He staggered, feeling one with the scum of the earth, right down the rainsoaked middle of Main Street, telling anyone who cared to listen that he just didn’t give a shit, understand? then past St. Stephen’s where he had a kind of grievous heart attack that didn’t quite come off, past the homes of old buddies, Judases all, past the Bruno house, guarded now by burly troopers in white crash helmets, past his whole fucking life into total and eternal oblivion, reeling like an old blinded bull come mad to town.
There had been one moment today, there in the Church of the Nazarene, when, in spite of all his overcrowding misery, he’d been at peace with the world, a wild exhilarating bounce back from his notorious television appearance the night before — now, how had those TV bastards known they were going to go spooking Friday night? Robbins and Castle’d pay for that some day — the unspecified back scenes of which (were his pants zipped up? he’d been scared to look) had not escaped his wife and daughter.
It had started at Mass. His old archenemy Red Baxter, that sonuvabitch who’d once called Vince “a mealymouthed henchman for fascists,” had stormed into the Cathedral with all those raving Brunist crackpots, had laid into the altar and organ with a mining pick, had torn down paintings, and had even seemed set to slaughter the old priest. Vince had leaped up, followed by six or seven others, formed a human wall in front of Father Baglione, and held the Brunists to a stalemate. They had finally pulled out, but not before that goddamn Bruno had spit in the Father’s face. Baxter had railed at the congregated, calling the Church a whore: “I tell you, it has become a habitation of demons! and a haunt of every unclean spirit! and by the wine of her lust all the nations has fallen! and the kings of the earth has committed fornication with her, and the capitalists of the earth has waxed rich by the power of her wantonness! But listen here! I tell you, they shall weep and wail over her, when they look upon the smoke of her burning!” Burning! that was too much! Vince had plunged for the bastard, but guys had held him back. “There’s too many of them, Vince!” And Baxter, passing, had called him personally “a drunkard and a Jew and a fornicator, an intriguer dealing in the souls of men!” Vince then had seen what Bruno really was: he’d thought he was just a nut, but he was the very force of evil right in the flesh, the antichrist whose black spirit oozed out of him like an obscene vapor and penetrated all West Condon — could even penetrate the world! This was a battle of the spirit!
So, when it had broken up, they did what they had to do. Gathering up hatches and hammers, rifles, whatever they could find, they went, Vince leading them, to the Church of the Nazarene, about a dozen of them. It was a cheap squarish dump with false brick siding, a kind of one-room schoolhouse with a high loft and a damp crotchy odor. They bashed out all the windows, knocked out the lights, broke up the pews and folding chairs, tore out the wiring, smashed the pulpit and the old upright piano, ripped the songbooks. The thing that frustrated them was that no matter what they did to this dime-store junk, it didn’t compensate for the brutalizing of their Cathedral, but as they worked a kind of exhilaration did sweep over them. This was a holy thing, and they swung with the might of God empowering their bodies. Like a great horned beast in God’s service, they fell upon that place of sin and crushed it. They chopped the doors off the hinges, tore the toilet out of the floor, which caused the place to start flooding, broke into a small office. In there, they found a small desk, Baxter’s probably, almost nothing inside it: they chopped it up. They were sweating and they were feeling good. They dumped the books out of the shelves, heaved the shelves through the window, and tore up the books. Sal Ferrero said, “Hey, Vince! That’s a Bible you’re tearing up!” “But it ain’t a Catholic Bible, buddy!” They found two revolting paintings on the wall which they studied a moment before smashing. One was a grossly sensual male devil, bloated, cruel. The other was a hideous woman with snakes. “My God!” said Guido Mello. “What kind of place is this!” They left it nothing but rubble.
When it was done, they felt fine, they’d labored hard and had a good sweat up, they felt powerful and the axes and rifles swung firm in their hands, but they didn’t feel satisfied. “What next?” they wanted to know.
“Let’s go to the hill,” Bonali said.
Tremendous crowds jammed all the streets, they could hardly get through. Lay down on the horn and bulled ahead. Three carloads in tandem, ax handles and rifle barrels poking out the windows. Two or three guys, seeing them, piled in with them. Vince picked up Chester Johnson. “Hey, boys! didja see me on TV?” he preened, and Vince felt his neck flush. Rough laughter, deep in the throat, from the backseat.
The going was easier once they hit the mine road. Vince, leading, gunned it, had his old crate doing eighty before they reached the mine—“Well now, goddamn, I jist don’t think she’s gonna take off,” Johnson drawled — then saw ahead of him a barricade, slammed the brakes, skidded, nearly spun, pulled her out, shimmied to a halt, jumped out, found the cops and a bunch of shopowners off Main there.
“What the hell?” he asked, too loud, but he couldn’t help it. “You not gonna let them get to the hill?” He felt cheated somehow, but his heart was racing like a sonuvabitch, and his hands were sweating.
“Aw sure,” said Maury Castle, grinning at Vince — that goddamn fatface cocksucker! maybe this was the moment! “But, see, we just happened accidental-like to have scheduled our first annual spring carnival out here this weekend.”
Vince didn’t get it at all. “Whaddya mean, Castle?”
“Buck a head, Vince. Games and refreshments for everybody.”
Vince stared at Castle. “You guys always got it figured, don’t you?” Castle only shrugged, stared off. Vince went back to the boys, waiting for him there, half out of the cars. He realized then he was still swinging an ax. “Should we just bust on through?” They didn’t like the idea, seeing the cops there; he felt them shrink back from him. Just then, Vince spied Cavanaugh on the other side of the barricades. Something told him not to, but he hollered out: “Hey, Ted!” He grinned at the others. “Come on, you guys. Ted’ll let us in.”
They all climbed out, followed him up to the barricades. Ted came over, looking like a mortgage-holder, and said, “I thought I asked you to stay clear of here today, Bonali.”
Vince went cold all over. Didn’t hate, just felt emptied out, brought down. “I thought you might need me,” he said weakly. He felt his shame radiating behind him.
“Say, what the hell are you carrying there?”
“We just come from the—” But he decided not to mention it. Ted was a Protestant, too. He wouldn’t understand.
“Romano, I don’t want any goddamn weapons out here!”
Romano and Monk Wallace came out from behind the barricade, collected the rifles and axes. “Now, either pay your buck, boys, or beat it,” Romano said.
Bonali, crumbling into ruins, turned to go, but some of the other guys started forking up. “Hey! you gonna go along with that shit?” he hollered at them. It was a gray muggy day and his sweat was sticky on him. Something sick was lodged in his stomach.
“Take it easy, Vince,” said Mello. “This is gonna be pretty funny. I don’t want to miss it.”