Origin of the Brunists

by Robert Coover

  Now, the new element is the hill. “The Mount of Redemption.” They are going out there tomorrow night, since Mrs. Norton thinks something still could happen the first day of spring. It all started last night when Abner Baxter led his people over to sing revival songs on the front lawn at Giovanni Bruno’s. He gave them no peace now. Only this time, Sister Clara shot right out there and shook a finger at Abner and said, “Abner Baxter, you’re only doing this on account of you’re afraid it might be true!” It made Betty so proud, it was just like Ely was back with them again. Oh, and there was a lot of shouting and Mr. Miller took pictures because he said he wanted to humiliate them and they all sang as loud as they could, everybody singing different songs, and Mrs. Norton wanted everybody to come in and lock the doors. Willie Hall wanted to go home right then, only Mabel made him stay. Mr. Himebaugh went upstairs to the bathroom and never came down for a whole hour.

  Abner Baxter raised a terrible fuss then and shook his fist and said the power of the Lord was upon him and somebody started throwing rocks and then Ben Wosznik walked out there and he said, “Now, who threw them rocks?” and Roy Coates said back, “What’s it to you?” and that high school boy who’s taken such a shine to Clara’s daughter went out there and Dr. Norton, too, and it looked like there was going to be a big fight. And Ben said, “Well, I just don’t think that was a very Christian thing to do!” and Roy said, “What do you wops know about Christians?” even though Ben wasn’t a wop, isn’t even an Italian. And the Palmers boy said nobody was going to call a friend of his a wop, and he cocked back to take a poke at Roy, but Ben held him back and said they had to turn the other cheek like the Good Book says and then Roy Coates hit him. Right in the eye he had just turned. They all went running out to help Ben and the Palmers boy was swinging at everybody and Mr. Miller was taking pictures and Mrs. Norton started crying that the police were coming and a rock smashed the porch window and the Baxter people all ran away.

  So they went back in, creeping like they were guilty of something awful, but they didn’t know what, and everybody was nervous and upset and crying, and poor Ben, his eye was swelled up and his nose was all bloody, and Wanda Cravens was dabbing it with a wet dish-towel, Betty wanted to help, was hurt that Sister Wanda was doing it, but was just too weepy and trembling. The Palmers boy, though, said he hit at least five of them and he showed off his bruised fist to little Elaine to try to stop her crying so. Dr. Norton felt it and said he didn’t think any bones were broken. And then the police did come, but Mr. Miller went out and sent them away.

  For some reason, then, they all started watching Giovanni Bruno, or whoever he is. Something special was coming. He was still in the armchair, wrapped in blankets, just like always, like nothing had happened, even though the window in front of him was all broken in, but he was jittery, scratched all the time at the arms of the stuffed chair, darted his peculiar eyes around so, Betty grew a little frightened. And suddenly he lifted his hand and said: “Mount of Redemption!” And after that, Mr. Himebaugh came down from the bathroom.

  “Mount of Redemption.” What in the name of heaven could it mean? Always riddles! Just like with “Sunday Week” and “A Circle of Evenings.” Betty complained one night to Mrs. Norton about it, how the spirits never said things plain, but Mrs. Norton said of course they talked plain, it was just that we weren’t always smart enough to understand them, and that’s why we have to study and work hard. Betty knew that, she’d known that all her life, every preacher she ever knew said so, but she also knew she’d never be smart enough, and that made her feel sad, made her feel cheated, and sometimes, God help her, even made her angry at the spirits. “Mount of Redemption.” Mrs. Norton said it must mean some place, perhaps where they must await the Coming, but she was utterly perplexed about where. But then Clara jumped right up like something had stuck her and cried out, “Why that there hill out by Number Nine! You know, that one right over where we worked!” And what got everybody so terribly excited was how Clara said “we” instead of “you” or “they” so spontaneous like. Mrs. Norton was so wrought up she was almost weeping, and she cried, “It’s your husband! He has reached you!” And poor Clara, she was trembling all over and had to allow it must be so—where else could it have come from? And so they all prayed and sang and had goosebumps about it, and Mrs. Norton received a message.

