1
Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee seven and seven, the male and his female …
West Condon, as though unable to gaze any longer upon the deep black reach of night, rolls over on its back to receive the Monday sun, now rising, as men say, in the eastern sky: the eye of God, the golden chariot, the communal hearthfire and source of life, the solar center that, for all its berserk fury, still works its daily anodyne magic on man’s ultimately incurable disease of dread and despair. Its first rays glance off the top of the West Condon Hotel, the high school flagpole, roof and treetops, the Deepwater No. 9 tipple and watertower, and, close by, the small irregular rise, now internationally known as the Mount of Redemption, where this morning occasional white chicken feathers lie like a fall of manna, their barbs gummed into clumps by the dew. Although no one is out at the mine, on the flagpole, or in the treetops, and thus cannot see the sun until at least another hour’s roll has lapsed, and though, as a matter of further fact, almost none will bother to look at it when it can be seen, its radiations are nevertheless early perceived: they shred dreams, calm the sleepless, turn West Condon on: clocks sound, radios crow, throats hack, razors buzz, frypans heat, toilets flush, children scuffle, doors bang, church and school bells ring, forks clink, toasters pop, motors turn over, sweepers roar, it is Monday morning.
Justin Miller, editor and publisher of the West Condon Chronicle, rouses himself from the jobroom sofa, where he has spent the night, camera at his side, in a vain attempt to catch further demonstrators or looters in the act. He feels, in a word, rotten. Dirty, unshaved, tired, disgusted. When there is enough light, he steps outside in the street to take photos of the broken windows, the cross on the door, then develops and prints them immediately for quick sale to the wireservices and photo magazines. He decides to leave the damages unrepaired as one further curiosity for the newshounds who will descend on the town, noses at the ready, this weekend — indeed, the back lot of the hotel is already filling up with cars — and now simply boards up the windows from the inside with cardboard ripped from packing boxes. He is still at the task when his office and advertising people begin to arrive, and, given his bearish temper this morning, he is hardly delighted to learn that his indispensable office girl, bookkeeper, librarian, classified ads chief, and social columnist Annie Pompa will not show up … for “religious” reasons, one of the other girls explains, then tenders her own resignation. “Ah shit!” the editor is heard to lament.
The morning does not go well. The ad force returns glumly from futile rounds, reporting they weren’t even allowed in the door most places. Miller encourages them not to worry about it, he anticipated as much, didn’t he? A little patience and things will return to normal. The girls up front, those who remain, receive angry phonecalls canceling subscriptions, but he tells them to accept them gracefully and to arrange for larger bundles to be left at newsstands. No one, he knows, will want to be without the paper, and after it’s all over they will all renew. Without Jones, however, the pressures of the day mount. Miller attempts to gather most of the routine material by phone, but gets almost no response from anyone. Even Dee Romano at the police station hangs up on him.
Just before heading to Fisher’s coffeeshop for breakfast, he hears from Barney Davis: the mine is closed. He banners that instead of the Brunists, but ties it to the Brunist story. At the coffeeshop, he finds Robbins, Elliott, and Cavanaugh already discussing the closing, the word having flown ahead of him. Cavanaugh turns his back as Miller enters. Amuses him. Cavanaugh could be like a little kid playing cops and robbers, getting mad and going home when the others wouldn’t fall dead when shot.
“Highest paid industrial worker in the U.S.,” Robbins is snarling. “If he had any brains, he’d take a cut in pay to keep his goddamn mines open.” Cavanaugh settles into his traditional role of defending the moderate labor movement, Elliott agreeing with everybody. Merest rituals.
“Pecan waffles, Doris,” he says. They turn on him, then turn away.
“Don’t get me wrong,” Robbins is arguing. “I’m not saying the miners don’t deserve good pay and good working conditions. I’m only saying—”
“They don’t deserve good pay and good working conditions,” says Cavanaugh.
“In a lot of ways now, you have to admit, Burt’s right,” Elliott offers by way of mediation. Right is right: he’s a goddamn fascist. And so on. Over and over. “Coalmining is a marginal business these days, and the union has pretty much brought on itself the closing down of so many.”
Traditionally now, it is his, the expert’s line: “That and dieselization of the railroads and strip-mining and the profit motive and the rising cost of machinery and underground gasification and rulings on—”
“Hark ye,” interrupts Robbins, “to the white turd!” Not even much laughter. It is, from their end of the counter, all too true. Well, anyway, they’re reading his newspaper. And, in spite of their anger, in spite of his battered plant and decimated force, even in spite of his breakup with Marcella, Miller feels oddly pleased with himself. He has not, by God, been assimilated.
There is an awkward silence then, and something seems to be missing. Puzzles Miller for a moment. Then he realizes it is Jones’ absence. At just such moments, Jones would always grunt, cueing the others to amused attention. Time for a story. Most likely horrible, for Jones was horrible, horrible but decorated with a deathly humor, for Jones was also funny. The Father. A reservoir of gaudy misery, he collected horror like others collect stamps. And he never failed to get them. They always attended when Papa Jones cast his bloody pearls. Now, without him, they stand, exit as a group.
“Where’s Wally this morning?” Miller asks Doris, who has just cleaned the crud off the grill with a dishcloth which she is now using to dry a few coffee cups.
“Who, the boss?” She arches one penciled brow, loose-wristedly flaps a palm at him. “Spent the night on the Legion floor. Can’t walk, can’t turn his neck, can’t talk, he’s in a hell of a mess! When I seen him coming down the street like that, I thought, oh-oh! Doris, old girl, you better take the day off! But you know what?”
“What?”
“He come in giggling like a idiot!” Doris whirs one index finger around her ear. “Now he’s upstairs sleeping it off.”
A couple East Condoners enter the coffeeshop, take stools at the other end of the counter from him. Look at first like newsmen, but they turn out to be salesmen passing through. Newspapers — including his Saturday night edition — rattle, eggs sizzle and pop on the grill, coffee cups clank. The salesmen kid with Doris and the one reading the Chronicle asks if she’s ready to meet her Maker.
“Which maker?” she retorts flatly, hand on grease-stained hip. “I been made by so many, I wouldn’t know one from the other.”
The salesmen whoop at that. Even Doris grins as she flops the eggs to platters, glances over at Miller and winks. And now, treated to this classic, they will travel and the word will be carried. Miller grins at that, as Doris turns, flips up the top of the waffle iron. Sloppy as she is, she never misses the moment: they’re always golden brown.
Miller receives them. “A blessing, Doris!” he praises, pouring syrup. “You’re a goddamn saint!”
The Brunist Mrs. Betty Wilson is waiting for him on his return to the office, posted plumply and skittishly in the chair by his desk, and her news depresses him deeply: Giovanni Bruno seems much stronger now, it’s almost like he’s suddenly come alive, but his sister, she says, hasn’t eaten a bite or said a word for nigh on a week now, and she seems, well, a bit strange. “Sometimes she don’t even, even take care of herself, Mr. Miller. But nobody blames you, Mr. Miller. Leastways, not me or Clara or Wanda or Mary. We know they’s more to it than meets the eye.” What met the eye was Marcella arriving hysterical and more or less stripped.