World Made by Hand: A Novel

by James Howard Kunstler

  When Loren had concluded, Brother Jobe took a step forward from his people, cleared his throat in a demonstrative way, and began reciting another Psalm, number 1:

  There was more than a little coughing and chuffing among our townspeople as he concluded.

  "Thank you, Brother Jobe," Loren said, "for that interesting choice."

  "The hundredth there that you spoke. That's on the cheerful side, given the circumstances. Wouldn't you think?"

  "I thought it might reflect the gratitude of we the living."

  "The Lord is busy judging, and by death do we know it."

  "I suppose so. Now, if you'll permit us."

  Brother Jobe appeared to think better of saying more and stepped back among his people.

  "Lord our God," Loren said, "you are the source of life. In you we live and move. Keep us in life and death, in your love, and, by you grace, lead us to your kingdom through your Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord."

  "Amen," the crowd said.

  "Almighty God, look on this your servant, lying in great weakness, and comfort him with the promise of life everlasting, given in the resurrection of your Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord."

  "Amen."

  Loren turned and nodded to those of us in the choir behind him. We began the hymn named "Africa" by William Billings. It was not about the continent of Africa per se, or any of the doings within it, but it was a very beautiful hymn of the American Revolutionary period. It was a favorite of ours and one that Shawn himself had sung with us many times. His strong baritone was conspicuously absent.

  There were five more verses. When we had concluded, out of nowhere, and much to our surprise, the New Faith people raised their voices in song, all seventy-three of them. The song they commenced was an ominous tune I had heard once or twice, called "The Great Day." It went like this:

  The New Faith people sang the hymn in the shape note manner, all modal harmonies full of terror and dread and nasal harshness. It was an impressive display. Our people seemed cowed by it.

  When they had concluded, we immediately sang "Shiloh" another hymn by Billings. As we laid down our last note, they answered with "Mortality" by Isaac Watts:

  Loren glanced behind at us in the choir and gave a little shake of the head which we took to mean we should not answer with any more music. In this fraught interval of silence, Brother Jobe spoke out.

  "Reverend, I've always thought the minor key better suited this sort of occasion," he said. "I can't help but remark on your employment of the major keys."

  "We sing to honor the beauty of God's creation and the joy of the living who remain in it."

  "Funeral is a time of sadness."

  "I don't think we need to be instructed on how to feel."

  "Didn't mean any disrespect, Reverend. But D-major always puts me in mind of dancing, not burying the dead."

  Not a few of the other New Faith people seemed to titter at that, though they tried to hide their faces. Some of our people turned and began to walk away from the gravesite. Others gaped across the yawning grave in wonder at the newcomers. Britney glanced pleadingly at Loren.

  "If you'll excuse me, Brother Jobe," Loren said, "we are burying our dead, and we're doing it in our way."

  "Sorry. Go ahead."

  "Thank you."

  "I'll just shut up now."

  "If you don't, Brother Jobe," Loren said, "I am liable to come over there and bust you in the mouth."

  Brother Jobe recoiled slightly, then lowered his head and did not utter another word. His people likewise looked down.

  "Almighty Lord," Loren said, "we commit the body of Shawn Watling to the peace of the grave. From dust you came, to dust you shall return. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen."

  "Amen."

  At that, we laid Shawn into the comfort of his everlasting resting place and left the burying ground in silence.

  In the days that followed Shawn Watling's funeral, everyone made an effort to attend the needs of his widow and their daughter. There were no official safety nets in our little society, no more social services, no life insurance, nothing but the goodwill of neighbors. I went over twice: once with Todd Zucker, to get in stovewood for her, using his horse cart to bring maple cut from his dying sugar bush; the second time on my own, bringing five pounds of cornmeal from Einhorn's store. It was eight o'clock in the evening when I came by, after working a full day on the cupola.

  I could see Britney through a front window sitting in the broom shop, but she didn't come to the door after I'd knocked twice, pretty loudly the second time, so I let myself inside and went to the shop.

  "Excuse me for barging in," I said.

  She turned to me as if shaking off a reverie and leveled a gaze my way, as fierce as a kestrel. It was unnerving.

  "Just checking to see if you're okay?" I said.

  "I'm okay," she said, and she turned her gaze back down to her handiwork.

  "How's your little girl getting on?"

  "She's over to the Allisons," Britney said with a sigh. The Allisons had an eight-year-old girl and a boy, six. Tom Allison operated the only livery in Union Grove in a time when most of us did not yet own our own horses or rigs. The family had a nice household untouched by personal tragedy, apart from Tom's never again working as the vice president for administration of the Washington County Community College, which had closed its doors, and his wife Linda's losing her graphic design business.

  "The world seems to be burning up out there," I said.

  "It might as well," Britney said.

  I glanced down at my sandals, made by our cobbler, Charles Pettie, out of old automobile tire treads and leather straps.

  "How are you doing for food?" I said.

  "All right."

  "I brought you some meal."

  "Thank you."

  "Anything else you short of?"

