Shame The Devil

by Lee Ann Sontheimer Murphy

On August nights when the heat never dissipated and a humid haze blurred the stars, Melinda would sometimes sleep on the sun-faded gold crushed velour of the sofa. The occasional breeze came through the rusted screens on the windows of the cinder block house. Night sounds were audible--the plaintive, far-away cries of coyotes and the crackling hum of insects. When unable to sleep, her body soaked with perspiration, she also heard the whine of her husband's wheels as he soared around the curves with speed, listened to the gears protest as he climbed the hairpin drive to their home.

He did not like it when she waited for him and preferred that she not know the hour of his return. His claims that it violated his privacy, emasculated his manhood, and overstepped her place were false. Although he claimed to be spreading the Gospel of the Lord to homeless people, Melinda's nose detected the aroma of whiskey, inhaled the thick tobacco smoke that permeated his white-on-white dress shirts. Those odors told her that he idled in barrooms, not mingled with the needy at street missions but she had spoken her thoughts but once.

Fine and hard to detect, a scar remained along one cheek where she had fallen against the heat stove when he knocked her from her feet with one blow. When she opened her eyes from a brief unconsciousness, she expected curses but instead listened to Joshua's fervent prayers. He prayed well when he wanted, his tongue able to fashion heart-rending chants of petition and praise. He shouted--danced and spoke in unknown tongues--when she pulled herself up.

"Thank you, Jesus, thank you." Hands in the air, he waved his thanksgiving. "Praise Your Holy Name for restoring her and let her learn from the error of her ways, from the sins of her transgressions!"

He expected her to be grateful to an ever-loving God that his blow had not killed her and that she would be repentant for her meddling mouth. Melinda was neither but she pretended, artifice being the saving grace of many situations. She had more respect for her own acting skills than for a distant and male God who seemed not to hear.

What few breezes passed into the house might have been cooling had she been able to undress but after she had once worn a sleeveless nightgown bought at Wal-Mart, Joshua had decreed night wear to be immodest. Whether she slept on the sagging couch or in their bed, Melinda wore an old dress. Since short sleeves were also considered risqué and certain mark of a harlot, she lay in the summer's heat wearing a dress that stretched well past her knees and sleeves to the wrist. The garment was buttoned to the base of her throat.

As she waited, sweat soaking beneath her arms and sliding down both legs, Melinda repressed an urge to cast aside all clothing to run naked in the silver moonlight. Desire to dance like a pagan beneath a moon swelled great like the belly of a woman gone nine months with child was so tempting that she sat up, fingers unbuttoning the first few buttons before she stopped.

If she had not been alone, she would have rebuked herself and that devil Satan with loud tones and theatrics. The children--a five-year-old girl named Tirzah and a two-year-old called Andrew--slept and she had no other company, she said nothing but bit her lip hard, tasting a drop of blood.

"Jesus, help me, it's so hot." It was difficult to whisper the words with a mouth so dry it ached but she refused to rise for a drink of water. Thirst was her self-prescribed penance for her temptation and she believed that God would honor her self-denial. She had not eaten since before daylight, either.

Her stomach gurgled with hunger and she rubbed it, now empty enough to ache with dull persistence. Her fast was part of her ongoing prayers that begged the Lord to make her the wife Joshua wanted. Melinda longed to be the kind of spouse her husband needed. That he spent long hours away from home, that he spent his time in terrible places where he claimed to seek souls for salvation, that he often reeked of strong perfume or had blood red lipstick smears on his shirts did not mean his failing but her own.

If she were wife enough, if she had enough Holiness power to be a prayer warrior, to be a good wife like the book of Proverbs described, he wouldn't wander. Melinda knew it was not his faith that was lacking. When he preached--one of a baker's dozen of self-taught preachers who pounded the congregation of the Jesus Name Church of God with the Gospel--Joshua was magnificent. His voice roared with the power of thunder and his eyes turned to steel. His tones rattled the windows of the old frame church and women fell out in the Spirit in the aisles.

