Origin of the Brunists

by Robert Coover

  “We mean it!” the Black Peter avers, whistling the switch through the air. But they’re not scared, because Davey Cravens is just three and hardly talks yet.

  The Evil One, sobbing remorsefully, leaves. “Good job, Black Peter!” says the Black Hand. The Black Peter, swelling with pride, switches an old inner tube. Carefully, the Black Hand pushes his own hand out his sweater sleeve and slips the black one into a paper sack. The black one is beginning to fall apart. Already, the little finger has got lost and pieces chip off all the time. “Button up, Paulie.”

  When the Evil One is out of sight, the Black Hand and the Black Peter, now disguised as Nat and Paulie Baxter, slip out of the shed and down the alley toward home, discussing proper retribution for the Black Piggy and plotting further astounding adventures.

  Abner Baxter, Jr., helped his Mom as he always did on Saturday mornings, burning trash, filling the coalbin, cleaning the yard, and so on. Warm sunny day, a perfect first day of spring. The ground was damp and spongy from yesterday’s rain. His sister Franny was cleaning the kitchen, the other three were out playing. They got it easier than he ever did. He was already a freshman in high school, and he shouldn’t have to do this kid stuff.

  Junior stared into the flames of his trash fire and watched the boxes melt, flare up, collapse. He built his fires like cities, then consumed them with his fiery wrath. Sodom fell beneath the flames every Saturday, an epic, and better even than in the movies. He put ants and beetles inside the boxes, watched them scramble out and to the top, just like people running to the roof. They scurried about up there, helterskelter, until, doomed anyway, they finally tumbled off and died. Sometimes he would catch a frog for his fires. Sometimes the frog died; sometimes, like Lot, he got away.

  His little sister Amanda came down the alley. She was crying. “Whatsa matter?” he asked. Not that he cared.

  “Nothing,” she said, and went on by. She was always crying.

  A cornflakes carton tipped precariously as flames licked into its lower stories. The lettering turned cloudy black like the box, then shiny in contrast to the box. Miraculously, the carton did not fall, burned to a fragile black ash in that half-topple. Miracles happened all the time in Junior’s trash fires.

  His Mom came out. “I been calling you,” she said.

  “Fire ain’t out yet.” He watched her closely now for change, whenever she wasn’t looking, but she was still the same. Fat women don’t show for awhile. It disgusted him to think about it. “Awful dry today, and you cain’t take chances.”

  She sighed and went back in.

  He’d always thought his Mom was pretty, but now he didn’t think so. She was big and old. Maybe that was the kind of change that was happening.

  A big black ant appeared on a milk carton skyscraper. Junior imagined it was Carl Dean Palmers. Carl Dean was a senior at the high school, a bully, and possessed by the Devil. He made fun of Junior in the shower room, and pushed him around outside classes, knocked his books out of his hands. The carton burned slowly, being heavily coated with wax. The wax began to melt and it made the ant run faster.

  Carl Dean was having carnal knowledge of Elaine Collins. Elaine was only a freshman like himself and too young for seniors, but her Mom was arranging it. Junior’s Dad all but said so, and right in church on Sunday mornings, so it had to be true. When Junior went with his Dad to sing on the Bruno lawn night before last, he had hoped he might get to see it. He wondered if only Carl Dean did it to her, or if they all took turns. But his Dad made so much noise he scared them, and they came out and got in a fight.

  The ant peeked over the edge, his feelers wobbling around. He was probably thinking about jumping. Junior watched with his hand in his pocket. Last year, when Reverend Collins was still alive and everybody was friends, Junior used to go by Elaine’s house at night, because she sometimes left her blinds up. The thing he always wanted to see was if she was getting hair yet like him, but he was never able to make sure. Now, she wasn’t at home so much, and anyway her Mom seemed awfully suspicious suddenly about Peeping Toms. The ant stopped running. It was surrounded by torturing flames. The roof of the skyscraper began to buckle. The ant bowed its back like a cat raising its fur. Then, as the skyscraper tipped, the ant rolled into the fire. Junior tried to watch it, but he lost sight of it in the ashes. Did God watch each single Sodomite to be sure he burned? When his Dad’s side finally won out and they took holy retribution on the apostates and impostors, Junior hoped he could be responsible for Carl Dean Palmers and Elaine Collins.

