Tools of the Devil

by Barbara L. Clanton

  Lisa heard the crunch of tires on the snow in the driveway. She peeked out the front window.

  “Mom, Marlee’s here. I’m going now.” Lisa threw on her coat and scarf and opened the front door.

  Her mother came out of the kitchen, Bridget in tow. “Have a good time, but be back here by nine at the latest.”

  “Yes, Mom. Thanks for letting me go. I think...” she swallowed against the sudden lump in her throat. “I think maybe this youth alliance will be good for me.”

  “I know, honey, I know. You go have a good time. But at nine I want you in your room studying for at least an hour.”

  Lisa nodded, gave her mother and Bridget one giant hug, and headed out into the cold. Honestly, she had expected her mother to absolutely forbid her from going to the youth alliance meeting. It was exam week after all, but miracles did happen in the Brown household every now and then.

  She kicked the snow off her shoes and hopped into the passenger seat of Marlee’s van.

  “Hey, catcher,” Marlee said from the driver’s seat. “Look what I found on the side of the road.” She pointed to Julie and Marcus in the back seat.

  “Hey, pitcher. Hey, you guys.” Lisa put her seat belt on. “Are you ready to see what this youth alliance is all about?”

  “Yeah,” Julie said. “Are you sure it’s okay for us to be there? Being of the straight persuasion and all?”

  “Ronnie and Jordan said the group was for anybody,” Marlee said. She pulled the van onto C.R. 62 heading for Clarksonville Community College. “And, hey, if we hate it, we don’t have to stay, right?”

  “I hope we don’t hate it, though,” Marcus said. “It would be nice to have a place to hang out. A place without judgment.” He smiled at Julie and reached for her hand. She smiled back. They were obviously smitten with each other.

  Lisa smiled. A happy feeling bubbled up inside. She was going to see Sam and be surrounded by her friends. One dark spot marred her happy bubble, though. Alivia was going to be there, too.

  Marlee pulled the van onto the college campus. Lisa, using the GPS on her phone, gave Marlee directions to the Student Union building.

  “Hey, I forgot to ask,” Marlee said. “How’d you guys do on your Algebra 2 exam this morning?” Marlee was the resident math nerd.

  “Great!” Lisa said. “I can factor nth-degree polynomials with the best of them.”

  “Yeah,” Julie added, “it wasn’t too bad, but I’m not looking forward to U.S. History and Government on Thursday.”

  Marcus chimed in. “I still have two more chapters to read. Thank God we don’t have any exams tomorrow.”

  “No exams tomorrow was the only reason my mom let me go to this youth alliance thing tonight,” Lisa said.

  “Mrs. B assigns more reading than anyone can humanly handle.” Marlee pulled the van into a parking spot. “I got heartburn studying for her exam. Hey, look, Susie and Sam are here already.” She pointed to Sam’s Sebring a few spots away.

  “Yay.” Lisa bounced in her seat clapping joyously. “I know it’s only been three days since the dance, but it seems like forever.”

  “You’ve got it bad, Lisa,” Julie teased.

  Lisa snorted. “So do you.” She winked at Marcus who blushed to the roots of his short blond surfer-dude hair.

  They quickly found the meeting room on the first floor of the Student Union, and as soon as Lisa spotted Sam, she flung herself into her arms. “I missed you.” A quick kiss and a healing hug was all the fuel Lisa needed to feel better. Marlee and Susie were exchanging a similar greeting.

  “Enough nookie nookie,” Ronnie said with a smile from the back of the room. He introduced Lisa and her friends to the other members of the youth alliance. In addition to Ronnie and Jordan, there were three guys and one girl from Southbridge High School where Jordan went to school.

  Anne, the adult leader of the group, finished fussing with the video camera and looked up. Lisa and her friends had met her a few months before at the gay pride event on campus. A smile filled Anne’s face. “Wow. This is such a great turn out.”

  “I know,” Ronnie squealed like a little girl. “I’m so excited.”

  “Stash your coats on the table in the back,” Anne said, “and then have a seat so our director can tell us what we’re in for tonight.”

