A Stranger In My House

Everything was going as well as it could until I turned 15. The summer before freshman year of high school I tried everything that your parents tell you to stay away from. Smoking, drinking and sex. I enjoyed two of the three, hated one and didn’t get serious about one of the two until I got to college and the other one of the two I got more serious about toward the middle of college. That’s a bootleg riddle. First person to get it right gets—let me see…..the assurance of knowing they were right. Meanwhile, not the point of the story, but yeah, I was as the old people say “smellin’ myself.” I became more contentious at home, argumentative with my parents at times, especially him*.

Although a lot had happened and my parents had numerous reasons to be sick of me, there was an incident that prompted the séance. I was home chillin’ cause it was the summer time. I didn’t attend any enrichment camps or anything like that. That’s why some people have an advantage over others. They expose their children to things that are going to expand their minds. Maybe if I had been at a camp or something, then the incident wouldn’t have happened. Old people say an idle mind is the devil’s workshop. There was a neighborhood girl in whom I was interested. Not like I was in love or anything remotely close to that—I was 15 years old. You know what I was thinking about. So we began hanging out. Hanging out led to sexual talk. One day I remember on the playground (we were just up there talkin’) I pretended that I had to use the bathroom. I was ready to see how she would react to seeing it. I whipped it out and just held it for a while. Of course nothing came out cause I really didn’t have to use the bathroom. I was like oh well I guess I didn’t have to go all the while I was getting an erection because here I was with this girl I liked with my piece in my hand kinda just sitting in this awkward silence as she looked at me and I looked at her. As I was about to put it away, she said that I didn’t have to. We exchanged a little back and forth and then ended up at my house in my bedroom. T.I. You know what it is.

Of course we had sex on my brother’s bed—not mine. I guess that was kinda triflin’. We had been going for maybe about seven or eight minutes before we heard a car door slam. Actually I didn’t hear the car door. She did. When she told me she heard something I was telling her she didn’t hear anything cause I wanted to finish what I had started. Thinking back on it now, there was no condom involved either. So stupid. Honestly, condoms didn’t become involved in sex for me until I was like 22. It’s just God’s grace that I don’t have a kid or anything grandma’s washing powder can’t get off. Anyway, she kinda pushed me off her while urging me to look out the window. I did. It was him* carrying grocery bags. I had about 7 seconds to get her out of the house, get up front, spray something just in case and act like nothing had happened. Needless to say I couldn’t pull that off.

We both ran up to the den in the front of the house. Our den had a door on it so she closed and locked the door just before he* entered the house. He started bamming on the door telling us to open the door. I was seated across the room farthest away from the door. She was sitting right next to the door in a chair but was frozen with fear. I kept telling her to open the door but she just kept shaking her head no. Finally I got up, did the flip up in my shorts (I think the fellas will know what I’m sayin’) and opened the door. He* started with the 20 questions. What was all that noise? What’s going on? I heard ya’ll running. He’s* asking and answer his* own questions. Nesha decided to say that we were in the back playing my keyboard. I’m thinking to myself this broad is sooooo stupid. My adapter had been broken for like three months so there was no way in hell we were playing the keyboard. He went to the back to test the keyboard and surveyed the room. Somewhere in the middle of this Nesha was dismissed and he told me that he didn’t want her back in our house ever again. When he came back he said that the adapter was still broken and the bed was messed up. My clever story was that we were wrestling. (We were, kinda). He* didn’t buy it and he made me do manual labor. Anyone who knows me knows how much I hate pulling weeds and shit like that. I had to wash all the cars too and cut the grass. I hate that kinda shit. Hire someone ma phucka.

Later that evening he* called my mom who was in Tacoma, WA, at the time to tell her what happened. I was so pissed off about him calling her. I could give a phuck less about what he thought, but I highly respect my mother and want her to have a good opinion of me. I had already been in a lot of trouble because of my mouthiness. Basically I was just acting grown. I had something to say about everything. When she got back, they came up with this bright idea to have an intervention to “save me” from what I’m not sure—maybe the devil.

Like I said, getting caught in the house was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Truthfully I never would have gotten caught if he* wasn’t stealing company time by grocery shopping and bringing food home. It’s really his* fault. Ma phucka. So at the intervention they called the whole family together. There were six of us. Four siblings and my mom and him*. These people are ultra religious so of course we go to the Bible to start the lashing. I remember them having some prepared notes to make sure they covered all my list of offenses and whatnot. They read off all the infractions, which were numerous. After the reading of the charges against me they read some verses from the Bible. The one that sticks out the most was “Why do the heathen rage?” He* even had a book by the same title and pulled some stuff from there to tell me why I was such a heathen and why I was raging (acting out). Basically they said it was a demonic spirit that had me bound and that’s why I was being so bad and that every time I did something else I was feeding the demon and making it stronger. They had had enough and were going to try to pray it out of me. My mom said her piece, which was much softer but she was very concerned about the person I was turning into. I knew that this was not my mom’s idea, but she went along with it I guess to appease him*. Ma phucka.

They even sung some church songs. I don’t remember what they sang but it was almost like a mini church service minus the offering. As they were talking I remember having something like an out-of-body experience. I kinda looked around at the five faces staring at me and the two faces doing the talking/preaching/teaching/seancing/casting-out-demoning and I was like these ma phuckas are really crazy. Like I knew before that they had some idiosyncrasies, but now I felt like these people were CERTIFIABLE. Don’t get me wrong. I’m crazy ‘bout my mama, but I thought her going along with this was not a good idea as this “intervention” or whatever was a bit extreme. The whole thing was absolutely surreal. I was just sitting in the room like this cannot be happening. I wondered what my real family was like and if I had been switched at birth. I mean, okay I was wildin’ out a little bit, but seriously, all this was unnecessary. At certain times while they were talking they would ask me questions. I wouldn’t answer. Of course this made them mad and they were saying the demon won’t let him talk. I was thinking how crazy they had to be to think that something was keeping me from talking. I wasn’t speaking because I couldn’t believe what was happening. I just felt so out of place. There was a stranger in my house. It took a while to figure out, but the realism was that the stranger was me.

Ever since that day things were a little different. We’ve never discussed it from that day to this one, and until now I had not relieved it again. It was one of the defining moments of my youth because I realized how people would use the Bible as a weapon against you and believe that they are justified. To this day I’m awfully leery of someone who always references the Bible. Don’t get me wrong. I go to church most Sundays and I enjoy it. It’s just I think of people who do this kinda stuff as fanatics. Just like when I ask someone how they are doing and they tell me blessed and highly favored. BREAKING NEWS: This just in. You can be saved and answer “fine” when someone asks how you’re doing. You won’t lose your salvation.

I kinda stopped giving them so much trouble after that but only because I didn’t want to sit through another cast out demons/bring down the strongholds ceremony.