Out of the Madness

by Jerrold Ladd

  Some Sunday mornings, after the congregation had departed, I sat on the church porch. I would wait there until the evening service began. I always sat on the first row, listening to every word that woman said about the wonderful God Who loved us all. For several months I watched the pattern of the church.

  I soon learned that half the congregation came to worship; the other half came because parents or others dragged them there. There were a lot of cliques, too: “special-interest groups.” The housewives would band together to talk about foolishness, such as how someone dressed, who was a hypocrite, or who didn’t have nice clothes. The “unsaved,” younger members came to lust after each other. People got married all the time, to get around the sin of fornication. As soon as a new man or woman joined, established church members who were interested in him or her would demonstrate this by claiming their “future spouse” during testimony service. “I know the Lord sent her to me,” an interested man would say while looking at the attractive woman he knew so little about.

  The so-called saved members did nothing but read the Bible, jump, moan, scream, cry, and beg God to help them pay the rent or put some crumbs on their dinner table. Nothing significant ever happened for them. Occasionally someone would land a minimum-wage job or hustle up a few hundred dollars through hard work—like mowing lawns or painting. Then he would testify about this at church, as if he had just been given a million dollars. In response, the church would rock and roll.

  The pastor kept fear in all of us by preaching on eternity in hell. That was her most common sermon. She blatantly taught contradictory information. For example, she said that we would inherit our reward in heaven but should be tolerant of being poor now. At the same time, she taught that God would give more to his own saved children on earth than he would to the unsaved and the wicked. In effect, if you were saved, you should expect to live above the standard of the unsaved, the sinner.

  But dope dealers, alcoholics, my sweet friend who didn’t eat pork, and every white person I knew who didn’t respect the holy religion lived better than these saved people. The whites had much more than anybody, more than the church members who were doing all they could to adhere to the holy lifestyle, giving all their money to the church while living in their shacks, filth, and trash—these good people, who were trying to live spotless to enter the Pearly Gates, the pie in the sky. They surely were living according to the pastor’s gospel and surely were not reaping the benefits. On the other hand, those who had no regard for the church were in paradise.

  But I soon became swallowed up in the same process. I shouted and testified every time the pace increased, allowing the mood of the atmosphere to take me. My feet stomped, my voice wailed. I became well trained in the biblical Scripture and the knowledge the pastor taught about God. I started witnessing to other people the way the lady had witnessed to me. I was happy to know I could have a good normal life, never hungry, always happy.

  I only had to die before I received it.

  After a few months of this, I prepared for my biggest challenge. I turned my faith toward my house. God was going to take my mother off drugs. I knew He would do it, possessed no doubt. I discussed my plans with one of the men who sat on the honorable chairs. He was quiet, didn’t holler like the others when he preached. I admired him more than I did the other ministers. Whenever he was asked to give a sermon, I listened extra carefully. But the rest of the congregation would sit bored to death, since there wasn’t any screaming, jumping, and shouting going on.

  One day after Sunday service I told the quiet minister I was having problems at home; my mother was on drugs, we were poor, didn’t eat half the time. I told him we wanted a better life. He told me to believe in God.

  That evening, when I arrived home, I put my plan to action. The house was in its usual dirty, sticky, and scorch hot condition. Sherrie was away, and Junior was playing in our room. I was nervous and knew I had to act fast. If she caught me, she would surely bust me up. I ran water in the face bowl, acting as if I were busy in the bathroom. After looking down the stairway several times, watching for her, I hurried into her room and looked through the several dresser drawers. There they lay, several syringes and a couple of cigarettes wrapped neatly in a plastic bag.

  I was pumped with faith, awe, and fear as I held the package in my hand. I took the stuff to the Dumpster on the corner, as far away as possible.

  Later that night, she shuffled home. She wasn’t in the room five minutes before she tore into the hallway, on fire!

  “Jerrold, Junior, who done been in my room, gaddammit? I told you motherfuckers not to let nobody in here when I’m gone. Go find Sherrie and tell her I said to bring her tail home right now. I’m sick of this.”

  I walked up to her room door, knocked, and went inside. I boldly told her what I had done. I told her that God loved and wanted to help us. Then I lowered my head and waited for her wrath and fire. But my words disturbed her. She just stood there looking twisted, just seething with anger, but she didn’t let loose her flurry of hooks and uppercuts. As I have mentioned, the older generation had a deep fear of God. I think she was afraid of the consequences of charging one of His humble believers.

  Instead, she told me to get the hell out and shut the door. I did what she asked; but instead of leaving, I sat at the top of the stairs by her room door. I stayed there several hours, waiting for her to come out again. She eventually came out and took a seat beside me. I told her that we could do better, that God was making me happy, and that He wanted to do the same thing for her. “Yeah, baby, I know,” she said. After our talk, we decided that our family would go to church together, the next Sunday.

  So my mother, sister, brother, and I went to church. When the pastor asked who wanted to be saved, they went to the altar. They each went through the ritual, and my mother wailed like a seasoned pro. I felt ashamed as she yelped, screamed, and spoke in the same garbled language the church people had forced me to use—the ministers had said unless I spoke in a strange tongue, I didn’t have the Holy Ghost.

