The Brunist Day of Wrath: A Novel by Robert Coover Page A

overwhelmed by all this heady speculation and fearful that he might be inadequate to the charge laid upon him—he was only a B student, after all. But at the same time he feels he has indeed been chosen, if not by Jesus, then by his genes, and he knows that, either way, there is nothing he can do about it. Thus, he’s a Presbyterian after all.
    He also understands that he who has taken up residence within is not so much the Risen Christ, about whom there are still doubts, as the suffering Jesus who was betrayed and forsaken. He too has suffered and has been betrayed and forsaken. They share this. Which explains in part why Jesus has chosen him. I have chosen you out of the world, he said. I can see you are a prophet, for you bear the wounds of one.
    With the Lord, Jesus says now, a thousand years are sometimes as one day, and sometimes a day is as a thousand years. This day has been more like the latter. One wonders if it will ever end.
    I have often wondered the same each year on this day. Even now I should be doing baptisms, christenings, evening services, who knows what all. All in celebration of your rising.
    What’s there to celebrate?
    Did you not arise from the dead?
    No, Jesus says with what might be a sigh (it causes bubbles in the bath water). My time has not yet come. Is it not evident? What would I be doing lodged in here if it had? It has been one insufferable tomb after another.
    Then it has all been a lie! A fabrication!
    No, no, my son. Remember your Golden Bough . Truth is not fact. Don’t confuse myth and history.
    But the Bible says—
    Wishful thinking. Mine, everybody’s. You know better than to trust that book. I’m still waiting. Though I have no expectations. Perhaps waiting is the wrong word.
    But they saw you! They said so!
    Did they? People will say anything to draw a crowd.
    “No, they didn’t see me, Wesley. I promise. I was careful.” It is not Jesus Christ who has said this. It is Priscilla Tindle standing in his bathroom door. Drenched, her wet hair in her eyes. “I have been so worried about you. I came here right after church but you weren’t here.”
    “But how did you get in? I thought the door was locked.”
    “It was. I came in the back door. The garden gate was bolted, but it’s easy to scale. Are you all right? Somebody has thrown eggs all over your kitchen wall.”
    “I know. I did. I was trying…to understand something…”
    “I didn’t mean to intrude, Wesley. But I had to warn you. I heard Ralph talking with Ted Cavanaugh. They’re going to send you to a mental hospital. They plan to ask Debra to sign the committal papers. They’re also recruiting the entire Board of Deacons as backup witnesses. That’s why they talked to Ralph about it.”
    This is not a surprise. He and Jesus have surmised the same. Even now, Jesus is saying: Have I not so prophesied? All the same, it is an alarming prospect. He remembers Debra’s tales of poor Colin. Electric shock treatments: What do they do to you? And what if that’s not all? Is her signature enough to authorize a lobotomy? They will destroy his creativity and thwart his mission. How can he prophesy from inside a mental institution? Who will take him seriously? “Tell me. Do you think I’m crazy?”
    “No, Wesley. You’re different. But I believe in you. You’re the most sane man I know.”
    “Who do you say,” he asks speculatively, “that I am?”
    “You are a saint, Wesley. A noble and kind and wonderful man. A teacher. When I came to you for help, you told me about the megalo-psychoi. The great-souled ones. You are one of those.” She is standing in the room now and removing her wet clothes. Jesus is remarking on her lithe, interesting body. She and her husband Ralph were both once dancers and she is still in good shape. When she came to him for religious counseling (she confessed: “I don’t think my husband is completely a man…”), it somehow got a little too personal. Perhaps because he had tried to