I never wrote about the event I'm about to describe when it happened.
When you are upset you can't write about anything objectively. You are subsumed by the emotion.
Brain: off.
Now, many years have passed.
I have disconnected from the visceral response and I can be more even-handed.
It is time for me to tell you about a conversation.
I'm pretty sure this took place in 2005.
I was visited once a week by my old best friend at the art gallery where I was working . He had been an active JW for 50+ years and was
mainly responsible for my introduction into the religion. His name was John and he was always in good standing as far as I knew.
I won't go into all the details. Suffice to say his family had been practically MY family for years and years.
I had moved to California and we lost touch. I was married to his sister for 9 years. She became an alcoholic and had died behind the wheel.
Our 3 children I raised by myself thereafter.
John (the JW) knew I had not been a JW since 1978 and that I was Apostate.
Yet--amazingly--he had sought me out after I moved back to Texas.
So that is the setting. Johnny was an elder in the congregation and he is electively visiting his old buddy from elementary/high school who is apostate!
Strange, eh?
Our conversations were wide-ranging. They always had been.
Eventually, as you may suspect, he and I would inevitably get into it! After all, it was the ELEPHANT in the room.
We had many of these back and forths.
My opinion of this is simple. Johnny could never never ever BE HIMSELF with his JW "friends". The secret self stayed hidden. He knew how to play the game and live a double life. But, that wears you out. It really wears you out...
He is slick. He is slippery. He has always stayed on his feet because he never goes on the defensive. He knows how to turn things on a pivot if you aren't careful. But, you see--I know John better than anybody else. I know all his tricks. So, I often was ready with a counter-punch! Not always.
I've written before of these conversations. But, I've never written about THIS particular one!
And that begins.....now.
When Johnny and I turned 18 he was dating alot. I wasn't. I was an Asperger's kind of guy and John was a normal adolescent: horny!
He met a girl who was only 14 years old who had two sisters and brother whose Mom was a JW but whose father was "Worldly".
How Worldly?
John confided that the Dad regularly fondled and molested all of those daughters!
The JW Mom had gone to the brothers in authority at her congregation. She had told them everything. She wanted to know what to do.
I know YOU know what they told her was horrible and wrong and evil. But, she didn't know. She listened to them.
She was supposed to STAY with her husband.
What did John do?
He decided he would MARRY her to get her out of the house!
Does that sound like a sane plan or an ethical solution or even a reasonable and rational way of protecting that family? Well, hell no!
But, I won't go into all that. I will become extremely angry. I'm not angry right now. I don't want to get that way.
In 1967, just before I was about to be arrested, tried in court and sent to Seagoville Fedral Prison, John married the 14 year old.
He had his sister pretend to be the Mother and grant permission for her to marry. John also lied to the county court that he was about to be drafted into Viet Nam. Sob story.
They got their license and I was the "best man".
So much for all that.
Fast Forward. The evil worldly Dad continued to molest and go from the other daughter's bed to the Mom's regularly and with impunity.
The son starts to "lose it" and can't stand what is going on in the family. The girls start becoming "delinquent" and acting out. The Mom gets disfellowshipped. She divorced the Dad!
Horrible stuff, right?
I'm in prison and don't know what the hell is going on "out there".
I only hear about it later.
Fast Forward....
The son commits suicide. The younger daughters are disfellowshipped for inappropriate conduct. The Mom is reinstated.
Fast Forward.....
John grows older. His 14 year old child bride grows older.
Up to present time...
The Mom got disfellowshipped again. The pressures in the congregation and the chaos of her personal life just made towing the line too much.
She is on the "OUTS".
Now we come to the clincher. What is the thing that upset me so much?
I'm talking to John on one of his weekly visits. He has 5 kids now grown up. All have been disfellowshipped. His own daughter is in AA.
I'm sitting there listening.
He is moaning about how he and his wife never yelled at them or quarreled with each other. He never hit them. Why oh why are they all such
worthless shits! Blah blah blah. I just listened. Biting my tongue....
Then, he switches to a slightly different topic.
His wife won't have anything to do with her own Mother. Her mother, after all, is disfellowshipped. Her mom never protected her. Blah blah blah.
And then, John drops into the conversation the one bit of information I just can't handle.
Want to know what it is? Well, I'll tell you.
His wife is now BEST FRIENDS WITH HER DAD! Isn't it great that he is now "sorry" for all he did and wants to make it up to her.
She is overjoyed. Finally a relationship with her father!
Disfellowshipped Mom? Piss on her!
Molesting asshole of a Dad? Yay team!!
I started shaking when I heard this!
The....the...utter injustice...the crazy-headed logic....the ignorant stupidity just overwhelmed me until I thought my head would explode!!
"WHAT?" I almost yelled at John.
"Your wife is now best friends with the worldly, piece of shit molester that destroyed her family? But, her poor abused and bedraggled MOTHER who got no support from the brothers at the Kingdom Hall who can't stand the shitty religion anymore ISN'T WORTH THE TIME OF DAY? IS THAT WHAT YOU'RE TELLING ME?"
He was taken aback, of course. He told me I was thinking about it all wrong. The Dad was repentent. The Dad had never been a JW. So HE wasn't disfellowshipped. He SHOULD BE forgiven! The Mom was not repentent....blah blah blah.
I was in a total state of overwhelm.
I excused myself and told John I had to go back to work.
He looked at me like I was some sort of nervous Nellie who could not understand squat.
And that was that.
We never discussed any of that again.
I have no idea where any of that went from that point forward.
Something reminded me of that today and I just had to talk about it. That is why I'm posting it.
It is long long after the fact and there is nothing anybody can do at this juncture.
I'm an evil apostate and neither John nor his wife will have anything more to do with me. But, her sack of shit Dad---oh, he's a lovely friend!
End of rant.
