The Silver Bullet of Faith

By Kim Chatelain

Eddy Beckendorf was raised in a New Orleans home marred by domestic violence. Following the sensational killing of his philandering police officer father by his mother, he descended into an abyss of mental anguish and pain. A failing student and high school dropout, he was a lost soul in a sea of despair who seemed to encounter tragic events at every turn, until he turned to the Lord. A renewed reliance on God brought symmetry to his life and established a path that led him to become a decorated law enforcement officer, corporate manager, and deacon in the Catholic Church. Through homilies and counseling sessions, Deacon Eddy has, for the past three decades, used the harsh experiences of his past to serve as a GPS for others seeking an exit ramp from their own despair. There was a time when he wondered why God brought him such misery. Now, he realizes the challenges provided him insights that most clergymen do not possess as they digest and pontificate on growing secularism, disappointment, violent crime, domestic abuse, injustice, and various ills of society. The Silver Bullet of Faith is Deacon Eddy's story, an inspiring narrative of faith told against the backdrop of historical events in one of the country's quirkiest cities.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 7, 2023
• ISBN: 9798886851069

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The Silver Bullet of Faith

Kim Chatelain

ISBN 979-8-88685-105-2 (paperback)

ISBN 979-8-88685-106-9 (digital)

Copyright © 2022 by Kim Chatelain

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

About the Authors

Chapter 1

Shotgun

Most people who grew up in New Orleans are familiar with the city's quintessential house style—the shotgun.

Modest and recognizable by their narrowness, shotgun houses do not have hallways. They are typically three or four rooms deep, with a living room in the front, followed by two bedrooms and a kitchen in the rear.

The floor plan was logical before air-conditioning. The interior and exterior doors line up, allowing summer breezes to blow through each room. Folklore has it that the term shotgun derived from the notion that a round of bird shot fired from the front would go clean through the house and exit the back without hitting a single obstruction.

However, while the layout is good for ventilation and perhaps crazy gun tricks, it doesn't do much for privacy. I know this all too well.

When I was a child, my family home was a shotgun double on Burdette Street in a working-class New Orleans neighborhood near Claiborne Avenue.

In a household ravaged by domestic violence, the lack of privacy gave my two sisters and me a window into our parents' harsh verbal and physical confrontations, which often occurred after we went to bed. From my bedroom, I could hear the angry words and see the exchange of blows as the two people I loved most engaged in vile altercations.

I would cover my head with a pillow or stick my fingers in my ears to avoid the perverse sounds of a marriage gone woefully off the tracks. And I would pray, Please, God, make it stop.

On a fall night when I was ten years old, one of these bitter disputes broke out as I was trying to fall asleep in my bed. It was unseasonably cool by New Orleans standards, and the window fan in my room was off. I wished that it had been warmer because the fan's whirring was calming and helped drown out the arguments. That night, however, the nerve-racking commotion of marital strife was loud and clear.

Amid that argument, I heard my father—a New Orleans police officer—summoned me to the room where the confrontation had reached fever pitch. Before I could react, I heard my mother order me to stay in my bed. Again, my father called me to his side, and my mother told me to stay put. They went back and forth several times with this, further proof that my parents couldn't seem to agree on anything.

I was confused and emotionally distraught. Finally, I mustered the courage to get out of bed and sheepishly enter the war room. To my dismay, I saw my parents struggling over a large kitchen knife as they pushed one another around and tumbled about the room.

Finally, my dad was able to take control of the knife. He handed it to me and told me to put it in the kitchen sink. My mom countered, demanding I give her the knife. I didn't know who to obey. Did she need the knife for protection?

Looking back on the incident now, I wonder if she was poised to become the predecessor of Lorena Bobbitt, who received international media coverage in 1993 when she, after years of alleged abuse by her husband, cut off his penis with a knife as he slept. As time went on and I learned more about life and their relationship, I began to realize this was a possibility.

One thing was certain, then and later: no ten-year-old should ever face such a dilemma as I faced that night.

Grappling with my own emotions, I reached a realization that was beyond my years: The knife had to be removed from this horrid scene. I took it from my dad, ran to the kitchen, and hid the knife under the sink.

I went back to my bed and prayed with all the spiritual might I could muster, Please, God, bring us peace.

Less than a year later, I was asleep in my bedroom when my grandfather awakened me. Get up. Get dressed. Your father has been shot.

My father died that day—Palm Sunday 1962—in front of a bar on Carrollton Avenue. Although she didn't actually pull the trigger, my mother was responsible for the bullet that took my dad's life in an incident too bizarre to fathom.

The bullet that killed him was fired from a handgun that my mom had hurriedly stuffed into a grocery bag along with my dad's clothes and other belongings. When she encountered him in front of the bar with another woman, my mother threw the bag at my father, as if to say she wanted no more of him or his stuff.

The brown paper bag hit the ground in front of the tavern, causing the fatal bullet to be discharged from the revolver. As if it had been aimed by some divine marksman, the projectile struck my dad in the groin. He was rushed to Charity Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

The April 16, 1962 edition of The Times-Picayune newspaper ran the story on its front page. The headline read,