Page 76 of Brimstone Hollow

Wash all my sins away…

The singing brings me back. I am standing in the tent. A revival going on all around me. Sweating bodies swaying in sync. A preacher in a white suit at the front. An offering plate passing and passing and passing like a carousel full of little white envelopes.

And they all sing.

Wash all my sins away,

Wash all my sins away…

I’d been so hungry for real food that I’d begged a girl down the street to let me stay the weekend with her, knowing her mamma made the best pork chops in the county. The girl’s parents had taken one look at my wild state and decided that more than anything, I needed Jesus. And after my experience in the car the night before, I couldn’t disagree.

And so there I am, in a huge white tent in the middle of a drought- ridden field, among the seething bodies and loud singing and raucous shouting, the speaking in tongues, watching as one person after another makes their way up the aisle to the preacher. He lays his palm on their forehead and whispers something I can’t hear and then the person drops to the floor.

“What’s he doing to them?” I ask my friend.

“They’re falling out in the Lord’s power,” she says. “Being healed or having their prayers answered. This preacher is a good one. He came all the way from Memphis and everyone knows God works directly through him.”

“You mean they’re asking God for things and God is just… giving it to them because of the preacher?”

She nods and I try to slot this version of reality into my own. This magical previously-unknown-to-me world where preachers in white suits serve as middlemen, getting you a direct line to the Lord. Before I can question it, I’m stepping out into the aisle. The crowd all around us still singing.

Dear dying Lamb, Thy precious blood

Shall never lose its power…

I stand, heart racing, as the preacher approaches me, takes hold of my skinny shoulders, and asks what I need from God.

I stumble and stutter, my heart too full of confusion, only managing, “I wish that I… that I wasn’t…”

“Let your prayers be answered!” the preacher shouts.

And then he lets go of my shoulders and mashes his big, sweaty palm into my forehead. He pushes. And, when I don’t budge, he pushes harder. I am only ten and small. I go careening backward, falling to the ground with a hard thud that knocks the air out of me. Above me, all around me, the singing goes on.

Till all the ransomed ones of God

Be saved, to sin no more

Be saved, to sin no more…

I lie there. Fully conscious. Fully aware of the scent of perfume and sweat and hot, dry grass. Fully aware of how hungry I am. How scared I am. How angry I am.

I’d come to God with a heart full of hope and been pushed to the ground. Not by some prophet wielding magical, divine power. Just a regular man. A man who’d count money at the end of the night. Roll up the tent and drive away just like the carnival would. I’d traded one show for another.

I stay on the ground, eyes closed, and listen to the song.

Be saved, to sin no more

Be saved, to sin no more…

Nothing had changed. I was still just Annie Gore. My dad was still at home, still waiting for my mom to return. And even if she did come home, what would happen? Would they go right back to where they were before? And what would happen to me? What kind of person would I become? Was I just some combination of my parents? Really, when all the chips were down, who was I? Who would I be?

I’d not been able to finish my prayer.

I’d wanted to say, “I wish that things were different. I wish thatIwas different.”

But he hadn’t been listening. No one had been listening.

I open my eyes. The tent is gone.