Origin of the Brunists (33 page)

“I came,” said Himebaugh suddenly, his precisely mannered voice now half growl, half squeak, “if you must know”—he swallowed—“in fear of … of the
destroyer!”

“Oh dear Jesus!”
wailed Clara Collins, and dropped like a brick to her knobby knees:
kawhump!
Again the Nazarenes took over. Christ, they were irrepressible! Miller had to admit, though, that Himebaugh had, under the circumstances, performed well.

Eleanor Norton came around, opened her eyes, appeared lost. “Mrs. Collins!” she appealed, stumbling over to her. “Come! Tell me what happened!” She led the widow to the dining room, apparently eager to learn, but effectively—at last—breaking up the revival meeting. The two boys began to argue quietly, Wylie engaged Willie Hall in talk, and with these distractions the rest of the Nazarenes lost their zeal. Soon the room was full of chatter and motion again, and Miller felt free to leave his lair.

He slipped quietly from group to group. Everyone had his own opinion about the meaning of events. Wylie Norton seemed upset, but Miller couldn't pin him down on anything. Norton was a heavy sad-eyed fellow with glasses on the end of his nose, so suppressed and polite a voice one had to lean far forward to understand him. Willie Hall quoted the Bible irrelevantly, seemed to have seen nothing that happened, proved to be little more than a desensitized loudspeaker, emitting endless textual nonsense from his self-enclosed inner world. Miller guessed that nothing in the world would really surprise the man.

Mrs. Norton returned, sought written explication from Domiron, but finally gave it up when few attended her. Himebaugh shrank to a corner and stared at Bruno. Miller wondered at the message, socalled, with which Bruno had so dramatically torched the meeting. The tomb is its message. Meaningless, yet loaded. He remembered that tomb was probably the word that rhymed with womb in Bruno's lost poem, Bonali had finally remembered that much. Had Bruno really had Ely Collins' deathnote in mind, though, as everyone assumed? Miller doubted the guy even understood there
was
such a note, wondered if he even grasped the brute fact of Collins' death. Then, what was he getting at? If the guy were rational, he might have been responding to the night's question: What is the meaning of “the coming of light?” with the answer: Death; or: Christ's resurrection. But was Giovanni Bruno in any sense rational? Miller frankly thought not, not from what he'd seen so far. No, the more likely explanation was that he had heard something more or less like that from Mrs. Norton, or from others here tonight, and had produced his own abbreviated paraphrase. Miller decided he would spend some time with Mrs. Norton's logs as soon as possible.

The two widows discussed Bruno's grace with Mabel Hall. Clara insisted that God was indeed speaking through him—“The Spirit has took on flesh!”—and the others, though eyeing him uneasily, had to agree: it all seemed to fit, just like Ely had said. Colin Meredith was sniffling, his long-lashed eyes damp and reddened, and Carl Dean Palmers seemed irritated with him, looked embarrassed when Miller passed by. He ducked his head from the others and whispered, “I don't see it, Mr. Miller. They're making a lot outa nothing.”

Restlessness grew, more shifting between groups. Something unimaginable was to have happened by midnight, and now only some twenty minutes or so remained. Miller joined Marcella near her brother, but before he could ask her, she asked him. He said he didn't know, didn't know what to make of it. Eleanor Norton sat studying her logbook. Miller supposed she was preparing now to find the buffer message to explain why the undefined event did not occur, or how it
did
take place but was not properly grasped by all.

Marcella, beside him, spooned more medicine into her brother. Miller's main wish now was to have another moment alone with her before the night's program was over. He watched her bent back, fascinated by the narrowness of the white blouse on her shoulders and the single starched pleat, now opening down her back as though to smile. He felt he was at the brink of some fundamental change, and, strangely enough, he welcomed the sensation. Bruno himself was obviously exhausted. His long high-domed face, gleaming with a clammy perspiration, sagged, and he slumped lower and lower into the pillows. A feverish glow still lit his eyes, but his day was just about done. As Marcella leaned back to cap the medicine bottle, the curve of her hip bumped Miller's thigh: she looked up, smiled.

Footsteps!

All started, stood, stiffened. Anxious glances, eyes agog. Short breaths. Frowns. Was this it?

