Holy Rollers

Do you remember the time when you first found God? For me it was the time I decided to go geocaching with Rowan and the midget twins. Or little people twins, or twins of short stature, or what have you. I’m just going to say midget, because that’s what the twins call themselves.

Anyhoo, Rowan was the first one who found out about geocaching, and he let us in on it one Sunday while we were out by the creek dropping shiners. Once we heard about it, dropping shiners or hucking windies or anything else couldn’t say shucks to geocaching in terms of a good time.

We were all getting pretty jazzed until Rowan mentioned that you need a smartphone to go geocaching. None of us had one. I was dead broke and the midget twins had had a smartphone between them once, but a goose grabbed it right out from under their feet once while they were trawling for sun-bellies by Old Man Pritchard’s pond. They got a couple good kicks in on the goose but then a few of the goose’s reinforcements came in hot and the midget twins got wing-clapped back to Cedarville. They couldn’t sit or bend over for a week.

So none of us had smartphones, that was the pickle. It was the twins who finally happened on the idea to scrounge a phone at the outdoor Pentecostal revival happening down the road at Elmo’s Landing. We humped it down to the big tent and things were in full swing; leg-lengthenings were breaking out like mad and people were dropping like duckpins. God was going bowling. It wasn’t hard at all to sneak over and smouch a smartphone from some sweet farm boy laying prostate on the ground. We allowed we’d get it back to him by the time his holy hangover wore off.

At that point, I didn’t believe in God. Rowan did, though. You could tell being under the tent was pretty contagious for him. He kept raising his hands and saying things like “Bless the brazen serpent”. He was so weak in the knees we kinda had to carry him out. We had him halfway to the door when we made our first mistake. We were paying so much attention to keeping Rowan upright that the twins bumped smack into an old woman waving a purple flag. We all were thrown off balance, and the twins and I let go holding on to Rowan. Rowan promptly collapsed onto the grass and clasped his hands to his breast. He said weakly, “Praise the Lamb and the old sheep too,” and then his head lolled to the side.

Well, shit. We’d lost Rowan, and he was the only one who really knew about geocaching. I’d have traded both the midget twins and a pair of windies for Rowan and counted myself lucky. We’d have to hoof it on our own. The twins and I conferred for a minute and allowed we’d just fill Rowan in when we came back. He was probably having more fun where he was anyway.

We hadn’t taken twenty steps when we realized our second mistake. None of us had the phone; the phone was still in Rowan’s pocket when he fell. Shit. We dodged a couple of dancers trying out their lengthened legs and made it back to Rowan. He was just as we’d left him, glassy-eyed and grinning, mumbling out psalms of joy. He may have pissed himself but I couldn’t tell for sure. He was on his back, and of course the phone was in the back pocket of his jeans. We’d have to roll him over to get at the phone.

The twins and I drew straws and I got lucky. Grumbling, the twins rolled up their sleeves and positioned themselves at Rowan’s shoulders and knees. They counted one, two, three, and then pushed together. Rowan’s body rolled over alright, but then the momentum continued and he went over to his back again. Then he rolled again, and again, gaining speed with each rotation. He glided along the ground like a curling stone on ice, like I saw watching the Olympics last year. I wasn’t even sure if he was touching the earth.

The twins were standing where they had pushed Rowan. Somehow they seemed taller, and wiser too. They moved with an easy, fluid grace I’d never seen before. Flag-wavers and leg-lengtheners stopped their waving and dancing and started throwing themselves to the ground in front of them. Most of them the twins just stepped over. But for maybe every one in five, they’d pause, then, without words, reach out and give a tender push. And that person would start rolling just as Rowan had rolled, on and on, past the big tent, out into the pasture.

With each push the twins swelled. Soon they were giants, unknowable and noble, culling the wheat from the chaff. They strode behind their rolling flock, presenting their perfect sacrifice, like Cain and Abel as they should have been. They kept walking and pretty soon I couldn’t see them anymore, or the rollers too for that matter. All I could see were the rest of the crowd getting off the ground to their feet. They were swabbing their eyes like they’d just woken up, and none of them seemed to remember what had just happened. None of them looked too jazzed about it, either. They’d been left behind. I was just thinking it might be time for me to mosey on home when this old geezer pointed a stringy finger at me and wheezed, “Hark what Balaam’s ass speaks: Strange fire is among us!”

