9
That started with my identity. It wasn’t that I wanted to ignore my past, but I wanted to walk as the new man God had made me.
King Buchanan was dead.
God had made me into something new and I had left the old life behind.
There is something weird about psychology, though.
I had been struggling, having been without a woman for so long.
I tried to abstain, but after seeing Sister Aaliyah and getting closer to her, it reminded me of all the time I had spent away from a touch like that.
It was maddening to see someone so pure and feminine.
I wasn't used to being around many dark-skinned women. I had slept with plenty of them in the past, but they were specks in the wide range of lighter-skinned women I usually ended up with.
Maybe that was just a result of the genre of music my band played and the type of girls that followed us.
To me, Aaliyah was exotic.
She was a far cry from the girls who used to flock to me.
It’s not that I hadn’t taken a girl’s virginity before.
I had done it quite often, as a matter of fact.
I was like one of those manufacturers that build bears to make a child’s wish come true.
Some of those girls’ only wish was to have their virginity taken by the drummer of Black Marroh. I obliged.
But I wasn’t often nice about it.
I wanted to give them something they wouldn’t forget.
I was a little rough, a little mean… maybe a little nicer with the prettier ones, but still. I had ruined girls in the past, too.
There were women I liked who were innocent, and that innocence attracted me. It made me want to crush them and turn them out so that I would ruin every other man for them afterward.
But now, with a new set of eyes and a new heart, I realized just how beautiful and innocent women like that truly were. Innocence was something I had to come to terms with appreciating, especially since I had spat on it so carelessly and snuffed out a life.
Sister Aaliyah was something I could look at but not touch, and it was driving me crazy.
That old demon tried to rear its ugly head, telling me to seduce her and make her sin with me.
I was hungry and my flesh was lonely.
After the first time I really talked with her, I spent a considerable part of that Sunday back in my old ways, trying to rub the monster out of me one last time just to get some relief.
I had been writing letters back and forth with Jawar.
He was my brother, so I confessed to him what I had done. I told him I felt like I had taken ten steps back and how displeased God must be with me.
“Don’t dwell on the past,” Jawar wrote back. “You asked for forgiveness, so you keep pushing forward. Every day, you make the right decision.”
It was like he knew.
In my earlier letters, I had told him, “I want to come visit you soon. I’m getting some money together so I can get on a plane.”
But the response I got from Jawar was different.
“You got to move on with your life, King,” he stated in his letter. “I never knew my biological brother. You’re the only brother I’ve ever had in my life. You’re the only thing outside of God that mattered to me on this earth, and I need you to live for me. Don’t look back at this place.”
There was something about that letter that… didn’t sit right with me. I spent extra time praying for him. I wrote a letter back, pouring all my love and encouragement into it so he wouldn’t feel alone.
All I wanted to do was see him soon.
But… I never got that chance.
He never answered my letter.
Only three days later, on the Sunday when I went over to Yvonne’s house to video chat with him, she answered the door in tears.
“They shot him,” she told me through tears.
I remember my only response was… to laugh.
My brain just would not process what she was saying.
Those three words were so ridiculous that it had to be fake. It had to be a joke. I didn’t even know who she was talking about, because it couldn’t be Jawar.
But it was. No amount of denial would change that.
I eventually found out that Jawar was on a work leave and had been moved to the same area where Bird had been transferred.
I have no idea how that was even arranged.
Jawar, the gentle giant who stayed away from all physical altercations, the man who never made problems and was always kind, killed Bird with his bare hands.
Then he killed two of the guards for seemingly no reason. They had no choice but to put him down. It was like he put himself in that position on purpose.
The funeral was six days later.
I felt numb.
I couldn’t understand God’s decision to let that happen.
Then, of course, I blamed myself.
I spent that week thinking it was my fault because I had broken my vow of celibacy and given in to my lust the week before. I felt I was being punished. I thought it was my fault because my disobedience didn’t just affect me.
The next Sunday, Yvonne called me over.
“I’m not going to lose two sons,” she expressed to me as I cried in her arms. “I need to see you. I need to always know you’re okay.”
I told her it was my fault, though I didn’t tell her why.
“That is nonsense,” Yvonne told me.
She talked about how much Jawar loved me.
She said the reason he probably did what he did was because he knew I would keep looking back at the prison as long as he was there.
He knew his purpose was to save one person.
He had always told her, “Mama, if I could save one person or bring one person to Christ, that would be a dream come true. I feel like I could go home then.”
And she and I cried.
I had come so far, and now here we are.
What would Jawar think of me now?
Was he even up there after murdering those two guards?
How is that possible when God says not to murder?
I can't believe in a world where a man has followed God for most of his later life, only to make a decision like that and end up in hell.
It doesn't make any sense to me. And then if that’s the case… why bother?
I get up from playing the drums to take a swig of more Everclear. Maybe everything I had believed in was just cope and there really is no way to escape pain.
Not pain like this.
How could I feel the closest thing I had ever had to paradise, that felt legitimate, only to have it ripped away from me again just like it was when I was little?
Just like the antichrist stole from me.
I can't be hurt if I don't feel.
Maybe monsters aren't meant to change.
Maybe they can still do good by playing their part as monsters.
There can't be a heaven with no hell.
There can't be good with no evil.
There can't be a God with no devil.
And if God was real, and everything that had happened in the last few years had actually happened, I wouldn't be here right now in this situation.
Maybe I should just let go…
Purge myself of everything that doesn't feel natural.
Maybe my devotion to God had all been an act, or… maybe this is God's plan.
And if God is real… then… I dunno.
He’ll show Himself again.
Maybe to see God again… to actually see Him like I did… maybe I need Paradise.