Read Online The Death and Life of Gabriel Phillips by Stephen Baldwin, Mark Tabb - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Stephen Baldwin, Mark Tabb
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where to start looking. At 11:00 p.m., he dropped back by the station to clock out and brief the poor sap pulling the graveyard shift. Andy had to go back into the station a second time to retrieve the folder and cassette tape from his locker. Flipping the tape around in his right hand, he said, “God, I hope she didn’t talk too much.”
Chapter 4
I ’VE ALWAYS HEARD that prison changes a man, but I never knew how true that really is. John changed while he was in the joint. By the time he got out, he wasn’t the man I married. Funny, I never really heard of people changing like he did. He came out sooooooo religious, it was nauseating. Don’t get me wrong, I liked some parts of the new John. He stopped drinking, which was good because he usually got violent when he got too drunk. But I didn’t think that meant I had to stop drinking. I wasn’t the one with the problem, so why should I quit? I’ve got to be honest. I missed hitting the bars together. Yeah, he got mean when he got drunk, but he was also fun. And funny. I know Jesus can change people. I just never knew God wanted ’em so dull.”
Fast-forward. It was Andy’s third time to listen to the tape. He wanted to hit the highlights one more time while it was all fresh in his mind. As he listened, he made notes in his Big Chief pad.
“. . . could take the personal changes. I could live with going to church on Sundays and not getting stoned at the occasional concert. You know, Gabe was getting old enough that we didn’t have any business doing that stuff anyways. And he really liked going to Sunday school. Gabe loved Sunday school. I think it was the favorite part of his week. I kept taking him even after his father and I split up. Gabe really loved Sunday school.”
Fast-forward.
“. . . so I don’t know a lot about God and Jesus. I mean, I went to church when I was a kid. My mother made me and my sister go to nearly every Vacation Bible School in town in the summers when we were kids. We had fun, and for her it was a week of free child care each time. So I know some things about God, not a lot, but enough to know that John wasn’t normal. Like I said, I didn’t have a problem with him cleaning up his act. He landed in prison, for Christ’s sake, he needed a little cleaning up. It’s when he started giving things away and bringing people home, that’s when the problems started.”
Fast-forward.
“. . . things like food, clothes, even money. It wasn’t like we had an overabundance. I’ll never forget the time he gave a hundred dollars to some person he hardly knew. I didn’t know them at all. Our rent was due in a few days, and he gave a huge chunk of it away. When I asked him what the hell he thought he was doing, he told me to ‘trust God.’ He said God wouldn’t let us down when we obey Him. Okay, I’m all for helping people out when they need it, but John’s helping others made us candidates for charity ourselves. I managed to juggle around some of our other bills to make rent, but it put a lot of stress on me. John took the fact that we didn’t lose our home as proof that God had come through. I didn’t see it that way.”
Fast-forward.
“. . . different people. Never anyone we knew. Sometimes they were homeless. I pleaded with him to stop. I told him that bringing strange people into our home put both me and Gabe in danger. John would just quote some Bible verse about ‘the least of these’ and tell me not to worry. I do not know or care what the least of these are. All I know is bringing a stranger into your home when you have a wife and small child is not safe. Period. He never understood why I would worry. Trust God, he would say. Trust God. Trust God. Just trust God. He said it so much that I thought it was just some cliché he hid behind when he didn’t want to take responsibility for what was going on.”
Fast-forward.
“. . . the prostitute was the last straw.”
Rewind.
“. . . but the prostitute was the last
Chapter 4
I ’VE ALWAYS HEARD that prison changes a man, but I never knew how true that really is. John changed while he was in the joint. By the time he got out, he wasn’t the man I married. Funny, I never really heard of people changing like he did. He came out sooooooo religious, it was nauseating. Don’t get me wrong, I liked some parts of the new John. He stopped drinking, which was good because he usually got violent when he got too drunk. But I didn’t think that meant I had to stop drinking. I wasn’t the one with the problem, so why should I quit? I’ve got to be honest. I missed hitting the bars together. Yeah, he got mean when he got drunk, but he was also fun. And funny. I know Jesus can change people. I just never knew God wanted ’em so dull.”
Fast-forward. It was Andy’s third time to listen to the tape. He wanted to hit the highlights one more time while it was all fresh in his mind. As he listened, he made notes in his Big Chief pad.
“. . . could take the personal changes. I could live with going to church on Sundays and not getting stoned at the occasional concert. You know, Gabe was getting old enough that we didn’t have any business doing that stuff anyways. And he really liked going to Sunday school. Gabe loved Sunday school. I think it was the favorite part of his week. I kept taking him even after his father and I split up. Gabe really loved Sunday school.”
Fast-forward.
“. . . so I don’t know a lot about God and Jesus. I mean, I went to church when I was a kid. My mother made me and my sister go to nearly every Vacation Bible School in town in the summers when we were kids. We had fun, and for her it was a week of free child care each time. So I know some things about God, not a lot, but enough to know that John wasn’t normal. Like I said, I didn’t have a problem with him cleaning up his act. He landed in prison, for Christ’s sake, he needed a little cleaning up. It’s when he started giving things away and bringing people home, that’s when the problems started.”
Fast-forward.
“. . . things like food, clothes, even money. It wasn’t like we had an overabundance. I’ll never forget the time he gave a hundred dollars to some person he hardly knew. I didn’t know them at all. Our rent was due in a few days, and he gave a huge chunk of it away. When I asked him what the hell he thought he was doing, he told me to ‘trust God.’ He said God wouldn’t let us down when we obey Him. Okay, I’m all for helping people out when they need it, but John’s helping others made us candidates for charity ourselves. I managed to juggle around some of our other bills to make rent, but it put a lot of stress on me. John took the fact that we didn’t lose our home as proof that God had come through. I didn’t see it that way.”
Fast-forward.
“. . . different people. Never anyone we knew. Sometimes they were homeless. I pleaded with him to stop. I told him that bringing strange people into our home put both me and Gabe in danger. John would just quote some Bible verse about ‘the least of these’ and tell me not to worry. I do not know or care what the least of these are. All I know is bringing a stranger into your home when you have a wife and small child is not safe. Period. He never understood why I would worry. Trust God, he would say. Trust God. Trust God. Just trust God. He said it so much that I thought it was just some cliché he hid behind when he didn’t want to take responsibility for what was going on.”
Fast-forward.
“. . . the prostitute was the last straw.”
Rewind.
“. . . but the prostitute was the last
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