The Transfiguration of Rufus Skeen, Chapter 2, Part 1

His family's farm was part of the most fertile section of Seven Hills Valley. His father often sat around after supper was finished, puffed on his pipe and recited the family history, which, he said, could be traced back to the first arrival of white men to the region – the original trek led by Baptist minister Obadiah Blight and the Protestant faithful who set out from Boston in search of the land spoken of in the Great Book. The Skeen family was one of the original 77 families who set out with little more than faith to carry them across the heathen lands and were, by the grace of heaven one of the 12 surviving families who arrived and cut up the fertile valley into farms and into the central village of Blighton.

Rufus knew this history intimately because, besides the rain, the crops, and the Great Book, his father talked of little else. “It's important,” he'd say... and say... and say. “It's important to know your roots, where you're from. It's the only you have to know if you're acting like a man.”

He was sick of hearing his father talk about it and sick of having to think about it. All of it. Sick of hearing his father talk about it. Sick of having to recite it back at randomly. He could be working in the barn and his father would walk in and make him recite the entire lineage to present, with correct birth and (when applicable) death dates. Sometimes he would make Rufus recite the names of the the original 77 families. Rufus felt as if he were living in the past when the entire world around him was pushing its self into the future. The Village of Blighton was growing, and the people who lived there were growing with it. There was talk of a new dam and hydroelectric plant that would turn Apple Fork River into a lake, and there was talk of turning the area around the lake into a state park. So not only would Blighton benefit from newer and cheaper electricity, but it would create a destination, make it a Place People Go instead of A Place People Escape.

But that was the future and Rufus's father, Aloysius, would have none of it. The Skeen farm was the only farm in the valley not to sell out to the newly formed Seven Hills Energy Cooperative. More people were moving into the valley, trying to escape the city, and new houses had to be built. The other farmers sold out at healthy profit, became partners in the new energy cooperative, and were opening businesses in town to cater to the new arrivals. Restaurants and rooming houses and clothing stores. Old man Fettierre was opening a ladies' shoe store.

Every night Rufus went to bed praying his father would wake up and decide to sell the farm. After all, the phone calls and visits from cooperative representatives were almost a daily occurrence. And even as he prayed every night to leave, he dreamed each night of the places he read about in books and saw on television. All he wanted to do was escape. He wanted to live someplace with public transportation. Someplace that didn't require him to get his hands dirty when he worked. Someplace where people didn't look at you cross-eyed if they didn't see you walking into church on Sunday morning. He dreamed of moving to the city and changing his name to Luke or Robert or Stanley – a name that had nothing to do the Skeens, with the 12 families, with Blighton, or with Apple Valley.

Yet every morning when Rufus woke up to complete his chores, Aloysius was as intractable as ever. “Our family has always been provided for,” he'd say. “And that's more than most people will everbe able to say.”

Whenever Aloysius lit the burned bowl of his briar pipe after clearing his supper plate – the cue that he would once again begin to talk about the family and the Great Book – Rufus and his twin sister Selma would lock their eyes on one another and simultaneously roll them. They knew better than to interrupt or allow their lack of interest to show because their father believed deeply in the idea that sparing the rod spoiled the child; and no child of his would spoil on his watch. No sir.

Though Rufus saw the rod much more often than his sister. And every time he did, for whatever infraction Aloysius chose to punish him for, Rufus saw with increasing clarity that someday he would get out of Apple Fork, away from Blighton, and into the larger world.

And he also saw with increasing clarity – and no small bit of satisfaction – that it would break his father's heart.

The Transfiguration of Rufus Skeen I: Rufus Recalls His First Baptism

Rufus recalled his baptism. He had been 9 years old.

It felt like the right thing to do – to stand up in front of his father, his mother, his sister Selma, and the entire congregation to proclaim that he believed and that he wished to be saved.

He had watched people go through the ceremony before; the petitioner stood during the Call, which usually came after the sermon. Mr. Lancette, the preacher, stood in front of the alter, leading the congregation in the call hymn. Behind him on the alter, the communion service sat, shining gold and glimmering in the sunlight that shone through the stained glass windows. The whole of the sanctuary was washed in this light, and the gold plating of the communion service glowed like a new sun, infinite, ethereal, and eternal.

