The Fall
CHAPTER NINETEEN from CAUGHT UP Truth and Metaphor | An Imaginary Tale
The Fall
19
Many months went by before Petra’s outer world reflected her inner imaginings. Paranoid, she scanned the horizon for potential threats and clamped down on her external behavior, fearing the next accusation. All sense of purpose and spiritual freedom had drained out of her. Continuing as if nothing had happened, she appeared to be riding an effortless wave. Years of momentum kept the machine running, but Petra had fallen off her board and was being sucked under by rip currents.
During a student church service, racial tensions arose and a physical confrontation seemed imminent. Petra made the mistake of restraining a female Hawaiian student.
Wrestling out of her arms, the girl turned and, facing her teacher with utter contempt, screamed, “How dare you touch a Hawaiian woman, you stupid haole bitch!”
The other Hawaiian students rallied around their wounded friend and escorted her to the Pastor’s office. Parents were called. The story escalated, transforming a once beloved teacher into a racist villain. The pastoral staff decided that, for healing to take place, an act of contrition was required. If she wanted to keep her job, Petra would have to face the entire congregation and apologize for her behavior. How she survived the ordeal without collapsing into a full-blown PTSD episode remains a mystery. She went home that evening, powered up the computer and ordered two bottles of expensive vanilla sherry.
“Just a little something to take the edge off and help me sleep.”
She was careful to limit herself to one glass.
It went so well, she thought, “I’m not an alcoholic, that’s obvious. I’m probably not an addict, either. I guess I’m cured.”
The woman church elders took an interest in Petra’s unruly circumstances and intervened.
“She’s getting in too much trouble.”
“What she needs is a male covering to protect her from herself.”
“Yes, a husband will solve everything.”
One respected prophetess, the kind that speaks out during church services and brings messages to the congregation from the mouth of God, had a revelation.
“I see your husband! He is very close. Expect him any day now.”
Having no reason to doubt her, she decided, since he was on his way, to get a haircut. Under normal circumstances, she would have gone to an inexpensive hair mill. Instead, she treated herself to a fancy salon in the mall. Leo, a Master Stylist from Miami, pampered her and talked non-stop about everything, including his personal conversion experience to Christianity. He had a genuine interest in her and her church.
At the end of the appointment, he put his hand on the small of her back and kissed her on the cheek. Petra saw stars and half-fainted. Leo, feeling her knees buckle, supported her until she regained her footing. It couldn’t have lasted more than a few seconds, a few supernatural seconds.
“Surely, this must be him.”
When Leo discovered she was a high school teacher and a large community of believers respected her, he began a relentless pursuit. He had a predatory knack for hiding secret agendas. One day, he would become a prominent pastor with a huge following of impressionable young people, and Petra, none the wiser, was his ticket to stardom.
He popped into her classroom with a dozen red roses, a grand entrance that caused the girls to swoon.
“Oh, Miss, it’s so romantic!”
“Flowers for the teacher,” he said.
Handing them to her, he whispered in her ear.
“Do you know how sexy you are standing in front of your class like this? I have a hard-on for the teacher.”
The courtship was a six-week whirlwind that culminated with a gigantic rock on Petra’s finger. Leo gave it to her just in time to show it off at the end-of-year student retreat. His timing was impeccable. It was an over-the-top gesture, right out of a movie. A public declaration of his love that pulled on everyone’s heartstrings.
Right out of the gate, he began isolating her.
“You know they’re not giving you the respect you deserve, right? They need to pay you what you’re worth.”
She confided in him about her nightly sherry and the contract that she had signed.
“Well, that’s the stupidest thing I ever heard. Does anyone actually abide by that?”
Leo smoked. He offered her a cigarette, which she accepted.
“Dear God in heaven, that’s good.”
The thing she noticed right away about cigarettes was that one was not enough. She bought a pack the next day.
They set a date for the wedding. The husband of the Prophetess was an Associate Pastor and agreed to officiate the ceremony in a quaint chapel near the beach in Paia. Leo decided they should celebrate by smoking a little weed.
“If I smoke weed, I’ll die.”
“That’s ridiculous. It’s just weed. Stop being so melodramatic.”
