Cracking At The Seams

I have suspended my natural disbelief over the last few years. Anything is possible, but to be perfectly honest, I still have trouble with the idea of God speaking directly to me. God, however, doesn’t have that problem.

I was strung out for the last time on the steps of a church at 39th and Main in Kansas City, Missouri, on the verge of throwing myself down a flight of stairs or banging my head into a wall to make it appear that I had been mugged. I didn’t think anyone knew where I was or what had happened and I thought I could salvage the situation by fabricating a lie. I couldn’t. Maybe an angel held me back. Who knows? Then my parents arrived to pick me up.

I’d hit rock bottom. The particular rock was crack. I was home for the summer from Los Angeles. I’d dropped out of school and spent every penny on hard-core narcotics and strippers. The cash ran out and I was coming down with a heart as black as a dying sun ready to explode and destroy everything within 500 million miles. My brain was addicted to so many spiritual and physical things, I couldn’t tell which way was up. But my parents, who still loved me, picked me up. My mother wailed and cried in the car. It was terrifing and as sick as I was, I knew that I never wanted to hear that howl again. I’ve been sober nearly five years now—beginning on the day I heard my mother’s pain.