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As a kid, I grew up in the Pentecostal church. I’ll never forget those midnight cries. It was what we called the service where we were locked in during church convention time. People who had been long gone —or as the people said backslid—came back to be covered, again.
It was not that they were lost, they were not. But it was that they had lost touch. Preachers preached. Dancers danced. We would shout all night. Bodies let loose all over those old green floors. Ecstatic speech took over. We couldn’t understand but we knew it was something.
Though our native tongue found no entry, what took over them was the spirit of deliverance. Bodies were free. I remember when it happened to me, when I caught the Holy Ghost. Tears flowed as I pressed myself into speech. They call it glossolalia—you become a witness.
“Son you did it,” they said, “you spoke in other tongues.” They brought me up front the church, handed me the old microphone, smelling like by bad breath and old metal, and asked, “What did the Lord do for you?” “He gave me the gift….”
before I could get out the rest the church went up in roaring. Click tracks. Praise breaks. My momma and auntie shouting like I just scored a touchdown like Friday Nights. I had the gift. They rejoiced, all of em. All of us rejoiced in that moment. I was saved.
After that, it was customary that one would be baptized, washed in the blood. That meant you were really saved. I could sing in the choir. I could play the drums. I could preach my sermon. I could teach. Finally. I could be free. Or so I thought.
Weeks later we were on the way to my aunt’s house to go celebrate my cousin’s graduation. We always took the back way. We stopped on the shoulder of the road, I can’t remember why. My older brother Depaul got out of the car to fix something I think.
The old white man came out of his house and started yelling something at my brother, he thought we threw some trash in his yard. Some trash. My cousin Josh yelled to my brother, Dion, “put the window down, put the window.” I could tell something was going on that was not right.
“You be here when I get back!” the old man yelled. My brother returned some words and ran back to the car, jumped in, and started to speed off. Anxiety that I can’t explain came over my body, nah it was more than that, it was terror. Boom. Boom. Boom. He really shot at us.
My brother. My sister. My cousin. Children. I don’t know why he felt us to be a threat. Why he was so bloodthirsty for our death. What made it worse is that, after pressing charges, the judge didn’t believe us. All of us. Our testimony meant nothing to him. Absolutely nothing.
They even found his guns. They found it all. They made some excuse for him that he was a vet. But I remember the rage I heard in his voice. He knew. But our word was not enough. Never enough.
I know one thing I found out that day: My soul was saved, but not my body.
I know one thing I found out that day: My soul was saved, but not my body.
