What It Profits a Man
Today I didn't go to Sunday School but to the cemetery above and behind it and hung out on my father's headstone, not that he's dead yet but when he is then he'll be all set and death won't have to wait any longer than it has to which was awfully nice of Father but then he's a nice guy, he's a plumber, they don't come any nicer even though some folks complain about the high bills but he just smiles and shrugs and says that he's as fair as it's possible for him to be and still make the least little profit and that usually does the trick, Mother's headstone they're still saving for but it looks good for them in the afterlife and lead -ing up to it and all the time that comes after it, eternity it's called, one day I'll die, too, and meet up with them but I'm only ten years old now and I want to live a while longer, I'll be ready after my team wins the World Series and the way things are going that won't be soon so I guess when I'm croaked and wake up dead I won't worry too much about how much life I missed, it'll all be behind me and I won't get to go back and after Sunday School last week I told Miss Hooker that sometimes I think about just killing myself and saving God and Jesus and the mortician and for that matter both Mother and Father some time and worry but she told me not even to think it, that's a sin as sure as really doing it and that whenever I think such thoughts that I should pray for forgiveness right off the bat and not delay for a moment else I might die right then and here in sin and find myself in the furnace of Hell and then I asked her what I thought Father would ask, Would that be gas or electric, and then she laughed and laughed and it was good to see and hear and when I got home I asked Father what would be Miss Hooker's fate if she dropped down dead at that moment of sin--would her immortal soul head up or down and he said I'm not sure, son--let us pray, then he smiled and closed his eyes and fell asleep. That son of a bitch is crazy. Burned After Sunday School I slink back in the classroom to see Miss Hooker one more time before I never see her again until next Sunday. Could be her red hair draws me back to her fire again. I'm just 10 and I don't know why I feel this way but I like it even though I hate it. I mean, she's a grown woman and I'm not a man yet but one day I will be and be a husband to boot and get married and start a family, which means babies, and though I don't know where they come from yet I'd like to learn and Miss Hooker's a swell teacher and I'm a decent student if I'm interested. And she has green eyes, one of them lazy, wandering like God, if God wanders--I sure would if I was God. I'd get pretty bored up in Heaven just sitting on my throne all day. Maybe that's just me, whether I was made in God's image or not--I think that's the Bible. And freckles, she's got freckles, Miss Hooker has about a million freckles. Sometimes I try to count them but have to give up, it's like counting stars and of course there are the ones you never see, far away or behind the clouds like Miss Hooker's freckles underneath her clothes. If we get married I could count them on our honeymoon if there's enough light in the dark. I suppose that my eyes will adjust, or maybe they'll shine like real stars, even twinkle-twinkle, to make my summing easier. I'll use a calculator to keep track of them. And I'll hold her close and kiss her and then we'll fall asleep and wake up pregnant, or she will, and nine months later name our son after me or our daughter after her, but for now I don't know Miss Hooker's name, her given name, I mean. Her Christian name. I guess I'll find out at the latest when we get married. She'll wear a long white gown sort of open at the neck to show off her chests, or the tops of them, and I'll wear a tuxedo, which I'll rent and take back, or my best man will, whoever he'll be. Right now it's a tie between my father and my dog. I stand in the doorway and watch Miss Hooker stack the hymnals, and think of stacking dishes in the kitchen sink. I should help her, or at least help her dry them. I think I've seen enough. Maybe I've seen too much. Now I'm feeling like her red hair made me feel. I'm sort of looking forward to, and dreading, something at the same time. It's like thinking of Jesus, too, Who died on the Cross, Miss Hooker says, to save us. All I can say is I'm glad that He did but sorry that He had to all the same. Maybe if I die to save Miss Hooker she'll fall in love with me. But that's too late. Buttocks I don’t want to die but I may as well is how I look at it, death I mean, death is the end of life or at least of mine no matter when it comes, I’m only 10 now and my Sunday School teacher tells us that God can call us back at any time, call us back to Him, that is, He has such power, nobody gave it to him, He’s always had it, the power to call us back to Heaven where, I think, He made us and then shipped us out, our souls I mean, in -side our bodies and between them and out mothers’ labors, that’s the mysterious part, the in-between-ness of it all--well, I forgot what I was trying to say and yet I believe every word and yet I never even knew it, the start, save I went through it myself but I’m damned if I remember what it was like. I told Miss Hooker so after Sunday School this morning, she’s our teacher, and that damned slipped out, another sin and a heinous one because I said it in church, Sunday School is a kind of church, an affiliate, like the local NBC station to the larger network, I like TV and we don’t have cable, cable’s a sin says Mother but I think she just means the cost but anyway that slipped out of me and so Miss Hooker had to sit down right on both hips I mean, buttocks I think they’re called, that’s a funny word and like I say she plopped smack down on both at once and made that sound like an inside-the-armpit poot, another sin I guess, but I helped her up again, no damage done that I could see though of course I couldn’t see much nor to the chair, neither, it’s that tough plastic that will never rot in a million years and if you try to torch it it likely only melts, but anyway after she got her legs back, so to speak, Miss Hooker told me to run on home, she knows I walk and yet that wasn’t a figure of speech, she wanted me the Hell out of her hair so I said, Yes ma’am--see you next Sunday but she just grunted, I guess I hurt her after all but if we ever get hitched, forget her age, which is 25, we’ll both grow into husband and wife if only for a few years, there’s free cable down at the County Motel, just perfect for our honeymoon, unless I’m dead first or otherwise bored. And remote control.
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