I don't believe our father ever mentioned the son who was named after him. It was only from our mother that I heard that son talked of, and the only things she told me were the circumstances of his death. In our house there were no pictures of this boy and so in my mind's eye I painted his portrait as best I could. Four years old, light brown hair, large and clear blue eyes, but with an overcast of melancholy, of something already lost. It was the picture of me, of course, taken when I was about the same age my brother had been when he died. I always say my brother, even though I never knew him. He left several years before I was born.
Some of your father's family was over to the house that day. His folks lived in the apartment upstairs and Mrs. Hinton, your grandma Hinton, had everybody just laughing and talking. I don't believe I ever recollect that happening before. She wasn’t one for making folks laugh. I can't rightly say just what on earth we were talking about but it was about the past. About the Quicks who lived down the road from your father years back, before any of us ever moved up to St. Louis after the Depression. Mr. and Mrs. Quick and all their rowdy sons. Not like my boy.
When I was about five, my mother used to dress me up and send me off to Sunday School lessons at the First Baptist Church which was within walking distance of our new brick home on the far edge of the suburbs. She had been raised in strict Baptist churches herself, in the American South, but after my brother was killed, she drifted away from being a church-goer, though I guess she continued to be a believer.
It was in Sunday School that I was introduced to sin, and to the wages of sin which was death. This impressed me deeply and I tried very hard to be good. In this I succeeded most of the time and was quite pleased with my success. But then we moved again and there was no church nearby, except for St. Jude's Catholic Church and School down the street, and Catholics were not understood by my mother. They were hardly considered Christian by the hard Baptists who had raised her.
Though there was no church to send me to in our new neighborhood, I continued to say a prayer every night before going to bed, but, in general, I started to think less often about sin and about the wages of sin. I don't really remember what I did think about in those days, but I went to the public school nearby and I rode my bicycle a lot, sometimes with friends from my street, mostly Catholic boys who attended St. Jude's. I played baseball, and kick the can, and loved to climb the big trees. We all tried to climb higher than anybody else dared to. I usually climbed the highest, but once I fell and broke my left arm in two places.
A friend of my mother's, whose son was a class ahead of me at school, was a faithful member of the Assembly of Jesus Pentecostal Trinity Tabernacle some miles away, across the Missouri River in the river town of St. Charles. When I was eight or nine - it was in my fourth year of school - she invited me to attend a Children's Revival with her and her son. My mother dressed me up each evening and I went with her friend and her friend's son to their church every night for a full week.
Your Uncle Ken was there, of course. He still lived at home and went to high school but was usually downstairs at our place. Claude wasn't there that day, probably away on a trip somewhere with a load of cars. Your father and his brothers all worked for the same trucking company and hauled truckloads of cars all over the Midwest and most of the South. Well, your Uncle Ken never became a truck driver, but it's the only job your father ever did after we moved up to St. Louis. Claude, too. Even your Uncle Ernie kept his job hauling cars. Kept driving all these years. Even after it happened. He still kept driving even after it happened.
It was a pretty big church for me, and during that revival it must have held a couple hundred kids, along with a good sprinkling of grown-ups. Most of these were the parents of some of the kids, mothers mostly, but there were also a few of those very old people, again mainly women, the kind who are always at a church during every single service that is held, no matter what it is.
Each night during the Children's Revival Week, the minister would welcome us, say a prayer, and then introduce the guest preacher who held Kids' Crusades around the country with his wife and a wooden dummy that he called Luke. This man and his wife were much younger than the regular pastor and were very good looking. The husband had a sad look in his eyes, even when his face was smiling. The wife had a degree in music from the Bible College and she led us in rousing church-camp songs. Sometimes she sang a special song or two, always sweet, sad hymns, and accompanied herself on the piano.
Then the young preacher and Luke, his dummy, would tell Bible stories and have conversations with the audience, and would have the kids singing again and laughing and yelling and clapping their hands and stomping their feet.
"If you're saved and you know it, say AMEN!" sang out the preacher.
"Amen," screamed out the kids.
"If you're saved and you know it, clap your hands!"
The kids clapped their hands twice, in unison, as loud as they could.
"If you're saved and you know it, stomp your feet!"
The floorboards shook with the stomping of the kids' feet. They pounded the floor as hard as they could, all together, twice, in unison.
And now, Luke, the wooden dummy, spoke up again.
"If you're saved and you know it, say AMEN! Clap your hands! Stomp your feet!"
The kids went wild, screaming, clapping, and stomping.
I was more reserved in church than the other kids and felt a bit guilty because I could plainly see that the dummy was not really very good, not good at all if compared to what I was used to seeing on television. Still, I paid close attention and smiled at the preacher whenever he looked in my direction. He was very handsome, and I admired him. And there was the sad look in his clear eyes.
When the preacher folded the dummy into his wooden box, which reminded me of a little coffin, the real service began.
