The Church Potluck
Loved this show
The year was 1998. It was an extremely uncomfortable, sweaty, summer Saturday afternoon. My dog Patches and I were lying on the living room carpet watching Arthur. My dad was busy with his fourth Jack and Coke; I knew this because I heard Lynyrd Skynyrd playing in the kitchen. My mom was busy making devilled eggs, chicken thighs and small triangular sandwiches that she packed into our picnic basket, that we used at that night’s festivities. The last time I had food like that was at Miss Nancy’s funeral. The Lord came to get her after she and Carl had intercourse in the parking
area in front of church. The moment got to her and her poor heart was too weak to handle the heat. I asked my mom what intercourse was and she said it’s when people play with fire. I nodded my head and threw a rose petal on Nancy’s coffin and took my mom’s hand. Anyways, my mom and dad were busy getting ready to go to a church potluck. Once a month, the local Baptist church organized one headache of an event which involved some cakewalks, bingo, dads sipping out of hidden flasks, and a silent auction. Last year we lost Babs when she cracked her skull after falling from a flagpole, trying to seduce Pastor Peter in an ill fated twirl and swirl.
January 29th 2021
My story on TV was finally finished and I heard Lynyard Skynyard being replaced with Rod Steward, a clear sign that my mom too was now drunk. Jocelyn and her son, Johnny, arrived at our house at around 11AM. Johnny and I had been best friends since kindergarten. We were all going to drive to church together. With Jocelyn and Johnny, was another man. I think his name was Bill/Dennis/Chip or Howard. I couldn’t remember because Jocelyn always had a new man. My mom said it was because she loved a womb broom but that didn’t make sense to me.
The Two-tone Dodge
The door usually struggles to close but by now I’m an expert in shoving the wooden spoon into the window well.
The Potluck Lunch
We all got into our two-tone Dodge neon. My dad’s one eye was starting to droop, he was wearing his favorite khaki cargo shorts and the same short sleeved buttoned up he always wore to court. My mom and Jocelyn were giggling when they got into the car. Johnny asked his mom what was wrong and she replied that they were filled with the Holy Spirit. I told Johnny that this is true because I heard about this in church one time. Bill/Dennis/Chip or Howard slapped Jocelyn on the bum when she got into the car. “This is disgusting behavior” I whispered as Johnny and I strapped ourselves in.
After twenty minutes we finally arrived at Fountain of Hope Baptist Church, and in the parking lot I saw my grandma’s wood panelled station wagon amongst the other freshly washed shiny cars. As the door opened the wooden spoon fell to the ground and then Jocelyn followed. “I think your mom’s drunk” I told Johnny. “No”, he said “she just gets excited when she goes to potlucks”. The people were all very friendly when we walked into the church basement. “Bless your heart Ross, the last time I saw you, you were still on the tit”, said Spike Henderson as he pulled on his cigarette. “Is he a Christian too?” asked Johnny. I heard something that resembled the sound of when you’d flip over a piano and then realized it was the sound of my
grandma laughing with her best friend Vallery. For me, Grandma was the most beautiful woman in the room. Her dress was green, her eyes were blue, her hair was big, and she had her tooth in. I looked at Johnny, softly smiled, and whispered, “One day when I’m big I’m gonna dress like grandma” right before I skipped towards her.
Mandy Palmer and I, when we were still allowed to be friends
no one really knew and no one really asked any questions. The Palmer sisters grabbed Johnny and my hands and we walked with them to the parking lot. “We’re gonna teach you two idiots how to smoke”, said Mandy. My eyes lit up as I’ve always wanted to learn the fine art of cigarette smoking.
Where I had my first cigarette
Patty pulled out a packet of Virginia Slims. “Where did you find the cigarettes?” asked Johnny. “My girlfriend gave them to me” said Patty, “We’re lesbians”. I didn’t know what that was but I nodded approvingly. “Fuck, it hits deep” said Patty as she pulled the living shit out of that poor cigarette. “Patty, seriously, my mom says I was born in the end times and she says in these times children would start talking back to their parents, people would start doing drugs and everybody is gonna want a womb broom, and I know Johnny’s mom likes womb brooms, but my mom says they’re gonna be big and they’re going to hurt people". Just then
Jocelyn came around the corner and found us huddled like whores behind the dumpster. “You little shits, you’re playing with fire”, she yelled. I immediately clasped my hands in prayer and turned my head towards the heavens because I remembered Nancy dying after she and Carl played with fire in the very same parking lot we found ourselves in.
