Tuesday, August 11, 2015

Story Tellers

  This is a love story, about my last wife Shelley- the one I stole from a Jesus rehab. Its a love story in that we loved drugs. It involves behaviors from my past - I apologize in advance for any offense the truth of the way I lived may cause.

We used all day, every day. We drank from the time we woke up until the time we went to sleep. We used cocaine, heroin, pills of all sorts and we smoked weed. We shoplifted. We lied. We broke into homes and, of course, we tricked. Most of the time I would wait in the bathroom and when she would bring in the John, I would rob them but sometimes we would go to the dealer and she would go inside to cop. I would wait chewing my fingernails for the 20 minutes or so she'd be inside and then start the engine as soon as she walked out the door. We would race back to the room to get high, neither of us caring about the things we did. In between hustling and copping, we would get into terrible fights, shouting at the top of our lungs, sometimes worse.
 Shelly was terribly jealous.
   During this time, dark as it was, we began to love each other dearly. We were the same. Neither of us had experienced anything like that before. Both of us carried such a heavy sadness that we could not stand to feel, so we went to the most outrageous extremes not to. Yet here we were, falling in love in a way that only the very young and the deeply mad could understand.
  Our adventures grew more and more bold and we were involved in high-speed pursuits. Shelly would drive the "getaway" car and I would steal from businesses often in broad daylight. Shelly was night blind and was supposed to wear thick glasses but would not. Once while being pursued by police in the evening, I literally had to talk her through the chase as she could not see the roads until we blew past them. We kept running and with sirens and lights flashing our pursuers were relentless. Shell turned and looked at me, with a huge smile on her face,

  "We're Bonnie and Clyde."

Did I mention she was nuts?

   "OK Bonnie, kill the lights, don't touch the brakes and when I say so pull up as far as you can into a driveway."

  She did and we got away but after that night I began to have serious doubts about our future as snatch-and-grab guys. The water pump on the car was going out and we had damaged a wheel running over a curb. The car was unlikely to hold up and our luck was running thin. Sometimes we would just drive around looking for small pawnable stuff in carports, or a bright red gas jug. We didn't pay for anything but dope, and a five-gallon gas lick never went by, without us taking advantage.
  Just before Halloween we were driving around like this when the car began to get hot. It was about time for a pit stop when I saw one of those huge inflatable bouncy houses like people rent for children's parties in front of a church packed with cars and a sign out front that read "Fall Festival."  I told her to pull in hoping to hit someone up for a few bucks.

  "Think we could get some water?", I asked a group of men then mentioned we were from out of state.

  "Sure thing", a kind older guy said, "What brought you guys here"?

 "We were missionaries involved with a faith-based rehab center for the desperate and the hopeless. There were some issues and we decided to come back here. I'm from here."

  Shelly was still sitting in the car. She never really like the soft con, she didn't feel like she was very good at it. When it came to straight talking someone out of money, the chore was mine.

"To be honest," I went on, "we've had some real car problems as you can see, caused my gas mileage to be poor, and we're broke. Thank the Lord in Heaven though, He delivered us here just like we asked him too. One more thing if I could ask, we haven't eaten a thing since early this morning do you think my wife might get one of those burgers? I am fine but I know she's hungry, though she'd never say so".

  "Well sure, sure you guys come on in here and join us, won't you? We'd be happy to have you join us."

  He walked on over toward the church where they were all gathered to eat, I got back in the car to tell Shelly what had happened.

  "I don't want to eat," she said, "I'm not hungry."

  " Gosh dang it Shelly", I said ( or at least something very much like that, I heard this might be on the radio ) , " I don't care how messed up you are, or how hungry you are, I want you to get your pretty little butt in there and help me work this thing. We can eat and that guy will probably give us twenty bucks when we get done. Let's go."

  Reluctantly, she came in with me. The man I had spoken to was sitting at a table with his wife and two empty chairs. They had already made our plates.

   "So tell me a little about this place where you guys came from," he asked.

  I explained to him about the rehabs mission. Most of the details I gave him were true, but I changed the facts just enough to suit my needs. Then I got rolling, and laid down Devine hustle.

  " I was reading my Bible one night after prayer," I said. "It was the story of the demon-possessed man- the version from Mark I believe, you know the story I am sure — the man that lived in the places of the dead, and cut himself. When Christ asked him his name, he replied 'I am legion for we are many.' Then the demons are cast out into the pigs and the pigs jump from the cliff."

It was clear to me now, I was in control, it was a subject I had used from the pulpit many times, a good parallel to people who have a demonic addiction and are being delivered from it. In the old days, back at the Christian Rehab it always had them reaching for their wallets. Such is the power of The Word.  I could tell by their expressions that he and his wife were similarly entranced, so I went in for the big kill.

  "What a lot of people don't really pay attention to, and what God shared with me through His living word that night was what happened next — the man so utterly relieved to be free of the demons, so joyous to be loosed from the death and the pain of his life - he wanted to go with Jesus, wanted to hop in that boat with Jesus and the others and serve Him. But Jesus, had another plan."
I am talking in my deep preacher's voice now, channeling my father and that booming bass voice that made me squirm on the hard wooden pews of my youth.
Afraid to die.
Afraid of Hell.