He would mount the small stage to the pulpit, read a short text from the Bible, and preach a short sermon. At the end, he always gave an altar call.
I was familiar with all the Bible stories for I had learned them in Sunday School years before when I used to walk to the First Baptist Church by myself. But on that Friday night, after listening to the sermons and altar calls all week, something new happened. The preacher began to speak directly to me.
He preached of Job. He spoke of how Job was sorely tested of God and lost all that he had, his sheep, his camels, his oxen, his asses. Even his seven sons and three daughters.
"Then Job arose,” read the preacher, "and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground, and worshipped, and said, Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord."
The handsome, young preacher, with his sad eyes looking in my direction, spoke of how Job submitted himself to God.
"And in the end, God gave Job twice as much as he had before, God blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning. He had fourteen thousand sheep, and six thousand camels, and a thousand yoke of oxen, and a thousand she asses."
The young preacher paused, and I could hear my own breathing in the stillness.
"And God gave Job seven new sons and three new daughters to replace those taken from him in the testing."
I sat in my place, next to my friend and his mother, and the preacher looked directly at me and said, "Let every head be bowed."
Obediently, I bowed my head and squeezed my eyes shut. When I did this, I could see the preacher's outline in the darkness of my clenched eyes, in the shooting orange and gold of eyes squeezed tightly closed. I felt he was very close to me, I could feel him small and dark inside my head, and I knew he was reading my fear. I knew then there was no hiding place from the truth.
He spoke of sin and salvation and damnation. Of the blood and the broken body of Christ. He spoke of good works and said that good works, good character, fine deeds could not save us for we were all lost sinners in need of forgiveness and the blood of Christ.
"Let every head be bowed and every eye be shut as the Spirit of God moves over this congregation,” he said.
He spoke of the unforgivable sin and something died within me.
They were all there that day but Claude. Your grandma Hinton started telling stories on the Mathesons. Your grandpa was setting by the door packing up his sandwiches I had made for him. He worked in a bank at night, he was a security guard, and used to take his evening lunch. I was over to the stove. Somebody else was there but I just can't remember. A neighbor woman or maybe two. I just don't know but somebody else was there and Mrs. Hinton was talking, and we were all laughing. It felt good she wasn't complaining about her bursitis or her sour stomach and how little she could eat, ever'thing set so poorly on her stomach. Your sisters Joleen and Beth they was across the street in the city park with a bunch of neighborhood kids. Katy wasn't born yet. You wasn't neither, of course.
"Jesus said all sins shall be forgiven but for the sin against the Holy Ghost it shall not be forgiven. Book of Mark Third Chapter. We trust, dear Lord, that no one in this congregation here tonight has committed the unforgivable sin. But there is one who knows."
I bowed my head deeper and leaned it against the hardwood pew in front of us. I pushed it against the wood and squeezed my eyes tighter. He knows. He knows that I am unforgivable. I yearned for this man to like me but he knew about my sin.
"You can hide your sin from me but there is one present tonight who knows."
If it's not this preacher, who then can it be? Who is present tonight who knows my thoughts?
"He died on Calvary for our sins and is waiting to forgive you. Don't commit the unforgivable sin against the Holy Ghost. Don't let it be too late. If you want Jesus to come into your heart and make you pure, let me see your hand. No one is looking. Just raise your hand quietly. I trust that no one here, dear Jesus, has committed the unforgivable sin."
I raised my head so slowly and peeked out at the congregation. Everyone sat very still with bowed heads and closed eyes, even the very small children. The preacher stood down on the floor now between the two altars. His forehead glistened with sweat and he had tears on his cheeks. He looked out over the bowed heads. His wife, sitting on the first pew, was patting her hair, but her head, too, was bowed. Near the front of the church, to one side, sat a very old woman with coils of white hair wound about the crown of her head. She had her head held high and was looking directly at the preacher with her eyes wide open.
Is it her? Is she the one who knows my sin? He said there was one present who knows.
"As every head is bowed and every eye is closed..."
Is she the one? Who is she, with her eyes wide open? She knows I am unforgivable?
Around the church, the hands of several boys and girls went up. They were going to be born again.
"Yes, thank you, thank you, Jesus. God bless you."
But what good would it do for me to raise my hand? My heart pounded with the certainty that I had committed the unpardonable sin. I didn't know exactly what it was but I knew deep down that I was guilty. I was destined to burn in Hell forever, separated forever from my mother and father who loved me and who worked so hard, especially my father worked so hard, mother always said, and from my sisters who loved me, too. Tormented forever. Cast out into outer darkness. Alone. I now realized that I had always known something was wrong with me. Oh, how sad to be such a great sinner. So unloved. So unforgivable.
