FROM THE CLUTCHES OF SATAN

               INTO THE BOSOM OF JESUS CHRIST 

 I was born in the mountains of Arkansas where I spent the first thirteen years of my life. All of my life has been one of violence, anger, hatred and just simply “doing it my way”. My first remembrance of these characteristics was when I was about four years old, playing  hide-and-seek with my puppy. It would whine until it found me, and it always did.. It would make me so mad, that one day I chocked it to death and threw it over into the neighbors yard.

  My Dad, like myself, had spent years in prison for murder. Life with out parole for killing a policeman, but his was accidental mine was not. He spent the majority of my first thirteen years and I new that without a doubt that’s where I was heading.

   Because my Mother was so young when Dad went to prison, my father’s brother raised me. He made me and my cousin fight all the time, and that’s where I learned my skills as a fighter. I would get a spanking for beating up my cousin and so I got smart one day,” Hey, you know that you can’t beat you so lose and Save yourself some trouble’. That didn’t work either, but it did cause me to inflict more pain on my cousin. My fighting skills grew even more.

   In 1963 I met a kid who lived down the holler from us and we became friends. He was the rich kid: and I, the poor kid. I was drawn to him because of his kindness, is being different from me: and I thank he was drawn to me because the other kids made fun of him and I was his protector. It was that little seven-year-old boy who brought the name of Jesus into my life for the very first time. David told me stories about what he learned at Sunday school, and the Bible stories that he knew. Man, I loved to listening to Dave.

  I thought I had to go to Sunday school and Church to meet this” guy” and I wanted to go so bad. Dave and I talked and decided that his Mom should talk with my Mom so that I could go see this “Guy” who David said could do anything and make anything happen. That’s what I wanted the most in my whole life. I can’t remember my purpose for wanting to go and see Jesus, but I do remember that I just had to go to see Him. I thought he was at church.

  One day David and his Mom came driving up to our house. That was the best day of my life, or so I thought. After awhile David’s Mom came out of our house and told him to get in the car and off they drove. My Mom called me inside and yelled at me for having those people come to our house. She said something to the effect that ’those people weren’t of our kind and I should find other friends, because they were rich and we were poor. I thought David had lied to me about this “Guy: being able to do anything. even provide a way for me to go to church.

  I went outside and Bud, my cousin, started making fun of me because I couldn’t go to church with the rich people. Well I beat him up and then my Uncle beat me up. I went out around the house mad, real mad. Then I went out front under a black walnut tree, where I had spent many hours, and was the place I had my first talk with God. After looking up and staring for a few minutes, I raised my fist and shook it at God. I don’t remember word for word, but I do know that I shook my fist and chose Satan over God that I  remember.

  Needless to say David’s and my friendship came to a violent end. And even at that early stage I became a hoodlum. I started beating up David and take his money, and then others. David’s family put him in another school to protect him from me. I didn’t se David again until summer of 1976.

  From then on I grew and became more violent. I became the protector of all those who couldn’t protect themselves, and the arch enemy of any and all who thought they was better than anyone poor: the persecutor of any proclaimed Christian.

  During my first go around in the 6^th grade I was transferred to six different schools. I got kicked out for fighting several time [and the rest were to take care of problems my cousin were having with other school children] It wasn’t long before my name was a name to be feared and reckoned with. During my second term though 6^th grade I beat up a Bus Driver, two High School boys, and knocked a girls teeth out. Then things started getting worse for me at home.

  Blood has always been thicker than water with me, but my relationship with my Uncle was never going to get any better. I would lie in bed at night and dream of ways to kill him: but I Knew if I did my family would disown me and maybe kill me as well. So I just dreamed.

  One day I was sitting on the floor in a spot I was assigned to when my Mom wasn’t around watching TV. My cousin and my three younger half-sister and half-brother were in the other room pool, another no-no for me. My Uncle came storming out of the bedroom where he was sleeping {he worked night} and started to kicking me in the head and body for making kinds of noise and disturbing his sleep. I tried to explain that there was no sound on the TV, that it was the noise from the pool that had bothered him, but that did no good. After he finally tired out he sat down in his chair and me and my shoulders became his footstool. I told him that day that he would never treat me like that again. I got another beating and got my nose and lip busted, but I never shed a tear.

