Pentecostal hoedown. Every Sunday and Wednesday at Faith Chapel.

There wasn't really any snake handling at the church I was forced to go to when I was a kid. But there was a shitload of faith healing, speaking in tongues, falling out in the spirit and all kinds of hilljack hollering and crying and carrying on. When it really got cooking I would stand or sit back and watch the spectacle. For the first few years of my life it disturbed the shit out of me. Then I picked up on the fact that if I viewed it as entertainment and not some real shit then it would be a lot easier to take. That's when I often almost got in trouble because I would have to stifle so much laughter at these morons running around yelling and screaming for Jesus to swing down low enough to smite the fuck out of them with the fire of the Holy Ghost and send them off into "falling out in the spirit" land. Which could mean anything from frenzied boogying around or keeling over on the ground undulating and groaning for Christ. I am not even making this up. My youngest sister came and grabbed me once when we were really young and took me to where Joanne Dukes (wife of Plunky Shade Dukes) was down for the count between pews. She pointed at her and said, Look she's dead. So, it was fun too. Never any snakes or poison drinking though. I would have loved that. There were burnt offerings once. People wrote on pieces of paper what it was they wanted god to pull off for them that week and put it in the flame of this torch like contraption that was up at the altar. It was odd and sort of witchy and I couldn't figure out what the fuck it had to do with bible shit. But what the fuck did I know? I was 7 and freaked out by all of it.

I just knew.

That "just know" feeling that turns out to be right can be a bit spooky. When you just know something is going a certain way and you can't change it. And it ends up being true and you feel a bit unsettled inside like when being smacked in the brain with deja vu. An instance that sticks out for me was this time several years back. I had been dating this girl and the longer we were together the more obvious it was that we had nothing critical to keeping the relationship going in common. There must be at least a little bit of common ground there. Some interest or another. After an evening that was nerve wracking only because we really didn't want to be hanging out with each other, we headed back to my place. Indulged in the most lackluster make out session ever. The next morning when I was in the living room getting ready to crank the fuck out of some Church of Misery to see if that would make her leave, she asked if I wanted to go for some breakfast. Three things happened that made me just know that it was all over. Done. No reason to ever call her again. One: she wanted to go to the goddamned Keystone Deli for breakfast. There is no shittier place to eat anywhere else in the state of Indiana. Two: she ordered Eggs Benedict and ate that nasty fucking slop with her mouth wide open and talked about bullshit with the eggs visible in her mouth the whole time. Eat eggs all you want around me but don't do it with them dribbling down your maw like slobbered  oatmeal. Three: the drunkard, doped up pill popper had the goddamned nerve to lay into me about me not believing in Jesus. Get the fuck out. I just knew that this was damaged beyond repair. After breakfast she gave me a ride back to my car. I didn't even say goodbye. Got the fuck out. Booked. Because I just knew.