Frisco beach crowds are cool, except this one wanted to take Memory to the hospital.
“No way,” said Two-John, who carried her back to the hotel and kept her up all night, shuffling around and drinking water so her heart wouldn’t stop.
Two-John was afraid, and trying not to show it. They had both smoked an awful lot of Turkish.
He glared at the Devil, busy washing dishes in sunglasses and harem pants, a silver syringe stuck behind his ear like a pencil. He had discovered smack, and wasn’t so much washing dishes as admiring them.
“This isn’t what you promised her,” Two-John growled at the Devil.
“She’s famous, isn’t she?”
You know what I mean.”
The Devil didn’t want to talk about it. He cast a spell that made Two-John forget he was there.
Rolling Stone gave the beach concert five inches in the April issue.
Some of the mainstream newspapers mentioned Memory’s collapse.
The papers were not as nice as the beach crowds.
ELIOT CRUMP, THE bastard, ran off with some teenager to watch birds in India. Memory read about it in the tabloids.
Hurt more than she would have thought possible, Memory started shooting smack instead of chasing the dragon. It was stronger, that way. And she wanted stronger.
The house where she overdosed became a stop on Hollywood tour.
It was a nice party. It was golden water in an indoor swimming pool. So warm.
Some parties had more than their share of naked people, and this was one of them. Memory wasn’t one of the naked people, though. She never was.
She wore fur, with nothing underneath, if she meant to swim. And she always swam.
This time the gold formed a tunnel, and the tunnel called to her.
It sounded like a jackhammer, like a socket wrench. Like a helicopter. And like music, of course, and shovels digging the earth.
Breathe, said the gold. So she breathed.
The pool, underwater, was like a blue sky, like air.
The gold became a hammer, crushing her chest from the inside.
It was one of those things you know and don’t know, when you are becoming clinically dead. She knew, and did not know, that she had joyfully inhaled a double lungful of pool water.
She remembered thinking, sinking in her fur coat, And God knows what else; with all these naked people, there’s gotta be more than P in this ool.
The Devil might have been inspired to snap his fingers and intervene, but he had gotten left behind in Atlanta and was throwing up behind a Piggly Wiggly there.
Things fall apart.
Memory vanished into a hospital. Then she just vanished.
Jason Livingston joined a European band within the week. The European band did an American tour wearing jack-in-the-boxes on their heads.
William Tell went solo with no trouble at all.
Two-John vanished back into the swamp. The rumor mill said he had bricked his guitar up in a New Orleans crypt, so whatever was in it couldn’t get out.
The Devil went off to take care of other business.
He had to, with three or four expensive drug habits to support. Like a lot of people in those days, the Devil had discovered escape. Like a lot of people, he felt the world had become the kind of place that needed escaping from.
He wondered if the new world, the new awareness he had wanted for people, was still out there waiting to happen. It felt like a train he had missed, and sometimes, through the fog, this made him sad.
Sometimes, though, he thought they hadn’t really missed the train. The train was just different, that was all. It wasn’t a world thing. It was personal. It was internal. The new awareness was a wonderful and intoxicating isolation.
And being the Devil on drugs opened up all kinds of possibilities. He could be in Heaven again, if he wanted. He could sleep. He could burst like the sun, or hide and watch it all go by. Like Memory and Purple Airplane, he could blaze like a meteor and fly apart in glory. If he tried hard enough, he could feel a mirage in his heart that was almost like love.
On the outside, he lost his sunglasses and his harem pants started falling apart. His hair grew stringy. He smelled.
On the inside, he burned. Sometimes he was fire, sometimes ashes.
Like the band, like Memory, he started the process of becoming a ghost.
18.
Dreams of Fire and Blood
Virginia, 1831
WHITE MEN COULDN’T HELP being cruel, thought Nat Turner.
It was like a curse God had laid on them. Maybe it was supposed to teach them something.
Nat had been taught to read as a child. He knew the Bible inside and out, and had read more books than most white men. He had a way of talking about things, and people called him “Preacher,” whatever color they were.
White men were cruel because they weren’t quite men. They were like children inside. That’s what the curse had done to them, he thought.
Nat had a higher standard for black men, free or not. Black men were men, or Jesus would never have given them so much to bear. Now they had to find a way to be free, without losing their lives or their souls.
And when he thought these things, a wind blew inside him, and the voice of Jesus was on that wind, and he would know he was right.
Which is how he knew, the day he followed a noise down an alley in Jerusalem, Virginia, to find seven slaves at liberty and two free black men taking turns at Beulah Carter, the Carters’ retarded house girl, he knew God meant for him to say something.
He flung them aside, and preached at them, “How you ever going to be men, when you act just like the animals the masters say you are? A man’s got something extra in him, supposed to make him different from a pig.”
He felt lifted up as he talked, light as a feather with Jesus on the wind inside him.
They listened to him. Ashamed, they turned away and went home.
NOT ONLY WAS Nat well read, not only did he have a way about him and the Jesus-wind inside him, he had visions, too. Nat thought of himself as a peaceful man, but the visions were not peaceful. They were fiery, bloody, and left him writhing as though his head would crack. Lately, terrible dreams had left him shaken and red-eyed.
