Time for a trip in the Way-Back Machine –
     When I was a snot-nosed brat back in grade school, I had this friend, Shirley. She was a bit of a bully at times, but a decent enough friend. In fifth or sixth grade, she moved away, and became a pen pal, instead. We kept in touch that way, and about once a year or so, in the summer, we’d stay the night at each other’s houses.
     Eventually, we both became old enough to drive, and trusted enough with the cars to drive to each other’s houses, and we did that a time or two. By then, though, we’d made other friends, and had other interests, and frankly, I was getting a bit tired of Shirley. She was still a bit of a bully, and I wasn’t the same little snot-nosed brat who tolerated that crap back in grade school. Also, Shirley was getting wild, wanting to drink and run around and party, and wanting to drag me along with, and that wasn’t really my scene. So I started drifting away a bit, not answering letters as promptly, not returning phone calls, that sort of thing.
     The year I graduated, I invited Shirley to my graduation. On the drive up to school, Shirley revealed to me that she had “found God” and been “born again”. She told me she was worried about my soul, and wanted me to come to her church and be “saved”. She kept this up the whole drive to the school, and there I was, trapped in the car with her, and too polite to reach across her, pop her door open, and boot her out while we drove. Dammit.
     After that, I pretty much stopped talking to her. I mean, how annoying do you have to be? I had said I wasn’t interested, and she wouldn’t leave me alone about it. She’d call up to tell me how much she loved Jesus, and how great her church was, and so forth, and there I’d be, trapped on the phone, too nice to just hang up or something.
     
     Tangenting off for a moment, let me just say that I never went to church when I was a kid, nor did my folks pester me too much about religion. I remember my dad telling me that, as kids, he’d been made to go to church every Sunday, though he hated it, and had determined not to do the same to his kids. I seem to remember Mom mentioning God a few times, and making some Bible stories and a Bible available to my brother and I, but never being particularly interested in either. The kid’s Bible stories were insipid, and the Bible itself was dry and boring and difficult to understand. So, basically, I grew up a dirty little heathen.
     Still, I also grew up in a small town in northern Michigan, and if I was a dirty little non-church-going heathen, then I was definitely in the minority. Most of my friends went to church every Sunday, and if I stayed the night on Saturday, then sure enough Sunday morning I got dragged to church. That got really annoying really quick, and I eventually learned not to stay the night on Saturday at certain friends’ houses.
     I went to a Southern Baptist church a few times with one friend when I was a bit older, and a Protestant church a few times as a kid, and wasn’t particularly impressed with either church. (Although I liked the Protestant church better, because I was eight, and there was Sunday school, where there were cookies and juice, and cookies and juice go a long ways when you’re eight.) The Baptist church in particular pissed me off, because my first trip there, at the tender age of fourteen or so, the preacher spent all morning telling us that gays were going to hell and abortionists were murderers, and even then, I knew that couldn’t be right. (Amusingly enough, the friend who took me to that church later came out as a lesbian, and left the church, but that’s another story.)

