John Crow's Devil (19 page)

Since Lucinda wiped him last she had not dressed him. He was naked and she was naked too. And there was no shame. She was glad he was asleep.

On the third day the Widow awoke to the sound of scratching. She had slept in the living room, ignoring the mosquitoes. The scratching came from his room. John Crows. They had found a way in.

“Hector! Hector! Hect—”

On the left wall in the room, words curled and twisted, moving up and down and crossway in black and smudged gray. On the right wall, words circled a huge black cross like a whirlpool that spread from wall to window to floor. On the north wall, in front of the bed, came the sound of scratching. Bligh was writing words and numbers, crosses and hexes, and things she did not understand. His hair was wild and he wore only his white pants, which were covered in black smudges. Bligh wrote with fury, cutting into the wall, his hands moving faster than he could scribble. She looked away, at the ground, and saw her husband’s papers, all scattered and covered with Bligh’s writing. The sound of scratching cut through her.

“Hector?”

He wrote to the end of the wall and stopped. Turning around, their eyes met, but the Widow blinked first. Bligh approached her, dropping the pen from his hands. She saw through his eyes to a second face, one she had never seen before, one that filled her with a mighty fear. As he stepped toward her, she moved back, step for step.

“I thought they possessed him. You understand me?” he said, but not to her. “I thought he wanted to be exorcised from them but is them who want to be free from him.”

“Hector?”

She stepped outside the doorway and only then saw the bottle standing in the window frame behind him. The cap was missing. Her husband drank rum from the same bottle the night before he died. The bottle she had hidden in the kitchen cupboard. Bligh closed the door.

Lucinda began to stroke him on the third day, this time without the excuse of soap and water. She discovered rivers and tributaries hidden between the hairs of his chest. Her fingers traveled southward and circled his navel, creating a whirlpool that disappeared inside his belly. As she pulled her fingers out of spin and inched toward his penis, the Apostle woke up. She jumped off the bed and ran to the corner of room marked off by shadow. Lucinda clutched her breasts and looked away, feeling his presence as he came back to life. The Apostle climbed off the bed and went toward her but saw his crucifix on the floor. As he bent to pick it up, she saw them. Spots, scars, red circles on his buttocks that looked like the red scar below his lip and on his chest and thighs.

“Lucinda,” York said as he turned to her in the shadow, “what do you know about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?”

THE HEALING

T
hey closed up the room to darkness and prepared the mirror. Lucinda had hesitated to carry out the Apostle’s orders but she had no choice. The world had to know that the Rum Preacher could never defeat the Lord of Hosts. The world had to be told that the Apostle had been struck a mortal wound, but that wound had been healed. Lucinda was glad her church did not preach from the Book of Revelation, for this was a Revelation battle, something she had no wisdom for. The Apostle was as wise as Solomon. He read books of Solomon that were not in the Bible—so much wisdom that not even the greatest book could hold it all.

This was not what she saw in dreams. This was how her mother spoke in her thoughts.
Nasty nayga bitch, I can smell you fishy from here. You think is you him want? Who would a want a cross-eye, chi-chi blackatouch lacka you?

In the room when he awoke, the Apostle stepped toward her and stopped so close that his chest hair touched her skin as he inhaled. She looked into his chest as he slung the crucifix around his neck. Lucinda yearned for his man-ness to rise and pierce her female-ness. Yes, she was a woman. Yes, she was beautiful. Yes, she was more than her mother. Between night and day was the real Lucinda, he would see. Her body would glow with the shock of dawn and drip with the wetness of dusk. Yes, this was a man, a father, not a papa who would leave. Yes, she would be devoted to the spirit, to him, praising his lordness and his magnificence. His hair, as it showered his sweaty face, and his manhood, that she would worship now, right now with her mouth. She stooped down, but he pulled her up.

“Lucinda.” She had not looked at his face. If she had, he would not have broken her as he did. She would have heard her mother laugh as the prophecy came true.

“What the Hell are you doing? Lord forgive this, this whore of Babylon. Where are my … why are you … Father, forgive … Get out. And dress yourself, for pete’s sake. Look here, between you and me? I just woke up. I should have my Five run you out of town, right now, but … even in this is love. Do you love me, Lucinda?

“Lucinda, do you love me?

“Lucinda?”

“Y-yes, Apostle.”

“Then build my church. There are things you’re going to have to do to make up for this gross, gross sin. Are you ready for penance?”

“Lucinda.” His voice jolted her from memory. She was in his office, but had disappeared into her own space. “Leave us,” he said.

The Apostle waved his fingers and she left him in the office with two of The Five, Brother Jakes, Brother Patrick.

“Bring him to me.”

The rest came through the side door. Clarence refused to walk in step and had to be dragged along by Brother Vixton, the man who had whipped him, Tony Curtis, and Deacon Pinckney.

“Clarence, Clarence. What is this fight for? You think your hands long enough to box God? Sit down.”

He refused, even though he limped and swayed and was close to collapse. The chair leapt out from the corner and knocked him behind the knees. Tony Curtis and Brother Vixton grabbed him just before he toppled over.

