John Crow's Devil Read online

  “Little girl, you giving plenty order to man who don’t work for you.”

  “No, me ordering whichever man want him next three shot of rum for free.”

  “Drag him go where?”

  “Outside, down the road, straight to Hell, I don’t care. Just take him out o—Jezuss Chrise! Is what so stink? Don’t tell me say the man shit up himself! Take him out! Take him out!”

  They dumped him at the gate of Widow Greenfield just as dawn sneaked in under night’s empty cover. The Widow had waited. She grabbed him by the left foot and dragged him into the house. The Widow undressed him clinically, but it would have disturbed him had he been conscious. She was matronly, even aloof. Men were children anyway, only taller.

  He had no real sense of what she had done until a day later when he awoke on the dead man’s bed. In the darkness of the room they came—flashes and memories like still shots robbed of context by scattershot recollection. His head bumping across the tiles of the bathroom floor. His shirt being pulled away in one violent swoop. His feet in the air as his pants were pulled off. Him falling to a loud splash in cold water. A quick flash; the Widow rubbing her nose. A roll, a tumble, and a splash in the lilac bathtub. Lavender and soap. Wet cloth on his face, his back, his feet, and scooping between his buttocks. A hazy female. A blurred face. A hand (his?) reaching for her breasts and squeezing out of wonder, like a child. A palm striking him like black lightning. Lavender water. His chest heaving and choking, his back bouncing off blows from her hand as she forced the water out.

  She pulled the Pastor out of the tub and dried him with pink towels that smelt of soap.

  WILDERNESS

  Bligh woke up to see the sun cast a white glow. Never before had the room been so full of light. The walls that before spoke of evening now spoke of the vast expanse of noonday sky; the lightness of floating or being. The dead wood of the bed seemed to come alive and the carved vines grew real leaves, flowering instead of disappearing at the top. But the light carried no heat or warmth, only the sterility of electric light. Or Heaven’s light.

  He had finally done it. He had finally drunk himself to death.

  Every man had his own image of Heaven, shaped not by what was read or heard, but feared. His picture, loose vignettes of castles and streets and gowns and teeth all colored white, was not shaped by a dream of Heaven, but a nightmare of Hell drawn by Dante and Jehovah’s Witnesses pamphlets. The nightmare followed Bligh from childhood to manhood undiminished by his growth or knowledge. To him, Hell was not just a lake of fire and blood. Hell was a place where good lives and good intentions were burnt away, robbed forever of purpose or fulfillment. Guilt, on the other hand, was left to roam free and torment. This brought about a sense of ease that even he knew was perverse: If this was Hell then damnation was something he had already lived through. But this was something else.

  He knew she would appear, and she did.

  Hector. These are the things that must happen to you, whispered a voice that was strange and familiar.

  She looked exactly as he expected her to. A child, cherub, fairy tale, or perhaps an old evil. A strange and familiar face. White skin, light brown hair that cascaded to narrow shoulders, and eyes with no pupils. She said nothing, he said nothing, they both knew. These were the things that must happen.

  Her hair stirred even though there was no wind. He saw through her eyes to a second face and a millionth; she conjured every man and none in one blink. The girl laughed. An experienced Madonna and a divine child. She went toward him, pursing her lips as if to kiss, but from those lips she blew a hurricane. Dust whipped itself up in a torrent of screams and his world went black.

  He woke up without breath. Sleeping on his back, his own spit had choked him. Bligh punched himself in the chest, hacked, and coughed. He rolled over to the side of the bed to spit, but more than spit came. Vomit splattered the floor. His chest heaved with each spasm, punishing him with agony. His legs remained on the bed while the rest of him sunk to the floor. There was a stench and sweetness to the vomit that made him want to vomit more. His chest heaved again, but nothing came.

  “Nice, just fantastic.”

  The Widow had come in the room to see only his legs on the bed. She grabbed him by the ankles and pulled.

  “Where you rolling to, Timbuktu?”

  She smelt the vomit and frowned, covering her nose.

  “Shithouse. Tell me is not … Oh shithouse! You mother never teach you how fi use bathroom sink?”

