Free The Resurrection of Mary Mabel McTavish by Allan Stratton Page A

attentions to Brother Percy caused the poor man much consternation, especially at night when she prowled the corridors, ultimately surprising him in the biffy. “Get thee behind me Satan,” he cried, scrambling to cover his privates. The Widow Duffy claimed herself an innocent sleepwalker, but Percy was no fool. “She meant to have her way with me,” he whispered to Brother Floyd. “We must quit this den by daybreak: ‘Flee from temptation, nor let the shadow of it come nigh!’”
    While Percy knew the Bible, he scarcely knew himself. Sex was no temptation to him whatsoever. An enthusiastic virgin, he held the entire process to be as distasteful as it was messy, a dirty chore necessary to propagate worshippers. Fortunately, being a preacher, he’d been given a more dignified means to populate the Kingdom, and a damn sight more sanitary to boot.
    Floyd, on the other hand, laboured under no such misapprehensions. Frankly, the Widow Duffy’s nocturnal ramblings had aroused more than his curiosity. “Brother Percy,” he admonished, “we have a Christian duty to remain. If that dame sleepwalks unattended, she may fall down the stairs and break her neck.”
    “Don’t think to pull the wool over my eyes,” Percy scolded. “You’ve a mind to spill your seed in that harlot! How shall you answer up to Jesus at the end time?”
    “Nag, nag, nag. If I wanted a wife I’d have married one.”
    “Repent or burn!”
    “Go suck an egg.”
    Percy stormed off, spending the rest of the night at the local fleabag. He didn’t sleep. Then again, neither did Floyd. Yet whereas Percy spent the morning’s drive to the next town muttering into his Bible, Floyd was frisky as a pup, pedal to the metal, whistling rags. They stopped for gas. Brother Percy closed the Good Book and held it to his breast. He cast a baleful gaze in the direction of his colleague.
    Silence.
    “What?” Floyd demanded.
    God’s prophet flared his nostrils. “Apostate!”
    Brothers Percy and Floyd never again shared accommodation. Percy confined himself to respectable S.R.O.s with sharp-eyed proprietors who snooped the halls to nix shenanigans amongst unmarried guests. Famous for shared baths with rust-stained sinks, the smell of mothballs, and the sound of lonely geriatrics weeping at all hours behind closed doors, these hotels were a perfect match for the evangelist. Once management realized he was alone, they paid no heed to his arguments with the dresser mirror.
    Floyd, truth to tell, had always kept his pump primed. He’d simply held off till Percy’d fallen asleep, figuring it was better to sneak off like a kid out for a smoke than to set himself up for sermonizing in the truck. He’d had nightmares of being strapped to the wheel with Percy haranguing him from North Bay to Memphis. But discovery of Floyd’s appetites had put a cork in Brother Percy’s pipes; his censure registered instead by heavy sighs. This was a mite creepy on all-night drives, but a definite improvement over the yapping to which Floyd had hitherto been subjected.
    As Percy’s private life grew progressively solitary, his nature became more bilious. “Billy Sunday wasn’t stuck in hicksvilles with a whoremonger! He was beloved! Adored! It isn’t fair!” His theology followed his mind into nightmare, his God transformed from disciplinarian to psychopath.
    “The Lord thy God is a bloody god,” he’d rage across the stage, “His plan of redemption, a slaughterhouse dripping with the blood of the Lamb, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ! Who’s off to the lake of fire? You know yourselves, you hell-born, hog-jowled, whiskey-soaked assassins of righteousness! You cigarette-smoking, fudge-eating lechers in spats and green vests! You hags of uncleanness dolled up in fool hats for card parties, serving spiced meats on hand-painted china with nasty music on your pianos while your spawn run the streets like a rummage sale in a secondhand store, gadding about in the company of