RESURRECTION DRIVE | Fiction by Abigail Myers

Brother Hank called yesterday and said, Brother John, I know it’s not a good time, I sure am sorry to bother you, it’s just that I figured you probably still had the keys from Christmas and you got that big truck, and I said, No, I know, it’s fine, I’ll bring ‘em by tomorrow. He said, Good enough. I thank you. Long pause, then: Now you tell me, would Sister Maisy like to be asked to do the flowers around the tomb, or should we maybe call up Janet? And I sighed and said, I think—yeah, you might call Janet. He said, Well, I sure am keeping you both in my prayers. I think I said thank you.

So I got up before sunrise, kissed Maisy goodbye—she was still sleeping, not unusual these days—and drove to the Troys’ barn down the road. And now, knocking around in the bed of my truck, there’s a plywood mule carrying a plywood Jesus, a half a dozen smiling plywood Israelites with plastic palm branches stapled to their hands. They’re stacked up behind the plywood Last Supper, Garden of Gethsemane, and of course the cross, poor old, bloodied Jesus with his head bowed; the boulder made from foam insulation sprayed around a beach ball and painted lumpy gray rolls around and bumps up against the sides. The paint on the figures is chipping after at least a dozen years of being dragged to Galilee Baptist from the Troys’ barn down the road, and maybe one of these days someone will get around to touching it up, but for now, Resurrection Drive’s got to get put up in time for Palm Sunday, so here I am.

I unload the figures. They’re not heavy, just bulky. It doesn’t take but half an hour to set them up along the circular gravel track that runs all around Galilee Baptist, adjust the little spotlights marking their places so folks can drive through any time, day or night, and follow in the footsteps of our Lord’s Passion. It’s still dark enough that I can switch the spotlights on and off a couple times to get a good sense of if they’re working or not and if they’re all pointed at the right angles and such.

Ever since I came home from A&M and thought I ought to grow up and take my lazy behind back to church. Well, here you are, instead of taking that job in Dubai. You bought that big fancy truck, go do something useful with it, Dad said when Brother Hank hurt his back, so I’ve set up Resurrection Drive and the Road to Bethlehem—same idea, just Christmas—for a decade now.

After Maisy and I married, she’d help by arranging flowers around the “tomb,” just a hillock at the end of the drive that somebody part dug out. Janet at the shop would donate them—she goes to Second Baptist on the other side of town, but she likes Resurrection Drive too—and Maisy would just go to town on that little hill, sticking stems of white lilies in little plastic tubes of water to keep them fresh for Easter, twisting pink carnations into hearts, arranging pots of daffodils and hyacinths and tulips that we invite people to take home with them after Easter. She’s a real artist, at least I think so—but what does a redneck with a degree in minerals management know about art, anyway.

She’d bring home flowers past their best from the shop and spruce them right up, too. Haven’t had fresh flowers at home in a month now. Janet’s been real patient with her—she makes it in to work maybe two or three days a week, which has got to be hard on Janet since she promoted Maisy to assistant manager to get her ready to take over when Janet retires. It’s a hard thing, she said to me one day when Maisy was too upset to drive home. To be that far along. The Lord knows you’ve both been waiting on Him a long time, too.

It’s a silly thing, Resurrection Drive, I think, once I get the cross anchored to the stakes buried in the ground for just this purpose and weigh the base down with a couple of bricks just to be sure. Everybody and his brother around here are already Christians, pretty much, and not just Christians but Missionary Baptists like us, except for a few Catholics and Methodists who live in town and go to their little old churches. Like we think one of those Muslims from Dubai is going to roll up in his Escalade with his driver and take a spin around Galilee and be so amazed by these beat-up hunks of plywood that he runs on in and bounces up for altar call. I look up at Jesus and ask in my heart, Lord, I’m trying to trust Your ways and Your time, but I gotta admit You got me here. I came on home instead of going to Dubai, married a nice girl, go to church with her every Sunday. Praised your ways even when they weren’t clear. And my girl had to hold a little baby all covered in blood against her scary pale skin from her blood loss, because You decided to call him home before he even got to meet his mama. Pardon my language, Lord, but that’s fucked up. Amen.

Bloody Jesus just looks down, nothing to offer but his crown of thorns.

Still, I take a loop myself after I drop the boulder off at the tomb and nothing is left in my truck to knock around. The sun is just coming up now and the road along the church is still pretty quiet. I watch Jesus ride into Jerusalem on that donkey, bow my head at the cross. And I take a good hard look at that old hollow dug into that mound. At Sunrise Service on Easter morning, we roll the boulder away to find the empty tomb. It’s always been empty, of course. That occurs to me now. I don’t know what that means, either, really. Of course we’re not supposed to think that He was never in there, just that He’s not in there now. Just like that baby was in her and now he isn’t. I wonder who all takes the time to drive around this thing anyway, and then I stop by McDonald’s for a bacon egg and cheese biscuit and a big cup of coffee before I drive out to the well.

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