From Dopefiend to Deacon: Chasing a Pipe Dream

FROM

DOPEFIEND

TO DEACON

CHASING A PIPE DREAM

BILLY

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© 2014 Billy. All rights reserved.

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Published by AuthorHouse 01/02/2014

ISBN: 978-1-4918-4752-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4918-4753-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013923651

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Contents

Acknowledgments

The Dedication

Acknowledgments

First, I give honor to God almighty because it was Him that blessed me to tell His story about His Grace for my life. Without Him or the blood Jesus shed for me this story could not have been told. It was through the anointing of His Holy spirit that led my hands and thoughts to work in tandem. Thank you Father!

I also thank everyone of my support system of life. Thank you for allowing me to use your good name in good faith to share God’s love for me.

Special love and thanks to Nikki, Portia, Alice and Marilyn. Without you four I would still be hunting and pecking, ha. You all made this happen and I am forever in you all’s debt.

Ma, Dad, Apostle and Prophetess Person, words could never fully let you know how much I love and appreciate you. Thanks for believing in me when I didn’t give you much to believe in.

Mel, Kim, Brittany, B.J. and Frances, thanks for helping me to become a better person all around. I will never have a whole heart because you guys have a piece of it.

Also, to Mike not only for providing a place of refuge for me to write but also for the vast encouragement, thanks man. And to Ms. Mc Carroll and Mr. Beard for providing us with the resources to help us achieve our goals, thank you so much! LaVada & Gloria, thanks my sisters in word for keeping it real.

To the 2005 World Series Champs Chicago White Sox, The New Age Outlaws, Stone Cold, DX, Vader, The NWO and Ric Flair, and those six cats from Boston, New Edition, for helping me get through some of the really rough times.

And finally to MJB, Jennifer Tilly, Serena Williams, Wendy Williams, Velma, Toni Braxton, Ms. Patti LaBelle and Ms. Pam Grier. Hey, if Bond can have his girls why can’t I?

The Dedication

I dedicate this book to all of my fallen sisters and brothers of the Christian faith. I implore you to keep trying. The only way to succeed is to try and try again. God loves you and so do I!

I also dedicate this project to everyone who is struggling with any vice or problem. Even if you don’t believe in God, believe that you can still over come whatever it is that you are dealing with.

To my niece Gloria, thank you for the service you’ve dedicated to this great country of ours. I dedicate this to you for encouraging me to believe.

And to my personal inspiration, Yolanda Nolan, you inspire me to be a survivor at all cost. Thanks for living life to the fullest. For that, I’m inspired to dedicate this project to you.

‘Because of my insignificance, I never felt significant.’

Billy

Brittany was 8, BJ was 2, my relationship with Kim, BJ’s mom my fiancé was on the way out. My credit cards were maxed out. My cars had been sold and I was back on the bus. I had dropped out of college with just a few credit hours short of graduating. A hygiene problem arose and this was just the beginning. It was the eve of 1996, we had gathered as usual in our friend’s basement to get ready to bring in the New Year as we had so many times before. We had our cigarettes, drinks and cards and were ready to bring in the New Year. Usually it would be a big crowd but this time it was just a few of us. Something different happened that night before we got started. We prayed and gave thanks to God for bringing us through another year. This had never happened before. What was so shocking is that I wanted to pray but I hadn’t been to church in years, let alone prayed.

Actually, I had no use for God or prayer, that’s what made it so strange to me. If you wanted to lose me in a conversation, all you had to do was bring up God or his preachers of his word. Yes, I was one of those that cursed God and his followers and when I say cursed I mean cussed. I felt like God was doing his own thing and so was I. I had contempt for marriage just because they were held in a church and ordained by Him. If I went to the wedding at all it would only be for the reception.

That’s how deep my contempt for God was. And it’s like every time I’d hear about one of his preachers they were in some kind of scandal. This made me despise them even more. They were getting caught lying, cheating and stealing. So if I couldn’t trust the preacher, then how could I trust in this God in whom they served?

Not only that, the same God who supposedly is so full of love allowed so many good people, young and old to die, who needed this kind of God? Certainly, not me. I was so disenchanted and out of touch with the reality of God and all of his blessings that you would have not known that in my earlier years I was being groomed by my grandmother, Ne-Ne, to be a preacher. I had also preached numerous sermons about this God who at this point in my life was nothing but a word to me if that at all!

After turning 16 my mother Geraldine came in my room one Sunday morning and asked me a question that I never imagined would come out her mouth. She asked, Are you going to church? I sat there in shock and tried to figure out if this was a trick question or not. As she stood in the doorway awaiting my answer, I said, No. She said something and walked away. Up until this point in my life she never asked, we just knew on Sundays we were going to church. Until she left with my sisters to go to church I was expecting for her to come back in to say April fools or something, but she didn’t. I can’t recall what I did that day but I know it wasn’t going to church. If it had been up to me, I would’ve stopped going a long time ago. For the first time in my life I felt freedom. Then reality set in, would next week be the same? If so, then I would know that I was free from having to go to church. For the next 14 years I set out to make up for all of the lost time of being a church boy and a mama’s boy.

