Origin of the Brunists

by Robert Coover

  “Yeah, it sure is!” said Vince. He turned his ass to the kid’s dogged stare and pulled on his shorts. This was it, man, he’d had enough.

  “Now, Davey, I’m tellin’ ya, git back tuh bed or Mommy’s gonna paddle, y’hear?” She had to talk loud over the baby’s squall. Jesus God, what am I doing here? Vince asked himself, buttoning up his shirt, confronted by his own utterly unreal image in the bureau mirror. He could see in the mirror that the boy hadn’t moved, was still staring at him. The kid always had a lot of bruises lately, Vince noticed. Wanda probably really belted him around. “I dunno what I’m gonna do with that boy,” she complained, apparently to Vince. “He needs him a daddy to teach him some manners now, I declare.”

  The next day being rocker weather, that was how Vince spent it. Out on the front porch, rocking slowly back and forth, thinking about that hand and feeling sorry for himself. Didn’t even feel like going on with the painting. Sorry he had left Wanda in such a bluster. Sorry he was an old granddad with all his kids scattered. Sorry he was so fucking poor he couldn’t even buy a bucket of paint without going into debt— No matter how they tried to cover it up, by God, the big guys still made all the dough, the little bastards knocked themselves out to get enough to pay their taxes, it was the goddamn truth. The Constitution was okay, or the Declaration of Independence, whichever it was, but goddamn it, it just wasn’t getting understood proper! That was it. If the people knew what was there and used it right, those big sonsabitches would get sat on mighty damn quick. Vince thought of becoming a congressman and changing a few things, by God, or a senator or governor or something, voice of the working-man, nothing for himself, just see to it for the first time in world history that everybody got a fair shake.

  So that was what he was doing, rocking there in the spring, the twenty-fifth day of March, contemplating how he’d straighten things out once he was governor, how they’d cheer, when Ted Cavanaugh’s big Lincoln swung up at the curb. Ted got out, waved. Vince returned it, said to come on up, and he stretched out of the rocker to greet him, remembering then that Ted had said he might drop by this week. Ted was a rich bastard, but a good guy. They’d played football together back in high school, Vince was left tackle, Ted the best goddamn fullback in all football history. They were a real team, Ted always ran his offtackle play, the play that made him famous, over Vince: helluva great combination. Even though Ted later became a big name up at State, while Vince went anonymously down into the mines, they had always stayed friendly, calling each other by first names and talking casually when they ran into each other on street corners. In bad times, Ted had always seen Vince through on house payments and the like. He was still a powerfully built man, though his hair was thin and white on his big skull now, and there was a kind of settling around the middle.

  They shook hands, said something about the weather, laughed about nothing in particular. Etta brought beers out to them. Ted kidded with her a minute, then he and Vince sat down on the porch together, completely relaxed. A good guy. They talked, of course, about the fire and the black hand. Ted had got pretty shook up too. Vince told him how the missing finger had been pestering him ever since. Ted understood. He told him a little bit about what was going on between Bruno’s group and Red Baxter’s holy rollers. Vince didn’t know about Baxter’s part in it, but his chitchat in Wanda’s bed had made him a mild authority on the inside workings of Bruno’s gang, and he was able to impress Ted with a couple tidbits. The business about how they were meeting outside of town now, for example, and how there was apparently something kind of immoral going on over there.

  They used that up and just started reminiscing about the old football team, about life in West Condon, all the ups and downs, wound up at the disaster. Vince asked if Ted had heard anything definite about whether or not No. 9 would reopen. Ted said, no, but he still had hopes. He went on to explain some of the plans he’d been working up, how he’d got the city to buy up some unused property out by the old mine road to offer rent free to industry, how they had drawn up a proposed bill to get another highway diverted through here, how he’d talked a university group into making an objective survey of the area’s industrial potential, how he and some other fellows were working up a special brochure in their spare time, and so on. Vince even began to feel pretty good. But then they drifted back to the business about the fire and the hand and Bruno and all, and they got gloomy again.

