nine. Brother Eacomb called down God and called out Satan in a voice that no one in those parts had ever heard the like of. He would teach them to praise God, he said. He would cure their ills and wash the sins from those who genuinely wished to be saved. Brother Eacomb promised to cast out demons and to purify hearts. After that, he promised to lead his flock up the holy mountain, because they were surely a righteous people, the chosen ones of God.
If his blue eyes hadn’t gotten to Adelaide, his mellifluous voice surely would have. Adelaide Roman had never in her life heard such a voice come out of a man. But oh my Lord, those eyes.
On the Thursday after that first Meeting of the Righteous, Theo Roman complained of feeling ill and stayed home from work for the first time in his life. Adelaide left early for her job at the post office, but Dancy stayed home from school because she was worried. At a quarter past ten, she heard a thump and a strangling sound coming from her parents’ room. She found Theo on the floor, called for an ambulance, and rode along with him to a hospital in New Orleans, where she had to borrow money for the pay phone to call her mother. Adelaide said she would be there after work. This situation aggravated her; she wouldn’t be able to go shopping, and she needed to find another new dress to wear for her personal savior, Brother Eacomb.
Theo was in the hospital for a week. When he was discharged, the doctor handed Adelaide a small glass bottle with nitroglycerin tablets in it and explained to them both that Theo should place one under his tongue if he felt another heart attack coming on. He said the instructions were on the label. Adelaide put the bottle in the drawer of the bedside table when they got back home.
It wasn’t but a month later that another heart attack came to call. Adelaide and Theo had just sat down to dinner when he felt the first pain. Dancy wasn’t home.
“Nitro . . .” he gasped.
“What’s that, Theo? What are you saying? I don’t know what you’re saying.”
“Nitro . . .” He was turning a bluish white.
“What are you trying to say, Theo? I can’t understand you.”
A raspy, whispered “Nitro . . .”
“I still can’t understand you, Theo.” She was shouting by now. “Are you saying nitro? Do you need one of those pills?”
Theo managed to nod his head, and Adelaide folded her napkin, put it back on the table, and walked to the bedroom to get the medication. When, nearly two full minutes later, Theo fell to the floor stone-cold dead, Adelaide was straightening a throw pillow and smoothing a wrinkle in the bedspread.
The next time Brother Harley John Eacomb came to Bayou Cymbaline to conduct a Meeting of the Righteous, Adelaide showed up in a snug-fitting, black sheath dress. After the service she approached him and proclaimed that now she understood Mark 9:43–48. Her husband had been like a hand or a foot or an eye that offended, and he had been cast off.
“He was a drinker and a smoker and he played poker every Friday night, Brother Eacomb. And though he was always clean-shaven and shined his shoes on Saturdays, he was a godless man. I am convinced he will be playing cards with the devil for all eternity.”
And Brother Harley John Eacomb said, “Praise Jesus, sister, praise Jesus.”
Adelaide took to wearing fancy lingerie to every Meeting of the Righteous. She told herself it had nothing to do with the fact that she drove to a motel over in Chalmette and had sex with the married Brother Eacomb after services. That wasn’t it at all; she had simply wanted to look her best for God, as any good Christian woman would do.
Having become Brother Eacomb’s truest disciple, Adelaide believed it was her duty to save others by any means available, and she carried this out at her post office job by intercepting and opening mail that was not addressed to her, all in the name of the Lord. She reasoned that doing so would allow her to
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