The Fold
Baptism, near Mineola, Tex., Summer, 1935. (c) Alan Lomax/Wikipedia Commons
A Short Story By Lo Brewer
When I received a notification that someone named Troi wanted to connect with me, I instinctively cringed. Sure, it didn’t have to be her. It didn’t have to be that Troi. But I knew better. It makes sense that she would have found me. She had to be out by now. And I’m sure she thought a lot about me all these years. Lord knows that despite my efforts, I thought about her often. We didn’t know each other long before that day in the pool house, hardly enough time to form a lasting friendship. But I suppose what we shared wasn’t friendship. What we shared was a different type of bond and all it took was a single moment. That moment sent Troi to jail for 5 years, but it set me free.
In The Fold, when you turn 13, you have reached the age of accountability. That meant you could be bathed in the light, their form of baptism that involved full immersion in water…in the nude. It was also when you began ministering. Any time a new person entered the congregation, they would be paired with a baptized member of The Fold who would who would act as their guide and help them on their path to being bathed in the light.
I was just past my 13th birthday and spiritual bathing when I met Troi. She was the latest stray that Pastor Michaels and his wife had taken in. The pastor was our spiritual father and the leader of The Fold. He came from a long line of ‘fathers,’ dating back to the founding of The Fold sometime in the early 1900s. Charity was an important principle of The Fold. And the pastor and his wife often showed charity by opening their home up to people in need, particularly children.They’d been foster parents to some of the most unwanted children. These children had been thrown away (some of them literally). They came from terrible homes. They were poor. They were uneducated. Some of them were already criminals. And the scariest thing about them was that they were wild cards. You never knew what you were going to get with these kinds of kids. The only thing you knew for sure was that no one wanted them, except for The Fold. We accepted everyone.
When I was officially introduced to Troi, it wasn’t the first time I’d crossed paths with her. When I was in fourth grade, her classroom was directly next to mine. She wasn’t in my school long, but she left a lasting impression on me. She was often sent to sit in my classroom, having been removed from hers for being disruptive. It wasn’t until I became an adult that I realized that her teacher didn’t think that sending her into another classroom would somehow miraculously adjust her behavior, she just needed a fucking break from Troi’s antics. Mrs. Balziak, Troi’s teacher, would punish her with random mind-numbing tasks like cleaning the erasers or sharpening all the pencils. These punishments continued until Troi decided she’d sharpened her last pencil. Upon completing her latest punishment, she presented the pencils to Mrs. Balziak. Then Troi smiled, grabbed one of those pencils and stabbed Mrs. Balziak in the thigh. She was removed from school that day. I had no idea what had happened to her until seeing her at Pastor and Lady Michaels’ house.
The pastor threw one of his famous pool parties to introduce me to Troi. He and his wife often had pool parties and barbecues at their home. Sometimes it was to introduce new members or for celebrations like the someone’s spiritual bathing. But often, these gatherings were so Fold members could fellowship together with likeminded people.
I had just been at the pastor’s house just a few weeks before for my spiritual bathing. Afterwards My mother wrapped me in a towel to cover my naked body, something the pastor said wasn’t necessary as he led me to the pool house. She walked with he and I to the pool house and announced that she’d be right outside. At the time I thought she was talking to me. But I know now that she wasn’t. Once inside the pastor looked at me with very intent eyes. He explained to me that now that I’d reached an age of accountability that I was responsible for myself. My mother wouldn’t be able to save my soul. Only I could do that through my dedication and sacrifice. He asked me to make an affirmation of my faith to him, which I did. I could feel the weight of this affirmation, it was serious, as if I was promising myself to him, as if we’d just taken marital vows.
He told me that he already had someone for me to do my first ministering with. A girl my age named Troi had been placed with he and his wife and he wanted her to learn about The Fold from me. When we exited the pool house, my eyes were wet with tears. I didn’t realize that the heaviness of the situation had made me cry. My mother grabbed my face in her hands and looked questioningly at me with horrified eyes.
“She’s just a little nervous about her first ministering mission, Corinne. Calm down,” Pastor Michaels said before joining the rest of the group who’d all already started eating my celebratory cupcakes.
At Troi’s introduction barbecue, the pastor and his wife stood before the entire congregation, who were all gathered around the pool in various states of relaxation. He spoke about charity and opening our hearts and homes to people less fortunate than us both financially and spiritually. Then he introduced Troi as if she were a beauty game show contestant.
“Friends, we would love to introduce to you, our newest child, your newest sister, Troi James!”
Troi walked out into the yard from the house. Her face was virtually the same, but gone were her dirty clothes and unkempt hair. No doubt Lady Michaels personally scrubbed, rinsed, primped, powdered and polished Troi. Troi stood before us with a scowl on her face, looking as if she might make a run for it at any moment.