At this point of my life I was just starting to get some recognition from the neighborhood guys and also had a little juice with some of the brothers at school. With this new outlook on life I was ready to try and do anything to distance myself from being a church boy or mama’s boy. I don’t know which one was the hardest to be separated from but I was determined to wipe all of those stigmas that were associated with me away forever. In addition to what I was doing on my own my cousin Ricky started to let me hang out with him and his boys. I had always looked up to Ricky. This is what made it so much cooler. He was teaching me how to Mack. I learned a lot from him just by watching him and how he went about his business with the ladies. Then there was my cousin Veva. She started sharing her knowledge of clothes with me. She also turned me on to rock and house music. I also began to wear contacts and ditched those thick glasses that had been a part of my life for way too long.

With these changes a lot changed in my life, no longer was my mother dressing me like she had up until this point but I was doing it myself. Who would have known that these changes would be happening to me because I was such a sheltered kid that had structure in the home? My sisters and I all had chores and rules we had to go by every day. We couldn’t stay out late. As soon as we got home from school we had to do homework then our chores and more than likely we’d end up at church in the evening. I think we went to church more than anybody else that I knew. Yet, all of this was beginning to change.

This is where the change began. I believe it was my mother who kept us in church. My father Bill’s, side of the family did the partying. It seemed like every other weekend we were at someone’s house getting down, listening to the blues having a good time smoking cigarettes, drinking, and playing cards and dancing. How confusing is this? Party Friday and Saturday then got on church on Sunday. I didn’t know anything about hypocrisy but I do know it was confusing. It taught me that you could do whatever you wanted to do as long as you went to church on Sunday.

Around this time as well I was beginning to party outside of the neightborhood. Outside of church, home, school and relatives houses I didn’t really venture out much except to go to the movies. These parties weren’t your regular get a girl and grind in someone’s dimly lit basement. I wasn’t that popular at those kinds of parties anyway. So the change was welcomed. While theses basement parties featured R&B and rap these new clubs were playing house music. Friday and Saturday nights we would listen to the hot mix 5 on the radio waiting to hear the latest house music. We were partying at places like Mendel and Sauer’s. Then we graduated not only from high school but to the Music Box, Power Plant and the Underground. These parties were loud and colorful. While most of my friends were partying in the heterosexual bars and clubs I was partying with the ‘real’ people.

They were the homosexuals and lesbians as well as the transvestites and transgendered. This was so beautiful to me. These people didn’t really care where you were from, they just wanted to party and be able to be free to be themselves. I was like wow, just in awe. They had cut out a little place in paradise for their own and they were not about to let the opinions of the mainstream dictate to them who they thought they should be. I was hooked. Not only would I not be going to church, going to straight bars and clubs were out as well. This was my new adopted family. We were living for the party. I knew that I was going to have to find myself one day and that day was now. I did not have to try and fit in, I just did. For years I kept hidden secrets concerning my past and sexuality. I always tried to keep an interest in the opposite sex because lots of times I was not sure of myself. Yes, I liked girls for as long as I could remember but some things happened that made me have questions about myself.

At these parties I was turned on to many different drugs and vices and it seemed like almost everyone was doing it. I started drinking more than ever and experimenting more with drugs natural as well as synthetics. I wasn’t much of a weed smoker although I did enjoy hash and opium. At the time liquor was mainly my drug of choice and the clubs was serving this concoction called ‘passion punch’. At these parties I got into the pills, syrups and acids like ink blotter and four way window pain. They all went hand in hand with the music and the light shows.

One night while we were at one of the clubs, they were having the weekly ‘drag show’. This is when men dress and perform in drag, lip syncing to their favorite artist. On this particular night one guy was performing as ‘Karyn White’. He was wonderful. I sat at the bar in amazement. My buddy and I had been drinking Strong Island Ice Tea and popping pills. I told him that I was going to ask ‘Karyn White’ out. He didn’t believe me and dared me to do it. It wasn’t much of a dare because I had been building up to his point for a while. This was not the first time that I had watched him perform. And it wasn’t a coincidence that this was one of my favorite artists. I didn’t get the chance that week so I waited until the following week to do it.

We got to the club earlier than usual to get a good seat at the bar. We were drinking our usual and we were pretty high by the time ‘Karyn’ had finished performing. I watched ‘Karyn’ take a seat at the bar. Once he was seated I sent over a drink and a message by the bartender. After a few sips, ‘Karyn’ came over to where we were sitting. My friend, ‘B’, excused himself and left us alone. As we sat there we talked then decided to hit the dance floor for a while. The music was pumping and the lights were in sync with the music. It was a real blast. After the dance we returned to the bar. We drank and talked until it was closing time. We decided to hookup the following week after the show. I went through the next week anticipating the day rather the night to come.

