Speaking In Tongues: part 2 of a childhood memoir
July 27th, 2007
My mother was a deeply religious woman. She was what most people would call a fundamentalist Christian. She believed in God, the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ his only son, our Lord.
And how.
But she especially believed in Hell, and she even more especially believed that my brother and I were headed straight for it because of our latest shenanigans. So she decided to call an intervention, and for an intervention, she required the assistance of her best friend, LaVerne. She dialed her number on the kitchen phone.
“LaVerne? Oh, I’m so glad you’re home. It’ Shirley,” my mother said, phone cord wrapped around her fingers. My mother’s name is Shirley. Anybody familiar with lat 1970’s TV sitcoms can understand why my brother and I found their friendship particularly amusing “You’ll never believe what Amber and Carleton were doing. Last night, I found them outside worshipping idols.”
She didn’t bother to mention that we were only pretending to worship idols. I guess it was all the same to her.
“I’m bringing them over to your place,” she said after a few moments. “You said you wanted Hassan to be baptized; well I think my kids need it, too. They can all receive the Lord together, praise God. What do you think?”
After exchanging quick looks at each other, my brother and I ran to the back of the house to pack up our things as quickly as possible. Hassan had a Nintendo.
It was late in the afternoon when we arrived at LaVerne’s house. She was standing on the porch waiting for us, her long black hair tied in a dramatic ponytail away from her face. She had slender cat eyes, and dark skin. I always thought she looked very exotic, and not at all like a crazy fundamentalist Christian, which just goes to show that you can never judge a book by its cover. Her little boy, Hassan, was playing with a Tonka trunk at her feet. He was my brother’s age.
The women went inside, and my brother and I knelt down on the porch with Hassan. “What kind of candy did your mom get?” I asked. LaVerne always bought huge bags of candy when my brother and I came over. I think it was a bribe of some sort, though I was never sure what she was getting out of the deal.
“Skittles,” he said, throwing the Tonka truck into the dirt. “We have to accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and savior, and tomorrow we’ll all go get baptized.”
I sighed, stretching my legs out in front of me. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and savior; I went to a Lutheran school and I believed in God and everything. But if we had to do all this tonight, it meant we wouldn’t have time to play Kid Nicky on the Nintendo, and I was really hoping to make it to the next level. “What do we have to do to accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and savior?” I asked.
“I accept!” my brother said. He stood up and opened the screen door. Sticking his head inside and taking a deep breath, he shouted, “I ACCEPT JESUS CHRIST AS MY SAVIOR CAN WE PLAY KID NICKY NOW AND EAT THE SKITTLES?”
Two voices boomed back at us simultaneously. “NO!”
My brother let the screen door slam shut, and Hassan patted him on the shoulder. “I already tried that before you got here, “ he said. “Let’s get started on the Skittles.”
LaVerne and Hassan lived alone in a big house in east Los Angeles. His father was a musician of some sort, though he wasn’t around much now that he and LaVerne were divorced. Hassan had a big room with lots of toys and a television. For some reason, he wasn’t allowed to keep the Nintendo in his room; it was hooked up to the tv in his mother’s room, where our moms were currently holed up, plotting the salvation of our eternal souls. But we managed to get hold of the bag of Skittles.
We poured the candy into a huge plastic bowl, and began shoveling the colorful taffy pieces into our mouths. We weren’t sure how much time we had before our indoctrination, so we had to use our time wisely.
Half the bowl of Skittles was gone when LaVerne and Shirley called us into the living room. We brought the candy with us.
Our moms were seating cross legged on either side of an open King James Bible, wearing very solemn but peaceful expressions. Following suit, we sat in a semicircle around the Bible. My brother and I guarded the bowl of candy between us.
“Hassan,” LaVerne said, “I want to help you accept Jesus as your personal savior. Part of that means learning a special language that only you and God know. It’s a language that you can use in your prayers, a language that you might not understand when you speak it, but which will fill you with a sense of peace and joy when the words come out of your mouth. Are you ready to receive the words of the Lord, Hassan?”
