by Marlon James
The Widow dreamt of dead men who swung from whips that turned into snakes, scepters, and maypoles, which then spun off several shards of red that turned into knives that shot off in all directions, killing the first born. She awoke.
Outside, Brother Vixton’s body was shiny from dew. The night had the stillness of a painting, which may be why at first the Apostle blended in. She blinked several times and still he was real, and he looked at her, his robes blowing even though there was no wind. Everything in her wanted to run, except her feet, which were planted by the window. York’s face was the only thing that was not black with the night, so when he turned away his hair bled into the dark and he vanished.
THE BLACK HOUSE
not until sundown did the Widow gain courage to step. Nobody had passed by her house since the night before. Another voice, one that she had never heard, told the Widow that no harm would come to her on the grass. Maybe it was the Lord, maybe the Rum Preacher, who had stopped speaking in words but perhaps in thoughts and dreams. The cold, dewy grass slid through her slippers and chilled her feet. As she stepped over John Crows, the Widow’s fear threatened to overtake her. She would kick a bird and it would scream, rising fully formed and malevolent. She stepped wide of Brother Vixton, fearing that the evil spirits that entered him could still cause his body to wake up. Maybe he was not dead or asleep. Maybe he was awake and waiting for her to come close so that he could rip her head off and drink blood from her neck. She stepped wide. The road was empty. Sometimes night church went on until late morning. With cutlass in hand she was ready.
Nobody had seen Mr. Garvey in a very long time. No face looked out from Mr. Garvey’s window, no sound came from his door. His nephews seemed to have all grown up and left. But there were nights when a faint light shone through the door cracks and windowsills. Him think him too good for black people. Him don’t mix. But the village was his. He owned every red building including the church. Surely he could drive the Apostle out of the village and put Gibbeah back where it used to be. She thought for a minute about what that meant. Hypocrisy was as much a shield for her as anybody else. Pretense was protection. The Widow pulled the gate, hoping that she was right and that the dogs were dead. She nearly tripped scrambling up the steps.
“Mr. Garvey? Mr. Garvey? Mr. Garvey, sir? Mr. Ga—” She threw herself down on the verandah floor. Two lanterns passed each other in the dark, bidding good night, praise the Lord, don’t be late cause the Apostle have a word bout last night. The lanterns swirled out of sight and the voices out of earshot. Guarding the door was another door with a wooden frame, covered in a tight mosquito mesh like the doors of dusty houses in John Wayne movies. She knocked and whispered his name. The night sucked out her sound.
“Mr. Garvey, Mr. Garvey, sir? Mr. Garvey?” she hissed. The cutlass shone in the dark and taunted her. As if she could kill anybody. The darkness was stealing her hope. She thought of the man in her dead husband’s room scrawling the last lines of his sanity on the ceiling.
The Widow called Mr. Garvey one last time. In a disappointed silence she turned to leave. She swung the cutlass stronger than intended and hit the door, which swung open a few inches and grated against the rust caked up in the hinges. Curious and desperate, she stepped past the first and found the second door unlocked as well. Before she let herself in, a stench confronted her, an odor far more overwhelming than the one locked up in her house. An odor that was all around her but nowhere near; just like God, she thought. Age, offal, and decay. Things that would weaken a woman. In the dark, the room felt hot and damp. The Widow stepped inside and tripped over something hard and soft, like a tough lump in a carpet. She should have carried a candle. But then she would have been seen. There she was in darkness, blind as a bat. She moved north, unsure why, and tripped again, hissing. Since the Rum Preacher came into her house, she had been wearing blue again. She had also stopped cussing.
The room reeked of spoiled meat. She knew full well the cruel joke of dead flesh. How the stench always crept up like a fragrance only to molest her with putrefaction lying beneath. It was the scent of pork left out too long or a dead batch of baby rats. Mr. Garvey’s refrigerator was closed, but the kitchen window was open. The sounds of church came into the room. She pulled the black curtain to cover the window. This was the kitchen, which meant stove, which meant matches. The pink tip burst into flame and sulphur burnt her nostrils. Light swamped the kitchen, covering the white Formica counter in a sheet of orange. Shadows in the corners of the room danced with the flickering flame. She found candles in the cupboard under the double sink.
