Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Jesus Was My Best Friend

Originally posted by the homie Byron Crawford, 4/15/05














During my 2nd year in college, I started going through some real depressing shit. In the midst of having the best four years of my life, life started getting all serious on me when the following course of events occured:

1. My girl tells me she's pregnant. Being too young to be a parent, she gets an abortion. I missed the appointment because the night before, I drunkenly fell asleep in the arms of another girl across campus. Feeling like an asshole, I start getting all types of heavy and guilt ridden. We of course break up.








2. My next chick, which I'm hitting on the regular gets pregnant! Fuck! So she has an abortion (this time I make the appointment only to arrive at the clinic, surrounded by protesting pro-lifers holding up all types of “Straight to Hell” signs) and now I'm really fucked up in the head.








3. This jealous Chinaman dude who got dumped by his girlfriend a coupla weeks earlier decides it would be a great idea to drive up from Chinatown to Ithaca to freaking shoot her dead, with a mac 10. He does so, then splatters his brain out in the dorm hall walls right across the road from my dorm, like on some Columbine shit, but way before that. And really. He died that day too.














4. Some shit pops off in the Middle East and all this talk starts up on campus about the possibility of nuclear war and the end of the world as we know it.








5. I had done horribly my freshman year, was on probation and was miserably failing statistics, which meant, if I failed, I would fail out of school, thus becoming a hopeless loser on the streets of Bed Stuy, Brooklyn.








The level of depression I'm experiencing is like nothing I ever felt before. So, one day, I'm in my dorm room listening to some Prince [|||], (when it was cool for men to listen to Prince circa the "Purple Rain" era) when my boy Phil stops by. He and I were cool since we were on line together (I had pledged a frat the year before). He's all pensive and shit, shooting the shit about nothing in particular when out of the blue, dude states that Prince's music was devil music and not particularly good for my soul. Wtf? I'm like “huh?” He then proceeds to ask me if I were to die today, was I 100% certain I would go to heaven? I reflexively said “hell yeah”, but inside, that shit had me really fucked up. Normally, I would have told dude to get the flying fuck out of my room, but alas, I was depressed and not yet the worldly and experienced Combat Jack that I am today. Sensing that my shit wasn't tight, Phil invited me to a prayer meeting that night.






So later on, I go to a prayer meeting held in this chick Alliyah's hot ass room and it's filled with all types of wierdo cats I peeped on campus but didn't know what the eff was wrong with em. Everyone up in the piece had this weird ass glazed look in their eyes that I can't explain, but you know it when you see it. My man Arvis (a black dude from Arkansas who was a champion jock on the lacrosse team) was up in there praying his ass off and I figured since he was in there (he scored mad ass from chicks during our freshman year) I figured it was cool for me to be there as well. Anyways, the room was crowded with like 25 heads, and we're all standing in a circle holding hands [||] sweating, reciting psalms when out of no where Alliyah screams out “JESUS” scaring the shit outta me, then the whole room erupts in some crazy ass praying, on some super dupa fast shit and motherfuckers are sounding like Twista rapping while high on cocaine and speed. Jesus Phil whispers to me that everyone just caught the “spirit” and were “praying in tongues”. Not to be outdone, I'm doing my best to keep up with all this madness and I'm trying some speed praying but all I'm doing is mumbling worse that Jigga at a press conference. Then Jesus Arvis starts twitching like he's an effin narcoleptic (only without that foamy ass spittle around his lips) and this other bitch from my psych class yells out “ALLELUJAH” and drops on the mutha fucking ground with a loud ass “THUD!” and the insanity rises way past level 15! Needless to say, I am now scared shitless of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. After about an hour, everyone calms the eff down and they explain to me that in order to be saved and accepted into the house of the Lord, I can no longer curse, drink, think lewd thoughts, smoke the blunt and listen to heathen music. Fuck!







A few weeks go by and I'm trying my best to stay holy. Of course being that cool dude on campus, I keep all this shit to myself. Especially knowing how my hell bound kniccas would joke me on my road to redemption the eff out. In the cafeteria while in the middle of staring at some chick's fanny, I catch myself, in my room about to pop in some RUN DMC, I catch myself, my niggas stop by to start a blunt cypher, I catch myself, the Deltas and AKA's about to have sorority parties with some new young and drunk chicks from other colleges attending, I catch myself, I got my muh-fuckin bitches calling me on some late night booty call shit, I CATCH MYSELF! I got my eyes zeroed in on that effin stairway to heaven and nothing on God's green earth is going to sway me the fuck to the dark side!