I walked over to Troi and introduced myself and extended my hand to her. She just looked at it. I don’t know if she was unsure what to do or if she just had no desire to touch me.
“Did you used to go to Franklin?” she asked me.
“Yea, I went to Franklin Elementary. You too right?”
“Yea. I remember you. You’re smart. When that bitch would kick me out of her class into yours, you’d always be in there answerin’ all the questions right and shit,” she said. She made sure to say ‘shit’ extra loud. She looked at the pastor and his wife for a reaction but got none.
I leaned in and whispered, “They don’t care if you curse. The pastor is pretty cool that way. He’s all about self-expression. He’s really good with kids too,” I continued. “He takes extra time with all of us. He calls it having ‘faith sessions.’ I haven’t had one yet. But it’ll probably happen soon and I’m really excited about it.”
“Faith sessions, huh? Look, I don’t know about all of that shit. I just know these folks got a big ass house, and I have a nice bed to sleep in. So I’ll take it for now. Somethin’ is bound to fuck it up at some point. But I’m gonna ride this pony ‘til it’s dead.”
My mother came over and introduced herself to Troi. She started in with rapid fire questions in attempt to find out more about the girl I would be spending so much time with. I could see it was making Troi uncomfortable.
“Mom, quit it!” I said in that annoyed teen voice I’m sure my mother had become accustomed to.
“What Valencia? I’m just asking her about herself,” my mother said, only slightly irritated.
“Corrine,” Pastor Michaels interrupted, “I was thinking that since the girls are going to be spending a lot of time together in the upcoming months, it might be a good idea if Val stayed with us this summer. That way you don’t have to waste time driving her over here.”
“Oh, no, no, Pastor, that’s quite alright. I don’t mind bringing her. No, not at all. It’s no trouble,” my mother stammered.
“Well, okay then. How about just a sleep over tonight? You girls would like that, right?” he asked Troi and me.
“Can I mom?! Pleease!” I begged.
“Valencia you don’t have any pajamas or any clothes for tomorrow.”
“She can borrow some of mine. Pastor and Lady Pastor stocked my room with all kinds of shit,” Troi said.
“Then I guess it’s settled!” the pastor exclaimed.
My mother looked defeated. She’d always been extra protective of me. She never liked for me to spend the night at anyone’s house. She was even particular about who came over our house. I only had friends in The Fold, but it felt like she even kept our spiritual brothers and sisters at arm’s length. It’s been like this since my dad left. I was little when it happened, so I don’t remember much. I just know that they had a big fight and the next day my dad was gone. I hadn’t seen him since. I didn’t remember him enough to miss him very much.
At the end of the night, my mother gave me a tight hug, too tight maybe, and whispered in my ear, “Baby if you need anything or you want to come home, call me. I don’t care what time of night it is.”
“Seriously Mom, I’m not a baby. Can you just be normal for once?”
“Well you’ll always be my baby. Besides, I love you. You know you’re all I got,” she said.
“Wrongo mom, you’ve got The Fold too,” I said.
“Right, The Fold. Well anyway, just remember what I said. If you need me, I’m just a phone call away.”
After she left I helped Lady Michaels clean up the kitchen. When we were done she called Troi upstairs to get ready for bed. I started to follow them, but the Pastor called me out to the yard. He didn’t say anything as he grabbed my hand and led me to the pool house for what I assumed would be my first “faith session.” What happened in that room in the following moments was the definition of a life changing experience. When it was over, he explained to me that he was showing me the best way to find the light and get close to God. He explained that I couldn’t tell my mother about what we did because she has lost her faith and would try to find a way to keep me from the light. I went into the house to the bathroom to wash up as he instructed me to. When I got there was surprised to find Lady Michaels waiting for me. She’d drawn me a bath and showed me a special way to wash up after a faith session. She said that these sessions bring out all the dirt we have in us and that we have to wash it all off after.
When I walked into Troi’s room she was already asleep. Earlier I’d been excited for my first real sleepover. But after what happened in the pool house I was relieved to just be able to go to sleep. That night I cried. I told myself the tears were for my mother, my lost, faithless mother.
The next day, Lady Michaels brought me home. She sat in our modest kitchen as my mother asked me how I enjoyed my time at the pastor’s house. I remembered what the pastor said, that I should be weary of my mother. So I just told her that Troi and I were so tired we ended up going straight to bed after the barbecue. Lady Michaels offered to stay with me while my mother went to work at one of the Pastor’s motels. But she declined. They walked out together and I spent the rest of the day prepping for my first ministering session with Troi.
