The Brunist Day of Wrath: A Novel (2 page)

A block before the Presbyterian church, a convoy of three Army trucks full of soldiers comes rolling by as if conjured up from the puddles in the street. They are certainly not conjured up from his thoughts; they surprise them. The trucks pause and the driver of the lead vehicle leans from his window and calls out: “Hey, chubby! Can you tell me how to find the high school?” “I’m afraid I am not yet from here,” he replies, then realizes that will not be easily understood. “But I have a map.” He hands it up to the driver, who studies it. A young officer is sitting beside him, staring straight ahead. There are impolite comments from the back of the truck about the manner of Joshua’s dress. “Right,” says the driver. “Mind if I keep this?” “Well—” “Thanks, chief.” And they go rumbling on down the street, spewing black exhaust and rude remarks. A curious and, given his present transcendent state of mind, somewhat jarring apparition. Perhaps it was to remind him that that “peace in the valley” he longs for is not without its obligatory sacrifices. That there are those for whom peace is not a first priority. He knows them; they were the bane of his childhood. He is reminded of the line from Luke: And when ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh. But he, young Reverend Joshua J. Jenkins, is a man of peace, yes, he is, through and through. He would outlaw all the world’s armies, if he could; he will never ask his congregation to sing “Onward, Christian Soldiers.” A man of peace like Christ Jesus and his Gospel of Love. His friend. His best friend. Yes, what a friend I have in Jesus! He is humming to himself again. Again, an old Sunday school song. In spite of his aptitude for abstruse and complex thought, so convoluted at times that he baffles his listeners and even sometimes gets lost himself, it is the simple songs that Joshua loves most, songs like the one he is humming now, standing before the church that is to be his home, his platform, his testing ground, and his awesome pastoral responsibility, tunefully murmured like a kind of prayer to Jesus: Precious Lord, take my hand, lead me on…

The church is less impressive than in the photograph they sent him, a modest brick structure, vaguely modernist in style, far less grand than the Baptist church near the town center and not so classic a house of worship as the stone Lutheran church he passed a couple of blocks back with its solid square bell tower and big double doors; but just as Joshua loves the simple songs, so does he love the simple Christian virtues, which people in this country in their ignorance think of as American virtues, and this church in its honest friendly dignity stands as a quiet monument to them. It suits him. It suits Presbyterianism and its democratic community spirit.

As the church is presently without a minister, he fears the doors may be locked, but they are not. He removes his felt hat and wipes his brow. “I’m tired, I’m weak, I’m alone; through the storm, through the night, lead me on to the light, take my hand, precious Lord, lead me home!”

“You have arrived, Mr. Jenkins. Mr. Joshua
J
. Jenkins.”

“Why, yes—!” He has been thinking so much about his friend Jesus that young Reverend Jenkins is not altogether surprised to see him standing at the pulpit. Sunlight enters the church through the high windows in clearly defined beams. Jesus is standing in one of them, exactly as he appears in the frontispiece of Joshua’s favorite book of Bible stories for children. It is an astonishing sight. Jesus wants me for a sunbeam, Joshua is thinking, somewhat madly, the melody tinkling in his head as if played on glass bells. “But how did you—?”

“Your résumé, Mr. Jenkins.”

“My résumé—?”

“And what does the middle ‘J’ stand for, Mr. Jenkins? Not my name, I hope.”

“No!”
He has been anticipating this visit to his new church with such excitement, perhaps he is only dreaming about it and the bus not yet arrived. That would explain the nightmarish army trucks. He touches his breast pocket; no, the map is gone. But dreaming is another mode of discourse, similar to the narrative mode but freed from some mimetic conventions. The map, for example, can be there and not be there at the same time. When he wakes, he will take notes. They will make for an interesting sermon. Perhaps his inaugural one. What happened to me on my way into West Condon. On the other hand, if he is not dreaming, and he probably is not, it can’t be Jesus, and in the realization of that he understands the terrible shallowness of his faith. Though in one part of his mind, that part he takes most comfort in, he is having a personal encounter with Christ; in the larger part, wherein his reason resides like the house demon, he knows it is not possible. “It’s…it’s Jehoshaphat. My grandfather…”

“Jehoshaphat! A king! ‘I am as thou art, my people as thy people, my horses as thy horses!’ Hah! What a memory! Not all of us are so lucky to have such a grandfather. Or even a grandfather at all. On my paternal side, it is something of a mystery.” Joshua is nodding at all this, hat in hand, but he’s not sure what he’s affirming. “Yes, I know you wrote a paper on it. I thank you for your contribution.”

