James Marlon - John Crow's Devil

Her mind was made up, the Widow would stop caring. But this was the third day and he was as still as the first. At times the Pastor would open his eyes as before, seeing nothing. She wondered what kind of calamity could have happened between the two men that would leave the church in shambles and the Rum Preacher unconscious. Outside, the road was still empty, save for the teasing wind and tormenting crows. She knew that Mr. Garvey did not meddle in poor people’s affairs, but surely, she thought, he would bring back some order now. The man had the power of a massa, but perhaps the heart of one as well. Plus, he was the one who brought the Apostle here. She hoped the Apostle was dead even though she knew he wasn’t. Hector Bligh was inside her. He was a stupid man, but his stupidity had infected her, causing her to give it new names, like devotion, passion, and mission. She knew nothing of spirits, but imagined the Preacher and the Apostle’s battle a clash between Heaven and Hell, or maybe good and evil, but words like those meant nothing in Gibbeah. For a minute she imagined the Pastor as Superman in the movie serial that used to play at the Majestic. Perhaps Bligh was Superman and the Apostle a Super-Nazi-villain, and in their clash of super powers they laid the church to waste. Perhaps Bligh grabbed a bench all by himself and threw it at the Apostle, who dodged in time for it to crash into the altar. Then the Apostle would rip away a chunk of the wall and hurl it at the Preacher, who would punch the chunk to bits. Then both would fly into each other with a Bang! Pow ! The thought made her chuckle. Then she looked at Bligh, motionless on the bed, and chuckled more. Her chuckle grew into a laugh, then a fit. As tears ran down her eyes, the Widow didn’t know if she was laughing at grief or crying at laughter.

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?”

They 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.