John Crow's Devil

by Marlon James

  Greenfield looked at her eyebrows, raised for pity above her crossed left eye. He burst into a laugh that bounced all over the gorge through which the river ran. He pushed her away and she lost balance. When she fell backways in the river he walked off, not bothering to dress himself beyond a towel. She could hear him laugh all the way up to Mary’s house.

  Not long after that, on the day Lucinda helped her wash, her mother collapsed in the river. Bowing under a pregnant noon sun, the left side of her body went dead and she stumbled into rough water. Her mouth was half speaking, her eyes half blind, and her body half asleep. Lucinda watched as river currents ran over her mother and she drowned. Despite having use of only half her body, the woman might have saved herself were it not for Lucinda, whose pinning foot never left her mother’s head until water forced its way into her lungs and killed her in jerks. There was to be no funeral. The night welcomed Lucinda back. In a bonfire she threw lizard skins, cat skeletons, and a dog’s paw that her mother had saved in vinegar. Mary and Mr. Greenfield were married the next day.

  Lucinda, having resigned herself to never again experience the misery of a man, took over Sunday school. Mary Greenfield would never have children and her marriage died long before her husband did, killed by stillbirths, mistrust, and jealousy.

  Both women now found themselves compelled by men they barely understood. The wind nudged the Widow from her sleep and blew toward the church. Outside, noon burnt in silence. She knew that something had happened. The Widow ran to the church.

  THE RECOVERY

  The Widow Greenfield and Lucinda met in the church as they came to take their men away. Both men were unconscious and the building was at peace. The Rum Preacher lay in the aisle with benches scattered all around him. His white suit was covered in dirt and filth and his body had the heaviness of death. The christening pool at the rear of the church had been toppled over and water covered the floor. She grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled.

  Lucinda screamed. She could not find the Apostle. There was a tower of rubble at the altar from the broken podium, wood planks that had been forced free, tapestries that had been torn down, and pieces of the organ. At the bottom was a stiff hand that pointed two fingers. She leapt over chairs and benches and pulled away with the strength that came with panic. The Apostle had a gash above his forehead and a line of blood that divided his face. Lucinda turned and glared at the Widow, but she was almost out the door. The Widow pulled the Rum Preacher through the door as the wind waited. Outside, John Crows had gathered on the steeple and the cross. The road was empty.

  That night the Widow was prepared for the town’s vengeance. She refused to light the candle, preferring the protection of darkness. Night swept down with stealth, unconcerned with the events of the day.

  She had laid him in the room her husband was supposed to have died in. She imagined that she could smell Bligh’s presence in the room now. That depressed her even more. She never smelt her husband’s presence until he died. This would be what God would give her, grief. She cursed God under her breath, and the Rum Preacher, who made her wear blue.

  Bligh’s sleep was not like sleep. Nor was it like death. Nor was it like before, when he would jump up and scream from nightmares and fall back into the bed. This was different. His hands were cold, but his heart, when she touched his chest, beat swiftly as hers did when she was frightened. She pulled up a chair beside his bed and sat there until sadness lulled her to sleep.

  The scratching jolted her awake. A branch swung against the window, scraping the glass. She rose and went to the window to see a John Crow flying away into the night. The Pastor was in the position she last saw him before she fell asleep. His hands to his side, his body stiff, but something was different. His eyes were wide open.

  “Hector, Jesus Christ! Hect—”

  She ran over to him and grabbed his hand. He said nothing, staring at the ceiling.

  “Hector?”

  She waved her hand over his face. He was not awake. The Widow wished right there that she still had a hardened heart.

  Lucinda had put the Apostle to bed. That was no easy task, the Apostle was the heaviest man she had ever held, heavier than all the drunken men she had helped her mother throw out of the house. He was not dead and that filled her with hope, but he did not respond to her begs or cries, not even those made to the Lord Himself. Lucinda had long resolved to never again experience the misery of a man, but misery overcame her, like a plague or a great spirit. Day Lucinda took off his jacket and shoes, and as she looked at his pants, Night Lucinda entered her heart.

