Thinking Straight (4 page)

“So, Danny's parents. What would they say about homosexuality?”

“Oh that. Such a fuss. There are so many things in the Bible that we ignore, and everybody seems to make their own decisions about what things those ought to be. Danny's folks would just say, Who cares? As long as people aren't hurting each other—and it doesn't hurt you if someone else is gay, does it?—then leave the gays alone.” I guess I was quiet too long, and she said, “That upsets you, doesn't it? I'm sorry. That must sound like sacrilege to you. I just get so into these discussions with Danny. His parents have always encouraged him to question everything—”

“No, that's not it.” But that's as far as I got before I froze.

“What is it, then?” She stopped walking. Again. I stopped and turned toward her. “Oh my God, you're gay! Taylor, are you gay?”

Well, that got me moving again. “Will you be quiet? Is there anyone on the street who didn't just hear you say that?”

“Taylor, I was practically whispering. You barely heard me. I'm right, aren't I? This is so cool! I don't think I know anybody who's gay. Except you, of course.”

“Oh yes you do.”

“Who? Tell me!”

“No way. I'd never tell that about anyone else. Especially given how everyone in church feels about it.” Which reminded me I hadn't extracted any promises. “So, you wouldn't, like, tell anyone, would you?”

“Oh, Taylor, of course not. You'd be crucified. And besides, you have my secret, too.”

She took my hand. It was a weird moment. But she held it most of the way back to the house, and it felt a lot less weird by then and a lot more like friendship.

So it's kind of ironic that it was Angela who outed me to my folks. Not directly; she didn't do anything wrong. But after the Russells left that night, there was all this pressure from my folks to tell them how much I liked her.

“She's great. A real sweet girl. We had a nice walk.”

Mom asked, “So do you think you'll see her again? Will you ask her out on a date?”

I felt like there was a bat in the room. You know how they fly? Sort of all over the place, and it's impossible to know how to duck to avoid them. All I could say was, “Maybe sometime.”

“Sometime?” Dad bellowed.
“Sometime?
Taylor, there's nothing wrong with the girl, is there? She's pretty, she's smart, she's Christian,” by which he meant
our
kind of Christian, “she's polite, her parents are fine people—what more could you want in a girl?”

“Nothing, I guess.” I headed for the stairs, hoping to make it up to my room and bring this inquisition to an end. But no. Dad was right behind me, with Mom behind him; he had more to say, and he wasn't letting me avoid it.

“Do you have any idea how rude that is? How inconsiderate? To make a girl think you like her and then leave her hanging like that?”

I wheeled, nearly ducking to avoid that bat in the air. “Look, I'm not the one who suggested this little get-together, so she doesn't have any reason to think I'm interested in her that way. If anyone has led her on, it's you.” I stood there, my back to the stairs and relative safety, my folks in front of me and looking about as sad and confused as I'd ever seen them. Into the silence, I said, “So I want both of you to stop pestering me about asking girls out. I have to do what's right for me.”

Almost whining, my mom asked, “Taylor, isn't there
anyone
you're interested in?”

I took a breath. Then another. I clenched my hands into fists, balling up the fabric of my pants. I released the fabric. Gathered it again. I ground my teeth.

“Yeah. There is.”

Mom stepped forward, and maybe the look on my face was what made her afraid, but she was afraid. I contemplated telling her I was in love with a girl whose parents were freethinkers. That might actually be better than the truth, as far as they were concerned.

Mom said, “Who is she?”

I opened my mouth and closed it a few times, thinking it was really too bad Angela and I hadn't been smart enough to set up a conspiracy. I would pretend to my folks that we were going out, and she could pretend to hers. But there's that thing about lying. I bet even freethinkers believe that's wrong. Time for the truth. So I said, “It's not a she, Mom. I'm gay.”

They both stepped back, and then Dad lunged for me. He grabbed my arm before I could duck and dragged me into the living room, practically throwing me onto the sofa. I stood back up as he turned to start pacing around the room. Out of the corner of my eye—I didn't dare not watch Dad—I saw Mom kind of sink into a wing chair.

Dad wheeled on me, and I nearly fell back onto the sofa. “I don't ever want to hear you say that again! Do you hear me? You're talking Satan. You're talking Hell. You're talking about your immortal soul. And I won't have you disgracing this family!”

Maybe if he hadn't said that last bit, about the family, I would have just let him rant and rave. But it was too much for me. “Oh, we can't have that, can we? Family disgrace. You know, God made me who I am. It's between me and God.”

Dad's voice got quiet. Hard. “I'll tell you what's between you and God. Satan is between you and God right now. So don't pretend you know what you're talking about, because right now you're just Satan's mouthpiece.”

“I do so know what I'm talking about!” My voice was nowhere near as calm as his. But I had more to lose. “I've spent a lot of time this year thinking about this, praying about this, and reading the Bible about this. I know where Satan is. And he's not standing between me and God.”

Dad marched around the living room, kicking aside a small table that got in his way. He's got a bit of a temper, so despite the comical look of the wispy hair strings on top of his head when he moves around, it's a bad idea to get him riled.

Too late to avoid that, though.

“You've done it already, haven't you? You've been active. You've committed sodomy.”

My mind went two different places when he said that. One was to Will. Not that I pictured the act, but that I didn't want my parents to do that. If I said yes now, they'd want to know who was with me. I didn't want to give Will to them. Plus I didn't want them to say I couldn't see him again.