  "People have been very kind," she said and put on a wan smile, as if speaking from inside a globe of loneliness. I knew what that place was like. Maybe I was projecting my feelings too much, but it was troubling to think what would happen now, with no one to care for her. Less than a week after her husband's funeral, it seemed indecent to imagine who she might eventually pair up with, but that was the direction my mind went in and I couldn't help it. There were few single men in our town. The absurd Heath Rucker. George Murdlow, the candlemaker, who never washed. Perry Talisker, who lived in a shack by the river and made bad corn whiskey and decorated the outside walls of his shack with the stinking pelts of beaver, otter, and raccoon. Buddy Haseltine, who was "slow" and helped out at Einhorn's store in exchange for a cot in the storeroom. Wayne Karp's tribe. Myself. We were the single men in town. What a sorry bunch we were, I thought. Yet I was shocked to imagine for a moment having a young woman such as Britney in my care, and then to take that a step further into the dark territory of conjugal relations. It was a fugitive thought but I was ashamed of myself. Her father, who did not survive the Mexican flu, had been younger than me when he passed on.

  "Are you getting any meat?" I said.

  "We could stand some."

  "Ben Deaver mentioned he would slaughter a kid for me. You like goat?"

  "I'll eat it," she said.

  "I'll bring some by when I get it? You like smoked trout?"

  Watching her sit in a beam of evening light, I couldn't fail to notice how well formed she was. A troubled look came over her. She stood up and brushed bits of broom straw off her apron.

  "They came around here," she said.

  "Excuse me? Who came around?"

  "That New Faith preacher and some of their women."

  "A lot of damn nerve, after how he behaved at the funeral."

  "What I thought too."
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  "What did they want?

  "Trying to get me and Sarah to move over to the school."

  "They're a weird bunch. Why would you consider that?" I said.

  She shook her head. Then her features crumbled. She tripped forward into my arms, weeping. Her hair was full of the spice of fresh grass and childbearing. It made me a little dizzy in the heat. I held her until she was cried out. "You don't have to put in with them," I said. "You have this fine place here."

  "Maybe," she said and drew away, pulling herself together. "But this making brooms and baskets won't do all on our own. People have all they need of those things."

  "We're your people and we won't let you go hungry," I said.

  "This being alone is something else," she said and squeezed her eyes shut as if to keep more tears from coming out. But they did, of course.

  I made the trip out to Bullock's with Brother Jobe the following morning. They'd sent a young man over the night before to notify me to be ready. It was more like being issued instructions through a subaltern than being invited along on a social call, but I didn't hassle the messenger about it. I went over to the old high school at nine o'clock in the morning, as instructed. The New Faithers were turning the old school bus garage into a barn with thirty stalls and had fenced off the adjacent baseball field into four paddocks. They had twenty-odd horses, several mules, and a big tan jackass, not counting that team of handsome blacks hitched to the Foley cart, and they seemed all set up for breeding operations now. A muscular chestnut stallion grazed in a separate paddock on the hillside beside the old school cafeteria.

  "I see you like horses?" Brother Jobe said.

  "I do."

  "There's a lot to like there," he said and bid me to climb aboard the rig. We took off at a trot.

  It felt grand to sit high up behind that team and exhilarating to move so swiftly down the street, like the dream I had about the magic chair. He drove confidently. There was nothing I had yet seen that he was not confident about. The few people out on Main Street stopped to watch as we flew by. The temperature was rising, though, and he slowed the horses to a walk as soon as we got outside of town where there was no more need to show off, and the pavements got bad again. We passed the ruins of the Toyota dealership with its defunct lighting standards lording over a phantom inventory of sumac bushes where the Land Cruisers and Priuses used to sit parked in enticing ranks.

  "I have work for you, old son," he said.

  "You're not of any age to be my daddy," I said.

  "Figure of speech," he said. "Relax."

  "You're a cheeky son of a gun."

  "'Course I am. I'm a leader of men," he said and cackled and gave me a little poke in the ribs. "Word is you are a fine woodworker."

  "Is that so?"

  "You any good, then?"

  "I'm plenty busy so I must be good enough."

  "Like I was saying."

  "You have plenty of hands among your followers," I said. "Surely some of them are carpenters."

  "They're coming along. I'd like for them to work with you, though. Learn a thing or two. There's a particular special job over our way that needs doing."

  "What would that be?"

  "You come by, I'll show you."

  "Are you trying to recruit me?"

  "Wouldn't dream of it."

  "Just so we understand each other."

  "Oh, I think we do. No strings attached."

  "I hear you've been coming around the young widow's house."

  "We've dropped by, like everybody else, trying to help out."

  "You're leaning on her to come over your way?"

  "What's wrong with that? You all bring her pies and meal and joints of meat. We offer that and more. We offer warm hearts and busy hands and shelter from the storm-and let me tell you, old son, in case you ain't noticed, we got plenty of bad weather out there."