  Ted sighed. “Sure going to be hell trying to impress some bigwig at DuPont or Westinghouse if they get wind of all this.”

  “Yeah, ain’t it the truth?” Wow, that was pretty bigtime! “Seems like something oughta be done.” Vince stroked his chin thoughtfully. He was thinking about getting a few of the boys together and just booting Bruno’s ass right out of town, but he didn’t know if Ted would be too impressed by the idea.

  “You know, I just had an idea,” said Ted, cracking his fist—smack!—into his palm. “Something occurred to me at the fire the other night when I saw you, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Maybe, by God, what we need here is some kind of third force, something to bring a little common sense into the community and some peace between Baxter and Bruno. You know what I mean?”

  “Yeah, that might be a good idea,” said Vince, staring meditatively down at his beer glass. He wasn’t sure Ted was including him in his idea, but he thought he ought to say he was available. “We could get the whole town in on it maybe, get some life here.”

  “By God, you’re right!” Ted beamed. Jesus, the guy really looked pleased. Vince drank off his beer. “Get up a kind of committee or something, and, like you say, the more people the better. I think if these people saw how the whole community felt, they might start showing a little, you know, a little common—”

  “Common sense.”

  “Exactly. Hey, wait! That’s great! A Common Sense Committee!” Ted slapped the porch rail. “How does that sound?”

  “Sounds great!” Vince suddenly felt very goddamn bright, very much on top of things. “When do we start?”

  “Hell, why not right now?”

  “I’m ready.”

  “Let’s see, today’s Wednesday, what do you say about Friday night? How many people do you think—?”

  “How many do you want?”

  Ted laughed. “That’s the boy!” Vince grinned. “Where can we meet, do you think?”

  Vince thought about that, stroking his chin. “How about the old auditorium at St. Stephen’s?”

  “Not a bad idea. How many does it hold?”

  “Couple hundred, I guess.”

  “I can probably round up a hundred or so. Think we can fill it?”

  “Hell,” said Vince, “we’ll have them standing outside.”

  Cavanaugh laughed, slapped him on the shoulder. Over Bonali. “Good man, Vince! By God, I’m glad I stopped over!”

  With Etta’s help on the telephone, plus evening visits to the Eagles, the Legion and VFW halls, a couple key taverns and filling stations, and the Knights of Columbus, Vince managed to round up some hundred and twenty people who promised to show up. Ted called him a couple times to see how things were going, and Friday stopped by a few minutes to brief him on the meeting. He told him he’d got the support of the Rotarians and the Chamber board, the Protestant ministers, a couple women’s groups, Father Baglione, the PTA, just about all right-minded West Condon groups. He reminded Vince again how things like this Bruno nonsense could get out of hand, produce mass hysteria, make West Condon an object of national ridicule, but Vince didn’t need reminding, told Ted that was what he’d been telling the others. Ted asked him what he thought about making the mayor chairman of the committee. Vince said it sounded like a good idea. Made it plain this was an all-community affair. Exactly! Ted was really leaning on him.

  As soon as Vince and Etta arrived at the Friday night meeting they found themselves surrounded by the people they’d contacted, wanting details, wanting to find out what the pitch was going to be, wanting in on the center
of things and apparently figuring Vince was the route. The little auditorium was packed, must have been more than two hundred squeezing in, Jesus, it was just as good as he’d said it would be. And here in St. Stephen’s, Vince and his people felt right at home. He left Etta with a gang of them, told her just to talk and keep their interest up, while he looked for Ted.

  He knocked into Chester Johnson, who asked him, “Hey, Bonali! We gonna have a lynchin’, baby?”

  “Yeah.” Vince grinned, barely pausing as he moved through. “We’re gonna clean out the lousy pitch players in this town.”

  He worked his way over toward where some of the town politicos were buzzing around Mayor Whimple. Felt a tug on his arm, turned: Ted Cavanaugh. “Come with me a minute, Vince.”

