Thinking Straight (29 page)

“I want you to lead. Have Peter lead the litany unless you're sure you remember it, and then ask if anyone has any struggles. If so, encourage the whole group to talk about it. Then tell them I've asked you to introduce the Job lesson you told me about. Keep an eye on the time, and about half an hour before lights-out—not later—wrap it up and have the group hold hands in unity. We'll try to meet again Tuesday, but tell them it's tentative. If they don't hear, there's no meeting. Got it?”

“You want me to do what?”

“Taylor, knock it off. You know very well you can do this. In fact, you want to do this. So just do it. Tell them I got tied up and asked you to.”

“Who's Peter?”

“Now, Taylor, I'm sure you remember Peter. I saw the two of you working on the cables for the band setup. Why do you think John went over to distract you?” I just blink at him. “Don't play coy. There was more electricity coming from you than the band used for their whole show. By the way, just so you know, Peter's not gay.” He grins at me. “Now. Can we go to the confidential part?”

I take a deep breath and nod. Jeez; leading the circle. But he's right; I can do it.

“Okay. If things get bad with Charles, which is to say that if he, like, you know, goes to pieces, I may have to call Mrs. Harnett.”

“Huh?”

“Hush. Here's the confidential part. She's my mother.”

“But…but her son moved away! And you're not gay! You told me….”

“Will you be quiet and let me finish?” He waits. I make a face. He says, “That was my older brother. I'm trying to work on him. He doesn't believe how much she's changed. But that's another story. The important part is that she's with us. She's completely bought into how much good this place can do. Like I told you, kids like me. But now she understands about the gay thing. She hates Dr. Strickland's position, and she knows about the circle. She supports it. And, by the way, she had nothing to do with your room getting searched; that shocked her.”

I interrupt. “Do you think John knew?”

“No, John's not like that. I know he's a bit narrow in his approach, and he couldn't tolerate the circle, but he'd never terrorize someone. He's in on a lot that goes on around here—he's being groomed for Leadership—but he doesn't know about me. People like Dr. Strickland and—I can't call him Reverend—Bartle know about Mom and me, but no more than that.”

“But…” There has to be something wrong with this picture. All I can think of is, “Your name's different. You're not Nate Harnett.”

“My father left us not long after I was born. She married my stepfather about five years ago.”

I have a test for him. “What's her first name?”

“Caroline.”

I don't even remember if that's true. He sounds convincing, but…It's not that I can't see the picture. It's just that the disconnect is so huge. Have I been
imagining
that Nate's been as critical about her as I have? Have I been assuming that he's bought into my position about the leadership of this place? I guess I have. He did tell me, the night he asked me to join the circle, that they aren't all evil here. I'm gonna have to give this some more thought later. Right now, I do my best to get with the program. Nate's program. I say, “Okay. So if it gets to be too close to lights-out, I'll go to my room. If no one's there, I'll assume you've taken him to…um, Mrs. Harnett. Is that it?”

“That's it.”

Like that's all there is to it. Like this hasn't been an even crazier day for me than last Sunday was. Sunday. Half a year ago, now. But—“Why can't we get to her now?”

“She's not here. My grandmother is very sick, and Mom spends as much time as she can with her lately. She can come back if it's an emergency, and I can get to a car if I have to, but she's almost an hour away.” We just look at each other for a minute, and then he says, “I wouldn't have burdened you with this except for this thing with Charles. You may need to create some cover. Leland's not going to sit quietly by and wait for the truth to make itself known in the fullness of time. He's going to want resolution. And he can't know about the circle. You, um, you may need to lie.”

“I'm prepared for that.” Now that I think of it, Mrs. Harnett wasn't here last Sunday either. “But there was a Prayer Meeting last Sunday. Who led it?”

“John.”

“John? McAndrews?” Being groomed, all right.

“The same.” He waits, but I don't know what to say to that. So he says, “Taylor, I'm really glad you're here. I know I can count on you.”

I have to look down at the table. One of those Aw-shucks moments.