I don't know what your brother was thinking that day. He was playing about on the kitchen floor and then sleeping on his pallet over to the corner of the kitchen. I put him down for a nap in the middle room, the bedroom, but he was having none of it so I put him down a pallet over to the corner of the kitchen where everybody was gathered. The weather was so hot and all muggy and the windows was open, and somebody propped open the back door. We didn't mind a fly or two. We needed some breeze in that hot city apartment, but it wasn't stirring none hardly at all. I don't know why he went outside and around to the front. Or even how he got out without nobody noticing. I don't know why he set down in the street behind your uncle's truck. I don't even know why your uncle Ernie had went and brought his big truck to the house that day. Must be his car was giving trouble, so he just left it at the truck lot and had drove the empty trailer-truck on over to the house. All I do know is that when your Uncle Ernie left he backed his truck over my little James Raymond Hinton.
"Jesus knows your heart and your thoughts. Jesus wants to take your sins away and make you as white as snow."
Of course. Jesus is the one who knows. I felt relieved that it was not the old woman near the front, with the coiled white hair. My hand went up. I decided to try Jesus. I wanted to take a chance and see if I too could be born again. I wanted to be saved, too.
Please dear God, I thought, I pray that I have not committed the unforgivable sin. My heart beat so fast, like an injured bird in the house, beating against the picture window, killing himself a little at a time, beating out his life against the unseen barrier.
When the preacher asked those who had raised their hands to come down to the altar to receive Jesus, I looked at my friend and his mother. They still bowed their heads and closed their eyes. I slipped out quietly and walked down the aisle to the preacher. I knelt at the altar as near him as I could. He was so handsome and so sad looking. Adults were with the other children, telling them how to pray.
"Tell God you are a sinner."
"Dear God, I am a sinner."
"Tell Jesus that you want Him to come into your heart and be your Savior."
"Dear Jesus, I want you to come into my heart."
Some of the boys and girls were crying. Seeing this, I began to weep. The young, handsome preacher came over and put his arms around me. This caused me to weep uncontrollably and great sobs wracked and heaved my body. As he told me what to pray, I felt saved. Thank God, I had not committed the unforgivable sin, and I was determined to avoid it in the years ahead.
Somehow, though, at that moment when he held me tight, I knew it was out to get me.
Did my son cry? People had done poured out the apartments to witness what had happened. How did they know that something had happened before we all did? They stood around and looked. No one moved. Except there was this one witness who did something. She was a woman who always dressed as a man and who people shunned. Do you know, she is the only one who helped me and I can't even remember her name. That woman took off her new work jacket, wrapped little James Raymond in it and reached him up to me. I went inside and put his body on the bed in the middle room. Nobody else came in for what seemed like the longest time. Except for the puppy. He just set there and whimpered.
My friend's mother was so happy I had got saved that it embarrassed me. She said Benny wasn't saved yet but she was sure he would be, she prayed for it every day.
Benny stayed in the car when we got to my house and his mother took me in.
My father was eating a fried chicken breast and watching Ed Sullivan on television. My mother came in from the kitchen.
"Robbie asked the Lord to come into his heart tonight. He got saved."
My mother looked at me and studied. I could tell she didn't know what to say. I knew she was thinking I couldn't understand getting saved, I was so young.
"Do you know what that means?" she said, looking at me.
"I asked the Lord to come into my heart and to take away my sins," I mumbled, ashamed that I was so young. I saw fear in her eyes. I saw that she knew I couldn't be saved.
I don't believe my father took in what was said, it was over so fast. Maybe my mother did fill him in with the main idea later that night or the next day but when it was happening there in the front room, when I was telling about being saved, he was tearing meat off the chicken breast with his fingers and seemed to be intent on watching the television. Lonesome George Gobel was telling jokes on the Ed Sullivan Show.
I thought for some reason then of my brother. I wondered how he had gotten out of the house without anybody's noticing, how he got all the way to the street in front and sat down behind the rear tires of my uncle's truck. I wondered why on earth he did it.
My friend's mother left and I went to the kitchen and ate first a chicken wing and then a leg, and then another wing and another leg, and had some bread. I looked at the bones and then threw them in the wastebasket under the kitchen sink so my brother's trembling, old dog wouldn't get them. Chicken bones can splinter and kill a dog. I got myself some milk and went to bed.
I pulled the covers up and wondered about Job and his new sons and daughters, the replacements.
Before that evening was over, before I fell asleep, I think I already knew that even getting born again wasn't going to save me. The unforgivable sin surrounded me and was seeking a place in my heart.
Aaron Allbright’s novel in five parts will be published on Substack.
Soon:
In a Desert or a City
BOOK I
‘PRINCE CARTIER’ or HOW I LEARNED TO LOVE BEING GAY WITH MY SAUDI PRINCE AND TO START WORRYING
BOOK II
MONSIEUR LE PRINCE, PARIS
BOOK III
THE MYSTERIES OF PARIS
BOOK IV
TYROMANCY AND LUCIFER
BOOK V
WHY WAIT FOR THE LIGHT?