“Some Easter,” Burt Robbins says sourly, scowling at the thick black sky. Burt runs the five-and-dime, is a member of everything, complains often, contributes little, a man amused only by pratfalls and public humiliations. “And now those Armageddon nuts landing on us again. Sorry I didn’t get out there to the sunrise service, Ted. But the sun never rose. Thought it must have got canceled.”
“Me, too, Ted,” the Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Jim Elliott says. “I wasn’t even sure where it was this year.”
“Out at South County. Pat Suggs set it up.”
“That was a friendly gesture,” says Elliott with his dippy smile.
“No, it wasn’t.” Standing up there among the rainsoaked and muddied few, he’d wondered if in fact it had been some kind of practical joke, but he’d discounted it. John P. Suggs is not a humorous man, not even meanly so. It was simply a tactical move. He has tried to pin Suggs down all week, hoping to cut some kind of deal, undo this wretched business somehow; the bank has its hands on properties elsewhere in the state that could be used as a trade. But Suggs was resolutely unavailable. Ted also put pressure on Wes Edwards to renege on the sale, got nowhere. Couldn’t even get his attention. Seemed off in some other world. Ted talked to his bank lawyer, Nick Minicozzi, about trying to get an injunction on the grounds that the minister had illegally bypassed the church board; Nick said he could try, but it would be difficult, given Ted’s own earlier approval.
“South County Coal,” says Robbins, squinting in that general direction, cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth. “You know, you can probably see the Waterton whorehouses from up there.”
“Oh, nice,” says Elliott. “Of course, I wouldn’t know.”
“Serviced at sunrise,” Gus Baird says.
Jim and Burt are board members and they and Gus teach Sunday School classes. Ted doubts they’ve read any more of the Good Book than he has, but he may need them close at hand this morning to help with the rescue operation if Wes Edwards loses it or doesn’t show. Full house today. Extra rows of wooden folding chairs and more chairs in the aisles. “Couldn’t see anything this morning in that downpour. It was a mess. And so was Wes. Good thing I went out there.”
Burt nods. “Ralph says Wes was splashing around crazily in his stocking feet out there and yelling at the rain.”
“He was somewhat out of touch.”
“Just singin’ in the rain,” croons Gus Baird, the travel agent and Rotary Club president, and he does a little turn around his umbrella.
Burt laughs dryly and says, “Them two kooks should be locked up, him and his wife both.”
“Well…” And, while fresh thunder rumbles overhead, he fills them in on what he found when he got Wes back to the manse, the general disorder, foul smells, things flung about, the spilled milk in the kitchen and the smashed eggs. “Wes said he’d been trying to make breakfast.”
“Well, I’ve dropped a few eggs in my time myself,” says Baird amiably.
“On the walls?”
“Oh oh.”
“Wait a minute. What do you mean?”
“I mean, his wife’s gone.”
“Debra? Really?” Elliott turns his dopy gaze toward the manse. “Wow, what do you think? She’s gone off with some—?”
“Wait. She wouldn’t have anything to do with that damned cult, would she?”
“You can bet on it, Burt. That screwed-up Meredith kid who was in it from the start has been living with them, and he’s gone, too.”
“Oh boy,” says Elliott, flashing his stunned stupid look. “We have a big problem.” Ted has a big problem with Elliott. An incompetent drunk, holding the town back. The area still has a lot to offer — cheap energy, old rails still in place, unused land, a workforce desperate for jobs, favorable tax incentives — but Elliott is useless. The Chamber needs new blood, someone with energy and imagination and appeal to get the town back on the commercial map again. Something Stacy could do well if she’d agree to it. She’s off visiting family. When she’s back, he’ll try again.
Robbins strikes a match to light a new cigarette and says, “It’s a disaster.”
Ted rose this morning before the unseen dawn, a routine now. His emaciated wife has already had a couple of falls trying to get to the bathroom on her own, so he tries to be up in time to take her. Irene’s decline infuriates her and she’s resentful of his help, insists he shut the bathroom door and leave her alone. He grants her that, but stands by to help her back to bed again. Poor sweet Irene. It’s heartbreaking. There’d been a couple of giggling young lovers up at the aborted service who evidently, following the Easter vigil tradition of watching the rising sun dance its bunny-hop to have their loves and lives blessed by it, had stayed up all night before coming, and seeing them Ted had felt a pang of grief, remembering Irene at that age and their own premarital spring. Such a pretty thing she was, and so loving, and so his. The girl’s wet dress clung provocatively to her body and the boy slipped his hand between the cheeks of her bottom, and then he felt a sudden pang of desire, and a pang of guilt. Whereupon, with equal suddenness, lightning struck.
Across the lawn, through the crowd, he sees his son Tommy, home from university for the Easter break, leaning against the Lincoln. He looks cool, but Ted knows he’s hurting. He had given the home care nurse Easter Sunday off, so he let Tommy sleep in and be there if Irene needed anything, and when he got back from dropping Wes off at the manse, he found Tommy trying to help his mother, at her insistence, get dressed for church. The boy was down on his knees, struggling with her nylons, and he looked miserable. “Tommy,” he said, “she can’t go.” Outside the bedroom, they embraced and wept a little.
The sadness of a house saturated with the depressing odor of mortality and decaying connections got to Tommy last night, so he borrowed his dad’s car and, on a whim inspired by the home-again Brunist news, gave Angela Bonali a call to get together to talk about her new job at the bank. That conversation lasted a minute or two and then his old high school flame gave him a spectacular blowjob while the rain drummed down on the car roof, best in a long time, nearly brought tears to his eyes. He’ll see her again Wednesday when she’s off the rag. It’s a kind of anniversary. They lost their cherries together on an Easter weekend five years ago and, thanks to a couple of gut courses at university, browsing through the old myths, he now knows how appropriate that was. He has been through those juicy old rituals countless times since then, it would have been easy for her to drop out of the memory stream, but those were pretty unforgettable times. First everythings and all that, but the Brunists also helped make them so. Those apocalyptic lunatics not only stirred things up in town, adding an edge of danger and something bordering on an alien invasion, they also gifted him with a what-if line to score by. Later helped him ace a sociology course too. “Making History by Ending History” was the title of his A-plus term paper, a high-water mark in his academic career. Angie was curvy and cute back then, an inexperienced virgin like he was, but just naturally good at it. Because she liked it. She exemplified his notion of loose hotpants Catholic girls. Perfect for an uptight hotpants Protestant boy earnestly looking to get laid. Now she’s a grownup dark-eyed beauty with all the moves, plus a world-class ass and humongous tits. He gets hard just thinking about them. She’ll be big as a barn someday, but right now she’s gorgeous. And his. She’s crazy about him. Complete surrender. No limits.