The other place was the word itself. Sodomy. If you read the Bible carefully, the people of Sodom committed all kinds of sin. It wasn't just a matter of men having sex with men. They were greedy, and they proved frequently that they were without mercy. And Abram's nephew, Lot, lived there; why? And when two angels—who were always men, of course—came as guests to Lot's house and some local guys wanted to have sex with them, do you know what Lot did? He offered instead his two virgin daughters! Talk about abomination. But my point is, sodomy means just one thing today, but the original meaning was more than that. So had I committed sodomy? Not biblically. Not in all its aspects.

So for at least two very different reasons, I said, “No. You're wrong.”

He stopped and stared at me, looking triumphant. “Then you really don't know anything about it.” He walked over to where Mom was still sitting in the chair and put his hand on her shoulder, I guess to set up something like a wall of intervention. Solidarity against me. “Then I know what to do. We'll all go, the three of us, and talk with Reverend Douglas. He'll know what steps to take. In the meantime, young man, you should consider yourself grounded. We can't take any chances.”

And as if that settled it, he nodded in my general direction and said to Mom, “I'm going to read the last section of the paper.” And he plunked himself down into his recliner.

I stood there feeling like the spaceship I'd arrived on had taken off toward home without me. Mom got up kind of suddenly and disappeared, and I skulked off to my bedroom, fighting the urge to call Will, terrified that if either of them found out I was talking to him they'd figure out who he was to me.

So Dad made the decision of what was gonna happen next, like he was the only one who needed to be consulted, and Mom disappeared. Which left me—where? Sometimes the weirdest part of a confrontation is what happens right afterward. It's like no one's on the same terms they were on with anyone before it happened, and there's all this psychological dancing that goes on as everyone tries to find out what the new boundaries are. I was feeling a powerful need to set some new boundaries, starting with my mom.

Practically tiptoeing so my dad wouldn't know I was anywhere near, I moved through the house toward the laundry room. I figured that's where Mom would be; it's where she goes when she's upset.

And sure enough, the door was shut, and I could hear her quietly crying in there. I knocked once and opened it, and she was standing in front of the ironing board ripping an old pair of my pajamas into rags. Therapeutic, I suppose. She dropped all of it when she saw me and wrapped herself around me, crying harder, calling my name between sobs.

“It's okay, Mom. Really. I'm fine.”

“Oh, Taylor!” was all she said for a while, until she let me go so she could blow her nose. Then, “Your father is so upset. I don't know what he'll do. Why does it have to be like this? Why do you…” She kind of fizzled out and blew her nose again.

“Mom, I don't know what else I can tell you. This is who I am. It's not something I chose, just like being who you are isn't something you chose.”

“But Taylor, it's a sin!”

“We're all sinners, Mom.”

“But you're choosing to sin!”

“No. You aren't listening. I didn't choose this, any more than I chose brown hair or what day I was born on. I can't change my birthday, and I can't change the color of my hair—not really, and I can't change this.”

“But…you're our only child.” She raised her arms into the air and let them flop down again, helpless.

“And that means what, exactly? That you don't get another chance to do it right?”

I must have shouted. I probably sounded like Dad. She sort of squeaked, “It means we won't have grandchildren.”

I let out a tired breath. “Mom, I don't know why I'm gay. I don't know if God made me like this to test me, or to test you and Dad, or if there's some other reason, but it's who God made me. Do you think I haven't prayed about this? Do you think I haven't asked God why?”

She perked up a little. “Have you talked to Reverend Douglas already? Why didn't you tell your father? What did the reverend say?”

Well, no, I told her, I hadn't talked to Reverend Douglas.

He'd been our pastor for my whole life, and even before my dad dragged us in to see him, I already knew where he stood on this issue so near and dear to my heart.

Mom and I talked a little longer, but just so we could both calm down some. We didn't really get anywhere.

The meeting with Reverend Douglas went about like you'd expect. He came out of his office all smiles and sweetness and light.

“What a pleasure! I'm delighted to see all of you.” He turned to me. “Taylor, your father tells me you're feeling troubled. Why don't you and I go into my office and talk about it?”

I could give him about seventeen reasons why not. But at least we were leaving my folks out here. I followed him in and sat in the chair across from his desk. I guess this is my year for sitting across desks from sanctimonious homophobes.

“So, Taylor, what seems to be the trouble?”

“Actually, I'm not having any trouble. It's my dad who has a problem.”

“What problem is that?”

“He thinks I'm confused.”

“You're not?”

“No. I'm gay. I'm not confused.”

Just a slight twinge. But then, I was watching for it, so maybe I imagined it. “There's not much difference between the two at this stage. Your father tells me you haven't yet engaged in fornication, so we're catching things early. Confusion can be cleared more easily if sin has not yet occurred.” When I didn't reply to his last volley, he said, “Is what your father told me correct? You haven't yet fornicated?”

I ground my teeth. He could mean almost anything. “I'm not sure I know what you're asking me. What do you mean by fornicated?”

“Fornication, strictly speaking, is sex outside of marriage. For our purposes, it indicates sexual intercourse that has not been blessed by God.”

“If I had fornicated with a girl, would that be okay?”

“Of course not, as you know very well. You're no stranger to God's laws. But because you're saying that you're homosexual, the most likely fornication would have been with another boy, or a man. Has that happened?”

I took a breath and tried to think while I let it out. He was being very patient, which meant I wasn't likely to get out of this quickly. And I didn't. I won't go into all the back and forth with scriptural references, and me clenching my hands into fists to stop myself from trying to argue with him, because arguing would mean making this take even longer. It's enough to say that he got more out of me than my dad had managed.