  And that is why Betty is going to Mabel’s, because she wants to know what it means. Is it still going to happen? Will it happen out there at the mine? Will it happen in April? Will something happen tomorrow night? But mostly, to tell the truth, Betty really wants to know more about the dark stranger, the man of honor, who has entered her life. It starts to sprinkle.

  It was widely assumed that Christ would preside at the Final Judgment. Imagine one man’s astonishment, therefore, when he found himself confronted by his first wife instead. Well, he smiled with an insouciant shrug upon recognizing the old girl, you can’t win them all. Don’t be ridiculous, admonished his Judge; the one fault of which the Divine can never be accused is the perpetration of a bad joke. You have said it, the man replied.

  • • •

  A middle-aged woman, in the flash of total insight granted those at the Last Judgment, discovered that the intense jealous hatred she felt toward all humanity, male and female alike, was not really due to the corruption of her soul by the Devil, but to the embarrassment her flat breasts always caused her. She was therefore only mildly surprised, when, upon being arraigned, she was accused only of the sin of having failed to exercise her breasts properly. When she protested that her fault was hereditary, that her mother also had had small breasts, her Judge replied that that was hardly a defense, that as a matter of fact, her mother had preceded her to hell.

  • • •

  Most souls lost all hope for salvation when, upon being asked, they remembered their names. Thus it was that a sad-eyed old drunk, forgetting his in the confusion of the moment, received, perhaps by mistake, the earth as a gift.

  • • •

  Bankers and businessmen, as the whole world could have predicted, were, without exception, condemned. Go directly to hell, the Divine Judge would roar upon being confronted by one of them; do not pass Go, do not collect $200. The egalitarians were also sent to hell, of course, but they were allowed to collect the money. Sometimes, even the Divine Mind is scrutable…

  “West Condon Chronicle.”

  “Mr. Miller, please.”

  “Whom shall I say—?”

  “It’s the Black Hand again.”

  “Oh. Well, madame, Mr. Miller cannot talk to you. He is a very busy man, and he doesn’t have time for your sort.”

  “Don’t I know it.”

  “(Who’s that, Annie?) (Oh, it’s just that crazy lady who keeps calling up saying she’s the Black Hand. I already told her to—) (That’s all right, Annie. I’ll take it.) Hello, Black Hand.” Scratch. Drag. “(Annie, get off the phone!)” Click. “Say, I always knew you were hilarious, Happy, but I didn’t realize you were such a goddamn genius. If you don’t mind, I think I’m going to run your Judgments in our Good Friday issue.”

  “I’m not looking for fame, Mr. Editor, I’m looking for the payoff.”

  “And the poor unendowed ladies! You are indeed pitiless!”

  “Just cleaning out the competition. Is Annie a cute girl?”

  “Oh yeah, very. Certainly not hellbound by your rules.”

  “Oh?” She’s not quite sure how she’s supposed to take that. Calls for a visit. “You already owe me a fortune in postage, you black heel.”

  His laughter. “You’re right. Listen, I promise, I’ll at least stop out to see you a minute, if not today, tomorrow at the latest.”

  A pause. She ought to forget it, not mention it, but she says, “Say, Tiger, is it true about all those wild orgies you’re having over there with those Christians?”

  He laughs. “Sure, it’s great! Just me and Johnny Bruno and an ecstatic houseful of naked old widows!”

 
; “I heard some of those widows weren’t so old.”

  “What do you mean?”

  What is it makes her open her big mouth? She hesitates, then says, “Oh, a guy called. Said he was a friend and told me things he thought I’d like to know. About Mrs. Cravens, for example.”

  “Oh yeah? Sounds like some friend. Listen, Happy, that’s a lot of crap, there’s nothing there. I don’t know why anybody’s so goddamn adolescent as to—”

  “He said he thought I might be able to persuade you to get out of that group and away from that woman, be better for me, for you, and everybody else. He said.”

  “Well, he’s got it all wrong, whoever the hell he is. Besides, that woman’s got the melancholiest bottom I ever saw.”

  “You’ve had a good look?”

  “Sure. At all the orgies.”

  Womwom pours orange juice, boils eggs, makes toast. Elan, gazing out on the rain, eats distractedly. “Wylie,” she says, looking up at him, her pupils shrunk to pinpricks by the long look at too much light, “do you remember how, after the powers of darkness had chased us from Carlyle, we could not remember who the fourth man was?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you recall what he looked like?”