He says, “We need to get going. You've got circle soon. Get the key from Sean and be at the laundry room before seven thirty. It's earlier tonight because of no Prayer Meeting. Let me leave here ahead of you.” He looks around and so do I. Charles is still sitting there, so Nate says, “I'll go help the kitchen-cleanup crew for a bit.” And I know he'll watch for when Charles leaves.

It's a little early, but I decide to pick up my Bible and head for Sean's room to get the key. On the way I carelessly shove the hand not holding my Bible into my pocket. Guess what's there.

I want to smack myself in the head. How could I have forgotten that? But then, considering everything else that's going on, I suppose I could be forgiven. It's not like I've forgotten Will. I smile, thinking of his kisses.

Bless Sean's gorgeous black head, he's in his room. “Hey,” I greet him. He responds in kind. I say, “Nate told me to get the key from you. He can't come tonight, so he asked me to open the room and get things started.”

He looks at me a little suspiciously. “Where's Peter?”

I guess Peter must usually do this when Nate can't. I shrug. “Nate was pressed for time and I was at dinner with him.”

“I guess it's okay.” He digs in his desk and hands me the key.

And then I get an inspiration. “Listen, I have a favor to ask.” He looks at me like he's afraid of what I'm going to say. I peek into the room just to make sure no one else is there, and although he doesn't have a roommate, there's a desk behind the door. Great. “I need a place to sit quietly and read something.”

“Read something. Not your Bible, I take it.”

“Uh, no. But I can hold it inside my Bible for cover if that helps. Can I sit at the other desk?”

He gets up and peers into the hall. No one is around. “Okay. But be quiet. And do put it in the Bible, will you?”

I turn the chair so the back is to the wall and pull the wad of paper out. It's a printer-friendly version of a newspaper article. It's all I can do not to start reading before I have it positioned, but I'd promised Sean. I do cheat a little and look first for green ink, which is right there at the top: “ESO!” And a little farther down: “YAIMP.” Equipment Smarter than Operator? What does he mean by that? Have I been in here so long I can't remember IM lingo anymore? I get
You're Always In My Prayers,
but
ESO?

Puzzled, I lay it out flat, fold it into quarters, open the Bible to the Gospel of John, and tuck it in before I settle down to read. And you won't believe what I read.

It's kind of long, so I have to unfold and flip a lot, but here's the gist: In this scientific study, gay men responded to the pheromones of other gay men more than they responded to the pheromones of straight men. And they didn't respond to female pheromones at all! So help me God. That's what it says. Something to do with an interaction between the hypothalamus and the pituitary. The report from the study came out in 2005.

Holy Mary, mother of God.

I read it so quickly the first time that when I'm done I have a hard time believing I didn't just make stuff up. So I read it again. And it says the same thing the second time. I look up at Sean, and he's watching me. He says, “You okay? You're making some odd noises over there.”

“Sorry. I was trying to be quiet. I—Sean, are you gay?” He blinks at me a couple of times but doesn't answer. So I say, “You gotta read this.”

“Not readin' nothin' that's gonna get me in trouble.”

I get up and check outside the room; silence. I stand in the doorway so I'll know if the scene changes, and I keep my voice low. I'm shaking with excitement as I tell him what I've read. He's scowling at me, and then he glances at my Bible on the other desk, the article still in it. He goes over to it and picks up the article to read it for himself. First he gets hung up on the green ink, but I tell him that's not important, so he reads the rest. Then he looks up at me with a pained expression on his face.

I say, “Do you know what this means, Sean? When was the last time you were aware of your hypothalamus sending a sex wakeup call to your pituitary? You don't know anything until the pituitary has already gotten you feeling aroused. Get it? This proves what we've been trying to tell them all along. This is not a choice. And God made us this way.”

“This is awful.”

“What?”

“All of us who've been trying so hard to change? Do you know what this means to us?” His hand goes to the top of his head and clutches. “It's different for you. You never had any intention of changing, did you? But I really believed I could. And I was almost there. I—I've put so much into this! I've suffered so much. But you, you haven't….”

