From the Top of Your Head to the Soles of Your Feet by Steven Earl Hobbs

You should not have taken the call. Because now Hiram is saying that the bathtub visions have returned.

And his soul, he adds, is getting crushed. Physically crushed.

You shift the receiver to your left ear. This is the last thing you need today.

Meet with me, Hiram asks, breathless. Please, Pastor.

Your boss and senior pastor, Shelton Honeycutt, is sitting on the other side of your desk, eyeing you as you try to think of an excuse. Your face gets hot. And your mind goes blank.

Panera Bread, you say. In an hour.

You hang up the phone and adjust your tie.

Calm, cool, collected. That’s how you act.

Want me to go with you this time? Honeycutt asks.

It’s fine, you say. No big deal.

Honeycutt leans forward and rubs his palms together. Closes his eyes.  

You bow your head, prepared for prayer.

Whelp, he says and stands, I guess every church has a Hiram.

You don’t respond.

Honeycutt moves toward the door. Before leaving, he turns as if to speak. Mouth open, head tilted. But he just smiles, pats the doorframe, and steps out into the corridor.  

You fold your hands on the desk and take a deep breath.

You do not want to meet with Hiram.

Meeting with him always makes you feel like a fraud. Sure, you recognize that everyone on the pastoral staff is, in a sense, a fraud. You are all actors on a stage, playing your roles, sticking to the script. It’s just part of the gig, Honeycutt likes to say from time to time when the going gets tough. But the feeling of unease that grips you when conversing with Hiram goes beyond that. It’s like a forced undressing.

Last year, to recover from an arduous exchange with Hiram about a bathtub vision involving Nebuchadnezzar, the fiery furnace, and Applebee’s, you stayed cooped up in the far stall in the men’s room for hours, reading and re-reading the account of the three young men thrown into the furnace and the circle of salvation that the angel of the Lord drew around them. When you exited the deserted church building later that evening, you set off the security alarm.

You are not new to the ministry. You are forty—in decent shape, with a good head of hair—and you’ve been at this for almost twelve years. You know that throughout the career of a minster at a large church certain congregants will—what can you say?—attach themselves to you from time to time. They sense some sort of connection and believe that you possess divine knowledge and—God help them—power that might provide answers to their perplexing state of mind. You’ve experienced this before. Numerous times. Congregants consider you to be especially gifted and dynamic. A real people person. Bayshore Christian Church’s finest, they say.

And besides, counseling people like Hiram is what ministers are supposed to do. It’s not just part of the gig. It is the gig. Like physicians, pastors don’t care for the healthy.

They tend to the sick.

You pick up the phone and call Eileen at home. No one answers. For a few seconds, you listen to your own voice on the answering machine. It sounds so distracted. You hang up before the beep.

You then try her cell. Still no answer.

Earlier at breakfast, you and Eileen picked at grapefruits and discussed your son Jonathan’s “improvement” at school. A whole week without getting locked out of the locker room in his tighty-whities and someone writing fat ass faggot on his locker. He always wanted to become a minister. Just like you, he’d often say. But now he wants to become a Scientologist. He’s refusing to take his medication. And he’s reading Dianetics. It’s way better than the Bible, he tells you both and starts to cry.

I don’t know what to do anymore, Eileen said as she eased a tiny pink grapefruit wedge from its skin. He’ll always be my little man. But sometimes—

These grapefruit taste terrible, you said and made for the door. And it’s late.

You regretted leaving like that.

Without your briefcase or Bible, you walk outside to the car. The hot, heavy air is thick with garlic from Capogna’s Italian restaurant. The place where you proposed to Eileen. You were so young back then. So full of promise. So full of inspiration. So conscious of—and driven by—your calling.

But now.

You unlock the car door. You sit down and grip the wheel hard. Then let go. You take out your cell and try Eileen again. Straight to voicemail.

It’s not like her to turn off her phone.

You close the door and turn on the engine.

You are—exhausted. For the past month, sleepless nights have sapped your energy. Aside from all the stuff at home with Jonathan and Eileen, you’ve been anxious beyond belief ever since Honeycutt tapped you to teach his popular adult Sunday school class on the Psalms. Really dig in, he said, and help our people understand the true meaning of Selah. It’s far more than just a simple pause, you know. You didn’t know, really. Never really understood that word. Never understood the bulk of that book, for that matter. The shallow end of the pool. That’s where you belong. But how could Bayshore Christian’s Finest refuse? You need to pray. But you can’t. The words, for some reason, feel so far away these days. So empty. It’s a struggle just to bless the food.