  With the addition of Lisa, Sam, Marlee, Susie, Julie, and Marcus, the size of the group had doubled. Lisa relaxed a little bit. Alivia and Karl were nowhere to be seen. Maybe a gay group was a little too much for Alivia.

  No sooner had the thought entered her head when the door opened, and Alivia floated in with Karl trailing behind her. They said hello to everybody, but Alivia’s hello to Lisa was cold and perfunctory. Alivia undid her coat, and Lisa was amazed at how tight her peasant blouse was. There was no mistaking her intent; she was putting her best perky assets forward, just like she’d done at the dance. Lisa looked down at her own tight lemon-colored sweater. Hmm, the battle of the boobs was on. Lisa wrapped her arm around Sam’s and pulled her closer. She was rewarded with a flirtatious smile that curled her toes. Ronnie was rambling on about the Respect video they would be filming that evening, but all Lisa wanted to do was ditch the meeting and find a place to let Sam explore the assets under her sweater.

  Lisa reluctantly turned her attention back to Ronnie when she heard him say, “So each of you will get a part in the Respect video, if you want one that is.” Ronnie flicked his head to toss a lock of his dark meticulously styled bedhead hair out of his eyes. “The more diversity we have the better.” This time he was looking straight at Julie, their resident person of color. “This is not necessarily a gay/straight thing. It’s a people thing. And the lovely Jordan will be our host and narrator.”

  Jordan bowed and Lisa found herself clapping along with everyone else. Jordan was a good-looking guy, handsome even. He had tamed his ginger hair for the video, instead of wearing it in his usual spiked doo. He wore it more like Ronnie’s style, professional bedhead.

  “Thank you, thank you.” Jordan put up his hands to stop the applause. He leaned back against the whiteboard in the front of the room, the heels of his hands resting on the marker tray. “We have a lot of work to do tonight. Our goal is to make a short video of a diverse group of kids stating our obvious and sometimes not so obvious differences. We want to somehow, and I’m not sure how we do this, but we want to convey the idea that everyone needs respect. You know

  what I mean?”

  “Like, we’re all different, but we’re all the same,” Lisa offered.

  “Yes!” Jordan pushed off the board and pointed a finger at Lisa. “That’s exactly it! We’re all different in one way or another, but, then again, we’re all the same.”

  “I love it.” Ronnie put on an imaginary director’s hat. “I had some ideas, but now I see a whole new video playing out in front of my eyes. Here’s want I want us to do. Everybody grab one of these board markers and write a word that might describe our differences. Anything goes, but keep it appropriate for kids. We want this video to be seen, not censored.” He picked up a marker and wrote the words GAY, STRAIGHT, BI, TRANSGENDERED, and QUESTIONING in all different places on the board.

  “Go, go, go,” Ronnie urged. “What’re you waiting for?”

  Lisa leaped up and followed her friends to the board. She wrote, “TALL.”

  Sam copied the theme and wrote, “SHORT.”

  “Baby, you’re not short,” Lisa said and then rested her elbow on top of Sam’s head.

  Sam chuckled and ducked out from under the elbow. “I’m the shortest one here. I always am, but that’s okay. I’ve got you, and together we’re perfect.”

  “Yep.”

  Lisa leaned down for a hug, when Ronnie snapped, “Writey, writey. No nookie, nookie.”

  Lisa stuck her tongue out at Ronnie and turned away before she could see what mature gesture he responded with.

  The whiteboard was quickly filling with words. Some handwriting was neat, others not so
much. Even Anne threw in the words, “OLD” and “YOUNG.”

  “One more minute, you guys. Find your seats when you’re done.” Ronnie set the timer on his phone, and went back to frantically writing a script on the whiteboard in the back of room.

  Once everyone was seated, Ronnie went through his script, and they collectively made adjustments until everyone was satisfied with it. They moved the long tables out of the way, so they could move around freely. Anne moved behind the small video camera that was perched on top of a tripod. It definitely wasn’t a professional camera, but it looked expensive. Lisa wondered if Sam had anything to do with it.

  “Places please,” Ronnie said. “Let’s try to get this scene in one take.”

  Lisa moved to the far left of the whiteboard with the words written all over it in colorful ink. Sam moved all the way to the far right, and everyone else squatted in height order in between them, but below camera range.

