Read Online Confessions of a Recovering Slut by Hollis Gillespie - Free Book Online
Authors: Hollis Gillespie
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everything. Sometimes Grant doesn’t have to look at all. Sometimes people see all kinds of Jesus and call Grant to tell him where to go. Sometimes they even call me and tell me to tell Grant where to go. “I saw some great Jesus at the new Dollar Store on More-land,” a recent phone message said. “Don’t forget to tell Grant.”
This must mean Sister Louisa is back in full force. She must have come here in her 1974 copper-colored Ford Pinto and set up camp in Grant’s head again, because Lord knows there is room. Yes, she is back now, in a big way beehive and all.
“I found a huge paint-by-numbers of Jesus riding a donkey through Jerusalem,” Grant exclaims, but I keep looking at his head, because I can’t believe his hair doesn’t have a residue of some kind, like a film of space-age polymer left over from his latest beehive. I swear Grant’s hair is like a storm cloud, a roiling mass of curly hay that shoots out of his head like fibrous lightning. It takes two beauticians armed with eight cans of industrial lacquer to tame it into a mile-high hairball, and it’s a serious wonder the result isn’t permanent, but the whole thing really does just wash out at the end of the day.
“Bitch, did you not hear me say I found me a Jesus on a donkey ?” he repeats, and I admit I’m impressed. My favorite Sister Louisa piece of all time depicted that very scene, with the donkey saying, “Who is this Jesus and why is he on my back?” It was sold years ago, back when Sister Louisa first started making her assemblages while living in the Airstream trailer of Grant’s imagination. It was a doublewide trailer. Did I not say there is a lot of room in Grant’s head?
I personally found my first Jesus in a thrift store in Costa Mesa when I was six. This Jesus had an imploring expression on his face and held out his hand like he was trying to coax a gun away from someone who just threatened suicide. I remember thinking, Who is this Jesus and what does he want me to put in his hand?
I found Jesus again in college, when an extremely horny follower of his named Jerry introduced us. Jesus and Jerry were buddies, I guess, because Jerry gave me his personal Bible and helped save my soul by convincing me to ask Jesus into my heart and shit—right there on my damn knees with Jerry’s sweaty palm on my head and his khaki-clad boner not half a foot from my face. Then Jesus went and told Jerry I wouldn’t “best represent” him as a wife, and Jerry dumped my barely saved self. He said he had to go where Jesus guided him. As I gave Jerry back his Bible, as he left me there, literally, on the side of the road, I remember thinking, Who is this Jesus and why is he guiding people down my pants?
Then Sister Louisa was born. Grant and Daniel and I had gone out in Grant’s truck to sift through garbage in the back streets of Tuscaloosa, and in the dusk we came upon an abandoned trailer, its back end crumpled like a discarded beer can. That night, as the sun buried itself burnt orange in the background, Grant stuck his hand through the window of that trailer to grab some old pots off a stovetop, and that is when we heard the voice.
“Who the hell there?” it boomed from inside the trailer. “I sayyed, who THE HELL there?”
Grant’s eyes popped out of his face like canned snakes, then he jumped behind the wheel of his truck and we peeled out of there like TV hooligans in a seventies crime drama.
Daniel and I were laughing so hard we thought we’d cough up our own shoes, because we’d just seen the great Grant Henry get caught burglarizing a homeless man living in an abandoned trailer. “Wanna check to see if there’s any pencils we can steal from blind beggars?” I teased him, but Grant was not listening to me. He had stopped all of a sudden, in a little mill village dotted with ramshackle shotgun shacks, and he was staring transfixed at a vision from his front window.
“Look at her,” he kept saying. “Just look at
This must mean Sister Louisa is back in full force. She must have come here in her 1974 copper-colored Ford Pinto and set up camp in Grant’s head again, because Lord knows there is room. Yes, she is back now, in a big way beehive and all.
“I found a huge paint-by-numbers of Jesus riding a donkey through Jerusalem,” Grant exclaims, but I keep looking at his head, because I can’t believe his hair doesn’t have a residue of some kind, like a film of space-age polymer left over from his latest beehive. I swear Grant’s hair is like a storm cloud, a roiling mass of curly hay that shoots out of his head like fibrous lightning. It takes two beauticians armed with eight cans of industrial lacquer to tame it into a mile-high hairball, and it’s a serious wonder the result isn’t permanent, but the whole thing really does just wash out at the end of the day.
“Bitch, did you not hear me say I found me a Jesus on a donkey ?” he repeats, and I admit I’m impressed. My favorite Sister Louisa piece of all time depicted that very scene, with the donkey saying, “Who is this Jesus and why is he on my back?” It was sold years ago, back when Sister Louisa first started making her assemblages while living in the Airstream trailer of Grant’s imagination. It was a doublewide trailer. Did I not say there is a lot of room in Grant’s head?
I personally found my first Jesus in a thrift store in Costa Mesa when I was six. This Jesus had an imploring expression on his face and held out his hand like he was trying to coax a gun away from someone who just threatened suicide. I remember thinking, Who is this Jesus and what does he want me to put in his hand?
I found Jesus again in college, when an extremely horny follower of his named Jerry introduced us. Jesus and Jerry were buddies, I guess, because Jerry gave me his personal Bible and helped save my soul by convincing me to ask Jesus into my heart and shit—right there on my damn knees with Jerry’s sweaty palm on my head and his khaki-clad boner not half a foot from my face. Then Jesus went and told Jerry I wouldn’t “best represent” him as a wife, and Jerry dumped my barely saved self. He said he had to go where Jesus guided him. As I gave Jerry back his Bible, as he left me there, literally, on the side of the road, I remember thinking, Who is this Jesus and why is he guiding people down my pants?
Then Sister Louisa was born. Grant and Daniel and I had gone out in Grant’s truck to sift through garbage in the back streets of Tuscaloosa, and in the dusk we came upon an abandoned trailer, its back end crumpled like a discarded beer can. That night, as the sun buried itself burnt orange in the background, Grant stuck his hand through the window of that trailer to grab some old pots off a stovetop, and that is when we heard the voice.
“Who the hell there?” it boomed from inside the trailer. “I sayyed, who THE HELL there?”
Grant’s eyes popped out of his face like canned snakes, then he jumped behind the wheel of his truck and we peeled out of there like TV hooligans in a seventies crime drama.
Daniel and I were laughing so hard we thought we’d cough up our own shoes, because we’d just seen the great Grant Henry get caught burglarizing a homeless man living in an abandoned trailer. “Wanna check to see if there’s any pencils we can steal from blind beggars?” I teased him, but Grant was not listening to me. He had stopped all of a sudden, in a little mill village dotted with ramshackle shotgun shacks, and he was staring transfixed at a vision from his front window.
“Look at her,” he kept saying. “Just look at
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