Troi and I met three times a week. Every time that I visited the Michaels’ home, I had a faith session. I had so many questions about what was happening in our sessions. I wondered how our sessions were going…if I was doing it right. I wondered if Carla Harris didn’t do it right and that’s why she and her family left The Fold shortly after her sessions began. I trusted the pastor. But for some reason I didn’t feel comfortable discussing these questions with the pastor or Lady Michaels. And I wished I could ask my mother. But he made it clear to me that she could not be trusted.
This was affirmed for me a night shortly after when I was awoken from a deep sleep by hushed voices in the living room of our apartment. I crept out of bed and got down low so I could listen through the crack between the door and the floor.
“Simon, when you left you had friends on the outside. You had people to run to. I have no one,” my mother said.
“Corinne, you have me. I’ve got a good job. I just got a house. I wanted to get things right before I came back for you. I’m ready to be the husband and father that you wanted me to be all those years ago,” my father said. It was strange how familiar his voice was after all of that passed time.
“No, I’m not running from one nightmare to another. I need to bide my time. I have to save a little more money before we can leave. It’s hard to run when I’m living in one of his properties and working at another. My life is so deeply woven with The Fold that breaking out is damn near impossible. But if things go the way I want, we’re just a few months away from freedom. Just know that even when we do finally get out of here, I’m not going back to you. There’s no way that I’m going to give you an opportunity to leave us in the cold again. You’ve been gone for years. I didn’t know if you were even still alive. You don’t get to come back and play daddy now.”
“Cor, I couldn’t stay after I found out what they were up to. I didn’t care that I’d wasted a large chunk of my entire life in The Fold. I didn’t care that I was leaving a rent-free apartment and a cushy job to homelessness and unemployment. I didn’t want to lose you and Valencia. But I had to go. I couldn’t be a part of something so disgusting. And I can’t believe that you could. I gave you the chance to leave with me and you were just too devoted, or maybe just too scared. Tell me something, has he started in on V yet? Is he building her faith?”
“Get out of my house, now!”
“Fine, I’ll leave. But one day she’s going to know what kinda mother you are. And then she’ll leave you too.”
The door slammed. I listened at the door for what seemed like forever to my mother crying. I didn’t understand much of what had gone on between my parents before my father left. But one thing I did know was that if my mother was planning on leaving The Fold with me, she had indeed lost her faith and was beyond help.
Near the end of the summer, Pastor Michaels came to me to tell me that God spoke to him and told him that it was time for Troi to begin faith sessions. He hadn’t been able to convince her to enter the pool house with him and he wanted me to give it a try.
“Tell her how much joy you get from the sessions. You know, your young minds are especially vulnerable to the temptations of the Devil. Explain to her that this has to happen for me to save her soul.”
I agreed, unsure of exactly how I was going to convince the headstrong Troi to do anything.
I found her in her room listening to music on a brand new CD Walkman. When she saw me enter she gave me a nonchalant nod.
“Hey, Troi can we talk?”
“Yea, that’s what you’re here for, right? You talk all that God/Fold jibber jabber for 45 minutes, then you go off with the pastor and I can get back to my business.”
“Is that what you think I come here for? I’m trying to help you. If you don’t start accepting the faith, you’ll never be bathed in the light,” I said.
“Uh, huh.”
“Speaking of bathing in the light, the pastor says that you don’t want to do any faith sessions with him. And he’s really eager to start with you as soon as possible. I think if you start doing them, you’ll be ready to bathe in the light in no time.”
“Oh I know he’s eager. He’s so eager he gave me this new Walkman. I bet if I can hold him off for a little while longer I may even end up with my very own cell phone. That is before they kick me out.”
“Troi, the sessions are for your own good. They help keep you pure and clean and bathed in the light. They help you ward off the devil. If you never have a faith session your soul is doomed.”
“Wait, are you serious? You actually believe all this shit? Man, I thought you were smart, or maybe just a freak who liked it,” she said with a laugh.
“What do you mean? I am smart. You’re the dumb one! You sound just like my mom. She’s faithless just like you.”
“Okay, if you’re so smart and I’m so dumb, answer something for me. Do you go in the pool house with him and let him do whatever he wants to you? Does he touch you? Does he make you touch him? Does he take your clothes off? Does he put it in you?” she asked. I didn’t answer.
“Well, he doesn’t do any of that shit to me and at least I have a Walkman for my troubles. Look, I’ve been in enough foster homes to know a kiddy diddler when I see one. And that man likes to fuck kids. He’s one of the worst kinds cus he uses this fake ass church to do it. And that wife of his is fucked up too. She’s aiding and abetting him.”