  Womwom munches toast meditatively. “Not very well.”

  “He was dark, Wylie, and rather tall. I remember how his glittering eyes frightened me so.”

  “Yes, perhaps that’s so.” He doesn’t remember.

  “Wylie … I think I know now who he was!”

  It is Friday, the day for fish. It is March, the month of the fish. The destruction of the world by water, the dissolving of prevalent structures, the liberation from things merely seen or touched. The fish. The unconscious. The cyclic renovation. Fertility of the spirit. “Come ye after me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Mana’s closed and perfect circle, a gift from her childhood, assumes a new dimension, a new beauty. Elan’s primordial energy now whirls upon it through measurable phases. The soul is spun upon it, falling now into matter, climbing now toward its source, wriggling through the twelfth moment toward its rebirth. Unity fragments into multiplicity upon it, multiplicity reassembles itself to unity. All is in it, on it, leaping, turning, cavorting, promenading, falling, climbing … swimming. The fish. She consumes it. Defeat? Reclusion? Negation? No! Mana awaits with excitement and with certainty her turn on the wheel, her inexorable rebirth! Outside, it rains. Dissolves.

  Rain. The banker stares out on it from his office window on the second floor. It reflects his own depression. He remembers how, after the war, there was so much hope here, so much promise. And now it’s all going sour. “You’re not in the nineteenth century, son,” his Dad told him, dying. “Get your money out of here. Coal’s on the way out.” But he couldn’t. It was home. Not that he’s in any real financial trouble, he’s hedged properly on all bets. But that’s not the point. This is his home and his home is sick. He believes it is really a matter of spirit. Ted Cavanaugh has faith in the spirit, or, as he puts it, in will. A community of men of good will: his ideal.

  So, he has been looking for something to stimulate the community spirit again. Something they could all believe in, rich and poor, miners and merchants, Italians and gentiles. Working together, they can make West Condon as great as any town in the United States, he’s convinced of that, highblown as it may sound. But something has to provide the spark, something has to unite them. This little cult at the miner Bruno’s house occurred to him as an idea, but it seemed too negative. Tried to work up a Special Commission on Industrial Planning. Not much interest. Searched for new industry. So far, nothing: bad labor history. He tried at least to keep the mine open. He offered money. He couldn’t offer enough. It’s not official, but he knows they will close it. And so, he is back at the cult. It has given him an idea. A committee. Communal exercising of a little common sense. Start with it as a specific problem, get the town enthused, as many people into the thing as possible, then subtly convert it into something positive, a kind of all-community WPA and sales team, so to speak.

  But, on principle, he just can’t fight anybody else’s religion, no matter how absurd it is. They had to do something first, hopefully something offensive. And now, what do you know, that old Wobbly agitator Red Baxter has done it for them. For him. Created that old vacuum, the filling of which is every American’s first nature: the need for a third force.

  He picks up his phone, dials. The checkerboard on his pad is now, virtually, one huge black square, though, within the blackness, a pattern is still discernible. “Hello, Maury? Maury, this is Ted calling. I’m getting in touch with several of the fellows, ones I can count on. I’ve just been thinking, Maury …”

  So, unobtrusively, the point of no return is passed. No one has expressed it, yet everyone knows it. Nor can any really doubt that this knowledge is now general, distorted in places perhaps, but widespread. Rahim—barrister, adviser, procurator, scrivener, sacramentalist, mathematician, and historian—is the last to concede it. He continues to press for secrecy, but observes that it is futile. On the streets of West Condon, he is avoided. Ugly phonecalls are received. Letters. Well, good riddance to the fools! Soon enough, it will be his turn to laugh! Hah!

  He shuns the common meeting places, spends less time at his office, takes no new cases. He catches up on his filing, ridiculous task, of course, yet an old habit here impels him. His cats still give him solace, but more and more he is passing his days with Elan or at the Bruno house. He is quick to perceive the weaknesses of the others, of course, but the very lack which he fills—almost, one could say, with mathematical exactitude—is, as it were, the final proof of the veracity of his calculations. Thirty days.

