Free John Crow's Devil by Marlon James Page B

smell of something cooked gave way to the horrific odor of someone burnt. When they found him, the rain had begun in a rhythmless drizzle, but thunder bellowed and gales came upon the village in swells. He was around the back of the house. The contraption looked like a guillotine: two towering planks of wood on both sides of a narrow platform, which was encircled by a fence. Pulleys at the top of the planks suspended ropes downwards. Each rope had a harness to which he was strapped at the thigh. This was his breakthrough invention; now he could adjust his height to fuck cows of any size. From afar it seemed as if women’s garters were pulling him up. When the lightning struck he had already mounted himself, supported by pulleys and excited by the friction of her buttocks. The sudden blast of white light and heat had burnt him to a crust, singeing the rope and planks of wood and fusing the pulleys stiff. The cow was unharmed. For two days, nobody approached him and he swung in the wind with the burnt rope squeaking as it rubbed against the wood. Even in death, his deeds were exposed. The lightning had struck him when he was most ready, and now, more than his exposed parts would remain stiff forever. The men took him down after Mrs. Fracas’s dog made away with all the toes on his left foot. Lightning was the pointed finger of God’s judgment.

    The Rum Preacher had been praying without stop from before dawn. He heard the rain break. The Widow was right. But didn’t the scriptures say that only by blaspheming the Holy Spirit would the Lord leave you? He was an abomination. The most wretched sinner there was. Before, he knelt, but now he fell to the ground grieving for himself.
    “Thirty years. Him blood flowing for thirty years. Oh Jesus! Jesus! Jesus! Holy Spirit! Precious Lord! Forgive me! Holy Spirit! Holy Spirit! Take pity on You wicked son!”
    His brother fell over the balcony again. Blood spread across the floor unevenly, looking like a map. Hector had coveted, lied, and stolen from his brother. Then he destroyed him. Back in the dark bedroom, Bligh rolled on the ground and sobbed. His cries grew louder, waking the Widow, who crept up to the door. What she saw took her back to a place when she was a woman. She looked at the man and saw a child, maybe a lamb. Her hardened heart broke and she left him.
    “Father, give me the cup. Father, not my will but Thine be done! Please, Jesus. I ask for the pain. I ask for the death. I asking for the crucifixion. I want to rise, Jesus, I want to rise. I want to rise!”
    Not once in those years since the seminary had he asked for forgiveness. Not once had he felt worthy. Even now he begrudged his brother’s life. His brother’s joy. Fearlessness. Silliness. He hated his brother’s life of choice, where his was one of duty. Bligh could still see himself mounted atop the sister-in-law, his penis the hardened point of his envy. In mere hours he corrupted her, made her lose faith in love and give herself to him, a man becoming a priest. Or so he lied. Honesty rose to the surface as before. She had called him to bed. She had no faith in love to gain or lose. Like Adam, he was led by his serpent and her apple; to break his virginity only to fall into the horrible knowledge of good and evil. After his brother died she disappeared.
    But with the Apostle came Hector’s turn to feel the loss of everything. God’s justice. He loved the Lord but hated Him too. These were the things that must happen, a girl said to him in a dream. But other things stirred in him, things that would never have risen had he not been brought down so low. He never thought much of his life when he had it, but things were different now that he had lost everything. This must be new. Having been driven from the church now made him want the church back. Those whom God loved, God punished, and God had never punished him until now. For thirty years he thought himself no more than a blind spot on God’s backside,