Nude Christianity

when i was young i 

attended a small church in aid, missouri where

the mark twain forest rolled over a set of

farmlands and locked fingers with highway 60 and

the outskirts of dexter, missouri. if you ever been

to both, then you know

what it's like to feel reserved and enjoy

peace and quiet over a bottle of suds or

a fishing rod in your hand as the summer sun

painted the looming nighttime a bruising purple. 

i must have been seventeen at the time and

i found myself following a crush 

i had in high school. she was a little over five foot

with a great figure, most notably the shape of

her hips. i called her an onion butt, meaning

she had an a*s so good it brought tears to my

eyes. yet i loved her with the same 

infatuation that most adolescent boys 

in southeast missouri do. when i was a writer she

read one of my stories and told me she loved it

and when i attended my first school dance she

was the first girl i ever danced with.

it was nothing sexual, just a simple slow

dance, with arms on hips and shoulders, staring

at one another grinning from ear

to ear. comparing it to my first kiss, blowjob, or 

sex for that matter, it ranked above them

all, because it was all out of the endless well of

kindness in her heart.

she attended school in dexter later on, and played

basketball the year they won state. she was

the pastor's daughter and knew everyone at 

church so well she could recite the id number on 

their license and name off their favorite 

movies, songs, meals, books, magazines, even

sports. 

it came down to sports, if i remember correctly. 

we never dated, or kissed, held hands, cuddled.

we hugged on separate occasions, mostly out of

modesty and because someone had been

"saved". however i always felt close to her, like

a boyfriend or maybe more. 

there was a bulletin board with church 

announcements, and newspaper clippings from the

local newspapers. most of them were about 

the "youth" of the church, often being the 

dexter girl's basketball team. and during service, before worship

or after sermons, or even during them for that matter, we

would be enlightened on the basketball team's

progress. and everyone would applaud. 

i began to post newspaper clippings, regional stuff not

local s**t, about puxico's baseball team. i was the 

starting catcher, and we had won damn near 30 games

and marched to the district finals. 

it's silly to think about it, but at first i was 

vying for her attention, and then i found myself

wanting attention from the congregation. i wanted

them to mention the baseball team just

once before worship, or during the pastor's sermon, or even 

shake my hand after church and say, "gee tom, i hear

you puxico boys have been tearing it up this year."

i wanted to be seen and felt in that church the same

way as the pastor's daughter that i loved before i even

knew what love was. i wanted to be a somebody.

i never received any thanks or congratulations for

my team. what happened was i posted a picture the 

regional paper had taken of me. we won the game and i 

had made front page. when i came to church next

week, i found strands of the clippings flesh hanging from

the thumbtacks. it was wadded up and thrown in the 

trashcan. and in its place, as if to piss on its already 

desecrated grave, was a picture of the pastor's daughter

shooting freethrows. and all i could feel

was this crushing feeling that at first i thought

was her final goodbye from my life, but it wasn't it was

the weight of the pulpit and the pews and the

wayward shifting eyes who didn't have time for

a puxico boy. 

Reviews

[Thomas Fitzgerald]

A touching and very palpable piece, well done, good read.

[Emma Berman]

Aww how sweet and sad. Are you still a religious Christian?

One small grammar clarification, though you may have done this as some sort of literary device: you used been in the first stanza without have or has. This is incorrect.

Ok, bro- ttyl. Good job.