River Baptism

Some were on the trampled bank in their Sunday best.Some were boys hiding above in the trees and the rest werein the water. We had slithered through that summer-Kentuckyundergrowth so we wouldn't miss out. And had climbed an oak.We'd overheard Granny Potter say the locals would be acting outcircus-come-to-town pentecostalism, baptizing (by immersion)in the mine-runoff-polluted North Fork Kentucky River.Converts dropped the Hefty-bagged change of clothes cartedacross God-rendered fields and thickets. My cousins Rogerand Ricky Dellinger were in the tree, too. They pronouncedthe last name like the gangster John Herbert Dillinger, whobroke out of jail in Ohio in 1933 and skedaddled that way:toward the Letcher County line and some outlaw familywho were to be his salvation. Roger worshiped Dillinger.Habitually that summer, he pilfered apples pears peachesfrom IGA while his mother, Myrtle, shopped. He'd tossthe core, the pay-as-you-go rule not in force for Roger.Ricky Dellinger wanted to preach since his mother saidthere was a hell and she wanted to miss it. All their lives,and mine, she had read aloud—mostly to Ricky and me—from the Bible, immersing us in a demon-snake theodicy,Adam and Eve and an aboriginal Eden. That day, though,a mountain woman was praising the open boat of the airand coming up from the russet water in such an ecstaticway that even Roger listened and tried not to spoil it—spoil us catching sight of a pure, omnibenevolent God.Sometimes a whole country can be as rotten as Roger.Sometimes a limb creaks and a congregation looks up.Sometimes you almost fall and someone catches you and you're not sure who it was. That day, however,America wore a white dress that was mortared to herseemingly incorruptible skin. And she was forgiven.