Chapter One
GOD MUST HAVE A SENSE OF HUMOR. A sign mounted on a fence post beside the highway read to a tired man. It was sloppily painted in what looked like ovine blood. He looked away in disgust.
Dear God the father in heaven, holy is Your name. I come before You today praying for Your mercy. Things on this earth just keep on getting worse. Methodists, Baptists, Church of Christ, all of them warping Your words. Creating religions based on the false prophets, liars and thieves. Negroes run rampant like pagans multiplying and worshipping the devil hisself. And homosexuals pervert what was intended for prospering falling into lust man for men. God I know You are there. I know that Your faithfulness is like the rising of the sun. There ain’t no justice anymore God. Ain’t no righting of wrongs, just wronging of rights. I know that You in heaven know what’s best, and I got nothing to say but praise to Your name. I know You are love. I believe in You God Almighty—that You intend to bring justice to the world. There ain’t no love in a world without justice. One time before You brought the swiftest of judgment, and Noah done what was right. Now I come before You humbly praying that You cause it to come into being. Man had a chance the first time Your Son came and they killed Him forgetting everything in a minute. I know the time is near, when Your Son returns to damn them for what they done. What they all done. The heathen shall perish. It is for love for the chosen that justice is done. I await Thy Word with patience like Moses. I exalt your name… Amen.
The tired sun drooped low in the glowing sky as a softening erection--a shadow cast over the land the light abandoned. Abraham Chosen drove his rusted truck with squinted eyes groping onward into the ember rays towards a home and a wife of twenty years who awaited his arrival. As she tidied the home, she prayed her own prayer.
Dear three-pronged prick. My Husband informed me that he no longer desires life. In your omniscient omnipotence, cause his car to veer into a ditch. In Yer motha-fucking name, Amen.
Upon his arrival in his home, he pulled of his dusty boots in the entryway and then entered the kitchen where two steaming cookies and a cold dark ale awaited him. The beer’s top had already been popped and the cookies had been removed from the oven fifteen minutes earlier so that they had a warm gushy consistency, but did not scorch his tongue. He took three bites of his first cookie before taking a gulping swig from the longneck.
Seated opposite her husband, Bethel’s eyes wrinkled at the sight. Stoically she endured. Her straight back was not allowed to touch the back of her chair, and her hands intertwined on her apron covered lap like wet rope. When the cookies were entirely consumed, she rose and took his plate all the while avoiding looking as his scruffy face which was speckled with chocolate crumbs and smears.
He then expected the daily paper to be brought before him while he finished his ale. His stone eyes were anticipatory and eager.
The headlines of the paper bled as Bethel turned it over. (She always laid it face down on the counter so that the surprise would not be foiled.) As she attempted to focus the familiar black symbols, they formed viscous blobs and spread like mercury over the recycled gray paper. A gyrating sensation swooped into her head and a churning filled her stomach, and in her attempt to deliver the paper, she wobbled weakly towards the wall. Abruptly she caught herself and refocused her sight on a caulk line in the tile, regained her balance, and dropped the catalyst paper to her hip. The thin leaflets weighed like a bucket of water which she clumsily thrust before Abraham.
“Too bad you too dumta read it.” He snided then hissed like a frightened snake.
She lowered her forehead and took her seat with an heir of apology.
“Quit yer frettin’. Yer makin’ me nervous.” He crinkled the paper flat in his bear claw hands. “The damn niggers are at it again. Killing some pore white boy. Say they don’ know who done it. Like they don’ know. Always the same niggers. Never get caught.” He scowled into the paper. His tone lowered, “But they will be.”
Jesus loves the little children
Except for the niggers, perv’s and girls
Red or yellow, black or slight
They are scourges in his sight
Jesus loves the little children of the world
Bethel hummed the tune between her ears and smiled with sedition. Jesus—the great paradox. No matter. Carry on servant of the most high.
“Dear God above, smite these sinners. Come on back and send ‘em to self wrought damnation.” He continued aloud bowing his head reverently.
Bethel mimicked him with a contorted face when he closed his eyes.