  When we went back to school I decided it was time that I left home. After school I went south. I got to a little town in Oklahoma, but was found because an engineer for the Kansas City Southern Railroad had called the Police Station because a couple of young boys were playing near the tracks and he was concerned. Back to the house I went, only to do the same thing the very next day. This time I went west and my Uncle happened to be out at a guy’s house that he work with and found me walking on the highway. The next day I ran away again. That time the Police and Truant Officer got involved. I was handed over to my Mom with strict orders to be at the office of the Truant Officer the next day.

  Later that night, after the other kids were sleeping, my Mom called me into another room and asked me what I intended to tell the man the next day. I told her I was going to tell the truth about what was happening. She said if I did that they would probably put me in reform school. I didn’t care and said as much. All I wanted was to get away from there. She cried and tried to talk to me but I had no ears or heart that would listen to her pleas. She told me to go to bed then. Later she came in and whispered to see if I was asleep. I said no, that I was lying there thanking. She ask me to scoot over so that she could sit down a minute, and then told me something that would change my life forever, and those words still ring ever so loud in my mind 34 years later. She told me “Son, perhaps I’ve not been the best Mother in the world, but I’ve done what I could when everything in the world collapsed in on me. I know things are hard on you, but they’re hard on me also. I want you to think on what I’m going to tell you real hard because I mean every word I’m  fixing to say. When you go see that man tomorrow and you tell him the truth they will probably lock your Uncle up in jail and probably send  him to Prison where your Dad would probably kill him. And then they will probably take your brother and sister and cousin and put them in an orphanage, and there is no telling what will become of them. Then I will be all by myself with everyone I love taken from me. If that happen I want you to forget that you have a Mother. You will be dead to non-existent and me. I am not going to tell you to lie, and I am not going to tell you to tell the truth: but if you can’t do this for me then thank of your brother and sister. They’re just babies”. I lied.

  The summer of 1968 my cousin and I went to a Christian Summer Camp. On Wednesday a counselor would do pastel drawing and tell stories. One particular night he told the story of the crucifixion of Jesus and drew a picture of Calvary. Between the neon colors, the black light effect, that drawing and the story he’d told, my heart melted for the first time in years. Nothing seemed to matter any more. I was happy and felt happy for the first time ever. But Satan wasn’t giving me up that easy. About fifteen minutes after service I was with my cousin and another guy, and was being teased. I broke the kids jaw. That was my last year at camp, and I was ask not to come back. When we all met at the Medical Centry Park after camp, my cousin loaded his things in our car and I was told to put my things into my Grandmother pickup. I asked why. My Mom said, “Son, please, you can’t stay with me any longer. Go with your Grandma and always know that I love you. You are a special boy, I’ve always known, but you can’t stay with me’.

  The next year was full of experiences that were preparation for what I am/was today. After a couple or three months, I there and then traveled the US for the next three years. I have ridden freight trains, lived in skid rows with winos, stayed with prostitutes, beat up homosexuals then robbed them just because they were gay . I worked for a family in Kansas City as a bodyguard, for a family in St. Louis as a payroll guard and house guard. I’ve collected money from people that didn’t want to pay their drug bill. I was young. I was mean. And I was dangerous. Nothing scared me and nothing impressed me, but myself. ”Mama”, the lady I worked for in St. Louis, used to tell me I was the loneliest person she had ever met. She said I was so young and yet so lonely. When she’d ask me about my family I told her lies.

  Once when I was with a friend, he ask me did I want to make some money and I could keep the dope. I didn’t use drugs at the time, at least serious. Any way I did what I was told: picked up this guy and took him to the location that was suggested to me. When the guy cooked hid dope and hit, I pulled the trigger and shot him in the head. Instead of dying instantly he got up and started screaming and ran into the wall behind him. When  he bounced off the wall and started coming toward me, did I get scared! I ran across the floor to the metal sliding door but I couldn’t get that latch to lift up so I could get out. I turned around just as the guy dropped to the floor, dead. When I got back to the café I was laughed at because I looked all wild eyed and scared to death, with bone, brains, blood, and hair all over me. I did my first shot of drugs, and many more, to get that horrifying picture out of my mind. It never left.