“Pardon? Paper—?”

“He was reminding me that he wrote an essay on the old fellow, your namesake, getting diddled by the king of Israel. He got a B-plus for it. I was acknowledging that.”

“Oh yes, I see.” But he doesn’t. Who got a B-plus? He feels as he often feels when lost in his own theological conundrums, and wonders if he should go out and come in again.

“Who, Mr. Joshua Jehoshaphat Jenkins, do you say that I am?”

“Well, hah…you
look
a bit like Christ Jesus, but—!”

“Looks, Mr. Jenkins, are not always deceiving.” The man smiles benignly down upon him, stroking his beard. “We were talking, I believe, about the end of the world.”

“We were?”

“Everybody is. It is, I am afraid, the topic of the day. By many it is expected imminently. Perhaps before lunch. But the end of the world, Mr. Jenkins, is not an event. It is a kind of knowledge. And therefore, at least for those in the know, it has already happened. And those who are not in the know are living in sin, for ignorance is sin—the worst sin, am I right?”

“Well…”

“Of course I am. As soon as it was imagined, it was a done deal, I told you that millennia ago, don’t you remember?”

“I-I wasn’t—”

“‘But if it is by the finger of God that I drive out the devils,’ I said,” he says, pointing a finger down at Joshua as if probing for more demons, “‘then be sure the Kingdom of God has
already
come upon you.’ That’s what I said. ‘Repent ye, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.’ My very words, repeated hundreds of times. They wrote them down. ‘But I tell you of a truth, there be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the kingdom of God.’ You’re a man of the Good Book, as it is called in the trade. You have read it. Would I lie to you?”

“No! But—”

“Shut up! Apart from me you can do nothing!”

“I-I’m sorry—?”

“He was telling me I lie all the time.”

“He—?”

“That business of driving out devils like chasing hair lice, for example, he meant. Not exactly true, I admit it, but it was the way we talked back then.”

A lady enters. Like Jesus, she is also dressed in a flowing gown. A flimsy thing the color of fresh peaches. She seems almost to float. Is she walking on her toes? “Jesus! Those awful people are marching up that hill again! And they all have
guns!
I was watching it on TV until the lights went off. I don’t know
what’s
going to happen! I heard some very loud noises! I think we should excuse this gentleman and hurry back to the basement!”

“On the contrary, my dear. We too shall proceed to the infamous hill. I believe they are waiting for me.”

“No! They don’t know
what
they are waiting for! They’re completely
crazy!
Come with me now!
Please!”

Jesus, or whoever he is (she
called
him Jesus!), only smiles calmly and raises one hand in a kind of blessing. Which would be completely convincing were he not scratching himself with the other. “We shall take Mr. Joshua J. Jenkins with us. He is the grandson of a king. He will protect us.” He winks at Joshua. Is he supposed to wink back? What people is she talking about? What infamous hill? Why do they need protection? Perhaps he should have waited for Mr. Cavanaugh at the bus station. “Come! Follow me!”

BOOK I

And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals
,

and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder
,

one of the four beasts saying, Come and see
.

And I saw, and behold a white horse:

and he that sat on him had a bow;

and a crown was given unto him:

and he went forth conquering, and to conquer
.

