THE AFFLICTION OF ADDICTION

I admit it,
I cannot help it,
I am eternally Sister Louisa.

In the late 1990’s,
I bought a Crack-House
that was condemned
because a tenant’s child
was therein bitten by a rat.

$10,000.00 cash bought me
the 100 year-old-rickety-shack
complete with strewn-about Crack-Lighters,
freshly stuccoed with human shit.

It was TRAGIC.

I patched the rat holes in the floor
with Religious Car Tags,
and obsessively covered furniture and mirrors
with the Crack-Lighters,
but, I needed MORE!!!

Humored at having seen me
covering these items with Lighters,
Hundreds of Hungry Crack-Heads
stood in line to sell me
their spent Crack-Lighters,
which I would buy
for a Nickel a Lighter
to use for SISTER LOUISA Art.

The Crack-Heads were instructed
to line Crack-Lighters up in pairs,
for easy counting….
10 cents, 20 cents, 30 cents…

I spent HUNDREDS of dollars.
Huge trash bags of Crack-Lighters filled my front porch.
A local economy was created!

It was unclear
whether I was feeding
THEIR Affliction of Addiction,
OR they were feeding MINE?

Ironically,
there was a Convent
in the neighborhood
with a Heavenly Wall
completely cloistering the place.

The Wall was disturbing to me
BECAUSE it precluded the Nuns
from having ANY positive interaction
with the reality
of the Life of a Crack-Head.

To process this incongruency,
I did what any creative,
obsessive-compulsive man,
posing as a Nun would do:
I neurotically covered the house,
THE JESUS HOUSE,
and the car,
THE CRACK CAR,
with Crack Lighters,
Plastic Nuns &
other tacky JESUS SHIT.

At the end of the day,
The Crack-Heads did what they had to do,
and SISTER LOUSIA did what “she” had to do,
and we understood that about each other.

One of the newly rich Crack-Heads,
skipping down the steps
of THE JESUS HOUSE
stopped,
turned back,
and whispered::

“MR. GRANT, IS YOU A SAINT?”

jaa jajaj ja

I paused,
knowing that we were
both the same,
we were both doing
what we HAD to do.

We both had the Affliction of Addiction.

This ain’t Church!