“Mr. Garvey?” The living room was in the center of the house. Furniture was tossed out of place. Danger hung like a ghost between upturned chairs and tables. The candle winked each time it passed a broken mirror or painting. There were shattered cups, plates, and bottles on the floor. The smell of piss came from everywhere.
“Mr. Garvey?” The Widow had left the living room, following the candlelight upstairs and down a narrow hallway. The house seemed to be getting smaller. She refused to open doors that were already closed. This was as far as she had gone into anybody’s house. She thought herself no different than the John Crows or Brother Vixton who lay dead on her lawn, two who paid the price for the sin of trespass. But she had come too far and he was her only hope, even if he was a sodomite. The Widow had her opinions about old bachelors, especially those who were well-raised, rich, and still womanless. But to each his own, she sighed; Mr. Garvey wasn’t the only pervert in Gibbeah. The inseparable Scottforth twins who no longer lived in the village had separated when both tried to marry the same goat. In all her life she had known men only at their point of brokenness. The Widow protected herself with bitterness so that no man could disappoint her. To her, men had their use but they were not actually men at all. Only boys who got bigger, taller, and longer, if they were lucky. But men were broken in a way that no woman could fix. The only full man was a dead one, because that was the only time mind and body did the same thing. The corridor seemed to stretch longer.
She closed in on herself, pulling her arms tighter and hiding her neck in the hunch of her shoulders. The last door was shut but the one before was open, if only slightly.
Mr. Garvey had his back to her. She could never sit facing a window in her house as he did, his back facing the open front door. Her house was her mother’s, then her husband’s, and never felt like hers, not even after he died. How different a house must feel to the owner. On every wall would be the mark of possibility. He could do any damn thing he wanted, including nothing. He could let the house fall to ruin or blow a hole in the side wide enough for a cloud to slip in. Or he could let the house become a big toilet as Mr. Garvey had done. Then he could sit, face to the window, back to the door, as if no demon dare sneak up to him in his own kingdom.
The dark blue curtains were pulled back and through the window she saw stars. This was the rear of the house that was away from the road but close to the river. Mr. Garvey could see in the dark. Eyes like his could see through the night, the curtain, the window, and even the walls that enclosed him. From behind the huge, dark armchair she could see the tip of his head, crowned with thinning hair.
“Mr. Garvey? Mr.—Mr. Garvey? Is me, sir. I mean, is Mrs. Greenfield. I don’t know if you remember me or anything. Me is Miss Palmer daughter? You remember Miss Palmer? She dead long time now and—oh Lord Jesus, you must a wonder why this mad woman barging into you house this time o night, but Mr. Garvey, you don’t see what goin on in the place? You don’t see how the Devil taking over Gibbeah? You don’t see how people taking liberty with you land like say them own it? All sort of obeahism and Devilism and this new preacher, you don’t see what him turning people into? Mr. Garvey?”
Mr. Garvey did not answer. He remained still, his back and the back of the chair to her. She felt rejected by the wall of his snobbery. It made her angrier and bolder.
“You know something, Mr. Garvey? Me know that you no care too much bout
black people, but is not like say me asking you for nothing. After all, my husband buy fi him house, we don’t rent from you. But at least you should a care bout Mrs. Johnson house that them burn down—nuh your house that? And what happen to the cinema? You just going make all these things happen?” She was right behind him, almost touching the back of his indifference.
“Mr. Garvey, is you me talking to, you know, me know say you no deaf. Or is only brown boy mouth you hear? You think me business if you want your little idiot town to go to hell? You think me care?” She grabbed the back of the armchair.
