Wrestling with the Devil

By James H. Phillips

This is a riveting account of one man's journey through many different countries and a life filled with unbelievable highs and suffering over twenty-two years in prison for dealing drugs, chased by an orangutan in the streets of Spain to jail cells in Venezuela. He was a hustler all his life. He had tried many times to get his life on an even keel. Trusting in the Lord was his last resort. When he did, amazing things happened for him. Reunited with his wife from twenty-five years ago to living in a small town enjoying the simple things of life, showing people there is light and life after living in a dark sinister world, from homelessness to happiness. This is a must-read for Christians and nonbelievers alike

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 16, 2021
• ISBN: 9781098068301

Book preview

Chapter 1

I was born May 1, 1965. My last name was Griggs. My dad adopted me when I was very young. He married my mom and changed my name to Phillips. He’s my dad, always has been and always will be. I never did without anything, was never abused. He taught me right from wrong. He worked hard for everything we ever had. He is a real man! Thank You, God, for putting him in my life. I grew up in a very good working-class neighborhood. All white. Racism was still very much relevant in those days. I didn’t understand it and didn’t put much thought into at the time. It had no place in my life because it wasn’t fun. I’ve spent my whole life seeking pleasures from my earliest memories. My first grade teacher was Mrs. Daniels at Mitchell Elementary School. I knew I was different when she sent a note home with me requesting a lock of my white hair. I had crystal-blue eyes, still do, and was learning how to manipulate the world around me to achieve my goals, whatever it might have been at the time.

When all other little boys were wanting to be fire fighters, policemen, and mill workers, I always wanted to be a bank robber. My sister Rhonda wrote a letter to me as part of an extensive DAP drug rehab program in federal prison (family input), telling me this, and she said I had done everything but rob a bank; and if I do, please don’t hit hers. She was a vice president of a bank at the time. I have older sisters, Rhonda and Donna, and a younger brother, Dale. My life was very normal for a middle-class boy of the times. Everything changed around the fourth grade when we loaded up and moved to Spain. Our whole family went. I had no idea. I changed BB guns and bicycles to snorkeling and skateboards and living a few hundred yards off a beach called Playa del Hombre in La Palma Canary Island.

I missed my friends terribly and especially my great-grandparents who were a very important part of my life. I adapted quickly. I hit the streets running literally while nobody spoke English outside of my home or school, and let me tell you, I never looked back. I learned the language, and I still speak Spanish today. I am the only person in my family that learned the language and only my first Spanish-speaking country. I love the ocean, and I explore constantly, never slowing down. I would ride a skateboard down the hill and run back up. People, this was a very steep hill. The wall to the left had a very abrasive texture. If you hit the wall, you would lose skin, on the right side, you would jump the curb, and have a very serious wipeout. There was no standing up. I can’t say for sure how fast, but I would go so fast it was scary. A wipeout could be deadly.

There was a cage with an orangutan in it as an attraction for a bar. He never left his cage and was very mean. And it’s a popular story with my family; they tell it better than me. They say I would tease the monkey—I really don’t remember that part—but I do remember that he got some people, but never me. One day he was mad at me and grabbed his bars on his cage and bent them. When I saw the bars bending, I started running up the hill. I had run up that hill literally thousands of times before. Let me tell you, I out ran that raging monkey all the way to my house probably two hundred yards or better, up a steep hill around the corner and barely got in my door before him. He tried getting in the house. All I know was, he was close within ten feet of catching me. I’ll have to check with my sisters on that. Like I said, they tell it better than I do anyway. He got after me many times, and he would break out and come looking for me, so I always had to be on the lookout. I have as my first hater a monkey. He bit a girl in the store one day when he couldn’t get me. He wasn’t fast enough. Thank You, Holy Spirit.

He never gave up. I really did feel remorse for the people he got knowing that he had been wanting me. My dad pulled a knife on him in our yard one day, and the monkey threw baby food jars at him. I have always had a boiling point, and I would kill behind my sisters if I lost my temper. OMG, my sisters knew this. After watching the movie Jaws, the ocean was never the same for me after that I would catch squid and cook them. I love seafood, and I was constantly in the ocean. The American school we went to was small. It was supposed to be earthquake-proof. It looked like igloos; that was their shape. I still remember the horrible pictures of the naked bodies I saw. There were negative slide pictures, black-and-white only, of the Holocaust victims. Some living, some dead. I still remember the pits that they were full of bodies. Bodies in every possible position, state of starvation, all shaved heads. There were pictures from the gas chambers. I saw it all, and I remember every bit. Thousands of photos that had soldiers laughing, doing cruel things. I spent hours looking at those photos on an ancient slide projector. They imprinted themselves on my brain. My education had begun.

