Strongholds Read online

  I believe it today and I speak it: I have the mind of Christ.

  Bentley

  When you have a last name like Strong and a first name like Bentley, you know you’re being set up for some great things in your life. Of course children made fun of me. Most of them had heard of a car called Bentley, so that just made their teasing that much easier. Now that I’m twenty-five and doing very well, those same people who picked on me years ago are flocking to wherever I happen to be, asking for financial handouts.

  It turns out that being a computer geek at the age of eight (even though we were dirt poor and didn’t even get a computer in our home until I was eleven) was an additional blessing unto itself. But my mother always told me as long as I owned a library card, I had the whole world—along with some of the most brilliant minds and teachers ever to live—forever at my fingertips.

  “Just reach out and take hold of all you can get,” she said.

  My mother was the brilliant one. The library was full of books and access to computers. The librarians were so impressed with my diligence; they allowed me more time on the computer back then than they were supposed to. I, in turn, taught them some things they didn’t know how to do. When it was time to upgrade to newer, more powerful models, the main librarian, Ms. Kemp, did something that ended up literally changing the course of my life.

  “Bentley, you’re a bright young man,” Ms. Kemp said one cloudy afternoon. “I’ve arranged for you to have something, if you would like it.” She led me to a storage room. “We were required to wipe all of the information off the hard drive other than DOS, but if you can get someone to come pick this up for you”—she pointed at the lifeless, monstrosity of a machine, an IBM computer—“then it’s all yours.” She then handed me a bag filled with various types of software.

  “For real, Ms. Kemp! I can have it? Flat out own it and take it home with me?”

  She smiled. “Yes, flat out own it and take it home with you.”

  My mother came and got the computer. She couldn’t thank Ms. Kemp enough. Some five years and a brand new computer later, I learned how Ms. Kemp had actually purchased the old and the new computer for me with money from her own pocket.

  What most folks in my neighborhood and school didn’t know was that I could take a computer apart and put it back together again. And there wasn’t software out there I couldn’t master. My mother was right: at the library I found all the answers at my fingertips. Books upon books contained answers to any questions I even thought about having.

  True: books can be a blessing. However, I also discovered, some things in print can be dangerous. My uncle on my mother’s side came to live in our home shortly after I turned eleven. If my mother hadn’t taken him in, I believe he’d still be homeless today. For certain, none of the other family members wanted to put up with his drinking and womanizing ways. But my mother didn’t have the heart to turn anyone away, especially someone with nowhere else to go. And particularly not her own blood. He didn’t like the fact that I had my head inside of a book 24/7 or that I was forever on the computer.

  Uncle Tank had been a promising musician. From what the family says, there wasn’t an instrument Uncle Tank couldn’t play. The way they talk, the artist originally known then formerly known now known again as Prince, had nothing on him. I’m told Uncle Tank learned to play instruments by ear, and he started playing the piano for the church. They say he could practically raise any roof off any building with a saxophone. But they claim he had a little too much sass laced in his playing for a church or gospel career.

  “There wasn’t much money to be made in gospel music back when I came along, Bentley,” he said during one of our little talks. “For some reason, church folks don’t seem to believe in paying folks like the world will. ’Course now, things done changed a whole lot since folks like that Kirk Franklin fella and the rest of ’em done come on the scene. I guess I was just born ahead of my time. You know that song he sang called ‘Stomp’?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, do you know he took the music track of a classic from back in the day by the Parliament-Funkadelics and put Christian words to it? Made it into a Christian song. See, that’s something I would have done if the church folk had’a left me alone.”

  I looked at Uncle Tank with a deliberate smirk to let him know I knew he wasn’t telling the truth. Saying something like that had to be the result of those spirits everybody said he carried around in his pocket and sipped regularly.

  “Don’t believe me? All right then. Give me a day or two to get my hands on my album collection. I see right now I’ma just have to prove it to you, young blood.”

