The Brunist Day of Wrath: A Novel Read Online Free Page B

at the hospital this week visiting fellow ex-miner Big Pete Chigi, who’s dying of black lung or something worse, and Sal reports that he’s in a respirator now. “Big Pete ain’t so big no more,” says Bert. “Damn coal dust,” is another’s mutter. “It’s not just the dust, it’s also them coffin nails,” says Guido Mello, grinding his out under heel, and Sal, staring dolefully with baggy eyes at the cigarette from which he’s just taken a drag, says, “I’m quitting tomorrow.” Mickey DeMars, whose downtown sandwich joint is closed for the day (the high price of meat has been the subject of his previous discourse, which aroused some surprise among his interlocutors that his hamburgers actually contain such an ingredient), says he heard on the radio that fully one-fifth of the nation was living in abject poverty. “That ain’t bad odds,” growls Vince Bonali, wallowing a dead cigar in his jowls. “Wish it was that good here.” Vince has recently lost his wife, has long since lost his job, and it’s said he’s drinking more than he’s eating these days. There’s a rumble of thunder and, peering up at the black sky, Carlo Juliano says, “It don’t stop. Better go home and build a ark.” “I would,” says Bonali, “but I can’t afford the mortgage.”
    Which is when errant native son Georgie Lucci is spotted (he gets a welcoming shout) hurrying their way over the puddly potholed street and broken sidewalk like a tall clownish bird, bearing glad tidings, bad breath, lurid tales of nightlife in the city, empty pockets (cousin Carlo, when pressed, reluctantly loans him a five-spot), and the news that the Brunists are back, reportedly up to their old tricks out at the edge of town. This evangel draws a large eager audience, so Georgie, always the crowd-pleaser, elaborates on it, describing the Brunists’ ecstatic and diabolical rites in fulgid colors, details supplied by a stag movie he saw up in the city about a secret orgy society, and using the chief of police as the horse’s mouth. The ladies in the crowd peel away to spread the word among the others (“Monsignor Baglione must know!” gasps Mrs. Abruzzi, hurrying off in her sparse orange hair and the black widow’s garb she has worn for thirty years) and Carlo says maybe they ought to hide the Pincushion, popular name for their statue of St. Stephen, so the Brunists don’t steal it again.
    So they’re back. Vince Bonali, gazing off toward the rainsoaked streets as though pondering their bleak future, feels a stirring of something commingled of nostalgia, excitement, mortification, and anticipation. When that insane cult first started up here, he helped his old high school teammate and town banker Ted Cavanaugh create the Common Sense Committee to try to put the brakes on. After the mine disaster, West Condon was in deep shit, and that end-of-the-world lunacy was the wrong story to send out to the world—Vince said as much in his famous “rockdusting” speech at the first big rally, and Ted loved it. Ted runs this town, and Vince became his righthand man. He was at the center of things and welcomed all over town, his pals were even calling him “the Mayor”—except for his days as second-team all-state tackle, it was the proudest moment of his life. And, after his stupid fuckup, the worst. Total humiliation. From king of the hill to the bottomless pit. Thinking about it still made Vince sick to his stomach, and he feels sick now. He’s not happy to see Georgie back in town. Georgie was there for it all, witness to his most shameful moments. Georgie has no pride. Sooner or later all those old stories are going to get retold. Just for laughs. Sick jokes from the past. Even now they’re yattering on about that mad carnival out at the mine (“At least we felt alive then,” someone says), the day he sank the lowest. But he has changed since then. Stupidity sometimes has more to do with heart than head. His refound faith has centered