Lake City and the 7 Golden Scrolls Vol 1 Mist of Death

When I turned sixteen, my father decided I was a grown man.

Likely due to the refinement of my muscles and my self-sufficiency during that solo weekend when my exams coincided with a family trip. Or perhaps because I started growing facial hair, had a massive hard-on while at a family diner in a restaurant after seeing the exposed boobs of a waitress (I was sitting beside my father), and devoted quite a lot of my scant free time to asking questions about the opposite gender.

Whenever you go to a sex education class or website or whatever, genes frequently feature in explanations for accelerated growth spurts. However, it’s vital to understand that genes don’t cause accelerated growth. Accelerated growth is caused by seeing way too much, way too early in life. (Bad genes are also caused by the same thing. Almost every form of accelerated growth is, really). But my dad believed I needed to be taught how to be a man, so he took me to see Pastor Rod, who agreed that I was brought at the right time because the devil and his cohorts were planning to drag me away from the straight and narrow. Therefore, I should be consistently prayed for, and also, I should attend a weekly class for grooming teenage boys into Christian men.

This class featured a peculiar cast of characters, each with a superior knack for hiding their issues. What was the cause of these issues? Seeing way too much, way too early in life.

Each Friday, the class gathered in Pastor Rod’s dining room to discuss grown-up topics.

Saint, the class instructor and only (well, second if we count one other) white person in the room, always discussed God’s omnipresence, how He was watching us every frigging time, blah, blah, blah.

The slender chap, known for wrangling his shoulder-length blonde hair into place with a see-through band, had always been amusing—in small doses.

On a normal Friday, here’s how our meetings go: The ten or fifteen of us would walk/swagger in, sample sips from glasses filled with the most watered-down jolly juice, sit in front of a large podium, and listen to Saint recount for the millionth time his repetitively long lecture about the typical adult life—how we were going to have so many responsibilities, we’ll think we’d die from the pressure but we wouldn’t die and how we’ll have to work hard to cater for our dependents, marry because society expects it, rarely have time to do the things we liked because if we weren’t working, we’ll be resting, not be able to spend much time with friends, how most of us weren’t going to be able to achieve many of our childhood dreams, patiently have to tolerate and be friendly to co-workers and bosses we didn’t even like, watching, like we all do, as time eats at our youth while we looked back at what only a saint would call a life.

What the hell!

Then we’d share our names, schools, goals, and outline our strategies for accomplishing those goals.

I’m Kyle White, I’d say when they get to me. St Kek High. Wanted to become a lawyer originally but decided I’d rather be a businessman. Why? Because I like money. My action plan for success? Risk-taking.

Once every seat in the small room was taken and the introductions were done, Saint would ask someone to suggest a topic the group would discuss. That’s how we’d kick-start the day’s session: everyone talking about the challenges they faced that week and how the path to their goals was difficult and how they were keen to finish hard in spite of these challenges. (Note: The replies don’t even align with his question).

In the spirit of openness, Saint let us confess our sins. As a result, ugly truths laid bare—admissions of theft, smoking pot, and occasionally, sex. Then we’d talk about jail. A random person would reel out statistics on the likelihood of a black kid ending up in jail.

This meant there was quite a lot of aggressiveness in the room, with everybody wanting to beat not only the handcuffs and the bars but also the other people present. Like, I realize that this is a tad unkind, but when they tell you there’s, say, a 10% chance of living a full life without incarceration as a black dude, you realize the odds are not in your favor… so you look around and think, as many rational people would: I hope I’m luckier than these other niggas.

Perhaps the most depressing facet of the class was Kelly, a doe-eyed, 6’3 white boy who was all brawn with thick black locks that almost always fell in his face.