     So, the summer I graduated was a good summer, other than Shirley pestering me about her love affair with Jesus. Around August some time, the fair came to town, and I went the first two days with some other friends. While there, I saw the coolest thing. Some gal had a booth set up where she was making hair charms — thread dreads, they were called. Basically, she took a small bit of hair and braided some pretty thread into it, then wrapped the hair around and around, using a special knot, until you were left with a slender cord in different colors and patterns, hanging in your hair. To this, she could attach extensions, longer cords of thread full of beads and charms. They were so cool. And so expensive. Damn. I wanted one really, really badly, but it was Tuesday, and I wasn’t going to have any money until Thursday. And none of my friends were available to go with me on Thursday. Double damn!
     So, desperate, I called Shirley. (Girls, especially young girls, have to do everything in packs. Don’t ask me why. It’s genetic.) Shirley agreed to come to the fair . . . if I came over on Wednesday night and went to her church with her. *cue ominous music* Trapped and in desperate need of a thread dread and a friend to go with me while I got one, I agreed.
     I no longer remember the denomination of Shirley’s church. I want to say they were calling themselves “Southern Methodists” or something odd like that, but let me make no bones. These people were cultists. Even at the tender (and hormonally stupid) age of eighteen or so, I recognized that these people were seriously fucked up. The preacher didn’t look to be much older than me, and he was fat, pig-faced, freckled, and bore the air of a child molester. His wife looked like the stereotypical movie bull dyke, complete with a mannish mullet, flannel, and more chest hair than her husband. Their musical assistant, “Brother Randy” (I shit you not), was a wannabe Los Vegas lounge lizard. Their flock was, to a man, insane.
     We arrived Wednesday night. Shirley introduced me to Father Babyraper and his closet-lesbian wife, and Brother Randy. The church filled up a bit for the Wednesday service, and brother Randy commenced to playing the organ, interjecting throughout the hymns with “And how’s everyone doing tonight? Are we feeling the Lord tonight?” and other such religious, lounge-lizardly asides, as he sang gospel. I was all right (although highly amused and biting back giggles) with all this, until the flock, including my friend Shirley, began — no, really — flopping around on the floors and speaking in tongues.
     I remember having squeezed myself into the corner of the pew, as far away from the nutjobs as I could get without actually getting up and sprinting from the building. I watched, wide-eyed, as folks rolled around on the floor and gabbled nonsense. At one point, I caught the eye of another little girl (about ten or so) who had also clearly been dragged along by a friend, and who was also squeezed back into the corner of a pew and wide-eyed.
     I don’t remember what all I got preached at about, but I didn’t have to sit through too much of that. Shirley had to leave the service to go to her Wednesday night brainwashing classes, which converts had to take. I got to go along. Ooo, joy.
     The class was in a room in the basement, and led by the preacher’s wife. She talked at us a bit, and then the converts got to play a game. I wasn’t let to play, as I was just an unwashed heathen, and kids, I ain’t sorry.
     The game was called “Suicide Hotline”. The wife played the part of a suicidal caller, entirely too convincingly, and the converts took turns playing the callee. The kids (some in their early teens, some my age) had to use religious arguments to talk the wife out of shooting herself.
     Time after time, I watched the kids flinch as the wife held her hand up to her head in the shape of a gun and yelled “BANG!”. Each kid failed, no matter what they said. A couple of the younger ones looked near tears. I cannot begin to explain how deeply fucked up this scenario was. At the time, I remember being horrified and deeply freaked out, but not being able to articulate why. Older now, I look back, and see cultists and brainwashing in action, and that Mrs. Wife was probably entirely serious about shooting herself. I very much doubt she’s alive today. If she is, she’s probably blitzed out of her mind on lithium and Jesus. I have to wonder how many poor kids she emotionally scarred the hell out of with her cute little “game”.
     Four or five shaken kids into the wife’s game/plea for help, I leaned over to Shirley and said, “Where’s the bathroom?”
     ”Down the hall on the right.” Shirley said, watching the game, enraptured. I got up and fled, out of the church, and out to my car, where I sat in the summer heat with the windows rolled up, smoking cigarettes furiously, radio playing rock music, cranked all the way up. I was completely, thoroughly, creeped right the fuck out.
     The service and class let out a little while later, and Shirley came out. “Why’d you leave?” She asked, upset.
     ”Bored.” I answered, having no way to articulate how seriously fucked up her church and its leaders and flock were.

     We did make it to the fair the next day, after an otherwise uneventful sleep-over. I got my thread dread, thirty bucks, and incredibly cool. I still miss that thing, and wish I knew how to make them. I’d have another one. When I finally had to cut it out, I saved it for quite awhile, but I think I finally lost it somewhere. I never lost the memory of that fucked up church, though, and I only ever talked to Shirley once after that, many years later. She’d gone hog wild the summer after the church, got herself knocked up, drunk at a party, miscarried, joined the army, got herself knocked up again and married. Last I knew, when I spoke to her several years ago, she was a military wife with two kids, and miserable. She’d popped in once when I was with the ex. Haven’t seen her since.

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