Jesus Freaks: Sins of the Father

I choke on my water, and some of it shoots out of my nose, an embarrassing trait I’ve not been able to overcome since I was in first grade. “That’s…brilliant.”

“I started as a political science major, like she was. We met in that class sophomore year when we were grouped together with a few other kids for some project. I don’t even remember what it was now.”

Oh, he remembers. By the intensity in his eyes, he remembers.

“Anyway,” Roland continues as if he’s heard my private thoughts, “we started talking…then dating—”

“Then having sex,” I cut in, anticipating the wrong turn their innocent dating was about to take.

Roland’s face falls. “Yes. But that wasn’t all. Sure, I realize now that I should’ve waited till marriage for sex, Kennedy, but your mother and I engaged in a very loving relationship. We studied together and went on dates; by all accounts we had a very sweet relationship.”

“What was wrong, then? Besides the sex?”

He covers his hand with his mouth for a moment. “I was lying to her.”

My jaw clenches and my throat squeezes while I wait for him to continue.

“I fell in with a couple of guys from the team that were into drugs and alcohol.”

“Drugs?” I whisper. “I must have missed that part of the sermon.”

Roland takes a heavy breath. “I tried them once…weren’t for me. But the drinking was and I hid that from your mom. She didn’t realize what a problem it was at first. I was just out partying, I’d tell her. With the guys. Then…I started cheating on her.”

I squeeze my eyes shut as though they’re my ears and will somehow prevent me from hearing this.

She’s never told me any of this.

“I’d already had sex, you see, and it was not only no longer a big deal, but that mixed with the drinking clouded all of my moral fortitude. What’s the big deal, right?” Roland is remorsefully animated as he shrugs and holds out his hands as though he’s acting the part of his twenty-year-old self.

“Soon enough,” he goes on, “I wanted sex all the time. Sex and alcohol. I made a sport out of it so much that it got me kicked off the basketball team. No second chances.”

“Really?” This story is causing conflicting emotions in me. The star basketball player falling in with the wrong crowd is tragic. The All-American boyfriend screwing around on his girlfriend is sickening.

Or is that tragic, too?

Roland nods. “I was hungover all the time, or late to practice. Your mom had picked up on my behavior a few weeks before that, and we began fighting constantly. We were too young to have that kind of relationship. No one should have that kind, but by the time it was clear I was a full-blown alcoholic, she felt stuck. Like she couldn’t leave the sick guy.”

I scrunch my eyebrows and look off into the distance. He fixed the clock on the coffee maker, so I can’t hone in on the blinking numbers. While my mom has never read me the riot act about Roland, she has sure never bothered to paint a picture of sympathy around him, either. Nowhere in conversation with her would I have guessed that she felt trapped.

“Things just got worse. The alcohol had soaked through my brain and I took advantage of her kindness. I continued sleeping around on her when I was drunk—which basically turned into a twenty-four hour a day sort of thing.”

“Wow,” I mumble. “Jesus is getting quite the introduction…”

Roland extends his hand across the island and places it tentatively on my forearm. “I’m getting there,” he assures before removing his hand from my arm.

“So,” he sighs, “then…she got pregnant.”

I let out a sharp one-syllable laugh and wave my hand. He chuckles, but it doesn’t even reach his face.

“I showed up at her dorm room in a stupor, demanding sex. She was in hysterics, which, miraculously, sobered me up a bit. I’d never seen her cry up to that point.”

I swallow hard at the image of my broken and pregnant mother facing her alcoholic boyfriend. “What’d she say?” I whisper.

“She told me she was pregnant, and she wasn’t going to have an abortion—even though she was pro-choice.”

I smile, biting my lip at my mother never losing an opportunity to assert her political beliefs.

Roland clears his throat. “She said that she couldn’t have a baby with an alcoholic, sex-addicted man. She said she wanted me to leave her alone, and that she didn’t want anything. She wanted me to sign away my parental rights as soon as possible so she could move on with her life without me.”

“How’d you feel about that?” I ask, leaning forward on my elbows.

Roland’s eyes stay glued to his hands. “Relieved. Like I got off scot-free.”

His honesty stuns me, despite the fact that I just told him I admire it about him. My mouth hangs open, wordless.

“I signed everything I needed to a week or two later and, as you can imagine, I failed out of school at the end of that semester. I went home to Michigan and continued my downward spiral.

“Did you ever tell your parents about me?”

Roland runs his tongue along his teeth. “Nope. Not till I got clean.”