It had been over ten years since Petra had done any drugs, but, where Leo was concerned, she had little to no willpower. They got high. When he left the room to get them something to drink, she pinched some of his weed and hid it in her purse so she could smoke at home later. A normal person would have asked.
It was official. Her religious persona was dead. In its place, a reincarnation of her addict-self, who was a thief and a liar. When he came back in with the drinks, he seduced her. By the time she left his house that night, she had broken every clause in her contract.
Apparently, he liked “the goods” and they were married. The students began hanging around at their house. They enjoyed the atmosphere of freedom and acceptance. They talked about movies and music they enjoyed and even indulged in a curse word here and there. It was only a matter of time before Petra got caught smoking cigarettes. She shrugged and talked with the students about an idea she had.
“What if I wrote a letter to the Pastor and told him I started smoking cigarettes? I could say that I’m not sure if I can stop.”
In her naïve fantasy world, she believed the church was capable of unconditional love. One of her greatest desires was a hope for the students to be free all the time, not just in her classroom or at her house. She would lead by example by admitting to this one tiny flaw. When the Pastor received her letter, he fired her with no further inquiry.
“Are you kidding me? How could they fire her?”
“It’s not right!”
“For smoking a cigarette?”
“I heard, breach of contract.”
“I’ve been waiting since the sixth grade to get to her class! How could they do this?”
“Why didn’t you come to me?” asked David. “We could have figured something out. Why did you go to him?”
The office of the pastor sent a bulletin to the parents. It must have included a stern warning because the kids stopped dropping by.
Leo was beside himself.
“Why would you do that without consulting me first? I am your husband! Why can’t you act normal like everyone else? Who are you without that job? Nobody, that’s who!”
In a sudden flash, she saw the truth behind his motivations. Petra had a sinking “Ive done it again” feeling. She had to admit to her innermost self that the Pastor did the right thing for his congregation when he let her go. His son had been attending Leo’s bible studies and likely reported back to his father. The pastor, well before Petra, knew that her husband was not who he pretended to be. He was a master-manipulator who intended to use his wife’s elevated position with her students to his own ends. He had “aspiring cult leader” written all over him.
Leo was about to get a rude awakening. Without her job to temper her, she settled into the thought patterns and actions of an unbridled addict. She began smoking weed morning, noon, and night. Without that contract hanging over her head, there was no reason to deny herself anything, although, for the time being, she left the booze and any other drugs alone. All of her inadequacies, her failures, her lack of self-esteem, and feelings of unworthiness rose to the surface. Leo seemed to get a kick out of reminding her she was a useless piece of shit, a weight around his neck. Weed was her medication, and she was just fine with that.
They had honeymooned in Savannah and Charleston with a quick stop in the mountains of North Carolina to visit Petra’s mother. Leo, as was his custom, romanced Lou until she fell in love with him.
“Why don’t you move here? It’s a great place to raise kids and so much less expensive than Hawaii.”
When she lost her job and couldn’t find a decent position elsewhere, Leo got it in his head that they should move to North Carolina. He had visited a salon on Main Street and they told him he had a job if he ever needed one. This was news to Petra.
“I don’t want to live anywhere near my mother! Have you lost your mind?”
“Well, we can’t stay here. Your reputation is shot. We need a fresh start.”
He got almost everything he wanted. The thorn in his side was an ex-wife. The mother of his two children.
“You think you’re taking my kids to the mainland? Not a chance in hell!”
Leaving Leo’s children behind, the three of them headed to North Carolina. It was a tremendous change for Daniel, who went from being the apple of everyone’s eye to an isolated six-year-old in a brand new town. Lou had inherited and was living in her mother, Evelyn’s three-bedroom house. There were a variety of reasons she secured a two-bedroom rental in town, instead of inviting them to stay with her. For the first time in her life, she was living on her own, in style. Along with the house, her mother left her a substantial amount of money. She wanted her privacy. She did not want to be judged for her drinking and she, most definitely, wanted none of that born-again bullshit.
Tiziana called and asked to come to North Carolina. She missed her “foster” mom. Petra informed her about the weed and cigarettes and occasional wine or beer.
“Doesn’t bother me.”
“Okay, then. Can’t wait!”