—The Book of Revelation 6.1-2

I.1

Easter Sunday 29 March

It is the hour of dawn, but the skies are black and stormy, curtaining the sun’s emergence from the catacombs of night. A small party of climbers is struggling up the muddy slope of a steep man-made hogback ridge toward the pale wet light at the top, ghostly figures wrapped up against the elements when viewed from atop the ridge, black featureless silhouettes when seen from below against the dull nimbus, ribboned with rain, at the crest. Some lose their footing, drop to their hands and knees in the mud, swallowing down the curses that rise to their throats, mindful on this most holy morning that the stakes are high: nothing short of everlasting life. The source of which is death. That is the message of the day. For on this day, they say, exactly at dawn nearly two thousand years ago, one who died arose and walked again, promising a similar reward for all who would follow him, an easement against the anguish of death’s hard passage. “For as in Adam all men die, so in Christ all will be made to live.”
Stirb und werde
, as the Trinity Lutheran pastor intends to put it up here in the opening prayer he has been invited to deliver. Die and come to life—die and
be
—the meaning of this moment.

This the incentive for the community’s long tradition of witnessing at a prayerful sunrise service the breaking of Easter’s dawn, though never before from such a place as this: a high artificial ridge of disturbed heaped-up earth at the South County Coal Company strip mine, the easternmost of a parallel set of such ridges. For nearly half a century, the Presbyterians have held their Easter sunrise service on Inspiration Point at their No-Name Wilderness church camp, gradually expanding it over the years into an ecumenical occasion as the town population and church memberships declined; but this year, the camp was mysteriously unavailable, rumored to have been sold to a developer, and this site was chosen in its stead by the West Condon Ministerial Association as the setting for the annual celebration of the Dawn Resurrection. The light at the top of the ridge is provided by battery-operated mine lamps mounted on stanchions, which do not so much light up the area as cast a pale otherworldly glow upon it, through which the rain falls as if upon a rubbly forsaken stage, one seeded with coal chips and bits of gravel, and barren except for weedy grasses that have taken root here and there. The giant claws that sculpted this strange terrain lurk in the pooled black waters below like skeletal creatures of the netherworld, mute witnesses to the sacred ceremonies at the top.

The pastors of several different denominations are clustered under umbrellas up here, each with a few brave members of their congregations, though the minister of the First Presbyterian Church, traditional host of this event, has not yet arrived; they await him with what patience they can muster, as the remaining stragglers slowly make their way up the slippery slope to join them, feeling somewhat martyred by their own righteousness, many with hands and knees muddied and umbrellas broken. To fill the time, the Presbyterian choirmaster, huddled with his wife under a large striped umbrella with a handkerchief at his nose, is leading them all through some Easter morning hymns that no one can hear, the voices, even their own, drowned out in the lashing rain. “His Cheering Message from the Grave.” “A Brighter Dawn Is Breaking.”

When Inspiration Point at the Presbyterian church camp became unavailable, alternative locations for the sunrise service were few, the land around here being generally flat and uninspiring. One of the highest points in the area is the mine hill out at the Greater Deepwater Coal Company, an old slag heap from earlier in the century, now part of the landscape, but since the terrible disaster out there five years ago and the Brunist cult’s temporary appropriation of it for its own heretical purposes, it has acquired an unholy aura, for which reason it was not even considered. The rise at the sixth tee at the country club golf course was proposed, but not only was it deemed a secular and elitist location, there was also drinking out there and dancing and card playing and other even more un-Christian behavior. So when the wealthy owner of South County Coal and former member of the Church of the Nazarene congregation offered this ridge, it was hastily and gratefully accepted. There was some talk about canceling the event when foul weather was predicted, but as several pastors declared: What if Mary and Magdalene had stayed home on the day of Christ’s rising merely because of a few showers?

Easter sunrise services being a modern invention of American Protestant churches, there are no Roman Catholics in attendance—indeed, they have not even been invited—but there are also many Protestant denominations whose spiritual leaders oppose the very idea of ecumenism as a dilution of the true faith and a liberal corruption of the Word of God and who have discouraged their congregations from participating in this service, offering them pancake prayer breakfasts in their church basements in its stead. One world, one church: this is not the American way, and it is not God’s way. There are those who are with God and those who are not, and there always have been and always will be until Judgment Day. It is by our differences that we know one another, and those differences divide and cannot be denied. Some will be welcomed into the Promised Land, but most will not, and that’s a plain fact, the Bible says so. It’s either/or: step up and take your pick, brothers and sisters. It’s your eternity. A sign outside the First Baptist Church says as much.