She was talking about speaking in tongues. I knew what that was because although my mother’s church didn’t take to such nonsense, my father was known to start speaking in tongues involuntarily in the car on the way to school some mornings. His whole body would break out in goosebumps, and he’d start prattling, “Ombubba shikaya olayama, opurda hicarinamm hosaiah.” As creepy and completely insane as it was, it was actually very pretty, not unlike poetry. The words were melodic, and my father seemed so enlightened when the spirit came over him.
Unfortunately, the spirit came over him one day when a Jewish friend of mine was in the car with us. She never rode in the car with my dad again.
Hassan shrugged his shoulder. “Sure, I love Jesus,” he said, standing up. LaVerne stood up as well, and placed her hands on Hassan’s head.
“Oh Father,” she said, her body swaying, “this your earthly son calls to you, to accept Jesus as his Lord and Savior. He requests the words of the spirit be given to him, oh Lord. Lord, speak to your child. Give him your words!”
LaVerne looked down at Hassan, and after a moment said, “Did the Lord speak to you, baby?”
Hassan looked up at his mother and nodded. “Yes.”
Tears sprang to LaVerne’s eyes. “What did He say, baby? What did He say?”
After a moment’s pause, Hassan answered, “Skittelia.”
“Skittelia?” LaVerne repeated. Hassan nodded.
My brother and I exchanged glances at each other, trying very hard not to laugh. The Lord, like Hassan, apparently very much liked candy coated taffy bites, and had chosen the name of the candy to be his secret language of the spirit.
Skillelia sounded nothing like ombubba shikaya olayama, opurda hicarinamm hosaiah. Either my dad or Hassan was lying, and somehow, I didn’t think it was my dad.
Although it shouldn’t have, reading this post made me laugh quite a lot.
I’m glad you laughed! Childhood is funny; so is religion. When the two get together, it *should* be a grand ol’ time!
Oh my gosh, this made my husband and I laugh out loud! What a great story. I found you through shortfatkid’s link to your article on A List Apart (which I also enjoyed) and I can’t wait to read on…
Wow! Brings back memories for me. My Born-Again Christian father [and later, Born-Again Christian stepmother] dragged me, highly unwilling, to a holy-roller church in rural North Jersey every Sunday. Tongues, people “slain in the spirit”, a rockin’ band, three-hour-long, painfully mind-numbing services, and yes, I too was fully dunked in the tub. Remember the tub? Did “Church on the Way” have the built-in tub up behind the pulpit, with the window so the entire congregation could witness? Ah, the 70’s. Bad music, crappy fashion, amphetamines, laughable hairdos, and freakish religions. Fortunately for me, I had an escape route the summer of 1985 at 15 years old — go live with normal, saintly, non-practicing Catholic mother at the coastal island resort town of Wildwood Crest, New Jersey. I haven’t been to church since! If my father knew how I felt about that stuff as a kid, he’d be crushed. Hopefully, he won’t see this. When he goes Jesus on me today [rarely because he lives in Florida], I simply clam up — and I have for the last 25 years. I don’t have the heart to tell him how I feel. There is nothing you can say to sway a 70-some-year-old man. So, silence seems to be the best policy.
Russ,
The baptismal tank at Church on the Way was like one of those dunking tanks you see at fairs where you throw the baseball and hit the target and the guy inside falls into the water. IT was like that, only wider and slightly shallower. It was all clear so the parishoners could see everything. It was up on a little stage kind of next to and behind the main pulpit.
At least, that’s what I remember it being like–the last time I Was there I was around 10 years old. Church on the Way is still there and going strong with like a billion members. It’s one of those enormous churches out in California.
How are we going to be free from the past?
I found your blog through your Alistapart article. Oh my goodness…thank you for this. I laughed out loud. Kids are hilarious!
I’m a Christian who attends a church that does the ‘tongues’ thing, and I can understand how creepy this seems to some people. What a hilarious article! Thanks a lot! You’re a great writer.