Church of Lies by Flora Jessop & Paul T. Brown

Author:Flora Jessop & Paul T. Brown [Jessop, Flora & Brown, Paul T.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Religion, Psychology of Religion
ISBN: 9780470565469
Google: M9CBkVAReWsC
Amazon: 0470565462
Publisher: Jossey-Bass
Published: 2010-03-01T06:00:00+00:00

11

Shauna

I went back to my waitress job at Shoney’s and promptly met a customer who stole my heart. Terrel—everyone called him Terry—was tall, with long hair and tattoos. And he had something else that appealed to me—a young son, Kris. It was really Kris who stole my heart.

I fell head over heels in love with Kris. Just eight years old, he was a sweet little blonde-haired, blue-eyed kid. But one look at him and you knew he was lost. Both his parents—they were never married—were wild partiers, staying out all night and sleeping all day, and he bounced back and forth between their two houses. Sometimes his mom would lock him in his bedroom while she and her friends had wild, drunken orgies. She usually forgot to give him dinner first, so at age seven he learned to pick his bedroom lock so he could get into the kitchen and find some food. His grandmother, Terry’s mom, did a lot of the heavy lifting—she tried as hard as she could to be there for her grandchild. But with those two as parents, it was hard. All in all, he got more neglect than love.

Terry and I moved in together right away. Our first apartment was a small two-bedroom in a funky little complex—six single-story buildings facing each other across a courtyard. Now that I was off drugs, I wanted a family. Moreover, the Rouths had shown me a great example of stable family life. I was no saint; but I tried my best to be a stabilizing element in Kris’s life, and he soaked up what love I could give him like a thirsty sponge.

I’d kicked hard drugs, but I was tolerant of others’ drug use. Still, I had one rule: no needles. One day, a friend of Terry’s roared into town on a motorcycle, looking for a place to stay. I knew he was trouble when he insisted on parking his bike in the middle of the living room. I soon figured out that not only did he do drugs, he used needles.

“Nobody does needles in my house,” I told Terry. “If he uses needles, he needs to leave my home. Don’t bring him in here.”

“Get over it, Jessie,” Terry said.

“No. There’s no way.”

“He’ll be all right. I’ll talk to him.”

That night, I was woken from a deep sleep by a bloodcurdling scream from the bathroom. I jumped up and ran to see what was happening. It was a pretty horrific sight. Kris had gotten up around midnight to go to the bathroom. When he opened the door, he had slipped on a pool of blood and fallen on Terry’s biker buddy who had hit a vein while shooting up and was spurting blood all over the bathroom walls and floor. Kris couldn’t stop screaming; blood was spraying out of the guy’s arm—I lost it.

I grabbed Kris, walked him back into his bedroom, and sat with him until he settled down. He’d stopped screaming, but I didn’t think he’d forget that bloody scene for a long time.

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