  Ronnie looked at Lisa and Sam, and said, “Action.”

  Lisa looked right at the camera lens as Ronnie had directed. “Some of us are tall.”

  “Some of us are short,” Sam said.

  One by one the others stood until everyone was standing and collectively they said, “and some of us are in between.”

  “Cut!” Ronnie called. “Excellent. Okay, onto the next scene.”

  Scene by scene, the camera captured their differences. Lisa particularly liked the one where they got in order by skin color. Ronnie decided to use forearm shots, to stay focused on the skin color only. Lisa ended up next to Marcus at the lighter end of the color scale, and it was funny to see Julie blow Marcus a kiss from way down the line. Lisa had never truly noticed how vastly different everyone’s skin color was. Somehow it suddenly seemed wrong to think of Julie and Susie as people-of-color when it was so glaringly obvious that they all had color in varying degrees. God, she hated labels.

  For the gay angle, Ronnie didn’t want people to out themselves. “People can be assholes,” he said. Was he thinking about the holy rollers at the dance?

  He directed them to stand in one group. Lisa wasn’t surprised when Alivia ditched Karl to snuggle up close to Sam. By some miracle, Lisa was able to keep her temper from boiling over and resigned herself to stand next to Karl in the back.

  “Action,” Ronnie said.

  “Some of us are straight, and some of us are gay,” they said collectively.

  “I know you’re wondering who is who, but it’s not for me to say.” Jordan’s voice was so calm and smooth that he could have been a radio announcer for that smooth jazz station from Montréal that Lisa’s father sometimes played on Sundays.

  “Cut! That was beautiful, baby,” Ronnie gushed causing Jordan to blush.

  “Now I want all of you to turn your backs to the camera while Jordan wraps up our message.” He gave them stage directions as to when to hold up their numbers, when to turn around, and when to throw the confetti they held in their hands.

  Lisa said to Karl, “I can’t wait to see how this whole Respect video comes out.”

  “Me, too,” he said.

  Alivia must have heard Lisa’s comment, because she said, “Ronnie and Jordan came up with such a great idea.”

  “This is going on YouTube?”

  “Yeah,” Alivia said.

  “That’s incredible,” Lisa said trying to remain cordial to Alivia. “I wonder how many hits we’ll get.” Lisa was about to ask Sam if she needed to get her parents’ permission, when Ronnie asked for “Quiet on the set.”

  Jordan cleared his throat. He had a lot of dialogue ahead.

  “Ready,” Ronnie asked Jordan who nodded. “Okay then. Action!”

  “If we were all the same, we’d be a number in the crowd.” Everyone held a number over their heads. “We’re tall, we’re short, we’re everything in between. We’re different genders, different ages, different colors. We have a splattering of this and a spattering of that, but despite all these splatters, we’re the same in all that matters.”

  Lisa was riveted. Ronnie had written an amazing script. The words were lyrical, like the Dr. Seuss stories she read to Bridget, and yet they were as powerful as any sermon she’d heard in church. Sermon. Shoot. They hadn’t written down any religious stuff on the board. Too late. They had to wrap this up soon, or she’d be late getting home.

  “We’re all human,” Jordan said simply. “From top to bottom and side to side; we live and love and laugh and cry. No one’s better or superior; no one’s lesser or inferior. To live is to love, to love is to live; so let’s live and let live, let’s love and let love.”

  Jordan paused for a moment and this was their cue. Everyone turned around sporting smiles as Jordan finished. He said the words slowly to get the most effect. “Each one of us is different, and yet we’re all the same.”

  Ronnie motioned for them to toss the confetti and cheer.

  “Yea!” Lisa cheered and threw her bits of white paper in the air.

  They cheered and congratulated each other until Ronnie yelled, “Cut!”

  Lisa blew out a sigh. “Geez, that was fun.”

  Sam grinned and smashed Lisa with a hug. It was nice to be free to be who she was with Sam.

  “Well done, everybody,” Anne said. She turned off the video camera and walked to the front of the room. “I have waivers for those of you who are under eighteen.” She pointed to a pile of papers on a table near the door. “Bring back or mail me the signed copies. Ronnie and Jordan and I will get busy editing this masterpiece, and we hope to have a finished product to show you at our next meeting.”

