"It don't suit my purpose and it ain't my goal
To gain the whole world but give up my soul."

Ain't Gonna Go To Hell For Anybody : Bob Dylan


Cool water soaks half way up my thighs, darkly staining my jeans, and the sun is dazzling bright off the tiled sides of the half drained pool. It makes me close my eyes slightly. The preacher man smiles at me. He thinks I am enraptured, so I return his pleasure and the sun still bristles down, burning our heads, and those of our companions, lined on the stone edge of the pool.

"Are you ready to join our flock, my son?" says the preacher man directly to me. I nod and tell him I am. 

"Very well" he says softly. "But, please, before I welcome you into our fold, before I bring to you the spirit of Christ our saviour, and purge you of your earthly sins, may I ask you again whether you are ready, whether you are willing to renounce your former life?" 

He has a kindly aura. It is benign, but powerful. The air between us contracts, shortened by the heat and the pressure. I understand why he needs to ask. When you've raised hell for as long as I have, why should the path to enlightenment be cleared easily? And why am I doing it? Well, the best way to explain, and how I have been telling anybody and everybody who would listen is, like Bobby Dylan said, "I ain't gonna go to Hell."

Well, we're deep down South now, so I suppose I should say "I ain't gonna go to Nashville". So I say to the preacher man, "Yes, father, I am ready. I want to repent my sins, to give myself to our Lord for evermore, now and in the future of heaven." 

It sounds like a rehearsed line, so I say, as an aside, "Hell, padre, after all I've done, I'll be lucky if I get that far though." His face slackens as I say the words, and I feel myself shrink away from him, shrivelled in the heat. 

"Sorry, father, it's hard for me to forget my old self, my old ways."  

"Your way should be the path of the Lord. Your old way has served you only wrong so far, you know that don't you, my son?" 

"Yessir, yes. I surely do." This sounds sincere because it is real, just us two, and I am not trying to put on a show. "I know it father. I am sorry. Truly I want to choose Jesus. I say now in front of these people, my friends." 

I sweep my arm round the assembly, whose uniformly white, pale faces are mainly wreathed by dyed black hair, their leather clothes dirty and creased. Each and every one a remnant of a night-time life, spent in smoke infested bars, memories viewed in a bourbon tinged, amber hue.  

"Very well," he says. He puts a slight hand palm down on my forehead. It feels cool but his skin is dry; thin but hard, like hot paper before it combusts. "Do you confess your sins to Jesus Christ as your Savior, put your whole trust in his grace, and promise to serve him as your Lord?"

I answer, I do, and he continues, reciting the liturgy as he stands immersed in the water, his hand still resting on my bowed head. He says, "Jesus said, let the little children come unto me," and I feel as a child myself, kneeling before my father thirty years ago, his hand also on me.
 
The preacher man tells us all that Jesus said that in Him we are set free of the punishment of sin and by grace in faith we are forgiven and afforded eternal life, and asks again if I offer myself to the Lord Jesus, which I do. His hand gently pushes down on my head and I resist slightly before I know what he wants and bend my knees.

"So be it," I hear him say as the water rushes up, chilling my chest and arms. "I Christen you..."
 
The water floods past my face. I close my eyes, red light suffusing everything, drowning his voice before I hear my name. His hand is still on my head, pressing down firmly. Bubbles pop gently from my nose, brushing my skin as they spiral up to the surface. I listen to the steady, muffled noise of the Baptism, feeling serene, calm and satisified. I push upwards but his hand keeps me there and I start to panic, my arms breaking the surface, feeling instantly warm. My lungs start to push inwards and I want to draw breath, I push harder, a loud thud breaks into the stillness. The preacher man's hand is gone from my head, I open my eyes, but everything is strangely still red.
 
I burst out of the water, gasping in air, the sunlight hurting my eyes, I glimpse the preacher man as he falls into the water, the red water, but at first I do not understand that this wrong. I grab at him, but my hands slip from his shoulders as something slams my shoulder, there is a loud retort, gunshot, I spin round and go under the water again.
 
The water is tinged pink all round, I can still make out the preacher's head, tendrils of hair swirling in the wakes of water as I disturb him, turning him towards me so I can see a deeper red, a flow under the water, coming towards me from the place where his face should be. It is joined by a cloud of red from my own shoulder, which I reach for, feeling the hot liquid turning tepid in the cold of the pool. For the second time I burst up into the daylight and I hear another loud shot, but I do not feel anything. 
 
"You can't let the music die, man. You can't leave your fans." On the side of the pool, is a skinny man, pointing a gun towards me. He has got a picture of my band on his chest, grimy across his black shirt. He sounds like he has been pleading all his life. "Shit man, the devil makes your music, it's there man, in the words you sing. Why do you want to get rid of him?"
 
Around the pool, my friends are standing, some with arms held up to calm the man. Some are crouched around in a circle, around a black shape. A stream of blood has nearly reached the white plastic overflow. My fan looks down at me, glances around, points the gun across at my drummer to stop him moving. 
 
"Listen, hey, whatever you want, man, we can sort it out." My words echo wetly in my head, partly water, partly the reverb of he gunshot. "This won't stop me making music. I can still carry on as a Christian. Yeah, listen, I've got a studio next week, I'm gonna start laying - "
 
"No, you're wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Wrong," he almost screams the last word. "If it doesn't change anything, then why did I have to do this? Huh? Don't you get it, man? I had to stop you stopping. Look..."
 
With his free hand he pulls at his t-shirt, showing me the picture. In the midst of green flames, a devil holds a guitar at crotch level while an improbable girl licks it with an impossible tongure. I laugh to myself when I recognise the album cover that I was proud of at the time.
 
"It's here see. Now do you get it? This is the way. You have to make the music this way, or not at all. And I had to stop you stopping, you see? I had to stop him leading you down the wrong road. He had to be stopped, and when he held you under, I had to shoot him. I didn't mean to hurt you, but, oh man, I'm sorry."
 
My mouth opens but I cannot make myself say anything, the gun stops me. My fan stares at me. The gun is still pointing right at me. I gesture for him to lower it.  There are tears in his eyes, which fall onto the hot stone of the poolside when he bows his head towards to floor. A couple splash and form small dark circles, with tiny dots around. He lowers his gun and I close my eyes.
 
The echo of the gunshot recedes and tilt my head back, recovering some of the serenity I felt under water. The preacher man's body floats up to me, nudges me under my ribs. I scream and jump. My fan looks up suddenly straight at the preacher. 
 
"Nooooo," he shouts and points the gun at the preacher man with a shaking hand. The hammer pulls back stiffly and then flicks, hitting the cap of the bullet, which rifles through the short barrel, leaving the muzzle at a spin, cleaving the gap between us before it hits my chest, knocking me backwards. I fall onto my back, making a wave that turns me in the water so that  I see that my fan, upside down bent double, his arms wrapped tightly around his head. I cannot move, as he straightens, putting the gun to his own head as the day disappears.