The Protocols of Ambiguity

“He’s just a boy,” the old woman shouted to her excited peer.
It was true. The boy was merely six years old. And shy too. Severely shy. But still he stood there, undaunted, before the electrified apostolic crowd of three hundred worshipers. He slowly raised his hands to the heavens, and through stammering lips, he began to utter words.
Awareness … weeping … it was filling him … overflowing …
The volume of tears that streamed down his cheeks was in direct proportion to an expanding awareness of the words now flowing from his mouth. New words, different words, words he did not understand yet, words not foreign, words not without meaning. Tears poured from his eyes as though his tear ducts were fastened open. He was very aware—aware of the pressure on his toes from shoes a half size too small, aware of the bubble of snot beneath his nose, and aware of how happy he was. He didn’t want this moment to end.
The Pentecostal preacher bellowed from the pulpit, “Theeus is thayt spowk’n of baa the prowphet Jowel sayith Gawd, ‘I whill powur out maa speeritupon awl falesh in the layst days’!”
The boy didn’t understand what the preacher was saying. But it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered.
The preacher lifted the boy and held him to the microphone so the people could see and hear a child speaking in tongues.
The man’s fiery expression unfolded from utter amazement—“Don’t let nobody tell yall Acts 2:38 ain’t the way any more”—to fierce and emphatic—“Read it! It’s still the birth of the church!” The preacher broke into a smile and pointed to the crowd. “What shall I do to get right with Gawd? Acts 2:38 is the altar, laver, and the Holy Place. It’s still the doorwhay to the kingdom! Thayt doorwhay ain’t ever changed! Ain’t no eemperor, no theologeen, no council of politishuns and popes ever hayd the autharty to chaynge eet. No mayn! Ever!”
The congregation roared with praises, shouting, and clapping. And in spite of the predicament, the boy didn’t want to stop. He was comfortable. He allowed the new language to flow through him as the only language he ever wanted to speak. The preacher made marvelous, prophetic-style proclamations that nudged the congregation into a revelatory frenzy.
Music began with low, soulful tones from a Hammond B-3 organ, slowly at first, progressive and rhythmic. Bass notes pumped alongside the syncopating high-hat of a particularly skilled drummer. Deep percussions pulsed under shaking tambourines accompanied by brass, piano, and powerful vocal harmonies. Barefaced women in modest dress danced until their bouffant constructions crumbled to glorified lengths. The atmosphere was at once festive and repentant as contrite sinners flooded the altars.
Memories flashed in the boy’s mind. He remembered three weeks before when he and his family lived in another town far away. He remembered his parents’ announcement that the family must relocate. How sad he had been to part ways with the little church they attended, especially the Sunday school teacher. The man was a magnificent entertainer with a strong Brooklyn accent and a wry grin. He often called the boy “the little preachuh.” An impossible shock of wiry hair jiggled loosely above the teacher’s right eye as he screwed a light bulb into his mouth. From the corner of his mouth he would declare, “Look here, little preachuh. See what happens when I reach my hands high into the throne room of God and falip the switchaaa!” The light bulb would light up. The boy knew it was a battery-operated trick bulb; he could see the magician’s tongue pressing the button. The smiling boy never spoke to the man.
The boy remembered every detail of the former neighborhood. He remembered the bully he’d punched in the nose at the incitement of his three older brothers, who giggled with delight as the bully lay screaming and bloody on the ground. That was the night his grandmother, visiting from South Louisiana, told him of the gift.
There was an air of affluence about his grandmother; a deep sensitivity not acquired in conventional circles; a sweetness that adequately masked her inability to read and write. Maybe she discerned his guilt, or fear, or something as she sat him on the chair and began to speak in her soft, French accent. “Shaa, yoo awlmoost six year ol now. Yoo need to know dat dare is a gif dat da Lowad Jesus wish to give yoo. Yoo need to know dat yoo gon need dis gif mar dan yool need anytin else for de res of yoo life. More dan dem puppy, more dan dat swim poowl, and more dan dem lil trahcycle. Dat gif gon open yoo eyes and guide yoo tru awl da dawrkness.”
The grandmother didn’t know the boy had taught himself to balance on a bicycle with no pedals. The boy didn’t bother to correct her. There was something in the aged woman’s words, something that quickened his heart. He studied the stately shape of her mouth, her mannerisms, and the way she davened slowly back and forth as she spoke in measured rhythms. The meter of her sentences moved from elliptic phrases to a seamless flow slowly painting a vivid image in the boy’s mind.
“Shaa, dares many, many lights in da world dat yoo gon see. But awl dem lights oonly mix togethah to make biggah and biggah dawrkness. At dat midnight hour, awl dem lights in da worl gon come togethah, and dis whole world won’t know da difference between light and dawrkness. Never let yooself believe dem lights. Dem devil lights want to hide dat one true light. Always remembah … dar is oonly one true light. One oonly!”
The boy pondered her words. He’d previously experimented with a flashlight in the darkness of his closet, waving his hand through the invisible beam.
“When yoo have true light, yoo nevah let yoosef stoop to earthy powah,” she continued. “Holy powah is biggah dan yoo fist, biggah dan any sword, and biggah dan awl dem bombs. If dem people claim da neem of Jesus but still dey use da powah of da sword, and fear to force others to believe, den you know das not da true light. Shaa, God is love, but love was anvisible and noo man could see, until dat lil baby born in Betlehem.”
The boy continued the heavenly communiqué as the congregation pressed in on all sides. A random hand wiped his nose with a handkerchief as images from the past flickered again. He remembered his brothers’ excitement for the new city and how the church was a lot bigger than they had all expected. And though the boy found little comfort in crowded places, he didn’t mind this new church. Often, during the Sunday-night service as the preacher vehemently expounded another message from God, the boy would lie under the church pew and pray. He would study the splintered underside of the wooden bench and marvel at the colorful blobs of chewing gum stuck finger length from the edge. He found he could stare right through the air, through the wooden bench to another place, the throne room, spoken of by the man with the light in his mouth. The boy would close his eyes and talk to Jesus with limited words.
From these moments a yearning was conceived. I must be baptized in the name of Jesus. It was a concept the boy found comprehensible and urgent as expounded by the preacher, who said, “You gotta be towtally sayturated, through and through, in the idantitey of Gawd. You must be covered in His name. Repent! Be baptaazed in the name of Jesus for the remeeshun of seeuns! And receive the Holy Ghost! Thayts the whole gospel! Death, burial, and resurrection!”
The boy’s mother inquired of the preacher regarding the boy’s baptism.