Sometimes he stopped preaching and began to sing not the soulful soft hymns of tradition but songs with drums, with rapid rhythms. Then one young Sister or another would step from her pew, sometimes with a child locked in her arms, and begin to run. One might run laps around the pews but another might begin to dance in the jerky yet graceful rhythms of the Lord. As the power filled them, the women would dance and contort their bodies in impossible ways. Hair that had been pinned into tight buns or knobs fell, hair pins pinging against the carpet until a curtain of hair, ankle length among the most blessed, flew wild.

Before they married, Melinda had danced to Joshua's songs. Her hands had clapped out in praise and she had moved with slender grace, with the burning sensuality of woman although she called it holiness instead. Her devotion, her fullness of Spirit had been what caught his eye and he had courted her, so fired with God's power that they wed in less than a year.

Tears salted each eye and ran down her cheeks with sweat as she remembered the Joshua she dated. He had not yet been twenty-one but a preacher since he was twelve, experienced and known among the Holiness people. With his near-golden hair combed back from his forehead and held in proud place with hair spray, he had been handsome. His blue eyes had seemed to see into the very courtyards of heaven.

He had also been a gentleman. Her parents gave permission for him to take her out to Sunday dinner and he had opened every door, pulled out her chair, and ordered from the menu. Too nervous to remember what she ate, Melinda had listened as he spoke about his duty, his walk with his Lord.

There had been flowers and walks where they held hands, a visit to the mall where he praised her homemade clothing and reviled the sleek fashions on display. Together they had prayed for the sinners who waited in line to view the movies, wicked stories judging by the posters that advertised them for anyone to see. After six years as his wife, Melinda could still summon the memory of his voice, husky and sweet as brown sugar, calling her "Princess" and "My Beauty."

"He's the one." Her mother had exclaimed, hands clasped to her breast and face lit with a glow that made her look the forty years she claimed instead of sixty. "Joshua's the one. He'll get you nice things and a pretty house with a porch swing."

"Maybe." Although swept away by his intense pursuit and charm, Melinda had felt wary. Two years of public high school had opened her eyes to another world, a different way of life. Her parents did not know and neither would Joshua but she often borrowed Cover Girl from her locker partner. With her face painted and her skirts turned up with Scotch tape, she had blended a little more with the other teens. Each evening she had used baby wipes secreted in her purse to remove the sinful paint from her face.

Joshua made her smile but his few kisses did not make fire soar through her veins or her heart beat faster. When Brandon Sample kissed her on Valentine's Day, Melinda felt a rush that went beyond any holy experience. Brandon invited her to the basketball homecoming dance as his date but she declined. Her parents would never let a worldly boy pick her up and she couldn't manufacture an excuse to get into town on the appointed night.

After her sophomore year, Daddy kept her home to help her mother. A new baby had sapped Sister Jean Ann's strength and she couldn't keep up with the toddling twins with an infant at her breast. Brandon called and they whispered until midnight but then her father had answered the phone. There were no more calls.

"Brandon." His name came from her mouth in a soft moan and she clapped one hand across her lips to prevent a repeat. Should Joshua return and hear her, he would beat her and make her stand before church to repent.

On the night she first drew Joshua's notice, Brandon had still owned her adolescent heart but she knew there was no future with him. Joshua taught her the proper humility, the chaste obedience required of a pastor's wife. He intended to become pastor when Big Joe Templeton retired and she had no doubt he would. On the way home from their Valentine's Day wedding, Joshua stopped at Wal-Mart just because he could and lingered. It was the first of countless reminders of who was in power.

A door slammed in the yard and she jumped. Caught up in memory, Melinda had failed to hear the truck climb the hill. Joshua's boots scrabbled over the rocks and he stepped through the door as she sat upright.

