Lip Service
After the earthquake Miss Hooker said, God
sent you children a message, Repent or
pay the consequences. It's Hell she means
everlasting. Everlastingly.
I got the message and so I got saved,
at least I think I did, I sure as Hell
tried, there on my knees under the desk and
most of my classmates crying and the earth
shaking with His compassionate judgement,
God's I mean, or maybe Jesus', or
maybe both, I and the Father are one
He said, I mean Jesus said it, or if
He and God are one it doesn't matter
who said it, unless the Holy Ghost did
but I don't think He talks, telepathy
is probably His game if He has one.
Baseball's mine, so I played hard-ball, praying
that I live long enough for Little League
next year and the after that God can do
as He damn well pleases with me and then
the earth stopped moving although I was
still shaking. When we crawled out from under
our desks and Miss Hooker out of the broom
closet I led us in the Lord's Prayer
because she'd lost her appetite to talk,
she lost her voice, I mean. I let us go,
I'm just 10 but a natural leader,
that is since I got saved, and then walked her
to her car and she was speechless with thanks
as she drove away, and I walked home, it's
not far, I leg it every Sunday,
to find my folks at the kitchen table
or still under it, with the big paper
and cigarettes and Sanka. I set them
free and told them to come to church with me
next week. They swore they would. We'll see to it.
Rig
I love Miss Hooker bur she doesn't love
me, I mean the way I want her to if
she only will, I mean like a wife loves
her husband, I mean if she does, if she
really does. She's my Sunday School teacher
but she loves God and Jesus so I guess
she's married to Them, one or both and if
both then I'd say she's got two husbands at
the same time but then again God came down
as Jesus and so They're really the same,
religion's just so damn complicated,
but anyway I'm only ten years old
to Miss Hooker's 25 and to God's
infinity, I guess--who really knows
how old Eternity is? After class
today I went up to Miss Hooker in
the parking lot where she was looking through
her purse to find her car keys, they're truck keys
really because she drives a Ford Ranger,
she doesn't need a full-sized rig, she can
carry herself around alright without
too much bed, and told her that I love her,
I told her that I love her and she dropped
the keys that she'd fished out but no harm done,
they must've been house keys, or her heart's, so
we stooped together to rescue them and
nearly bumped noggins, her red hair kissed me
and then we stood up straight again holding
the keyring and the keys because we each
raised them up together, maybe like Fate,
and she said, I love you, too, Gale, but in
the voice of a Sunday School teacher and
not a fiancee and that's how I learned
there is no God but there is a Jesus.
Holy Ground
In Sunday School today I finally
got it, religion, when I realized
that I love Miss Hooker, my teacher, and
not just love her but am in love with her,
there's a difference and I'm not sure how
but that's life and I'm only ten years old
so I'm bound to meet up with more strangeness
along the way, right up until I die,
whenever that is, all I know is that
it will be at the end of my life but
of course in Sunday School Miss Hooker says
that there's actually more life to come,
the afterlife, also the hereafter
it's called, and the story she spins is that
if I'm good while I'm still alive and try
not to sin and when I do beg forgiveness
then when I die I'll go to Heaven to
live forever with God and Jesus and
the angels and good souls, etc.,
but if I'm bad then it's Hell for sure, lots
of sorrow and suffering and anguish,
whatever anguish is, next week I'll ask,
next Sunday that is. We get new bodies,
too, in Heaven I mean, don't ask me how
there can be solid bodies in Heaven
if that's what Miss Hooker means but I'll ask
that, too, if I don't forget or lay out
of Sunday School altogether to go
for a walk in the woods and to the creek
where I'll take off my good Thom McAns and
my fake-silk socks and wade in the water
and look for something under the surface,
treasure maybe. Crawdads. Tadpoles. Minnows.
Sacrifice
So Jesus is the Son of God--what else
is new except that I've fallen in love
with Miss Hooker, my Sunday School teacher
and kind of like His messenger, at least
she works for our church and maybe doesn't
even get paid but I guess that Jesus
will pay her off after she's dead and goes
to Heaven to be judged, her soul that is,
and gets to dwell in the House of the Lord
forever, like it says in the Bible
somewhere, unless of course she winds up in
Hell, where sinners go, for sinning sins no
one even dreamed of, but it's more likely
that that's where I'll end up, Hell I mean, since
for ten years old I'm a decent sinner
and when I get to Hell maybe Satan
will give me a medal or to but then
the torture will begin and on the face
of each medal I'd damned if I won't see
a picture of Miss Hooker and I won't
for sadness want to wear her on my chest
but Satan might not give me any choice.
After Sunday School today Miss Hooker
asked me if I'd gotten saved yet, the same
question she asks every week and I'm
sure that she already knows the answer
but that never stops her so it must be
true that I'll go to Hell without Jesus
in my heart, I'm sad to say Miss Hooker's
not enough to get me into Heaven.
But if she dies for my sins I'll all set.
