John Crow's Devil

by Marlon James

  “Yes, Apostle.”

  “Good. You’re my hound, Lucinda, and he’s a jinnal, just like a fox. When a fox is hiding in his hole there’s only one thing we can do.”

  “Flood the hole, Apostle?”

  “Flood the? What? No, no, my simple child, when a fox runs to his hole you have to flush the bastard out. You have to flush him out.”

  “How we flush him, Apostle?”

  “Not we, you. He has to believe you, Lucinda. Thank the Lord that He has chosen you for this serious, serious task. You are first among women! Thank the Lord that He has predestined you to go into the enemy’s camp. All we have to do know is make him believe you. That old bastard can read faces, Lucinda, we have to make sure that he reads only one thing.”

  Then he set Clarence upon her like a dog. She could see his enjoyment; the glimmer of comeuppance in his eye. This was his revenge for the whipping. But the Son had to suffer before he was glorified. So did Job. And Jacob. And Jeremiah and Paul. This was God’s work and He would reward her with love. The Apostle’s love, which would be a reflection of God. York would be her sun and she would be his moon, reflecting his light and blinding those underneath her. But Clarence wore the Apostle’s clothes now. She dismissed such things with logic. After all, how would a empty-pocket bad-breed nayga like Clarence afford good clothes, now that him get promoted? She knew who had the Apostle’s heart. That was why he asked her to make the sacrifice, to go into the Preacher’s camp and lure him out. This was no different from the father asking the son, so that afterward the son would sit at the right hand of the father.

  She smiled at having served the Apostle so well. Memory had deceived her before, but this morning Lucinda indulged the past as she broke three eggs in corn oil and sprinkled them with salt and pepper. Nasty nayga bitch, I can smell you fishy from here, a voice said. You think any man would a want you now that you pokie dry up?

  Her mother came with the smell of vinegar. Country legend had it that if somebody’s blood was on your hands, their ghost lived with you forever.

  “Dry-up pokie never stop you from taking man,” Lucinda replied.

  You think you good. Only me know say you wicked. Just like you father who don’t stay.

  “Is you why him leave.”

  You pokie stink. Only evil go in a it and only evil come out of it. The river tell me bout you.

  “Yes, yes, me born evil. Me born bad. No your pokie me come out of?”

  Bad seed. Bad from the day you born when me try fi kill you. But the birth cord never wrap round you neck tight enough.

  “Eehi, and look how cock mouth catch cock. You should a try harder. What you do to me, me come back and do to you. Only me finish the job.”

  Lucinda.

  “Don’t Lucinda me. My man goin stay with me, you watch. Him not goin run way. Him not goin hate me so much that him sleep with goat instead. Now get out of me kitchen. Nasty nayga bitch.”

  Lucinda broke into “Old Rugged Cross,” just in case any other spirit decided to attack her thoughts this morning. The Apostle said nothing should stand in the way of her joy. “Old Rugged Cross”! Two johnnycakes and three strips more of bacon and breakfast would be ready.

  She flipped a johnnycake and felt sorry for the Widow. Lucinda was surprised at her own tenderness. Perhaps now that she had won, she could feel compassion. The sympathy the victorious felt for the defeated, the slayer felt for the dead, the Roman for the crucified Christ. The Widow now had nothing. Lucinda had promise. Promise was a pink ray in the morning sky and a silent twinkle on unopened flowers. Promise was the sun peeking through louver windows and kissing her on the cheek. Maybe the Widow would find Christ again. Now that the Rum Preacher was driven from her house, perhaps the Widow would find peace. She would reach out in friendship, though they could never be friends, of course. Lucinda remembered how envy made a monster out of herself; how much worse would it do to a woman who cursed God and lost her man twice?

  On the way to Apostle’s house, she almost skipped, but stopped when the orange juice glasses shook. She giggled at the smell of eggs, bacon, and toast, her white man’s breakfast. She would wake the Apostle and call him by his first name. She paused. Lucinda had no idea what his first name was. No matter, this would be a morning of new discoveries. She would wake him up and serve breakfast in bed, and who knows, climb in under sheets that smelt of his sweat and feed him. She knew from cleaning once a week that the doors were always unlocked.

