the church on meadow road

church angst before i knew what angst meant.

Childhood, to me, was like being kidnapped and forced to observe life through another person's taste. Had I been able to choose, sleeping through the whole ordeal would've done me better.


Going to church wasn't so bad, at least my mother couldn't scream at me for a whole hour. Our church was very quaint, being 13 feet from a busy road, there were always sounds and reflections and movement, but not inside. Our preacher and his wife were soaked in righteousness. I never saw them get dirty or grunt or fight or be indignant. They were way too calm to have parishioners from Leaksville.


Their home was a collection of simple furniture, tattered bibles, no television and the silence of restraint. You would never go there to confess a broken window or stolen candy, the nervous echoes would've worsened the sin and stoked the flames of hell. I never asked him outside, because his shoes might have gotten dirty. They were saved and you were not; maybe that made up for the modest church not being a monument to their success.


Once, while he sat in his den, I went up to him to make a private offering. He immediately stood up and drew attention to it. Everything was a thing, there wasn't a time for just me and them. It was I and them, and, my later discussed motives. Why was I there and what am I bothering him for? Steve needs a daddy, ain't that sweet, and God loves you so much.


The service consisted of an opening hymn, drowned out by a piano that creaked and popped and absorbed light. We stood as we sang (there was this one woman in a green raincoat that never stood up. Had the president walked in, she would've sat tight. I don't recall her coming in or leaving, maybe she did, but I never saw it). The sermons forced one to entertain their mind, I rearranged a whole junk drawer in my head, even figuring out how the dovetails were carved.


While the preacher mumbled, I'd look at my sister's and cousin's feet dangling under the pew. As your feet go, so do you. I knew my cousin Beth would make it to glory because her socks were so clean. Her rounded little heels had trod on shiny floors. You could hear her shoes plop down and all was right with America.


This was not so for some. The wide-footed, neanderthal cousin from Draper was doomed from birth, her shoes never came off. Whatever went on inside those shoes made trucks wreck and gave jobs to social engineers. Demons, death, and the cure for happiness were in there. If mercy is a beatitude, then better done than spoken ...

Acting up in the back of the church was my specialty. Placing a pencil in between my friend's fingers was harmless, squeezing the fingers down like a nutcracker was joy unspeakable. He deserved it for grossing me out in my captivity. He would booger dig and drool and sniff and smell like molded cheese every Sunday. His fingers worked hard to pry loose those boogers, my head had to turn away when he reached his goal. The roll and flick were shameless; it was a sound like a rain drop.


One morning he didn't make it to church. He was killed the night before on Berry Hill road. At the funeral, his sister cried harder than anything I’d ever seen. Maybe she never had to sit with him in church. Maybe had he lived there would have been more discretion, I doubt it ...

The last ten minutes of every sermon seemed the longest, I always wondered how he knew an hour was up. Maybe his wife crossed her legs the other way or the light used a part of the back wall like a sundial. We would stand for a closing hymn and all the blood would rush down your legs like an avalanche. The sleepiness would go out of your head, God had been conned for one more week.


Once outside, the pork chewing, quintuple bypass candidates would fire up a Pall-Mall and singe your eyelashes when you walked by. You’d always hear how much they loved you and the Lord, I tried to dodge the embers while I could ...

Reviews

[Delmar Cooper]

Thanks for sharing this well written memoir type story. This is a true story, not because it happened to the narrator, but because it is plausible in its telling and a reader is compelled to accept it as gospel. The pure and actual truth might not be so believable.

[steve turner]

thank you delmar. i wish i had the time to explain what the story is really telling. it's about my resentment of my mother and my early intuition about 'good intentions' which emanate from pride and naivete.