  Rain keeps him home this noon. No matter. Rain is just too appropriate today, and Elan would be passing out cheap zodiacal preachments again. How she dupes them with that nonsense! Still, to be honest, it is really only the harmless residue of her core genius, and Rahim supposes she must find excess in him, too. But this will be no moral victory, it will be a cold victory of the human mind. He has tried to explain that to the others, but they refuse to grasp it. Except for little Mana perhaps. There, there is still hope. Thinking of her makes him curse the rain that keeps him home. Perhaps he should go anyway. Her room, though she doesn’t know he’s been there, delights him. It has a charmingly eccentric shape, walls turned and cornered to fit the needs of adjoining rooms, part of the ceiling aslant from the roof’s angle, one large window nearly floor to ceiling … it is perhaps its lack of logic that most appeals to him. But, no, it is always awkward, he has no clear purpose there, and he still, in spite of the total breakdown in security, resists the daytime visits.

  He removes his streetclothes, dresses in the new piece of silk underwear and his own lounging robe, curls up meditatively in the living room armchair with a snifter of brandy, listens to it rain. The cats rub by, but he deflects their efforts to hop up. Thirty days! Sipping the brandy, he passes his hand over the silk, her silk, and contemplates the End. Hah! It will be lovely! It will be grotesque!

  Two of the girls, Mary Harlowe and Lucy Smith, are already in Mabel Hall’s kitchen when Betty Wilson arrives, running in from under the rain, and the cards, stacked, are on the table. Lucy is explaining how she has begged and begged her husband to take her back to Bruno’s, but how Calvin is afraid of Abner Baxter. Lucy doesn’t say “afraid,” of course, she says “swayed,” but the other three know what she means. She tells them that everybody at the church is just disgusted with both the Baxters, how Abner and Sarah just stole the Circle right away from Clara and nobody could do anything about it, and how stupid Sarah Baxter is. Mabel informs Betty they have just been reading the cards, and Lucy and Calvin will join them again one day. They talk about Mr. Himebaugh being up in the bathroom all the time last night, and Mabel explains he has the flu. Mabel hardly ever talks, but she knows what’s going on before anybody else.

  Mary asks if they all were noticing how Mr. Miller and the Bruno girl,
the prophet’s sister, were getting so lovey-dovey, and, in a whisper, says she saw them kissing back in the bedroom when she went looking for her kids. Mabel says very bluntly that Wanda Cravens is also doing everything but lifting her skirts to get Mr. Miller’s eye, and at that Lucy Smith starts giggling so she can’t stop. “He is kinder cute,” she says in a titter.

  “Well! if you knew what I know about that young man and dear Sister Wanda—!” says Mary Harlowe, and then she tells them.

  “Wanda always has been man-crazy,” says Lucy. “I don’t know how poor Brother Lee ever put up with her so long.”

  “And she was even flirting one night with that silly blond high school boy, poor child,” Mary adds, “and she certainly didn’t waste a minute trying to get her hooks in Ben Wosznik, either!”

  Betty Wilson’s weak heart leaps dangerously to her throat, and she exchanges a terrified glance with Mabel, who, with a little shake of her head, warns her to say nothing. Betty guesses then that Wanda Cravens is not her only threat, that even her old friend Mary Harlowe has got ideas.

  Just then, Wanda Cravens herself arrives with Thelma Coates, Thelma sneaking away from home and that horrible tyrannical husband of hers, Roy. She tries to say how sorry she is about the other night and starts crying pathetically, and they all cry together for awhile.

  After that, they speculate on the meaning of Giovanni Bruno’s pronouncement about the Mount of Redemption, while Mabel shuffles the cards and says they should be quiet if it is going to work out properly. Sister Thelma asks what is the Mount, and Mary tells her about the hill at the mine, but Thelma and Lucy are admonished to keep utmost secrecy so as not to cause more trouble with Abner Baxter. A Bible is found and they swear on it. Mabel lays the cards out. She fingers each one before revealing it, studies each development, gasps, sighs, broods, smiles, purses her lips, squints her eyes. For a long time, an almost endless time, she gazes at the exposed cards. Outside, the rain falls steadily shushing mysteriously against the roof. “A controversy,” she says at last. Betty looks for it, but the faces are forever strange to her. “Two blond queens,” says Mabel, indicating them, “but,” another card, “the controversy is resolved,” yet another, “by time.” They all nod.