The Night I Quit Being Saved

Mama was a Methodist and Daddy was a Baptist but he never went to church. He went fishing on Sundays for the big old catfish Mama would roll in cornmeal and fry in bacon grease the way he liked it, but then she wouldn't eat it and neither would I. Mama had me baptized a Methodist.

I was real serious about church. I liked to listen to myself sing the hymns and then I wondered if that was sinful, if it was bad to love singing and especially the sound of my own voice, but I knew Jesus loved me because the Bible told me so.

My friend Bobbie Sue was a Baptist, so when I slept over at her house I kept my ears peeled, hoping I'd learn something about Daddy. There I was at dinner with Bobbie Sue and her older brothers and her parents, and they started talking about how the Lord had directed their missionaries to Africa to build Christ's church and save all the Poor Savages there. I knew something was fishy because they weren't wishing just to heap blessings on those Poor Souls. They told me flat-footed that anyone who dies without being saved goes straight to Hell.

That kind of took away my appetite. After dinner Bobbie Sue and I played paper dolls with my Lucille Ball set and I let her pick out Lucy's outfits but my heart wasn't in it, still thinking about those Poor Slaves to Idolatry and how I just could not believe so many people were going to Hell without the Baptists. But Bobbie Sue's brown hair was thick and soft and naturally curly and that's where I fixed my thoughts. How could she be so pretty and still be so wrong?

We slept together in Bobbie Sue's bed and the next morning she asked did I remember what I did. I said what do you mean and she said you kept stroking my hair and talking in your sleep, mumbling poor soul, poor soul. I guess I knew who needed saving.