  Lying flat on his back, his crotch seemed to have risen like a new mountain. A black hill between the huge ridges of his thighs. She forced herself to return to grief, but failed. She thought of her back and of the whipping, but neither could take her mind away from his bulge, hidden in black pants. She prayed for herself and left the room.

  Outside in the dark, the half moon saw her. In the silver light, Lucinda saw herself for what she really was. A beast, not the false creature in church clothes. The moon knew that she spoke to Sasa and rubbed goat’s blood on her breast. Far below grief was lust, and like any other sin, it came with opportunity.

  Inside, the Apostle had not moved. Lucinda watched the rise and fall of his chest and the rise of other things that did not fall. She took deep breaths and closed her eyes. God will punish you for your wickedness, said Day Lucinda. Touch where life come from, said Night Lucinda. She sat down on the side of the Apostle’s bed and touched his feet.

  Just this once, the Widow wished she knew the things of the spirit. Perhaps then an angel would come and tell her what had happened. She was a woman of reason, bitter though it was. He should be at a hospital, she said to herself, but that was impossible. There was only this bed, hot water, and hope. She would not pray. That morning while she washed his body he looked like a child interrupted. There was innocence, promise, and waste. She cried for a man who could not cry back. She washed his hair, rubbed his wrinkles, scrubbed his chest’s curly white hairs, and washed his feet. He lay on the bed, still. Maybe he too would rise on the third day. The Widow could only hope. She would not pray. At the window she saw the church and the Garvey house. Both rooftops were covered with John Crows.

  On the evening of the second day, Lucinda wiped the Apostle from head to toe in warm water and soap. There was no need—his body smelt like incense—but Night Lucinda knew what she wanted. She had promised herself penance, so she gave herself over to abandon. Lucinda’s prayers were not for the Apostle, but for herself. He lay on the bed like a Greek statue toppled from a page in his books. Lucinda had stayed in his room all this time.

  She wiped him clinically at first, distributing soap evenly over his body, avoiding his phallus one minute, accidentally brushing it with her rag the next. The second wipe she did with care, using warm water, fearing that cold water would wake him. She ran the rag along his neck and felt his heat and pulse. There were spots on his body. Little red circles like the one below his lips. They were islands swimming in skin. From his chest to his thigh she used his spots to create a map, with a treasure chest in the center of his body. The Apostle groaned and Lucinda jumped, grabbed the rag and basin, and climbed off the bed. He was still unconscious. Were he to wake now, there would be no explanation. But perhaps there would be no need. Night Lucinda hissed; the sound of hunger. Her eyes explored the Apostle. His ruddy face hidden in his beard, the red scar below his lip, and his long arms. She would stare at his bushy chest hair and follow it right down to the center of him. When he tossed and his phallus swung pendulous, she touched herself.

  Her mind was made up, the Widow would stop caring. But this was the third day and he was as still as the first. At times the Pastor would open his eyes as before, seeing nothing. She wondered what kind of calamity could have happened between the two men that would leave the church in shambles and the Rum Preacher unconscious. Outside, the road was still empty, save for the teasing wind and tormenting cr
ows. She knew that Mr. Garvey did not meddle in poor people’s affairs, but surely, she thought, he would bring back some order now. The man had the power of a massa, but perhaps the heart of one as well. Plus, he was the one who brought the Apostle here. She hoped the Apostle was dead even though she knew he wasn’t. Hector Bligh was inside her. He was a stupid man, but his stupidity had infected her, causing her to give it new names, like devotion, passion, and mission. She knew nothing of spirits, but imagined the Preacher and the Apostle’s battle a clash between Heaven and Hell, or maybe good and evil, but words like those meant nothing in Gibbeah. For a minute she imagined the Pastor as Superman in the movie serial that used to play at the Majestic. Perhaps Bligh was Superman and the Apostle a Super-Nazi-villain, and in their clash of super powers they laid the church to waste. Perhaps Bligh grabbed a bench all by himself and threw it at the Apostle, who dodged in time for it to crash into the altar. Then the Apostle would rip away a chunk of the wall and hurl it at the Preacher, who would punch the chunk to bits. Then both would fly into each other with a Bang! Pow! The thought made her chuckle. Then she looked at Bligh, motionless on the bed, and chuckled more. Her chuckle grew into a laugh, then a fit. As tears ran down her eyes, the Widow didn’t know if she was laughing at grief or crying at laughter.

