Thinking Straight

by Robin Reardon

  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.

  “There’s a program that’s designed for teenagers with problems. It’s called Straight to God. Have you heard of it?”

  Oh God. Oh God. Please stop him. Please let the heavens open and—well, the guy doesn’t have to die or anything, but can’t you stop him from saying any more?

  “They’re associated with our church only loosely, but they hold similar views when it comes to the importance of right behavior and how to reinforce it in troubled youth. The program can be especially helpful for boys like you, who are already trying their best to abide by God’s laws in every other respect. I’m going to recommend that you spend some time there this summer, Taylor.”

  Trying to keep my voice calm, I asked, “So what do you expect them to do? Pray part of who I am out of me?”

  “The confusion I mentioned earlier is causing you to think you’re something you’re not. Homosexuality is an abomination in the eyes of the Lord, and there’s no way he would have made you that way. Satan is responsible for this, but you are responsible for casting him out. Straight to God will help you do that.”

  “Wait. So you’re telling me God let Satan plant something in me that God didn’t want there? I thought God was all-powerful. Is Satan stronger? Is that what you’re saying?” I knew this would get me nowhere, but I couldn’t stop myself.

  “Taylor, God gave man free will. Something in your heart became weakened, perhaps by the godless influences around us all the time, and Satan took advantage of that. He tempted you, and through your free will you accepted what he offered. Because this can happen only when you’re weak, you need the power of specialists to help you. Straight to God is where you will find them. It’s where you will find the path back from sin.” He handed me a pamphlet, and I took it with a shaky hand.

  My head felt like it was going to explode. Christ! Am I really this helpless? Is there really nothing I can do? My only hope was that my folks wouldn’t agree. And that’s where my next prayer went, since the heavens-opening idea had been rejected.

  During dinner that night I said absolutely nothing. I didn’t trust myself. But afterward Dad dragged me into the living room. To talk about what he was going to do to me. Or, what Straight to God was going to do.

  “Your mother and I have decided to take Reverend Douglas’s recommendation, Taylor. This Saturday, we will all drive up to look at the place and enroll you, and a week after that you’ll start the program.”

  I’d had enough of helplessness. I exploded. “You’ve got to be kidding! You’re out of your mind! I won’t go. You can’t make me. And you can’t make me straight, you know.”

  “You will go. And I don’t have to make you straight, because you aren’t crooked. What you need is God’s help so you can understand that you’re confused.”

  Confused was one thing I was not. “That’s bullshit!”

  “Taylor!”

  “I mean it, Dad. That’s crap. I know exactly who I am.”

  “You don’t know anything. You’re still a child.” I opened my mouth to yell again, but he took a step toward me. “Don’t you talk back to me or this will be worse. How do you think you’d enjoy attending a military academy?” I stepped back, dumbstruck. WTF? “So you have a choice to make, young man. Six weeks, minimum, depending on how well you do, at Straight to God. Or it’s military school in the fall.” He started to turn away from me like that was the end, but then he turned back and added, “And in either case, young man, you’re to consider yourself grounded until further notice.”

  I felt nearly hysterical. Ridiculously, what flashed through my head was a series of images of King Richard on a crusade, sent to the Holy Land to fight the infidels and, while he was at it, to purge the devil that made him want men, and all the time he was surrounded by men. Made that idiot Ted Tanner’s comment a little less idiotic. I came so close to pointing out to my father that he’d be sending me to a place where all feminine wiles would be missing and I’d have lots of boys to choose from, but something stopped me—probably the fear that he’d be so furious he’d send me there anyway, out of spite. And if I couldn’t be with Will all summer, then I sure as hell wasn’t gonna let him be out of reach all next year on top of that.

  I needed to kick something. Desperately. Maybe I was grounded, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t go into the backyard. So I headed for this big old maple tree that grows near the house, the one I’d broken my nose falling out of. I can see it from my bedroom window, and I’d always felt like it knew everything that was going on. So I knew it would understand. I kicked it till my feet hurt.

  When I got up to my room, things looked different on my desk. Like someone had been here, searching. But—for what? Gay porn?

  Then it hit me. If I was grounded, I couldn’t use my cell phone. I dived for where I’d left it. Gone.

