Growing up in the South means growing up Southern Baptist, even if you are Presbyterian. Let’s face it, the Presbyterians have little to recommend themselves versus a half-way decent modern megachurch. You can kiss the kids’ sweet asses goodbye once the youth group kicks in. The Methodists might stand a chance, but only because the girls may be slightly easier.
But Baptists were the real deal back then, and they knew it. A Baptist with a decent passing arm who tans easily could wrap the FCA around his finger and spin the rest of us over hellfire like so many yo-yos. Of course we all knew he was full of shit and could never run the option, but nobody was ready to risk perdition to overcome the social hierarchy.
Until the day in health class when things went too far. The Golden Boy had made his pitch against abortion – what else. I think we had been assigned class presentations on fingernail clipping or whatnot. He had pictures of exactly what happens to a fetus in each stage. My boy Marcus, sitting right next to me, had gone with his girlfriend to the clinic the week before. Marcus had been a good Catholic up to that point. As he wept silently, I tried to come up with something to counter the Golden Boy’s polemic.
The bloom was off the rose from then on. I did not so much care to be affirmed by the Baptists, even if this might mean not going straight to heaven. I can stand a layover in Atlanta on the way. While I may not be the quickest on the retort and, therefore, leave a friend swinging, I will not be complicit to the hanging.