  Since Lucinda wiped him last she had not dressed him. He was naked and she was naked too. And there was no shame. She was glad he was asleep.

  On the third day the Widow awoke to the sound of scratching. She had slept in the living room, ignoring the mosquitoes. The scratching came from his room. John Crows. They had found a way in.

  “Hector! Hector! Hect—”

  On the left wall in the room, words curled and twisted, moving up and down and crossway in black and smudged gray. On the right wall, words circled a huge black cross like a whirlpool that spread from wall to window to floor. On the north wall, in front of the bed, came the sound of scratching. Bligh was writing words and numbers, crosses and hexes, and things she did not understand. His hair was wild and he wore only his white pants, which were covered in black smudges. Bligh wrote with fury, cutting into the wall, his hands moving faster than he could scribble. She looked away, at the ground, and saw her husband’s papers, all scattered and covered with Bligh’s writing. The sound of scratching cut through her.

  “Hector?”

  He wrote to the end of the wall and stopped. Turning around, their eyes met, but the Widow blinked first. Bligh approached her, dropping the pen from his hands. She saw through his eyes to a second face, one she had never seen before, one that filled her with a mighty fear. As he stepped toward her, she moved back, step for step.

  “I thought they possessed him. You understand me?” he said, but not to her. “I thought he wanted to be exorcised from them but is them who want to be free from him.”

  “Hector?”

  She stepped outside the doorway and only then saw the bottle standing in the window frame behind him. The cap was missing. Her husband drank rum from the same bottle the night before he died. The bottle she had hidden in the kitchen cupboard. Bligh closed the door.

  Lucinda began to stroke him on the third day, this time without the excuse of soap and water. She discovered rivers and tributaries hidden between the hairs of his chest. Her fingers traveled southward and circled his navel, creating a whirlpool that disappeared inside his belly. As she pulled her fingers out of spin and inched toward his penis, the Apostle woke up. She jumped off the bed and ran to the corner of room marked off by shadow. Lucinda clutched her breasts and looked away, feeling his presence as he came back to life. The Apostle climbed off the bed and went toward her but saw his crucifix on the floor. As he bent to pick it up, she saw them. Spots, scars, red circles on his buttocks that looked like the red scar below his lip and on his chest and thighs.

  “Lucinda,” York said as he turned to her in the shadow, “what do you know about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?”

  THE HEALING

  They closed up the room to darkness and prepared the mirror. Lucinda had hesitated to carry out the Apostle’s orders but she had no choice. The world had to know that the Rum Preacher could never defeat the Lord of Hosts. The world had to be told that the Apostle had been struck a mortal wound, but that wound had been healed. Lucinda was glad her church did not preach from the Book of Revelation, for this was a Revelation battle, something she had no wisdom for. The Apostle was as wise as Solomon. He read books of Solomon that were not in the Bible—so much wisdom that not even the greatest book could hold it all.

  This was not what she saw in dreams. This was how her mother spoke in her thoughts. Nasty nayga bitch, I can smell you fishy from here. You think is you him want? Who would a want a cross-eye, chi-chi blackatouch lacka you?

  In the room when he awoke, the Apostle stepped toward her and stopped so close that his chest hair touched her skin as he inhaled. She looked into his chest as he slung the crucifix around his neck. Lucinda yearned for his man-ness to rise and pierce her female-ness. Yes, she was a woman. Yes, she was beautiful. Yes, she was more than her mother. Between night and day was the real Lucinda, he would see. Her body would glow with the shock of dawn and drip with the wetness of dusk. Yes, this was a man, a father, not a papa who would leave. Yes, she would be devoted to the spirit, to him, praising his lordness and his magnificence. His hair, as it showered his sweaty face, and his manhood, that she would worship now, right now with her mouth. She stooped down, but he pulled her up.