After a coupla more prayer sessions, the God Squad inform me that I'm ready to get saved. We schedule for them to pick me up the following Sunday morning to go to church and then and there, I will be officially baptized and accepted into the house of the Lord. By now, all my bitches have officially cut me off, thinking I'm hitting some new chicks they never saw before and my crew start joking me the eff out like I fell off. Its cool though, cause the stairway to heaven is real close. On some insurance shit though, I decide to put my best friend Tony Smalls in on all this. Tony was my buddy from high school and we had been through some rough times together growing up in Brooklyn. I figured, since he knew me so well, he wouldn't think I lost all of my marbles. The plan was for him to join me on our trip to church and if shit wasn't kosher, he had my back and he would convince me not to go through with this off the wall shit.

Sunday arrives and Jesus Phil, Jesus Arvis, Jesus Alliyah and the the rest of the God Squad show up to my dorm room. We all hop into this dusty ass white van, along with Tony and we head off campus going straight to church. We get to church and this joint has to be one of the creepiest places I have ever been in my life! There's a statue of the most fucked up bloodiest Jesus ever known to man hanging from the cross, the congregation consists of jigs and poor white trash townies all downtrodden, dirty and looking like they were gathering for a Children of The Corn convention, the Reverend, a cracka ass cracka with mad grime and grit under his fingernails was preaching at the tops of lungs about the flames of the inferno and all I'm thinking is “there's no way in hell Tony and I are getting a chance to back outta this freakshow!” Of course there's more screaming, yelling, speed praying, spazzed out twitching, all types of dropping to the floor with loud ass “THUDS” (all of which would be just perfect at a Special Olympics session) when in the middle of the madness and from our seats, Jesus Phil shouts out that he gathered two lost sheep (guess who?) ready to be cleansed of their sins. Some Corn people hand us some white robes to change into as they fill this cold ass looking stone tub with some cold ass looking water from a hose. The tub gets filled, everyone’s ready and I convince Tony to go first. Reverend Cracka grabs Tony's forehead with those dirty ass hand, shouts out “ALLELUJAH!” and dunks my nigga in the tub with more force than Lebron James during the All Star Weekend. My turn comes, those grubby ass hands grab my dome, I get tossed backwards into the tub, I feel all my sins being washed away and immediately realize that I was right about the temperature of the ice cold water. I get pulled out, the Corn congregation go totally ape-shit and Tony and I are officially saved.

Later that afternoon, after the fun has died down, Tony and I head to our favorite spot on campus, this lush grassy hill overlooking campus and providing us with the most breath taking view of the Cayuga river. We're not saying much, being all reflective, glaze eye tryna creep in, and although I'm feeling like I was just granted a new lease on life, I'm thinking that for the rest of my life in this physical form, I have forsaken cursing, drinking (which I really enjoyed when I was a sinner), no more heathen music (no rap, no pop, nothing), no weed, no fanny (until I get married), no fanny, NO FANNY!!! I look at Tony, who's starting to get that weird ass look in his eyes, and ask “Yo nigga, you got any of that weed I had you hold for me a few weeks ago?” He pauses, that weird look instantly vanishes, he smiles and says “No doubt!” We get up, head to his dorm room, call some other members of our crew and sinfully backslide down that stairway to heaven, using the flames of hell to blaze up some refreshing and much needed trees.

During the rest of that semester, I did my god damned best to avoid Jesus Phil, Jesus Arvis, Jesus Alliyah and the rest of the God Squad. It proved to be one of the most difficult things to accomplish since those effin holly rollers are persistent as all hell. But I gotta tell you, something really spiritual happened while my black ass was floating like an ice cube in that cold ass tub. Since that day, I have never, ever come close to even feeling guilty about my again. Praise God!

6 comments:

  1. It was classic the first time i read it on Bols site and its still a classic.

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  2. i knew i read this before

    good read CJ

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  3. yo I stumbled upon this blog via another site... glad i did, quality social literature!

    peace,
    Logic1

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  4. HILARIO ANDRETTI...

    My last year in college my fellow footballers/roommates all were on the Sunday Morning tip. I was usually way too hungover to be yelled at and chastised by the preacherman. So they'd all sigh and say they'd pray for me, and I rolled over and was soothed by Pastor Pillow of the Bedside Baptist Church...

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  5. 1st time reading, had me on the floor...

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  6. read this on Bol previously... along with diddy joint and Aruba, one of the most classic stuff. look forward to more of the good shit.

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