  I pounded on anything that wouldn’t make too much noise. I screamed into my pillow. Eventually I calmed down and sank onto the floor, right where Will and I had sat that first night we kissed. Touched. Loved. Fighting tears, I relived my interview with Reverend Douglas, trying to come up with arguments that countered his insistence that this wasn’t real. That I wasn’t real. I kept hearing Angela’s words, quoting her freethinking boyfriend: if you don’t have to make sense, yo
u can say anything you want. The problem was twofold. Angela was quoting people who didn’t even capitalize the word God. And what Reverend Douglas had said made a certain amount of sense. He almost had me wondering if maybe I had allowed Satan in.

  But then I thought of Will. And Will was no Satan, and this love was from God. It had to be. Reverend Douglas was wrong. After all, he wasn’t infallible. God did make me who I am, and he made Will who he is. Just thinking of Will, though, made me cry.

  The worst thing in the short term was that I was, like, totally grounded. Which meant I could spend my time reading only the things they approved of. No phone calls, no computer time, no visits from friends—my folks would be suspicious of everyone male, maybe because I hadn’t told them about Will specifically—so I was losing my mind trying to figure out how to let Will know what was happening to me. I cried myself to sleep that night, and just before I fell asleep it came to me.

  That Sunday, in church, I slipped a note for Will to one of his sisters. I watched as he read it, and when he looked over at me from way too far away, the look on his face nearly made me burst into tears on the spot.

  And now I was here for real. My sentence had begun. The reverend was waiting.

  Charles moved forward, and I followed. Wasn’t much else I could do. Reverend Bartle looked right at me, but he said, “Thank you, Charles. You can leave your charge with me now.” He held an arm toward me, and I tried to avoid his open hand as I moved forward. I didn’t want him to touch me. But he grabbed my neck, squeezed it until it almost hurt, and then stroked the back of my head once.

  “Come, Taylor. Come and shed your sin.”

  Christ.

  He made me kneel beside where he’d been earlier, and then he knelt as well. I didn’t look at him, and I don’t think he looked at me. Nothing happened for maybe five minutes. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do, so I figured I was supposed to pray.

  I prayed, all right. Jesus, I begged, get me through this. Don’t let them turn me into a Charles. Don’t let me forget Will. Don’t let me forget who I am.

  Please.

  Finally Reverend Bartle spoke. “Tell me about it, Taylor. Tell me why you’re here.”

  I looked at him, but he was facing forward, eyes closed. What the hell did he want me to say? I’m here because it was either this for the summer or military school in the fall. I’m here because my parents can’t handle that I’m gay. I’m here because they think God can make me “normal” again. Like I’d ever been anyone other than who I am. Like God would create abomination in the first place.

  All I said was, “I don’t know.”

  Maybe thirty seconds of silence passed, in which I assumed I was supposed to be growing more and more anxious. I wanted to make him wrong about that, but I failed.

  Then he said, “I think you do know. I think you’re very well aware of how ungodly your feelings and actions have become, how you’ve allowed your baser needs to overrule your true spirit.” He paused again, but I didn’t say anything. So he said, “Tell me about them.”

  “About what?”

  “Tell me about how you’ve given in to your ungodly feelings to satisfy your baser needs. Tell me what you’ve done.” His voice was calm, no impatience in it.

  Okay, I could have gone one of two ways here. I could have just told him about some of the things Will and I have done, the ways we’ve come to know each other, the way he makes me feel when he’s holding me, teasing my hair, kissing my neck. I could have described those “baser” needs, how the energy would move through me like lightning bolts seeking the ground of Will’s body, and how it felt afterward like heaven and hell had met and clashed and canceled each other out so that we floated in a sea of total calm. I could have said that I love Will so much that it seems like a window into the love God offers, as though I could follow this path to the source of all Love.

  I could have. But I didn’t. I took the other road. I took rebellion. It may have been a mistake. Guess I’ll never know. But at least I didn’t give Will to him.

  “I haven’t done anything ungodly.”

  “You and I both know that’s not true, Taylor. We’re in God’s house. Don’t dishonor it by lying. Do you love God, Taylor?”

  “Yes.” That was true; I do love God. I even love Jesus. He wasn’t the one who called my love for Will a sin.

  “Then tell the truth.”

  “I did. It is the truth.”

  His voice grew so loud so suddenly, I jumped. “For their women changed the natural function into that which is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural function of the woman, burned in their lust toward one another, men doing what is inappropriate with men, and receiving in themselves the due penalty of their error.”

  Then, quietly, “Do you recognize that text, Taylor?”

  “It’s from Romans.”

  “That’s right. Do you know what it’s saying?”

  “It’s talking about lust. Not love. And it’s not Jesus speaking.”

