John Crow's Devil

by Marlon James

  By the third lash we see that this really a happen. Is ten lick she fi get and by lick number six the leather cut through her back and her black skin turn red. By number eight lash she stop scream, but she start drip. By number ten her knee them buckle and she out. She start to swing as if breeze pushing her. The rope around her wrist as white as where the skin start to strip off. Her eye them shut.

  Clarence was to get twenty lash. All the time the Apostle giving God thanks, Clarence a cuss and cuss and bringing down Hellfire and damnation pon everybody in the village. The Apostle wave him two finger and Brother Vixton swing the whip like a hatchet chopping down a tree. Clarence chomp him teeth hard and shut him eye tight. Then him ask the Brother if that is the best that him can do.

  That must did make Brother Vixton whip him worser.

  True-true. Clarence start fight, but him couldn’t do nothing but bruise him wrist under the rope. The white rope turning red. Mrs. Johnson eye still shut. Clarence not saying nothing, but him grind him teeth every time the leather lash him. By lash eight, him skin all cut up and him back look like when you slice up a pig. Vixton give him a extra hard lash and the front of Clarence brief explode with piss that run down him leg.

  By lash thirteen, him gone from a white brief to a red brief. The people silent. Even the little pickney. Them either looking away or looking right past the cotton tree as if nobody swinging from it. Brother Jakes grab him boy and force him to look. Brother Vixton stop whipping and everybody just shudder with relief, but then him look pon the Apostle and the Apostle raise two finger. By lash fifteen, Clarence leg them start buckle too. Him head drop down and both him and Mrs. Johnson start swing. Mr. Johnson turn away, but the Apostle grab him and turn him round back. By lash twenty, the whip split. The Apostle say that God already will Vixton to make another bullwhip.

  God judgment done. Some of we start scratch we back and everybody feel a way. The Apostle say this is a great day for Gibbeah cause we stand up for the Son of God who name we not to say. And we do a brave thing by saying no to sin. We see Mrs. Johnson blood and Clarence blood and the two of them blood mix together and blood up the cotton tree, the ground, and the whole cemetery. This is the first time it feel like not even a dead man place have any peace. The Apostle say to leave them til 10:00 in the night and then take them down and clean them up. Mrs. Smithfield shudder when him tell she fi clean them up.

  God judgment a no play-play judgment.

  God not romping with we.

  We go home, leaving them pon the tree. None of we have nothing to say, so we just go into we own house and shut the door. Mr. Johnson go home and people who live near him say him cry all night.

  The next morning them find another calf.

  ROLLING CALF Part Three

  The Rum Preacher woke up ravenous. The Widow readied herself like an eager virgin. The table was laid before him and he ate with fury. They said nothing. He gorged himself on mackerel stewed in coconut milk, johnnycakes, roasted breadfruit, steamed cabbage, strips of bacon, potato pudding, and coffee, which she had roasted herself. The Widow had placed her chair in the room’s darkest spot. From there she looked on as the Rum Preacher came back to life. His hunger consumed the table, leaving upturned dishes and spilled gravy in his wake. And he wanted more.

  Deacon Pinckney’s son found the calf. Hopping and skipping like a masterless gig, the child tripped over its hoof. Not afraid, he prodded it. The calf refused to come back to life, which left the boy with no choice but to revive it with his magic wand, just as Mandrake did in the comic strip. But the wand was no help either. The boy thought the calf strange, lying dead in the cornfield with the head upside-down. Lucinda saw it next and immediately threw herself to the ground in a fit of intercession for the soul of Gibbeah. Preceded silently by The Five, Apostle York came to see.

  “Anybody knows whose cow this is? Whose brand is that? On the backside, whose brand?”

  “Massa Fergie, Apostle. Him keep them for the MacMillans in Brownstown.”

  “The MacMillans?”

  “The MacMillans, sah. A white family who live down a Brownstown. Them rich plenty.”

  “Rich?”

  “Like Solomon, Apostle.”

  “And white, you say?”

  “Like Santa Claus belly.”

  “So is white people, mammon-lovers, bringing the Devil to Gibbeah?”

