Eldridge’s spine lost an inch.
“We miss you at Bible study,” I said, setting my hands on his wide shoulders.
Eldridge mumbled, “Football practice, you know?”
“I’ve been telling him,” Sabina said, “that football won’t get him into heaven.”
“Neither will being a nice guy,” I added. “And you’re one of the nicest people I know.”
“Neither will being married to a Christian,” Sabina said. “You’ve got to seek the Lord for yourself.”
“Neither will having your picture hang in your school’s hall of fame,” I said. “It is only through the Grace of God that ye shall enter the kingdom of heaven.”
“Momma can’t save you.”
“Daddy can’t save you.”
“You’ve got to seek the Lord for yourself.”
“Well,” said Eldridge Pomerantz, a boy with thighs like fire hydrants, “I should know better. I’m just waiting—”
“Waiting? Jesus didn’t wait to die for your sins!”
Eldridge’s eyes darted from me to Sabina to the crowd that had begun to gather. I moved away and watched as the Christians, led by my grandmother—that great old-time saint—descended upon the only unsaved person in the room:
“Seek ye first the kingdom of God.”
“Serve the Lord while ye are yet young.”
“Tomorrow’s day may never dawn.”
“Do you want to lift up your eyes in hell?”
“Jesus died for you.”
The Christians devoured the lion.
After a while, Eldridge fell to his knees and cried out, “Help me! Help me, Jesus!”
When the party ended, there were shouts of jubilation. A lost sheep had returned to the fold. No one was more delighted by Eldridge’s conversion than I was.
“You must write to me when you get to Pennsylvania,” I said.
“Yes, Elwyn,” he said, brushing back tears.
“Are you happy?” I said.
“Yes.” We moved out of the way so that the new offensive lineman for the Lord could shout and jump for joy. “Hallelujah! I’m going to heaven.”
Now Eldridge was a truly Grand Gopher.
I helped my parents clean up, and then I headed for the door, on my way to the final trial.
My mother stopped me. “Where are you going?”
“To visit an old friend.”
“You sure?” said my father.
“What?” I froze. I felt a small prick of worry. They never questioned where I went. I was their good Christian son. Did they suspect? Impossible. With Eldridge still on their mind, how could they?
“A friend. Are you sure?” said my mother. In her hands, she held the platter with the remains of the turkey on it.
“Yes. A friend.”
My father was the first to come clean. He said, with an embarrassed laugh, “I know. We hear you, son. It’s just that your grandmother thinks—”
My mother interrupted him. “No! I believe Elwyn. Let him go.”
“Good,” I said, still playing it cool. “I’ll be back in a little while. Save me the leg.”
But they knew. Somehow they knew.
“Where were you?”
I walked into her house, turned, scanned the street, then closed the door. “I think they know.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. No one saw us in the mall,” she said.
“Not the mall. I think—” I couldn’t finish my sentence. All I could do was stare at Sister Morrisohn.
“What?” she said, smiling innocently as though she didn’t know what had left me temporarily bereft of speech. As though I should not be at all moved by the vision of her before my eyes—the see-through nightgown that stopped above her waist; the brassiere underneath that thrust her breasts forward but did not cover the nipples; the panties below that were but a cross-section of strings running through her private parts; and everything, her rouge, her lipstick, even the rubies in her earrings, red like the fires of hell. “What?”
“Blessed Jesus.”
“Before I married Buford, I was a young woman. I loved him, so I surrendered my youth.” She pirouetted. “But many say that at forty-four, I am still striking.”
“You are,” I said, stricken.
“Of course, the church doesn’t allow me to dress as I like.” She touched her earrings. “So even those closest to me may not notice my appeal.”
“I see,” I said.
She took my hand and led me into her bedroom. She sat down on the bed. I sat down beside her. I stared at her like an idiot. I reminded myself that I had seen it all before—not like this, but we had been together over two years. I should have more control.
“Would you like me to stand up again?” she asked.
“Please.”
She stood up. She did a silly dance. I drank her in with my eyes. What did it matter? She was mine.
“A relationship should be built on more than physical attraction,” she said. She walked over to her stereo and set the needle on the record. “But when your man goes away, the physical must be foremost on his mind or he will forget.”
I’m going away (going away)
And that you know (thaaat you know)
The music did not upset me this time. In fact, I shouted, “Turn it up!” She did.
Holding her in my arms, I sang along with Chester Harbaugh and knew that I was no longer a Christian.
My heart will stay (stay-yay-yay)
I love you so
(I looove you so)
“Do you want to have sex with me?” she asked. It was the first time either of us had called it that. Sex.
“Yes,” I said, and we did. And it was good.
Later she said, “Would you like to make love?” It was the first time either of us had called it that. Making love.
“Yes,” I said. “I would like to make love with you, Sister Morrisohn.”
“Elaine,” she corrected.
“Elaine,” I said, and then I made love with her. We made love.
And it was good.
We scrambled for our clothes when we heard the knock at the door.
The knocking did not surprise me as much as it did Elaine. I had been expecting it.
