Blood Beneath My Feet: The Journey of a Southern Death Investigator by Morgan Joseph Scott

Author:Morgan, Joseph Scott [Morgan, Joseph Scott]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781936239344
Publisher: Perseus Books Group
Published: 2012-07-03T05:00:00+00:00

When I turned ten, I had two great revelations: my daddy was never coming back and Bruce was never going to leave.

Within nine months of my father’s abandonment, my mother had started dating one of the managers at the cotton mill where she worked. Bruce was a highly educated man who possessed a seemingly sweet demeanor. He charmed my mama with the refinement of a Southern gentleman and me with tickets to University of Georgia football games. But what impressed us the most was his fervor for Jesus. Jesus had brought him peace, Bruce said, and had washed him clean.

There is a telltale language that Christian believers use when speaking about the Savior of All Mankind. They find Him. He finds them. They are no longer lost. They were born again. They were reborn. They’ve been washed clean of their sins. They’ve been washed in the blood. They’ve been saved. They’ve been redeemed. They’ve been purchased with a price. Their name is now written in the lamb’s book of life. They are now bond servants of the Lord. They are now brothers with Christ. Bruce seduced my mother and me with this language of faith and promises of a better life far from the rage of my father and the squalor of the trailer park.

In the beginning, he played ball with me in the front yard and took my mother to Red Lobster—ah, the good life! Maybe the combination of deep-fried scallops and the sight of her little boy pitching a ball was enough to convince my mama that Bruce would bring us to paradise. The promise of no more hungry nights or badly mannered landlords was easy inducement. Here he was, everything my daddy had not been: refined of speech, gentlemanly, and educated. He had a fine job, a big blue Pontiac, and a university degree, but most of all, he said he had Jesus, just like my grandmother did.

Bruce also trumpeted a life of fidelity and stability, which in my backwoods, rough-as-a-cob life to that point were not things I was familiar with. All the males in my life so far had started and ended each sentence with the word “nigger.” No such utterance would be heard from Bruce. To him, the alpha and the omega was Jesus.

He proposed to my mother. They gave me a chance. They wanted to know if I wanted this too. They said we would have a great life and a great home, that we would have a great family, a family ordained by God’s will.

I wore a snug JCPenney suit in the sanctuary of a little Baptist church in the middle of nowhere at age ten, with no Daddy, and listened to the preacher’s matrimonial speech while Bruce stared at my mother in a trance-like state, a look I would eventually come to know well. The pastor may as well have been reciting a eulogy because within weeks I would understand everything a whole lot better.

Our life with Bruce began in the rich neighborhood of Griffin, Georgia, surrounded by the old textile elite and their children.

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