  Franny Baxter knew who the “Black Hand” was. But she discovered that the two little ones were also mixed up in it, and she didn’t want them to get into trouble with her father. He had preached so furiously against whoever it was, she was sure he’d just about kill them if he found out.

  Her mother shuffled about gloomily in the kitchen. Franny thought she should be joyful about having another baby, but she wasn’t. Maybe the truth of it was that the Sarah in the Bible wasn’t happy either, her husband only thought she was, or should be—the Bible never told the woman’s side of things. Maybe her mother was afraid: she wept all the time now. She was an old woman, after all, nearly forty. Franny wondered if she would ever have a baby, and, if she did, what it would feel like. She had never even had a boyfriend, but her mother always said that their father was her first beau, and she was over twenty when she met him. Franny thought she would like to have babies, but she didn’t want a man very much. Unless he was very nice and very quiet and loved her just as she was. If someone like James Stewart or Gary Cooper asked her to marry him and have babies, well, she would do it.

  Amanda came in, in tears, and Franny decided it was time for a serious talk with the girl. She followed her into their room. Amanda threw herself on the bed and pushed her face into the pillow. But she wouldn’t admit anything, wouldn’t tell about it. Franny wanted to know why they used those peculiar names. She’d never seen them in comicbooks or in the movies. “You’ll get in trouble.”

  “I don’t care.”

  Franny never knew how to reason with Amanda. She could handle the boys, but there was always some kind of friction between her and her sister. She gave up, went back to her housecleaning. Really, she didn’t care. Let them do what they wanted to. It was little Paulie she was worried about. Paulie could grow up to be like James Stewart, if only he didn’t get going the wrong way.

  Junior came in then from burning trash. She watched him at the high school, always felt a pain of disappointment. He never seemed to grow up. He slouched around the halls, looking lost and scared, his hands in his pockets, his head ducked, didn’t have any friends, didn’t join any of the clubs, didn’t study, didn’t do anything. He was just a wad of nothing. And he was going to get fat. He was already getting fat.

  He was glancing sideways into the kitchen at their mother. Franny recognized that Junior was going to be jealous of the new baby. Amanda and Paul already were. Only she and Nat wouldn’t care. She smiled to think she could have something in common with Nathan. Junior looked up at Franny watching him and blushed, went into the bathroom. And that was another thing. Their mother was too careless about getting undressed and using the bathroom with the door open and everything, and she still gave all three boys their baths. No wonder Junior was like he was. Franny believed simply that people shouldn’t use the bathroom when other people were in there. But it did no good to argue. Not in this house. Junior didn’t butt in on her anymore at least, but everybody else did.

  She saw Nat and Paulie outside. Nat with that paper bag. She knew she could count on Paulie. “Junior,” she called. He flushed the toilet and came out, looking kind of red-faced like he a lot of times did. “Go make Paulie come in. I want to talk to him.”

  “What for?”

  “Never mind. Something serious.” Junior was sullen, but she knew he would always do what she asked.

  It was a hard thing to be the Black Piggy. She sought their admiration, but she always got crying at th
e wrong time and ruined it. Like when they fed that little long-eared doggy of Mister Brother Hall the hamburger with the broken glass in it. She just couldn’t believe a dog could be bad like people, even if bad people touched it, and when it started to twitch so funny and drip long stringy drips of blood from the mouth, she got all sick and sorry and had to run home. And when they switched the little Harlowe girl who was just two and made her go home in the snow without any clothes on, she just couldn’t stand it, it was too terribly cold, so she went right out there and dressed the girl in front of the whole world and took her home to her mother. Ow! She really got it that time! They took her into the shed and tied her on the old cot and hit her harder even than her Daddy did, because they said it had to be a blood punishment. And she had to prove to them she was as brave as they were by having a b.m. behind her Daddy’s pulpit, all alone, in the middle of the day. She nearly got caught and had to jump out a window and skinned her knees all up. And after that, they had to be pretty careful for awhile, because their Daddy was really mad and it seemed like he might have some idea who did it. But they let her be the Black Piggy again, instead of one of the Evil Ones.