  And that’s what he did. When I heard the original song, I couldn’t believe my ears. That was so tight! Soon afterward, Uncle Tank and I became good buddies.

  That’s when he told me he thought I was a bit out of balance, reading all those “smart books” all the time and “living on the computer.” He believed every young boy needed other “book-learning,” especially in my case, not having my father around to teach me men stuff. I needed to expand my “reading repertoire” was the way he put it.

  That’s when he pulled out a magazine, flipped the pages so I could see it was chock full of pictures, and gently laid it down before me like it was a mint condition Michael Jordan rookie card or something.

  My first reaction was that I was too old for a picture book and that he really didn’t understand boys my age at all.

  “Uncle Tank, I don’t know if you realize this, but I am thirteen now. For sure, I’m too old to be reading picture books.”

  “See what I mean, boy? Most boys your age would have picked up on just seeing the cover that this is no children’s book. That there is a pure, double-D, Grade-A, certified woman right there on that cover. I guarantee you won’t find these here pictures in no children’s book.” He turned several pages and began to grin. “Here.” He handed it to me. “Take this and try studying somethin’ other than all that boring stuff you done got brainwashed to. And if you find you like what you see, I’ve got plenty more where this one come from stashed away. Plen-ty. You just let your good ole Uncle Tank know, and Uncle Tank will take care of you. You can believe that.”

  “I don’t know about this,” I said.

  “Boy, do you want to grow up and be a real man, or do you want to grow up and be with a man? This book is like a test. If you’re straight, we’ll find out by how you react. Consider this my gift to you. Just don’t let your mama know or see it. Women don’t seem to understand or share our appreciation for God’s human art in full, living color.”

  And that was how it all began, where the seed was planted and my addiction to pornography took root. And like most addictions, it has only progressed over the years.

  Now here I am married to Marcella, a wonderful, smart, beautiful woman, with a baby girl on the way, and I still find myself sneaking—late at night after my real, live, can-actually-be-touched wife is asleep—to look at porn. That’s crazy. I have my own stash of magazines, videos, and DVDs galore, conveniently squirreled away. And the very thing Uncle Tank claimed a huge waste of my time—the computer—as it turns out, actually gives me the greatest access (via the Internet) to unlimited sites. There is categorically no shortage of porn lurking in cyberspace.

  The thing that disturbs me is the amount of deceptive e-mail sent to people who really aren’t interested in viewing pornographic sites, a good many of them being sent to innocent children. Children who, like me, could later become hooked. After all, it wasn’t that long ago when I myself had only been a naive boy, minding my own business.

  Now look at me. As a grown man, I can’t seem to stop myself from practically gawking at naked women whose certain sexual acts I have no place or business looking upon. Marcella deserves better from me. Our new baby, due in about five months, deserves better. Although honestly, some of the books Marcella and her friends have been reading lately (called erotic fiction) seem to simply be just a more accep
table version of my own stronghold. Much of it is, from what I’ve seen and heard, clearly porn in words—sexual pictures created through the power of language.

  And as Pastor Landris just said in a recent sermon, “Imagination is imagination. All images—real or imagined—are equally real when it comes to your brain.”

  True, Pastor. They’re all images. And some of them just need to be pulled down.

  Dr. Xavier Holden

  I can’t believe I actually stood and walked up to the front like this. I’m the one who is usually helping others to get their lives together. I’m the one people look to for answers, although in truth, I merely pose the questions that help draw out the answers.

  “Dr. Holden, I desperately need your help.” “Dr. Holden, it’s urgent that I talk to you today. Please, can’t you just work me in?” Who would think a psychologist would be on call the way I appear to be? I’ve even had to go to various emergency rooms to see about a few of my patients in the middle of the night.

  When I began my practice, Avis and I had just gotten engaged. Avis is my sweetheart. I remember the day I first knew I liked her. We were in the school yard.

