{"id":15246,"date":"2019-04-01T01:54:01","date_gmt":"2019-04-01T06:54:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/?p=15246"},"modified":"2019-04-01T08:10:52","modified_gmt":"2019-04-01T13:10:52","slug":"demons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/archives\/15246","title":{"rendered":"Demons"},"content":{"rendered":"

I drive back to that tin-roofed concrete slab
\nof a building to face mine. The gravel lot,
\nthe trailer our preacher camped in for a time,
\nwhisper-singing out of tune praise songs
\ninto an old tape recorder, as had been commanded
\nin a dream. This is the church where I loved
\na boy who later would hang himself
\nwith a garden hose because he could not stop
\ntouching his sisters\u2019 bodies. The one sister who huddled
\nat the edge of the worship circles, flinching from touch.
\nThe other, who still greeted everyone as she walked the aisles,
\narm hooked through an offering basket into which
\nmany folded their checks as they looked away.
\nWhen it rained it sounded like hail. We believed,
\nthen, in brimstone. We would circle and place
\nour hands upon our friends, confess to masturbation
\nand other hidden things. We prayed away
\ncancer and early onset arthritis. Once,
\nit was my sister\u2019s friend in the center.
\nShe was disabled, her hands and feet
\nstraightened through multiple surgeries
\nand divine intervention, for, we were told,
\nshe should not have lived as long
\nas she already had.
\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 In our center
\n<\/em>she shivers. It has been at least an hour, her body
\n<\/em>the vessel our hands conduct the Holy Ghost into.
\n<\/em>A healing light is blue, we are reminded. We all
\n<\/em>see the blue light except for one of the elders
\n<\/em>who has noticed the shivering and, he announces
\n<\/em>in a holy tremor, there is something ill at work here.
\n<\/em>Something we did not expect. A new trial:
\n<\/em>that old inhabitant of swine, frothing, to be cast out,
\n<\/em>whose name we will not now utter\u2014\u201cThis child,\u201d
\n<\/em>he moans in holy dread\u2014\u201cis afflicted.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

The mud slung up by my caught wheel spatters
\nover any whisper I might will back, over the image
\nI\u2019m tempted to conjure: myself, all righteous
\nanger, scattering the hunched circle with a horse whip
\nlike the vendors outside the holy of holies\u2026
\nInstead, my lank form, my pale hands pressed together,
\nwarding off the wrong sort of evil.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Zach Harrod<\/a><\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I drive back to that tin-roofed concrete slab of a building to face mine. The gravel lot, the trailer our preacher camped in for a time, whisper-singing out of tune praise songs into an old tape recorder, as had been commanded in a dream. This is the church where I loved a boy who later […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1704,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[58],"tags":[25],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s6Jypy-demons","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15246"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1704"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15246"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15246\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15251,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15246\/revisions\/15251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}