After the Apostle done, we did want to kill the sinner man and sinner woman so bad that we did have to count to ten and then again. The Apostle a deal with we hard, but is so truth hard. Plus, nobody believe that after all this time scoring point for the Devil that Pastor Bligh all of a sudden on fire for Je … the Lord. This is the man that drunk from the day after him come. Imagine, Preacher gone to rum bar fi chummy-chummy up with drunkard and whore. This is the man who the Devil use Lillamae Perkins to turn into fool, she who drown herself. Him make all man shame that them is man. Plus, when him go fi baptize Mrs. Smithfield daughter, him nearly drown her. All them things we did think funny one time, but is that bastard make God leave Gibbeah. Is Apostle York who drive him out like how God drive evilness out of the temple. The Apostle a deal with we hard, but it better than the Pastor not dealing with we at all. Now him out o street a preach holy fire, but you no need much to do the Devil work. The Devil will take care of the Rum Preacher, so we must cut him off.
People already getting rid of the redifusion, and throwing way the short-wave radio. Anybody who not washed in the blood of the lamb we not talking to. Is time to be strong and upright. Is time to make sacrifice and we know who fi sacrifice first. Apostle York not fraid fi tell we hard things, that’s why we believe what him say. All we know say is that Deacon Pinckney could only see through one eye before the Apostle come to the village and now him can see through two. The Rum Preacher never bring one single miracle to Gibbeah. Him bring in the Devil fi take up seat like we and him is combolo. That’s why we glad bout what happen to him. We like how God use the Apostle to deal with Pastor Bligh case. Listen, when God use him man, God use him man!
The Apostle in church with the Pastor outside. The Apostle stretch out him hand and start say tongues, but this was no Abba babba tongues, is tongues we never hear yet. Outside, one of them scream and people run to the window to see the six of them scatter from him like ants. People say him was talking bout Jonah and Nineveh when all of a sudden him start bawl out, Jesus! Jesus! and start swing him hand like mad man. Me hear say him two eye go white and him start flap round like him blind. Then him knee buckle and him drop pon the road hard. We stay from up in the church and hear him head buck the road. Then him start shake-shake real hard and foam come out of him mouth. Then the foam turn to red. The Apostle stop speaking in tongue and the choir start to sing Bringing in the Shield We Shall Come Rejoicing. The Pastor still on the ground but him stop shake. Him white suit dirty. And him eye still white. Some of we couldn’t watch no more, cause we did glad, but we did sad too and that feel strange. Plus, we did fraid o God. We see what happen to people who take him name make poppy show. But we shall come rejoicing bringing in the shield. Little later, Mrs. Fracas say she look back one last time and just catch her in the corner of her eye. Widow Greenfield grab Hector Bligh by him two hand and drag him away.
ROLLING CALF Part One
Three days after Sunday, she was found, etherized in the blackened river mud, body stiff with rigor mortis. On her back with her legs spread wide, she looked ready for sexual intercourse. She seemed to have drowned. A dead calf was nothing new to Gibbeah, or to Mrs. Fracas, who fainted at the sight. There was no sign of what contributed to the cow’s demise except one: Her head was upside down. And though there was mud all over her, there was none on the calf’s neck. No cut, no scar, no stitch either. Neck grew into upside-down head as if the animal were born that way. To Mrs. Fracas, who saw the calf first, and Clarence, who saw it after, the answer was immediate and obvious. This was the Devil’s work.
The Widow Greenfield, with her grocery list in tow, had a simple mission. She had broken her own word and allowed the Rum Preacher back into her husband’s bed. Hector Bligh seemed so close to death himself. For this there were arguments to take up with God, but not right now. In a few minutes she would have a far more severe argument with someone else.
In the grocery shop people looked at her in a new way, with heads tilted and eyes that darted as her gaze met theirs. When a man went to live with a woman she became a sexual creature. Widow Greenfield getman at last before the pokie dry up. But this was not man but Devil. The Apostle spoke it in prophecy. The Widow was defiant. Turn on a light in fi them house and everybody scramble like roach. Not even Lucinda could cast first stone. She knew her. Lucinda tried so hard to put up one face that she was probably hiding another. She had tried to steal the Widow’s husband. The Widow remembered Lucinda eleven years ago, standing across the road from the wedding reception in her black veil and funeral dress, resembling a John Crow. Lucinda spied on the Greenfields when they were doing married people things. But the animosity ran deeper than that. Before marriage, before puberty.
At preparatory school, the girls called Lucinda plain, the boys called her ugly, but she imagined herself a beauty queen. Sessions in the outhouse were lessons in poise. It was her only relief from a recent whipping or escape from an upcoming one. She fixed a crown made of cardboard and tin foil to her head and grasped the scepter made from hibiscus bush as she crossed her legs at the ankle like the queen. On that day when Lucinda was on the throne, with her legs crossed and her ankles knotted up in her panty, she perfected her victory wave. The audience she imagined became real as the toilet door swung open. There in front and laughing so hard that tears ran down her face was the Widow Greenfield, then called Mary Palmer, along with Clarence, Buntin, soon to be Deacon Pinckney, Vixton Dixon, soon to be Brother Vixton, and Elsamire, soon to be deceased. Lucinda gripped her scepter trembling and crossed her legs tighter. Then she rose, regally, but the panty that had bound her legs together betrayed her and she tripped, falling face first in the muddy bush. Mary Palmer and her friends tumbled in the grass as well, grabbing their sides as if laughter threatened to burst from their bodies. They christened her Lucinda Queenie and off they went, with Mary’s laughter a whirlwind barreling away. Lucinda did what she always did. She rose and straightened herself. Then she went inside, tore a page from her exercise book, and wrote a curse on every person who had wronged her, just as she saw her mother do. Her hatred was a fire that no man or God could put out. A fire that raged with their happiness and celebrated their tragedy. Lucinda Queenie made a deal with the Devil.
The Widow had not thought of the past in years, and found it odd that on this day she should remember.
“Hello? Hello? Excuse, please? Hello! Is you me talking to!”
“Me occupied with a customer, ma’am, so stop the cow ballin in me shop.”