James Marlon - John Crow's Devil

yea, many a strong man have been slain by her

Her house is the way to Hell, going down

To the chambers of death.

“This a the house! This a the house!”

The mighty man of God made one mighty step onto the Widow’s lawn and fell, first on his knees, then on his face, and his eyes went white. The ground shook like Jericho. The whip flew out of his hand and landed in the road like a dead snake. Men and women scattered, some screaming. From Brother Vixton’s eyes, nose, ears, and mouth sprung black blood. The Widow turned away. She was neither frightened nor saddened, but shivered and wept nevertheless. Below the window she collapsed, falling asleep.

The Widow dreamt of dead men who swung from whips that turned into snakes, scepters, and maypoles, which then spun off several shards of red that turned into knives that shot off in all directions, killing the first born. She awoke.

Outside, Brother Vixton’s body was shiny from dew. The night had the stillness of a painting, which may be why at first the Apostle blended in. She blinked several times and still he was real, and he looked at her, his robes blowing even though there was no wind. Everything in her wanted to run, except her feet, which were planted by the window. York’s face was the only thing that was not black with the night, so when he turned away his hair bled into the dark and he vanished.

not until sundown did the Widow gain courage to step. Nobody had passed by her house since the night before. Another voice, one that she had never heard, told the Widow that no harm would come to her on the grass. Maybe it was the Lord, maybe the Rum Preacher, who had stopped speaking in words but perhaps in thoughts and dreams. The cold, dewy grass slid through her slippers and chilled her feet. As she stepped over John Crows, the Widow’s fear threatened to overtake her. She would kick a bird and it would scream, rising fully formed and malevolent. She stepped wide of Brother Vixton, fearing that the evil spirits that entered him could still cause his body to wake up. Maybe he was not dead or asleep. Maybe he was awake and waiting for her to come close so that he could rip her head off and drink blood from her neck. She stepped wide. The road was empty. Sometimes night church went on until late morning. With cutlass in hand she was ready.

Nobody had seen Mr. Garvey in a very long time. No face looked out from Mr. Garvey’s window, no sound came from his door. His nephews seemed to have all grown up and left. But there were nights when a faint light shone through the door cracks and windowsills. Him think him too good for black people. Him don’t mix. But the village was his. He owned every red building including the church. Surely he could drive the Apostle out of the village and put Gibbeah back where it used to be. She thought for a minute about what that meant. Hypocrisy was as much a shield for her as anybody else. Pretense was protection. The Widow pulled the gate, hoping that she was right and that the dogs were dead. She nearly tripped scrambling up the steps.

“Mr. Garvey? Mr. Garvey? Mr. Garvey, sir? Mr. Ga—” She threw herself down on the verandah floor. Two lanterns passed each other in the dark, bidding good night, praise the Lord, don’t be late cause the Apostle have a word bout last night. The lanterns swirled out of sight and the voices out of earshot. Guarding the door was another door with a wooden frame, covered in a tight mosquito mesh like the doors of dusty houses in John Wayne movies. She knocked and whispered his name. The night sucked out her sound.

“Mr. Garvey, Mr. Garvey, sir? Mr. Garvey ?” she hissed. The cutlass shone in the dark and taunted her. As if she could kill anybody . The darkness was stealing her hope. She thought of the man in her dead husband’s room scrawling the last lines of his sanity on the ceiling.

The Widow called Mr. Garvey one last time. In a disappointed silence she turned to leave. She swung the cutlass stronger than intended and hit the door, which swung open a few inches and grated against the rust caked up in the hinges. Curious and desperate, she stepped past the first and found the second door unlocked as well. Before she let herself in, a stench confronted her, an odor far more overwhelming than the one locked up in her house. An odor that was all around her but nowhere near; just like God, she thought. Age, offal, and decay. Things that would weaken a woman. In the dark, the room felt hot and damp. The Widow stepped inside and tripped over something hard and soft, like a tough lump in a carpet. She should have carried a candle. But then she would have been seen. There she was in darkness, blind as a bat. She moved north, unsure why, and tripped again, hissing. Since the Rum Preacher came into her house, she had been wearing blue again. She had also stopped cussing.

The room reeked of spoiled meat. She knew full well the cruel joke of dead flesh. How the stench always crept up like a fragrance only to molest her with putrefaction lying beneath. It was the scent of pork left out too long or a dead batch of baby rats. Mr. Garvey’s refrigerator was closed, but the kitchen window was open. The sounds of church came into the room. She pulled the black curtain to cover the window. This was the kitchen, which meant stove, which meant matches. The pink tip burst into flame and sulphur burnt her nostrils. Light swamped the kitchen, covering the white Formica counter in a sheet of orange. Shadows in the corners of the room danced with the flickering flame. She found candles in the cupboard under the double sink.

“Mr. Garvey?” The living room was in the center of the house. Furniture was tossed out of place. Danger hung like a ghost between upturned chairs and tables. The candle winked each time it passed a broken mirror or painting. There were shattered cups, plates, and bottles on the floor. The smell of piss came from everywhere.

“Mr. Garvey?” The Widow had left the living room, following the candlelight upstairs and down a narrow hallway. The house seemed to be getting smaller. She refused to open doors that were already closed. This was as far as she had gone into anybody’s house. She thought herself no different than the John Crows or Brother Vixton who lay dead on her lawn, two who paid the price for the sin of trespass. But she had come too far and he was her only hope, even if he was a sodomite. The Widow had her opinions about old bachelors, especially those who were well-raised, rich, and still womanless. But to each his own, she sighed; Mr. Garvey wasn’t the only pervert in Gibbeah. The inseparable Scottforth twins who no longer lived in the village had separated when both tried to marry the same goat. In all her life she had known men only at their point of brokenness. The Widow protected herself with bitterness so that no man could disappoint her. To her, men had their use but they were not actually men at all. Only boys who got bigger, taller, and longer, if they were lucky. But men were broken in a way that no woman could fix. The only full man was a dead one, because that was the only time mind and body did the same thing. The corridor seemed to stretch longer.

She closed in on herself, pulling her arms tighter and hiding her neck in the hunch of her shoulders. The last door was shut but the one before was open, if only slightly.

Mr. Garvey had his back to her. She could never sit facing a window in her house as he did, his back facing the open front door. Her house was her mother’s, then her husband’s, and never felt like hers, not even after he died. How different a house must feel to the owner. On every wall would be the mark of possibility. He could do any damn thing he wanted, including nothing. He could let the house fall to ruin or blow a hole in the side wide enough for a cloud to slip in. Or he could let the house become a big toilet as Mr. Garvey had done. Then he could sit, face to the window, back to the door, as if no demon dare sneak up to him in his own kingdom.