The Devil, who had a nose for extraordinary people, sometimes turned himself into a bird and watched Nat from trees. He thought Nat might be useful to him, the way Washington had been useful.
The day Nat stopped the men from raping Beulah Carter, the Devil decided to talk to him.
When the preacher stopped on his way home to eat some corn bread and pray, the Devil made himself look like a proper angel, and perched on a nearby log.
Nat was too busy praying, at first, to notice.
“I’m a man of Peace, sweet Jesus,” he was praying. “So how come you send me these dreams of tribulation?”
While he listened for an answer—for it seemed, sometimes, that God did answer—the Devil spoke up, and drew his attention.
“Maybe Peace isn’t part of God’s plan for you, Nat Turner.”
Nat looked a little surprised to find an angel addressing him, but only a little.
“Peace,” he answered, removing his hat, “is what’s in my heart, angel, sir.”
“God made your heart, Nat Turner. Do you know your heart better than God?”
“No, sir.”
“Why do you think God gave you those great big hands?”
“I don’t know, angel. To work, I suppose.”
“No. For killing white people, is why.”
The preacher’s eyes narrowed. Slowly, he put on his hat, turned his back on the angel, and started down the road again, toward home.
The angel fished a pipe from its pocket, and lit up a bowlful of earthworms.
NAT FOUND WHAT the angel had said a trifle suspicious. Not only that, but the angel had a mark on its forehead that troubled him sorely.
All God’s creatures bore a sign on their forehead, and Nat could read t
hese signs. There were people marked Confusion, or Weak, or Hard, or Hungry. He knew a horse with a sign on its forehead, saying THIS HORSE MIGHT KICK YOU, and the horse kicked a man and broke his leg. Another time there were twin girls, and they both had a mark that was like a heart, except one of them had it stronger than the other, and the other had it like a bruise that was fading, and when it was gone, she died.
The angel wore a devil sign on his forehead, plain as day.
AFTER HE FINISHED his pipe, the Devil thought about making himself invisible and following Nat home, but he was tired. The kind of tired that comes after you’ve been angry about something all day long.
The Devil was angry with Americans for being hypocrites. They were so proud of their freedom and their talk of freedom, but so many of the big talkers owned slaves.
America—Earth!—didn’t stand a chance with raw evil at its heart, and the Devil thought the solution was plain. The slaves must seize freedom, the way America herself had seized it. The way he, Lucifer, had seized it. It was how freedom was won.
It had never been difficult to get men to wage war, but in this case, the Devil had met resistance. Yes, there were voices among the enslaved that urged revolt, but these voices were either silenced by their masters or ignored by the majority, who thought revolt was suicide.
The Devil knew, though, that you didn’t have to destroy an enemy to make him change his ways. You only had to destroy him enough to make him afraid. If the right leader could make white Americans fear slaves, then a new idea would dawn. Because all you had to do to keep slaves from being scary was give them their freedom. Rebellion could work, if the enemy didn’t fight back too hard. And most Americans disliked slavery already. The nation just needed a push.
The Devil thought Nat Turner was the man to do the pushing. And they would listen to him, blacks and whites alike, because he had always talked peace.
THE NEXT DAY, mending a pair of iron shears in the garden shed, the preacher thought about his awful dreams, and about the peaceful wind inside him. He was confused and frustrated, and asked God for help.
He closed his eyes until he felt the Jesus-wind rise inside him, and said, “God, if You want me to go and work vengeance, You will have to give me a sign. In Your own good time, Lord, give me a sign.”
But the Devil was listening in from behind the sugaring shed, and damned if the sun didn’t turn lime green right then and there.
ON SUNDAYS, slaves and free black people from miles around came to the woods near the farm where Nat lived, to hear him preach, and eat supper with him.
Nat would read the Bible to them, and say wise and peaceful things. He would say how they must never hate, no matter how they were tested. Because hate destroyed a man. Hate and destruction were indivisible.
He told them common wisdom, too. He told the men that when they sparked a woman, they should wrap their pecker in a rhubarb leaf until they were sure it was love they sparked, not just an animal passion.
He told the women they must keep their hair tied up and their clothing modest, not to tempt the childish white masters.
He told the children among them that they must guard their hearts so that hate would not take root.
The Sunday after the sun turned green, he read all the things he always read and taught the wisdom he always taught, but when it came time to tell them about peace, his mouth slammed closed and the words wouldn’t come. For the first time he went straight home and didn’t stay for the supper.
THERE WERE MORE SIGNS, one atop another, until one day in the woods, a bird called out, “Kill the white people!” as clear as could be, and Nat couldn’t take it anymore.
He packed up a napkin with bread and cheese and dried meat, and sneaked away after the North Star.
But it wasn’t that easy.
The first night, he saw a rabbit with two heads. The next night he crossed a river, and when he was halfway across, the river stopped flowing and then went to flowing the opposite way. (This was like a reprimand from God to him, but also a sign he was near the sea.)
It was like God was chasing him. The signs were clear.
He thought of Jonah, in the Bible, and how he ran from God and what God wanted him to do.
