Heroin, Mormons, a Screen Door
"There’s an abandoned post office in downtown Centreville, Maryland."
There’s an abandoned post office in downtown Centreville, Maryland. As far as I can tell, it’s the original post office from when the town was founded long ago. Two-stories tall, partially brick, partially blue-painted wood, the oblong building stands on the edge of the town’s colonial center. The state abandoned it some time ago and sold it as a home, and—I don’t know how this came to be—it came to the ownership of the number-one heroin lord of the area, Big Momma.
Of course, I don’t know anything about this history as I meander the streets with my brand-new Mormon missionary trainee, Elder Teichert. We carefully creak open ancient screen doors along Main Street, knocking, waiting, and moving to the next one. It’s July in the Chesapeake Bay, so my short-sleeve white shirt clings to my drenched back. I only wear black and dark blue dress slacks so my sweat won’t bleed through my legs for all to see behind me.
We hop to the next street. If I hadn’t just met the mayor, I’d be convinced we’re the only two white people for twenty square miles. I see two little girls with beads in their hair stand on a wooden porch belonging to the old post office, pointing up to clear plastic bags full of water hanging from the roof. Pennies rest inside the bags.
“Hello!” I say. “What’s this all about?” I point to the plastic bags.
The girls immediately quiet at our approach, stare, then bolt inside their house, the screen door slamming behind them. Rap music blares from inside.
This is a common occurrence. The children running for their lives part, not the pennies hanging from water bags. So I’m honestly surprised when a man and a woman, both looking like they're in their twenties, emerge from the house, smiling. The man holds two unopened beers in his hand.
“Hey, hey, brothers,” he says. “You guys look thirsty, man. Want one?”
I’ve been teased like this before plenty of times, but this is different. This guy’s sincere. He doesn’t know from our Mormon-missionary getup that we don’t drink alcohol. I’m flattered.
I thank him and explain we’re missionaries from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—Mormons—and we don’t drink alcohol.
“Water would be lovely, though,” Elder Teichert says.
The woman’s name is Star, and she’s an exotic dancer for a living. Her boyfriend, Mike, never tells us his job. He wears wide-framed glasses and furrows his brow when he listens to us talk about Jesus and the different ways God talks to us. His curiosity shines through question after question as he rattles us with the life-long confusion with his grandma’s Christian creeds. Star brings a tray of waters, and the two little girls come back out. I ask about the pennies hanging above our heads.
“Oh, those?” Mike says, barely glancing up. “I had to replace the old ones. The flies started coming back.”
Elder Teichert and I nod slowly, thinking the same thing.
Mike and Star chat with us as the sun sets, telling us their stories and thoughts about God. We find out the girls belong to Star’s brother, Steevie, who walks up at dusk. He’s shirtless, pushing a double-decker stroller filled with a baby girl and a fat backpack. Another girl holds onto a rope trailing behind him. Steevie’s covered in tattoos from face to foot. He’s grinning as can be, his little girls too, clearly glad to see their dad home. I ask about the girls’ mother. Apparently each girl has a different one, and none of the moms are around anymore.
Steevie carries three steel, foot-long butterflies under his sweaty arm.
“What do you have there?” I ask.
“Three butterflies, brotha. Imma paint ‘em up,” he says, not stopping to chat. Grinning, he strolls straight inside the house, his girls galloping in after him. I notice more people entering the house through side doors, back doors. I wonder exactly who lives here.
With our apartment being only four blocks away, Elder Teichert and I visit Star and Mike often, generally as the last stop of our busy days. We begin to teach them about prophets, commandments, Christ’s teachings in the Book of Mormon and the New Testament, but we always teach in small bits. Maybe this is because we’re scared too much will scare them away. Maybe it’s because we’re dreading getting to the Word of Wisdom lesson, when we ask them to quit tobacco, illegal drugs, and alcohol use. In at least half of the lessons, Mike has a cigarette lit and beers close by.
Every evening, I see a large woman in a rocking chair on the post office’s second-story balcony, overlooking the town. Tons of people swarm the balcony around her, drinking, eating, running up and down the stairs. Every evening I go to the house and every night I leave, there she is, rocking back and forth. She wears the same massive sun hat. I never see her smile. Star tells me that’s her momma, who only goes by Big Momma. I don’t ask.