And you wonder.

How much longer can you keep up appearances?

You are the only pastor on staff who can’t speak or pray in tongues.  

Panera Bread is ten minutes away, at the foot of the highway overpass. You roll down the windows and edge the car out onto the street. Traffic gathers around you.

Healing the shattered soul of a sick man is something that you know you should be able to do.

§

It’s true. Every church, at some point, has a Hiram.

Your Hiram is a sixty-year-old ex-con who looks a lot like Willie Nelson. A repeat offender, his former P.O. tells you. An ex-patient at White Hills Mental Health Center, you learn after a few phone calls. A child of God, Honeycutt reminds you with a pat on your back. A man in serious need of a shave and a haircut, your wife remarks. And a dermatologist, your son adds.  

In the last year, thick, raised freckles have appeared on Hiram’s sun-charred nose and cheeks. His leathery, reddish-brown skin brings out the glimmer of his green eyes.

Hiram, you remember, was first put away because of a scam he carried out in Pittsburgh. As you understand it, he somehow convinced a group of thickheaded investors that he was Walt Disney’s son, and that his late father had given him extensive blueprints and plans to construct a bigger and better Disney World in the Northeast. Hiram pocketed the investment capital and flew south. A year later, authorities tracked him down. He was living in a trailer just outside of Lakeland. A makeshift Meth lab in the back. And in the front? Snakes, flying squirrels, a painting of Walt Disney on the wall.

Hiram has a dark, artistic temperament.

To end your previous meeting—a two-hour conversation about the “exact purpose” of tithing—Hiram confessed to drawing perverted pictures of Honeycutt’s wife Sarah and placing them in the offering baskets as his “tithe to the church.” For six months, the inexplicable appearance of the hand-spun pornography—skillfully and meticulously rendered with colored pencils on the blank backs of church bulletins—had frustrated the ushers and the entire pastoral staff. No one knew what to do. Or what to say. You were all struck dumb. Thankfully though, without any action on your part, the X-rated images of Honeycutt’s wife disappeared. You had even forgotten about the pictures, until Hiram claimed responsibility. On the heels of his confession, he unfolded a piece of notebook paper and slid it across the table to you. My pièce de résistance, he said. The image was startling. Sarah Honeycutt, perched atop—or, more precisely, hovering over—a large tulip, kneeling in an apparent act of prayer. Her legs spread a little too wide, her exposed breasts a little too large. What looked like a tattoo of Mickey Mouse on her thigh. Instead of a bowed head, her face was tilted up to the heavens. Her back arched, her eyes closed, her lips slightly apart. Hiram had rendered the naked body and the exaggerated parts with a red pencil. Sarah looked as if she had been rubbed raw with a scrub brush. As a response, you crumpled the paper and stuffed it into your empty coffee mug. Hiram stared at you in silence for almost a minute, stood, and walked out of the coffee shop. His ravings penetrated the glass windows as he made his way across the parking lot toward the highway.  

After Honeycutt had listened to your account of Hiram’s confession, he smiled and shrugged. What’s there to do, he said. Honeycutt’s apathy had bothered you. Had Eileen been depicted in such a way, you would’ve at least acted upset. Right?

On top—or at the bottom—of all of this, Hiram credits his conversion and his gift of tongues to you. Two years ago, the day after his release from White Hills, he attended one of your Sunday night services. He came forward during your altar call after your lackluster sermon—Honeycutt had suggested last minute changes the night before and, well—.  With hands clasped in front of him as if in handcuffs, Hiram walked down the aisle to you, and you somehow felt like you did on your wedding day. An irreconcilable mixture of anticipation and paralyzing dread. You led Hiram in the “Sinner’s Prayer.” Easy enough. And then, for some reason, you asked if he wanted to receive the baptism of the Holy Ghost. Always, you save this question for the other pastors. But the question just sort of came out. Hiram expressed his desire with a slow, ceremonious bow of his head. As you learned to do in seminary, you placed a left hand on his shoulder and a right hand on his forehead. Hiram began to shake. You gripped his shoulder tighter. He struggled to catch his breath. Aware of the packed auditorium of onlookers, you continued and quoted Christ’s words: John baptized you with water, but I will baptize you with the Holy Ghost. And with fire. At the word “fire,” Hiram collapsed to the floor, screaming and convulsing. Then he went quiet. He stretched out his arms and started speaking out in an unknown, almost angelic tongue. Sanda sanda ha-rush ha-rush selah shantih shantih shantih, he intoned. Tears leaking from his eyes. The congregation murmured prayers and reached out their hands toward him. You knelt beside Hiram and raked your fingers through your hair.

