Ben Soul

by Richard George

us Mr. Decatur’s address, and we contacted him. He wrote us this response.” Andy shuffled the papers.

  Yes, I was sexually involved with the man you identify as the Reverend Dickon Shayne. He approached me at City College where we were both students. Against my better judgment, and to my continuing regret, I allowed him to persuade me to enter into a sexual liaison of several weeks duration. I was not aware he was a clergyman until after I broke off the affair.

  “Do you deny these accusations?” Phil asked in a chill tone.

  “I deny that I initiated the relationship with Mr. Decatur, and the implication that he was somehow too naïve to fend me off is ridiculous. Mr. Decatur is a hustler, something I didn’t know until several weeks after he seduced me.” Dickon struggled to keep his tone even, and not let his fury overcome him.

  “Did you have a sexual liaison with Mr. Decatur?” Thruston Pyston’s voice no longer held honey. Now it was steel.

  “Yes.” Dickon saw no reason to fight any longer. He knew his church days were numbered. He surrendered the church.

  “And this liaison continued for several weeks?” The steel voice drilled on.

  “Yes,” Dickon snapped.

  “And you willingly participated in these sessions?” Shea Mauna Hughes asked this, almost shuddering with her disgust.

  “Yes,” Dickon said, feeling his anger rise in his throat.

  “Are you aware of the Scriptural passages condemning to such activities?” Thruston Pyston’s steel voice rang like a closing trap.

  “I know several that are so interpreted.” Dickon fought back his urge to shout.

  “Don’t split hairs,” Shea snapped. She stared at him with disgust. Her nose twitched like she smelled a foul sewer.

  “Do you repent this involvement?” The question from Elder Chuck Lett startled Dickon.

  He thought carefully. “No,” Dickon said. “It has been liberating for me to acknowledge a truth about myself. I find God’s healing hand in recognizing my affectional orientation.” There it was. Let them deal with it.

  “Blasphemy!” expostulated Shea Mauna Hughes. Her bosom heaved with such indignation that Dickon expected the pseudo-ecru lace to fly across the room. He hoped her seams were strong enough to prevent an unseemly escape of her bosoms. The thought of their being loose and flapping appalled him.

  “You are not fit to be a Minister of the Gospel,” Thruston said, pursing his fleshy pink lips in disapproval. “Mr. Chairman, I move we recommend to the Presbytery that Dickon Shayne be defrocked for gross impiety and irreparable breach of morals.”

  “Second!” Chuck, Shea, and Andy chorused.

  “All in favor say ‘Aye’” Phil said.

  Dickon sat stunned for a moment, feeling more divorced than he had when Vanna had dumped him. At least then, he thought numbly, I had chow mein to keep me occupied. He stood slowly, leveraging himself up from the table with his fists. I will not shout, and I will not weep, he promised himself. Not until I’m out of this nest of asps. He stared at each of the committee members in turn.

  “You have spoken,” he said. “I leave it to a just God to judge you. Do what you will. So be it. “Let the Presbytery do its worst. It can do no more to me than you have already done in its name.” He turned, holding his fragile dignity about him like a suit of armor. He walked to the door, yearning to say something crushing. It came to him.

  “I learned more about love from that hustler, Vin Decatur, in six weeks than I learned in fifteen years from the Church. When it comes to betrayal, you’re equal teachers.” He opened the door and went through it, closing it quietly behind him. The lambs frolicked and the children beamed on the walls as Andy Maime wrote the official minutes of the meeting.

  A Letter in Dickon’s Box

  Dickon took the mail from his mail slot in the Mission’s office. It had the usual sheaf of advertisements for book clubs, credit cards, missing children, and grocery stores. Tucked between a sheet of pizza coupons and a fried chicken ad Dickon found an envelope scrawled with his name and address in an unfamiliar penciled handwriting. The postmark was La Lechuga. No return address.

  Dickon took the envelope to his room and carefully slit it open with his souvenir Chinatown letter opener. He drew out four sheets of cheap notepaper covered in the same penciled scrawl. He unfolded the sheets, taking care not to smear the graphite words beyond legibility. The letter opened with just a salutation, and plunged right in. No date.

  Dear Rev. Shayne,

  A pal, one of the inmate nurses, is writing this for me. I can’t manage to write for myself anymore. Got in a fight, got shafted with a shiv. The docs here tell me I’m about done for. Was bound to happen sooner or later. Never could keep my notions to myself when I should have.