On the Third Day
After Sunday School today I asked her
to marry me, Miss Hooker, my teacher,
not now but when I'm old enough, her age,
25 maybe, but maybe even
sooner, when I'm 16, I'm only 10,
and if she says yes she'll be 31
and if she says no she'll be the same age
but that's not the point. I forgot what was,
other than the stuff we learn in class, that
God made everything, including people,
but Satan tempted our first parents and
they caved in and got kicked out of Eden
and life really started to become life.
So a whale of a lot later Jesus
came, as part-God somehow, and died to save
us all so we won't have to go to Hell
which is all that we deserve, at least I
do, but probably not Miss Hooker, she
humps for God for a living and that's good
so if I marry her, or she married me,
or both, then my chances of going to
Heaven will be better and I don't want
to go to Hell, I get the prickly heat
anyway and it's right warm down below,
and torture, too, and no water to drink
though maybe blood like Dracula likes but
I doubt it would kill my thirst, and no ice.
Anyway I asked her, I'd rehearsed it,
it was easy, Excuse me, Miss Hooker,
but can I ask you something, and she said
Why of course, Gale, what can I do for you
and I almost said, You can marry me
is what you can do for me, but that was
too straight for me so I just asked, Will you
marry me when I'm old enough for you
to have and to hold? I surprised her but
not the kind of surprise that's being scared.
But she did sit down and asked me to, too,
but I said, No thank you, ma'am, and waited
for her answer and anyway I'd been
sitting down for fifty-five whole minutes
as it was and to come to the point she
told me to ask her again in a few
years but to remember she'll no longer
be 25 and maybe not even
pretty. I get that, I said, but this is
love and it comes from God so I'll hang on.
She smiled and told me to go on home so
I did but halfway through the classroom door
I heard her call so I went back to her
in her big blue chair at her big red desk.
She took off her glasses and told me that
she was flattered. I guess I tempted her
which means I'm almost a man because love
for us seems to start that way, temptation
first, then you get hitched, so it's a good sign
that we're fallen, love should come before like,
which means I'll go to Heaven sure whether
Miss Hooker takes me or she doesn't. I
still want to tell her so but she might think
that I'm as smart as God or brighter than
the angels or maybe even that I'm
dying for her sins or have already
and it's Day Three but I don't want to go.
Shinola
Miss Hooker's my Sunday School teacher. She
loves God and I'm pretty sure God loves her
because He made her beautiful, red hair
and green eyes and more freckles than stars
in the night-sky and I'd bet in the day, too,
you just can't see them all. I wish I could
but that's another story. And she sings
and plays piano and this morning she
told us the one about Moses casting down
his rod and it becoming a snake and
then one of Pharaoh's buddies did it, too,
and everyone laughed at Moses' magic
but then his snake ate their snake and became
a rod again. That's a really neat trick
but Miss Hooker says it wasn't magic
after all but one of God's miracles
and even though she didn't witness it
personally, I'll take her word for it
that it happened the way she says it did
because she's 25, that's old enough
to know, and a cosmetologist, too,
and does my mother's hair so there you go,
if that's not proof then I don't know what is,
proof of something, anyway. I guess God
knows and I'm only 10 and don't know shit
from Shinola, Father likes to tell me,
and he should know, he's a plumber's helper,
which means he does the real work while his boss
takes all the credit. That's the way it is
in the real world, he says--no miracles.
When I grow up I want to be just like
his boss. I even told Father so and
at first he frowned but then he said, Good boy,
and he should know, he's got a G. E. D.
and was way too smart to stick with high school.
But he and Mother never go to church,
they say they don't need it, they're old enough
to know what sin is and isn't so they
send me, I represent the family,
they say, so I'm proud of that but I think
they just like to sleep late on Sundays and
after I come home and change my Sunday
suit we go out to the Korn Dawg King for
foot-long dogs and onion rings and I
suck at a strawberry shake and it's good,
all their chow I mean. You can't beat their meat,
Father says. Mother always blushes. I
figure that it's got something to do with
darkness and sleeping in the same bed with
their door locked, I know it's locked, I've tried it,
and maybe having babies but just how
I don't know. I'd like to ask Miss Hooker
but she might think I'm asking for her hand
and she's too old and what's more I'm too young.
Last night I dreamt about her again--I
was at the Korn Dawg King and ordered me
a foot-long chili dog with relish and
chocolate sprinkles--it was just a dream
--and was about to take my first bite when
it slipped out of my hands into my lap
and changed into Miss Hooker, her red hair
ketchup and green eyes pickle relish and
freckles sprinkles. And what could I do but
kiss her and she kissed back and I think that's
a kind of miracle and the best kind
of kiss of all, when lips go against lips
but it's not like boxing, more like wrestling.
Father and Mother and I go there on
Saturday nights. Sometimes we get ring-side
seats when he gets paid. He says it's all fake.
But sometimes it's pretty good fake. Sunday
School's a lot like that, God against Satan
and sometimes God wins and sometimes Satan
and they're always at it again next week.
Mother takes her needlepoint, to wrestling
I mean. She can do it and keep her eye
on the action at the same time. And scream.
Then it's the Korn Dawg King afterwards. I
saw Miss Hooker there with a man one time.
Mother says her skirts are too short but she
sure can style hair. Father says they're just right,
her skirts I mean. Then he winks at me. Why?