“Sit there at the piano,” she told me. She wore her blue church dress and house slippers. She was naked underneath except for the strange brassiere. “We’ll say piano lessons, okay?”
I sat at the piano as she commanded, though I knew it was useless. We had taken too long to answer the door. Elaine’s face was still rouged.
My grandmother walked in behind her four-pronged walker. “Give me a firm seat,” she said to Elaine. “If I sit in that fluffy couch of yours, I’ll never get up.”
When Elaine hurried to the kitchen on her errand, my grandmother stared at me but spoke to someone standing behind her outside on the porch: “You go wait in the car. I have to talk to Sister Morrisohn about something in private.”
Who was it? Sister McGowan? Sister Jones? Because of her advanced age and poor health, my grandmother no longer drove. I heard the diminishing footfalls of whoever had dropped her off, as my grandmother closed the door. Thus, it was by her design that I did not see the unseen person and, especially, that the unseen person did not see me. Her heart was wroth, but she was still protecting me. It gave me hope.
“Elwyn, Elwyn,” my grandmother said.
I looked down at the piano keys.
“You were His best, Elwyn. His best.”
* * *
Sister Morrisohn placed the firm-backed chair in the middle of the living room, and my grandmother sat down heavily. She leaned forward, one hand on the walker for support.
Sister Morrisohn rubbed her hands together nervously. She said, “Can I get you something to drink?”
“Drink!” My grandmother shook her head in disbelief. “There’ll be scarce little to drink where you’re going.”
Sister Morrisohn sank down heavily in the couch and bowed her head.
>
“I can’t believe that a woman of your age would take advantage of a poor, innocent child of God. Aren’t there enough slack-leg Johnnies with whom you can satisfy your vile, pagan lust? When it burns down there, why don’t you just run to the nursery and throw yourself on the infant with the fattest diaper?”
Sister Morrisohn sobbed.
My grandmother said, “Thou thankless apostate, thou creeping Jezebel. The stink of thine iniquity rises to the nostrils of God.”
Sister Morrisohn wrapped her arms around herself.
My grandmother said, “You should be flung from the highest tower. And when you burst open, the dogs should pick your rotting flesh from your putrid bones.”
Sister Morrisohn cried out, “Oh God, what have I done? What have I done?”
This went on for many minutes, this exhorting, this lamenting. I trembled not only because my turn would come soon, but because Sister Morrisohn’s pain was my pain. I wanted to put a hand over my grandmother’s mouth.
My grandmother said, “You are lucky that Christ is faithful and able to forgive us our sins. If it were me … But Christ the redeemer died on the cross. Confess your sin, O daughter of Babylon. Confess before this humble servant of God.”
And Sister Morrisohn confessed.
And confessed and confessed the entire two and a half years of our affair. Her memory was astonishing. It brought tears to my grandmother’s eyes and set her old, gray head to shaking from side to side. But for me, each moment that had become part of the dull amalgam in my mind was reclaimed whole, distinct, and golden. I wanted to shout: Yes, I remember the Fort Lauderdale Holiday Inn on Sunday between services. I remember the sun on your face at the pool, how your beautiful toes stirred water, then splashed, and every drop for me! Happy Birthday. Happy Birthday, each said. And I was happy. I held you too long and only just made it back in time for Youth Hour.
Sister Morrisohn confessed and then collapsed onto the floor, hugging her waist, weeping and wailing.
My grandmother turned to me: “Elwyn, Elwyn, why did you turn your back on God?”
The tears flowed easily, though I didn’t feel much like weeping. I wanted to jump and shout. I wanted to hold Sister Morrisohn, Elaine, and tell her not to cry. I wanted to tell her that I remembered.
“Elwyn, you were His greatest servant. You can be His servant again. Confess, confess here before me,” my grandmother said. “I’ll see to it that no one ever finds out about this, but you must confess. Jesus calls you to confess.”
“Yes, Gran’ma.”
“He is faithful and just to forgive us. Confess, my child. Confess!”
“Yes, Gran’ma.”
And so I confessed on that evening two weeks before I drove my Mazda up the Florida Turnpike to Gainesville. I confessed to appease my grandmother. I confessed so that Elaine would know I remembered.
There was but one thing I left unsaid. I could have told my grandmother that as I sat confessing, my mind’s eye wandered over the fallen body of Sister Elaine Morrisohn, and I began planning how in a few weeks when I returned from college to visit, I would arrive one day earlier than I would tell everyone else, and I would spend the night right here in this house with the beautiful forty-four-year-old woman I loved.
Chester Harbaugh and His Old-Time Fiddle Band, of course, would be on the stereo.
HERE ENDETH THE TESTAMENT OF APOSTASY
IV. TESTAMENT OF THE APOCRYPHA
For the Glory of the Lord
It was a feel-good filler about the National Merit Scholarship Program, and how a few of its most recent recipients planned to use their brains and talent to change the world.
He almost missed the article, because there were no photographs of the winners, but a chance glimpse of the word Faithful in boldface, all caps, drew his attention just as he was about to set the Times out with the rest of the recyclables. A more thorough perusal and he had spotted and then drawn a pencil line under the name of his brother, Elwyn Parker.