“Is you me talking to, you stringy-hair little sodomite!” She shook the chair. His head popped off, rolled down his neck, bounced into his lap, fell to the floor, and spun until stopped by the wall below the window. From his neck came bugs, flies, and a horrendous stench. Between bone, flesh still moved, but candlelight revealed the movement to be maggots. She grabbed her mouth and screamed into the palm of her hand, but did not run. As the Widow remembered all the dead people she had seen in her life, she felt a calm that was strange even to her. She remembered Brother Vixton and the trickle of black blood that fled from his nostrils, and felt calmer still. A dead man was unable to hurt or promise.
The way Mr. Garvey cradled the things in his lap she would never have guessed them to be his genitals. But there was more. His eyes were gone and insects fed on his wetter parts. At first she thought his head had broken off from rot, but his neck was cut jagged and sharp in a butcher’s way. She turned away, looked under the desk beside him, and under the desk looked back at her.
He was barely a boy and he stunk as well. His eyes were craters, nothing but hollow circles of darkness, but they saw her. His skin had sunken onto bone and looked wrinkled, even in the silvery light. She ran from the room, feeling a heaviness that she could not understand nor bear. In the room two doors down was another body. He was bent over on the bed, the way she would be bent over by her husband whenever he wanted to see her vagina but not her face. She looked at the body and felt a similar coldness. The busy buzz of insects drew her to his back that was chopped into grooves, and his neck that was missing a head. She ran and tripped, her hand clutching the softness of fabric and flesh tearing away too easily. There were two, the first older, though still a youth, and the other a boy who seemed feminine. Maybe it was his pose, one final defiant act of effeminate grace. Bits of paper had stuck to his cheek. In the dark she could see that they were photographs, but of what she could not make out. The girl-boy had clutched the images as if transferring his spirit to them. In the fortress of these squares he could live forever.
She gathered up the pictures on the floor, tore the remaining ones from the girl-boy’s hand, and shoved them between her breasts. She understood why the smells had not wilted her. The smell of death was distinctive only when compared to the smell of life. Defeat overtook her like a sickness and she grabbed her belly and vomited. When nothing more would come, her chest still heaved. Her belly ached, her head throbbed, and she barely managed to stagger out of the house.
Getting back home would be almost impossible. The pictures scraped across her breast and stuck to her sweat. She saw Lucinda waiting at her gate as soon she stepped out of Mr. Garvey’s house. There she was, hands to her hips, her head cocked to the side to get a better view of the window. The Widow looked around for the rest of the congregation but Lucinda seemed to be alone. She up to something, that cross-eyed bitch.Them come to kill me for sure. For a second she thought to go back to Mr. Garvey’s house, but the Widow had enough of death for one night, theirs or hers. The more she thought of Lucinda and her stupid ambush, the less she cared. If it was God’s will to screw her up again, there was nothing she could do. Except to swing a punch so hard into Lucinda’s face that her right eye would become crossed too.
“What you want at me gate, Lucinda?”
She spun around, startled. The Widow stepped closer.
“Oh Heavenly Father! Thank you, Father!”
“Lucinda, me say what you want?”
Lucinda turned away and fidgeted with her skirt.
“Lucinda!”
“Oh God, oh Lord Jesus! The Apostle! Oh Jesus, the Apostle! Oh Jesus Christ Heavenly Father! Him goin kill me, Mary! Him goin kill everybody!”
THE ONE WHO DIP IS THE ONE WHO KNOW
Them doin nastiness, you know, nasty, nasty nastiness! If God did ever see such nastiness him would a blind!”
“Me look like me care? Come out o me way.” The Widow looked around for an ambush.
“Lawd a massy! Me say him goin kill me for running away. Lawd a massy!”
“Really? Somebody want to fix you business? Stand right deh so me can shine light on you!”
“Noooo! Oh Lord. Them goin kill me! Do not leave me out a street.”
“Then what me must do, you cross-eye bitch? Help you? No you go bring him here. If chicken come home to roost, don’t come hitch up in my coop.”
“Lawd, Mary, you a go make them kill me? Is evilness them goin on with. Oh Heavenly Father.”
“First you say them doin nastiness, then you say them goin kill you. Is fraid you fraid or is sick you sick? You know what? No bother tell me. Me no business what happen to you.”
