John Crow's Devil (28 page)
The door was open. The smell of burnt meat flew at him. Her table was set for two and from the bathroom came the steady patter of the shower. In the bedroom was her dress, pressed and laid out on the bed. The Widow was gone. The Apostle smiled to himself and left, but as he passed the table, what he saw crippled his spirit. A photograph, faded to sepia but still appalling in its detail. A boy of eleven, unwise to the world, yet deep in the knowledge of his sex. A boy who posed like a girl and received Aloysius Garvey and his fat preacher friend like a whore. A brown boy with wet, unruly black hair that glimmered like a thousand tiny eyes. The Apostle was racked with shudders. He could neither cry nor scream.
Lucas,
said a voice. The Apostle’s lips formed the shape of the word “Uncle,” but this he could not say. Hopelessness overcame him, but rage as well. He slammed his fist on the table, breaking it in two. Outside, the sky gathered clouds through which the dying sun shot the redness of October. Rain would fall soon.
S
unlight twisted and danced through leaves to hit the ground in bold yellow strokes. The trees were greener than anyone had ever seen them. There was no movement, only light. Three rainy months had passed since Gibbeah burnt their fallen brothers, sisters, sons, and daughters, and life was a blessing. This was the prophecy. God had not left nor forsaken them, for they had food and they had fellowship.
One month after the village killed Hector Bligh, Lucinda was buried in the church cemetery. She had leapt from her room window, prompted by three voices that spoke to her in the shattered mirror. Lucinda had flung herself to the ground on a Saturday afternoon and on her back was a dead dove, its wings spread wide.
Nobody approached the Widow’s house. The Apostle decreed that it should be left alone; a reminder of the consequence of disobedience, the greatest sin. Gibbeah would be the most holy place. An Old Testament place. Soon the Lord would return and He would make His dwelling here, for they had the fragrance of worthiness. And why should the Lord not make His home in Gibbeah? He once made His home in Bethlehem, a ghetto then as now. Galilee, where even the people stunk of fish. And Capernaum, which was worse than Galilee. No, the Lord was coming. The sky would fall and down would come chariots of light carrying the Heavenly host.
Children were most useful to the Kingdom. The Apostle taught school himself. The School of Boy Prophets learned together, ate together, and slept together. There was no mother and father, only God the eternal Father and his son the divine Apostle. They were the cornerstone of his new church. A new Eden, and like Adam they had no need for shame. Girls did not go to school. They worked with their mothers, making meals and cleaning shit, until one or two or all of The Five were ready to usher them into glorious womanhood.
Three new men joined The Five to bring it back to five. All were sixteen, and all were hungrier below their pants than above. Brother Jakes had refused to give up his spot, despite being blind in both eyes. There was nothing he could do; leaving his house was dangerous, with an obstacle at every turn. He was at the mercy of others now, and his wife, faithful to the last, served him fritters the way he liked, along with chicken foot pumpkin soup. She served him as a dutiful wife should. And when she had her children spit or piss in the soup or had the oldest scoop up dried dog shit to mix with the fritter batter, all Brother Jakes’s mind saw was devotion.
The fence was finished. It was not as high as Jericho, but high enough to convince outsiders not to trespass. The bridge was gone and the river grew violent and impassable. Soon, vines, leaves, and flowers attacked the wood and barbed wire with malignance and consumed the fence. Old villages disappeared from new maps often, whether they chose to or not. Within the fence no soul was hungry. They met as one in the church, sat in the pews, and drank porridge that the women made from ground corn. All water now came from the river, which ran though holes dug near the fence.
The Five had the hand of judgment. Mrs. Smithfield complained of being sick and tired of corn porridge. She scowled as she swallowed the last glob of slop and scowled all the way back home and through women’s service. News of her displeasure had not even reached the Apostle before The Five paid her a visit. She never grumbled again. She never walked without a cane either.
Sunlight teased his nose and he awoke. Clarence climbed out of bed and went to the window. They lived at the Garvey house now, after The Five purged it of all iniquity. The French windows now had no curtains. Sunrays rushed into the room and he bathed in light. The day before, he saw four of The Five march through the gates carrying a boy and a girl, both no more than fourteen. He ran downstairs. The study was already closed and bolted from the inside. Clarence pressed his ear against the door but heard nothing. He knew what would happen. Two more children. This was the second time in two months. The first two were a boy and girl as well, caught as they tried to climb over the fence. They were disciplined. The Apostle would not tolerate defiance, especially from the young, especially after God said suffer the children to come to Me. “Married? Married?” Clarence heard the mocking tone of the Apostle. Clarence could not make out any more words but he knew the sounds. They came as no surprise, the Apostle had a method for everything. The boy’s cry was expected. There was only one place on a boy’s body that when hit, he would cry like a girl. The girl’s cry was expected, long and loud at first, then long and quiet after two, three, or four punches. Tony Curtis would rape her first, his ape yelps drowning her scream. Brother Patrick, after discovering how tight an anus was, would leave her vagina to the sixteen-year-olds. The rebellious boy would watch, learn, and be saved. The Apostle would tell them they only need one love—for God and His servant the Apostle.