“Mama,” Marcella explained. “She's come down to turn off the television.”

Everyone relaxed some. Miller longed for a smoke. Soon. He considered that it was curious Bruno's parents did not participate here. Just too old, probably. Carl Dean sighed, an undisguised protest—and then the whole house was rent with a terrible throaty scream!

For a moment, in group terror, no one moved.

Then, almost simultaneously, Miller and Marcella turned and ran for the door, then on through the dining room to the front room. In confusion and with frightened shouts, the others stumbled and clattered behind.

The living room was dark, as before, but for the television screen. There, a man on a dark horse pulled a kerchief up over his mouth, turned to his two companions and said, “There he comes!” Emilia Bruno whined insanely. Stiff upright in his armchair in front of the television sat Antonio Bruno. He was dead.

Lights came on. People cried, “What is it?” Miller heard himself explaining it. It was Clara Collins who first lost control. She fell in a kind of sobbing fit to the floor, calling out her dead husband's name. Elaine started bawling. Others cried then, kept shouting, hurrying in, hurrying out. Marcella, in tears, ran back to her brother's room. Miller trailed a short distance behind, arrived to find her weeping quietly on the edge of the bed. “Go with Mama,” Giovanni whispered, his plain voice altogether unlike that which had uttered the message. His eyes were perhaps a little wider awake, but otherwise he was the same as before.

Miller stood unobtrusively in the shadows by the door. Marcella passed him on the way out, but didn't see him through her tears. Bruno stared at nothing. Was he smiling? In the dining room, Carl Dean was stammering, “If, if, why, if this d-don't beat all!” Colin said, “I told you so! I
told
you so, Carl Dean!” They were both very white. On a chair, Betty Wilson slumped waddily. “Oh my God!” she whimpered softly. “I didn't think it'd be like this!”

Ralph Himebaugh and the Nortons stood in the dining room on the other side of the table from Miller. He could still hear Emilia Bruno and Clara Collins keeping it up in the living room, and it looked like the Halls were in there, too. Eleanor Norton held her small face in her hands, gazed upward toward the cut-glass chandelier. For some reason, people all turned toward her. Well, had she not, by calling this meeting tonight, prophesied its denouement?

Marcella, her face streaked with tears, but outwardly calm and protective, led her old mother out of the front room, started toward the stairs in the kitchen with her, paused. The Halls, holding each other up, stumbled in, she weeping, he talking to himself.

After a long while, Eleanor lowered her hands. “Death as a sign,” she said gravely, her voice breaking, seeming very old, “can mean only one thing.” She hesitated, as though afraid to continue. A small sob caught in her chest.
“The end of the world!”

“Oh no!”
cried Himebaugh. “I—I
thought
so! I knew it! It's what I thought all the time!
It's why I came!”

Clara Collins stood, shaken, big square-jawed face wet with tears, hair snarled, heavy mouth agape, in the living room doorway. “Yes!” she gasped.
“The eighth of the month!”

Well, not the eighth, of course. Elan, Domiron, the One to Come, and time itself soon took care of that. But the course was set. And Tiger Miller had his game.

With the storm that hit West Condon the first part of March blew in the first distinct rumors that Deepwater Number Nine was going to be closed down. As soon as the rumors started circulating, Vince Bonali knew, goddamn it, he wanted to go back down. If you were born to be a coalminer, there was no point in fighting fate. A kind of anxious humor swept around town. Everybody made a big joke about how bad the air was up on top and how when they took baths these days they felt like they were wasting water. And then on Monday, the second, old Sal Ferrero slipped on the ice in front of his house and broke his arm, and that got everybody cracking how they wanted to get back down in the goddamn mine where it was safe.

So, as soon as the roads were cleared, Vince drove around to a few of the mines in neighboring counties. He put in his chit with the offices, looked up relatives, chewed over the situation with union bosses, but it was anything but encouraging. Got an earful of sympathy, of course, but he found a helluva lot of other guys out of work, just like himself. Bad as it was, though, he discovered that at least a half dozen guys from Number Nine had got on at other mines: goddamn it, he had started too late!
Too late!

