Perhaps a High Too Pure for His Comfort
JAKE was a bad example of how any man should behave, especially towards his wife (or significant other). Instead of being a good husband, he continuously berated his wife, Kate — a devout Pentecostal — even occasionally while in the presence of visitors, such as Jessie and his mother Marge (who was Kate’s longtime friend). Marge reared Jessie as a Catholic, though he wasn’t that much of a ‘believer’ in any faith.
“Ahh, shut your goddamn, filthy mouth!” Jake maliciously, repeatedly, sometimes unrelentingly spewed at his supposed-to-be life partner. Wife Kate would then say a few relatively benign things about this or that, and again out of his foul mouth came, “Ahh, shut your goddamn, filthy mouth!”
To be fair, it should be known that Jake didn’t indulge himself in vices, not even alcohol. On a few occasions, however, he did help himself to the two prepubescent sisters who resided a few houses away and confided in Jessie about the old man’s “tummy tickling” them. It was still considered acceptable behavior back in the 1970s.
As for the venomous verbal assaults against his wife, his cardiovascular system could tolerate only so many years of such blood-pressure-boosting, anger-based emotional abuse of Kate. One day his heart gave out. Though lucky enough to have survived, he remained wheelchair bound — physically, emotionally, mentally and thus verbally as weak and helpless as a kitten. Henceforth, he didn’t say a single nasty word to Kate, who went on to love and nurse Jake, whilst he sincerely discovered the same Christian faith as she.
Somewhat poetically, the only filthy mouth that would be profoundly shut, or at least very much mellowed, was that of Jake’s.
Following that great humbling and weakening, another devoutly Pentecostal elderly husband and wife, whom Kate met at church a couple years before, felt comfortable enough in her residence, due to the noticeable absence of Jake’s former typically malicious character, to regularly visit. And when came time for the closing of each stay, they all held hands in a circle as the senior male visitor initiated intense, deep prayer.
Though Marge had joined in the prayer circles a few times before, it was the first (and, incidentally, last) time Jessie had been present, albeit at the other side of the living room. To the barely seventeen years of age boy, the old man was simply emphatically, almost comically, rambling on in some indiscernible words for about forty-five seconds.
As he sat there, Jessie unexpectedly and inexplicably felt very relaxed, light minded and what he could only describe as a sense of clean spiritedness.
Later, on their way home from the visit, he told his mother that it was the most profound sensation he’d ever experienced (which said a lot, he thought to himself, considering the various drugs he had tried and planned to continue trying).
“He was speaking in tongues,” she bluntly informed him. “As funny as it sounded, he was rebuking evil spirits and inviting a holy spirit. I feel the same thing, like a pure euphoria, every time I’m a part of it.”
As it were, it would be but a one-time encounter for Jessie. He feared that further joining the Pentecostal prayer circles would interfere with his guilt-free enjoyment of the illicit intoxicant party life with the usual circle of rowdy friends. And he made sure none of them would ever learn of his involvement, however brief, with the speaking-in-tongues euphoria-feeling gathering, lest they laugh the hell out of him.
“Ahh, shut your goddamn, filthy mouth!” Jake maliciously, repeatedly, sometimes unrelentingly spewed at his supposed-to-be life partner. Wife Kate would then say a few relatively benign things about this or that, and again out of his foul mouth came, “Ahh, shut your goddamn, filthy mouth!”
To be fair, it should be known that Jake didn’t indulge himself in vices, not even alcohol. On a few occasions, however, he did help himself to the two prepubescent sisters who resided a few houses away and confided in Jessie about the old man’s “tummy tickling” them. It was still considered acceptable behavior back in the 1970s.
As for the venomous verbal assaults against his wife, his cardiovascular system could tolerate only so many years of such blood-pressure-boosting, anger-based emotional abuse of Kate. One day his heart gave out. Though lucky enough to have survived, he remained wheelchair bound — physically, emotionally, mentally and thus verbally as weak and helpless as a kitten. Henceforth, he didn’t say a single nasty word to Kate, who went on to love and nurse Jake, whilst he sincerely discovered the same Christian faith as she.
Somewhat poetically, the only filthy mouth that would be profoundly shut, or at least very much mellowed, was that of Jake’s.
Following that great humbling and weakening, another devoutly Pentecostal elderly husband and wife, whom Kate met at church a couple years before, felt comfortable enough in her residence, due to the noticeable absence of Jake’s former typically malicious character, to regularly visit. And when came time for the closing of each stay, they all held hands in a circle as the senior male visitor initiated intense, deep prayer.
Though Marge had joined in the prayer circles a few times before, it was the first (and, incidentally, last) time Jessie had been present, albeit at the other side of the living room. To the barely seventeen years of age boy, the old man was simply emphatically, almost comically, rambling on in some indiscernible words for about forty-five seconds.
As he sat there, Jessie unexpectedly and inexplicably felt very relaxed, light minded and what he could only describe as a sense of clean spiritedness.
Later, on their way home from the visit, he told his mother that it was the most profound sensation he’d ever experienced (which said a lot, he thought to himself, considering the various drugs he had tried and planned to continue trying).
“He was speaking in tongues,” she bluntly informed him. “As funny as it sounded, he was rebuking evil spirits and inviting a holy spirit. I feel the same thing, like a pure euphoria, every time I’m a part of it.”
As it were, it would be but a one-time encounter for Jessie. He feared that further joining the Pentecostal prayer circles would interfere with his guilt-free enjoyment of the illicit intoxicant party life with the usual circle of rowdy friends. And he made sure none of them would ever learn of his involvement, however brief, with the speaking-in-tongues euphoria-feeling gathering, lest they laugh the hell out of him.
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