“I hear that you’ve been refusing to let people help you.”

“I hear you did dead.”

“Well, here I am, so whose report do you believe?”

“Him should a kill you.”

“I’ll let him know. Now, Clarence, don’t you think that Mrs. Smithfield have better things to do than nurse wounds that you, you, Clarence, brought on yourself? You brought judgment on yourself, you know, Clarence, don’t forget that. Look at me.”

He refused at first but then his face felt strange. The Five were disturbed. Just as Clarence’s shoulders turned away from the Apostle, his head wrenched in the other direction. He strained against himself. Then his jaw betrayed him, following the twist of his neck. His face seemed to be tearing in two. Clarence gave up the fight.

“I said, look at me. There’s nothing you can do, you know, Clarence, only One will reign supreme here.”

The Apostle pulled up his chair in front of him and sat down.

“I’m concerned about you, my brother. You’re not handling God’s discipline well at all. What’s this I hear about you pissing in Mrs. Smithfield’s bed? About you spitting the soup back in her face? Imagine a big woman like her and a big man like you and she has to clean up your feces because you’re too worthless to use the toilet. Worse, Clarence, worst of all, you won’t let her treat your back. I can smell it rotting even now. Even now, puss is growing. But you don’t care, do you? You think you’re taking revenge on the Almighty. You think you’ll just kill yourself and let him watch. You think you’ll reject God’s discipline, because that’s what it was, you know, Clarence, God’s discipline. And God disciplines those whom He loves. Do you think I love you, Clarence?

“Clarence, I asked you a question.

“Clarence, there are ways.

“Clarence, the Lord is growing tired of—”

The Apostle’s nose was hit first. Phlegm that had been pooling in Clarence’s mouth from nausea shot from his lips. Brother Vixton, needing no cue, struck Clarence in the back of his neck and he fell from the chair, yelling. The Apostle wiped his face.

“Pick him up.”

Clarence struggled against The Five, strengthened by his insolence. Deacon Pinckney stuck a finger in his back and he yelled again. He released himself in their hands and was placed back on the chair.

“Clarence, I have forgiven you. You don’t know what you do. Nor do you know what I could do to you.” He leaned into Clarence and spoke softly. “There’s still a side of your body that hasn’t been whipped yet.”

Clarence pulled back.

“There’s no limit to what I will do for my Lord. You’re breathing right now because of God’s mercy and grace, because if it were up to me, I would beat the living daylights …” The Apostle raised his hand to strike and Clarence flinched, trembling.

“Look at you. You’re like a dog afraid of his master.” He leaned into Clarence again and whispered, “Are you ready to go to Hell? You think that once you get there you can come back? Well, my dear brother, you are certainly on that road. THIS IS WHAT DRAGGING YOU STRAIGHT TO HELL!”

The Five had not expected it either. They jumped along with Clarence, but the massive pain had struck him only, and he bowled over. Two of The Five held onto his arms. He could do nothing but bawl out loud. Tears wetted his lashes and flowed freely down his face. His scrotum was still in the Apostle’s grip.

“God says that if your hand offends you, you should cut it off. What do you think I should do, Clarence?”

Clarence shook his head, trying to say no. The words formed in his mind, compounding on each other, each thought more panicked than the one before. But they failed to leave his mouth. He choked on himself.

“This is how I have you, Clarence. Right in the palm of my hand. Keep up with this sinful defiance and I’m going to forget myself and make a fist. Am I going to have problems with you?”

Clarence shook his head once more. He could only look with horror between his legs and between the Apostle’s eyes. The Apostle had worked magic. He could not move.

“Good.” The Apostle released his grip. “Leave us,” he said to The Five. “Now. But turn on the light.”

Clarence winced in the light as The Five left. When Brother Vixton shut the door, the sound jolted him and he gasped.

“Look at you. You think you’re a man. But you’re barely a boy. Look at you.”

Clarence stared at the floor as he felt his muscles and limbs being freed. The pain in his belly was fading, but he clutched himself nonetheless. The Apostle stood up and put his hand on Clarence’s head. “Clarence, the Lord has plans for you, but the Devil has plans for you too. Have you even once thought about what you have lost because of your weakness? You should have brought that weakness into the Kingdom. There’s healing in the Kingdom, you know, Clarence. Miraculous healing.”

Clarence felt an itch in the small of his back. Then the itch got worse, moving up in curves, slants, and darts. Something, one thing, many things, were moving all over his back. He thought he was going mad. They crawled up to the tip of his shoulder and went back down, traveling the well-grooved tears in his skin. The Apostle had cursed him with snakes. He tried to scream, but his mouth was dead again. He could not move. Clarence fell into spasms, his limbs frozen. The Apostle seemed sure. The snakes rubbed their scaly stomachs all over his back and under his shirt. He was petrified in the chair, his legs bolted to the floor. From his lips came the faint shape of the cry. The Apostle picked him up like paper and carried him over to the mirror.