  The local padre tells me I should “unburden my soul” before I go. Doubt it’ll do much good. I’ll burn in Hell for all my sins anyway.

  But, for what it’s worth to you, you should know I was real touched when you wanted me to move in with you. Wouldn’t have worked, Rev, not the way you wanted, but it was a nice thought. I’ve been way beyond loving and being loved for a lot of years.

  You’re the only guy I did for a long time without charge. Maybe you’ve heard enough about me to know that was unusual. Well, I didn’t do you without charge, I just didn’t charge you. Some woman named Vanna hired me to get you in a situation she could use against you. I did. She didn’t pay off. Turned me in to the pigs, instead. So here I am, dying in the joint’s infirmary, surrounded by cons and cockroaches. Proper end for Mrs. Decatur’s little mistake, I guess.

  I’m sorry I messed up your life, but at the time, it was my life or yours. I was never unselfish. If you ever think about me, think kindly sometimes.

  Vincent Decatur

  A one-inch newspaper clipping fell out of the last sheets. The headline read “Inmate Dies.” The body said:

  An inmate of State Prison, Vincent Decatur, serving a five-year sentence for male prostitution, died Friday from wounds suffered during an exercise yard brawl. Warden Roy L. Payne commented, “Male hustlers don’t last long in this man’s prison.” An investigation was unable to fix blame for the stabbing.

  “Take him in,” Dickon murmured, to no god in particular. He was too numb, just then, to sort out his feelings. He had known about Vin’s betrayal since the Presbytery defrocked him. Only long after did he come to understand Vin had given him a great gift, in freeing him to be himself, a lover of men. By then he had forgiven Vin his betrayal, and prayed peace for the man’s troubled soul.

  I Never Promised You a Thornless Rose

  They had been sleeping together about three months when Len came by Ben’s place on Never-Maiden Court one afternoon. Ben answered the importunate doorbell with some irritation. He was studying for a major examination in computer operations.

  Len stood at the door, his hair waved impeccably, as always, and his shirt and trousers crisply pressed and in place. Ben felt very sloppy indeed in his sweat pants and athletic shirt that was two sizes too big for him. Len held a rose, perfectly petaled, with a crystal drop of dew trembling on the lip of its center petal. Ben never learned how Len accomplished that on a warm summer afternoon.

  “Hi,” he said when he opened the door. “What brings you by?’“

  “For you,” Len said, handing him the rose. Ben took it.

  “Ouch,” he said, and grasped it carefully with the thumb and forefinger of his other hand. He sucked at the thorn prick on his wounded thumb.

  “Roses have thorns,” Len said dryly.

  “And silver fountains mud,” Ben said.

  “What?” Len asked.

  “Just finishing the Shakespeare line,” Ben said, “from the sonnets.”

  “If you say so,” Len answered.

  Ben stood back so Len could enter. “What brings you by today?” Ben asked. “I hadn’t expected to see you until tomorrow. And why the rose?”r />
  “I had a thought,” Len said. “I know you are preparing for your computer exams.” He sat down on Ben’s sagging couch. “I promise I won’t stay long. Didn’t you say one of the operations centers is across the Bay, in the suburbs?”

  “Yes. That’s the one they’re having trouble recruiting for.”

  “My company is moving across the Bay. Not too far from Bumbershoot’s computer center, as it happens.” Len sat back and folded his arms. “That’s going to make a long commute for me.” Len had a small house three blocks from the sea just south of the City. “I’m thinking of moving over to the east side.”

  “Of the City?” Ben had gone to the kitchen cupboard to get a plain glass for the rose.

  “Of the Bay,” Len said. Ben felt an odd sense of loss rise up in him. If Len lived and worked in the suburbs, Ben would see less of him. He walked back into the living room, carrying the glass and the rose.

  “I thought you might like to move in with me,” Len said.

  Ben stared at Len, as he sank onto the couch with him, still holding the glass and the rose. “I don’t have much to put down on a house,” he said. “I’ll have to think about it, Len.”

  “I’ve got some I can lend you. And with your new job, you could pay me back pretty quick.” Ben heard an urgent undertone in Len’s voice. He’s afraid I’ll say no, Ben thought, and I want to say yes.

  “I know I’m a little older than you are,” Len began, looking studiously away from Ben.

  “That’s got nothing