind, who has suffered so much, and he’s the best employer in the world. I just love him!” On Tommy’s shelves are his trophies and a personalized bowling ball and some framed photos, including a delicious one in his high school basketball uniform, holding a ball at his hip, which must have been taken about the same time they first did it. “Tommy’s mother keeps asking for the other woman who was here. A Baptist-type nurse who did something bad, I don’t know what.”

  “I bet she stole something. Those people are like that.” Angela wants to steal that photo. Maybe tomorrow she’ll ask him for it. He’s so cute! She was just a dumb little kid then, but so was he. They are both so much more mature now. At the bottom of his socks drawer, she finds a stack of men’s magazines and, while Ramona rattles on about the stupidity and immorality of Baptist hillbillies and all the craziness out on the mine hill last weekend, she thumbs through them. She recognizes the poses: Tommy asked her to pose the same way for his Polaroid. She loves him, so how could she say no? It made her feel funny, though, like her skin was not her skin but something she was actually wearing. But she could see it made him awfully excited, and it excited her, too, and she took pictures of him (he is so gorgeous!) and he used a timer to take pictures of them together, making love—“I know one should always keep one’s dignity,” her older friend Stacy Ryder once told her, “but really it’s not much use in a love affair…”—and then he let her tear them all up and burn them after, all except one of them together, just kissing (you can’t see the hands), which she let him keep to remember her by when he was away at college. “My dad said there’s some really sick things going on out there, stuff you wouldn’t believe! And those people are everywhere, the fields are full of them like herds of animals! I even saw somebody this morning who looked just like your brother Charlie, only he was ten years older.”

  “That probably was Charlie. He’s back. He’s going bald. He made some bad friends up in the city and I think he got into trouble, but you’d never know it. Swaggering around, snapping his fingers, acting the big cheese. He’s already got into a fight with Dad and eaten up all the food in the house.” She is, she knows, as beautiful as any of these women in the magazines, though she sees that her pubic hair is thicker than most of theirs; she will trim it, maybe make a little design. Tommy would like that.

  “Angie, now that things are so cool for you and Tommy, can I have Joey Castiglione?”

  “Sure, Ramona. He means nothing to me.” She can be generous; she’s not throwing anything away. Joey would never go for fat Ramona Testatonda. Ramona thinks she’s such a big deal just because her dad is a town cop, but Joey Castiglione will still be waiting for his Angela a hundred years from now. She didn’t let Tommy have his way in everything. She knew how to be both firm and gentle when she had to draw the line, like when he wanted to take a picture of her using the bathroom, for example. Absolutely not, Tommy Cavanaugh. Though he did take a picture of himself up close when he was in her other place and she wasn’t looking—how could she be, on her hands and knees?—which was just too gross. No picture like that in these magazines. She asked her older friend at the bank if she ever let people take pictures when they’re intimate like that, and Stacy said no, so maybe she has gone too far, though Stacy smiled and said anything really is all right when you’re in love. And oh yes, she is! Her whole body is shaking and oozing with it.

  “Bernice said he just stormed in last night and throwed her and Florrie out, Mr. Suggs. Said they weren’t nothing but common thieves and they’d end up in jail. Bernice is a storyfier, but I credit her account. And his dying wife there in the room, Bernice said, whilst he was throwing his wrath around. She said the poor lady was brave and kept right on smiling, but her lip was a-quivering like a shook rag, and Bernice said she felt like her heart would break. I hope we done the right thing.”

  “Of course we have, Clara. The two women have saved another soul and found a way to do God’s will in spite of that evil man. He will try to get the money back now, but I think we have made it safe for the Lord. Are you calling from the new office phone?”

  “Yes, and we bless you for that, Mr. Suggs. It is so important to our work. I have used it to call other preachers and let them know we wish to live in peace among them like fellow Christians and I have invited them all to visit us and share in our services.”

  “It is good what you are doing, for we must, as they say, keep the dogs at bay. Which reminds me to ask: Has Abner Baxter left the camp premises yet?”

