Chapter 57: The Confrontation

There was the dull throb in his heart as his breathing slowed, and in a strange way it reminded him of his wasted years.

There was the anguished cry of mercy emanating from his very core that took the form of the sounds of death as it issued out.

There was the nagging regret sapping at the base of his stomach as he recounted the many times he could have turned over a new leaf.

"A disgrace! That's what you are!" Frank barked.

"You bring shame and ridicule on Christianity, and to God—if he exits. You're a canker, a bastard, a lost and depraved soul. You deserve something worse than death!

"For three years, three damned years, I saw you as a pastor, a godsend, a man of exemplary character. I adored you. I spoke to all my friends about you, about how you were different from any pastor I had ever seen in my life. I told them of your strength of character, your integrity, about how you would rather die than compromise your values. Oh, Jove! I was a fool! I regaled them with stories of your enviable Christlikeness, how you loved everyone and treated them equally regardless of their background or social status. Damn! I adored you. Some days I'd wake up in the middle of the night thinking how to model my life after yours, how to sing hosanna songs like you did, the one devoid of the contamination of pretense, insincerity or shallowness. Oh, how I longed to be just like you — holy, sold out for the gospel!

"I remember my first night at your church. Ah, that night! How unforgettable it was! I remember the shiver that ran down my spine as the dew of heaven descended on me, making me drunk with mad longings for God for the first time in my life. Now, with hindsight, that was easily the fakest and most disgraceful and humiliating day of my life! Woe betide you for ruining what could have been a memory to cherish forever!

"But how did you do it? What trick in your playbook did you use on us to hypnotize us with the gospel message that you never truly believed or practiced? What was your aim all along? Why did you deceive me into thinking that a non-existent god was crazily in love with me? Oh, how effective was your deception! How total. And how, in this godless, wicked world, did you make my heart flutter like a bird's when I was given to know that I had been saved from sin? How did you do it? How did you preach in such a way that pierced my heart deeply? Or were you a genuine pastor that time? A pastor who later left the faith and became a monster? Or did you use the church as a means to end? Whatever it was, you deserve this death!"

He moved towards the dying McCarthyw and kicked him hard in the face, snapping his neck in the other direction.

McCarthyw didn't let out any sound of pain. Blood tricked out of his nose and mouth as he struggled to fill his failing lungs with air. All he could see now was black, black, black. His eyes were wide open but he was seeing nothing but black. The world had simply gone black to McCarthyw Onuoha. All that was left for him was to take the one, last breath that stood before him and the other side of life.

Never in all his calculations and prognostications did it ever cross his mind that he would find such a humbling end like this. Here was Danger Boy, the man who had inspired raw fear and wreaked havoc on anyone that so much as dared to challenge him. Here was the con artist par excellence, branded into a pastor to conjure with, the very man who had his way seamlessly through the hearts of people— the simpletons and the cultured, the illiterate and the lettered, the rich and the poor, the strong and the weak—having them in the palm of his large hand. Had he overplayed his hand? Yes, he knew he did. He had thought himself a god of some sorts, incomparable and unconquerable. What was his thinking! How did he think he could do whatever he liked and get away with it? McCarthyw knew, as he breathed his last, that all this could have been avoided if he had simply left Lagos without forcing his way on Jenna.

But heck! Jenna was a gold mine he had dreamt of exploring right from the first moment he set his eyes on her. He could easily have had her through the power of romance but that wasn't to be. He knew he was to blame. He had built his entire reputation as a eunuch, and somehow it became a brand—the first thing that people thought of when they saw him or spoke about him. That, in itself, had erected an impregnable barrier between him and Jenna, destroying the possibllilty of a romantic relationship. And, he guessed, it had closed Jenna mind against that possibility, too. For many, many nights, he had paced his room thinking how to inveigle himself into her affections. He knew he couldn't approach her the normal way and let his feelings—which, accurately, were nothing but sexual desires—be known. That would destroy his reputation. So he decided to use the deceptive power of kindness and of selective generosity. And he did that religiously, believing that Jenna would one day fall for his spell and come knocking on his bedroom door. But none of that happened. Jenna had fallen madly in love with another man, shattering the hope of him enjoying the soft luxuries of her breasts. All his efforts, his years of consistent kindness and generosity, had been a waste! And no, he wouldn't let go without having a taste of what he had dreamt about every day for four years!

So no regrets. He had no regrets. Oh, how soft and sexy Jenna's body was! How warm and delicious was that glorious place that his phallus ran through. How tight it was, and how sweet was his orgasm! That was the single greatest achievement of his life. So, no regrets! If death was the penalty for tasting Jenna sweetness, he would gladly die a thousand times.

McCarthyw smiled a dead smile as he breathed his last pockets of breath.

"Die! You miserable piece of shit!"

It was Frank's voice. He was kneeling beside McCarthyw, stabbing him repeatedly