  “Lucinda.” She had not looked at his face. If she had, he would not have broken her as he did. She would have heard her mother laugh as the prophecy came true.

  “What the Hell are you doing? Lord forgive this, this whore of Babylon. Where are my … why are you … Father, forgive … Get out. And dress yourself, for pete’s sake. Look here, between you and me? I just woke up. I should have my Five run you out of town, right now, but … even in this is love. Do you love me, Lucinda?

  “Lucinda, do you love me?

  “Lucinda?”

  “Y-yes, Apostle.”

  “Then build my church. There are things you’re going to have to do to make up for this gross, gross sin. Are you ready for penance?”

  “Lucinda.” His voice jolted her from memory. She was in his office, but had disappeared into her own space. “Leave us,” he said.

  The Apostle waved his fingers and she left him in the office with two of The Five, Brother Jakes, Brother Patrick.

  “Bring him to me.”

  The rest came through the side door. Clarence refused to walk in step and had to be dragged along by Brother Vixton, the man who had whipped him, Tony Curtis, and Deacon Pinckney.

  “Clarence, Clarence. What is this fight for? You think your hands long enough to box God? Sit down.”

  He refused, even though he limped and swayed and was close to collapse. The chair leapt out from the corner and knocked him behind the knees. Tony Curtis and Brother Vixton grabbed him just before he toppled over.

  “I hear that you’ve been refusing to let people help you.”

  “I hear you did dead.”

  “Well, here I am, so whose report do you believe?”

  “Him should a kill you.”

  “I’ll let him know. Now, Clarence, don’t you think that Mrs. Smithfield have better things to do than nurse wounds that you, you, Clarence, brought on yourself? You brought judgment on yourself, you know, Clarence, don’t forget that. Look at me.”

  He refused at first but then his face felt strange. The Five were disturbed. Just as Clarence’s shoulders turned away from the Apostle, his head wrenched in the other direction. He strained against himself. Then his jaw betrayed him, following the twist of his neck. His face seemed to be tearing in two. Clarence gave up the fight.

  “I said, look at me. There’s nothing you can do, you know, Clarence, only One will reign supreme here.”

  The Apostle pulled up his chair in front of him and sat down.

  “I’m con
cerned about you, my brother. You’re not handling God’s discipline well at all. What’s this I hear about you pissing in Mrs. Smithfield’s bed? About you spitting the soup back in her face? Imagine a big woman like her and a big man like you and she has to clean up your feces because you’re too worthless to use the toilet. Worse, Clarence, worst of all, you won’t let her treat your back. I can smell it rotting even now. Even now, puss is growing. But you don’t care, do you? You think you’re taking revenge on the Almighty. You think you’ll just kill yourself and let him watch. You think you’ll reject God’s discipline, because that’s what it was, you know, Clarence, God’s discipline. And God disciplines those whom He loves. Do you think I love you, Clarence?

  “Clarence, I asked you a question.

  “Clarence, there are ways.

  “Clarence, the Lord is growing tired of—”

  The Apostle’s nose was hit first. Phlegm that had been pooling in Clarence’s mouth from nausea shot from his lips. Brother Vixton, needing no cue, struck Clarence in the back of his neck and he fell from the chair, yelling. The Apostle wiped his face.

  “Pick him up.”

  Clarence struggled against The Five, strengthened by his insolence. Deacon Pinckney stuck a finger in his back and he yelled again. He released himself in their hands and was placed back on the chair.

  “Clarence, I have forgiven you. You don’t know what you do. Nor do you know what I could do to you.” He leaned into Clarence and spoke softly. “There’s still a side of your body that hasn’t been whipped yet.”

  Clarence pulled back.

  “There’s no limit to what I will do for my Lord. You’re breathing right now because of God’s mercy and grace, because if it were up to me, I would beat the living daylights …” The Apostle raised his hand to strike and Clarence flinched, trembling.