the wound was closing up she could see the pink new tissue filling
it when she shone Joe's flashlight into it and peered into the bathroom
mirror) 'Becka found out what half of have already either knew or
surmised that Joe was cheating on her. Jesus told her. In the last
three days or so, Jesus had told her the most amazing, terrible,
distressing things imaginable. They sickened her, they destroyed her
sleep, they were destroying her sanity ... but were they wonderful?
Weren't they just! And would she stop listening, simply tip Jesus over
on His face, perhaps scream at Him to shut up? Absolutely not. For
one thing, he was the Savior. For another thing, there was a grisly
sort of compulsion in knowing the things Jesus told her.
Jesus was on top of the Paulsons' Zenith television and He had
been in that same spot for just about twenty years. Before resting atop
the Zenith, He had rested atop two RCAs (Joe Paulson had always
bought American). This was a beautiful 3-D picture of Jesus that
Rebecca's sister, who lived in Portsmouth, had sent her. Jesus was
dressed in a simple white robe, and He was holding a Shepard's staff.
Because the picture had been created ('Becka considered 'made'
much too mundane a word for a likeness which seemed so real you
could almost stick your hand into it) before the Beatles and the
changes they had wreaked on male hairstyles, His hair was not too
long, and perfectly neat. The Christ on 'Becka Paulson's TV combed
His hair a little bit like Elvis Presley after Elvis got out of the army.
His eyes were brown and mild and kind. Behind Him, in perfect
perspective, sheep as white as the linens in TV soap commercials
trailed away into the distance. 'Becka and her sister Corinne and her
brother Roland had grown up on a sheep farm in New Gloucester,
and 'Becka knew from personal experience that sheep were never that
white and uniformly woolly, like little fair weather clouds that had
fallen to earth. But, she reasoned, if Jesus could turn water into wine
and bring the dead back to life, there was no reason at all why He
couldn't make the shit caked around a bunch of lambs' rumps
disappear if He wanted to.
A couple of times Joe had tried to move that picture off the TV,
and she supposed that now she new why, oh yessirree Bob, oh yes
indeedy. Joe of course, had his trumped-up tales. 'it doesn't seem
right to have Jesus on top of the television while we're watching
Three's Company or Charlie's Angels' he'd say. 'Why don't you put it
up on your bureau, 'Becka? Or ... I'll tell you what! Why not put it
up on your bureau until Sunday, and then you can bring it down and
out it back on the TV while you watch Jimmy Swaggart and Rex
Humbard and Jerry Falwell? I'll bet Jesus likes Jerry Falwell one hell
of a lot better than he likes Charlie's Angels.'
She refused.
'When it's my turn to have the Thursday-night poker game, the
guys don't like it,' he said another time. 'No one wants to have Jesus
Christ looking at them while He tries to fill a flush or draw to an
inside straight.'
'Maybe they feel uncomfortable because they know gambling's
