Sleepover

When my mom and I lived alone when I was younger, my mom single, and my sisters out of the house, I hated to leave my mom at home alone.  I hated going on sleepovers because when it came to bedtime, I lied in bed wondering if she would be okay at home alone. She was probably thankful for the reprieve, but I didn't understand this as a child.  I didn't know what she could possibly do while I was not around, and I often came home from sleepovers because I was "ill."

We were not a religious family.  Granted, my mom asked God for help a lot, but we never went to church.  I'm sure she blamed God, too, but our troubles usually were self-created.  We owned a bible, my mother's white, leather-bound one from her childhood. I never read it, though I liked the zipper that tucked the pages within the leather cover, and I liked seeing my mom's handwritten name inside on the cover.  And though the bible never became part of my regular reading--I am a staunch agnostic now--I was obsessed with the notion of people going to church as a child.  Maybe it was their customs that I found fascinating or that they were drastically different from our family.  Or maybe I just liked the snacks afterwards--the stale coffee and tables of treats and donuts in the basement.  I remember on a number of occasions going to church with friends after begging my mom if I could. I went to church with my childhood best friend, Laurie, though I don't remember much about the church, other than it was across the street from a junior high I later attended, and it was probably the only normal religious experience I had as a child.

At one time, we lived across the street from a strange, poor family that buttered their sandwiches with a lot of mayonaise--and the parents used to ask each other when making sandwiches for each other "Lou?  You want it thick on the mayo or thin?" And the answer was always thick.  Mira was their oldest daughter, and at their church, I took the sacrament, though never having been baptized.  I also took home a small wooden goblet, which presumably resembled the goblet used during church services to hold the wine that the priest offered to the congregation.  I remember the thick wax that lined the mini goblet, and scraping it off with the edge of my fingernails.  I will never know how I  got someone to give me wine--I was probably only 8, but I did.

This religious fascination led to hanging out with Alyssa and Allison, two red-headed LDS twins who played violin with me in elementary school. When I visited their house, I was always amazed by the amount of family members--there was something like 18 of them--or at the amount of cheerfulness filling their house as they baked muffins together as a family. The twins visited our house once, and I remember making a big deal about having 7-Up for them to drink since that was all I thought mormons could drink, seriously. And then the fascination led to spending time with Elizabeth, the elementary school's star viola player--she was LDS, too, I think, and I wondered why our friendship never blossomed. Go figure.

And the reason I bring this all up is because there had to be a reason I wanted to hang out with Amy Smith, whose name is not really Smith. She has a very distinctive name, and though the story I am about to tell is true, I find it important to protect her identity.  The reason I wanted to hang out with Amy was not because she and I had a lot in common or because I liked her that much; it was probably because I saw weird church rituals and snack tables in my future.  I think she asked me to the sleepover, and I said yes, and it is a decision I will never forget.

The sleepover started like a normal one.  We ate pizza and had popcorn and were going to watch movies, I think.  But then, one of the sleepover attendees got ill.  And as she lay on the daybed in Amy's room, Amy's mother suggested we pray for the little girl. We gathered around the bed, each of us laying a hand on the clammy girl.  Then Amy's mother started invoking the spirit and swaying and praying for the girl's fever to leave her body.  And in this moment, I did not like religion anymore.  It scared me.  And it made me uncomfortable.  Child-me thought something like give the girl some fucking Tylenol already, and child-me stood there, paralyzed, swaying and praying with the Pentecostals, not knowing what to do or how to get out of the situation. I couldn't call my mom to rescue me from the sleepover because she had plans that evening, and I had already come home "ill" from one sleepover that month already.  I don't remember how long the praying went on, but it interrupted our movies and popcorn eating--though I am sure I wouldn't have enjoyed the movies--they probably would have been some made-for-tv-movie adaptations of the rapture or snake charming or people speaking in tongues.  All I know is I was freaked out and bad.

And if the praying hadn't freaked me out enough, what happened the next day was worse.  I tried to call my mom early in the morning to come and get me, and I couldn't reach her.  I don't know how I survived the night in that place, as I was sure I would be driven mad.  The fever girl still had a fever but was alive.  God had not cured her, nor had he rescued me soon enough from the crazies--proof that he doesn't exist because no god would be cruel enough to make anyone witness what was about to happen.

As the morning progressed, Amy's baby sister, probably 2-3 years old wandered the house, and eventually she took off her diaper.  The parents thought it was cute.  What happened next was by far the most disturbing image that has ever been seared into my brain: Amy's baby sister squatted on the carpet and took a huge shit (huge for a baby), and then, quickly following behind, the family's chocolate lab who ate the shit off the ground. The dog ate the baby's poop.  Okay, let me lay this down again, the baby crapped on the floor, and the dog slurped and gobbled the crap down like it were a goddamned Pupperoni treat.  And then, the baby getting praise from the family, and thinking it funny that the dog had consumed her feces--what baby wouldn't--decided to take two steps and force out another turd on the ground, and the dog ate the turd with as much enthusiasm as the first time.  Take a minute to let that sink in.

My mom eventually arrived to pick me up.  She had been trying to reach me, too, but the Smiths' phone was giving a busy signal because it was off the hook.  So my mom, thinking I was having fun, left me to play longer while she went to the mall without me.  Little did she know she was changing my life.  And I have never been the same, and I think this is part of where my abandonment issues stem from.