Uncle Eugene and uncle Ned, pale as ghosts, arrived at our table, nearly hyperventilating. “Mimi come quick, Tammy Ann is spread-eagle on Dr. Van Houten’s table asking for a consultation”, it was then I turned around, something I regret up until this day, and made eye contact with her star spangled banner. “My mom says Tammy Ann likes a womb broom, just like your mom”, I said to Johnny. In the meantime my mom, dad, Jocelyn and Bill/ Dennis/Chip or Howard went to sit at a table close to the DJ/Pastor’s microphone. Mandy and Patty Palmer were there too. They were in the third grade and they already cursed. Grandma always said that they were a bit trashy but that she felt sorry for them because they grew up very rough and that their dad might also be their uncle but
After this brush with death we were banned from ever hanging out with the Palmer sisters again. By 7PM Johnny and I got tired and wanted to go home. Inside the basement things were starting to get out of hand. Svetlana, my mom’s Russian friend who had been living in South Africa, illegally, for the last twenty years, made a fruit punch. Everyone crowded around it like hippos at a watering hole. Little did they know that she doesn’t consider Vodka an alcohol and therefore it had more punch than fruit. It turned out that Dr. Van Houten agreed to give Tammy Ann a consultation by the looks of things. Grandma and uncle Eugene were under the table looking for her tooth. My mom, dad, Jocelyn, Bill/ Dennis/Chip or Howard were drinking apple juice from small little glasses. I’ve seen this in church before, and just like then they were also talking funny and crying. Johnny and I were very proud to be raised in Christian homes like this. Pastor Peter closed the day’s events with scripture but forgot his Bible, so he tried to turn an old US Weekly advice column into verse.
The punch
The verse
My Mom and dad, and our beautiful wallpaper
It was finally time to go home. My dad was carrying my mom to our car because she was so tired she could barely walk. Halfway to the car they fell over Mandy and Patty Palmer who were sleeping under their mother’s station wagon. She likely forgot they were there and drove home without them. When I looked closely I could see a tire mark on Mandy’s thigh. Jocelyn and Bill/ Dennis/Chip or Howard were having a small fight because she said he was being silly. I thought he was a very funny man because every time he whispered something into her ear, she would start giggling and then she’d hit his hand away from her guava. Johnny and I got into the back of our car and I wedged the wooden spoon back into the window well, just so. My dad threw my mom in the back with us, she must have been very tired because she looked as uncomfortable as a Jehovah’s witness at a strip club, and didn’t even wake up.
My dad asked Svetlana to drive us home, as he said he was tired, too. Ten minutes later we heard a funny noise and when we looked out of the window we saw that Svetlana was driving over all the traffic cones on the left side of the road. Her head was bumping against the driver’s side window which looked like a scene from Gorillas in the Mist as her breath was gradually fogging it up. While this was happening my mom woke up and began yelling in something that sounded like English. Svetlana woke up with a fright, blasphemed, jerked on the steering wheel and before we knew it we went straight through the fence of a Monsanto owned cornfield, making corn fly at 90 miles per hour, out on the other side back on the road again. My mom got such a fright that she put Pastor Peter’s Revelations tape into the radio, and throughout the commotion I heard something about a fourth trumpet being blown, a red horse and thou kingdom come. We then drove over Patches, and then we were home.
Svetlana in Saint Petersburg, before moving to Klerksdorp
The azaleas that Jocelyn drove through
and said “Lesbians are people who love tacos”, and it was then that I decided to become a lesbian one-day.
Jocelyn, Johnny and Bill/ Dennis/Chip or Howard got into their car and drove home. “Fuck Jocelyn, my azaleas”, yelled my mom as Jocelyn ploughed out of the driveway. Her car stalled three times and they went over some kind of ant heap or big rock, but they eventually made it home that night. We usually went to church on Sundays to listen to Pastor Peter talk about the end times and about drugs and about womb brooms, but that Sunday we stayed home. My mom must’ve been very hot because she walked around with a wet cloth on her head. “What is a lesbian mama?” She audibly gulped and shifted uncomfortably in her chair before she answered