So, on the third morning, when he woke up and saw the angel with the devil sign sitting over him, saying, “Where do you think you’re going, Nat Turner?” he answered, in a voice so tired, that he guessed he was going back home, and the angel said, “That’s good.”
WHEN NAT RETURNED, his master made him work field labor for a week, plus sleep outside chained to the water pump.
But Nat was too smart, in the master’s estimation, to be used that way for long. So when the week was over, he was given a barn to build. It was the kind of thing that lifted Nat’s mind and soul! Something to draw and imagine and make whole from the ground up, with God’s help. He prayed a wind prayer, for Jesus, and a wood prayer, too, because the barn would be made of wood.
HIS WORK WOULD have been happier if the angel hadn’t sat around bothering him every second.
“You have to take freedom,” said the angel. “You have to—”
“Leave me alone, Devil,” said the preacher, shaving boards in the woodshop. “I got work to do.”
“How’d you know I was the Devil?”
“Sign on your forehead. It puzzled me, till I thought how there’s one angel who would have a sign like that.”
“Devil. Angel. There’s not really a difference, you know.”
“I suppose you’re going to tell me war and peace are two parts of the same thing, too.”
“You choose Peace,” said the Devil.
“I do,” answered Nat, still shaving boards.
“You, a slave?”
Nat lowered his head, squinting one eye to see where the wood was smooth.
“I am a man, sir. Slavery is a circumstance I find myself in. A man can be stronger than his circumstances.”
The Devil was taken aback. Was this a new idea? He had met others, across the years, who would have liked the idea very much.
“What are you thinking of, Devil?” asked Nat.
The Devil almost said he was thinking of Pocahontas, but instead he said, “You put me in mind of someone, Nat Turner, with how much you love Peace and how much you’re not going to get it. The only people who can really choose Peace are those who can also make War. Otherwise it’s not a choice. It’s like saying a rabbit chooses Peace because it doesn’t fight the wolf. The wolf loves it when the rabbit chooses Peace.”
“Thou Shalt Not Kill,” said Nat.
“Death is just a door,” said the Devil. “What does it matter if someone goes through the door because of you or because of old age?”
Nat flung a vise handle into the rafters.
The Devil vanished in a puff of smoke.
THE LAST SIGN was a total eclipse of the sun.
Nat was preaching a sermon when it happened. But by then he knew the signs had the Devil’s hand on them, so it wasn’t the eclipse that changed his mind.
It was thinking about what he, himself, had said. About man and circumstance. And for the first time, he wasn’t sure what God wanted. He just knew what he felt was right, and sometimes what was right was also wrong. Sometimes doing wrong was a burden you had to shoulder, to make room for something right.
In the woods on Sunday, the sun turned black and terrible overhead and the forest darkened around Nat and his congregation. The preacher saw how the light surrendered to the dark, as if trusting it for a time. And when the sun began to come back, he saw how the sun’s trust was rewarded. How it seemed to shine brighter than before.
He felt ashamed, then, for second-guessing God and His signs, even though what needed doing was so bad that God had sent the Devil to get it done.
When he opened his mouth to preach, Nat Turner had a dark light in his eye.
He told them their mission. He said he knew what an awful thing it was, but they had to do it. To everything there was
a season, even a season to kill.
They listened, and they believed him. They had always believed him.
It scared him, the way they believed, almost as if they were half asleep, or some part of them were missing. Truth be told, he, too, felt as if he were half asleep or half real.
And they agreed when to meet, and spread the word, and when they went home after sundown, they sharpened axes and made horses ready.
WHEN IT CAME TIME to ride out and do the killing, it was mostly others who did it. Raiding parties rode here and there, hacking and burning, and Nat rode behind them, grim and stone-faced. Sometimes he found himself in the middle of things, though, and when that happened, he did his duty. He closed his heart and cut. He ignored screams. He closed whole rooms inside himself, and burned and killed until he was sore with it.
The sign on his brow was an ax, now.
He looked at himself in a dead farmer’s bedroom mirror, and saw his sign fading to yellow, like a bruise.
When he stepped outside again, a new horseman had joined his raiders. Someone in a new linen shirt, never worked in yet, his skin as black as the bottom of the sea.
Nat mounted his own horse and rode quietly up to the stranger.
“Devil,” he said.
The Devil nodded. His horse snorted.
“I hear they’ve got the army up after us,” said Nat.
The Devil shrugged.
“That doesn’t sound,” said Nat, “like an enemy who’s scared. It doesn’t sound like an enemy ready to set his slaves free.”
“After this,” said the Devil, in a soft, even voice, “they’ll have to sleep with one eye open.”
“What they’ll do,” said Nat, “I think, is get just scared enough to kill any black man that looks at them twice. Free or not, won’t make any difference. That’s what I think.”
“You regret this?” asked the Devil.
Nat shrugged. “Sometimes a man does right; sometimes he does what he has to. I hope good comes of it.”
Night noises. Woodsy sounds. Down the road, new screams choked off.
“Come on, then!” grunted Nat, spurring his horse onto the road. “You brought us hate, now be a man and hate with us!”
Up Jumps the Devil Page 15