A hippie friend of my sisters offered me some candy, and I told him I don’t take candy from hippies. He asked me why, and I said he might put drugs in them. He said, I wouldn’t waste my drugs on you. I still didn’t take the candy. My mom had warned me about hippies. My sister Donna barely missed the hippie age, but I promise you one thing: she definitely has lived her whole life to their standards. She still has their habits and artistic style. Cheer up, sis. I love you, and I won’t be cruel to you. I could go on and on about my experiences in Spain, but I’m going to move on to Egypt, my next country to invade.

Chapter 2

Cairo, Egypt—talk about culture shock; you can’t even begin to imagine. I remember the noises first. When we left the airport, my dad was asking the taxi drivers if they smoked hash before we got in. Of course, How much do you want? was a common answer. Finally, Mom put her foot down, and out of being so tired and jetlagged, we took the cab. It literally took days to travel from Monroe to Cairo, Egypt. We landed on several continents. Oh, and it sucked—honking horns, people shouting in the awful-sounding language, a mosque wailing prayer à la wet bak, donkeys, motorcycles zipping by. It was exciting, and I couldn’t wait to take off, and I did. I never looked back.

In Egypt, most Americans lived around the school Cairo American College. It was a real school; one actually had to work to make passing grades. I didn’t understand. I never could see the benefit in all the bookwork. It wasn’t fun; therefore, I wasn’t doing it. At this point, I can always keep everybody happy without taking up my time learning the real education that God was putting before me. Learning the streets, gaining knowledge that can only be had by experience. I saw riots in the street, people on pilgrimages, and walking to the Promised Land. Talk about poverty. They didn’t live very well, and I guess it was okay. It’s all they had ever known. My lunch money per month was more than a policeman’s salary. My cop friend would ride on his Harley with suicide shifter to go make hash sales to my sisters’ friends. Yeah, I also remember people saying that Egyptians believe that the real God would be born from a man. Homosexuality was common there among the poor Egyptians. Not US boys, though, don’t get confused.

I never understood the Islam thing. I do know that they are all very devout wherever they were. When the mass started à la wet bak, they hit their knees on their rugs that they carried with them, all facing Mecca. Now I know the difference is they don’t believe in Jesus Christ. All I’m going to say is that—Gideons, please send every Islam believer a New Testament. Yes, Lord, I will go there if You lead me. That’s a sure way to die an Old Testament-style death, preaching salvation through the blood of Jesus. They would stone you, for sure; that’s all the weapons they have, and little has changed there since the time of Moses. Okay, I can only base that on my memories and minimum knowledge, and it’s my story, so I’ll tell it how I remember.

I do remember an older kid telling me one time, Come on, we will get that Egyptian boy to cut his finger off for some money. No, I’m going to play soccer. I wasn’t cruel, and it was a lesson. Another time, I came home crying one day from a high school kid roughing me up. Dad said, Come on and pick up that stick, and we walked back to the school. He told me I was always going to be small and that I had to learn to pick something up and even the odds. We got to the school with me crying and feeling mad. I told Dad which one it was, and he told me to get him. I attacked, never hitting, but he sure got as far from me as he could. Nobody else messed with me after that. We had to be a sight. My dad is six feet four and all 100 percent Southern male, the toughest man standing—he’s a real alpha male. He never let me have a motorcycle in those foreign places, and I wanted one so bad. Other kids had them, but my dad knew I wasn’t the other kids. I’d probably still be riding in the desert. My dad was never a fool. Every decision he made in my childhood was for my best interest. Hindsight is twenty-twenty. He would say, Go, go, go, that’s all you ever say, and that I never slowed down. Okay. I only touched the surface of Egypt riding donkeys, climbing the pyramids, getting high for the first time, making below-average grades, and seeing my sister cause all kinds of trouble in our family. Talk about rebellion.

Chapter 3

Out of Egypt to the UAE of Dubai, before I get to the beaches of Dubai, let me back up a little. At this point in my life, I was in seventh grade, and I was now in my fifth year overseas. Every summer, I was able to return to the good ol’ USA for vacations. These were the times that I had dreamed of. I always felt that my life was on hold, and I would return to my friends and family with a completely different accent. We really sounded funny wherever we were. Southerners have a very unique accent and vocabulary. Our time in the country would be long enough to completely change our speech. Hey, the girls always loved it.

In Dubai, I got my first piece of tail. She was a girl from England, and all she said was that her dad would come kill me if she got pregnant. Oh well, I hope you don’t, but I’ll take my chances. It was really awesome and over very quickly. Finally, I was a man. I started smoking weed with some English punk rockers that lived close by, and I learned to scuba-dive, looking behind me for Jaws (I knew he was coming). We only stayed there six months and then moved back