Dog on the Cross by Aaron Gwyn Page A

lawn mower when Gabriel was small. He had a difficult time thinking his uncle had been afflicted by anything.
    Turning on the stool, he looked at his mother. Her head was stuck inside the refrigerator, one arm braced against the door, fog rolling out from between her legs. He cut a slice of carrot, put it in his mouth and crunched.
    â€œGabriel,” her voice echoed.
    â€œYes?”
    â€œDon’t spoil your supper.”
    I T WAS EARLY that summer, around the middle of June, that the Reverend Bobby Hassler announced their church would be starting revival. They hadn’t had one in years, and he’d decided to bring in an evangelist, named Leslie Snodgrass, who was only fifteen. Hassler told them he would set the church aflame.
    By that time, it’d become bad with Gabriel. He was sinning twice a day, and even when he’d ask forgiveness he knew it was useless. He told God it was too large for him, like the apostle’s thorn. He copied out the passage in red ink, taped it to the mirror above his dresser:
My grace is sufficient for thee, my strength is made perfect in weakness.
Some nights when the moon was coming through his window, he’d lie in bed, scanning the words till he fell asleep.
    The first night of revival, he was so tired he could hardly hold open his eyes. He’d been dreading the services, knew they only meant more time around Amy. When he walked into church that evening, he went and sat on the opposite side of the building but could not keep his eyes from creeping across the sanctuary, watching the smooth spot behind the girl’s ear where her skin turned to hair. It took effort to shake his attention from it when the evangelist began to speak.
    Leslie Snodgrass was short and pale, and his eyes were sunken into their sockets. He had the look of one who didn’t spend time around others, and Gabrielcaught himself questioning whether he’d undergone the same trials or whether he’d already overcome them. The evangelist’s grandmother, with whom the boy lived, sat on the front pew with a tape recorder, pressing its red button whenever Snodgrass began to speak. She was a small, elderly woman, but she had a muscular look about her, and Gabriel’s mother said she was a blessing because she reminded them of the way women used to be in the church—wise and sturdy, unshakable in the faith. For a reason Gabriel did not understand, Delores Snodgrass frightened him.
    Snodgrass began that night by reading a verse in Hebrews, having everyone stand to acknowledge the Word. His voice did not sound small and shrill like they’d expected. It sounded much older, deep and firm, a little sad.
    â€œFor if,” Snodgrass began to read, “we sin willfully after we have received knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries. Anyone who has rejected Moses’ law dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. Of how much worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace?”
    With that, he bowed his head and started to lead them in prayer. Before Gabriel closed his eyes, he glanced across the room, noticing for the first time how small Amy looked. He could have picked her off the ground and held her.
    Snodgrass finished praying, asked them to be seated, and started to preach. The first thing he said was that his sermon was not addressed to sinners in the audience. A revival, he told them, wasn’t for sinners.
    â€œRevival,” he said, “is for those who have one time been awake and then, through carelessness and temptation and a lack of attention, have fallen back asleep. It isn’t for those who’ve never been awake. Revival is for the