“Because he is the head and not the tail, the ruler, not the follower. Because he is the father, you show him due respect. Due respect. So tell me something, Vixton. If you show your earthly father so much respect, how much more should you show your Heavenly Father? Calling God by his first name like you and Him is size. Listen to me, cut it out! Cut it out! Cut it out! Until you can show me, until you can show God that you are more than babes in Christ, I want everybody to address the Father as the Father. He is not your son, or your friend, or your lover. He is your master, and me? I’m just like you. I am His serv—”
Before he could finish, singing disrupted church. The Rum Preacher was outside in the exact spot where he had been beaten and dumped the Sunday previous, singing “Rock of Ages.” His voice was thunderous, full of blood and melancholy. The Apostle heard his song and felt the hatred of Cain for the Preacher, newly able. York pointed at the choir, who erupted into “God Is a Good God.” The chorus rose above the song of the Rum Preacher and consumed it. But as soon as the choir’s song sputtered to a close, there was Hector Bligh, his voice rising. A few in the church began humming with him. The Apostle pushed away the podium in a rage and it fell, sending books skidding across the floor. Nobody dared speak. York pushed open the church doors.
Outside, the Preacher and the Apostle were face to face, separated by yards, years, and ever-mounting animosity. The Rum Preacher kept on singing, his notes rising and falling with the hymn. He looked younger. He seemed to have a new strength, and nobody knew where it came from, though some thought the bed of the Widow Greenfield. The Apostle had no time for Lucinda’s rumors. He turned away from the Preacher but stood in the doorway. Those who had turned to look turned back.
Hector Bligh stood firm. But gray spots blotted out his sunlight, moving left, right, and in circles. He looked up and saw a mass swirling of black that broke away when the John Crows scattered. “Rock of Ages” led to “Onward Christian Soldiers.” Three of the birds landed and met the Pastor with a gaze. Bligh sung. The first flapped his wings and took off, then the second and the third. They rose to a low height, no higher than the steeple of the church, then folded their wings and dove straight for the Pastor. Bligh clutched his heart, closed his eyes, and kept on singing.
The Apostle, his back to the road, folded both arms behind him and rubbed his knuckles. The Pastor’s voice had vanished amidst the scream of vultures. When the Apostle turned around his jaw fell so far that he grabbed his chin to prevent spit escaping. The Pastor was on his knees, in the middle of Hanover Road, with his eyes closed but his arms wide open. Before him, behind him, around him, all the way up to the church steps and down Hanover Road, were dead vultures. John Crows with necks broken, heads crushed, and wings ripped away. The Pastor was praying in a circle of untouched road as the sky drizzled black feathers and blood.
Things done change. Some people feel it, some people know it, but nobody see it. Is one month now. We know that Pastor Bligh bring shame pon the land and is God judgment that drive him out of the village. Last week service everybody on fire for the Lord. Praising and singing and shouting and clapping and even those dutty Rude Boys get baptize! But then the old preacher come back. None of we know how, cause him was so fool-fool before. Him step up the road with purpose like him is John the Baptist himself. Them say is Widow Greenfield to blame. Them decide to do something bout her.
This new preacher. Some people don’t trust nobody who look too pretty. Lucifer was the son of the morning. Nobody see what the Apostle do, and who him do it to nah tell. And that was just Thursday gone. Widow Greenfield should a look behind her.
She round the back washing clothes. The Widow scrub so hard that she never see them sneak up. By the time she look all of The Five surround her. One of them say something and she start cuss loud. Then all of a sudden she grab one of the clothes that she washing and swing after them. Them jump out of the way and Brother Jakes grab her and push her down on the ground. Then Brother Vixton, he step on her breast and cuss her. This time all sort of noise start come from inside the house. A thump, then a bump, and then a crash and a splat one after the other. Them turn her house upside down while Brother Vixton crush the Widow chest. The rest of them come outside. Them just shrug them shoulder. Then Brother Vixton stoop down and say something to the Widow and laugh. Widow Greenfield spit in him face. Brother Vixton still laughing when him stand back up and wipe it off. Him still laughing when him kick her in the belly. She bawl and curl up and Brother Vixton spit on her and them leave. But not before the other one, the one them call Tony Curtis, the one who couldn’t talk then but can talk little now, turn over her wash pan and all the water flood the backyard with the clothes sailing over the grass. Widow Greenfield in the dirt crying to herself.
May and October rained the most. Nobody told this to September, who snatched the pregnant clouds for herself. Rain fell on evil, rain fell on good, rain fell on church but kept none away on Good Friday. Lucinda and her flower circle of spinsters, widows, and neglected wives had decorated the church in purple. The Apostle had chosen Luke’s version of the crucifixion because it was the most Greek. Lucinda could not understand why he would consider one part of the Bible better than any other, but concluded that wisdom is as wisdom does.
It was the sixth hour
And darkness came over the whole land
Until the ninth hour for the sun stopped shining
And the curtain of the temple was torn in two
He called out in a loud voice,
Father into your hands I commit my spirit
When he said this, he breathed his last.
“Now turn to Ch—”
The scream came from the back, from one of the few not sharing in the Apostle’s good news. She left her seat and ran to the back door, where she screamed again. The Rum Preacher was coming up Hanover Road. His feet were bare and the rain had soaked his white shirt and pants, which clung to him, forming a network of veins. Others joined the screaming girl. The Rum Preacher continued in measured steps, his back bent slightly under the weight of the huge wooden cross that he pulled like Jesus. It was cut from a young tree. He braced the burden by his shoulders and steadied it with his arms. Between rain and tears, his eyes seemed to burn.
Good Christian people want to know why anybody would pull up chair next to the Rum Preacher. So people ask people who know people who can ask people and that people, a man, say him don’t business bout no chastisement from none of we and we could eat shit for all him care. Man is a man, and must make up him own mind, him say. Man no flaky like how woman flaky; them see one pretty boy and them brain turn to pudding, him say.
People think it funny that little by little more man and woman goin out to hear the Rum Preacher. Him wasn’t preaching to none of them really. Him preach to the road and the sky and to God. Another one of them that leave, a woman, say that when he talk to her is like him talking right through her. People say that there is no way the Apostle goin give Hector Bligh the church back no matter how white him suit look these days. But them who gone outside say him don’t want the church back. We perplex. Where else people goin find God if them don’t have church?