  After we arrived home that evening, I noticed a worried look in my mother’s eyes. As strong as her desire was, she was still helpless. We talked for a couple of hours. I finally made her tell me what was bothering her.

  She would have to face Nick, Shortleg Lee’s brother, who had recently returned from out of town. She thought he would kill her. Standing at the front door, not wanting to go, she wore her usual grimace of worry. I asked her if she wanted me to go talk to him. But she thought it best if she explained the circumstances to him. “No, baby, let Mama go and do this. You just stay here and watch the house. I’ll be all right.”

  As I watched her walk out the door and over to Nick’s house, I wondered if I would ever see her again. I started after her several times, wondering if I could help, if Nick would respect my religious zeal, my weapons of faith. But I didn’t go. Nick had machine guns.

  An hour later, she returned happily. He had forgiven her, said he wouldn’t kill her. Now we could go on with our lives. Now we could get the happiness that we saved people were due. But that was not to be the case for us or anyone I can recall who went to any black church.

  No matter how hard we prayed, stomped, and waited, few things changed. Occasionally someone would hand me a thrift pair of pants or a shirt. Some members would get a car part or some old clothes, but nothing more. The church was teaching us how to remain in the ghettos, shacks, and slums and beg every day for the decency that we should have been striving to get. No emphasis was placed on self-improvement, education, self-reliance, better jobs, better housing, or extensive study of our religious beliefs. It was just shut up and wait to die. And while you’re waiting, stay worried and deprived. And put your last pennies in the offering bucket.

  Eventually my brother was the first to stop attending the church; Sherrie would remain in church for a little longer but she stopped attending, too. No matter how hard my mother tried, her peace of mind came only from the heroin. I kept attend
ing the services for a while, until I could no longer ignore the destruction I saw. People were going through the church like it had revolving doors. Dozens of eager new faces, families, and single mothers dragging hungry babies were popping up each Sunday. Looking for hope, a way out, some relief. They all stomped, wailed, cried, moaned, and waited. Some new members stayed and joined one of the “special-interest groups.” Others would get that special car part or husband. But all of them always emptied their pockets.

  I also noticed how everyone became naturally disturbed when the sermon hinted around the color of the son of God and the origins of the religion. The leaders’ knowledge of the religion was limited. And they could never answer the question of whether it was truly ours.

  Among the gossip, grief, hunger, and sorrow, my church activities diminished. I soon left, unannounced, never to return. We had entered the revolving church doors depressed and nowhere. We came out more depressed and worse than nowhere.

  6

  DO IT FOR MOMMA

  To avoid the projects, I would explore the area surrounding where we lived in west Dallas. I found places like Hooky Hill, the shack houses, and nearby public pools, which the older boys and I would sneak into at night. I stayed out late. The church had dealt a tremendous blow to my already fragile hope. And it also had pushed my mother over the edge, caused her to abuse her children as never before. After we had left the church, I really knew we would always be in these projects, suffering.

  With Henry gone, the rotating fathers returned. My mom stopped selling drugs but again took up her drug routine, this time with renewed desperation. She went back to her solace from reality. The kinder, gentler mother we had experienced for a few weeks was gone. She was replaced by a monster who gave more beatings, did more screaming, and saw more men. The waves of cigarette smoke, people, and dope kept our house like a cesspool.

  One evening my mother called me into her bedroom. “Go borrow Momma a cigarette,” she said. Without looking at her, I walked away. At least it gave me a reason to get out of the house. I headed to the corner where the dope dealers worked, where I had learned that I could find plenty of smokers. One-arm Nathan sat underneath a tree, shading himself from the late sun. Another man stood nearby, puffing on a cigarette. I walked up to him.

  “My momma wants to know if she can borrow a cigarette,” I said.

  Several seconds passed before the man showed any sign he had heard me. He suddenly looked down. “What did you say?”

  “My mom wants a cigarette.”

  Without looking at me, he talked toward the heavens, as if he were too embarrassed to face the child he was about to corrupt: “I know where we can get a lot of money and you can buy your momma all the cigarettes you want.” The man looked at me for the first time. He was coming down from a hard high. His eyes were red; his nose was running. He told me he knew where some foreigners lived who were out of town and who had a lot of money. “If you help me carry their belongings to my car,” he said, “I’ll give you some money.” Though nervous and scared, and only twelve, I went with him. The fiend was desperate for a fix. I was desperate for everything.

  Several blocks away we arrived at the back of a unit. The sun had just set, and the dark darkness was coming. He picked up a brick near the apartment and shattered the glass. Uncautiously we walked over to the only thing of value in the unfurnished apartment, a floor-model TV. We picked up the TV and carried it to a nearby car.

  Nervously he shouted through the car window at someone sitting inside: “Wake your ass up, man.” The man came quickly from his sleep, as if he had been waiting for the moment. I leaned against the car, trying to pretend I wasn’t scared. But I was shaking like a wet puppy. The man got out of the car and helped his partner put the TV in the trunk. They got into the front seat. Then I slipped into the backseat at his bidding, and we drove away.