  We rolled on for a while without speaking, and I couldn't resist the sheer enjoyment of the journey. The landscape had changed so much over the years. A lot of what had been forsaken, leftover terrain in the old days, was coming back into cultivation, mostly corn, some barley, oats, hay, and lots of fruit trees. Everywhere that had been a parking lot, the pavement was breaking up and growing over with scrub, sumac, and poplar mostly. The roadside corn mercial buildings going out of town to the west were in various stages of slow disassembly: the discount beverage warehouse, the strip mall where the movie rental, dollar store, and a Chinese takeout joint used to be. All the metal was stripped off. One particular building fascinated me whenever I came out this way: a bungalow that obviously once had been a regular house before it was engulfed by commercial sprawl, probably in the 1970s. The bungalow had finally evolved into a gift shop selling all kinds of poorly made and perfectly useless handicrafts to motor tourists bored by the interminable hours behind the wheel and desperate for any excuse to stop for a while. The word Gifts was still there in fading four-foothigh letters on the asphalt shingle roof.

  "We don't strong-arm nobody," Brother Jobe said after a long interval of silence, bringing me out of myself. "If folks come over to us, it's because of what they see we got to offer."

  "Our people are sore about the way you carried on at the funeral," I said.

  "Really? You all appear to be sunk in laxness and lassitude here."

  "It may seem that way to you, but they don't like being pushed around any more than anybody else."

  "They're demoralized, from what I can tell. Folks crave some structure in their lives. You want to see justice done? Don't you? Ain't that why you agreed to come along?"

  I didn't reply.

  "You can't live in fear of murderous thugs. And I tell you, we won't tolerate them now. We have seen too much on our journey and come too far, and by God we are going to make a decent home here. Death has been our outrider all the way. We have learned how he drives men's spirits, and the kind of respect he demands, and it ain't in the key of D-major, my friend. Death ain't no maypole dance. We seen what he did down around Washington."

  "How close did you get?" I said.

  "We cut past the edge of the suburbs, coming out of Leesburg and across the highway bridge there into Montgomery County, Maryland. You couldn't go any nearer. It'd be like committing suicide. We ran into people fleeing west, upwind of the city. Many of them were burned and had the radiation sickness. You'd come across bodies along the road. We couldn't stop to bury them all. We did not linger."

  "You say you were in Pennsylvania a few years?"

  "That's so. The flu sickness was terrible there. It rained all winter, two in a row, and the summers were fierce. I think you might grow palmettos there now, the way this screwy weather is going. The white against black and so forth was spilling over from Philly too, and we had trouble with it."

  "What did your group live in there."

  "We had the use of a large spread, gratis, so to speak, but between the weather, the sickness, and the violence it was no go. I've got a good feeling about this little corner of the country, though. I don't think the sorrows of the cities will make it up this far north, and I take it you still got something like winter up here."

  "It still snows and the ponds freeze."

  "Snow," he said, breathing deeply. "I look forward to it like a little boy waiting on Christmas."

  Stephen Bullock strode out of the dark interior of his carriage barn as we came into his driveway at a trot. Brother Jobe told the team to get up on the approach to the big house to give himself a perky entrance.

  "That's Bullock right there," I said, and Brother Jobe brought the horses to a snorting halt.

  Bullock was about sixty, hale and brawny, six foot three in boots, with silver hair that hung to his shoulders and was only starting to thin in the front. He was clean-shaven like the New Faithers. His blade of a nose and penetrating blue eyes added to his look of Roman authority. His white linen shirt looked freshly laundered and he wore close-tailored tan riding trousers tucked into black boots. Striding toward us,
he wiped off his hands with a rag and handed it, without a glance, to a chunky man in coarser apparel who had followed him out of the barn, as though he had every expectation that the man would be there to take it at the moment he wished to dispose of it. That would be Roger Lippy, who was long ago a salesman at the Chrysler dealer in town and now was Bullock's chief factotum.

  When he saw it was me up on the high seat, his forbidding expression gave way to a friendly smile. We'd always gotten along. He had a harvest ball every year that people came to from far and wide around the county, and he hired me and the usual suspects from the music circle to play. He played a fair flute himself, went to Yale undergraduate and Duke Law, and admired things Japanese, having spent time after college teaching English in Osaka. I had built him a little traditional teahouse beside his pond behind the main house, which he was well pleased by. He prepared a set of plans from memory of what he had seen in the Far East years ago. I just followed them. The lumber came from his own land, milled on the premises, mostly cherry. It was nice wood to work with. Selfsufficiency was not new to him, but the necessity of changed times made him take it to higher levels.

  I introduced him to Brother Jobe, who gave a compressed version of how he and his followers had landed in Union Grove, but did not exactly disclose the purpose of our visit.

  "Will you stay for lunch?" Bullock said. Without waiting for an answer, he told Roger Lippy to have Mrs. Bullock set two extra places. I could tell from the way Brother Jobe was craning his neck around that he was anxious to get a look at the operation, and Bullock, who was not modest, readily offered to give him a tour. He called the name "Kenneth" into the barn, and another man came out with grease on his hands to take Brother Jobe's team over to where a great old stone watering trough stood in the shade. I did not recognize this Kenneth, but new people were added to Bullock's rolls on a regular basis as life everywhere else grew more difficult, and people gave up on it.