  And now today, she did it again. She wouldn’t hit that little boy. He looked sick or something to her. They would get her again. And there was nothing she could do. Unless she could think of the bravest thing of all. Against the worst enemy of all.

  At supper Saturday night, their parents gone, the Black Hand smells danger. Sees it in his big sister’s eyes. Their parents have gone to a church meeting or something, and Junior went, too. At some hill. The Black Hand tries to beat it after, but she catches him outside. “Nat!” He slugs her in her soft cowardly gut, but she hangs on. “What’s in that bag, Nat?”

  “Nothing. Candy.”

  “Nat—”

  “What do you care?”

  “I know what it is. It’s awful, Nat. I’m going to tell.”

  “Go ahead and tell. You fat old tattletale! It’s nothing. See if I care.”

  She tries to grab it, but he kicks her in the legs, hits her on the ear. “I’m going to tell them as soon as they come home,” she says, still hanging on. She’s just like a pillow. You can hit her all day and nothing happens.

  “You’re stupid,” he says. “You got red hairs on your fanny.” Schemes of bloody revenge race through his mind. “You’ll be sorry, you’ll really be sorry!”

  “Not as sorry as you.”

  “Who said it was anything?”

  “Never mind who said.”

  He knows. The Black Hand always knows. That stupid little sissy baby. They should never have let her join their gang.

  Franny drags him back into the house, makes him go to the room. He kicks and punches. A pillow. She pushes him inside. The Black Peter is there, looking scared.

  “Piggy squealed,” the Black Hand says when the door closes. “We gotta get rid of the hand.”

  “How?” Peter is nervous. A punk, after all.

  “Let’s dump it on old Widow Collins.” Number one enemy. He likes that hand. It hurts to give it up. But it’s getting old anyhow and a finger is broken off. He can be the Black Hand without it.

  “Put it in her pants?”

  “Don’t be stupid! We’ll wrap it up, give it like a present. We’ll scare the pants off that old whore!” The Black Peter giggles. “C’mon!”

  Through the window.

  In the trash, they find a box only partly burned. They put the hand in it, wrap it in newspaper from the shed. Warm night. Stars. Thin moon, though. Good night for a job.

  The Collins house is dark. So much the better. They case it, approach from separate angles, recognize each other with soft clucks of the tongue, meet on the front porch. Steps creak as they mount them. They stiffen, crouch, slip up behind the swing. Minutes pass. Still okay. They scout around. Nothing to steal. The old whore has got smart. Black Hand tries the door. Locked. Slices up the screen, opens it. Inside door locked, too. Could smash the glass. Taps it. Too much noise. Quiet night. “Got any poop?” he whispers.

  “No,” says Black Peter. “I already went.”

  “Well, keep a watch out.”

  The Black Hand lowers his pants, squats in front of the door where they’ll be sure to step in it when they come home. The poop is just half out, when the Black Peter gasps: “There’s somebody there!” and bolts down off the porch. The Black Hand pulls up his pants on the run and follows wide-legged after. What a mess.

  Behind a tree, Hand stops, considers. Keep cool. Don’t let it drop and you’re okay. There’ll be a place. Peter slips up stealthily. “Do you see? There, at the back!”

  “Yeah, you’re right. Shut up.” He winces into the black night. Can’t make out a thing, except some vague motion back there. “It’s only a dog, I think.” If it is, he’s going to rap the Black Peter, but good. And then he sees it. Like a star out of place. “Hey!” he hisses. “Somebody’s setting fire to the house! We gotta get outa here!”

  Later, safely back in the room, the Black Peter asks, “What did you do with the hand?”

  “I dunno. I don’t remember.”

  2

  Warm night in old West Condon. Still a chill there, but it was moving on. Vince Bonali, mildly looped, passed through this night, this town, on a Saturday night stroll. Spring had come on this morning hot and fragrant as a young girl in heat, and he still hadn’t quite got over it: bad as a man felt, how could he hate a day like that?

