My momma hunted UFOs in the dead of the night, utilizing nothing more than a coughing, gold 1970 Oldsmobile and her eagle-eye vision.
The evening would start out innocently enough on a Friday, the four of us with daddy at the wheel out for dinner at Tony’s Drive-In. But after the chili-cheeseburgers and butterscotch milkshakes had been finished and we began our slow descent back home along Highway 91, momma would suddenly get an itch that had to be scratched.
More than likely, she was just bored -- bored enough from watching TV and doing the laundry and talking on the phone over coffee about nothing that she began to believe the newspaper stories and weird tales from television sets. They were, after all, her only real link with the world and wouldn’t lie to her. So when she began taking the stories about extraterrestrials seriously, we all just held our tongues and rolled our eyes among ourselves. Momma was at it again, and there was no stopping her.
It began with Mr. Head’s adventures at the local shipyard and all the news he made in the local paper. The story was that he and his friend were out fishing on the riverbank below the shipyard one night when these aliens swooped down on them in a spaceship, sucked them up inside the thing by means of some type of beam, looked inside their bodies and returned them to the clay and marshland from whence they came. They made national TV and even wrote a book. Those who gossiped, however, thought the entire experience might have been enhanced by a twelve-pack of Schlitz.
Momma had already been interested in the UFO phenomenon, but this little local tale -- which included people she actually knew who shopped at her very own Winn Dixie -- it was just too much for her to ignore. So every time we headed back to town over the river bridge, momma had her eyes peeled for any suspicious-looking planes or lights.
As we headed into the long stretch of marshland before you hit our part of the county, she would still squint into the night and point at a red or white light here and there in the sky. “Look,” she would say, tugging at my dad’s T-shirt excitedly. “What’s that? It’s gotta be a UFO.” Daddy would just grimace and for the fortieth time explain it was a passing plane or a distant star. My little sister and I would strain against the Oldsmobile’s windows, too, fogging each side up in the hopes of seeing an alien ship. Each time we were disappointed: Nothing but night and water and frogs and the scent of mud and marsh.
Although the dial on daddy’s Timex watch would indicate the lateness of the hour, mom was not content .
We spent this evening and many others to just search the skies along Highway 91. She would find a traveling light, most often a plane, and have dad zigzag the Oldsmobile along side roads and dirt patches and grassy openings at high rates of speed -- following the would-be UFO. In all the excitement, my little sister would fall asleep, her small body stretched out fully along the back window’s dashboard -- snoring to the rhythm of ruts in the road.
We would amble around this way for hours, all of us suffering in silence while mom continued to search the skies. What would she actually do if she came across some sort of alien life form? Invite them home for coffee? Wrestle them into the trunk until she found a television station that would make her a star? Or just join them on their trip through the stars, perhaps? More than likely she would scream and fall faint on sight, but I guess the thrill for her was more in the search than in the finding.
At least we would get home at a halfway decent hour, say by 11 pm, if daddy and his voice of reason were along. He would go along with a lot, but even he had his limits. It was worse if we children were alone with momma when she got this way, oh, say coming back from a long day of shopping but not buying anything in Alabama. I would find myself an unwilling navigator as momma ran over bushes and through stoplights in pursuit of a Martian ship. I was half scared of momma and half scared of the aliens, but I did what I was told. I was taught to respect my elders, no matter how crazy they were.
Momma never did find her alien, but she got wind of another hobby that was almost as interesting: the viewing of religious anomalies and figures on everyday objects. Once in awhile, the AP would print a story in the local paper about a Catholic church in Pennsylvania or some other Yankee state where parishioners had seen a statue of Jesus crying or the Blessed Virgin Mary’s figure appeared over the altar. Given there was only one Catholic church nearby, these sightings were mysterious and confusing to most Southerners.
Then more Baptist-like sightings started being reported: An outline of Jesus’ head on a church yard tree or a stain -- that suddenly appeared -- in a church parking lot in the shape of a cross. The straw that broke the camel’s back for momma was the sighting at a church in the country, almost in the same neck of the woods as us. There, at the Baptist church's back lot, the propane tank’s rusting spots took on the face of Jesus himself.
Within hours, momma had me and sister loaded up in the Oldsmobile and zooming out towards the church, a good lick of a trip even in the daylight. So through the thick, wet fog and dark country roads, we traveled for what seemed an hour or so. At first, she got lost and couldn’t find the little church, but a stop-and-carry store along the way housed a woman who gave her directions. Salem cigarette dangling from her lip, momma was more determined than ever to see the face of Jesus in that rusty ol’ propane tank.
When we got there, the place was lit up with jerry-rigged lights. A line of people in rollers and fuzzy houseslippers, John Deere caps and polyester clothing continued past the half-moon of light into the darkness. They talked in quiet, hushed voices -- waiting their turn patiently to see the rusty Jesus. It felt like the second coming to me, as momma gathered the details from those around her and gradually made her way to the back of the line.
Sister remained asleep in the car, but I couldn’t miss this once-in-a-lifetime event. Something strange and mysterious was going on, even though I didn’t quite understand it. When we reached the front of the line, a man in a black suit took my hand and guided us to the holy propane tank. And there he was. Jesus. Weeping rusty tears down the Blossman Gas logo. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move.
The ride home was quiet, and I think I slept a little just from sheer emotional exhaustion. Momma contemplated this religious experience, her intent eyes lit by the glow of the dashboard light and the occasional bright drag from her cigarette. From that day on, I became a religious zealot, too. At age seven, I quoted the scripture to momma even when she went to spank me, and I couldn’t understand why such information made her all the madder.
And then one night, after late church service at our little Baptist church and right before the Sunbeams meeting -- it happened. I stopped for a pee in the unisex bathroom off the church hallway, and while on the toilet ... I looked up at the crystalized block glass in the upper window. The outside light at the top of a cresote pole shone through the star-like cuts in the glass, and the light’s reflection on the dark bathroom floor was that of Jesus’ face.
Slowly and reverently, I pulled my white cotton panties up, flushed the toilet respectfully and ran outside the door to tell the others in the congregation about Jesus’ visit to their toilet. It was sure to make the AP.