"Jesus, who was surely moved by the conversion of this man told him- 'No, I want you to go home and tell the people there what God has done for you.' People at nearby tables were looking over by then. I sense I am moving others in the room as well,  
"and that is my calling as well ... I have come back here to show the people who knew the old me that that guy is dead, that God Himself has changed me, to tell people who never knew me what God" ... I stretch God out into a nearly three-syllable word ... "has done in my life."

  It took a moment for the couple sitting across from Shelly and myself to speak, for them to regain their thoughts — then suddenly a wide happy smile spreads across their faces and the man stands and stretches out his hand to shake mine. They are pleased to see the faith that they have is in a deity powerful enough to change lives.
  They don't know that with me, it didn't take.

  "We would be pleased to have you come worship with us tomorrow, if you would. Of course, we'd want to get you a hotel room for the night and put some gas in your car too."

   "We would be honored to join you. And thanks for your help. I felt like the Lord was leading me here for a reason."
They took us to one of the nicer hotels around, paid for two nights, and gave me thirty bucks. We drove straight to a trap house and bought some smack. Since we already had a room in the sleazy hotel that was much closer to the dope part of town we sold the card key, and room too. The next morning I ran out and made some waffles at the Motel 6 put them in a take-out box I already had, swung by and got Shelly some hydrocodones so she wouldn't get sick before it was all over and went back to the room. After I woke her, Shelly gobbled up the pain pills, picked at the waffle and bitched about going back to church.

  "What if they figured out already? What if they know?"

  She didn't really care about that, so much as she knew it would be three or four hours before we could get high again. The hydros really would just help her maintain. When Shelly and I got high, we liked to get all the way high. I was shaving and pissed already because I couldn't have a drink. They would smell it for sure.

  "Gosh dang it , Shelly." I said ( or words to that effect ), "Get a freakin' dress on, you want to wait all freakin' day for a trick or something to steal? It's Sunday in Jonesboro, Arkansas. This is gonna be a good lick and there ain't nothing else going on."

  She threw an ashtray at me but it wasn't even close, so I just went about my business and she started to get dressed. She was such a beautiful woman that I paused shaving long enough to watch her strip down to nothing while she grumbled about pulling accessories out of different bags and suitcases that I had brought in from the car.

Even though I was in a hurry I turned and smiled my most brilliant come-hither smile at her. She cursed me but when I pulled her to me and kissed her leaving shaving cream on her face she laughed and we made love like old people drive. Reckless and with abandon.

  Thirty minutes later we were at the church in time for Sunday school, barely. In class I fairly took over, and after I was asked to share my testimony for the morning's message. When I finished, I understood what Mick Jagger must feel like at the end of a concert. I was  a rock star. When I walked from the pulpit toward the back door nearly everyone I passed pushed money into my hands as I shook theirs. Shelly had been crying through the whole thing — a special talent of hers — and these people loved us. The couple who had invited us to church then asked us to lunch and we accepted even though we already had enough money for a real cool party.


  When I got in the car Shelly had already taken off her shoes and panty hose. I was a little turned on by her bare legs, the memory of that morning's sex but the "dope monster " wouldn't wait.
  After lunch, even as the restaurant door was closing I peeled away from the place as fast as our crippled little four cylinder would carry us. I pulled over a couple blocks away to call the dope boys and looked inside the envelope — it contained 30 crisp one-hundred dollar bills. We laid up getting high for a couple of weeks until every penny was gone.
  After that we did the church thing every chance we had. We eventually got serious enough about this con to plot which church we should hit next, based on location. Once we hit two churches right next to each other on the same day. It never again payed like the first one did, but it always paid.

 And by always I mean until we both went to prison a couple months later - but that's another story for another day.

Saturday, August 1, 2015

Everybody Loved Her Grandpa

Her pockets
weren't the only
things that had
been high
in Nashville,
living
mood to mood
with a pimp
son of a ton
of great songs
and that one
from the radio.

His chip bigger
than his shoulders
maybe a little
greater
than his talent.

No,

she'd been
junkie angels
high,
and front yard
crying low.

She'd mostly
come back,
crashing hard,
but walking
away from the
landing-
they say
that makes
it a good one.

He was not in
better shape, and
truth told a
little crazy,

still,

for dope and booze
and the records
of her former
Harlem River
Daddy, her other
favorites too.

She'd made it back,
had to get back,
down to Arkansas
back to the farm.

He dropped in there,
traveling from
the last place to
anyplace next,
a big shot
without a single
dollar bill.

They took a ride
down back roads,
the trash in the
floorboards
ankle deep.
She drank her
last beer.
He smoked
a cashed bowl.

They bragged
about scars,
laughed like
they'd never seen
death eating crackers-
the shake
and bake kids-
and famine
eating the rest
of them,
its teeth deep
and drawing back
blood
before pushing in.

Then they talked
small voiced
about ones who
didn't come
down,
buried in boxes,
in worm
riddled ground.

When their time
was done they
never noticed,
counting out change
at the Legion,
ordered two more
cheap beers.

They huddled
and chuckled and
shed half a tear,
but everybody
knew they were
too much alike

to be real.

So instead
she hugged his
neck and said
again soon,
but he was
already writing
a sad story
in his head.

And she was
just like her
Grandpa,
and he was just
like everybody
else.