They lived within walking distance of Main Street. A few blocks away was a dilapidated Queen Anne Victorian Cottage built in 1898. It was a marvelous disaster. All the bells and whistles one might expect adorned its exterior, including a sixteen foot cylindrical tower jutting out of the second floor. The house stood abandoned and had been on the market for close to a decade. Once a year, on Halloween, the owner allowed the city to use it as a haunted house. A “For Sale by Owner” sign caught Petra’s attention. Interested, she peered through a first story window and motioned to Leo.
“Hey, come here. This window is open. Let’s have a look.”
Not one to resist a dare, he followed her inside. The interior had a vintage, musty smell that she found intoxicating. They spent hours looking at every little thing, from the antiques to the carvings around its nine fireplaces. It was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.
“We have to buy this house, Leo. It’s our house. Don’t ask me how I know, I just do.”
They were running out of credit, and his business was bringing in just enough to pay the bills. In faith, they approached the owner. He offered to sell it to them “As Is” for two hundred thousand dollars if they waived the inspection. On their side, the terms ensured that there would be no credit check. The monthly payment was a very reasonable thirteen hundred dollars.
Their new home was the ultimate fixer-upper. Tiziana joked they were like that old black-and-white television show, The Munsters. Petra, Leo and Daniel were the edgy characters with a dark side, while she, the blonde-haired, adopted child, was the normal one. They moved in at the end of August and worked long hours, attempting to make it livable. Transforming a haunted house into a home was no simple task.
In October, a cold snap blew through and they got a rude awakening. The blustery wind wove its way into the house through old windows and loose moldings. If they didn’t get the fireplaces working before November, they were going to freeze to death.
All nine fireplaces had clogged chimneys. The only way to clear them, thank God for Leo and his clever ideas, was to start on the top floor, remove bricks and pull the soot, debris and dead animal carcasses in through the house. The next obstacle was fuel. These were coal-burning fireplaces. As fate would have it, the basement was overflowing with large chunks of lump coal. They ranged in size from softballs to cantaloupes. A cast iron sewage pipe, eight inches in diameter, ran across the basement ceiling. It had a slow leak along its cracked seam, causing it to drip toilet water on top of the coal. A filmy brown layer of human waste coated the individual lumps of coal. They named it “poop coal.”
“No worries. Don’t they burn cow pies in India?”
Stoned off his ass, Leo was a cup half-full sort of guy. With four fireplaces up and running, survival became possible, but not easy. The coal had to be restocked every three hours.
In the basement, sitting in a collapsed metal heap, was a gigantic coal-burning furnace with eight octopus arms. Leo collected all the pieces, sanded them, and began the arduous, painstaking process of reconstruction. By early February, he had resurrected the massive machine with all eight arms attached to the floor vents above. They filled it with coal and lit a match. Within the hour, they had to strip down to their underwear. The house had become an inferno. Soon their excited, victorious dancing and hollering shifted to concern.
The cast-iron furnace burned red hot. It is a wonder that it didn’t blow up and take them all out with it. Leo did his calculations and concluded that they should never fill it more than one-third of the way. He also discovered a wood-to-coal ratio that helped cut down on the hungry beast’s appetite. About an hour’s drive north, in an adjoining county, they found one of the last remaining coal yards in Western North Carolina. It was a good thing too, because, in one month, they had burned their way through two-thirds of the poop coal.
Leo could fix anything. All he had to do was think about it, make a few mechanical drawings, and Voilà. He purchased an old pickup truck, for next to nothing, rebuilt the engine and put it to good use as a fuel hauler. Chainsawing fallen trees in the forest required an enormous amount of energy and a substantial chunk of time. With weekly runs to the coal yard, and the effort required to keep the various fires burning, Leo’s nine to five at the salon became unsustainable. He quit his job and began cutting and coloring hair at home for a reduced rate. There were two reasons his clientele followed him. First, he was a master-stylist, and second, everyone was desperate to get inside the haunted house and see what in the hell was going on. Everyone seemed delighted except his previous employer.
The house began making unusual, creaking sounds. Upon investigation, Leo discerned that the central support beam was giving way. He had to address the situation lickety-split, or the house was going to cave in on itself. Deep in thought, he pondered the situation. He studied the structure, surveyed the cracks appearing in the recently plastered walls, and made detailed drawings. He bought metal jacks, and like a mad scientist, realigned the house.