  “No, they’re all still here. And some others have been moving in. Using cabins that ain’t even got electricity yet nor roofs nor windows neither, and setting their tents up in the empty spaces and out around the old fire grills. Folks are camped out in the Meeting Hall, too. And there are more tents over on the Mount of Redemption. Ben keeps making them move, but soon as he’s gone, they pop up again. Mostly, though, they been behaving in a helpful and friendly if somewhat stubborn manner. The camp is still a dreadful sight from what them bad boys done to it, and most everbody’s pitching in to fix it up again—even Abner.”

  “This won’t do, Clara. If you need workers, I can send you some. Those people were all to have been gone by Tuesday. It is already Friday.”

  “Well, they ain’t no place for them to go. They are waiting for the new campsite.”

  “They will find a place if you are firm enough. When the new campsite is ready, they will have no choice. I have spoken with Sheriff Puller. But for their own good and the good of the community, they must leave now. You will regret this delay.”

  “That may be, but it is a hard thing to do.”

  “That’s a laughable offer, Ted.”

  “Well, think about it. We have some new problems here. Questions about the sources of the cult’s money, whether or not there might be fraud and embezzlement involved. The mine’s responsibility in leaving dangerous material unguarded—”

  “Our inspectors are on the way. We’re sure that stuff was removed years ago. And even if it wasn’t, it has probably deteriorated over time.”

  “And if it hasn’t? It’s the sheriff’s belief that the break-in was done by some of Suggs’ people—”

  “The sheriff said some renegade bikers.”

  “For all I know they are part of Sheriff” Puller’s illegal vigilantes. But there’s also a rumor going around that the owners might have robbed themselves to collect on the insurance. I understand an insurance agent has been around asking.”

  “We didn’t do that, Ted.”

  “All I’m saying is there’s a rumor. It will have to be investigated.”

  “It won’t go anywhere.”

  “It will take time.”

  John P. Suggs
rocks back in his swivel chair in his South County Coal Company office, his thumb hooked in his suspenders, staring out upon the monumental landscape of narrow mounds and deep furrows that he has created. The spokesman for the Deepwater Number Nine owners has just told him that the city has raised its offer. There are some provisos, but they’re tempted to go with it. Pat suspects a bluff. They’re in trouble on the theft. He has had Puller call the company about it, asking difficult questions. He decides to take a chance and lower his offer by a third. The spokesman says that makes no sense in the face of the city’s improved bid, and adds that there are rumors of fraud and embezzlement behind the Brunists’ funds. “This is my money,” John P. Suggs says, “and you know my money is good. What I’m offering you is still a lot more than the mine is worth. You’d better grab it while you can.” There is a long pregnant pause. John P. Suggs smiles out upon his domain. He was right.

  “Well, let us talk with your lawyers.”

  “I don’t have any lawyers. You talk to me.”

  “Hi, Sally? This is Billy Don, you know, out here at the camp and all that? We just got a new phone line into the office and I’m, like, testing it out.”

  “Well, hey, Billy Don, it works.”

  “Yes, well, hah, I thought I’d give you a call, see if we could maybe sort of get together for a minute. There’s something I need to…”

  “Sure. Beautiful day. You want me to come out—?”

  “No! No, I have to make a Randolph Junction mail run and pick up some, you know, typing ribbons in Tucker City. Can you meet at the drugstore there in about, like, an hour?”

  On this beautiful day, the beautiful man, sitting all alone in his dingy bank office and feeling old and ugly, hangs up the phone, crumples his squiggly doodles and baskets them. Stacy has checked out of the motel. No forwarding address. Somehow, inexplicably, he has lost her, even as he has lost his wife, who has turned against him, betrayed him, and his town, which is abandoning him. As though the switchboard were fused, connections severed. A couple of nights ago, in the still of the night, he heard the bikers, or thought he did, and their distant grumble seemed to presage a nightmare, and that nightmare has come to pass. He decides to call home and check on the young Bonali girl, who is staying with Irene for the day, but the phone is busy. He imagines that Irene must be talking to that damned butt-in Edgar Thornton, so he calls him up in the city to see if his line is busy too. It is not. The secretary hooks him up immediately.