The Great Baptism

Abstract

THERE IS A TIME in my memory when my age is not measured in years. Before the or the suffices. Days convert to water marks, distances calculated from the lapping surface of the lake to the roofs of houses. The flood must have come when I was nine. I've determined this by the watery memory of my possessions washing out my upstairs window?my birthday tea set bobbed by and Tiny Tears reached for me as I was dragged by my father toward the chimney. And then, of course, there are the people that I knew before the flood who I would never see again. For months Mother called the flood the Great Baptism because, at first, it put us on the path to a better life. My own baptism happened in the church before the flood, but I was never better for it. Eternal Life Baptist Church was saved from total destruction by the slope of the earth, but after the flood, when most of the survivors moved away and businesses shut down, the church followed. Last summer I made the trip back to see what was left. Eternal Life Baptist still stood. When I pried open its rotted walnut doors I could still hear the echoing microphone, the gallant choir, and the gentle sloshing of water. Not water from the flood, but baptismal water. Yet when I think of how baptism feels, it's something like a flood. Or like falling off a dock with a dress on, the skirt billowing up around you as you sink. There comes an instant when you must choose whether you will punch against the preacher or simply lean back and trust the weight of his hand, strapped across your gaping mouth, blocking the water. When my mother was twelve, she was baptized in a river. On the bank she stood in starched white lace, orange mud oozing around her ankles, until she was led into the water by the preacher in his soggy suit. She promised herself an indoor ceremony for me. Perhaps she chose Eternal Life simply because of its baptistry that loomed like a large fish tank implanted in the wall high above where the choir stood. Facing the choir, we sat in stiff pine pews, our necks hinged back, lulled by our aquarium view. In a blue sea of organ chords we drifted with the waves on the other side of the glass and watched the preacher push the heads under, watched the elegant legs float up. Behind ripples and splashes swayed swirling aqua tile. Above the water line, the tile burst into a bright