"What are you doing up?" His voice was a growl as he pushed past her to collapse into the armchair. With one hand pressed to his forehead, she knew he had the headache.

"I couldn't sleep, worryin' 'bout you." The words were not a complete lie. She loved him when they wed and she still loved him even if she longed for more.

"Well, the Lord must have sent his angels to wake you, then, 'cause the Devil made the headache come over me so bad I couldn't hardly drive. I need you to pray."

With one hand clasped to each side of his head, Melinda bowed and searched for the right voice within. "Lord, Lord, Lord, hear me now." She crooned in singsong fashion. "Send down a healing for my husband, Lord, he's hurting and needs a dose of Your power to heal him. I rebuke the Devil in the name of Jesus."

Melinda droned on, repeating the words, for fifteen minutes. By then, she swayed with fatigue and a sense of power, the amazing power that sometimes filled her in church. She drifted into the unknown tongues, shouting out strange phrases, her body jerking as she stood. At some point Joshua added his voice and the deeper shouts woke the children who began to wail. The sound of her babies brought Melinda back. If she'd been hot before, she felt as if she were burning alive. Sweat dripped from her face onto her heaving breasts.

"How you feelin' now?"

"Like a vise has pinched my head together." Joshua moaned. "That old devil's strong tonight, baby. Help me get to the bed and call up Brother Joe. If the Brothers don't come pray me through this, I'm feelin' like I might die."

Tirzah ran to her father and threw her thin arms about him. "No, daddy, no daddy, no daddy."

"Bless this child for her lovin' ways!" he moaned. "Get them on the phone and get me to bed."

The little girl clung to his arms and the baby rode her hip as Melinda walked him into the bedroom. Almost blind from the white-hot pain he described, Joshua fell onto the bed and rolled on his back. Tirzah fell to her knees as he stretched out and lay her face against his arm.

Melinda stretched her fingers into the slots to dial the familiar number and when the gruff pastor's voice barked out a greeting, she began to cry.

"Brother Templeton, Satan's got ahold of my husband again and he's took bad ... got one of his headaches and he's like to die with the devil a-squeezin' his head so tight he cain't see. He wants the elders to come pray."

"Jesus keep him!" Big Joe used the ringing tones that commanded attention from the pulpit. "We'll be there as soon as I can rouse some of the Brothers. Pray, Sister, pray like there's no tomorrow or this might be the time that the devil steals your husband away."

Melinda sobbed a response. Hands slicked sweat and trembling with fear made it difficult to replace the receiver but she did. Pastor Big Joe Templeton's words worried her. Joshua's mother had suffered the same severe headaches and she had died in church one night. She collapsed during a wild bout of shouting and had complained her head hurt before she turned pale and went limp. Joshua claimed that with that victory, the Devil had moved on to him because his own attacks began on the day of her funeral.

She put a cold cloth across Joshua's brow but he did not speak. Whether he slept or was fighting the devil, she did not know. Warm milk and a few songs soothed the children back to sleep and she changed her dress for a fresh one before the men arrived.

Headlights panned across the drive as multiple vehicles followed the driveway into the house. Twelve men including Big Joe ringed the bed and allowed her to kneel in a far corner of the room. With the bedroom door closed so that the children would not wake, their voices boomed as they prayed and shouted. Not one man said the same words. Some used English; others called out in those ancient, incomprehensible tongues. Arms were waving, voices hoarse and harsh, and she cowered, lips moving with prayers inaudible over the men.

By dawn, Joshua rested easy. He'd roused, asked for water, and said that his headache had gone. Then he'd drifted into a deep slumber that she knew would last most of the day. Melinda made coffee for the brothers and fed them breakfast. It was not until they had eaten and gone that she sat down with coffee or ate an egg with the remaining scraps of bacon.