  “What you was doing, laying the damn eggs yourself?”

  Clarence pulled his pants up and flicked his penis through the fly. Lucinda froze as her own mind attacked her, molested her with information she did not want and could not process. She was a simple woman who concluded simply. Clarence naked. Clarence pulling up him pants.Clarence cocky dangling like a sausage outside him pants. Clarence pulling up him pants but don’t have no brief underneath. Clarence in the Apostle bedroom naked. Clarence pulling up him pants. Clarence cocky dangling like sausage outside him pants. Clarence in the Apostle room and him … him … him picking up him shirt off the floor.

  “Well, what you waiting for, blessed assurance? Put down the tray and get out.”

  She was a simple woman who concluded simply. She placed the tray on the bed and stood up straight and stiff. Lucinda could not look at him, nor could she bear the sound of the toilet flushing, the inevitable emergence of him, the proof of nothing. Inside her was nothing. She heard her mother chuckle.

  “Bitch, at least close the door when you leaving.”

  Lucinda ran back to the church. She ran past the kitchen and the mess of egg shells, raw bacon, spilt flour, and squeezed oranges on the counter. She ran all the way upstairs to her room and shut the door. They were waiting for her. In the mirror she saw them: her mother and Night Lucinda, at times two, at times one, all the time laughing like the crackle of lightning.

  GOLGOTHA, OR THE INCIDENT

  Abba babba a maka desh.

  We pray to the living God who is the Father and the Son through the Vicar of God who sits pon the left hand of the Father. The Vicar is the creation of the Son who is one with the Son but also the Father.

  Rekelo baba lacosa.

  We have come to bring praise to he who is most high. We enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise. We present ourselves as the living sacrifice entreating the Father to receive the Son of the Son in his most Holy place.

  Sikosa rabokok mieshande ribobaba.

  The enemy we defeat. Is so prophecy go. The walker in darkness get bring into the light. We thank the Mighty One for victory over the kingdom of spirits. We thank the Father and send the servant of darkness back into darkness.

  Oh bababa lajakmeh sikethacoco.

  Amen.

  The Widow woke up to a threat. One more minute and the pictures would have cut through skin. She reached for them between dress and breast. The Widow placed them on the table like cards and studied them carefully. They were all faded to sepia and they all provoked the same response. Boys, some small and featureless, some with more than a few facial and pubic hairs, all in undress. Some had their legs crossed, some were spread wide like cherubs caught in knowledge of their sex. They were no longer boys but dolls, warped and reshaped into somebody’s reflection. Like the girls on those playing cards that Mr. Greenfield kept in his secret place. In all her years of suspecting Mr. Garvey of sodomy and seeing his several nephews, she never married the two. Her mind traveled to places she had not thought thinkable. Such sickness and perversion tormented her, reduced her to a child’s fear of darkness. She looked at pictures of boys, spread like women, some in makeup and hats, and she imagined demons raping tiny holes of innocence and inexperience. There were others that needed no imagining, their buttocks free but their mouths stuffed with what went beyond her ability to believe. The only way to pull herself out was to imagine them unreal, or French, as her husband would have said to explain anything obscene. That was the only way she knew to make them unrem
arkable, to take her heart out. She would have succeeded were it not for the third photograph, which she had passed over twice. The picture had blurred into the others before, but now a face slid into focus.

  From a mop of wild black hair, the signs came. Eyes sparkled from brown skin that was light but darker than the others. The same brown skin, the same eyes, and the same wet, unruly hair that blew over his shoulders even in the stillness of the picture.

  “Hector! Hector! Hector! Come quick! Hect—” A silence came upon her, overwhelmed her completely. The quiet punished her for perception. The Widow remained standing, accepting his absence from the house. Her blue dress seemed a stupid thing. She no longer wished to wear it. She wanted to peel the memory of him, the musk of him, away from her skin. The stench of dead John Crows drifted through the house. She went into his room and sat amid a confluence of words and symbols. She remained there until nightfall.

  Abba babba a maka desh.

