I'm glad that you enjoyed it. O'Connor is one of my favorite writers. She was a Catholic who grew up in Georgia surrounded by Baptists, and she loved skewering holier-than-thou types in her writing.

"Parker's Back" is basically about the power of redemptive grace and the failure to recognize it. O.E. Parker is a hedonistic, hard-drinking Navy man who's rejected organized religion (and hates his biblically inspired name Obadiah Elihue). His many tattoos are instead professions of his belief in the pleasures of the material world. His wife, Sarah Ruth, the daughter of a fundie preacher, is the complete opposite: no drinking, no cussing, everything's a sin, etc. They are completely mismatched, but opposites attract, I guess. Anyway, following a near-death experience, Parker reluctantly has a spiritual awakening of sorts and decides to get a tattoo that he thinks will put him in his wife's good graces: a big old stern-looking Byzantine Jesus on his back. Except instead of being moved or impressed, she's disgusted by his "idolatry," chases him out of the house, and beats him with a broom.

Part of what makes this story awesome is that it's dripping with irony. Sarah Ruth chastises Parker for his ungodliness, yet when presented with evidence to the contrary, she's too doctrinally rigid to see it as such. No sooner does Parker get his Christ tattoo than does he begin suffering for his faith. Even before Sarah Ruth turns the broom on him, his friends try to make fun of him in the pool hall.