As a kid, when my mother suspected me of wrongdoing she would take me outside to our backyard. I called it the 'Jungle', because it had all kinds of wild weeds and vines growing from it, and the grass grew up to my knees. In our backyard was the Verity Ring, which was basically, a large circle that my mom spent hours carefully forming with a plank and garden rollers. We would get into this ring and speak our truths, or confess our sins, and to atone for that sin, we make some sort of contribution. That consisted of some community service type thing like feeding the homeless or reading a book to kids. My mother didn't believe in corporal punishment. She considered them an outdated, barbaric concept that did irreparable psychological damage.
I now stand in this Verity Ring, as I have done so many times over the years with a shocking confession. I'm doing it for my mother, because she deserves justice. She deserves for her truth to be heard. All these years she has kept it to herself, while a monster walks among us. So here goes.
You may have read Flesh of the Forbidden Fruit, where my seventeen-year-old mother and one called the Undertaker strike up a secret romance that resulted in my conception. The truth is, that story is 97% fiction. Yes, my mother met the Undertaker at a campground in New Jersey, and yes, I am a result of that. But how it was told in the story, isn't how it truly happened in real life.
How do I know? I wrote the story. I wrote it to compensate for the disgust, horror, and trauma of the real story. This is how I wanted to envision how they met. But fairy tales benefit no one in the end, it's time to tell the painful truth.
Stay tuned.