How could God give such a man the gift of tongues and leave you empty-handed?

§

The Panera Bread parking lot is half empty. You are two minutes early. Punctuality: a trait inherited from your mother. You wait in the car because, although you like to arrive early, you will not sit alone in a public space that serves food and drink.

Eyeing the highway, you spot Hiram on the other side, waiting to cross. You turn off the engine and step out into the heat radiating off of the black pavement. You breathe it in. Unlike Eileen, you like the oppressive heat and humidity of Florida. It’s cleansing, you tell her. Even in a shirt and tie. Especially in a shirt and tie.

Hiram waves and ambles over. You hold out a hand and he takes it. His face is clean-shaven and splattered with sweat. He wipes some of it off with the sleeve of his shirt and smiles. He is thankful to see you.

From what you can tell, his soul appears to be intact.

You step into Panera Bread. You order two hot coffees. You pay. You sit at your usual table. In the back, in the shadows. The dimmer the light the better when meeting with congregants. Makes everyone more comfortable. Nearby, a young couple is studying something on a shared laptop. They seem engrossed, so you don’t worry about being within earshot.

So, you say, pressing your palms against the warm mug.

I’m not well, Pastor.

Want to talk about it?

Hiram takes two quick sips of coffee.

Where to begin? he asks, not so much to you, but to the cup of inky-black liquid. I wake up in the middle of the night and see a man, a figure, sitting at the foot of my bed. He has his back to me. Won’t look at me. But I can hear his breathing. Then he whispers my name. Hiram, Hiram, Hiram, Hiram, Hiram. Like some kind of incantation or something.

You say nothing. Hiram’s manner of speaking reminds you of the way Eileen often speaks about your son. Quiet and matter-of-fact.

I question the figure, he continues. Who are you, what are you doing here? That sort of thing. But he doesn’t respond. Then all of the sudden he stands and pushes me down. Hard. He keeps his hands on my chest and pushes harder. Crushing my soul. I try to cry out, but I can’t.

Hiram hits the table with his fist.

You lean back.

Easy, you say.

Then he puts one hand around my neck, Hiram says, and slaps my chest over and over and over again.

Hiram hits the table with both fists. The mugs rattle.

The young couple shuts their laptop. They relocate to the other side of the room.

It’s your turn to speak, to ask thoughtful questions. To gently guide him onto a better path. But nothing comes to you except: And how do you feel, soul-wise, right now?

Hiram covers his mouth with his hand and mumbles a phrase that you can’t understand. Before you can ask him to repeat it, he looks around, partially stands, and proceeds to unbutton his charcoal-colored shirt. Calmly, you protest—a raised palm, a whispered um—but he’s already halfway done, too absorbed to notice. He slowly parts his worn-out oxford like a stage curtain. His torso, to your horror, is black and blue. Violet. A storm cloud on his chest and stomach. A giant bruise painted down to his waist. Streaks of red around his lower neck. You’ve never seen anything like it.  

Hiram buttons up his shirt and eases back into his chair.

After the beating, he continues, the figure walks out through my bedroom door. When I’ve calmed down, I go into the bathroom and lock the door. Something tells me to fill up the tub and throw salt into it. So I do. It’s been a while since my last—.  I sit on the toilet and look into the water. A vision slowly rises to the surface.

Hiram gulps down the remainder of his coffee and waits for your reply.

What do you see in the water? you ask.

The rapture, he says. Well, fragments of the rapture. When the Great Harlot gives birth. When families devour their own like Doritos. When the moon turns to blood. When the sun vanishes and there’s nothing but darkness.

Hiram, you say, we’ve talked about this.

This, he whispers, is different. He leans forward. Something is going to happen, Pastor. Something soon. I saw you in that water. 

OK. And what does this have to do—

He interrupts with a sharp cough and excuses himself to the bathroom. You watch him disappear around the corner.

You rub your eyes with your palms.

The man is troubled. You don’t have to be a minister to see that. And while you believe in spiritual warfare, you also believe that Hiram is more than capable of spinning loopy yarns and inflicting pain onto his own body. You are sure he’s done it before.

You check your phone. No missed calls, no text messages.

You need to bring the meeting to a close.

When Hiram returns, he looks different. Collected. His hair loose and wet.