  “Ouch!” Avis yelled as she turned around and glared at me. “Boy, why did you pull my hair?”

  “Who you calling a boy?”

  “If you pull my hair again, I’m going to do more than call you a boy,” she said.

  “Oh, so I’m supposed to be scared of you?” I asked.

  “You’d better be.”

  “And who are you supposed to be?”

  She put one hand on her hip, which truthfully already had some nice curves going on, cocked her head to one side, and turned up her nose at me. “Avis Denise Miller!”

  I smiled. “Avis? What kind of a name is Avis?”

  “You pull my hair again, and you’re gonna find out what kind of a name is Avis. ’Cause I’m gonna run you down and roll right over you.” She turned and walked away.

  I didn’t know it at the time, but I fell in love at the age of ten, right then and there next to the seesaw. It took Avis another five years (she was thirteen by then, two years younger than me) to come to her senses and realize she hopelessly loved me, too. Some folks claim I merely “wore the poor girl down.” The truth is, she felt the electricity the day I yanked that luscious, long, black, springy plait of hers.

  I know what it’s like to grow up doing without. So does Avis. We both knew education was the golden key to our escaping the great state of poverty. I always knew I wanted to be some type of doctor, but the thought of being on call 24/7 didn’t appeal to me. I realized I had a knack for talking to people, but an even greater gift when it came to listening, analyzing, and giving direction to folks regardless of their age, race, religious background, or gender.

  People think they’re helping by trying to tell others what they should do. But I learned early in life, if you give people time to talk and to listen to what’s inside of them already, they will, for the most part, discover the answers they seek. The problem I find with us black folk is: we consider it a sign of weakness to go talk to a professional when it comes to psychological things, like being depressed. Church folks in particular considered it weak faith if a person had to seek help from a “head doctor” or a “shrink” as they were called back in my day. It’s changing some, but we still have a long way to go.

  I look at what I do as being an extension of ministry. Some people can talk to their pastors about everything. Some people are fortunate enough to have a really good friend they feel comfortable enough sharing intimate details about their lives with in order for them to heal. Lately, however, it seems my practice has exploded because of the mega churches that are springing up. Folks are finding it increasingly more difficult to get an appointment to talk with their pastors without a three- to six-month wait.

  “Look, Dr. Holden,” one of my patients—a tall, heavyset woman with short, cropped hair—said. “First off, I don’t really believe in head doctors or shrinks.”

  “We’re not head doctors or shrinks.”

  “You know what I mean. You people do like to mill around in folks’ heads trying to fix problems, real or imagined.”

  “Okay. So you don’t believe in head doctors or shrinks.”

  “Anyhow, I didn’t really want to come, but I called my pastor’s office so I could talk with him about an urgent matter, and he’s booked up for the next five months. They have others on staff you can talk to, but I don’t want one of his clones; I want my pastor. Especially with the kind of money I put in church every year. There was a time, before the church grew so large, when I could pick up the phone, call the church, and he would be the only one there to even answer the phone. Now, I almost have to schedule an appointment just to shake his hand after service to tell him I enjoyed his sermon.”

  “So, is this what you came in to talk to me about?” I asked. “It bothers you that you can’t talk with your pastor whenever you want?”

  “No, that’s not what I want to talk about! And I guess as much as it’s costing me an hour to talk to you, I should get to my problem and my point.” She started laughing. “Maybe that’s why black folks don’t believe in shrinks. It costs too much, especially when it used to be something we could do for free. But a friend of mine did highly recommend you. So here I am. Hurry up and fix me; I’m on a fixed income.”

  People have discovered through word of mouth that I’m really good at what I do. My practice grew after the first five years to more than I could handle in the time I had originally allotted to work. For this reason, I had to extend my Monday through Friday hours to 7 P.M. and a half day on Saturdays. The problem is: I rarely leave the office before 8 P.M., and the half day Saturday somehow doesn’t end until after 3 P.M.