“What wrong with you? Is why you so cold? Who you think them coming for next, eeh? Look what him do to me.”
Mary was surprised that she hadn’t seen Lucinda’s face before. Her left eye was swollen and her lips wet from blood. Her white dress was torn out of all modesty and her left breast puffed through the ripped cloth. Her feet were bare.
“If me never kick Clarence in him seed, me would a never get away.”
This disturbed the Widow in several ways. She and Lucinda had few things in common, one of which was distance, broken only once. Yet here was Lucinda who had forgotten that between them was nothing, not even Hello. She had even called her Mary. Seeing Lucinda’s bruises was like seeing Lucinda naked. The Widow remembered the feeling of people witnessing her own nakedness. When her husband first saw her out of clothes; her knocked knees, scarred feet, and too-big breasts, which he always attacked first. Lucinda had come into her space as surely as Mr. Greenfield had come. Mary remembered how much she disliked it. Lucinda began to cry.
“Stop the damn bawlin! Stop it, Lucinda!”
Lucinda was a woman accustomed to commands. She stopped.
“Alright, alright, you can come inside.”
“Lawd a massy! No! Me step pon fi your lawn, the grass goin kill me for sure!”
“Then what the bloodclaat you think me goin do, carry you?”
“No baba, me nah walk pon that. Look what it do to—”
“Is where him deh? Is where Brother Vix—” The Widow looked around, then glared at Lucinda.
“Don’t look pon me, is your house! Oh God! Oh God! Oh God!”
“Shut you damn trap, Lucinda!”
“Them goin kill weeee! Them goin kill weeee!”
“I goin kill you if you don’t shut up! We better go inside, all sort of foolishness seem to happen pon this street.”
“No sah! Me step pon fi you grass, me dead!”
“Nothing goin happen to you.”
“No! Is kill you want to kill me! Just like how them want to kill me! Lord have mercy pon me! What me fi do? What me fi d—”
The Widow slapped the hysterics out of Lucinda’s mouth. “Grab me hand. Nothing goin happen to you,” she said. Lucinda grabbed without hesitation, squeezing tightly. The Widow dragged her onto the grass. As the blades cut through the spaces between her toes, Lucinda let loose a tiny shriek. They stepped over dead John Crows and spots of blood-darkened grass. The lawn seemed bigger, longer. Maybe it was the tension of Lucinda pulling her back. Lucinda wrung so hard that she pulled her hand loose. The Widow grabbed her quickly, but not before Lucinda screamed. Dew got into the Widow’s slippers and made her toes sticky. She blamed Lucinda and hissed. They stepped between a mess of John Crow parts and were finally at the bottom of the steps.
“Lawks! In here so dark!”
“Yes. Night and darkness. One can’t happen without the other, but don’t tell nobody say me tell you.”
“Lawd a massy, ease up pon me, no? You know what me mean. In here daaaaark, boy.”
“I don’t feel like lighting no candle.”
“You don’t have no light switch? Me did think this was one of them modern house.”
The Widow was glad for statements such as those; Lucinda was always careless with her tongue. Cross-eyed bitch, Mary thought, remembering how much she hated her.
“I don’t feel like lighting no candle.”
“Alright, alright. Is just that is not my house and me can’t see nothing and next thing I goin—”
“Anything in this house belong to you? What you want to see in here?”
“Is just—”
“Is just that you want to poke you head into what goin on in me house. See the door deh, take you backside out!”
“No, Mary! Mary, no! Me can’t go out deh so me one! The grass goin kill me!”
“Grass can’t kill nobody. Is must—”
“The Devil!”
His name stopped her just as it would anyone in Gibbeah. The Widow had gotten used to not being like everybody else, to not being afflicted with their petty fears. But her enemy’s fright infected her.
“You is one damn mad woman. You say the Devil round me house but still you come here. You plan to drive the Apostle out with a pitchfork?”
“I—I—I don’t … Cho! You confusing me! I … Him goin kill me! You no see how him deal with you Pastor? Hector Bligh is here?”