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The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness. —JOSEPH CONRAD
The soil of Charon County, like most towns and counties in the South, was sown with generations of tears. They were places where violence and mayhem were celebrated as the pillars of a pioneering spirit every Founders’ Day in the county square.
That maybe the rocks the South was built upon were shifting and splitting like the stone Moses struck with his staff. But instead of water, only blood and ichor would come pouring forth.
“The South doesn’t change. You can try to hide the past, but it comes back in ways worse than the way it was before. Terrible ways.”
Titus saw the agony that wound its way through Latrell. It twisted his body. It contorted his limbs. It was as if his arms and legs were being pulled and drawn by the weight of a guilt and shame Latrell couldn’t properly articulate.
Evidence could be tainted. Your gut could lead you astray. You had to find a balance between technique, intuition, and the truth.
Chaos was king.
“God can be everywhere at the same time if he wants, but he ain’t in every building that calls itself a church. You can stand in a pulpit and call yourself a minister. I can roll around in mud and call myself a pig too. Don’t mean you was called to preach, and it don’t mean I was meant to be pork chops,”
An African American man had been shot by two white deputies. Didn’t matter who was sheriff, there were going to be serious questions asked. Titus knew this, and even though some people wouldn’t believe it, he agreed with them. The history of policing in America, especially south of the Mason-Dixon, made those questions necessary.
Waiting for the world to shed tears for your pain was like waiting for a statue to speak.
“Terrible people can do good things sometimes. But they like doing the terrible things more.
But secrets can be corrosive. You hold it in, and it starts eating your insides. Pretty soon you find yourself willing to do anything to stop the pain.
Sometimes grief is love unexpressed. Other times it’s regret made flesh.
Titus had no illusions about who or what he was. For many people he was the devil. He accepted that. Only he was a devil that chased down demons.
Not a litany of threats but a promise of consequences.
“Evil is rarely complicated. It’s just fucking bold.”
Old Testament, New Testament, it was just words with a little w, written by zealots as PR for their new cult founded in the memory of a dead carpenter.
“Could be. I could also have monkeys fly out of my butt. Don’t mean I’m gonna start buying bananas for toilet paper,”
“Reverend, if you’ve seen the things I have, you’d realize the devil is just the name we give to the terrible things we do to each other,” Titus said.
“It’s like a monster got hold of him,” Carla whispered. “No, it was just a man. Monsters don’t care about all this pageantry,” Titus said.
The way they explained it, there were invisible strings that vibrated unseen in the liminal spaces between sunrise and secrets, between rumor, shadows, and lies. Strings that pulled all this together. All you had to do was find the seam and unravel it. Or rip it apart.
Children and animals were easy targets. Neither had learned to be wary of good intentions and sweet words.
Humility is not thinking less of yourself. It’s thinking of yourself less,’”
It occurred to him no place was more confused by its past or more terrified of the future than the South.