When Rufus was 9, he believed in God because his father told him that God existed, that Jesus lived, died, and rose again. Rufus could never imagine what God looked like, or sounded like, so he imagined that God looked and sounded like his Dad. Rufus couldn't imagine heaven, either, despite all the talk about houses with many rooms and streets paved in gold with pearl gates and jewel encrusted walls; he had never seen gold, except for the communion service, and the only thing he knew about pearls was that they were found in oysters, deep in the ocean. He learned that in school. Since he couldn't imagine heaven, he imagined that God – the God who looked and talked like his dad – lived in the space above the sanctuary. Heaven was a crawl space. He knew about crawl spaces because his house had a crawl space where his mother kept all the Christmas decorations, boxes full of old pictures that were too fragile to hang on the walls, and miscellaneous junk no one wanted to throw away. To Rufus, Heaven was that place people put things they didn't need very often or didn't know what to do with, and God was the guy on the ladder who brought the decorations down the day after Thanksgiving.

What Rufus did know, and did understand, and didn't need to visualize, was how his father felt about religion. The only thing his father read besides the newspaper was the family bible. When Rufus was small and learning to read, his mother read to him from the Old Testament. Genesis. Joseph and the coat of many colors; David and Goliath. He didn't understand how God could be a burning bush, a column of fire, and a column of smoke, but he understood that his father would be proud of him if he decided to be baptized, to be saved, to take Jesus into his heart.

Rufus did it without warning. He made sure he sat on the end of the pew before church started, so he wouldn't have to ask permission to get by anybody. When the Call came, Rufus closed his hymnal and, while his sister, mother, and father looked on, shocked, he walked with what he thought was determination and maturity up to the front of the sanctuary, where Mr. Lancette was bellowing out the first verse of He Walks with Me. Everyone was surprised to see him up there, people muttered and pointed. Rufus didn't look back to see the look on his dad's face, but he imagined that his father was smiling the smile he generally reserved for when Selma did something cute, or when she acted in the Christmas pageant, or when she got good grades, which she always did.

After the call, the preacher took Rufus's hand and shook it. It was a hearty, adult handshake. Then, like all the people who had come before him, like he had seen countless times, Rufus was asked to confirm what he believed.

"I believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God."

The congregation collectively intoned, "Amen!"

Then two women, wives of two of the elders, came up to take Rufus in the back, to show him where to prepare for baptism. One of the women led him by the shoulders, behind the organ, back into the hallway behind the sanctuary. There were stalls there, like the ones in department stores to try on clothes in. The women showed him where the white baptismal gowns were, and picked one out that would fit him fine. They also showed him where to put his church clothes, where the underwear was, (so the petitioner wouldn't get their own underwear wet; Rufus thought this was a particularly well thought out idea) and where to put the wet underwear after it was over. He changed into the gown the women gave him; it was long and white, like the ones angels wore in the pictures he had seen in Sunday School. After he changed, one of the women, smiling, proud, told him where to stand.

The communion service was over. The curtains in front of the baptismal pool were drawn. The familiar organ music began, and he saw the preacher come around the other side wearing on along white coat and wading boots like his father used for fly fishing. He went up the steps on the right side of the pool while Rufus waited on the left side. He wasn't thinking about anything. Time was agonizingly slow.

Finally, it was his turn. One of the church wives helped him up the first step, then disappeared – probably to go back around and watch with the rest of congregation and his family.

The pool was nothing more than an extra large bathtub. The floor and sides were covered with small square tiles – the kind found in locker room showers and public restrooms. The water in the baptismal pool was clear and smelled like chlorine. It was also was warm – warm like spit, or urine.

He took the minister's hand, and waited for him to finish talking. "Rufus Aloysius Skeen, in as much as you have confirmed your belief, and in as much as you seek the forgiveness of Jesus Christ and the redemption of your sins, I now baptize you…"

Rufus was underwater for only an instant, and when Mr. Lancette brought him back up, the water left a weird film all over him. The congregation started singing a hymn of praise, and the preacher led Rufus out of the water. As he started up the stairs, Rufus looked out to where his father sat, expecting to see him smiling, see him proud.

Instead, his father sat stone-faced and silent as everyone else sang.