  “Me no know if them like fish, sah.”

  “What? No, not salmon, mammon.”

  “If you say so a so, Apostle.”

  “Find me this … this Massa Fergie. He comes to church?”

  “Him used to, sah, but when lightning strike the … when, ah … it … ah … kill the other man, him take over the blacksmith shop and leave the cows to do what them do.”

  “I see. Anyway, bring this man to me.”

  By now a crowd had gathered around them, breaking corn plants with their feet. A few confirmed that this was indeed obeah let loose. Others were just relieved that there was something, some new distress, to take their minds off the smell of whipped flesh. Wickedness was begetting wickedness. The Five pulled the old man from the crowd and presented him to the Apostle.

  “Good morning, my brother. Is this your cow?”

  The man said no, figuring without fully knowing that whatever yes could mean, it certainly wasn’t good. He repeated no; after all, there was no way any cow of his could have been born with an upside-down head and he not notice. The Apostle kicked the cow’s head and Gibbeah shook. He pointed at the brand on the cow’s backside.

  “I’m no Balaam, but this ass says different.”

  The old man stooped down to look. Nerves came down on him in a flush. He knew he was being watched. He spat on the ground. “Me say is not my cow.”

  “It’s your brand. That is your mark. This is your beast. Do you deny that that is your mark, Master Fergie?”

  “Is my—I mean, is the MacMillan brand, but is not my cow.”

  The Apostle stared at him, his eyes wide open like a child. Massa Fergie spat again and watched it roll in dirt. The show of defiance wasn’t enough; the Apostle was still looking at him. Silence hovered, feebly interrupted by gulps, shuffles, and fidgets.

  “You’re right, old man. This is not your cow. This cow have a new mark, written by Satan himself! All you people who love your signs and your wonders, wonder about this. Who inverts God’s promise? Who take everything God meant for good and turns it to bad? Who twists good into evil just as easily as he twisted this cow’s neck? Well, who? Is there no voice in Gibbeah?”

  One by one, a chorus of “Satan” and “the Devil” popped off all over the cornfield.

  “A spirit of witchcraft is on this village, you hear me, but mark my words, we’re going to cut it out! Cut it out! Cut it out!”

  Lucinda’s back began to itch.

  “Burn it.”

  Followed in single file by The Five, the Apostle went back to the church.

  The Rum Preacher ate his way to Sunday. It excited the Widow just to keep up. Bligh was making himself young and her too. Nowadays she decided not to curse such things. When he prayed, which he did often, she prayed as well, not to God or to him, but to the space between them. She mixed the beverage sweeter, holding back the Seville orange and pouring extra spoonfuls of sugar. She rolled the dumpling dough softer. Her touch became light, freed from expressing bitterness in every gesture. Her hair showered down on her shoulders. She was wearing blue. The Pastor was blind to his own handiwork.

  “You goin out in that hot sun today?”

  “No.”

  “Oh.”

  That was all they said for the rest of the day. In the past, silence would be thickened with tension, but now it took on the grace of familiarity. The Pastor and the Widow had developed a way of unspeak that seemed better than words.

  A man wore forgiveness in a way unlike shame, even though both possessed a similar lowness. But in that lowness was no despondency or self-hate, only submission and release. Bligh
was beyond pride and self. The Lord had killed him. He was reborn for the second time, for one purpose. He would take nothing for the journey but the knowledge that he would never be left nor forsaken. Fear of the Lord was the beginning of wisdom, but humility before the Lord was evidence of it. The Rum Preacher would be ready. But not today.