“You mean you had almost convinced yourself. Now you don't have to.”

“But, Taylor, the Bible says it's a sin!”

I check the hall once more and move over to stand close to him. “It was a sin. It
was
a sin when Moses was alive and when St. Paul was alive. But not anymore.”

“That makes no sense.” He's worrying me; sounds like he's almost going to cry.

“Sure it does. Times have changed. Christians eat shellfish; the Bible says it's a sin. We wear clothes with mixed fibers; the Bible says
that's
a sin. We change how we interpret some of these rules depending on our situation. Why can't we reinterpret this one? Especially when believing it literally causes so much hate, and pain, and when it's a natural way to be anyway. Look, you've spent a lot more time here than I have. How many kids have you known who killed themselves on account of this? And as for that bastard, Bartle…” I've gone too far.

He draws to his full height, and there's this immense dignity about him. Slowly he goes back to his own chair. “Taylor, I think you should leave now. And I don't want you to mention this to me again.”

“But Sean…”

“I mean it. I gotta think about this, and I don't wanna hear your fancy ideas about interpreting scripture till I'm done.”

I draw a shaky breath. “Okay. And thanks. You know. For letting me read this here.” I fetch my Bible and fold the papers back into my pocket. I offer one more “Thanks” as I leave.

S
omehow I'm left with the same problem I had before. I need a place where I can be alone to think about what I've just read, to digest it. And, if I can be really creative, a place to keep it.

I duck into the nearest boys' bathroom and go into a booth. Leaning against the closed door I shut my eyes and take several deep breaths. Sean hadn't reacted anything like I'd have thought a gay kid would. For me, it had felt like—oh, I don't know, monumental? But in a good way. In a fucking fantastic way. So why had the monumental part for Sean been the bad kind? It's like science is finally agreeing with us that it's not a choice. But even more than that, it's a natural process. Biology in action.

And suddenly I get the
ESO.
We do what we're supposed to do whether we understand it—hell, whether we even know it or not. Take that, Reverend Douglas! I
knew
you were wrong.

Obviously, I'll have to bring this up tonight in the circle. I really wish I could talk to Nate about it first, but that can't happen.

In a moment of inspiration I take off my right shoe, lift the inner sole out, and fit the article into the bottom of the shoe. Thank God it's a tie shoe, not a loafer or something that might come off. I make sure the laces are snug. Walking back out of the bathroom I listen carefully, but I don't hear any crinkling.

Even so, I think about it all the way to the laundry room. I want to segue into it from the Job discussion somehow. But what's the hook? Just as I'm turning the key in the laundry room door it comes to me. It's all about assumptions, and assuming everything is all about you.

Peter sits right across from me, which is a little distracting 'cause he's so gorgeous, gay or not. Once we're sure everyone's here who's coming, I go lock the door. Then I take my place in the circle.

“Nate asked me to let you know he can't be here tonight. He asked to have Peter start us off, and then I'm to introduce a topic. Is that okay with everyone?”

There's no objection, and Peter leads the litany. It's great to be able to say the responses with them this time.

“What must not fail?”

“Understanding that the path to God is love.”

“Where must we start?”

“From where we are and from who we are.”

“What must we do?”

“Establish and maintain loving connection in everything we do.”

Peter looks at me and I say, “Next meeting is Tuesday, but it's tentative. If you don't hear for sure, it's not on.” And then I open the discussion.

It's such a rush, presenting this idea. Nate had opened with a combination statement and question. So I do the same.

“When we read the story of Job, it can seem like a test of his faith in God. His love for God. This interpretation would mean that it's all about Job. But when we look more closely at all that happened—dead livestock, dead people—we have to ask ourselves: Is it all about Job? And if not, then what?”