Brother Templeton had taken the children for his wife to mind and the house was silent. Although weary, Melinda did not sleep but instead cleaned the house with fervor. She dusted and vacuumed, swept the kitchen floor, scrubbed and polished and straightened until noon. With bare feet padding across the floor she peeked at Joshua who now snored. Asleep and after his attack he looked vulnerable and young. Love flooded her and she kissed his face.

Maybe he would return from this battle with the devil and be kinder. The struggle with sin and evil exhausted him; she knew that was what made him wander so often and speak with such short tones. He would be hungry when he woke but as she canvassed the kitchen she found little.

Although he worked--when he chose--as an independent roofer, jobs paid in cash and he doled out the money with a spare hand. Melinda leafed through an old cookbook that had belonged to Sister Nelson, his mother, but was delivered from cooking something from nothing when some of the Sisters arrived.

One carried a baked ham, studded with cloves. Another carried scalloped potatoes still warm from the oven. Hot rolls, green bean casserole, a meat loaf, a chocolate cake, sugar cookies, barbecued beans, and a pea salad arrived in the arms of caring Sisters. They muttered their sympathies, mouthed their concerns, and insisted on redoing her hair.

"I don't suppose you'll be at church tonight." Sister Robinson spoke up, her bulk ponderous and her arms crossed.

"No, I'm afraid he won't be up for that."

"He should be." Another woman added. "Sick folks belong in the church house."

She thanked them with humble words until they departed to prepare supper for their own men. Melinda called Sister Templeton to see if she might bring the babies home but Tirzah and Andrew had been passed over to Joshua's brother's wife.

"Sister Barbara come and got them this morning, took them to her house. She said tell you they'd just keep them until Brother Nelson is himself again."

With murmured thanks, she hung up and waited. Too hungry to wait for her husband to rouse, she ate two hot rolls filled with ham. His eyes were shadowed black with fatigue and the ghost of intense pain when he woke. Melinda was at his side and she hoped for sweet words, reassuring words. Instead, he was brief.

"I'm hungry."

Disappointment soured her stomach. He could have said he loved her, might have thanked her for calling the brethren, even reassured her that he was well. Hot words climbed into her throat but she swallowed them.

"There's plenty of food; some of the Sisters brought it. I'm glad you're feelin' better, honey."

She named the dishes with a smile but he shook his head and ignored the endearment.

"I don't want none of that. Why don't you make me up some biscuits with milk gravy?"

"All right." Her inward anger didn't touch her voice but she rose with slow movements, the weight of her emotions heavy as age. Melinda combined the flour, fat, milk, and baking powder.

"Hurry up!" His voice carried from the bedroom well. "Church is on tonight and I'm going, praise God. I'm going and shame the Devil, may he burn in hell!"

Her hands slowed then stopped. An image of the Sevin dust she used to kill pests in her garden came to mind and she wondered if she added some to his biscuits if he would taste it.

"Likely so." Her voice spoke aloud, resigned and as bitter as the poison would taste.

"What did you say?"

"Nothing." She muttered as she began to roll out the biscuits. They baked to a soft brown while she stirred up the gravy and he ate. He then dressed for church and insisted that she put on one of her best dresses, a silk rose garment with a square lace collar. She slid her feet into heeled shoes and followed him to the truck.

He did not preach that night but the Spirit fell upon Melinda. She was the first to run the pews and the first to dance. She whirled in circles; skirt swirling out around her and kicked off her shoes, one in each direction as the power of the Lord filled her. Like someone possessed, like something pagan and wild she danced until she dropped, face striking the carpet without a sound and lay still until the service had ended.

The Author

Lee Ann Sontheimer Murphy is a full-time freelance writer whose non-fiction credits date back over twenty years. Her fiction has previously appeared in Scrivener's Pen, Underground Window, Poor Mojo's Almanac, Foliate Oak, Words,words,words, Writer's Nook, and other journals. She received the 2005 Editor's Pen Award for excellence in fiction from Scrivener's Pen for her short story, Witches' Sixpence. Find her online at leeannsontheimermurphy.blogspot.com.