Finally, we got to the club and we took our seats. The show started but after a few acts there wasn’t a ‘Karyn White’ performance. Just as I was wondering where he was, hands went over my eyes and I was told to guess who it was. I immediately knew who the voice belonged to, it was ‘Karyn’, so I said, Karyn. Then I turned around on my stool and to my shock it was ‘Karyn’s’ voice but it was attached to a man in a man’s body. He was not dressed in drag and he didn’t look like ‘Karyn White’. He was in street clothes and had short hair. He explained that he wanted to watch the show with me and my friend.

I had not been drinking, because I wanted to be sober for this event. This way I would clearly know about my sexual tendencies. So we sat there drinking and talking, all three of us. All the while I was realizing that I wasn’t gay, I was just attracted to a guy that was dressed up like a woman. With that experience, I didn’t have to question my sexuality ever again.

AIDS, was on the rise and safe sex was still just talk. I really believe that if God hadn’t stepped in who knows what the outcome would have been. God does have a way of taking care of his own even when we are not taking care of ourselves. As I look back, all I can say is Thank You, Lord for saving me away from that (Proverbs 22:3).

I also wasn’t doing that well in school either. Other than meeting up with the gang in the lunchroom, that was about the extent of my attending classes. We would get together and ante up to go to the liquor store and get as much as we could afford. After that, we figured out whose house we would go to. This was our routine for a while. Actually, we were getting our degrees in drugs, alcohol and sex. Only one of us would graduate from college while the rest of us watched our GPA’s plummet as well as our attendance and goals. Our grades may have been horrible but, man, could we get messed up. We were messed up and messing up, yet we were close. When it came down to it, the girls could get down just as well as the boys. What made our girls special is that they acted like ladies but thought like men. When they wanted someone they got him and kept it moving. That was the game and they played it well. They were not pushovers by a long shot. All of us enjoyed each other’s company. We had few altercations because we were so open with one another. It was like Captain Bligh and the ship of fools, except no one in particular was the leader. Everyone had a say so and we took it from there.

Out of all of this the evitable happened. I got popped, not with a STD but with a baby. At first I struggled with having to change from what I was to what I was going to have to be. I didn’t want a baby or the responsibility of being a parent to a baby. Why would someone want me to be the father of their child? I wasn’t working and I didn’t want to do more than drink, have sex and get high. What kind of parent was that for a child?

On July 27th I was in the park getting messed up with the guys from the neighborhood. I went home to get something and the phone rang. I started not to answer it, but I did. This phone call changed my life for the rest of my life. I was told that the baby was born and that she was a girl. Into this world came Brittany Alexandria Bedford all 8.8 ounces of her.

Of course I wasn’t there at the hospital, which is where I should have been. As this started to sink in I tried to sober up a bit and get it together. Then I got excited about it and was getting ready to go to the hospital. After I hung up the phone the phone rang again, after all the excitement I forgot to ask which hospital. I went back to the park and announced that I was a father. I wasn’t the first and wasn’t going to be the last. They congratulated me and we had a drink and I left to go to the hospital. When I got there I got a chance to stop and get some ‘it’s a girl’ cigars. By the time I got to the nursery it was dawning on me that in a few minutes my world was about to change. But when I got there, the nurse wouldn’t let me hold her because she smelled liquor on my breath so I stood outside of the nursery window and looked at this beautiful new being.

After she went home from the nursery I tried to stay excited about being a new father. The first year was an adjustment. I struggled with the responsibility of fatherhood. I would keep her when it was asked of me and as time went on I really started to get into it. I would have her on my off days and on every other weekend or so. I even tried to braid her hair a couple of times. She was a blessing to me. At night when we would sleep we would start off in the same spot but somehow in the course of the night she would get all turned around. It was around this time that I began to use cocaine.

I had a decent job at the time because I had finally left school all together. I was bussing tables at a very popular restaurant and we were paid every week plus the tips were pretty good. This allowed me to have money in my pockets a lot more than I was used to. Or so I thought. I was hooking up with one of my fellow bus boys and a dishwasher. We began to hang out together at a bar in the area. This bar featured a drink called the ‘zombie’, because if you were to finish it, you’d feel like one. After, we finished our drinks we would walk to this complex where they sold pony packs of cocaine. We liked this spot because they had a cocaine lottery. You could win free cocaine if you had a certain image in your pony pack. Not only was there a possibility of free drugs but the quality and the quantity was good. That in itself was reason enough for us to be steady customers with a few wins sprinkled in here and there. So instead of us getting enough for just ourselves, we decided to pool our monies together. This way we would get more bang for our buck and also keep some type of money in our pockets. We snorted pretty heavily, the three of us. Soon, we would turn to tip stealing. It was okay for a while but either the paranoia or getting sloppy would catch up to you. For me it would be both.

Things at home weren’t so great so I moved out. It was something that I should have done a long time ago. I didn’t want to be living with my folks for the rest of my life,