By the end of February, the neighbors were up in arms concerning the coal burning. The house was belching out soot like a Charles Dickens novel. Their next-door neighbor, Gene, took the lead and reported them to the Environmental Protection Agency. Nothing could be done. Coal burning is legal in the state of North Carolina. Gene decided, what with all the renovation noise, pot smoke and black ash pouring out of his neighbor’s house, that Leo was the Devil.
“This is intolerable. Someone has to stop him. He’s possessed!”
An old-school Methodist, he took to waving his bible, quoting scriptures and casting out demons along the fence line. Leo responded by quoting Bible scriptures right back at him convincing Gene, even further, that he was Satan incarnate.
Those first three years were way too busy for relational problems to arise. They were living an unusual, survival-based lifestyle. High on weed, twenty-four-seven, and distracted by mandatory chores from dawn till dusk, they appeared happy. Their home echoed with sardonic laughter.
A car accident changed everything. Tiziana was driving across an intersection when a truck ran its red light at full speed, and crashed into the passenger side where Petra was sitting. The passenger door would not open, leaving her pinned inside. Too injured to pull herself out through the driver’s side, she remained trapped while Tiziana ran for help. Something about being alone, in pain and helpless triggered flashbacks from her childhood. Horrible memories of being restrained, choked and sexually assaulted.
The EMTs slid her out of the car, but not before putting a cervical collar around her neck.
“It’s too tight. Please take it off. It’s too tight. I can’t breathe.”
Concerned for her safety, they ignored her pleas. She felt powerless, was lost in debilitating memories, and tried to loosen the collar herself. The paramedics further restrained her.
“What are you doing? Stop…stop…you’re hurting me.”
By the time she reached the Emergency Room, she was screaming. The staff thought she was insane. The moment they loosened the collar, Petra calmed down. The doctor followed up with a shot of morphine for the pain, and she outright relaxed. Tiziana called Leo, who was more concerned about losing a laborer than his wife’s physical condition.
“Deal with it. I have more important things to do.”
That was the beginning of the end.
It was 2003 and the Oxycodone Epidemic was in full swing. Over the next three years, Petra cascaded through one debilitating level of narcotics addiction, after another, until she became unavailable and unaware. Leo confined her to her bedroom. Her life felt like an episode of Dark Shadows.
“If you’re too sick to work, stay out of sight.”
Had she married Barnabas Collins? She became his hostage, much like Josette was Barnabas’ hostage in the show. Truth be told, upon closer examination, the decor of her bedroom looked exactly like Josette’s. Same architectural style; identical 1960s vintage gowns and slips hanging on hooks; same Victorian brass, fan-shaped fireplace screen in the shape of peacock feathers. The strange similarities brought two questions to mind.
First, “How much do television shows affect the development of unconscious patterns in children?”
And second, “What were our parents thinking, allowing us to watch a show like that in elementary school?”
Petra spent her waking moments staring into the fireplace in her bedroom. She did nothing, saw nothing, was nothing. She sobered up for a few months here and there but relapsed over and over. Without his wife to intervene, Leo became more and more abusive to her children. In a sudden move, with the help of Tiziana, who had gotten her own place a month earlier, she and Daniel fled. Getting out from under his tyranny was a step in the right direction, but while free from him, the children were still not safe from her.
During a six-month period of sobriety, right after she and Daniel moved out, she somehow opened a vintage clothing shop on Main Street. The sobriety didn’t last long. She alienated Tiziana to such a degree that one day she appeared at the shop and dumped every gift Petra had ever given her in a heap.
“I want nothing to do with you. I don’t want any of this stupid stuff. It reminds me of you. How could you let him hurt us like that? Why did you side with him against your own children? How is it possible you didn’t see what was happening in your own house? I hate you!”
Petra stood there numb, an empty shell, incapable of doing or saying anything to make it better. Out of character, she stopped at a gift shop on the way home and bought a journal.
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A harrowing tale, shot through with unlikely humor and fantastical creatures.
This autofiction (autobiography and fiction) novel revolves around a lifetime spent underwater struggling to find the surface. The narrative follows the journey of an unlikely heroine from the bondage of childhood trauma to self-awareness and freedom.
It is a roller coaster ride from the depths of hell to triumphant success that finishes with a big Hollywood ending.