Benny Willet smiled and said, “Good for you. You made the big papers, little brother.” His finger traced the page until he came to the beginning of the article, which was entitled, National Merit, Meritorious Goals, and he read his brother’s section:
Elwyn J. Parker, 18, Miami, Florida. University of Florida, Expected graduation date, June 1986. SATs: 1330. Religion: FAITHFUL. Major: undecided. Hobbies: playing the piano and reading the Bible. How I will change the world: “One day I would like to open a free music school and teach every person who enrolls to play at least one hymn by ear. I think it would be great if everyone in the world could play at least one hymn for the Glory of the Lord.”
The other winners were all going to become businessmen and attorneys and engineers, Benny mused. One had even planned to become a doctor and open a free clinic in Ethiopia. But his brother was going to give praise to God through song—and Benny believed that he would do it too. Already Elwyn had gotten his high school mascot changed from a devil to a gopher. He had run a successful campaign to get the blasphemous novel The Last Temptation of Christ removed from Miami-Dade County public school libraries. And in his drawer of Elwyn Things, Benny had a photograph from a Miami Herald article about high school sports, in which Elwyn and some other members of the Miami Gardens High School Jesus Club could be seen laying holy hands on and praying for an injured player on the sidelines of a football game. Clearly, little brother Elwyn could accomplish anything he set his mind to.
Thus, Benny, convinced that his brother was well on his way, got out his scissors and clipped the newest article, pasted it in the scrapbook, and put it away in the drawer with his other Elwyn Things.
Benny hummed joyfully as he clipped. He was humming “Jesus Loves the Little Children,” the only song he knew how to play on the piano.
My Father
My Dearest Brother,
I hope this letter finds you in the best of health and under the blessings and Grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Please believe me when I tell you that I am trying my very hardest to understand and to accept the way you are. I know that it is the fashion these days for people to do their own thing. I firmly believe that no one should judge another for what he does in the privacy of his own home as long as he does not hurt anybody else. There was a time not too long ago when a black man was forbidden, by law, to show his love for a white woman. How ridiculous was that, right?
I have done some reading into the matter and have learned that there are still laws on the books in this very same state of Florida, as well as many other states, that forbid people, even those who are lawfully married, to engage in certain sex practices that you and I both know are very common. We are talking about such common things as what people who are in love would do in the natural course of events. Do you know that there are some laws still on the books here in Florida that forbid a man to have relations with his wife in any position other than man on top? If these laws were enforced, that would make loving your husband very boring indeed.
I have come to realize that the reason for the existence of such laws is that back in the olden days, religion played a greater part in people’s everyday lives. People were more religious back then and tried to live holier lives and the law reflected that. I am not so much a fool as to think that back in the olden days people only had sex in that one boring position, nor do I think that back then a man and a woman were holy enough to abstain from at least trying once in a while to do some of that special loving that we do with our mouths on each other down there.
These laws on the books, since they could not be enforced, were guidelines for how we should perfectly live our sex lives if this were a perfect world. In bed, we should not do those things that hurt or offend each other. We should strive only to please in our lovemaking, not hurt. Finally, and most importantly, there should be an emphasis on the creation of new life as the end result of all of it. In other words, God created Adam and Eve to bring new life into the world through their love for each
other. To encourage them to engage in lovemaking that would produce new life, he made them strongly attracted to each other’s bodies. He also made lovemaking the most enjoyable experience two people can ever have by giving them the capacity to achieve orgasm through it.
Now I am going to put my personal feelings aside. I am not going to tell you how sick I get when I see you with that man and start to think about what you two do when you are alone. I am not going to tell you that I find it disgusting and upsetting to my stomach. I am not going to tell you that I am ashamed of you for yielding to carnal desires. I am not going to tell you the old cliché that God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve. I am not going to quote the Bible, Leviticus 20:13. “If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination.”
I am not going to do any of that because I am not a hypocrite. You know my life and you know what I have been through. Now take heart, I am not trying to make you feel guilty so that you will yield to my will. O my brother, I am only telling you the truth as it is. I know about the homosexual perversion because of the evil that was visited upon me as a child. I know that your mind can be seduced into following the ways of the devil. God makes you a certain way, but then because of all the evil in the world you end up becoming something else. What that man did to me when I was just a child is an evil too great to be set down with pen, but I will do it because I fear that it has rubbed off on you by no fault of your own.
Through all of the suffering I endured, I was able to survive because of the hate I felt for him. Some girls I have read about say that love is what saved them. Because they refused to hate him, it was easier for them to heal. They were able to forgive him later on in life for doing that to them and thus they were able to heal themselves. But I used hate as my shield. Every time he came at me, I hated him more. I prayed at night for God to kill him. I used to fantasize every day about killing him. You know that I eventually went after him with the knife, but what you don’t know is that I had been planning that every day from the first time he touched me. I hated him the day you were born. I hated him the day our mother died. I hated him. I retreated into my hate. I was all hate. Hate was my downfall.
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