  “I’m sorr … I’m sorr …”

  “Everybody raasclaat sorry, but is not everybody have to clean up people mess. Your God coming soon? Cause if him coming right now I giving him a damn mop! Look at this shit.”

  “I’m sorr …”

  “I’m sorry too. Sorry I let some friggin drunkard back in me house to vomit it up. Maybe I should give thanks and praises that things never come through you other hole. I goin for the bucket. Try not to vomit til I come back.”

  Bligh wiped his mouth. His face was wet from sweat.

  Hector. These are the things that must happen to you.

  Hector jumped. The voice sounded like a little girl and a man at the same time. God’s voice? He knew the sound but forgot the face. The Widow came back with a bucket and a mop. She cleaned the floor in silence as Bligh lay still in the bed, looking at the ceiling and feeling the weight of his guilt and his hangover.

  These are the things that must happen to you.

  Evening.

  “The bathroom is right through there if you don’t remember,” the Widow said and left. “You hungry?” she shouted from outside his room.

  “No,” he replied in a whisper. He was out of breath and perspiring dreadfully. The wetness alarmed him at first, but that went as he drifted into a stupor again. The bed became waves pushing him back and forth. He reached out to grab the bedpost but his hand trembled so wildly that he missed.

  “Me say if you hungry?

  “Pastor?

  “Pastor?

  “Shit.”

  He had fallen off the bed again. She thought he had passed out, but as she grabbed his shirt to pull him up, he grabbed her hand. His head rolled back and forth as he tried to hold her gaze. “Leave me alone,” he said.

  “You sickly. What I going do is—”

  “Leave me alone! You, you can’t help me. Leave me alone.”

  “Suit yourself,” she said with as much apathy as she could fake, and released him. The Widow swung the door shut and threw the room in complete darkness.

  “Jesus,” he said.

  The Pastor lost track of day and night. There was only darkness and heat. In the room of the dead man he heard nothing but the Widow’s shouts, which sounded like fake echoes from some other wilderness. He had never been this sick before. Usually the depth of his nausea could tell him how long it had been since his last drink. But this was different. Hector could not distinguish past from present or dream from real. He heard his brother cry in Heaven, Why did you betray me?

  Bligh staggered out of bed and went over to the room’s sole window. Outside, the sky had the grayness of dusk, but he did not trust what he saw. His hands trembled in both dream and truth, so he gave up on telling one from the other. Wetness ran down his face, armpits, back, and down his legs. He made one step away from the window and almost slid in his puddle. Bligh couldn’t remember when he pissed on himself.

  At first he thought demons had attacked him in sleep, but then Bligh realized that he had not slept at all. These were the dreams of the awake, torments of the Devil. He would do anything for a drink, but he could hear his voice inside his body saying no. Was that how God’s voice sounded now? Like his own, but with an authority he had never heard before? Maybe the Apostle was blessing and curse. Maybe Bligh deserved both. He fell on his knees but couldn’t pray. From the window he watched the moon as she mocked him.

  He knelt for what seemed like an hour, but he could not really tell. Outside looked like late dusk or early nigh
tfall. He glanced up at the wood planks in the ceiling and something flicked out of view like a tiny whip.

  Or a tail.

  He looked up again and saw the shadows of their scurry. Coming up and down, left and right, were rats, rats, rats, rats, rats, rats, rats, rats, rats, rats, rats, rats, rats, rats, rats, rats, rats, rats, rats, rats, rats, rats, rats, rats, rats, rats. Rats on the ceiling that jumped down on the floor.

  Hector jumped over them, stepping on one and crushing his squeal. He leapt on the bed and pulled his knees up to his chest, feeling the coldness of his pissed-up pants. Rats loved decay. In the blink of an eye, they covered the bed.

  “Jesus Christ! What the raasclaat you screaming bout?”

  The Widow had rushed into the room again, expecting the sudden smell of fresh puke. He could see the rats clearly, but could not make out the Widow’s face, only the sharpness of her tongue.

  “All around me … all around me.”

