Chicken (31 page)

Hannah throws hers arms around my neck, leans against my back. “What if the TARDIS showed up right now?”

I tilt my head back until it rests on top of hers. “That would be—fantastic.”

She squeeze me and squeals. “I knew you’d come around. Where would we go?”

I look at Lauren and Brant. “We can’t use it to change the past?”

“The universe would collapse.”

“Then I guess I’d just want to go to next autumn. See where we go to college. Make sure we aren’t still here.”

“There are three colleges in Conway. Well, one is Baptist so that one’s out, but we should sneak off and do some scouting while they’ve got their faces buried in chicken nugget buckets.”

“I don’t think that’s far enough away.”

She rests her chin on my shoulder. “Ugh. What about Maine? I bet it’s like fifty degrees there today.”

The sun hasn’t even crested the church roof, but everyone is already sticky. Brother Mackey gives us the green light to board, and Hannah drags me along the side of the bus, ruthlessly cutting in line. We head for the very back where we can sleep. I lean against the window, she leans against me. Brant and Lauren sit somewhere up front.

I want to ask Hannah if she knows what happened to Mathis, but that would involve talking about Friday night, so I just thank God for small blessings and try to make my head comfy on the cold, hard glass. Brother Mackey climbs aboard and prays for traveling mercies on the road and a hedge of protection in case there are any violent counter-protests today.

I wake up holding Hannah’s hand. I kiss the top of her head. I’ll tell her the truth soon. Then she can decide if she still wants to help me fill out college applications and financial aid forms. But for today, I’ll be her boyfriend.

A girl up front—maybe Natalie—suggests we make our own “Call Me Maybe” video for YouTube, but as soon as the music starts, Brother Mackey jumps up, waving his hands, and shouting, “Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!”

He makes them shut it off.  “Alright, gang, I know that’s the big hit thing this summer, but let’s give it some thought, shall we? Doesn’t that music video end with one boy giving another boy his number? So as catchy as it is, you’ve got to ask yourself if that’s really a song that glorifies the Lord. Is this really an artist we want to support?”

Nobody really responds to his speech because nobody was all that invested in the idea anyway. Brother Mackey returns to the passenger seat and rifles through the glove box. He pulls out a CD and pops it into the player. 

“Here’s something catchy for you kids!”

The bus fills with the sound of a trumpet. A shudder of recognition rolls through me. It’s the stupid swing dance song from that stupid puppet skit that scarred my five-year-old self, but instead of bringing up that memory, it brings up a certain Wednesday night in the EQ, Brant’s lips and his hands and—NO. I got rid of all those. 

Brother Mackey sings along, even does the weird scat parts in the chorus. It dawns on me that before he was the preacher, he was probably one of the weird puppet team kids.

Hannah peeks down the aisle and reports back. “He’s dancing, Casper. He might even be doing the Charleston.”

The police cruisers show up at noon, and I hope, I pray, they’re going to tell us this is insane, that we need to go home, but no, they’re just here to direct traffic. Because the drive-thru line has coiled around Wings of Glory and spilled over into one of the city’s main streets. You’d think people would wait patiently, maybe sing “We’re All In This Together”, but no, they honk and lean out of their car windows and shout at each other because everyone wants to be the first person to eat that fried chicken.

We’re on foot though, all fifty of us. Orange cones have been set up to create some sort of pedestrian safe zone, and we are taking up the whole area. With the sun’s help, my scalp is growing a thin coat of cancer. Mine and Hannah’s wrists are plastered together with sweat, maybe forever. We’re close enough to see in the door now and what I see makes me angry—people posing for selfies with sacks full of chicken sandwiches and waffle fries. For all their revolutionary talk, people sure are treating this like it’s a game.

Hannah shakes her head. “I didn’t think it would be like this. I thought we were the only real crazies.”

“You know, I hear Seattle’s lovely.”

“San Francisco could be fun.”

She bumps her shoulder against mine, and I am slowly starting to realize that maybe I don’t have to tell her anything. Maybe she knows. Maybe she’s even known all along. Maybe she was just as lonely as me.