  He and Ted shouldered their way through the crowd, a lot of eyes on them, respectful mumble, stepped into a little room just outside the auditorium proper. Couple businessmen in there. Vince recognized them, but had never met them personally. They turned toward him. “Maury, Burt, this is Vince Bonali. Maury Castle, Vince. Burt Robbins.” Vince greeted them, gave them a hard handshake. They said they knew him. Joe Altoviti and another guy stepped into the room. Altoviti was alderman from Vince’s part of town. The other guy was introduced as Jim Elliott, Chamber of Commerce secretary. “Man, Ted, that’s a real crowd out there!” Elliott said.

  “Vince here had a lot to do with it,” Cavanaugh said simply. They all turned and looked at him. He pulled out a cigar, clamped it in his teeth, reached for matches, but Castle lit it for him. “We don’t have much time,” Cavanaugh went on. “I’m going to get the thing underway by stating the main purposes, telling what I know of Bruno’s group and the trouble that Reverend Baxter is causing, but we’ll need motions to actually get the committee set up and really functioning. Burt, Maury, can you take care of that?”

  “Sure.”

  “Who should we make chairman of it?”

  The guys in the room looked around at each other. Vince didn’t see what was wrong with Ted’s idea. “Why not the mayor?”

  Ted seemed to think about that a minute, like he’d forgot. “Okay. Will you take care of the nomination, Vince?”

  Again the eyes. Vince nodded. Castle drew the second.

  Cavanaugh: “Of course, this is as much a religious problem as a civic one. Maybe we ought to have a couple vice-chairmen. Father Baglione, for example. One of the Protestant ministers maybe. How does that strike you fellows?”

  They assented, settling finally on Reverend Edwards of the First Presbyterian, since he also headed up the Ministerial Association. To emphasize it was all nonsectarian, Elliott was charged with nominating Baglione, Altoviti with naming Edwards.

  On the way out, Elliott whispered in Vince’s ear, “Say, I hate to seem stupid, but what’s Father Baglione’s first name?”

  “Battista.”

  Elliott grinned, clapped Vince’s shoulders. “Thanks.”

  Vince was thinking over what Ted had said. This was a town of Christians. Catholics and Protestants. We all believe in bringing up our children in our own faith, seeing to it that they get properly oriented to the life ahead of them here in this Christian country, that they learn what’s good and bad, right and wrong. It was true. That was what held them together. It was West Condon.

  Back in the auditorium, Vince felt all the eyes on him. He felt a little nervous about the speech he had to make. They all seemed to sense he had some key part to play. Etta winked soberly from across the room. Turned some phrases over. Youngsters of this town. Our young people. Threat to our community and its welfare. Our Christian community. Morals. Immoral. City’s leading citizen. We all know him, know we can depend on him. Sense of responsibility. Vince nodded at Sal Ferrero and Georgie Lucci. Those of us who have grown up here. Has taken us a long time to come home. Home. West Condon is our home. Our lives are a part of. He saw a lot of his mining buddies. Taken chances. Invested our lives here. Bad situation. Explosive situation. Have to put down a little rock dust. Yeah, that was it. Your first blast can set off secondary ones. Depends on the effectiveness of your rock dusting. Contain the effect. Cavanaugh thumped him on the shoulders, moved his big frame up toward the front of the auditorium to call for order. Over left tackle. Vince ground the cigar out under his heel. Teamwork.

