I was selling art at a booth in the Gainesville Square, north of Atlanta. I was talking to a young,
bright-eyed Latter Day Saint named Spencer when Phillip rolled up in his wheel chair. About half-way through our conversation I asked him if I could record his interview to post it.
Phillip said "I aint gonna lie, I drink to kill the pain."
He had been run over by a car near the Gainesville square. It was a nasty injury, it had healed crooked and poorly.
"I can't help it that I drink like I do." He showed me the two beers he drinks a day, stashed beside him in the wheelchair.
I asked him what was the pain he killed before he got run over. He said, there was no pain that made him drink before, really.
I asked Spencer if he hopes beer is in the next life. he replied, I'd probably be better off if it weren't.
I asked something about what he hopes for heaven. He said as long as the big man is there everything should be okay.
About that time the mormon missionary that I was talking to, Spencer, came back with a sandwich for Phillip.
He told me about pulling out his switchblade on someone.
"I'd like to have one good night sleep."
We prayed for a good night sleep for him along with some of the other concerns he had shared. He cried and then afterward said he hadn't cried for years.
Spencer said he had a scripture to share from the book of Mormon. It was a scripture about bearing up a burden. Spencer shared it because he had leaned on that scripture when he had broken his foot.
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I thought it was interesting hearing that even though he wanted nothing more than to have his beer and be left alone to do what he wanted in this life, all he seemed to hope for in the next life was Jesus being there. Sometimes I wonder if we who "have it together" down here often miss the most important part. We want our pleasures in heaven, not the creator of heaven himself.
Checkout his tattoos. They seem so poetically appropriate to what I saw going on in Phillip's heart.
Raw Spoon, July 4, 2021
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