Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Catholic
Pretending Not to Look

Pretending Not to Look

Last updated on: September 7, 2019 at 1:58 am by Mary Pezzulo

Pretending Not to Look 2019-09-07T01:58:40-04:00 Mary Pezzulo

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Michael was still in the shower when our ride pulled up to take us to Mass.

I was cross. I am picky about being late, especially for Mass. I called to him to hurry up and went out, grumbling.

The lady who gives us rides was patiently waiting behind the wheel, but she wasn’t watching us. She was watching the police cars down the street; there were three of them, and one ambulance. Another ambulance rolled up beside us as I apologized and promised Michael would be out soon.

They all parked near the duplex just down the street– the place that must have a very short term lease. That building is like a magician’s hat out of which anything can come at any time. That’s the place where the child I tried to help lived, before the family moved a few blocks away. It’s the place where the Mexican immigrants lived, and then disappeared. It’s the place where they keep housing the construction workers who come to work on the pipeline and then move on. Once I ended up at nice little picnic in the backyard of that house, with friendly people from a less apocalyptic corner of Appalachia playing the guitar around a fire pit and talking about how much they missed the country. Once Rosie went there to play with a gaggle of beautiful children and one very patient dog, in the dust under one of the backyard trees. They had a glorious time filling old water bottles with dust and pouring it on each other and on the dog’s back– and then, the next week, the family was gone. Once I brought a neighborhood child back to that house to get a Nerf gun he’d forgotten while playing outside with Rosie, and found a stoned man on the sofa and prescription bottles all over the mantel.

One side of the duplex has a beautiful living fence of giant sunflowers in front of the porch this summer, and the other side– well, it has nothing. The police were going up and down the stairs on the side of the duplex where the sunflowers aren’t.

The lady mentioned that she didn’t know when we’d be able to get to Mass any time soon, and she was right. In this part of LaBelle, the streets are narrow and only go one way. We were too far up the street to just back up. We were stranded behind a clot of emergency vehicles parked on the street with their lights blazing, and there was nowhere to go.

She got out of the car, and of course I followed. Rosie came next to me.

I think we’d all meant to wander by and pretend to not be looking.

Another neighbor was standing on his porch opposite the duplex, looking like a ghost: his clothes and hands caked with pure white paint, white streaks in his hair and white splatters on his face. He’s been repainting the house next door for weeks now. Rosie has been helping his older son mind their toddler while he works, for pocket change.

“I think their son overdosed,” said the ghost on the porch.

Right on queue, there was a scream.

We forgot to pretend not to look.

The police came out, each gripping the arm of a painfully skinny young man in a black tank top.

I thought “overdose” would mean an unconscious person on a gurney, but this was the opposite of a loss of consciousness. This man was so wide awake as to be completely psychotic. He pitched forward onto the porch shrieking that they were going to kill him. They bent over and pulled him back up. He pitched again. The medics and two other police ran over to help.

“That’s the man who fixed my bike,” said Rosie.

And that’s when I recognized him as well. He’s been here for a relatively long time, considering the rate that people come and go from that duplex. He occasionally wanders the block looking slightly buzzed. Half the men his age in this neighborhood seem to be “on something” most of the time. Maybe it’s alcohol, or pot, or the high doses of psychiatric medication they hand out in extra-large bottles at the notorious community mental health clinic that never sees patients for more than fifteen minutes, or else it’s something much worse. But this man had never been violent or even unpleasant. One afternoon, he wandered by and scolded us for letting Rosie ride a bike with such bad tires, slurring his words a little; then he went home for tools, and came back and showed Michael how to fix it. We thanked him, because neither Michael nor I ever learned to ride a bicycle and wouldn’t know where to start fixing one. Once he sauntered up to the porch barefoot, waving a bowl of dry Rice Krispies and a dollar, asking to borrow a serving of milk, which we gave him. When we refused the dollar, he handed it to Rosie and ordered her to spend it on the ice cream truck, which she did. She likes him.

Now he was writhing on the porch, hallucinating, while the police tried to get him down the stairs to the ambulance.

I found myself trying to come up with a second-grade appropriate explanation of what methamphetamine was, but I was drowned out.

The officers were carrying him by the arms and legs. It took several minutes for them to make the twenty-foot journey from the porch to the ambulance; then there were six people, officers and medics both, all fighting together to strap him to a gurney as he shouted at the top of his lungs that he was being killed.