  “You know what, you guys?” Lisa said.

  “What?” Ronnie asked.

  “We didn’t mention religion.” Lisa gestured to the whiteboard that was still covered with their words.

  “You’re right,” Anne said. “We didn’t. Hmm. That’s a big issue for a lot of people, isn’t it? Did you have something in mind, Lisa?”

  “Not really. I mean, I know we can’t redo this whole thing, but maybe we could make another video. You know, sometime.”

  Ronnie narrowed his eyes. “A debate.” He stabbed his finger in the air.

  “Debate?” Lisa cringed and looked over at Sam who simply shrugged her shoulders.

  By this time, a few of the others had gathered around, obviously interested.

  “Maybe we should invite Freddie and his Holy Rollers,” Jordan offered.

  “No,” Lisa said quickly. The very idea made her incredibly uncomfortable. Not only did she not want to see that kind of hatred directed at her ever again, but she’d learned that Freddie’s seizure at the dance had been brought on by epilepsy, and since seizures could be triggered by stress, a heated debate could bring on another one. She had no desire to go through that again, and she was sure Freddie wouldn’t want to either. “You guys are all actors.” Lisa swept her hand around the room and made sure she included Alivia. “We can cast the holy rollers from you guys.”

  Ronnie pursed his lips as he nodded thoughtfully. “And you’ll be on the other side denouncing religion altogether?”

  Lisa inhaled sharply. “No, no. I, uh...” She struggled to find the right words. “I want to defend it.”

  “Defend the fanatics?” Jordan scrunched up his forehead. He was clearly confused.

  “No, I want to defend religion. Defend the Bible.”

  “Whoa.” Jordan’s laugh said he didn’t think it was possible. “Good luck with that one.”

  “C’mon, why not?” Lisa said. “The holy rollers always use the Bible against us. Maybe we can find a way to use it against them.”

  “Brilliant,” Ronnie said, his eyes big. “I have no idea how we’re going to pull this off, but this is just brilliant.”

  “If not impossible,” Anne murmured, but the grin on her face said she approved of the project.

  “It’s worth a shot,” Marlee said. “I don’t know anything about the Bible, but I’m willing to help out any way I can.” Her cheeks were tin
ged red.

  “Count us in, too,” Marcus said and reached for Julie’s hand. She smiled back at him and nodded to Lisa.

  “Thanks, guys,” Lisa said. “It sounds like we’re gonna have a debate.”

  Anne looked at the clock and said it was time to clean up and head out.

  Lisa picked up one end of a table, while Ronnie picked up the other, and they moved it back into place. Lisa said, “I guess we shouldn’t take any one religion’s point of view, eh?”

  “Right. And if you’re going to use both the Old and New Testaments of the Bible, then the debate will have to be from a Christian standpoint.”

  “I hate to exclude people, but maybe this is where we have to start.” They walked over to get their coats.

  Ronnie nodded. “Give me your cell phone number, dearie, I have ideas, and we have tons to talk about.”

  “Oh, geez,” Lisa said, “this is the first time a boy has asked me for my phone number.”

  “Really?”

  “No, it isn’t,” Marcus interjected from across the room. “I asked you for it last spring.”

  “That’s right. You’ll always be my first, Marcus.” She turned back to Ronnie. “And you’ll be my second.”

  They laughed their way toward the door, and Lisa was surprised to see that Sam wasn’t waiting for her. She turned fully around to double-check the room. No Sam. She must be in the hallway.

  “Goodnight, Anne,” Lisa said. “This was a lot of fun.”

  “Goodnight, Lisa. We’ll see you next time.”

  “You bet.”

  Lisa headed out the meeting room door and stopped short. Sam and Alivia looked cozy, a little too cozy, leaning back against the wall deep in conversation. Alivia’s cleavage was so close to Sam’s arm that Lisa wanted to run over there and drop kick Alivia to the next county. Lisa cleared her throat to let them know she was there. The smile that lit up Sam’s face made Lisa think she must have imagined things, but then Alivia’s smirk made it real. Game on, Alivia. Game on.

  Chapter Nine