  I should have known better. I should never have tried to fight back, to counter his approach. Should never have revealed my own thinking. He went into this rant, quoting chapter and verse from all over the Bible, stopping in between to paint these horrid pictures of all kinds of sex as evil. Especially sex between men. It was like he knew everything I’d ever felt for Will, every tingle, every touch, every longing. Like he knew how it felt when Will’s fingers caressed the inside of my thigh. Like he knew what went through my mind when I wanted to be with Will and couldn’t. And he made it sound like everything that had ever been between us, between Will and me, made Satan laugh. Made Jesus cry.

  I didn’t argue with him. For one thing, he wasn’t giving me time to say anything. For another, pretty soon I was in tears anyway and couldn’t exactly debate the issue.

  He kept me in there for almost three hours. It was torture. And it got worse when he dragged my parents into it, using scripture to show how much pain I was putting them through. Especially my mother. I can’t remember everything, but I think I managed not to actually say that what Will and I have is sinful. But I can’t be sure that I didn’t say yes or something else that sounded like a confession to Reverend Bartle. All I do know is that I was sobbing like a baby, lying on the floor in fetal position, holding onto my ribs, and feeling like my chest was going to burst open.

  I guess he must have thought I’d confessed my sins, or maybe he figured I’d die if he kept at me any longer. That’s what I thought.

  He pulled me up from where I lay sobbing and walked me out of the chapel, an arm around my shoulders. As we walked he said, “The pain you’re feeling is the tearing out of sin. The ripping out of evil. It’s good pain, Taylor.”

  I tried to shake my head, but since every part of me was shaking I’m not sure he noticed.

  “I’ll walk you to your room now. I’m afraid you’ve missed dinner, but it’s my guess you don’t feel much like eating.”

  By the time we stopped at the doorway to the room I would share with Charles, I’d stopped crying, but I was in some kind of emotional haze. Reverend Bartle let go of me and flipped on the light. I kind of slumped against the door frame and watched from some far-off place as he picked something up from the desk on the left. It looked like a yellow piece of paper, but when he peeled off a rectangle about two inches by three, I saw it was from a sheet of labels. He pressed the piece in his hand against the left side of my chest and held it there.

  “You’re in SafeZone now, Taylor. This yellow warning will let the other residents and staff know that you can’t speak to them, so you need to wear one of these until you’re out of SafeZone or else you might violate this part of your residency. That would have serious consequences.” Now the hand dropped. “Your staff leader, Mrs. Harnett, will let you know when you can stop wearing these. Then you may speak again.”

  He set the sheet back down on the desk and looked around the room.

  “Is this your luggage beside the bed over
there? Just nod or shake your head.”

  I nodded. It was mine. Full of clothing that Mom had had to buy especially for this incarceration, complete with name tags that read T. ADAMS. Not much of my own stuff met the standards of this place.

  “And here’s the map Charles left for you.” He leaned over to the other side of the desk and picked it up. “Did he show you what room your Prayer Meeting would be in this evening?”

  Nod.

  “Good. Now, you might want to take a few minutes to collect yourself before you go there.”

  A few minutes? How about a few days? How about a few years?

  “God loves you, Taylor. God wants you to learn how to love him. We’ll show you how.”

  Before I knew what was happening he moved forward and took me into his arms. We stood there like that, him totally wrapped around me, my arms hanging limp. And he just held me.

  I don’t know why, and I don’t even know if I had a choice, but I reached around and hugged him back. I wanted to cry again. This was the man who had torn me apart, and yet his embrace felt so tender, so loving. I wished he could hold me forever.

  He pushed me away rather abruptly, cleared his throat, said, “Don’t close the door,” and left me there.

  Limp, wrung out, I sat on the side of the bed where my luggage was for some amount of time that isn’t clear to me now. Finally I decided I may as well unpack. Everything on the left side of the room seemed to be mine, so I opened my bags, took things out, and stuffed them into drawers. Then I found the bathroom and took a long time, mind empty as I sat there. Then I remembered I wasn’t supposed to be in a bathroom for more than five minutes for “elimination” or fifteen for “cleansing and grooming.” I’d already exceeded both.

  But who would know? Nevertheless, I got up, washed my hands and face, and went back to my room.

  Standing in the middle of the room, not seeing anything, I wondered how in hell I was going to just show up at an in-progress Prayer Meeting, wearing my warning label, eyes puffy and face blotchy from crying, and sit there silently in a room full of strangers I would be living with for weeks.