  Lucinda rushed back to her house, hushing herself and wrapping the bandages tighter. The iodine had not stopped burning. The night before, a million screams imploded in her mouth. She had shut her lips tight, lest they escaped while the whip sliced across her back. Someone was making her young too. In the past, she could explain it as a consequence of her unclean days. But now there was an everlasting heat that she could not whip out. So she whipped harder. Lucinda was a simple woman who concluded simply. But here was something that seemed monstrous. Something so beyond herself. More than once she had come close to letting her fingers have their way again; all ten digits finding points of pleasure in the fleshy folds of her dark vagina. She could smell in herself the rawness of fish. It disgusted her, yet brought fuel to her heat. She was a simple woman who concluded simply. If one spoonful did not cure, then two would do. If ten lashes could not cure, the solution was twenty. She whipped harder. By her stripes she would be healed. Lucinda stuffed her mouth with sponge and showered her back with iodine to let the wounds scream. God was not pleased, but he would be. Of her sacrifice, she was sure of it. Lucinda was to be the bride of Christ but her ring finger got lost in a thatch of pubic hair. It was that damn Apostle. Him and those bold red books and the bold red tip of his circumcision.

  When she awoke the next day, her fever had left its damage. The bed was soaked with sweat, iodine, and blood. She wrapped herself in more bandages, so many more that the normally poised woman now seemed to develop a hunchback.

  The Apostle cracked his knuckles on the podium and addressed the congregation directly. He declared that there were demons in the church and threw himself into a fit of tongues. He declared that there was a spirit of witchcraft in the village that had to be broken for the children’s sake. He commanded the spirits gone in the name of the Father. Cows were God’s creatures, as bright and beautiful as everything else He made. The Apostle reclaimed the cow in the name of the Father. The congregation whooped and hollered. Then he called to the altar all those with a burden on their hearts.

  A few came up and the Apostle laid hands. He commanded one woman to let go of bitterness and slaughter the spirit of hate that had been killing her from the inside. He commanded her to take her virginity back in the name of the Father. She lifted her dress and the Apostle touched it, shouting to the congregation that he felt her hymen grow back. She writhed, shook, and screamed as soon as his hand touched her forehead. Then she fell to the floor, almost missing the hands of one of The Five who was there to catch her fall. She screamed again, more than her throat could bear, and began to cough.

  “I command you to come out of her in the name of the Father!” he shouted. “Spirit of witchcraft, I command you to come out of her in the name of the Father! Spirit of whoredom begone!” The woman bucked and bellowed as if her belly had begun to split open. Foam came to her mouth. Her eyes were lost inside her skull. At the same time another woman began running from one end of the altar to the other and back, screaming, “Come out o me! Come out o me!”

  The Apostle pointed two fingers and The Five went after her. He laid hands and she too fell bawling and screaming. The church was in uproar, but the organist kept playing and the choir kept singing. The ladies of the front row leapt to their feet and interceded in tongues. Others followed, rising with their arms spread wide and eyes shut tight. And yet there were others, disturbed and frightened, who did nothing but watch. By the end of the service, eight, all women, were delivered from evil spirits.

  The noise was such that even Pastor Bligh listened from his window. He threw himself into a fit of praying too, but for a different purpose.

  The Apostle declared that the curse upon the cows had been lifted, and from now on there would be no obeah cows. No more guzum. But, he added, these things were only the fruits and branches; the whole root had to be dug up. The obeah man. The Devil man. The fornicator with the whore of Babylon. The Antichrist—oh yes! Men could be witches too! Look at poor Clarence, who was so caught up in the Devil’s schemes that he corrupted a married woman in the process. Since the Devil and his children did their nefarious deeds at night, at night they would wait, and at night they would cut it out!

  Some feared and some hoped that just this once, night would renege on its promise to come. But come night did, draping her dew-wet, cricket-chirping canopy over Gibbeah. The torches were lit and the people were ready. Tonight they would go into the Devil’s camp and take back what he stole. By the blood of the Father.

  Massa Fergie feared for his cows. He was late. Night caught up with the herd on the road and he beat them hard, terrified that he might meet the Devil there. Or Rolling Calf. Maybe somebody should have told the cows that they had reason to fear. They trotted along with easy procession despite the whip, doing as they always did when it got too dark to see grass. By the time they arrived at the bullpen, all had come home save one. He ran back into the darkness after the cow.