  After two turns we pulled into a parking lot on Fishtrap near my unit. Most of the streetlights were out, and as usual, the projects were under a black night. People were standing around like so many fading shadows. The man and I entered an abandoned unit, one that was a market for fiends and dealers. The driver waited for us.

  “I’m gonna whoop your ass,” said a voice from the darkness. My mother came forward and grabbed me by my shirt. She was mad as hell, seeing that her son was following in her footsteps. She lost the composure that experienced women like her kept and for several seconds turned into a concerned mother. But my quick-thinking partner told her that he had just met me walking up the street and had offered me money to help him carry the TV. Relieved, my mother sent me home after telling me she would bring my money. As I walked home, I knew I would never see any of it.

  My mother did not come back that night, and my sister came home late. This was every man for himself now, so I wasn’t concerned. The next morning I dressed and went into the kitchen to make a ketchup sandwich, but the ketchup was all gone. All the food was gone. Without hesitating, I began the walk to the shopping center, being sure to take the lake route to avoid Three Finger Willie and Syrup Head. When I got there, I boldly walked into the store, stuck a bag of rice in my pants, and walked straight out. And over the next few weeks, when my hunger would not let me rest, I stole again and again.

  To steal food was no real challenge. I knew how the managers looked. The stores had no cameras, no mirrors. I would wait until a section was free of customers, then stuff the can or the bag in my jacket or crotch. I didn’t really care. If I had been spotted, I would have run circles around the white managers and darted out the door.

  After stealing food became habitual, it was on to the toy store next to Tom Thumb. The personnel there were more watchful. Even so, I once tried to walk out with a big toy truck. I was caught at the door. Police officers took me home, where my mother promised a whooping, one I would never get.

  Junior was back on his all-day buggy routines. Sherrie stayed away from the house with her boyfriend, Junebug, who lived north of the projects in Richardson. She was spending nights at his house while telling my mother she was at his grandmother’s. Our mother stayed locked away in her room. My stealing was increasing, and the stakes were becoming higher. Everyone was going down a bad road. We became silent, hardly speaking to each other.

  We worked harder: “Borrow Momma a cigarette, steal Momma some aspirin, go buy Momma a nerve pill.” She stayed angry and had more seizures and fits than usual. She would fly from her room and whoop us with the first thing in sight. At night the house seemed baneful, despair seemed bottomless. Behind her room door, my mother would cry and wail like she was possessed. Things got so bad that people in the projects were predicting my mother would soon be murdered or go insane, and that the state people would come and get us. But she made a final attempt to preserve her family. She jumped out of her trance. God knows where she found the strength.

  On that day, she had just come from using a neighbor’s phone and into the kitchen where my sister, brother, and I were. “Go and pack some clothes,” she told us as she hurried up the stairs.

  “Momma, where are we going?” I asked.

  “We’re going to spend the summer with Sister Hill*.”

  “Who is Sister Hill?”

  “Jerrold, she’s someone I used to go to church with. Now quit bugging me, and go pack some clothes.” She disappeared up the stairs.

  An hour later, we had locked the house up and were waiting on the porch. An elderly man pulled his church van into the Fishtrap parking lot and honked his car horn. My brother and I hurried to the church bus to avoid being seen by our friends. We were ashamed of having this church man coming to get us. But a smile flashed across my mother’s face.

  After a fifteen-minute drive, we arrived at the home of Sister Hill. She was a middle-aged woman who lived alone. Her four children were grown and didn’t live there. Her poor black neighborhood was made up of houses and apartment complexes and located on Dixon Circle, where a lot of filth and crime took place. She never had visitors, and the
house stayed hot. But she was nice, baked all kinds of goodies, and wailed like the people at the church.

  The first few weeks, she and my mother sat around all day reading the Bible. My sister left to stay with a friend. The stress on my brother and me eased. We would stay in the apartment all day, watching the new woman make candy apples, or would go outside to catch fireflies in the surrounding woods. Once we had exhausted ourselves outdoors, we would lie and sweat on the couches. It was the same routine for the first month: play, sweat, and sleep. And then Sister Hill’s lusty niece came around.

  Jackie’s* skin was fair and silky. Only sixteen, she had the kind of body that attracted men. Her eyes always glistened with a curiosity for what the world and men held for her. For excitement, she would visit the young boys in the apartment complex. The minute her mom dropped her off, she would shoot out the door and not return until nightfall. Jackie would sleep in one of the bedrooms, even though the house stayed cooler in the living room. She usually ignored my brother and me, until one day she asked my mother if I could walk her to the store.

  Jackie and I worked our way through the complex to a street that led to the neighborhood grocery. Everyone was outside making noise—families, kids, wine heads, street peddlers. Though the sun had begun to set, it was still hot.

  “Jerrold, what did you do every day at your house?” she asked as we walked to the store.

  “I mostly kept to myself.”

  “Did you have a girlfriend?”

  “No.”

  “Have you ever had a girl before?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Who?”

  I lied. “I’ve had a whole lot of girls.”

  Jackie smiled. “Quit lying, boy. You haven’t had sex.”