  That’s partly why in late 2003 a therapist named Sapphire Drummond and I decided to hook up. She had moved to Birmingham from Atlanta back in 2002. I’d heard talk on the circuit about how good she was, and I was hoping the two of us partnering would relieve some of my workload. What appears to have actually happened is our reputation as a team grew, and we both were working longer days and nights.

  Avis is completely fed up with all of this. I’ve been working these crazy hours for over ten years now. We have four children, two girls and two boys. When I first began my practice, some fifteen years ago, I couldn’t make enough money to even pay half our bills. Avis and I both worked, but we had student loans. It was hard as a young married couple starting out. Add to that, Avis got pregnant two months after our wedding. Birth control failure—definitely not part of our well laid-out plan.

  That first pregnancy was hard on her. She was often sick and missed a lot of work she didn’t get paid for because she didn’t have enough time built up for sick pay. Add to that, we didn’t have company-paid insurance at the time because my practice was my own business and she hadn’t worked long enough to qualify for health insurance yet where she worked. We could have paid the premiums after she started working until she qualified, but the payment was around $450 a month for family coverage. Today I pay $780, but of course, I can afford that now with no problem. Back then, we were struggling just to pay our rent and utilities—forget finding enough money to pay for health insurance. Creditors started harassing us about late bills. It was extremely stressful.

  I secured a full-time job working in a plant from 11 P.M. to 7 A.M. Then I would go into my office to see the handful of patients I’d managed to acquire already from 8 A.M. to 5 P.M. Some days it wasn’t but three people, but their appointments were spread out, so I had to be there all day regardless. If there was enough time in between appointments, I would take a nap. Most of the time that would provide me with only about an hour of sleep, although every little bit certainly did help.

  After Avis had the baby, we had a huge hospital bill to contend with. She had to have a C-section, which is considered surgery. It was necessary for me to keep up that intense work schedule just to maintain our new bills. Gradually, I got used to
working all the time. Even after things got better for us and we had a nice cushion of money in the bank, I continued to work long and hard. I just didn’t want my family to want for anything.

  Eventually I said, “Avis, why don’t you stop working completely and stay home with the children?” Three years after our first child, we had a second. Four months after the second, while she was still on a leave of absence from work, we learned we were expecting our third. Yes, we did know about birth control, but the pill was not a viable option for Avis for medical reasons. Some other methods we didn’t care to use because of side effects like migraines, weight gain, excessive bleeding, and allergic reactions; future health concerns; or being controlled by a calendar, which wasn’t always convenient and tended to conflict with our schedules while alienating spontaneity.

  “Xavier, you’re already overworking yourself,” was Avis’s response to me asking her to stop working and letting me take on all the bills.

  “It’s all good now. My practice is growing well. In fact, I’m planning to put in my two-week’s notice down at the plant,” I said.

  And I fully intended to quit that job in two weeks, except it occurred to me that I was one year away from being vested with their pension plan. And besides, it made sense to work until the new baby came. That would just be more money for the household.

  With three young children, Avis did decide to leave her company and stay home. I quit my job at the plant four months after our little girl, Jasmine Monet, was born. It looked like I was slowing down, but I soon discovered I didn’t know how to have that much downtime. So when I found myself with all this “free” time, I revved up my efforts to acquire more clients. When some of my colleagues wanted someone to cover for them while they were out of town or vacationing, I was the go-to guy. Then Dr. Preston had a stroke, and I was asked to maintain his client base until he recovered and returned. He never recovered, and I ended up inheriting ninety percent of his lucrative clientele.

  “Xavier, when are you going to slow down and spend time with us?” Avis asked again three years ago, right after our fourth child, Brandon Skylar, made his entrance into the world. “We don’t go on vacation. You’re hardly ever home. When you do make it home, it’s close to most of the children’s bedtime. You fell asleep while eating supper the other day. For goodness sake, you fell asleep while you were putting Brandon to sleep.”