  It took the Apostle’s holy thunder and a couple verses from the Book of Daniel to mix the crowd’s fear and rage into a mob. They moved as one beast. From above they looked like a dragon who spat fire. Tonight, tonight was when the Devil would be defeated. The Apostle began the procession, raising praising songs along the way. Midway he fell back and let the crowd, now on their own mad momentum, pass him. The Rum Preacher watched as they marched past his window.

  The cow had trapped her horn in a fence that separated pasture from river. Massa Fergie pried the horn loose, but the cow refused to move. The man cussed and pushed. He bracketed the cow’s backside with his hands and pushed with his feet. The cow moved, but only slightly. Massa Fergie pushed again, but dew had made the cow’s hide slippery. He slipped and grabbed the cow’s tail to break his fall.

  “See him deh!”

  “Me did tell you say it was him.”

  I went back into the enemy’s camp

  “Watch the man a do nastiness with the cow!”

  And took back what he stole from me

  “Obeah!”

  “Nasty man! Watch how him was feeling up the cow! You see him? You see him?”

  “Nastiness!”

  I said I took back what he stole from me

  “Lawd, him a work guzum pon the cow!”

  He’s under my feet, he’s under my feet

  Massa Fergie fled but was run down. A circle of flames surrounded him with hisses, shouts, and curses. The fires created shadows and he could see no faces. These were the demons from Hell that had come for the cow. He’s under my feet, he’s under my feet. From the fire and black came a stick that struck him in the face. He fell, horrified, as the mass of fire and darkness jumped him. He’s under my feet, he’s under my feet. The mass hollered and screamed and stomped and shouted and spat. He’s under my feet, he’s under my feet. He did not feel his left leg break nor his ribs crack one after the other, nor his nose crush, nor his temple echoing the force of several blows; the strike to the back of his head drowned the others out. He’s under my feet, he’s under my feet. The crowd hit, stomped, and burnt. He’s under my feet, he’s under my feet. Massa Fergie screamed twice, then no more. But when one of the mob released his hand and it fell to the ground, the thud had the shock of thunder. They pulled back. The mob broke apart into individuals separated by what they had done. While rage could be communal, guilt was always personal. The people ran away with their torches. From above it looked like a clump of fire had exploded into tiny, scattering embers. The Apostle stepped over the body and went his way. Massa Fergie lay in the dirt, his skull crushed and ribs bashed in as if trampled by a bull.

  UP! JUMPED THE DEVIL

  Thank you, Choir. Church, you may be seated.”

  “Ah
h. Uhum.”

  “Hmph.”

  “My God.”

  “My good God.”

  “Church, I used to think I was a man of many words, but you people, you’ve … you’ve … I’m at a loss. It’s a good thing that the Lord our God is an understanding God. A merciful God. It’s a good thing that He looks beyond that face and sees all hearts, because if God were like me He would think that the Devil took charge of praise and worship. This couldn’t be a full gospel church. I see more praise going on at a funeral! At a Catholic church!

  “But God. It’s a good thing the Lord knows your burden. Church, I too know your burden because I am God’s voice. Your heart is heavy; the lowest of the low, I know, my heart is heavy too. I was there on Thursday too, you know. I was there when the Lord spoke His justice.

  “We’re afraid.

  “We’re upset.

  “We’re distraught. Even more of us are confused and just about everybody is ashamed. Be truthful before the Lord, you, we are all ashamed. I know what you’re thinking. Thou shalt not kill, I know. That night is playing over and over in your head like that Devil music they keep sending over from foreign. But, beloved, I’m only going to say this once.

  “WAKE UP! What do you think this is? Pin the tail on the donkey, church? This is war!

  “High time some of you in here get off your blessed assurance. God didn’t come here to heal the sick, He came with a sword! We’re tearing down the kingdom of Satan! We launching D-Day on the shores of Hell. We’re going into the enemy’s and taking back what he stole. Oh Abba babba a maka desh—I wish I had a God-fearing church. The Devil is not your boyfriend. Satan is not some naked red boy with a tail and a pitchfork! The Bible says he comes to steal, kill, and destroy! Is either him or us! So what’s it going to be, Gibbeah, him or us? The Devil or the saved? But the Lord says, thou shalt not kill.