That got to them, I tell you what. It must have been some kind of code. Before you can say shiner the whole lot of them had clambered up and were hot after me. I couldn’t tell you what had got their gander but I wasn’t planning to be around to find out. I was hot on my heels lickety-split.

I didn’t know where I was running, and I didn’t much care. I could hear angry voices behind me, and they weren’t near far enough behind for my comfort. But before long I spied a flash as I ran past, and even the mob wasn’t enough to keep me from slowing up. The smartphone! It must have dropped from Rowan’s pocket as he’d been rolling. And the simpleton who owned it hadn’t bothered with a password. I opened the phone and jabbed the App Store. I couldn’t have told you why at the time. I can tell you now it was God, but that comes later. Anyway, I found the geocaching app and clicked to download it. Drat this country air! If the voices behind me were moving as slow as this download, they’d be where old Sennacherib ended up. But they weren’t, and I couldn’t keep waiting. I started hoofing it again. Maybe some moving air would get the download hopping.

I thought I could feel hot breath on the back of my neck now; I’d taken too much time, and those folks weren’t likely to give it back. I heard a woman’s voice shout, “The Word of the Lord bind yer cloven-hoofed feet!” I tried not to think about what they’d do if they caught me. I looked down at the phone. Hallelugeram, the download was complete. The app was ready! In between strides, I pushed the icon and opened the app. The app started thinking and put up a note saying, “Finding closest geocache to you.” Then it beeped and showed a blue dot and a checkered flag, with a dotted line stretching between them. I figured the dot was me. The checkered flag was just a bit off to the left. I gulped. Unless I was dead wrong, the app was taking me to Old Man Pritchard’s property. The twins were technically his second cousins so he didn’t mind them, but God help the lonely soul he caught on his property. I didn’t have a choice, though. I was running out of steam. I took a left and made for the flag.

By the end I got to the property line I’d had my hat torn off my head by a long-fingered claw and felt like my lungs were about to bust. I tore down the driveway like old David in the festal procession. The checkered flag was just behind Old Man Pritchard’s house. I rounded the corner of the house and my heart stopped. Advancing towards me was the flock of Old Man Pritchard’s prize goose collection, the ones who’d savaged the twins. Their honks made my blood go blue. A man had a fighting chance against one of those geese, but these geese knew to work together as a unit. Old Man Pritchard had put spurred anklets on some of them too. They were damn near unbeatable. And here I was, caught between them and the mob. I dropped to my knees and closed my eyes. Like I said, I didn’t believe in God at that point. But I’d be lying if I didn’t give a peep of a prayer.

Next thing I knew, there was a great rush of wings, then screams and cussing. I opened one eye and saw the prize geese making hay of the mob. Like I said, these geese knew how to work together as one. The mob didn’t stand a chance. Before you could say sun-belly the mob was howling and hoofing it back to town.

I got to my knees, shaky, then stood up. The geese had turned and were eying me with their beady peepers. Together they gave one loud honk, then pointed a wing at the pond. I pulled up my phone. The checkered flag was in the middle of the pond. Slowly I made my way to it and dipped a toe. The water was strangely warm, like bath water. I stripped down to my skivvies and advanced. The water reached my knees, my pecker, my shoulders. I started swimming. The water turned from blue to purplish to a warm green. It got thicker too. Before long I felt like I was swimming through Jell-O, and then somehow I was crawling through lush grass. I was dripping wet in my skivvies, getting grass stains on my knees, cresting the top of a gentle hill, and below me I could see the rollers still gliding along, and behind them the twins. I threw myself on my belly and pushed off from the top of the hill. I twisted my shoulders into a roll and gave myself to the slope. I felt myself gathering speed and knew that at the bottom of the hill there would be no mob, no spurred anklets, only peace and joy, and as I rolled I smiled, and all at once I knew that God had been rolling me all my life even when I didn’t feel it, and I loved the twins for paving the way, and the other rollers for showing me how, and I rolled the way a checkered flag rolls in the wind when it’s waved by a steady hand announcing the victory lap and the happy journey home.