I try not to look behind me. My body knows he’s back there. My body calls out to his, but he made it clear he’s never answering. The line inches forward, closer and closer to the glass doors and the chance to prove I’m a true American Christian. All I have to do is order the same old box of nuggets I always order, but this time something magical will happen, this time God will close the Red Sea over our liberal captors and lead us into a land of milkshakes and honey ranch dipping sauce.

The line lurches forward. We’ll be the next group through the door. 

Don’t look back, I tell myself. If I look back God will turn me into a pillar of salt, and the church will chip me apart and sprinkle me on their chicken. But of course I do look back. I trained my eyes to look at him, so I shouldn’t be surprised when they disobey their new orders. 

He kisses her, and I hate him then.

A blast of frigid hair hits the side of my face. Brother Mackey holds the door open, and our group enters two by two. Brother Raymond and Sister Helen. Brother Dean and Sister Cindy. Brother Russ and Sister Janet.

Hannah and I are the first teenagers in line after all the adults and children have gone in. Brother Mackey beckons us with a wide, hungry grin. Hannah squeezes my hand and pulls me toward the door.

I stop at the threshold. Colton crashes into my back, curses under his breath. 

Brother Mackey cocks his head, waves me in. “Come on, son. Let’s get in that air-conditioning!”

My mother’s head snaps around. She points at her side like I better get over there now. I take a step back. Her eyes widen, then narrow. Her nostrils flare.

I step back.

My father glances toward the hold-up, does a double-take when he sees it’s me. He smiles benignly, so happy to be here fighting for the Lord, and points at the menu board.

I step back.

My girlfriend hangs in the middle. She smiles and there in the curve of the lips I first kissed, I see there is more than one way to be someone’s hero, more than one way to keep someone safe, but I am past that now, and the future holds more than one way for me and her to be together. She lets go of my hand.

I step back. 

“I’m sorry. I can’t eat here.”

My father comes to the doorway scratching his head. “You’re holding all these people up. What’s the problem, son?”

“There’s no problem, sir. I’m just gay.”

THURSDAY, AUGUST 2, 2012

I thought Brother Mackey’s church prayers were long-winded, but they were nothing compared to this. He showed up around noon, and I still don’t know if my parents invited him, gave in to his demands, or if he just showed up on a whim. All I know is when I got out of the shower, he was sitting in the living room, talking very softly to Laramie while my parents stood in the kitchen. When Mama saw me there in my towel, she pointed toward my room. I went. I got dressed. I lay on my bed. I didn’t close the door.

I heard footsteps, little footsteps, and I waited to hear Laramie’s door open and close, but instead she leaned against my doorframe. 

“They want you.”

“Since when?”

She cracked a smile. I stood up. Ran my hands through my damp hair and tried to breathe.

“Hey, Casper.”

“Yeah, Laramie?”

“I don’t care if you like girls or boys. I think you’re stupid and gross either way.”

I smiled. When I slipped past her out my door, she wiggled her fingers against my hand, and that was the only good part of the day. 

Brother Mackey prayed the rest of it away. For hours and hours and hours, he prayed. He wept and laid hands on me, commanded the spirits of rebellion and immorality to leave me. My mother watched with a cold and angry face, not seeing what he’s doing to me, only seeing what I’ve done to my father. 

Daddy stayed in the kitchen, drinking cup after cup of black coffee until he was shaking more than the trailer in a thunderstorm. Late afternoon, Mama sent him out to get dinner. Anything but chicken, she said with a bitter laugh.

 He brought food from Socky’s, of course. Mackey ate with us. I don’t remember much of what he said because I couldn’t listen. That’s the only way I survived. I wouldn’t listen. His mouth made sounds. Sounds from the Bible. Sounds from the depths of his own concerned soul. But I didn’t let myself hear them. I stared at the verses he pointed out and let my eyes go blurry. I thought of Brant’s kisses that were once shaped like grins. I thought of him giving them to Lauren.

At one point, I mumbled something about being born this way, to which Mackey responded that I shouldn’t look to Lady Gaga for spiritual validation, and then went on to say that even if that was the case, even if I really was born gay, it’s only because we live in a fallen world, not because God’s plan for my life included laying with men as though they were women. I asked him it would ever be fair to lie with a woman when I didn’t really want her, and he said, “Plenty of folks are born with crippling disabilities, Casper. We all have crosses to bear. Celibacy might be yours.”