  He’d spent the morning puttering around the house. The thaw and the cool March rains had left a damp soggy ground, easy to work, at least the first few inches, so he had loosened it up, planted some grass seed. He had knocked together a little picket fence about a foot and a half high, had painted it a bright white, and posted a sign to keep the kids in the neighborhood from gouging it up with their war games. The big elm over his head was budding, some sparrows in it, late morning sun seeping greenly through its branches, warm on his neck and arms. It was the kind of day that used to please Vince’s Mama so, break her gloom, set her mind turning about the Mediterranean and her old home there. Vince had always doubted that she could really remember it, left it too young, got the idea afterwards from calendars and fairy tales, talk with other Italians, movies later on maybe, but it didn’t matter. It was enough that it contented her that Italy equaled spring days. Rocky run-up-and-down hills terraced for the vines, cool breezes sliding through the umbrella pines, spongy beaches and necklaces of seashells and towns radiant white—and the sun: her sun of Italy. For a long time, Vince had actually been convinced his Mama really had owned the sun back in Italy, part of that mythical family estate all the Italian families joked about or something. Vince, as a young guy, had always hated the idea he was an Italian, but lately, last few years or so, he’d got to thinking maybe it wasn’t too bad, might even be nice to go back there, see where the old folks came from, see that sun.

  After lunch, he’d gone out to admire his work, had seen that the bright little fence put the rest of the house to shame, so he’d wandered on downtown, picked up some housepaint on credit, borrowed a ladder from Sal Ferrero, and by evening had the front finished, plus a patch on the south side. Only night coming on had made him quit. Once inside, though, he’d wondered why he’d pushed so hard. Felt like ninety, not fifty, his back split down the middle from shoulderblades to ass, short pricks of pain stabbing the back of his head. Too long out of work, he was getting soft. Etta had asked him how much he’d got done, and he’d snapped back at her to stop asking dumb questions and just get the goddamn supper on. They had traded a few bad words and Angela had come in from her bedroom, had told them to stop carrying on like that, the neighbors would hear, it was just disgraceful.

  “I’ll disgraceful your fanny, by God, if you come butting your nose in one more time!” he had roared at her. “You’ve sure got awful damn wise lately, kid!”

  “Don’t be vulgar!” Angie had said, thrusting one shoulder at him and prancing back to her room. It had been al
l Vince could do to hold himself back from grabbing her and tanning her smart-alecky butt right on the spot.

  He had shouldered on past his wife into the bathroom to take a hot shower. Had turned it up hot as he could stand it, letting it beat down, melt the hard knot of muscles bunched up in his shoulders and back, and, relaxing, had begun to regret jumping all over Etta and Angie like that. First day of spring, too. But, Jesus! he hadn’t ached so much since his first day down in the mines. He had tried to explain that after the bath, apologizing to Etta, and she had understood and had gone out to see his work. Angie, too. They’d come back in saying it was going to be just beautiful, they were pretty excited about it, even made him out a kind of hero, and had been very sympathetic when he’d said after supper that he needed a walk and maybe a drink or two to loosen up.

  So he’d gone up to the Eagles for a couple drinks, the place being unbelievably dead for a Saturday night, and had wandered out feeling giddy with the spring and all he’d got done that day and with a big erection from thinking about Wanda. She wouldn’t be expecting him, but she was always glad to see him. He felt very goddamn good, tired but tough, and he walked relaxed but firm.

  When he reached the housing development where she lived, however, he saw that her place was dark. He guessed where she was, and that made him madder than ever. He wondered if Bruno was getting into that girl. There were some pretty wild stories going around and he wouldn’t put anything past Wanda. Maybe old Bruno wasn’t a complete nut after all. Might have something going there. Vince had always been secretly aroused by accounts of black masses.

  Well, home to big Etta. He did not fail to notice that the erection had gone limp again. Maybe there’d be a good war picture on the TV midnight movie. And then he heard the sirens. Bells. Didn’t seem far off, so he wandered toward where it seemed to be coming from. Began to notice a glow over the rooftops. Hadn’t seen a good fire in eight or nine years, ever since the lumberyard near the railroad station went up. But a siren at night is deceptive; the chase was longer than he thought. Some ten, twelve blocks finally. He got there winded, feeling pretty sober, a crowd already gathered. He shouldered his way to the front line, located Mort Whimple, the mayor, all decked out in his old firechief’s slicker. “Need help, Mort?”