  We declare the Kingdom of 1000 years. To the light of the Father and soon-coming King. We His other sheep bow down before Him. We invoke His presence in the name of the Most High.

  Friday morning broke through the gray sky. The Rude Boys were already up. They had a big job and big tools to match. The noise they made had the rhythm of industry, the clang, crunch, and smash of purpose. Hammers and pickax clubbed away, setting off shards that ricocheted off the bridge. The Apostle gave them until 1:30.

  “You know, they used to keep uppity niggers in line with that thing round your neck. What d’you make of that?” said the Apostle as he saw the Pastor. The room was dusky and Bligh’s neck was in shackles, which The Five found in Brother Vixton’s house. A chain went from the ceiling to Bligh’s neck, holding him in place. His hands were tied behind him. “I’m figuring you had some schooling, so I know that you see the irony in this, this being your room.”

  “The syphilis rot out your mind.”

  “Now there’s a thought. But what do I know about thinking, I have syphilis. How did you know, by the way?”

  “You see plenty when you preach in hospital. Lucas.”

  The Apostle froze. “A hospital in Kingston? I see.”

  “Yes, Kingston. Lucas.”

  “Lucas York is dead. I killed him myself.”

  “You’re not dead. Just sick.”

  “Sick? That’s all? Three months of sparring and all you can call me is sick? Come now, Bligh, only that? That Sunday you knew me more than any man or woman, or God for that matter, and you still don’t know the half. You know I’m not possessed, that was your mistake, and yet spirits are all around me. I can get one to fuck you if you wish. Think of it as a goodbye gift.”

  “Keep your damn demon,” Bligh said, looking at his feet.

  “Just between you and me, I think they prefer spirits. Well, if you don’t want that kind of spirit, how about the other kind? Can’t you feel it? That whiskey calling you like a girl who never says no?”

  “No.”

  “Nobody would blame you, Bligh, if you disappeared in a whiskey bottle right now. It might even save you. Should I get some? How about Johnny Walker Red, though you strike me more as a Black? You know, I had this hunch you’d say yes, so look what I brought.”

  In the Apostle’s hand was a bottle of whiskey, glimmering with gold.

  “Keep your liquor. I have the Holy Spirit.”

  “And how is that going for you? Are you quenched? Are you in high spirits? Or would you prefer this one? I can keep a secret.”

  “I don’t want it—”

  “You don’t want it straight or you don’t want it now?”

  “I don’t want it ever.”

  “Ever. That’s a mighty long time. Maybe you’ve just forgotten the taste, now that you’re so righteous and all. Poor little whiskey, dying from jealousy. ‘If only he could taste me,’ she said. If only.” The Apostle pulled the cap and held the bottle over Bligh’s head. “‘If only he could taste me,’ she said.” He poured the whiskey over Bligh’s forehead. Hector shut his eyes tight as Johnny Walker ran down his face and wetted his lips.

  “Just stick that big tongue out, there’s a good lad,” said the Apostle. “One sip, Bligh. Come now, Bligh, the whiskey’s a-wasting. Bligh? Bliiiiiigh. Look at that now, all done. No more whiskey. You try to give black people things and—”

  “God curse you.”

  “I think you got the tense wrong. But that’s fine, God curse me? I curse him back.” Apostle York sat down in the room’s one chair which leaned against the doorway.

  “The Bible is just a book, Bligh. An incomplete, inconclusive book. Your church calls itself the Church of St. Thomas, and yet your same church forbids the Gospel of St. Thomas. There’s so much, Bligh, so much your ignorant little negro mind can’t comprehend. Like Solomon. I’ve read books of Solomon that you’ve never heard of.”

  “This is history class or you just love talk?”

  “No, this isn’t history, this is the present. But you’ll soon be—history, that is.”

  “Black arts goin kill you.”

  “Black arts? Black arts? You mean magic? This isn’t magic, fool. This is the true work of God!”

  “It will kill you.”

  “It keeping me alive! No doctor could help me. By the time they found out what I was suffering from, I was as good as fucked. But I don’t need no physician, I am the great physician. God. You see God? God is a figment. A level. A process. I followed the same process and I became God.”