All day, the old car lapped up the long stretches of greasy asphalt, and all for nothing. Passed a lot of strip mines along the way, whited over with snow, and they depressed him all the more. Not only fucked up the countryside, but they meant fewer jobs, too, and jobs he didn't know how to handle. And now all this talk about gasification of coal beds—he swore and slapped the steering wheel. “Come on, God! Get me outa this one!” he said out loud. Vince had always imagined God as a tough dark old bastard who lived a good ways off, but had a long rubbery arm, spoke street Italian, gave the sonsa-bitches their due, and for some inexplicable reason had a peculiar fondness for Vince. His vision hadn't changed much, except he was beginning to suspect God maybe had come to lump him in with the sonsabitches.

Talking to God made him recollect the joke or something he'd been hearing around town about the end of the world or an invasion from Mars or some goddamn calamity due up next weekend. Boy! what was the matter with this town? As far as he could make out, it had something to do with that nut Bruno again, or maybe it was just that everybody assumed it. Well, that just went to show what a smart cookie that Father Baglione was. Bonali had never given the old priest too much credit, but a couple months ago when all the old gossips at the church had wanted to canonize the guy because of his so-called visitation, the old man had just chewed his cigar and kept his peace. From what Etta had found out, it wasn't long before these same old women were getting shunted out of Bruno's hospital room and told, in effect, to go to hell. And now the end of the world! Man, what next? Well, what the hell, maybe it wasn't a bad idea at that—might be a relief to have done with this moronic business once and for all. He laughed at the idea of the world going up in a puff of smoke. Then he remembered he wasn't ready, saw again the unblinking stare of Pooch Minicucci's old lady. Sunday, for sure, he was going to keep his resolution and tag along with Angie and Etta to Mass, get himself on the right team again.

At home, beat down and depressed, he dropped into a chair facing the TV. It was off, but he didn't feel like turning it on. Etta came in and sat down on the sofa near him. The fatness and silence of her presence irritated him all the more, but, hell, she didn't have it easy either. He got to talking out loud, said the way things were going, it sure didn't look to be a very hilarious goddamn thirtieth anniversary for them this year, did it? and how he figured they were really done for. Why was it turning out like this? Thank God, they still had the old house, but, shit, they'd probably have to mortgage that, too. And then, all of a sudden, he saw Etta was crying. He got half out of his chair, took her hand, said not to cry like that, he was just mouthing off, hell, things'd work out, they always did. But she handed him a letter.

He glanced at the envelope: from their oldest boy, Vince Junior. He was working out on the Coast, worked on airplanes. Vince supposed something terrible must have happened, one of the grandkids or something, and, Jesus, just now—! He was almost crying and he hated to look inside. But when he opened it, there was a nice friendly letter and scribblings from the grandkids and a check for $300. The boy said he figured things must be a little close, what with the mines closed down, and, since he had a little extra, he was sending it along, keep beer in the icebox and Angie in pretty clothes, and so on, have a happy anniversary, and to let him know if they needed more.

“Jesus, Etta,” Vince said. “That sure was nice of Junior, wasn't it?” And he got out his handkerchief and blew his nose.

Vince had always gagged along with the rest about getting old, but nowadays he found it hard to smile, found that cracks about his fifty years only made his stomach turn. Couldn't land a new job and he began to see it wouldn't even be easy to get on at the mines now. Trouble was, though he hadn't wanted to admit it before, people hardly ever hired a new man old as Vince was. He could do the work of five or six young guys, understand, especially in the mines, he had the basic skills down and that's what really counted these days, but, hell, it still didn't matter. It was just the dumb attitude these people doing the hiring took. Vince hated even to look into a mirror. A thick gray depression was crowding down all over him.

One Tuesday at Wanda's—he'd fallen into the consoling habit of passing afterdark Tuesdays there—when there wasn't much to do but talk, he tried to explain it. He had been feeling his goddamn half century all day, and now, mainly because before coming over he had got a little too tanked up at the Eagles, he couldn't seem to stiffen the old pecker up enough to get the trick done, and that made him all the more miserable. “Wanda, I have to tell you, I'm getting old,” he confessed simply. He was goddamn sorrowful. The hall light was on, just outside the bedroom door, and it spread a harsh sallow glare over their side-by-side bellies.