121

One small step backward

I can never forget the night during the 2002 semester. I was studying for my art history exam and I knew that Venum was in the back doing drugs...the bad drugs (cocaine and crack.) I knew it and I had already been out the back door on three occasions to keep an eye on him. At that point, I had already decided that me and George would just be friends (this was before the pregnancy and before I decided to put George out of my life for good.

I had gotten to the point where I knew I couldn't watch Venum all night because I had a test to study for. I went inside and started to study from my art history book. Missy, one of the girls from the neighborhood, was sleeping on the couch and Damian was sleeping in his little twin bed. All was quiet except for Venum piddling around in the back garage room. Over the past year or so, he had built a make shift shop in the back where he worked on cars to help ends meet....or to get money for his habit...who knows. We I remember falling asleep that night because I was exhausted.

I awoke to Venum standing over me crying. I jumped up and asked him what he was doing. HE was freaking out and his eyes were huge. When he spoke, he was saying 'help me' over and over. I asked him what he said and shook the sleep from my head.

"Help me, Sherrie...I need your help...please." Venum begged me and got to his knees.

I looked down at him and asked him what was wrong. I knew he was geeking really badly and I asked if he wanted to go to the hospital. He said no.

"I need you to help me, Sherrie....help me get off drugs." he cried again.

I pulled him onto the bed and asked him who was giving him the drugs. He told me that he would tell me who but I couldnt tell anyone else. He told me that the same guy who sold us the weed also sold him the harder stuff. I then asked him how I was supposed to help him. Then he grabbed me roughly and pleaded for help again.

I stopped and looked him in the face and spoke....or she spoke. Spirit spoke kindly to Venum for one of the first times since she had returned.

"I cannot help you, you have to help yourself." I was plain and simple and then I shrugged him off me.

He pleaded again. "but how do i help myself?"

"pray" Spirit spoke and walked out the door and into the night.


2003

But we were saved now....saved by the blood of God. We were church goers and it seemed like everything had changed for the better. We were going to special events and visiting other churches. As Dorian grew inside me, my faith grew and I started to dance and sing more in church. I was learning to control my thing within and she hated it. But when I sang the gospel songs, I let her sing, it was her that danced as well. When I made love to my husband, it was Sherrie because once I let her out and she got too rough. She had this enmity toward him and she tried to be dominant. Venum never liked me to be dominant and so I made her stay away. The church began to instill in me the desire to be sumissive again and so I would spend my free time cooking and reading my bible. Venum took the last bag of weed and flushed it down the toilet. I ran to the bathroom and watched the bag go down the hole. I kind of panicked but Venum said it would be okay. The church told him that he was no longer Venum, he was Johnny and that we should start calling him that. I wasn't sure of it but I gave in because the church knew what was the right thing to do.

Everything I done from then on was religion based. I stopped watching anything that promoted sinful behaviour or demonic suggestion. We invited the Pastors of our church to visit our home. When they came into the house, they looked around and whispered to each other. They alerted us to the fact that our house had spirits inside it...in the walls, the objects and in the air. They said that they would have to cleanse our house of bad spirits. They looked in the book shelf and gasped. They also said that most of the books that were in the house were not of God and that it would be best if we got rid of them. I looked at Johnny and we agreed to clean up our lives. After they cleansed our home, Johnny and I took all the books, that were not good and we put them in a trash bag. Then we started to discuss the fact that if we just took them to good will or sold them, then someone else would be affected by them and so we decided to burn them. I know this sounds horrible and honestly, it was. But we were in different conciousness at the time. We were so in tune with religion that we were not in tune with reality at all. I will say here and I will say to anyone...to burn a book is horrendous and it is something that no one should do. It now reminds me of Farenheit 451.

But we burned those books. We burned autographed Anne Rice books, Stephen King books, many zombie short story books, vampire paperbacks, spell books, Voodoo and Hoodoo practice manuels, sci fi books...like Azimov and etc. We burned things that should never have been destroyed and it was all in the name of God.

And we wished to be happy together and comforted by the fact that all bad was cleansed from our home. I even burned a painting that I had done for Venum when we first met. Yes, not only did we burn books but we burned artwork. What manner of madness was this..apparently, the madness of Godliness.
2003
I started to talk to Dorian and Damian would climb up and talk to him as well. It was the oddest thing as Damo talked to Dorian and then Dorian kicked at his brother. I would giggle at them and then hug Damo tight. Damian was in the first grade and he was doing so well in school. The school had tested him and found that he was gifted. Damian was taking special classes in which he learned thing that some of the other kids did not learn. He also recieved his first hair cut and now he said he looked like a boy. I would laugh at him when he said that others called him a girl. He did however, have the most beautiful curls and my mother's eyes. I could look into his eyes and see true wisdom and that gave me comfort. I held nothing back from him teaching him about babies and the universe. When I would learn something new, I would teach him the same thing. I talked to him with large words and not small ones because I did not want to talk down to him. I remember my father got mad when I would talk to him in large words but I would still do it because I refused to treat Damian as a child. To me, he was just a small human.


2003

Johnny's phone rang one day and it was sitting beside me on the couch. I reached down instinctively and answered the phone. When I answered they hung up. After a while, the phone rang again and I answered the phone. A woman said hello and I asked who it was. She said it was Melissa and suddenly I realized who it was. I asked if she was calling to speak with Johnny and she just said that she was calling to tell him something that Michael needed him to know. I took the phone to Johnny and left it at that. AT that moment, I had very little suspicion since we were avid church goers and all. I just went back to what I was doing and when Johnny came into the house, I smiled up at him with happiness.