BLOODY MURDER


The girl who lived next door to me

Donna

was murdered.



The bus let her out

about a block from the Y

and she had to go past a White Tower restaurant

(and so did I)

with an alley running beside it


where she was grabbed by a man

hiding in that alley

waiting for a girl

(it could have been me)

to walk past

so he could dart out

slit her throat

throw her bleeding body into the street

and run away.


He had done it three times before.



The police came to see me

and asked some questions

but I knew they didn't really care.


Donna was, like me and all of us living in the Y

an anonymous person

unclaimed

unloved

and her death barely caused a ripple.



I felt like I had stepped into the nightmare

of someone else's life.


How did Lynna-girl

beloved daughter of Daddy and Mom

sister to Wes and Jimmy and Little Paul

Child of the Lord

get here?


This was a scary place to be.

I had to get out.



As soon as the police left

I called Daddy

from the payphone in the lobby of the YWCA.


It seemed to me that

since I was working anyway

I might as well go on home

get a job

and help out there.



But Daddy said no.


For one thing

they were moving again

this time to Brooklyn.


For another, Mom was sick

still having trouble coping

and there was so much noise and fuss all the time

that he didn't feel it was wise.



So I went back to church.

I needed to get my life back on track.

I needed to get right with the Lord

acknowledge Him

so that He could direct my paths


because I didn't want to walk any further

down this one.



One day the pastor asked to speak with me.


We went into his office

and he motioned for me to sit

in a brown leather chair

in a corner

under a lamp.


He lit the lamp

sat down across from me

brought his Bible off the desk

onto his lap

and looked closely at me.



"Now what happened between you

and your parents?"

he asked.

"Did you have an abortion?"

"Did you fight with them?"

"Did you run away?"


I was mad.

I rose up out of the chair to my full 5 feet tall

and spoke with my snippiest voice.


"No I did not have an abortion.

And no I didn't fight with Mom and Daddy

and I didn't run away."



I never went back to church.


As I got older

it came to me

that the pastor just wanted to know why

a young girl

a preacher's daughter

suddenly showed up in his congregation

so many miles from home


and although he wasn't as tactful

as he should have been

there was no need for me to be snippy either


because if I hadn't been

maybe the Lord would have directed my paths

back to home.



Music Playing: Abide With Me
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This story is a continuation of Diary of a Preacher's Daughter.
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