Dusk came and the forest sang, and Brother Mackey finally went home. Now I’m lying in bed, listening to the television in the living room flip from one channel to the next. This happened last night too. My throat burns from being silent all day. I need water. I need Hannah. I need Sister Bonnie. I need Brant. Anyone but the glass-eyed couple sitting on that couch, turning off their brains so they don’t have to think about me.

I can’t go in the kitchen, but maybe I could make it to the bathroom without running into anyone. I open the door and hear a Fox newscaster assuring my parents that the world works exactly the way they want it to. I slip across the hall into the bathroom. Feel around in the dimness for the little paper cups we use when rinsing our teeth. Turn the faucet on to the slightest trickle and fill my cup. I slug it down and fill it back up. Turn the faucet off and step into the hall. 

“—a record sales day that will more than make up for any losses the company incurs during tomorrow’s homosexual kiss-in—”

The channel changes swiftly. Again and again and again. Like my parents can’t get far enough away from anything that reeks of gay. I crush the paper cup in my hand. Water splashes over my fingers, rains on the carpet. I hurry back to my room, close the door, and climb under the covers. I pull my pillow down beside me and hold on tight, but it’s no substitute for human touch. I think about crawling in bed with Laramie like she used to do to me when she was little and had bad dreams and our parents had locked their door. But she’d probably scream and God knows what they’d think about me. A pervert’s a pervert, right?

I picture all the other “perverts” at Wings of Glory tomorrow. I picture them in California and Illinois and Rhode Island and even Texas, but I can’t picture them here, so I hate the people in California and Illinois and Rhode Island and Texas. I hate the people who planned all this. I hate the people who started the protest, and I hate the people who are so used to being able to kiss the person they love that they can just waltz into a fast food joint and do it right there in public for all the news outlets to plaster on all the TVs in all the living rooms for all the parents like mine to see and be grossed-out and angry. 

I go to my window. A full moon hangs over the forest that hides the Ditch, and I can’t help but think of Brant and his monthly camping trip, the one I found out never involved any actual camping, the one he’ll never get to go on again. His bags are probably packed by now—if he’s even allowed to take bags where they’re sending him. 

I did a bad thing yesterday, and I don’t care what Hannah says about standing up for justice and equality, I’ll always know I did it to be mean. I press my forehead to the warm glass, against the belly of a spider on the other side. I watch her legs spinning her web, even though it makes my skin crawl, because I can’t bear to close my eyes. I see him every time. Watching me from across Wings of Glory after my parents dragged me inside. The accusation in his eyes. I was supposed to be Peter, denying him every time, but in the end I was Judas, betraying him with the closest thing I could find to a kiss.

I have tried and tried to add this last moment to the bonfire, but the memory is a tiny phoenix rising from the ashes over and over again. If only there was something to make me forget, a magical potion or a special secret ingredient—

I go back to my bed and fluff the covers into the shape of a gay kid. 

The moon is bright, and the Ditch is dry, and the devil moves fast. I crouch over his neck, hands tangled in his mane. No bridle. No saddle. Just a boy and a horse and a cloud of dust. Under the wooden bridge, under the park bridges, under the railroad bridge and the concrete bridge until there are no more bridges because we’ve reached private property. No sense of how much time has passed or whether or not we’ve been missed. Only a sense that we aren’t alone, that there is something just behind us, just ahead of us, just alongside us, everywhere. Out there. Watching. Guarding. Hunting. I don’t know. I don’t let myself know anything but Shetan’s muscles, bunching and unbunching, carrying me to the only place in Hickory Ditch that ever felt like home.

I know we’ve reached the Mitchells’ when Shetan stumbles in the ruts. He catches himself, but bucks and side-hops, angry I endangered him. I stroke his neck, whisper nonsense until he’s calm and carefully picking his way over the broken ground until we reach the ramp. I squeeze his ribs and when he resists, I slap his butt. White lather sticks to my hands.