Let No Man Steal Thy Paper Crown

Let No Man Steal Thy Paper Crown

It was the hottest day of the year, and we still had to wear pantyhose. I didn’t have any of my own, so I had to wear Grandma Winnie’s. Mama said next summer she might let me shave my legs, but until then, I just prayed they wouldn’t fall down in front of the congregation, like they did last time.

That was the summer Granddaddy got called to preach back in our hometown after Uncle Billy retired. So we moved back to Crooked Creek, into the yellow house with the haint blue porch and the wasp nest in the mailbox. Aunt Lily still played the same organ that wheezed when she hit G sharp, and Uncle Henry started mowing during the sermon like it was his own personal protest.

The church was mostly just one room, and it had served as a schoolhouse up until the ’40s. We climbed the five concrete steps to reach the sanctuary, where the red shag carpet looked like it had been baptized in blood or Vegas. Beneath us, the cinderblock basement held four classrooms and two restrooms, one for ladies and one for gentlemen. I remember wondering why grown-ups needed a whole room just to rest. Out back, the graveyard stretched like a chessboard of family names. The polished stones sweated beside crumbling, horseshoe-shaped graves, their names and dates long since washed away by time.

That morning, I was down in the basement for Sunday School, picking at the dried glue on my Bible bookmark while Sister Bonnie told the story of the prodigal son using finger puppets and a coffee can pigsty. When she told us to find our seats, I chose the empty chair on the front row. It was the only one left. Looking back, I should’ve known there was a reason nobody had claimed the best seat in the room. But at the time, I didn’t see the sign taped to the back:

Reserved for Jesus.

The second I sat down, Sister Bonnie gasped, and the rest of the 7-to-11-year-old Sunday school class gasped right behind her, like I had said Jesus had a girlfriend.

Under normal circumstances, I might’ve cried. I was used to not being noticed, which is its own kind of comfort. But just as the heat started crawling up my neck, Cindy Oleson hollered:

“She sat on Jesus!”

And that’s when I realized exactly why that seat had stayed empty.

I stood up quick, moved to the back of the room, and hovered near the older kids, who were already pointing and laughing at the sign still stuck to the back of my dress. At first, I didn’t feel anything. But the corners of my mouth twitched, and before I could stop it, I felt the kind of laughter rise up from my belly that could get a person excommunicated.

It bubbled in my throat like a holy volcano, and I didn’t know if the Devil had taken hold of me or not, but I faked a big cry, turned on my heel, and ran out of the room to find someplace I could laugh in peace.

By the time Sister Bonnie ripped and passed out half sticks of Juicy Fruit and told the rest of the class to line up, I was already on my way to the sanctuary, still giggling. I giggled all the way up the stairs, where the air got hotter and the light turned yellow from the stained-glass windows. Mama was waiting at the top of the stairs with a look that said, Whatever it is, you better stop doing it.

I nodded like I understood, and we filed into the pew just as Aunt Lily started the hymn. She got halfway through “I Surrender All” before she hit a wrong note and Uncle Charles hollered “Lord Woman!” like she’d stung him. She paused, and without missing a beat started over with as much confidence as she had the first time around and more pedal. I laughed, and Mama pinched the fat under my arm without even looking at me.

I tried to behave after that. I really did. First, I tore a tissue into strips, like we used to do in Sunday School when we were bored and the flannelgraph Jesus was peeling off the board. I rolled one strip tight, tried to fold the petals out just like Sister Bonnie showed us, but the church was so hot the tissue stuck to my fingers. My flower came out soggy and sad, so I switched to my bulletin.

It was already creased from being fanned all morning, and I knew how to make a hat, folded triangle, bent brim, tuck at the top. Granddaddy’s sermon was titled, “Let No Man Steal Your Crown,” so I took it as a sign and decided my hat was a crown. Grandma said it made me look like a Civil War soldier, but the only Civil War soldier I knew about was Granddaddy’s great-uncle, who tried to go north to fight with the Union but never made it. He hopped a freight train without a ticket, fell off, and died in a ditch somewhere outside Chattanooga. He didn’t want to pay for his ride, and I didn’t want to wear a war hat, so I pulled an eight-pack of crayons out of my purse and colored jewels all over my paper crown. I placed it on my head like royalty, sat up straighter, and cooled myself with the leftover bulletin scraps like a queen with a paper fan.

Of course, that’s when Tommy Ray Jenkins leaned over from the next pew and whispered, “Hey, y’all, look, Christie thinks she’s the Queen of Sheba.”

Laughter rippled down the pew. Before I could shush them, his brother Ricky reached over and knocked the hat clean off my head. It hit the floor and got stomped flat by Sister Edna’s church heels on her way to the offering plate.

I reached down and scooped it up anyway.

It was creased in the middle and dirty on the corner, but it was mine. I smoothed it flat and held it in my lap like a secret. That’s when Granddaddy stood and cleared his throat.

“Let us pray.”

After the prayer, Granddaddy tugged his glasses down from his forehead like they were too holy for his eyes.

“Let’s open our Bibles to the book of Isaiah,” he said. “Chapter sixty-two, verse three: ‘Thou shalt also be a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord…’”

He let the verse settle, then began to preach in a steady, measured rhythm—about faith holding firm through trials, about the small daily choices that shape a life, about crowns not made of gold but of grace. The longer he preached, the hotter it got. The air in the sanctuary was thick and slow, and even the wasps by the windows seemed to pause, as if it was too hot to do anything but listen.

Finally, he came back to the verse. “‘Thou shalt also be a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord… And I say to you this morning, friends—let no man steal thy crown.’”

That’s when the mower started up again.

VRROOOOMMMM.

Uncle Henry, shirtless and sunburnt, rolled past the side window like he was casing the place. The mower was older than me and louder than Granddaddy, whose lips pinched tighter with every pass.

Granddaddy shifted his weight and flipped through the pages. “Now let’s turn to the book of Matthew, chapter thirteen, verse nine.”

VRROOOOMMMM.

“‘He that hath ears to hear…’”

VRROOOOMMMM.

“…let them hear…”

VRROOOOMMMM.

He stopped, closed his eyes for half a second, and then let it fly.

“…shut off that damn mower!”

The congregation gasped. Aunt Lily’s fingers froze on the keys. Someone in the back coughed just to break the silence.

And then, as smooth as ever, Granddaddy went right back to it: “‘…And the disciples said unto him…’” He carried on until the sermon was done, never mentioning the mower again.

I looked down at the paper crown in my lap and smoothed it one last time. Uncle Henry made his final pass around the building, and Aunt Lily struck up the benediction like nothing had happened.

We filed out into the heat like we hadn’t all just witnessed a holy showdown between grace and gasoline. Everyone tried not to make eye contact. Uncle Henry rolled past the graveyard like a victory lap, and Aunt Lily kept playing “Just As I Am” like her life depended on it. Mama didn’t say a word, just handed me her fan and pressed her lips together like she was holding back a whole sermon of her own.

I climbed into the Oldsmobile, peeled the pantyhose off under my dress, and tucked them into my purse like contraband. In my lap, the crown was still there, creased, smudged, and flattened by worship, but mine all the same.

“Let no man steal thy crown,” Granddaddy had said.

And I hadn’t. Not the boys in Sunday School. Not Tommy Ray Jenkins. Not even the Devil on a riding mower.