Holiness; Trinity+1 by Gale Acuff

Holiness

Every Sunday I walk to church, about

a mile away and back again, of course.

When I leave the house my parents are still

asleep--they don't go but send me because

I need the morals. When I get home they're

at the kitchen table with their Sanka

and Lucky Strikes and the big newspaper.

It's kind of like they've been resurrected,

sleep being something like death but not so

long, I guess. I say hello and they say

hello and then I go to my attic

bedroom to change and then I come back down

and make lunch for us three, bacon and eggs.

Bacon comes from pigs and eggs from chickens

and they're in the Bible, the pigs at least.

Miss Hooker's my Sunday School teacher and

next week I'll ask her about the chickens.

I'd better write that down or I'll forget.

I scramble the eggs and fry the bacon

crisp so even the fat-part tastes like meat.

Mother has the front page, Father the sports,

and I eat and read Prince Valiant. When we

finish Father asks, Well, Preacher, what's God

up to these days? Mother asks, Did you learn

something nice in Sunday School today? Yes,

I say, as I collect their empty plates

--if you're going to die, don't die in sin

or else you'll go to Hell for sure. Amen,

says Father, lighting two Luckies, one for

Mother. He hands it to her. More coffee,

boy. He raises his cup and I fill it

so full that if he moves an inch he'll spill

it.You did that on purpose, he mutters.

You're damn right, I say. Father drops the cup

and coffee soaks the Business section.

He reaches across the table for me

and barely misses. I lift my side and

turn the table over and he hollers

I'll kill you, you son of a bitch. Mother

flees into the living room. Father grabs

me. I don't resist. He punches me in

the head and I fall against the screen door

and out onto the porch. When I wake he's

on his knees, begging, Son, please don't die, please

don't die. What, I say--and go to Heaven?

Trinity + 1

God lives at church and so does Jesus may

-be and the Holy Ghost makes three but I

never see Him there, oh, I kind of feel

His presence but likely because the church

is so damn big or at least the ceiling pretty

high and if you're in a rear pew whisper

-ing folks up front can hear you even when

the place is packed with congregation, which

it usually ain't except at Christmas

and Easter and then there's Thanksgiving but

that one depends on what teams go at it

on TV that day but if God doesn't live

at church, maybe under the altar or

in a back room somewhere, not the bathroom

of course, then just where the Hell does He live

and as for Jesus I take it back, I

think He's always up in Heaven, minding

the store since God the Father's everywhere

although in Sunday School Miss Hooker swears

that God and Jesus are the same person

and the Holy Ghost makes three-in-one so

she should know, I'm only in fourth grade but

she's got a high school diploma and works

three jobs, she wears three hats, she says, she's her

own trinity, I guess, and I told her

as much after Sunday School today and

before church service as we were walking

down the breezeway from our trailer-classroom

to the church building itself, and about

my dream, that our spire rose so high I looked

up and saw an angel speared on it like

a kite on top of a pointed fir tree

or was it Jesus and then Miss Hooker

started to cry and ran to the bathroom

and took care of her face somehow and when

she came out I was right there waiting and

she looked like a new person. Now she’s four.