I start noticing Steevie push his stroller around town, his three little girls holding onto the rope behind him. He’s the only person in Centreville I think walks the streets more than I do.
It doesn’t dawn on me why until after his death.
Steevie begins sitting in on our lessons with Star and Mike. By now I’ve seen enough signs to know Steevie does a lot of drugs. I recognize he’s high on at least marijuana every time we’re around him. He’s always in his own care-free world, somehow parenting and making a living for his little family. Somehow.
Sometimes we bring a teenage boy named Stefan with us from our local congregation. He wears a white button-up shirt like ours and a big red tie. Wide-eyed, he doesn’t say a word but soaks in the culture shock before him, breathing in real life beyond his million-dollar home on the Chesapeake.
Steevie walks out of the house and sees us. He frowns.
“Am I tripping,” he says, “or am I seeing three of y’all?”
We laugh, tell him this is a teenager from our church, and he’s named Stefan.
“Whoa, whoa, wait—Stefan? That’s almost my name!” Steevie says, shock blazing across his face.
I begin to really love this family. I feel powerless in helping their financial woes, their substance abuse, but I feel like I have something that can improve all of their lives: the gospel of Jesus Christ. Star and Mike are reading the Book of Mormon in between visits, and since we’re not allowed to drive non-missionaries in our car, Mike is searching as hard as he can to find a ride to our church that’s 45 minutes away.
One night, they invite us into their home for our lesson. We sit on a low, yellow couch. Heroin needles casually lay around the coffee table in front of us. I keep my scriptures on my lap.
We begin teaching about the purpose of life, family joy, becoming like Jesus. Steevie comes in from the kitchen, holding a Big Gulp. For the first time, I see Steevie look genuinely sad. His movements are slow but in control. His eyes are downcast. He sits beside his sister, Star. He listens to me talk about spiritual paradise after death awaiting those who follow Jesus in their lives. I open a lesson pamphlet with an illustration of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. The caption reads: “Jesus suffered for our sins so that we can find joy in this life and eternal joy after we die.”
I notice his deep interest in the lesson. I give him the pamphlet to keep for himself. He doesn’t meet my eyes, but he thanks me.
Elder Techeirt and I walk home feeling full of purpose. This is a breakthrough, we think. God is answering our prayers, their prayers. Maybe we’re right. Maybe we aren’t.
The next evening, the old two-story post office is pandemonium. Big Momma isn’t on the balcony. Multiple cop cars slowly circle the town block like sharks. Dozens of people, all Black, barge in and out of the old building, wailing, yelling, drinking. Everyone is drinking.
I see Mike sitting on the curb. He has a cigarette in one hand, a fist gripped around a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniels whiskey. He looks up at our approach only when we step to him.
“Today’s not a good day, brothers,” he says. “Steevie’s dead.”
The night before, after we leave the lesson, Steevie tucks his girls into their beds and kisses them goodnight. He walks to his room, shuts the door behind him, and opens the black backpack he always takes with him around town.
He shoots up all the heroin he had left to deal.
In the morning, his girls rush into his room to wake up their dad. They find him dead, needles beside him on his bed stand. The needles lie on the pamphlet I had given him.
The page is titled, “Life After Death.”
We wait a week before going back on a foggy Saturday morning. As we turn the corner, two very large women sit in lawn chairs on either side of the door. Their eyes meet ours, and I immediately know we are not welcome.
“This is your fault!” they scream at us. They rise up, swear at us, scream at us. We step back. I’m about to turn when an equally large figure exits the screen door. Big Momma.
“Now, now, it’s good, sisters, it’s good,” she says quietly. The other women silence themselves. Big Momma’s countenance commands respect. I feel like a prophet approaches me.
“I’ve seen these two boys come by for Star and Mikey,” she says. “These boys were some of Steevie’s closest friends before he died.”
She rests a hand on the shoulder of the woman next to her.
“Boys, I’d like to formally request your attendance at my son Steven’s funeral. He loved you two. I could see that.”
A brief, choked smile, then she returns to her post office palace. The screen door swings open. I don’t wait to see it close.