Free Scarecrow Gods by Weston Ochse Page B

feet. The aura of evil was gone, and the man seemed to be himself again.
    Then an agonizing scream erupting from the front row, interrupted the silence. It was quickly punctuated by another round of cursing, this time from the mouth of Carmelita—the kind old woman who looked after the Padre and the church, a woman who was grandmother to all and had never done anyone harm, was recreating the untranslatably American word Fuck with every other syllable.
    The people around her stumbled back, falling and tripping. Within seconds the church was filled with screams as they ran towards the door. Men and women and children found themselves pushed to the ground in the mad scramble. Several younger men leapt over the bodies, using the pews as a horizontal stair until they reached the door, only to fling themselves into the backs of those clogging the door.
    It was a full minute of confusion until only a dozen people were left within the church. Simon, bruised and battered, noticed the young man was gone, as were two of the farmers who’d earlier helped subdue him. The church was a wreck. Pews and chairs had toppled. Prayer books and hymnals were scattered everywhere. Simon made his way to the front where an arc of humanity huddled around the seated figure of the cursing Carmelita.
    It was as if the young man had somehow infected the old woman.
    “Leave me the fuck alone old man. I’m sick and tired of you pimping for that illiterate slut and her ill-conceived idiot child,” she said gesturing towards the figure of Mary and the baby Jesus.
    The Padre placed his hand upon her forehead and began praying. The remaining ensemble of terrified men and women went to their knees and joined him, their chant filling the church with hopefulness and the power of their love.
    Within moments, Carmelita’s bestial features transformed into the well-remembered visage of the kindly old woman that she was. The feeling of unease left as vomit spewed from her mouth. Carmelita struggled to her feet, a look of embarrassment, stilling the people around her and keeping them from speaking. She rushed across the chancel and into the sacristy, sobbing.
    “This service is over,” said the Padre as he stood up and mopped his sweaty brow with a sleeve of his robe.
    There was a sadness in his eyes that would remain there for six more days.
    * * *
    A residue of evil seemed to coat the church of The Sanctified Virgin, a thin film upon the walls and floor that none could see but all could feel. Carmelita wouldn’t speak of the episode and every time Simon had tried to brook the topic, she’d shushed him and left the room. It bothered her terribly. She’d thought herself devout and immune to anything the devil could throw her way. Her possession, and by this point everyone was calling it that, had left her haunted by the prospect of evil, and she transformed her anger to cleaning, cleansing, removing any piece of unwanted filth. The flagstones shone with her angry efforts, every nook and cranny cleaned and recleaned, her rags wiping, dispelling Satan.
    On Saturday they got the call that they’d all been secretly expecting.
    Simon and the Padre arrived near sunset. It was a one-room house, common with most of the population of Nuevo Laredo. The outside was sun-dried mud daubed between two-by-fours. Gregorio and Juanita Lopez lived within and until this day, had been happy for it. By day it was a barber shop, the chairs and accoutrements of the job littering the living room. By night, the chairs were pushed away, the brushes and combs and scissors were placed in boxes, and an old bed was unfolded for the Mother and her twenty-year-old son.
    Simon remembered the conversation he’d had with the Padre on Wednesday, sitting over a bottle of tequila, both of them in need of understanding and a good drunk. By candlelight, sitting around an old wooden card table in the basement, they’d drained half the bottle in measured shots as if each were charging themselves for