Saved. The word brought Clarence back to the present, the light, the room, and the Apostle, snoring under purple sheets.
He had to piss. Clarence walked out of the room, leaving the door open. The bathroom was two doors ahead. He pissed, flicked himself, and turned to go back, when looking down he saw blood on the floor. Blood, but also slime in the shape of his foot. He looked up and there were more footprints, all with blood and slime that mingled but did not mix. He sat down on the toilet and lifted his right foot to see wet sores. When he rose, there was blood on the seat.
Outside, dust flew forward and dust flew back.
Syphilis, the great imitator, is a symphony in four movements. Like religion, it has no being in itself, but lives in the lives it touches. Like a God or a Devil. There are four movements. The first exists mostly in darkness, hiding more than showing. A spot on the anus, a lesion on the vagina, a corpuscle in the mouth that vanishes as quickly as a miracle. The third movement hides deeper than the first, waiting low in the flesh until time to rise again. The fourth movement comes with madness and blindness, consumption and illness of the breath. This is the trinity. One with soul and body after mind has been rotted. But the second movement is the one that leaves a trail.
A trail of blood and slime oozed from the puss-filled sores on Clarence’s legs and feet. He had thought they were spots or scratches from the birds that were not healing quickly. Clarence ran back into the bedroom gasping, but stopped when he saw the Apostle, who sat up waiting on the bed.
“This is not death, this is life,” the Apostle said. “This is not death. This is life. Any man who believes in me shall never die.”
Clarence’s head spun. He trusted the Apostle to be the center, not the spinner. His bloody footprints seemed to be walking by themselves, around the room in circles upon circles.
“Any man who believes in me shall never die.”
Before the Apostle, Clarence was never really religious, not even when he went to the altar as he always did. God was something learned, never felt. The Apostle taught him new worship at the altar of the human body, communion with sweat and semen. But there was one lesson from church that he now remembered. One thing that the Apostle had said that he never truly believed. Clarence had not noticed this before, for he had no reason to say it himself. But his own blood brought the word back, sparking memory of another’s blood, pricked from the rib with a spear. A name that was erased from Gibbeah with ease. He looked at the Apostle, who was already stroking himself and said, “Jesus.”
The Apostle choked.
“Jesus.”
“Don’t say that word! Don’t say that fucking word!”
“Jesus.”
The Apostle rolled out of bed, yelling. He covered his ears and tried to run but tripped on a bloody, slimy footprint.
“Jesus.”
“Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! I am the Messiah! I am the way, the truth, and the—”
“Jesus.”
The Apostle writhed on the floor. He was still screaming when Clarence walked over to him. The Apostle’s hands swung wildly, fighting off the spirits that he used to control.
“Jesus,” Clarence said again, and watched the Apostle shake. Clarence grabbed the lamp from the table beside the bed and removed the shade. He swung high and clobbered the Apostle in the face. He struck him again and again, smashing his eye back into his skull, bursting his bottom lip, breaking his nose, and cracking the back of his head. The Apostle put up little resistance. Clarence bludgeoned him until his hand fell tired, until the Apostle’s blood consumed him, until York’s skull crushed soft, like a pumpkin. Then he bludgeoned him until the lamp broke. Blood was splattered all over Clarence’s skin. It was a new baptism.
“Jesus,” he said.
T
he Apostle had not been seen in two days. The rest of The Five believed Clarence when he said that York wanted to rest and not be disturbed, but were surprised when he did not show up for the School of Boy Prophets, given his special interest in children. The village was surprised as well. Clarence knew what was coming. He bolted the door and laid the Apostle in the bathtub filled with water. The water was bloody, soaking the Apostle’s body with crimson. His beautiful face was gone. Clarence wanted to die, but he wanted to live as well. The Five would most certainly kill him once they found out. But he was already dying.
Perhaps he and the Apostle could stay in the room forever. York had known him for who he truly was, and there was nothing to go back to now but lies. He heard a murmur in the wind. As Clarence looked out the window, he saw the crowd, the people of Gibbeah, gathered outside the house. He went to the bathroom. Any minute now The Five would kick down the door and kill him for what he had done. Clarence climbed into the tub, laid on top of the Apostle, the only living thing he ever loved, and embraced him. The Apostle sank underneath crimson water and Clarence sank underneath too.
The people wanted answers. It was not like the Apostle to leave his flock unattended for two days. Tony Curtis stood at the gate while Brother Patrick went toward the door. Just then a woman screamed. The crowd panicked and several fled. On the gate landed a dove, right beside Tony Curtis, who also ran, yelping in terror.
But not everyone left. There were a few who remembered that a dove was a bird of promise, not judgment. The dove flew and they followed his flight, running along Brillo Road until they came to the fence, which was covered in greenery. The river roared as the bird flew over to the other side. Through the spaces between leaves they saw the other side as well. They saw judgment and redemption, rescue and damnation, despair and hope.
She was dressed in a long, light blue dress and men’s work boots laced up to her calves. She wore a wide straw hat that blocked the glare of the sun, but not the view of her face. As the wind whipped itself up and her dress blew like waves, the Widow raised her right hand and pointed two fingers.
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