“In yer mighty name, the name above all names, Amen.” He concluded.
As though the heaviest of burdens had been lifted from his frame he sighed breathing in the breath of the ever present Holy Ghost. He rose from his chair full of vigor to change into his recreation clothes. Bethel then busied herself cleaning the kitchen again, wiping chocolate slop from the table and sweeping where his feet had touched. Waiting for him to leave, she feigned business in a back room until she heard the door slam behind him.
What?! No goodbye! Depriving me of my only pleasures. What a neglected unfortunate woman I am. Oh what is a poor lonely woman like me to do in an empty home with no one but God to keep me company?
She lewdly threw herself on the living room sofa. She slid the trembling fingers of her hand into her high-waisted skirt. They rubbed violently inside her plain panties.
Oh Jesus. You always get to watch. Up there in heaven like a perv. Well here I am.
Eagerly, she spread her legs to the heavens and exposed her unkempt vagina to the ceiling. She rubbed herself up along her thighs until she found where they connected. A voracious moan bellowed from within.
Oh Jesus. It is thee I desire. Svelte carpenter’s bod. Humble, masculine, and rough. Hands like the bark of a tree. Scarred back in my trembling womanly fingers. The son of God must be hung. No pun intended of course.
Her activities were interrupted by a firm knock on the door. “Come on in.” She hollered. The doorknob turned and she did not bother making herself decent.
………
“Repent! The end is nigh!” Abraham yelled from the lazy street corner. The sun died slowly, its light diminishing as a light bulb burning out its filament. The shadows of the three story buildings overcame the recently illuminated ground. “There is still time to save your eternal soul.”
Jesus tells us to spread His Word to every corner of the world.
“Repent! Jesus will forgive the humble!”
So no man is without excuse.
“Soon you will feel the fires of hell burn your immortal flesh!”
Proclaim the good news.
“There is forgiveness for the weary!”
Let every man hear.
“A spot in heaven for every soul!”
But it don’ matter.
“God loves every one of you!”
Every soul that has not been chosen must certainly perish in the lake of fire.
Abraham’s voice rang like a barking dog tightening the nerves of the unwilling listeners who happened to be within range. He had earned the name ‘Brimstone’ around town. This was cleverly coined by a young high school student in a barber shop.
“Hey you!” A voice returned a volley. “Jesus gone and died. Strung him up like a nigger.” A group of three adolescents retorted. Then they giggled raucously at their own ingenuity.
Abraham gritted his underbit teeth forming a menacing grimace. The veins in his thick neck throbbed, and his stone eyes narrowed. Standing erect, his head was just shy of the top jamb of a door frame, and his shoulders came within inches of the sides. His arms were swollen like knotted tree branches and a birth defect cause his respiration to grate. Standing thus, he replied in a sturdy timbre, “He don’t respond well to blasphemy.”
The three youngsters skittered away nervously from the foreboding message and the terrible form of a man.
Take heart Abraham. You know you are chosen. Predestined to join the father in heaven. Don’t allow yourself to be discouraged by the wayward ways of the world. Each man is punished according to his deeds.
I remember the church mission. Second year of high school. The body took medicines and food and clean water to Saint Mary’s downtown. Filthy neglected children brought by even filthier parents. Drunks and niggers lying for food. Blaming everyone else for their own degradation. Stealing food and pills to buy their booze. Ain’ never been back. Can’t corrupt my own soul in that den of sin.
Remember that nigger boy. Coughing until he sputtered blood. His nigger skin as purple as a beat. Collapsed at my feet. His nigger mamma praying to a God who would not listen. Can only imagine the evil it takes for God almighty to smote the children. Woman must have been the evilest of filth. Wept as her child breathed his last right before me. A common cold, the doctor later told me. Ignored, abused, neglected child… The victim of God’s wrath. God ain’ have to facilitate. His Holy Ghost has vanished until the return of his son. When the God of love becomes the God of loving justice.
With Abraham deep in thought, the last tip of the sun disappeared into the black engulfing horizon.
