Gasp

Say yr prayers... [www/public]

In Sunday School today I saw Jesus move on the cross behind Miss Hooker's desk. He opened one eye and looked at me or somebody else in the class but no one seemed to notice, I alone gasped like they do in the comic books and Miss Hooker stopped her story of Him and the loaves and the fishes and feeding the multitudes, which was a miracle, and asked me, Gale, are you alright--you look as if you'd seen a ghost, and I said, Yes ma'am, I'm okay, I'm sorry, but didn't dare look again at Jesus because I was afraid I'd scream and I'm ten years old and growing so I'm a big boy now, in three years I'll be a teenager and then it's all downhill from there, Father says, and I'm not sure if he's kidding but he's a plumber so he should know, all that tin-and-lead solder and other people's bathrooms. And after class Miss Hooker called me back so I went up to her in her red chair, which matches her air, and her eyes like the green of the grass after it's just been cut, I should know, I cut ours at home and not with a Toro but an old-fashioned rotary, we're not rich, not even middle class, probably not even lower-, but we're not quite poor and our yard's not big and when I cut it you can't tell the weeds from the grass and that's kind of like cheating but it's not a sin real sin gets you Hell and that means fire, and forever, and I don't play with matches, either, except when Mother lets me light her Salems, the match-head smells like sulfur after I blow it out, it's a little like Hell smells, I guess, it's the smell of sin and it's tempting but too much of it is death. There's probably a lesson in that. What happened, Miss Hooker asked--she meant my shock--so I said, Well, please turn around and take a look at Jesus there and tell me what you see. I was looking at my shoes and God may be everywhere but He's not nailed to my Thom McAns, not even if they're my only good pair, which they are, I only wear them Sundays and twice to funerals. So Miss Hooker turned and looked, I knew because I felt the wind of her turning and again when she turned back, and she said I see the Son of God, Who shed His blood so that we can all have eternal life if we believe. I said, Yes ma'am, and turned myself to leave but then she asked, What do you see? and I said, I can't look again but I thought I saw Him open one eye and look at me, and Miss Hooker said, Well, maybe your eyes were playing tricks on you or you fell asleep for a moment and dreamed it or maybe you had a vision. I said, Thank you ma'am, that narrows it down some, but I've got to get home for lunch and it's a mile's walk, you know, and she said, Yes, you may go now and Jesus loves you and I said, Yes ma'am, and when I was almost through the door I turned around again and looked at Miss Hooker, she's so beautiful, all those freckles, no wonder Jesus wept.