At first, it's like a graveyard. No one says a thing. Some of them look at each other, and I'm thinking this is going to be a total bust. I'm just about to take it back, try something else, when suddenly kids start firing assumptions at me. I try to respond to them the way Nate had. The discussion goes round and round, and I have to focus really hard to follow it, to try and remember who says what so I can refer back to some of their comments. And some of them are really good. Danielle even thinks of something really great that I hadn't. She says it's like people who think everything is all about them are trying to create God in their own image rather than the other way around. Just like the conclusion I'd come to about my own folks.

So I guess I'm doing something right, because they come to the same conclusion I had. That it's all about God. And that when we think it's all about us, it's like we think we're the center of the universe. And we're not, except when we're fully with God. At which point it's still all about God.

So I restate a comment from Dave, that we assume it's about Job because we identify with him, and we assume everything is about us. And when we do that, we can fall into a trap where we assume that everyone is
like
us, or should be. And that's when I hit them with the findings of this report.

Because, really, heteros don't know any more about what their hypothalamus is doing than I do. So they assume that my response should be the same as that of a straight guy, and they don't rub two gray cells together in any effort to think about it. But this report should make them do that. Will it? That's what I ask the group, with Sean's panicked reaction still fresh in my mind.

Jessica says, “They'll say if you pray hard enough, God can accomplish miracles.”

Danielle, quietly, says, “They need to believe. They want something absolute.”

“Structure,” says Jamie. “They need structure. They need to have their morality and ethics spelled out for them. Spoon-fed.”

Peter: “But we know that no one's situation is absolute. Not ours, not St. Paul's. It keeps changing. So the things we do to keep from failing—which must always begin from where we are—may not be absolute, either.”

Nobody says anything for a few seconds, so I ask, “So what can we do for the gay kids who think they need that structure? Kids who don't want to hear about the science, who won't believe it matters?”

Jamie says, “None are so blind as those who will not see.”

“But they're in pain,” Danielle says, “so they don't
dare
look. They think they know what to do, and they're in pain.”

Jamie, it seems, has little patience for pain. “Then they're cowards.”

I picture Sean. Is he a coward? Possibly. And then Charles. I don't think Charles would want to look at this evidence, either. But I don't think he's a coward. “I don't think we can judge them so hard. We can't tell what kind of pain they're in, or what pressures they're under. So is there anything we can do to help someone who doesn't dare look at this?”

Dawn says, “Love them.”

I haven't looked at my watch, but this seems like a good place to stop for tonight. I say, “What must we do?” And everyone chants the response. I take the hands of the kids next to me, and everyone else does the same. At least we can start here. At least we can love here.

Kids are leaving one by one and I'm standing there watching them when suddenly I remember that I'd forgotten to ask if there were any struggles anyone wanted to talk about. I strike a fist against my thigh. Danielle sees this and comes over to me.

“What is it?”

I tell her, but she just smiles, and then she gives me a hug and kisses my cheek. I hold her close and feel the swelling of her baby. She will be such a good mother. We need people like Danielle to be mothers.

As everyone is leaving, Danielle holds me back to talk about Charles, and we follow the others from a distance.

“He's been an angel to me,” she says. “And I'm so worried about him. Taylor, there's so much love in him, and he gives and gives and won't accept any in return.”

Little does she know how much
I'm
worried about him. Or why. But I can't talk about that, so I say, “He doesn't seem happy, does he?”

“No. He's trying so hard to change, and he really believes it's the right thing to do. But—can you talk to him about that study?”

“Danielle, I—I think Charles is one of those people who won't want to see it.”

“But can't you try?”

I look at her. Her face is so earnest, and she's so worried. I say, “I'll see. I'll look for a good opportunity. But I think, with him, it would have to be just the right time.”

And I can't quite imagine what that right time would be.

It's too early to go to my room; Nate might still be in there hammering at Charles to get him to fess up. But no; Nate's going to be gentle, right? I'm the one who hammers. In any case, I go to the library to see if Leland is there, as he's supposed to be.

He is. I approach where he's sitting at a table, a pile of books beside him and one open in front of him. Observing library rules I speak softly. “Hey. Fancy meeting you here.”

He looks up, an expression somewhere between surprise and sulk on his face. He looks back down at his book. “Where've you been?”