  One day I decided it was time to go home since I hadn’t seen my family in three years. The first couple of weeks were fine. Then word got out that I was back and I started getting arrested for thefts I hadn’t committed, one’s the police knew I hadn’t done. It was there of letting me know they hadn’t forgotten why I’d had to leave. They forced me to leave again.

  As time went by life took another turn, I was led into a mission in saving the world, protecting children’s rights from child molesters that kept escaping justice. That was the best. I not only got to deal out punishment as I saw fit, but to worst type of people in the world, child molesters. And I got paid for it! What a life!

  For years I did this. My wife though I was working construction jobs. My travels took me everywhere and allowed me to meet all kinds of people. One time I was in Memphis and wound up at a party, witch happened to be a rock musician’s house. The drugs were thick, the alcohol was pouring, the women were plentiful, and the music was loud. I was looking for a bathroom and found a door that lead into the garage. There I saw the most beautiful sight I had ever seen, A rolls Royce Silver Cloud. It was so beautiful, I went over and set in it and felt like I was in heaven. The host, and his bodyguard, came out and he got in the back seat beside me and we talked. He told  me” Son I didn’t know you , but I was a preacher  before I got my first hit and I’m going to tell you this from a Christians standpoint. You’re an evil person and have a demons in you. Find yourself a good man of God and give yourself to Jesus. He got out of the car and I never spoke personally with him again. In 1974 the next year, he had his all time best selling song. I went to prison. I was 18 years old.

  Life in prison, I though, was great. I could do anything I wanted and get away with it. All I had to do was endure the beatings afterward, and I did. I learned to handle and control my pain. I once beat a guard so bad he spent six months in the hospital. Later that night they gave me a beating that I still feel today. They cracked my ribs, beat my eyes shut, my hands were stomped on, my lip was split open and needing stitches. they did everything but kill me, and I felt that would have been best days afterward. After they beat me they tossed me back in the wing, telling me that if I went to the infirmary they would give me more, and they would have. I went to work in the fields but needed the help of someone to guide me down the turn rows because I couldn’t see nor stand on my own. After a couple of weeks I started getting better and the attitude started to return.

  In May of 1975 the parents of a classmate of mine came to the prison to visit with me. I got in the back of the truck and they took me to the Superintendents Office, where I met Rick’s parents.  His Mother started  crying and raving something I couldn’t understand. After she was composed she told me her story about Ricky. He had come to the unit a few weeks earlier and was having a hard time with the blacks. She said she knew what kind on person I was from my school days. They offered me money to watch over Ricky and to see that no real harm came to him and that he went home safe. I declined the money, but took the job. In  august that year I got drunk to celebrate my birthday. I got a bit rowdy and wound up in the hole. While I was in there [a stay from 30 days] Ricky was beaten, raped, and three black guys a stinger in his rear-then plugged it in the wall and his intestines exploded. He died shortly thereafter. When I was released from the hole I went to Rick’s bunk to get a cigarette and a drink. That’s when I seen his things gone and found out why. I was immediately locked back up. Hey gave  two of the men that killed Ricky parole since they were close any way. The other well he made parole as well. I have never been able to make amends with Ricky’s Mother, and for the first time I felt that I was a failure. I learned that Ricky’s Father died of a stroke a month and a half before my release and his Mother has never forgiven me.

  I was released six day before thanksgiving of 1975. They came and got me out of the hole, put me in a van, took me to Little Rock and dropped me off on the corner of the Greyhound Bus Station. So then I was free and a veteran of wars. People feared me all the more . But, I hadn’t dropped to the bottom of the bucket yet. I started carrying guns.

  One night I was high and in the state line station buying beer, trying to rid myself of myself. I ran into David my childhood friend. At first glance my heart went out to him but quickly turned to hate. He came over, recognizing me as well, and being drunk high both wanted to fight. Wrong night. It was one of God’s Guardian Angels That saved him that night. I was in the process of killing him when the store manager stepped in. I am thankful to this day for that. I haven’t seen David since.

