James Marlon - John Crow's Devil

Six men, seven women, and three children got saved on Sunday. lived outside Gibbeah and would never be seen again, but the number was still more than all the years of Hector Bligh’s pastorship, by Lucinda’s count.

Just after he prayed for salvation and sent the newly saved to their seats, the Apostle commanded The Five to remain at the altar. There they lingered, one standing alert, one fidgeting, one glancing right, the other left, the last to the floor, all fearing they would be made an example of.

“In the name of the Father I rebuke the evil spirit. I bind it by the blood of the lamb! I loose it from their dreams and thoughts and cast it back into Hell.” Then York spoke a language never heard before. All that happened next, happened to Tony Curtis first. Mute since an accident at twelve, he screamed a noise that shook the church. He had not yet fallen when the rest of The Five began to yell, scream, and fall to the ground in spasms. People remembered that before Lillamae stabbed Pastor Bligh she had damaged each of The Five who tried to subdue her. So when Brother Vixton leapt up screaming, Hallelujah! his stiff neck was stiff no more. Brother Patrick remained on the floor bawling at having taken his first deep breath in two years. Deacon Pinckney clutched his left eye and cried when he saw out of the right one. Brother Jakes thanked the Lord that he wore tight briefs, as his miracle brought a flush of fear. His blessing stood erect all the way home, where for the first time in two years he could violate his wife.

“You think it goin dry by itself?” she said, an annoyed parent in the weight of her tongue. She was in the bathroom with Pastor Bligh, losing her patience. After eleven years with a man, she no longer recognized the walls that men and women kept up between each other. To turn away from a man merely because he was undressing or shitting seemed as absurd as lying about the blueness of sky. She certainly wasn’t leaving before he handed her the shorts.

This was what she would do to him, he knew it. She would make him young, but only in the most wicked sense of the word. He was to be reduced from man to child, helpless and under manners.

She left him there, closing the door with a man’s strength and stirring up a wind that chilled him. Lavender rose up to his nose.

After she became a widow, Mrs. Greenfield restored femininity to the bathroom. The rest of the house still carried the manly stamp of her husband’s presence. Rooms with patterned wallpaper that haunted her with tobacco, Old Spice cologne, red dirt, and Earl Grey tea that only he drank. The bathroom was not only pink but lilac and purple, with a translucent shower curtain trimmed with crocheted lace. An oval carpet covered the tiled floor and the lid of the toilet. The mirror, also an oval, mocked him and he looked away.

This must have been where she reclaimed herself. But there was nothing about the Widow that he could color pink, lilac, or purple. Maybe this was where she left behind a former self.

Water hit the back of his neck and he pissed on himself. He had heard of showers but had never felt one before this day. Little rays of water sprung from multiple holes like a hydra and attacked him at once. He raised his arms and let the water wash away secret stenches. Water beat his face, punched his eyelids, and pushed wrinkles away from his cheek. What a thing this was to make him feel young again. This was a chance to be new. God’s gift.

Pastor Hector Bligh was fifty-three years old but guilt had pulled down his face. The promise of towering height was thwarted by his slouch. He was on the brink of a new resolve when his thoughts went south. The shower had led him to believe too much. He wondered if people left their homes similarly deluded every morning because of invigorating water jets. His dirtiness could never be washed away. The Widow barged back into the room, unconcerned with his shock or shame.

“No you just bathe in river water?”

“N-no … Y-Yes … I …”

“Suppose you need white soap to feel white as snow. Here me think you did need the holy spirit. Suit you’self. Towel in the closet outside. Anyway, I need the toilet.”

“The toi—”

“Me have to pee-pee! You understand me now?”

She pulled down her panty before he went to the door. He left the room clutching his crotch, almost slipping as his wet feet skidded across the floor. Before closing the door he heard her piss stream pierce through the pool of toilet water. The Pastor grabbed a towel from the closet and waited in the hallway. In minutes she emerged, wiping her hands on her skirt.

“Follow me.”

She took him down the hallway to the dining room, which had a dim light. From the dining room she swung left and he followed her to a darker bedroom. Although only 2:30 in the afternoon, the room spoke of twilight. Clothes were everywhere, as were chests, cupboards, and books that had not been opened since her husband died. In the center of the room was a four-poster bed. Each post had been carved with a pattern of vine leaves, which twirled and danced to a knob at the top. The Rum Preacher thought of Jack and the beanstalk and an invisible giant suspended right below the ceiling but above the bed.

“You can stay in here.”

“This is where—”

“Yes, this is where. Yes. But since him — I don’t sleep in here no more. Any more of me business you want to know?”

“No. Tha—”

“Dinner at 5:30. I suppose you can wear him clothes even though him did little shorter than you. I suppose if him have a problem him can always tell you, you bein spiritual and all.”

Once alone the room became larger, more blue, more twilight, less him. Bligh remembered again he was fifty-three years old. He had his life all planned out by twenty-two. At forty he would slip into retirement for twenty years, after which would have come obscurity, gardening, and death. Irrelevance was to come after, not before. For a God so ambiguous, there were no two ways about his punishment.

Dinner was to be served at 5:30 p.m. Hector Bligh whispered a prayer that along with the sunlight, memories of the day would lose color and fade into blackness

“The food getting cold.”

He sat down. For a woman who seemed to care little, she certainly prepared a table before him. There was simply no way she could have cooked all of this herself. Yet many women in denial of the emptiness that death brought still cooked as if the home was full. This was nothing new. Behind the mask of extravagance was the void cut open by grief. She had fried chicken in batter with honey garlic gravy to the side, steamed rice and peas and sweet potatoes, crushed bananas with butter, and shredded sweet carrots and cabbages together, then sprinkled them with cane vinegar. In the center of the table was a large glass pitcher with red punch beside two plastic cups.

“Help yourself.”

He would have rather she helped him. This was an uncomfortable experience, filled with disquiet. He remembered the unease, a child’s discomfort as he waited for his father to punish him. In that stiff silence there was nothing but the agony of him guessing. Too much food would be gluttonous. Too little would be scornful. Oh that he could simply eat like a man and be done with it. Women wanted men to be men, after all. Why else would such bounty be laid before him? Why prepare a table in the village of enemies? He piled a mountain on his plate. Food all steaming, dripping, savory, and chunky. His first real meal in years. The Pastor had a woman who cooked, but her meals suffered from an unsavory sameness. Two bites into the Widow’s meal, he almost choked on bliss. Juices came alive on a tongue that once felt dead. A million zesty kisses, each more delightful than the one before. The plate was empty and restacked in minutes.