“What?”
“It’s a term I learned in juvie court. It means she’s part of his fucked-upness. And if anyone knew what was going on here, BOTH of them would be in jail.”
“Troi, the pastor would never hurt me. And Lady Michaels, she loves kids, she would never go along with anything that hurt kids. So you’ve got it all wrong,” I said as if I was trying to convince her. But it wasn’t Troi that needed convincing.
“Take a look at this,” Troi said as she pulled a switch blade out of her sock and flicked it open. “You see this? I’ve known how to cut a man ten ways to Sunday since I was 6 years old. My mama was a hoe and she had johns in the place all the time. She showed me how to take care of myself in case one of ‘em tried to get to me. I’ve had men try to get a piece of me since I can remember. And I’ve been able to fend all of ‘em off. If he wants me in the pool house, I’ll go. But one of us ain’t walkin’ out.”
She slapped the blade shut, put it back in her sock and put her headphones back on. Our conversation was over.
I snuck out of the Michaels’ home and took the bus back to my apartment. I wasn’t ready to face the pastor and tell him I’d failed.
Two days later I left a note for my mother saying that I was going to the Michaels’ house. I’d missed my last ministering session trying to avoid talking to the pastor. But I felt like I owed him the courtesy of admitting my failure. When I got to the Michaels’, no one answered the door, so I walked around to the side of the house. I saw the pastor and Lady Michaels standing outside talking to Troi. Everyone had serious faces. Lady Michaels went into the house and the pastor and Troi walked back to the pool house. Troi turned just as she was following him inside and looked directly at the bush I was crouched behind as if she knew I was there. Her face was full of terror. The tough as nails, self-assured badass I’d come to know over the summer was gone. In her place was a horrified little girl.
When they were both secured inside the pool house, I raced across the backyard and put my ear to the door. I wasn’t sure if Troi would carry through with her threat. But I felt protective of the pastor. I waited with my hand on the door knob, unsure if I should open the door and warn him. But when I heard him speaking to her, I took pause.
“Now you listen here you little black whore. I know what you’re all about. There’s no way you can tell me that you haven’t already given it up to every dick that crossed your path. I know your mother was a prostitute. I read your file. No doubt she taught you just how to make a man feel good. So what you’re gonna do is stop fighting me and get on your knees. And if you don’t I’ll send you back like I did the others. All it takes is one phone call to the cops telling them that you stole from us and your ass will be back in juvie.”
Troi had been reduced to tears. She tried to beg him to spare her. But her pleas were muffled between her sobbing. I’d never heard terror like I heard in her cries.
She must have stood to run because he screamed, “Get back here!” and then I heard a hard slap. Just then something in me broke. I burst through the door to find the pastor standing over Troi who was crouched in a corner. Her pantleg was rolled up just enough for the glint of her knife to catch my eye. I grabbed it, flicked it open and plunged it into the pastor’s chest. He crumpled to the floor where he bled out as Troi and I stood in silence. We would have been there forever if my mother frantically calling my name hadn’t broken us from our trance.
Troi, grabbed my bloody hand and we walked out of the pool house together.
When my mother had found my letter earlier, she called the police and told them about what had been going on at The Fold. She’d been a victim of the pastor and his wife, as had many other girls in the congregation. She arrived at the pastor’s house with the police and they and saw the blood on both of us. We were immediately questioned. Still stunned from what I’d done, I was silent and could only point to the pool house. After the gruesome discovery inside, Troi was quick to offer up an explanation. She said that she’d stabbed the pastor because he tried to rape her. I opened my mouth to protest, but she squeezed my bloody hand so hard that she crushed my fingers. Somehow I knew that it was better this way.
The next few months were a blur. The Fold was completely dismantled. Several people came forward to testify about the rapes they’d endured at the hands of the pastor and his wife. Lady Michaels was sentenced to 30 years in prison for her part in the crimes. She served 2 weeks before she was found hanging in her cell.
Troi was locked up again. In addition to several pending infractions, her possession of a switchblade was a violation of her probation, so she was sentenced to spend the rest of her teen years in juvenile detention.
My mother and I moved around a lot in the following years. Initially we tried living with my dad. But whatever love they used to have for each other, had long evaporated by then. So it was back to just me and her. We were broke. But we were free.
The message from Troi sat unanswered for a week before I had the courage to click on it.
Hey V, long time no talk. As you probably figured, I’m out. And you’re the first person I want to see. I’m sure you’re probably busy. I bet you’re going to some fancy college somewhere or something. But if you have some time and you’re around, hit me up. I never got to thank you for saving my life.
Your girl,
Troi
It’s funny, you know, all this time I thought that it was she that saved my life.