His family watched from the porch, faces as blank as if they were rag dolls. It was as if every drop of emotion hand been drained from that household into the brain of one person, and that person was being packed into an ambulance and carted away.

“They’re taking him to the hospital so he can get some help to be healthy and not take drugs anymore,” I lied to Rosie. There’s no help like that available in Steubenville. There’s no rehab; they stabilize people and send them home or to prison. There’s no mental health care to be had except a monthly appointment at that terrible community clinic where you get fifteen minutes with an overworked nurse practitioner and a massive dose of pills. Your only hope, if you’re sick in Appalachia, is to get someone to send you away from Appalachia.

Somewhere in all of this, Michael came out of the house, intending to apologize for his lateness– but we weren’t in the car, and I was still trying to explain to an almost eight-year-old child that the friendly man who gave her a dollar was not, indeed, being murdered, despite his cries to the contrary.

And then we were in the car following the ambulance, because there’s only one way out of this part of LaBelle. And then we were running into Mass very late, just in time for the Gospel Acclamation. And there were no places to sit, no time to compose ourselves to pray, no mental space to think of anything until I finally caught my breath during the offertory hymn.

“Let my soul glory in the Lord, who will hear the cry of the poor,” sang the organist. “The Lord hears the cry of the poor. Blessed be the Lord!”

I hope she’s right.

(image via Pixabay)

Steel Magnificat runs almost entirely on gratuities. To tip the author, go to our donate page here.

Previous Post

September 1, 2019

What if we Applied Pro-Life Rhetoric to Guns?

Next Post

September 3, 2019 Dear Father Reehill: Harry Potter Isn't Real

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category abortion Abuse Advent America American Christianity angel angels Annunciation Appalachia apparition apparition chaser apparition chasers apparition culture art art review babies baby baby Jesus Bad Lip Reading bad statue contest bath beauty Bible story blog blogkeeping blood book review Brandon Sanderson breastfeeding bus Catholic catholic conspiracy alarmism Catholic Oppositional Disorder Charismatic Renewal Charlie the Cat chastity Christ Christian idenitity Christianity and Judaism Chronic Illness clean clothing COD piece comedy compassion conscience conspiracy theory conversion cop-on-black violence Crucifixion cry of the poor culture Daesh Daily Saints death death penalty devotional diaconate diaper diapers dirty disability Donald Trump Dorothy Day dream drugs Eastern Catholicism Eastern Christianity education election election update Elsewhere on Patheos empathy environment Fear feminism film review fish flashback fluffy buns food Franciscan University of Steubenville Friendship Room fun Gabriel gardening gospel hair-splitting Heaven hell heresy Hillary Clinton history Holly the Witch Holy Spirit holy war Homeschooling homosexuality horror human dignity humor Icon idol immigrants infection inter-religious dialogue Interpretation of Scripture Islam Jesus Jihad Joseph joy laity and lay vocations lamb dinner laundry lent lgbtq literature love manners Mary Medicine and Science Meditation mercy mess milk misogyny Missouri monasticism monster motherhood mourn with those mourn movies movis music mystery nature neurodiversity New Pro-Life Movement news nonsense nostalgia O antiphons obituary objectification Ohio Valley Ordinary Time ordination Ordo Amoris parable paradox Passover peanut butter personal beliefs pets philosophy Planet Charismatic poetry politics polls poop Pope Francis Pope Leo power in the Church prayer prayer request prayers preferential option for non-violence president presidential election priest primary private revelation pro-life prophecy Public face of Catholicism Pure Flix Q and A race racism random rape rape. sexuality reader's request Reckoners refugee religious trauma ressurrection Right to life Saints saints and celebrations same-sex same-sex marriage satire scandal secular feasts seder Seven Joys Seven Last Words sex sexual ethics sexuality silencing six months skid row slavery social justice Speculative fiction spiritual abuse spoon stain story suffering suffrage suffragette Sunday Gospel temple Tenebrae Responsories Terror the exorcist The Friendship Room The New Pro-Life Movement Things I Learned on the Internet tin cup traffic true story tv review Uncategorized USCCB vice and temptation violence Virtue virtue and vice war Way of the Cross whimsy whole life women's ordination work of mercy Year A

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who said, "He must increase, but I must decrease"?

Select your answer to see how you score.

John the Baptist Paul Elijah Peter