I decide not to answer. “No sign of Nate yet?”

He shakes his head, and I can tell he's all the way into sulk now. At first I'm irritated, but then I think what this must be like for him. I mean, he must have felt that at least some part of what happened to Ray was his fault, and now he finds out the guy was probably murdered. Absentmindedly I reach for one of the books in Leland's pile and open it so it looks like I'm reading. But I'm not. I'm thinking that this whole thing seems so immensely unlikely. Really. Bartle murdering people? I can sort of see him abusing kids, but—murder?

I stare down at the printed page, but instead of seeing it my mind is focused on the sight of Charles hugging the far wall on his way out of the chapel earlier. The way he was holding himself made me hurt just to see it. Head down, face all crumpled, arms around his ribs so tight it's a wonder he could breathe. What had the man done to him, really?

The front corner of the chapel is where Charles had come from. I guess there must be an office or a storeroom, some place where things could happen unobserved. And they must happen quietly, too. Without protest. But why in God's name would Charles let that happen? What could Bartle have said to him to get him to put up with—well, with being raped?

I catch a movement out of the corner of my eye. It's Nate. He beckons for me to follow and to bring Leland, and he leads us to his room.

“I couldn't get anything out of him. But I'll tell you this. Something's going on. But I don't think there's anything we can do tonight.”

Leland is pacing, but he stops long enough to ask, “So what are we supposed to do? Just sit back and let this happen? Just let that…that creep get away with what he did to Ray?”

Nate says, “No way. But for tonight, we can't take any more steps.” He's sitting at his desk, and he reaches for his Bible. I can't tell at first what word he's looking up, but he lets the concordance lead him, and he reads. Finally I figure out that the word is
patience.
I like one verse in particular from Romans that goes like this: “For we were saved in hope, but hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for that which he sees? But if we hope for that which we don't see, we wait for it with patience.”

It looks like he's about to start on another series of references when I get up from where I've been sitting on the floor. “I think I'll go be with Charles now.” Nate looks up at me, and I add, “Don't worry, brother Nate. I'll be gentle.”

“I'll walk with you a ways. Oh, Leland, may I borrow Ray's note?”

Leland seems reluctant, but finally he hands it over. Then the three of us walk Leland to his room, and once Nate and I are away from his door Nate says, “I think we need to see my mom tomorrow. Maybe I couldn't get much out of Charles, but there's definitely something to get. Do you want to come with me?”

“Heck, yeah. I'm with Leland. Patience is great, but the longer we wait, the more damage gets done.”

“I'll phone her tonight, and let's plan to meet in her office before breakfast. Can you shake free of Charles in the morning, do you think?”

A kind of snort escapes me. “I think he's likely to be avoiding me. I'll be there, in any case. But wait…how can you phone anyone? And what was that about getting a car?”

Nate grins at me. “Nepotism has its advantages.” He veers off without saying more, and I go on alone to see if Charles is still alive.

He's in bed, actually, and only my desk light is on. Guess he doesn't want to risk talking tonight. I grab my bathroom kit and get the brushing of teeth and the taking of leaks over with. It's nearly lights-out anyway.

Once I'm in bed and quiet, I can just make out the sound of Charles sobbing nearly silently. I go and sit on the edge of his bed. His back is to me, so I just stroke his arm gently for a while. I want so much to tell him that I know, that we're going to do something about it. But I can't.

He never says a word, and neither do I.

 

In the morning I get up quickly and rush through my shower so Charles will still be in the bathroom when I leave and I won't have to tell him where I'm going so early.

Mrs. Harnett (now that I know she's Nate's mom and that she's with us, she gets her title back) is waiting for us. I'm ahead of Nate, but only by about ten seconds, so the lady and I don't get much chance to acknowledge her change of status in my eyes. She gets right to business.

“Nate, please close the door. Boys? Sit, please. Now, what's this all about?”

Nate hands her Ray's note. “Leland found this under his mattress yesterday afternoon.”