Tripping on Tears Read Free Page B

all its ugliness. An honest - and because it was honest - harrowing depiction of a world that served no purpose in society; a world that I witnessed really did destroy souls. And that’s what The Sinful Delusion , my first book, written in the style of the New Journalists like Tom Wolfe and Hunter S. Thompson, was about.
    I was as surprised as anyone when I found a publisher who was willing to publish the manuscript; I was equally surprised when the book performed really well; I was pleased when it performed well enough that I was able to call up my little brother and tell him he could take that life of poverty crack of his on a long walk off a short pier. I think his response to me was, “Bite me.” For someone as creative as him, that was his best.
    The only problem with writing a book such as The Sinful Delusion was the fact that many readers automatically assumed I wrote about it because I was a strip club patron—a long-time fan of the art of exotic dancing, which, of course, I wasn’t. While I took pride in the book’s success, it did bother me that some would think that, so when my publisher asked me what I wanted to write next, I gave it some thought and figured I’d focus on a subject matter that was as far from strip clubs and stripping as I could get; a subject matter that if I handled it right, would earn me some respect and demonstrate my scope as a non-fiction writer. What is that subject? Funny you should ask.
    Growing up in my household, religion was not a big topic. When we were little, my Mother would dress my brother, sister and I up and take us to Church for Easter or Christmas Mass, or something like that. Dad never came, and none of us ever thought to ask him why. As we got older it seemed the only time we were in Church was when someone died or someone was getting married. That’s not to say my family didn’t believe in a higher power, a supreme being or anything like that, but that we didn’t feel it was necessary to frame that belief in one particular religion or need a Church to cement it within our hearts.
    Is there a God?
    Good question. And, you know what; I can’t say definitively one way or another. I believe there is, as I believe there is a grand design regarding life and someone or something must be behind that grand design. Let me use an example that isn’t personal to me, but I believe illustrates my point.
    Wilmer McLean.
    You probably have never heard of him. In 1861, he and his family owned a farm near Manassas Junction along the banks of the Bull Run River. It was in his front yard that the first battle of the American Civil War was fought—a war that claimed the lives of 620,000 Americans. It was in 1865 in the remote hamlet of Appomattox, a town in which Wilmer had moved his family to escape the horrors of the war, having bought the Appomattox Court House, that Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered his Army of Virginia to Union General Ulysses S. Grant, thus ending the conflict. You could say the war started in Wilmer McLean’s front yard and ended in his front parlor. All of this could be coincidence, but throughout history there have been many such events that can’t help but make you think that somebody is up there pulling the strings and having a little fun with us. The symmetry of it all is amazing.
    No, I wasn’t writing a book about the American Civil War, but bring this up, as the topic I did choose surprisingly reflected some of the issues that soon affected my life and turned me down the road to hatred. The book dealt with faith and beliefs and the arguments of both of those from opposing sides. It encompassed the relationship between two of the 19 th and 20 th Centuries most famous men, but more on that later . It’s a subject I researched exhaustively and one I could go on and on and on about indefinitely, but it only plays a small part in the narrative of my downfall. Let’s instead get to her and how she changed my life.

 
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