  “What? What you saying?”

  “Them all around me! All around me.”

  “What is all around you? Demon? Where? Then plead the blood, you no preacher?”

  He jumped and she jumped as well. Her fear was as real as his, even as she tried to cuss her way through it. Hector pulled himself up with the bedpost, swatting rats away from his feet. He stared at the bed, so she looked as well, at the manic folds in the white sheet and the dampness of sweat. At nothing. Then she saw his face.

  “Oh, Jesus.”

  “All around me! All around …”

  She could think of nothing else. The Widow ran out of the room as he began to scream about rats. The Pastor kicked them away from his toes and they would pull back like a wave only to roll in with more. The Widow came back with a glass, climbed on the bed, and grabbed him by the shoulder.

  “Pastor, get ahold of you damn self!”

  “Rats, rats, rats, rats, rats, rats, rats, rats, rats—”

  “Pastor!” Authority cut through illusion. The rats were gone.

  “You not seeing no friggin rat! Drink this and cure yourself.” She forced the cup between his lips before he could say no.

  Bligh spat the rum out and coughed. “You trying to kill me?” he shouted.

  “I trying to save you, you ungrateful sum’bitch! This is the only thing that can save you.”

  “That’s what—” he could barely catch his breath. “That’s what killing me.”

  “Maybe is the only thing that keeping you. Me know man like you, you know. After a while you stop breathe air that don’t have no liquor stench on it. After a while it’s all you can do, even if it—”

  “Killing me. You want it to kill me like it did your husband?”

  “What?” she said in a bare whisper. “What?” she asked again, even though she knew she couldn’t bear him saying it twice.

  “Nothing. Nothing. I said nothing. Please, go. Leave me alone.”

  She left him.

  “Mrs. Greenfield?”

  “What?”

  Bligh pulled the blanket up to his neck and spoke without looking at her. “You have a key for this door?”

  “What you think?”

  “Then lock the door. Please. Lock the door.”

  “You must lick your head. You can’t even piss by yourself and now you want—”

  “Please. I’m begging you. Lock the door. And don’t open it no matter what you hear. Please. I’m begging you. Please.”

  “Suit yourself, cause you mad as shad. But don’t shit up me sheet.” She slammed the door, leaving Bligh to feel the thickness of darkness.

  Not long after he heard the click of the key, his penis grew hard. At the foot of the bed, with her face hidden in wild black hair, was his brother’s wife. She was only a ghost now, with vapor rising from her skin. His brother’s wife was naked and white. She straddled him and he unzipped his pants. Hector closed his eyes and felt the room’s heat between his legs. But when he opened them he saw that she had no face, only a skull and a few teeth. Bligh screamed and the wife disappeared.

  “Jesus!” he shouted. “Jesus! Jesus!”

  The Widow obeyed the Pastor’s request for a day and a half. She had tried not to care, to not even pass his door, but her heart betrayed her. Mere concern, she told herself; after all, she was not made of stone. Mere concern, no different from what she had for the feeble or the elderly or the wounded or the wretched. Mere concern, she said to herself.

  On the evening of the second day, she let herself in the room. The rankness of piss surrounded her. The bed was empty. Under the window, the Pastor snored.

  “Oi, Preacher man.

  “Pastor.

  “Hector!”

  Bligh woke up. He pushed himself up by the elbows until sitting on the floor, with his back to the window. The Widow watched him. He knew she had something to say.

  “I know what happen to you,” she said, and closed her eyes for several seconds before opening them again. The Widow looked at him directly. “God leave you.”

  REVIVAL Part Two

  Women, unevenly split between wife and spinster, old and young, prepubescent and menopausal, filled the front pew. They were caught up in the way he sweated even though three fans spun above. The way he pounded into the podium: two tiny taps followed by a resounding thump whenever he said, “Cut it out! Cut it out! Cut it out!” Maybe it was the coolie blood coursing through him that made his hair seem always wet. Unruly. Moreso, they were caught up in his dance. When the Apostle gave a word, a sweet word, chased by a blast of organ and a chorus of Amens, he would jump and spread his arms wide, shouting, Hallelujah! Sweat would fly from his fingers and kiss the women in the front row who felt blessed indeed. Yet the Apostle seduced men also.

