My Testimony, Part Six

After several visits to this Jesus House, one of the guy  looked at me kindly and said, “Jim, you will never understand this thing from the outside looking in”. I had been perched high on a wall I had built around me, hoping for a “gotcha” moment where I could prove these people to be the hypocrites I suspected them to be, and yet…

A few days later, I had a born again experience with Jesus and I can guarantee you that you’ve never heard a conversion story like this one. It started at a bar. Actually, let me back up a bit. It really started with a couple of friends of mine, Tim and John. They were visiting from Florida, we met at a local park where young people gathered to hang out ( buy dope) and became friends. One afternoon, bored as only healthy young time wasters can be, I had a brainstorm. “Let’s go bar-hopping”. Sure we were underage, but I had a plan.

The plan was to dress like adults, no bell bottoms or fringe jackets, long hair pulled up into watch caps and, the coup de grace? Fake beards!. But not the cheapo kind that attach around the ears like eyeglasses. Oh, no. We drove to a gag shop and purchased  beards that looked real because you glued them to your face with spirit gum, just like actors in plays.

We visited our first bar, and although we had no idea what to order, it didn’t matter. We were getting away with it!  We were being served as if we we mature adults, not like the stoner knuckleheads we actually were.  We left bar number one and proceeded to bar number two. Again, no problem. My plan was working! When you are an unemployed druggie living in your parent’s home with no plans for the future, any plan that works makes you feel like an Einstein. The last bar we came to was in Belmont. At this point I should probably mention that Mescaline had been passed around sometime during the evening, but I digress.