He sits down and places a fresh cup of coffee in front of you.

I saw your wife at Food Lion, he says. She was crying in the produce section.

What? When?

This morning. She was holding a bag of grapefruits.

You shiver.

I went over to her, Hiram continues, and put my arm around her. She dropped the grapefruits and sobbed into my shirt. There, there, I said. It’ll all be OK. There, there. Then I picked up the grapefruits and put them back. Neat and tidy-like.

You loosen your tie. You don’t know what to say.

In your twenty years of marriage, Eileen has never cried in front of you. And you’ve never cried in front of her. Jonathan, however, cries constantly. In front of everyone. Without restraint. At the dinner table, in the car. Outside of the locker room, you suspect.

We stepped outside, Hiram says. She was still crying. We talked in the parking lot for about twenty minutes. Talked about you and your boy. She eventually stopped crying, got in her car, and drove away.

You’re not as upset as you should be. You’re just—confused? Overwhelmed maybe.

You ask, What does this have to do with your—your soul being crushed? With the bathtub visions?

Hiram exhales and slides his hands across the table, taking hold of yours.

Pastor, he says, your family is hurting. Your wife and son are hurting. You are hurting. You need—

Enough, you say and pull back your hands.

Oh Pastor, Hiram says, it’s never enough.

His green eyes, unblinking like an infant’s, lock onto yours. You clench your teeth.

Physicians, you remember, don’t care for the healthy.

And this is your gig. This is your calling.

But what the hell does that even mean?

Hiram reaches out and places his thumb onto your lips. You can taste the salt on his skin. He then moves your bottom lip up and down, up and down, up and down, and lowers his hand.

Uh—?

I had to tell you, he says. Time is running out.

He glances down at his chest.

Your eyes follow his.

The image of Hiram’s bruised body comes back to you. You also see the naked, scrubbed-raw Sarah Honeycutt. And a dingy front room. Squirrels flying into walls. Snakes sliding and coiling in aquariums. Hiram sprawled out in the middle of the floor, convulsing. Jonathan in the corner, cradling a copy of Dianetics. You hear the rattle of a diamondback. You see Eileen greeting congregants on Sunday morning. She is as naked and red as Sarah.

You stand up. Desperate to keep calm.

But you’re losing your grip.

Can we meet again? you ask. The words coming out almost on their own. You try to call them back somehow, but nothing happens.

Hiram stands and twists his still-wet hair into a ponytail.

Of course, Pastor.

You follow Hiram out of Panera Bread and into bright afternoon sun. For a moment, you are blinded. You shield your eyes. Steam rises from the pavement. It must have rained while you were talking.

Before Hiram speaks, you ask, Can I see?

He takes a long, deep breath and unbuttons his shirt. In the glaring sunlight, the purple of the massive bruise is more pronounced, more grotesque. More—  real? Hiram’s sagging breasts shine like two rebellious cherubim falling from the sky. You reach out your right hand and meet his eyes. He nods. You touch his damaged body and something like ice shoots up your spine to the top of your head. Then races down to your feet. Hiram winces and grips your wrist, keeping your hand pressed against his chest.

Physician, he whispers into your ear, heal thyself.

You almost laugh and close your eyes.

When you open them, Hiram is gone.

You whirl around.

He’s nowhere to be found.

You get in your car. Your heart pounding. Your hands trembling.

Something is coursing through your body. You’ve never felt anything like it.

You start the car. You pull out of the parking lot and onto the highway.

You are struggling to catch your breath. Struggling to think clearly.

Your tongue feels loose. Your throat feels tight.

You open your mouth. Move your lips. But no words come out.

And then, you speak:  I am, I am, I am. I should, I should. I shoulda, I shoulda. A shoulda. Fundah shoulda landa crandhan johnda. Selah, selah. Selah!

Tears leak from your eyes. You swallow sobs.

When was the last time you cried like this?

Instead of going back to the church, you make your way home. You pull into your neighborhood. Park the car in the garage.

Selah, you whisper and dry your eyes with your shirtsleeve. Selah.

You step into the house. It is dark. You take off your tie and drop it on the floor.

No sign of Eileen or Jonathan.

Selah.

You go to the kitchen and sit down at the table. You fold your hands next to the half-eaten

grapefruit. You take a deep breath.

And then you wait.

Steven Earl Hobbs is the director of the MFA program in creative writing at the College of New Rochelle. He serves on the committee for the Prison Writing Program at PEN American Center and lives in New York.