  The third Sunday, halfway into praise and worship, the church was shocked into silence. Fourteen feet, unfamiliar to holy floors, stepped nervously into church. The Apostle waved his hand and the organist quickly recovered from his pause as the choir jumped back into the chorus. The Rude Boys, the bad boys of Brillo Road, had come to church. Ungainly and in front was their leader who was dressed in his yellow T-shirt and camouflage green pants. He removed his cap and wooly locks sprung like flowers. Red bobby socks disappeared inside his shock of a shoe. The Apostle was waiting. He stretched his hand and pointed to the empty left side of the second row.

  That Sunday, the Apostle York spoke about the Front End of the Call:

  And it came to pass, that as he was come nigh unto Jericho, a certain blind man sat by the wayside begging:

  And hearing a multitude pass by, he asked what it meant. And they told him, that He of Nazareth passeth by. And he cried, saying, Thou, Son of David, have mercy on me.

  And the Son of Man stood, and commanded him to be brought unto Him: and he was come near, He asked him,

  Saying, what wilt thou that I shall do unto thee? And he said, Lord, that I may receive my sight.

  And the son of man said unto him, receive thy sight: Thy faith hath saved thee.

  And immediately he received his sight, and followed Him, glorifying God: and all the people, when they saw it, gave praise unto God.

  Lucinda had seen too much forty-five minutes earlier. Her eyes were so wide open they burnt her to tears. From that day, she would never see anything in quite the same way, but the sermon was not to be blamed.

  “Beloved, when Je— Oh praise God! When the Lord, the mighty God of Heaven and Earth, forgives you. I’m just going to read something from Matthew, Chapter Four, verse eighteen to twenty-five.”

  Fifteen minutes before the hour, Lucinda had been stocking hymnals behind the church benches. She was feline in her purpose. The woman never wore perfume, but her new freshness and bounce had brought heat and sweat, and the need to pound her chest with Cussons talcum powder until it looked like a breast of bird feathers. She now took baths with lavender floor cleaner, which she poured into the bath water, ignoring the burn in both holes. A trivial thing to do, but Lucinda had fallen in love with the trivial and now played w
ith the petty. She would tell him the hymnals were carefully stacked, just to make sure he knew that she was responsible. She wanted his approval, even if that only meant the slight rise of his left eyebrow and the tentative curl of his lips into a smile. She was surprised at how much she wanted to be wanted. Lucinda’s life had been so efficiently clipped and blinkered that she had desired nothing from a man but distance.

  “Apostle, the hymnals put out pon the bench. You want me do the Bibl—”

  The keys slipped out of her fingers and fell to the ground. She had cracked the door open slightly. Inside the office, on the floor, were red books and black books, opened and unopened and scattered throughout. The Apostle stood firmly, almost facing her, with his hands on his hips. But he was looking behind him at the full-length mirror. He was naked. Her tiny gasp cut through the din like thunder. He swung around and saw the blur of her as she closed the door and ran off.

  For the first time, Lucinda sat to the rear of the church, staring at the floor as the sermon passed by in a blur.

  … Going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James, son of Zebedee, and his brother John. He called them and immediately they left the boat and their father and followed Him.

  “Beloved, when the Lord opens your eyes, because how many of you know that we’re all blind? And if we not blind, some of us can only look behind us. But church, when the Lord opens your eyes it’s your invitation to follow!

  “Listen to me.

  “Now is the time to follow! Any time the Lord reveals something to you, He wants you to be like Elisha. Sell off everything! Get rid of everything! Join Him now, church. Don’t waste any more time in that woman bed you should not be sleeping in. Or spending that money you stole, or reading that letter that you should not be opening, or gossiping that lady you shouldn’t be gossiping, or drinking that liquor you shouldn’t be—oh, do I have a witness in here this morning? Don’t let me start preaching, church! Cut it out! Cut it out! Cut it out!