Shelter (1994) by Jayne Anne Philips Page B

surely as any murderer or thief, he brought sinners to the Crucible because he was a sinner himself. Those needy women were evil. He trusted only the big women, women like Carmody's wife, he said they slept in their bodies, had vanquished the Devil in the fortification of the flesh. They were the ones to whom he delegated the organization of church suppers and revivals, the posting of notices. They brought food to the back porch in baskets, breads and cakes and roasted meats, homemade butter faded and white as the worn complexions of those other women, who stumbled through the door of Parson's low-ceilinged room as though they were faint or sick, who flung themselves down on the narrow cot in the sway of an urge Parson felt, watching them. Like a fire in his guts, sick with burning, and when he told Preacher, the old man said he must spill his seed on barren ground, never in the house or in his bed, seduced by pleasure, he must cleanse himself kneeling and alone where the earth was hard, or in the cold of the river. Throw it in the river, Preacher said, that is the seed of evil. Too late for a man of sixty, but Parson might yet remain clean. He was a big boy, Preacher said, an animal needy as a dog or a horse, a man never mothered by a woman, but he must pour the passion of the body into the work of the Lord, and Parson began to lead prayers at meetings, and to preach. He spoke of evil, having known it, he spoke of smelling its approach and described the smell, he spoke of the Devil's fragrant oils and the swollen itch of the Devil's hunger, of stanching the flow of the Devil's bloody need, for that need was a mortal wound at the ravaged breast of Jesus, who took no woman and no man and was loved by God. Yet the Devil cleaved unto whatever fed him and feasted, drunk with flesh, feasted until he failed to defend his mind from angels. It was then Parson felt himself empowered as a warrior of the Lord, free to suck at the marrow of the Devil's sated bones.
    Sitting in the cab of one truck after another on that journey to Shelter, Parson had seen the familiar valleys and hovering brackish mountains, the small encroachable skies of southern West Virginia. The land revealed itself like an old dream as a trucker turned on a gospel station; radio chants of songs Parson had led in prison services broke over him like benedictions. Yes, he'd been right to follow Carmody, whose frightened maniacal anger so readily changed to a lax and satiated evil those nights he traded his wife's mailed parcels of clothes and food to the guards for liquor. Then he ranted about girls and women, crouched beside Parson's bunk to rasp in coarse whispers how he'd ripped into this one or that one with a cock like a wood plank till she screamed and begged for more, then he'd whipped her around and shoved it up before she could pull away, ha, they never wanted to do that, up the behind where it was good and tight, Parson knew, sure, reform school boy, foster kid. Women paid attention too when you turned them over and piled in, you had to hold on and shove till your lights came on and then they couldn't get loose to crawl away, eh? right? better do me, this is your chance, till Parson grabbed him to shut him up, to stop his evil mouth, the cell glowing blue with the Devil's light in the blackout of prison black, like being inside a grave, and Parson punched Carmody onto the floor in the corner and held him down, and Carmody felt silken, tasted sweet, as though his body retained some childish perfume despite the loutish, feline sneak in the man. But the flesh of the Devil seduced and fondled was always sweet, not foul with the stench of death like the Devil betrayed and wandering. Carmody groaned and arched himself and laced his fingers into Parson's thick, dark hair, trying to push Parson's wet mouth lower, harder, and Parson heard the Devil's suckling cries, the Devil's whimpering want, and he raised up to he full length upon the Devil's form. He balanced