  “Now I know you mad. Nobody can become God. God was never born and will never die, He is the I am.”

  “Lie. Darkness made Him, light shape Him, and people colored up the ugly parts. You, Bligh, you same one; if you close your eyes right now and pray to God, you think of somebody who looks exactly like me. My hair, my beard, my eyes, my skin—”

  “Your pox.”

  “To Hell with you.”

  “Is not me Satan waiting on.”

  “How you figure that?”

  “You go and sin with your privates and catch a disease and now you blame God. How long since you get it?”

  “Get it? You talk as if I had it coming. This was given to me, Bligh. Call it God’s gift. God gave syphilis to me.”

  “Blasphemy. God don’t give disease, He is the healer. You telling a lie.”

  “I am the way and the truth.”

  “The father of lies.”

  “Gibbeah would rather have my lies than your truth. Why do they follow me so easily, Bligh? So quick, without question? I give them something God can’t give. Listen, I’m taking this whole village down with me. You should have left when you had the chance. You don’t belong here.”

  “Neither do you. These people didn’t do you nothing—”

  “You fucking idiot! How far, eh? How far must a knife go in your chest before you realize you’re being fucked with? How do you think I know every name? How do you think I recognize every face? I was here, Hector. I was here even when Uncle Aloysius brought your sorry, drunk arse to Gibbeah. The only reason that man hired you is because you were as blind then as you are now. Not so mad now, eh? This syphilis came from God. From the man of God who preceded you. Aloysius Garvey’s good friend and rape-mate. Is it coming to you now? Why don’t you say his name with me? Yes, Pastor Palmer. I have the scars to prove it, shall I drop my pants and show you?”

  “No.”

  “Look at that, a Pastor who couldn’t keep his cock in his pants. Sound like anybody you know?”

  “God was with you. Even then, God was with you.”

  “No. God was with the preacher who was lying in the bed with me. But you know, I’m starting to feel redeemed. Thank you, Bligh, thank you. I think I’m believing this Bible now; that God suffers with me, really, I do. I can just see Him crucified by his own father for kicks. God didn’t help me. He could have given me freedom, but He didn’t. He could have given me joy or peace, but He didn’t. You didn’t even notice me. Not even once. I leave a year after you came and y
ou didn’t even notice.”

  The Apostle coughed, blinking his eyes until the wet glimmer of tears was gone.

  “But I don’t blame you. I blame God. At the very least, He could have made me not feel the fucking pain, but He didn’t. God left me and forsook me, so I did the same to that son of a bitch. You know what I did? I studied him. I read everything from Apocrypha to Luther to Augustine to Faust. And I read more. And I learned something. God is real, Jehovah is a myth. Jehovah is a thing people invent to excuse horrible shit as if it had some purpose. But there is none, you see, that’s what Satan knew all along. There is no purpose. There’s no meaning, no teaching, no greater good to come out of sucking my fake uncle’s cock. There’s just my mouth and his cock. Nothing else. Like God, God is nothing. I used God’s nothing to become something, and damn if I’m not dragging God to Hell with me.”

  “No.”

  “Then I started to read people who realized what I did, that God had a limit. Stuff from Solomon. That lying Bible would tell you that Solomon got stupid when he strayed; no, he got even more wise. That’s when he started making sense. He could command angels and demons and gain wisdom that God had been fearing from man ever since Eve bit the apple. Knowledge, Bligh. That’s how you become God. Now angels and demons do my will too.”

  “No.”

  “Then I came back. You think Uncle was happy to see me? Him and his new batch of boys? You know what he did when we got too strong for him? Send us off to boarding school for more men to fuck with us. But I came back. I came back in the same clothes his preacher friend used to wear. The skinny black fucker thought I came bringing forgiveness, until he saw my sword. Cutlass, actually. Chop his head clean off. Then I chopped off his curse. Then I chopped up every little new demon he was growing in that house. Most of them were still sleeping when I send them to Hell.”

  “No.”

  “No? Not at all. I belong here, Bligh. I belong with these people. I belong with all these fuckers who suspected or even knew what my uncle was, but let their nigger ways allow it. And those same nigger ways now allowing me.