Jesus lives! In my old bedroom.

Absolutely nothing like what I'm describing.  There aren't enough objects, they aren't big enough, and they aren't covered in nicotine, dust and cobwebs.   

This isn't a fun post.  But it is a freaky one, and I'm responding to a request, so hang on - we're going on a ride into Bat Country without Dr. Gonzo and his bag of tricks.

In 1975 my mother found Jesus the way a Peterbilt truck finds a raccoon on the highway-sudden, hard and messy. At first it was a positive thing...for a short (and rather confusing) time, she went from being God's miserable hemorrhoid to being Jesus ' little sunbeam. Was this my mother? Smiling?  Happy?  Not calling me a whore?

Well, that didn't last long, that smiling, that 'I must be a living Witness for the Word, I must present the best possible face to the world' stuff.  It took about a year for the vicious harpy I'd known all my life to sneak back into the picture, a cigarette here, a drink there, cruel remarks  when I was the only one listening, that would be denied if mentioned.  The only lasting change in her after all was said and done was that she would sprinkle the phrase 'Praise the Lord' into her conversation.

I moved out late in 1978.  My former bedroom was taken over instantly by my mother to become what she termed 'a study'. By that time her pious horseshit had moved from the 'Jesus loves you happy rapture' stage to the 'blaming and shaming, Bible thumpin', Satan is everywhere' stage.  I knew what was coming next, and got the FUCK out of Dodge one month after I came of age.  

Jump forward three years.

I had come to visit, to introduce the Biker to my parents.  He got the whole house tour.  I followed along closely because I had a feeling there would be things I'd have to explain to him later.  Turns out I was right.

My old bedroom was the last stop on the tour.  Oh, I had those forebodings of doom real good by then.  My mom was grinning at me, her eyes filled with vindictive glee as she literally threw open the door.

It was filled to the ceiling. 'Well', I thought, 'I expected that. The woman is a hoarder.'

But at second glance I realized that my former room was now filled to overflowing, from floor to ceiling, only a narrow path from the door to the desk, with religious things - and only religious things.

-Religious posters, banners, framed saints, and holy cards were taped to every wall, behind all the other crap.
-Bibles - not singular, plural - were stacked. Each one was a different edition. None of them had ever been opened. 

-Concordances, study guides, cassette tape courses by every charlatan in the Jesus game - remember how those cassette courses came in big binders? - towered along one wall.
-Devotional statues in abundance, to the point it resembled a Santeria chapel. Collect 'em all!  

-A holy water stoup that was also a switchplate, with Jesus and his bleeding heart above the switch, and the little cup beneath it.  It was covered in crystal glitter and glowed in the dark.

-Boxes and boxes and boxes and piles and rubber banded clumps of religious tracts, magazines, and Christian books up to the ceiling and out into the room.

-Rosaries, scapulars, plaited palm fronds, and other Catholic home accents.  Basically everything in this catalogue: 

Seriously, hit the link.  You'll be...amazed.  Yeah, that's a good adjective.  Amazed.

https://catholicshop.com/catholic-catalog.  

There it was. The most insane, over the top collection of Christ-related articles all thrown together in one completely un-used, stale little dusty, stuffy, cobwebbed room where the curtains were clothes-pinned shut.

And topping it all off was the Crucifix of Doom.

This was a full on, 'bleeding Jesus' Catholic crucifix, really a rather beautifully executed thing, and that easily enough judged for its being FOUR FREAKING FEET TALL.

Where does a layperson even find a thing like that?

If you've ever seen a life-sized waxwork statue of the Agony of Christ, or ever been in the Church of St. Michael the Archangel in Tijuana, then you know exactly the type of over-the-top, S and M, eerily lifelike - special effects realism I mean.

And there it was in my room. Bleeding. A lot.  Christ in his last agonies, nothing spared.

I have never.
NEVER.
...been so taken aback in my life. I mean I literally did take a step back in horror. I was scared, and I was appalled.

And she laughed at me.

The Biker didn't get it.  This was something tailored entirely for me to experience.  He didn't get it because he wasn't meant to get it.  Her meaning was absolutely clear to me, though, and that's why she stood there laughing at my reaction. I'd grown up with the woman and I knew how she thought. She had 'exorcised' me from her house and her life. My evil, filthy, stinking, dirty, whorish presence - all epithets that I regularly heard applied to me for 18 years - had been utterly cleansed from that space and her life by filling it with a massive shitpile of God.  

This was a hate installation, and I was the targeted audience. 

"Now whaddya thinka that?" she laughed. "Oh!  You should see ya face!  Whaddya think of that, now?  Go in!  Take a look!"  Just laughing.

We declined.

That was the last time I ever visited them.  Two years later I had to cut them completely out of my life, both parents, for a whole slew of creepy, abusive reasons I won't go into.

I'd done my best to prepare the Biker for what he was likely to see.  He has a fair amount of crazy in his family; alcoholics, hoarders, bulemics; child abuse, drug abuse, crime - you know, a typical American family - but what he saw that day went entirely outside his experience.  He got that it was weird.  What he didn't get was the sheer malice behind it.  And who expects malice presented in the form of Blessed Jesus, meek and mild?  That was a level of mindfuck that it took him years to understand. 

So anyway, there's my little bedtime story.  But take heart - she died years ago.  You could probably summon her up with a Ouija Board, but don't blame me for what happens next.