  3

  Mayor Mortimer Whimple’s West Condon Common Sense Committee burst upon the scene with unexpected force. Its impact was felt in every corner of the town, and its repercussions carried even beyond. The West Condon Chronicle, still silent on the activity that had sparked the Committee, nevertheless headlined the Committee itself, printed the texts of all speeches, reported all that it did or said it meant to do, and the wireservices and city papers picked a lot of it up. Old-timers could remember nothing quite like it since the long-gone days of prohibition and the interunion wars. It was like the town had been slowly dying of blackdamp and only a good sharp blast could really clear the air. As the Committee grew, its meetings were shifted from the Catholic auditorium to the high school auditorium, and finally to the gymnasium. “If something like this can happen here in West Condon,” the Italian coalminer Vince Bonali said during his famous “rock dusting speech” before that mass assembled on March twenty-seventh, “something is wrong! It’s up to us—you and me—to find out what it is, and set it right!” There was a thunderous burst of cheering and applause, and then the Presbyterian minister Reverend Wesley Edwards rose to read from the Bible:

  “There are six things which the Lord hates, seven which are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and …”

  The minister paused, gazed out upon the crowd, closed his Bible with a resounding snap.

  “… and a man who sows discord among brothers!”

  Solidarity was the theme, but it was not complete. Some abstained, others were effectively barred. The embarrassing fantasies of the coalminer Giovanni Bruno were flouted, but no less so were “opportunism” and “extreme and fanatical fundamentalism.” Neither the Chronicle editor nor any loyal Nazarene follower of Reverend Abner Baxter could fail to recognize he was not exactly welcome. A famous proverb became the Committee’s unofficial motto, and no one doubted which West Condoners were therein being rebuked….

  A worthless man plots evil, and his speech is like a scorching fire; a perverse man spreads strife, and a whisperer separates close friends; a man of violence entices his neighbor and leads him in a way that is not good!

  The mayor and certain business leaders urged prudence and restraint, emphasizing the Committee’s potential for positive constructive activities, and set up a program of community renovation, which, hopefully, would establish a base of Christian fellowship and prosperity here that would make “these other sentiments” seem silly and inconsequential. The Ministerial Association together with the Roman Catholic Church issued a joint resolution on the first day of April calling all citizens to join them in a renewal of basic Christian faith and to make this Easter season an occasion for recovering those values and aspirations that had made this nation great and brought justifiable honor to it. It all made sense, good old-fashioned American common sense, and the townsfolk of West Condon went for it, few doubting the while that things would be so dull as the mayor and the business leaders seemed to think. Subcommittees were set up, plans made, responsibilities given.

  Meanwhile, attacked on one side by the violent powers of darkness, reviled on the other by a thickening mass of ignorance and prejudice, and even, as some feared, threatened from within by subversive or weakhearted elements, the followers of Giovanni Bruno decided it was time, as the former coalminer Ben Wosznik put it, to brattice themselves off, to retire entirely from public view. “When something goes off,” he said, “your first impulse is to beat it for the nearest exit. But you can’t tell from where you are just where it happened, and you may end up runn
ing right into the middle of the worst of it. It’s almost usually better to find you a safe place, wall it up, and wait there.” Domiron concurred:

  Imitate the prophet!

  They determined to avoid all conflict, to vary and keep secret the time and place of their meetings, to seek for the moment no new members, and to prepare quietly, each in his own way, for the personal test that awaited them all on the nineteenth of April.

  “Those who are ready will come without our seeking them,” Eleanor Norton told them all, and they were quick to agree. “Let us only be certain to be prepared for them.”

  The lawyer Ralph Himebaugh introduced hand signals and special tunics to go with the White Bird password and, with Mrs. Norton and Mrs. Collins, redesigned the altar and developed a meeting format. His new tunics, which the women made and which they all wore at their gatherings now, were white (the White Bird, the Coming of Light) with brown (Bruno) ropes at the waist, and, embroidered in brown on the breast, a large circle (Evening Circle, a Circle of Evenings) enclosing a miner’s pick, stylized to resemble a cross. The dimensions of this pick/cross were numerologically determined: seven units each for the arms and head, twelve units for the post or handle, totaling thirty-three, the life in years of Christ, not to mention an entire history of secondary meanings derived from important ancient writings. A banner was designed with the same emblem as the robes with the addition of a white bird flying above the embroidered cross and circle.