The Devil All the Time - Donald Ray Pollock [14]
“Can’t be no tricks,” Theodore said.
“Only the Devil needs them.” Roy took a sip of water from the kitchen sink, just enough to wet his lips. Refreshed, he decided to pray some more, and started toward the bedroom.
“If you can pull this off, Roy,” Theodore said, “there won’t be a church in West Virginia big enough to hold all the people that will want to hear you preach. Shit, you’ll be more famous than Billy Sunday.”
A few days later, Roy asked Helen to leave the baby with her friend, the Russell woman, while they took a drive. “Just to get out of the stinking house for a while,” he explained. “I promise you, I’m done with that closet.” Helen was relieved; Roy had suddenly started acting like his old self again, was talking about getting back into preaching. Not only that, Theodore had quit going out at night, was practicing some new religious songs and sticking to coffee. He even held the baby for a few minutes, something he had never done before.
After they dropped off Lenora at Emma’s house, they drove thirty minutes to a woods a few miles east of Coal Creek. Roy parked the car and asked Helen to go for a walk with him. Theodore was in the backseat pretending to be asleep. After going just a few yards, he said, “Maybe we ought to pray first.” He and Theodore had argued about this, Roy saying he wanted it to be a private moment between just him and his wife while the cripple insisted that he needed to see the Spirit leave her firsthand to make sure they weren’t faking it. When they knelt down under a beech tree, Roy pulled Theodore’s screwdriver from beneath his baggy shirt. He put his arm around Helen’s shoulder and gripped her close. Thinking he was being affectionate, she turned to kiss him just as he plunged the sharp point deep into the side of her neck. He let go of her and she fell sideways, then rose up, grabbing frantically for the screwdriver. When she jerked it out of her neck, blood sprayed from the hole and covered the front of Roy’s shirt. Theodore watched out the window as she tried to crawl away. She went only a few feet before falling forward into the leaves and flopping about for a minute or two. He heard her call out Lenora’s name several times. He lit a cigarette and waited a few minutes before he hauled himself out of the car.
Three hours later, Theodore said, “It ain’t gonna happen, Roy.” He sat in his wheelchair a few feet from Helen’s body holding the screwdriver. Roy was down on his knees beside his wife, holding her hand, still trying to coax her back to life. At first his supplications had rung through the woods with faith and fervor, but the longer he went without even a twitch from her cold body, the more garbled and deranged they had become. Theodore could feel the onslaught of a headache. He wished he had brought something to drink.
Roy looked up at his crippled cousin with tears running down his face. “Jesus, I think I killed her.”
Theodore pushed himself closer and pressed the back of his dirty hand against her face. “She’s dead, all right.”
“Don’t you touch her,” Roy yelled.
“I’m just trying to help.”
Roy struck the ground with his fist. “It wasn’t supposed to be this way.”
“I hate to say it, but if they catch you for this, them ol’ boys in Moundsville will fry you like bacon.”
Roy shook his head, wiped the snot from his face with his shirtsleeve. “I don’t know what went wrong. I thought for sure …” His voice dwindled away, and he let go of her hand.
“Shit, you just miscalculated, that’s all,” Theodore said. “Anybody could have done that.”
“What the hell am I gonna do now?” Roy said.
“You could always run,” Theodore said. “That’s the only smart thing to do in a situation like this. I mean, fuck, what you got to lose?”
“Run where?”
“I been sitting here thinking on it, and I figure that old car would probably make it to Florida if you babied it.”
“I don’t know,” Roy said.
“Sure you do,” Theodore said. “Look, once we get there, we sell the car and start preaching again. That’s what we should have been doing all