Epiphany

The first time Alvin Johnson talked to God was on an Easter morning following a sunrise service. The service was held at the Freewill Baptist church he attended regularly with his maternal Grandmother, Claire Pate, known to most as Momma Claire around the small farming town they lived in, Brown Lake, Arkansas. On this particular occasion, young Alvin, a small lad of six years, sat on the smooth, solid oak pew next to Momma Claire wringing his multi-colored little hands, the telltale signs of an egg-dyeing session held the previous evening. As he sat there squirming, he prayed to God and the Lord Jesus for mortal power over the building urge to empty his bladder. He'd had one glass of OJ too many at the pancake breakfast in the fellowship hall right after the outdoor sunrise service held on the lawn behind the church building.

Momma Claire had asked Alvin if he needed to go before the indoor church service started, and he told her he didn't. He didn't then. Man, did he ever need to go now. Alvin knew that Momma Claire would be madder than the Preacher seemed to be when he spoke of "hell's fire" if he told her he needed to go now. So he held it and prayed. Prayed harder than he ever had before. He even prayed harder than he had prayed to get Santa to bring the Lincoln Logs last Christmas. He had gotten those. "Maybe I ought to be praying to Santa Claus, too", he thought as his eyes squinted tighter shut.

It was about this time during the service that the Preacher threw on his best theatrics. Momma Claire always thought it was to wake up Mr. Peters on the sixth row and stop his snoring. The theatrics worked for this, but not much else. The Preacher held his Bible high up overhead in his right hand and in a voice that made Alvin's ears ring shouted "AND IF YOU ASK FOR HIS BLESSINGS AND BELIEVE THAT JESUS DIED FOR YOUR SINS ON THE CROSS AT CALVARY YOUR PRAYERS WILL BE ANSWERED!'' just as he slammed the Book down on the pulpit.

Alvin always worried that the Preacher would fall over when he did this thing. It scared him, and he wondered if it scared anybody else. The Preacher's face was red and sweaty and he looked more than a little sick. Alvin concentrated on what the Preacher had said about the cross, and with his eyes shut tight, he could almost see Jesus on the cross at Calvary wearing his crown of thorns. Just a slim trickle of blood ran down the side of Jesus' face. What the Preacher had said seemed to come true, because the sharpness in his stomach he had been feeling because of holding his pee was going away. "Maybe I'll pray like this for a new train set this Christmas", he thought.

Alvin opened his eyes from his prayer-fest, and the first thing he saw (although he couldn't read them) were the words inscribed on the table in front of the pulpit "THIS DO IN REMEMBRANCE OF ME". Almost instantly, he heard a tiny shriek emit from Momma Claire and felt the wetness running down his powder blue polyester-clad legs onto white patent-leather shoes, the blue turning darker as the wetness spread. His pee-prayers had gone un-answered. God, Jesus, and Santa Claus all three had forsaken him.

Needless to say, Momma Claire was quite disappointed. With his piss-stained britches, she marched Alvin slowly up the aisle between the two columns of smooth brown pews toward the back double doors of the church. He could feel the eyes on his face and this burned him, and he heard the tight giggles from the back row where the teenage boys sat and did what teenage boys do during church when they sit unaccompanied by their parents. The Widow Waters stared at her blue felt top coat folded crisply in her lap and slowly pulled a long, loose thread from the bottom hem.  The congregation handled Alvin's misfortune in a slightly less than Christian manner.

On the way to the car in the parking lot, Momma Claire unleashed her wrath for the pants-pissing episode. "Why in THE HELL didn't you go when I asked you if you needed to go?" she asked over a clinched jaw. This exclamation was followed by three sharp swats to the butt, the last one almost raising Alvin's feet off the gravel parking lot.

Momma Claire opened the driver's side door to their old Chevy Impala, and a whimpering, tearful Alvin slid halfway across the front seat and climbed into the back. As she fired up the un-muffled engine and paused to gently remove her busily decorated Easter hat, Alvin looked back over the trunk of the car through the back window. The pale green paint was scratched and speckled with rusty spots. The colors reminded him of limes at the grocery store. A wisp of blue-gray exhaust rose up from under the car, and he could see the sun coming up over the trees. Sunlight was beginning to shine on the front doors of the church as the car pulled out onto the road leading to their house, and at that moment he realized he would miss the Easter egg hunt.