  Years have passed, and brought the death to many. I was setting in a bar one night in July of 1985 when two guys walked in . I knew from the way they were dressed that they were police officer . They came over after some wise cracking , and said they had a job that I should take, that it would be very beneficial. After hearing the story I took the job, but declined the money, That job led to others.

  In June of 1989 I finally killed out of anger. I was helping some people that kept stealing from me. I came home one night to find my door standing open. The first thing I noticed missing was my TV. Everything I owned was gone.  The only things left were a suit and a box of receipts. No one had to tell me who had done this, In the back of my mind I already knew. Sure enough when I opened the door to there apartment, the light of the porch shown in I saw my TV. I couldn’t find a light switch so I stumble to the back bedroom where I saw a light was on. There they lay on top of the covers fully dressed sleeping shoes and all. I shook the bed, screaming. I grabbed the girl by her hair pulling her hair so far back it cut off her air supply. I have partied with the best and no one could of slept through the racket I was making. Without oxygen she soon came awake and I asked her where her sister was. She said her sister, [my common-law wife] was at home. I told her I just come from there  and she was not there. We went back and forth for a couple of minutes getting nowhere. I asked why all my things were at her house and suddenly she was back to sleep, snoring this time, I turned to leave and when I got to the bedroom door I stopped and looked those two over. Well I went to the car, and I got some gas and I torched the place. I never got a thing out of the apartment that belonged to me. I didn’t thank about it until I was blocks away.

  The next day I found out a man and a baby had died in that fire. It was the thought of an innocent Baby dying by my hand brought my world crashing down on me. I had spent years protecting them. Now I was no better then the one’s I had hunted down. I was going to turn myself in but was talked out of it .So I went on the run. [the one’s who’d talked me out of turning myself in tried to collect the reward and crime stopper money]

  I was arrested and sent to prison for two consecutive life sentences. I come up for parole in 2020. In 1995 I started a black market for cigarettes and related items. I was furnishing about 85% of all tobacco items until a friend snitched on me and I got busted. The warden took all my family off my visiting list and said I couldn’t visit them any more. That was the punishment I couldn’t handle. Regardless of what my past had held I loved my family especially my Mother very very much. The thought of not being able to visit them devastated me.

  I went to the back of my cell there in lock-up and knelt to my knees. The pain in my heart was unbearable. I told God,”God you owe me nothing and I’ll not make any promises to you. But, if you will take this hurt from my heart and give me peace I will promise that when I get out I will go to church once a week. A little voice inside me said twice, I said once and again it said twice.

  When I was released and could attend services I went twice a week. After being released from medium custody I started to attend every time the door were open, about five time a week. I had found a home. One day when I was reading my Bible and listening to the Chaplain preach, the Holy Spirit move upon me and I fell across the alter, and received Jesus Christ as my personal Savior. That was in April of 1999. I was baptized in May of the same year.

  When I read my Bible, I always go to John 11:35 where it says, “JESUS WEPT “ There  the whole Bible come to life for me. Because I have no doubt that JESUS did weep for that chubby blonde-haired boy who stood under that walnut tree shaking his fist at Heaven. He’s wept each and every day of that boy’s life and he approached the throne of our Father with a tear stained face saying, ”Have mercy Father, he’s mine. And he wept even more with half my and my  insides shot out praying that I could live long enough to kill the guy that had shot me. JESUS wept.

  It was because of the tears of JESUS, the many years of him begging for mercy for my soul [and through the ignorance Satan allowing me to fall in the end of my tolerance] that my heart yearned for something more. And it is though the grace and mercy of GOD OUR FATHER that I weep for that long-lost little Boy. And I pray for all those that have been sent to hell because they had no time to confess their sins I pray that GOD will forgive them as he has forgiven me. I pray for David.

  We have a saying here in this little church “GOD is Good all the time, all the time GOD is good. GOD has truly been good to me my whole life. He rescued me from the clutches of Satan into the bosom of CHRIST. For that I would die a thousand deaths for my LORD and laugh with joy.

By; Henry Pike 557981

ELLIS UNIT,  1697  FM 998,  H-19-3-9,  HUNTSVILLE,TEXAS 77343

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