A beautiful spread! Goddamn, he had too much good stuff! Eight-column banner: BRUNISTS PROPHESY END OF WORLD! Four-column photo of the group on Cunt Hill, lit by the car lights he’d arranged and shot from the shaggy crotch by Lou Jones. Two-column mugshot of the Prophet in his new tunic, which Marcella had let him get for “inspirational” purposes. And inspirational it was: wonderful dark head afloat in pale white light; forehead, nose, cheeks — all looked as though chiseled from granite or marble, while the uncombed black hair and dark shadows in the throat, mouth and brow seemed almost like concentric circles leading inward to the glittering black pupils of his fierce eyes. Other photos through the issue of the free-for-all on the front lawn with the Baxterites, of Clara Collins’ house burning and the Brunists sifting through the ruins the next day for clues, of the Common Sensers assembled and excited, of the altar in the Bruno living room with its bizarre assortment of relics and instruments. There was an exquisitely grim three-column blowup of the Black Hand and, on the back page, some pictures from the Bruno family album, including a news photo from the late twenties of old Antonio Bruno bringing a gun butt down on somebody’s luckless head during the union struggles — same glittering eyes as his boy and a grin splitting his tough lean jaws. Miller was working up ideas for a special Millennium’s Eve TV documentary, if he could just sell the notion to one of the networks, and that picture of old Antonio was one he meant to use. Then, as if he wasn’t already overloaded, the school board had provided him an unexpected bonus story by firing Eleanor Norton last night. He dug up a somber group shot of the board, never before used because they all looked so sour in it, and ran it with cutlines that all but made grand inquisitors of them. Except for these cum-incensed types, as Lou Jones called them, Miller’s stories were essentially objective — meaning, he left it up to the reader to decide if the end might really be coming or not.
Of course, the greatest story would have to remain untold. Happy’s description of Giovanni’s abdominal scars had rung some kind of bell in his mind. She’d said they were all horizontal or vertical, but, though intricate, had no apparent design to them. It made him think of cracked wood and that made him think of the wooden statue of Saint Stephen in the local Catholic Church — its patron. He’d first noticed it at Antonio Bruno’s funeral a month ago. The mere fact that it was a Roman Catholic burial had troubled Clara’s people, but the excuse given that it had been the old woman’s pious wish had pacified them. The strangeness of the Cathedral, in fact, was probably the only thing that had kept the Nazarenes from completely losing their heads back then — as it was, they got a sudden stiff injection of awesome grandeur that would no doubt color the rest of their days. Antonio had been properly Disneyed up for his jolly journey, it would seem, to lollypop land, his bloody nose cured and even straightened in death. In fact, it was his very artificiality, oddly giving life to the statues in the Cathedral, that had drawn Miller’s attention to the boyish Stephen. Torso writhing, eyes turned inward to confront death, arms twisted up over his head, the boy was naked but for the usual loincloth — typically half-off, as though about to get raped — which hid away the prick beneath the soft girlish abdomen. Whereas old Antonio’s flesh had been ivory-smooth, the boy’s body was finely cracked, paint chipping off, joints separating. After Happy had tipped him off, he’d made a trip back to the Cathedral to see for himself: yes, the belly was that abstract fretwork of tiny scars she had described. Happy, when he took her there, had not only confirmed it, but located a kind of “LOF” in the right groin that had caused all the girls at the hospital to wonder if it stood for “love” or “laugh.”
The whole shop caught the day’s excitement. The ad force was instructed to keep quiet but to sell to beat hell, since there could be lean days in the offing. A boycott wouldn’t surprise him. Cavanaugh had already told him that “too extreme an exposure” might jeopardize the paper’s readership, might cause Miller to “lose contact with citizens here,” and this exposure was going to be pretty extreme. The front office was abuzz with anxious whisperings and Miller overheard that a couple of the girls had been approached by somebody who had asked them to quit or at least to protest if the newspaper they worked for insulted their community or their faith. Lou Jones, long chafing for this moment and unable to grasp why Miller had waited so long, was ecstatic now that it was on, which was to say, he wore a kind of half smile and smoked cigars all day. For his typesetters in the back, it was all the same: war, markets, recipes, disasters, end of the winter, end of the world. On the other hand, his pressman Carl Schwartz was in high spirits: perhaps he saw another holiday in the making, or another bonus — or maybe it was just his elation at receiving a gift from a whore.
Once all the copy had been hooked and layouts sent back, he headed out for a quick lunch. Already feeling a little giddy with what was coming. He skipped Mick’s, stopped in a drugstore for a sandwich instead, found Maury Castle and Vince Bonali in a booth there. Bonali had emerged as a new Cavanaugh protégé via the Common Sensers, and turned up on Main Street pretty often these days. Now a grin split his dark face from ear to ear.
“Hey, Tiger!” Castle boomed. “I was just telling old Vince here that story about the whore in Waterton, the one your boy laid the night after the disaster.” A quick glance told Miller that the little girl at the soda fountain and two ladies at another booth had heard it, too.
“Funny thing happened last night,” Miller said. “Dinah gave Carl a silk shirt.”
Castle roared with laughter. “No shit!” he bellowed. “What was it, his birthday or something?”
“No,” Miller said. “It would have been her brother Oxford’s birthday.”
There’s a small green sprout in her garden. She examines it closely. No, not a weed — birth! She feels a hand on her shoulder. But not his. She smiles up at Mr. Himebaugh. He clasps his hands in front of him, as though embarrassed, makes his sad face smile timidly. Such a child, and yet he is so wise and kind. He has been almost a father to them both since their own father died, and though he eats here almost daily now, he buys all their food and has undertaken many of her own tasks. Especially those touching her brother. “Is it a flower?” he asks. “I think so,” she says. He crouches down to see, loses his balance, steadies himself with a pale hand on her knee. “Yes, yes, I think it is!” he says.
Mort Whimple was waiting for Miller in the office when he got back, and said, glancing toward Jones, that he wanted a quiet personal-like talk. They went into the jobroom. Miller wondered if he had heard somehow they were breaking the story tonight. “What is it, Mayor?”
“Tiger, I just wanted to talk to you alone a minute.” Whimple was a small rolypoly man with a big nose, short forehead, close-cropped hair, wore colorful clothes too tight for him. Had a big idea of the swath he cut. Jones called him Wart Pimple. “Tiger, I’m in a spot. You’ve been a big help to me before, and maybe you can be again. Even if only for a little goddamn advice.” Whimple’s narrow eyes got so sincere, it looked like they might cross.
“Shoot.”
“Well, in a sense, now don’t take me wrong, but in a sense, I am West Condon, Tiger. I don’t mean that in any arrogant self-conceited way, goddamn it, you know that, I just mean I sometimes feel this whole town inside me. Organic like.” Miller shuddered at the image. “When something ain’t functioning right, I get to feeling sick. You know what I mean? Well, things ain’t functioning right now, Miller. And I’m feeling pretty cruddy. I’m sorry, but that’s the only goddamn way I know how to put it.”