It’s pronounced “Jooood,” I say.

Not Judy like the kids on the playground used to call me. My parents paid me no favors by naming me Jude. It’s not like my dad paid me any more favors anyway. After naming me, he split. Left us all behind. Cancer it was.

I was too young to remember, but my grandfather told me all about him. He likes to thumb through the red binder with family trees and his genealogies. I took it home one time and poured over it. All in all, the family tree looks pretty rotten:

On my dad’s side, my ancestors came over from Ireland. They were starving on a ship called the Sea-Flower and had to eat six dead bodies to survive. It’s unknown if they took doggie bags ashore.

My ancestor, George Gallagher, was commended for his killing of the Shawnee Indians.

James Harrison (a.k.a. Hog) Gallagher—fought for the Union and Confederate Army during the Civil War. Go figure.

John Gallagher (a desperado railroad worker) got liquored up the night of Christmas Eve, 1887, and stabbed a man to death. He was tried and convicted of first-degree murder and served a life sentence.

Thomas Jefferson Gallagher (my great-great-grandfather) once argued with his wife, so he picked up a chair, hit her in the face, and broke her nose. Later, after they separated, Tom got mad at a horse, hit it on the nose, and broke his hand.

Paschal Gallagher (my great-grandfather) and his stepsister were caught kissing. She was accused of being pregnant, and they were told to get married.

It’s funny how that’s all we remember. Your life must’ve been full of so much else, but you end up remembered for punching a horse or kissing your stepsister.

All in all, my family tree might look a bit rotten. We’ve got taboo marriages, racism, treason, violence, alcoholism, murder, domestic violence, animal abuse, and cannibalism. And that’s just one side.

I had hoped the other side was better. But my mother told me about her great-great-great-grandmother poisoning her husband via chloroform after she’d had enough of his three-day benders.

I think about these things sometimes. Especially when I stand in the shower staring at the wall. Something about the tile and grout opens up my mind. Not like drugs, I guess, but maybe that’s why I’m here.

“Yeah, Jude, like in the Bible, I guess.”

I get that all the time. The eyes around the room size me up.

I imagine their thoughts: Who’s this dude? What’s his vice?

They probably take stabs at it—Alcohol? Pills? Meth? Porn—yeah, probably definitely porn.

Truth is, I’m here in a plastic chair in a multipurpose room that still smells from the Pilates class that ended thirty minutes ago. The sweat intermixes with the stench of machine shops and Marlboros. The woman next to me smells nice, though, like roses fresh cut or still growing on the stem. She introduced herself as:

“Tiffani, and I’m an alcoholic.”

I’m not an alcoholic. I’ve never really been into drugs. Weed always smelled like skunks, and I’ve seen COPS too often to consider hard drugs. I’m not really sure what I am. I’m an addict. Isn’t everyone?

I’m a pastor, but that’s not why I’m here. I mean, I’m not leading the group or anything. But maybe that is why I’m here. Being a pastor. It’s not something that defines me. I’ve never wanted it to be like that. I’m so much else. I’m not just someone who punched a horse or ate dead bodies on the ship to the New World. At least, I think I’m so much more. And what that also means is I struggle with so much more than people might think.

“Hi, I’m Jude, and I’m…” Well, that could be a lot of things. I’m a control freak. I’m a ship without a rudder. I’m a man whose heart is calloused and unfeeling. Maybe I’ll settle with that today. Calloused.

After we share and listen and go through the steps to recovery, we scarf down donuts and blow the steam from our coffees. A few of my comrades whose knees bounce and fingers twitch step outside for a smoke. They can finally breathe again. I hang around because it feels almost ungodly to leave without saying goodbye.

I talk to Mario. He’s back again after a relapse with Vicodin. 

“Step one again, man,” he says in frustration. His Raiders cap shakes side to side.

“All good, bro,” I say, “one day at a time. Right, brother?”

I don’t really know what step I’m on. Probably because I’m so many things. Maybe that’s what I’m searching through. Perhaps it’s why I’m here.