I would have preferred to have slept in on a Saturday morning, but I owed my older brother about $50 and since I didn't have the cash to repay him, he asked me to drop by the church where he preaches in order to check the baptism pool for leaks before the big day tomorrow. It seemed that the county commissioner's teenage daughter was going to be baptized before a packed house and my preacher brother didn't want to take any chances.
For those of you who may not have attended a Baptist baptism before, you may not realize that Baptist churches usually have small pools usually built behind the altar and choir loft - there are no water pitchers, wash tubs, or sprinkling because they like to do it just the way Jesus did it. Well sort of if you consider a fiberglass baptism pool the same as the River Jordan and the fluorescent lighting the same as the Judean sun. The congregation can only see the preacher and the person being baptized from the waist up because the bottom half is hidden by the choir or, in the case of my brother's church, whitewashed paneling purchased from a home improvement store. After all, the newly reborn do not expect a spa experience in the baptismal pool.
My job today was simply to make sure the pool wouldn't leak or rupture during the ritual soaking the self-important politicians in the front row and embarrassing my self-important brother. Despite the additional utility costs, my brother was to begin pre-heating it tonight. The deacons had voted to shoulder the extra expense following a scandalous incident at a neighboring church 2 years ago when a recently-saved teenage girl stepped into the cold water wearing a rather thin blouse...
The early morning thunderstorm slowed my drive, but I pulled into the parking lot in my jeep about 9. My brother had left the back door unlocked. I opened the pool spigot to full blast and just waited for it to fill up. It was going to take a very long time. I knew I could have easily smoked a few if I were a smoker, but instead I drained my coffee thermos and started in on my ham biscuit.
The heavy rain on the green metal church roof drowned the sounds of the door opening and so I was very startled to see a twenty something guy come in with a handful of paint buckets and brushes. Well, maybe he wasn't a college student, but he was the right age, about 10 years younger than me. He had a bit of a bedhead look going and was obviously not expecting anyone else to be here, or else he might have worn a cleaner shirt or shaved. He was no aspiring eccentric artist working on a goatee, his face betrayed Republican politics and a likely obsession with cable sports networks.
"Hey man," was about all he said as he walked into the sanctuary.
"Mornin'" I replied. I wondered if my preacher brother knew him, Frank hadn't mentioned anything about anyone else being here. "Did Frank hire you to recreate the Sistine Chapel before tomorrow's service?"
He laughed only a little, "Hardly. I gotta fix the painting up there," he replied while motioning toward the mid-20th century landscape (garish) mural of the River Jordan flowing through Galilee and emptying into the baptism pool I was filling.
What a task. But I was curious, "Do they still make those leaded colors?"
He chuckled a bit, "No way, why do you think Frank made me come in this morning? Gotta mix them myself."
"Oh, really, so how much money did you borrow from him?"
He looked at me bewildered, "Nothing. I'm getting my degree at the institute and the career office called me about the job."
I was relieved as I had almost reached the conclusion that he probably attended church here and was actually here out of earnest devotion; but no, he was in it for the money like me. Unlike my preacher brother, I was not a devout member of any congregation and I doubted my ability to make polite chitchat all morning with a young guy who took that stuff too seriously.
The tub was about half full. I wondered whether Baptist congregations out west were allowed to use so much water for a ceremony that takes only three minutes...
I raised my thermos to the painter, "Coffee?"
"No thanks, I just had some in my truck before I got here. Name's John by the way."
"I'm Kevin, Frank's brother."
"A priest's brother, eh?" he asked as he set up his supplies next to the pool.
"Priest? Frank is no priest, that's for sure. You must not have spent much time in Baptist churches before..."
"Nope."
"Ever been to a baptism before?"
"Can't say that I have."
It was fascinating to meet someone in this county with such little exposure to conservative evangelical Protestantism.
The tub finally filled close enough to full to test it. I headed toward the spigot to shut it off and decided to continue my effort at pointless small talk with Michelangelo, "So you gonna redo this a bit, update it, bring it into the 21st Century?"
"You mean put Israeli tanks on the tops of the hills of Galilee?"
"Whatever Frank is paying you, I'll double it if you do."
"Right, aren't you here because you owe money already? Besides, it's art just like it is. It might be amateurish, working-class, low budget art like a velvet Elvis, but still, these paintings are probably disappearing every day. Some ought to be saved."
"Like the CDC thinks the small pox virus should be saved?"
John ignored me and started mixing up the hue of electric orange cream he would need for the sunset. "So I guess you didn't owe Frank too much if you're just drinking coffee and eating breakfast." He caught me right in the eye as he spoke.
"A fortune, a bloody fortune. I didn't get home until 3 this morning, I needed the sleep, but had to check out the pool before her highness takes the plunge under tomorrow." I removed the paneling in front of the pool so I could check for leaks by dusting just a bit of flour around the seams to see if there was any seepage. "You know I like this pool a lot better without the paneling, don't you? They could create a human aquarium to relax the congregation, don't you think?"
John crouched over with his brushes and sponges. His sweatpants were stretched pretty tight in the rear and clung to his crack. I wondered if he might be hairy under the cotton, but John was mostly blonde and I thought it was more likely than not his crack was smooth since he had so little arm hair, but then again, you never can tell...
"Well?" John asked me as if I was a complete idiot.
My mind had obviously wondered, "Sorry, I was checking the pool out for leaks, what was that again?"
His fading patience was evident; "I said why do they go to so much trouble to sprinkle them in a pool, why not just do it at the altar like everyone else?"
"Sprinkle?" I started wiping the flour off with some enthusiasm since it looked like I wouldn't have to actually make any repairs to pay off my $50 debt. "They don't sprinkle you, they dunk you under."
John looked sincerely shocked. "Get out of here."
"Why do you think they're called Baptists?"
"Even the fat ones go under water?"
