“Hector?”
He wrote to the end of the wall and stopped. Turning around, their eyes met, but the Widow blinked first. Bligh approached her, dropping the pen from his hands. She saw through his eyes to a second face, one she had never seen before, one that filled her with a mighty fear. As he stepped toward her, she moved back, step for step.
“I thought they possessed him. You understand me?” he said, but not to her. “I thought he wanted to be exorcised from them but is them who want to be free from him.”
“Hector?”
She stepped outside the doorway and only then saw the bottle standing in the window frame behind him. The cap was missing. Her husband drank rum from the same bottle the night before he died. The bottle she had hidden in the kitchen cupboard. Bligh closed the door.
Lucinda began to stroke him on the third day, this time without the excuse of soap and water. She discovered rivers and tributaries hidden between the hairs of his chest. Her fingers traveled southward and circled his navel, creating a whirlpool that disappeared inside his belly. As she pulled her fingers out of spin and inched toward his penis, the Apostle woke up. She jumped off the bed and ran to the corner of room marked off by shadow. Lucinda clutched her breasts and looked away, feeling his presence as he came back to life. The Apostle climbed off the bed and went toward her but saw his crucifix on the floor. As he bent to pick it up, she saw them. Spots, scars, red circles on his buttocks that looked like the red scar below his lip and on his chest and thighs.
“Lucinda,” York said as he turned to her in the shadow, “what do you know about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?”
THE HEALING
They closed up the room to darkness and prepared the mirror. Lucinda had hesitated to carry out the Apostle’s orders but she had no choice. The world had to know that the Rum Preacher could never defeat the Lord of Hosts. The world had to be told that the Apostle had been struck a mortal wound, but that wound had been healed. Lucinda was glad her church did not preach from the Book of Revelation, for this was a Revelation battle, something she had no wisdom for. The Apostle was as wise as Solomon. He read books of Solomon that were not in the Bible — so much wisdom that not even the greatest book could hold it all.
This was not what she saw in dreams. This was how her mother spoke in her thoughts. Nasty nayga bitch, I can smell you fishy from here. You think is you him want? Who would a want a cross-eye, chi-chi blackatouch lacka you?
In the room when he awoke, the Apostle stepped toward her and stopped so close that his chest hair touched her skin as he inhaled. She looked into his chest as he slung the crucifix around his neck. Lucinda yearned for his man-ness to rise and pierce her female-ness. Yes, she was a woman. Yes, she was beautiful. Yes, she was more than her mother. Between night and day was the real Lucinda, he would see. Her body would glow with the shock of dawn and drip with the wetness of dusk. Yes, this was a man, a father, not a papa who would leave. Yes, she would be devoted to the spirit, to him, praising his lordness and his magnificence. His hair, as it showered his sweaty face, and his manhood, that she would worship now, right now with her mouth. She stooped down, but he pulled her up.
“Lucinda.” She had not looked at his face. If she had, he would not have broken her as he did. She would have heard her mother laugh as the prophecy came true.
“What the Hell are you doing? Lord forgive this, this whore of Babylon. Where are my … why are you … Father, forgive … Get out. And dress yourself, for pete’s sake. Look here, between you and me? I just woke up. I should have my Five run you out of town, right now, but … even in this is love. Do you love me, Lucinda?
“Lucinda, do you love me?
“Lucinda?”
“Y-yes, Apostle.”
“Then build my church. There are things you’re going to have to do to make up for this gross, gross sin. Are you ready for penance?”
“Lucinda.” His voice jolted her from memory. She was in his office, but had disappeared into her own space. “Leave us,” he said.
The Apostle waved his fingers and she left him in the office with two of The Five, Brother Jakes, Brother Patrick.
“Bring him to me.”
The rest came through the side door. Clarence refused to walk in step and had to be dragged along by Brother Vixton, the man who had whipped him, Tony Curtis, and Deacon Pinckney.
“Clarence, Clarence. What is this fight for? You think your hands long enough to box God? Sit down.”
He refused, even though he limped and swayed and was close to collapse. The chair leapt out from the corner and knocked him behind the knees. Tony Curtis and Brother Vixton grabbed him just before he toppled over.
“I hear that you’ve been refusing to let people help you.”
“I hear you did dead.”
“Well, here I am, so whose report do you believe?”
“Him should a kill you.”
“I’ll let him know. Now, Clarence, don’t you think that Mrs. Smithfield have better things to do than nurse wounds that you, you, Clarence, brought on yourself? You brought judgment on yourself, you know, Clarence, don’t forget that. Look at me.”
He refused at first but then his face felt strange. The Five were disturbed. Just as Clarence’s shoulders turned away from the Apostle, his head wrenched in the other direction. He strained against himself. Then his jaw betrayed him, following the twist of his neck. His face seemed to be tearing in two. Clarence gave up the fight.
“I said, look at me. There’s nothing you can do, you know, Clarence, only One will reign supreme here.”
The Apostle pulled up his chair in front of him and sat down.
“I’m concerned about you, my brother. You’re not handling God’s discipline well at all. What’s this I hear about you pissing in Mrs. Smithfield’s bed? About you spitting the soup back in her face? Imagine a big woman like her and a big man like you and she has to clean up your feces because you’re too worthless to use the toilet. Worse, Clarence, worst of all, you won’t let her treat your back. I can smell it rotting even now. Even now, puss is growing. But you don’t care, do you? You think you’re taking revenge on the Almighty. You think you’ll just kill yourself and let him watch. You think you’ll reject God’s discipline, because that’s what it was, you know, Clarence, God’s discipline. And God disciplines those whom He loves. Do you think I love you, Clarence?
“Clarence, I asked you a question.
“Clarence, there are ways.
“Clarence, the Lord is growing tired of—”
The Apostle’s nose was hit first. Phlegm that had been pooling in Clarence’s mouth from nausea shot from his lips. Brother Vixton, needing no cue, struck Clarence in the back of his neck and he fell from the chair, yelling. The Apostle wiped his face.
“Pick him up.”
Clarence struggled against The Five, strengthened by his insolence. Deacon Pinckney stuck a finger in his back and he yelled again. He released himself in their hands and was placed back on the chair.