Sacrifices

They talked about changing schools and they laughed about the idea of anger management. But his dad said that self-control showed the intelligence of a man. That left the strongest impact on him and robbed him of immaturity before its time. But he felt that it was worth it because life was clearer to adults

Two days later they were gone. The two days that passed faded in memory so quickly he cried about it. The last hug of his mother the last laugh with his father were gone because of his optimistic view of the years to come. The night came; his dad went to pick up his mother at the strip club. He must have gone inside to get her when the place exploded. Later the police told him that Christian extremists had put the bomb there. Written in the parking lot was a spray painted message saying CLEANSE THE WORLD OF SIN with a cross next to it. The police officer told him that this was not real Christianity and it shouldn’t affect his views on the way it really was. Bradley told him to fuck himself. After the funeral the court appointed foster parents. There was no available family, his grandparents were incompetent and the only living uncle was out of the country.

Ironically his foster parents were Christians. (Christian to the core) The T.V had all but 6 channels blocked. They wouldn’t allow his music or many of his books and they threw away his Marilyn Manson T-shirt. Treachery he thought to himself. The lady was strange; she would wake up and spend every day in what she called a prayer closet. He called it a fucking broom closet. She would get excited and dance around the room to her Christian rock, and when the music was slow she dropped to her knees and cried. As a parent she was not a complete failure, but as a person she seemed too far gone. He could tell she always wanted kids but for some unspoken reason never did. She liked to listen when he talked and occasionally common sense slipped out of her but mostly everything was from the bible. The man wasn’t even a man to him. He worked at the church that they went to. He barely ever said anything at all anymore.

After living in this house for a year he still didn’t know anything about him really. He moved in shortly before he turned fourteen and dealt with the madness for a year. But he had privately called the judge and begged for a new home. At first there were none available and the family he was with wasn’t breaking any rules so it wasn’t a priority, but things were finally looking good for his own exodus.

Never the less every Sunday since he moved in he had gone to the Church of Hope with these imposter parents as he called them. He remembered the first time they went to church they sat in the front row. The pastor was a radical and passionate Christian. His first day confirmed his beliefs and honestly kind of scared him. But that was nothing compared to his next surprise. When he looked behind him the shock almost brought involuntary laughter. The fat ass teacher from his old school was sitting behind him. Smiling at the irony Brad gave him the peace symbol, and then put the pointer finger down. He could have mirrored the devil with his grin. He remembered this teacher tried to sue his parents but his dad talked his way out of it.