The Preacher's Son

by Lisa Henry

  There was much more outrage and contempt for Jason—even from progressives. God, especially from progressives. In the end, you couldn’t even call the reverend a hypocrite for running a gay conversion camp and having a closeted gay son. Because once the reverend had found out about Nathan, he’d shown nothing but love, patience, and understanding as he’d worked with his son to overcome this “hurdle”. The Tulls were the victims here, while Jason was the sleazebag who’d recorded sex with a barely legal kid and used the footage to wreck his life. Jason’s motives hadn’t mattered.

  What Jason hadn’t realized right away was just how much trouble he could face for his breach of ethics. Suddenly there was talk of the Tulls suing for damages. Not just a suit against Jason, but against The New Star, a borderline tabloid that marketed itself as “news with an edge,” and had published Jason’s story about the camp. The New Star had run one of the less explicit stills of Jason and Nathan. And not-so-subtly hinted that a video could be found online.

  At the time, Jason had been buddies with a law student named—well, Buddy. Buddy had taken great pleasure in detailing exactly what could happen to Jason if the Tulls pressed charges. “Dude, they could sue you for everything you have.”

  “I don’t have anything.”

  “Pfff. The courts’ll find stuff to take from you to make up the difference. And are you sure the kid was eighteen when you nailed him? Because they could get you for making child porn too.”

  “What the fuck? I didn’t make porn.”

  “You made a sex tape. That’s porn.”

  “No way.” Though Jason was at a loss to explain how it was different. “I wasn’t going to...to sell it or anything.”

  “Way.” Buddy had pushed on. “They could also have you on sexual abuse…rape and sodomy if he was under sixteen…though I guess they could have you on sodomy anyway.”

  “He was eighteen.”

  “How do you know?”

  “He…” Told me?

  Jason hadn’t even asked. Nate was visiting colleges. Which you didn’t do unless you were at least sixteen, right? So Jason had assumed… But holy fuck, what were the laws? Age of consent was sixteen in Washington, but Jason wasn’t sure how much of an age difference between partners was legally permissible.

  “He was,” Jason insisted, trying not to throw up. “We’re from the same town. I knew how old he was.”

  “Dude.” Buddy shook his head. “You’re an idiot.”

  Maybe so. There was a lot Jason hadn’t considered. He’d only wanted to show that Reverend Tull couldn’t “cure” his own son, much less all of Washington’s gay and lesbian teens. Wasn’t history full of dubious but effective journalism? Sure, you ended up with scandals, like ACORN or whatever, but Jason was fine with controversy. What he wasn’t fine with was going to jail, or being sued for money he didn’t have. Or murdered by an angry mob. And part of him, cocky and young and wanting to believe that he had just launched a brilliant career, not destroyed all hope of one, had refused to process the reality of the situation. He wasn’t going to be sued. He was a college student for fuck’s sake. He was a journalist. He had a right to free expression.

  “And Nathan Tull had a right to privacy,” Buddy said, clapping Jason on the back.

  “What about my privacy?” Jason had grumbled. The death threats and propositions came in equal measures: Like you to fuck me like you fucked that Tull kid.

  I’ve got a story for you to investigate.

  Breaking news, cunt: You’re a dead man.

  Where can I get the full length video? I’ll pay premium.

  You wanna make this little fag scream for Jesus?

  Back in Pinehurst for winter break, he’d seen firsthand what an interest the media had taken in the prospect of the Tulls’ retaliation. He’d been approached by reporters at UW Tacoma, but a terse “no comment” had usually gotten them to back off. In Pinehurst, he had reporters follow him to his car, wait for him outside restaurants, camp out in front of Rose’s house... He’d started to get scared then—really scared—though he’d never have admitted it.

  But Reverend Tull had come forward and publicly put a stop to rumors that the family would file a civil suit. “What good would it do?” the reverend had asked in an interview. “It won’t restore my son’s privacy. It won’t make people unsee what they’ve seen. It will only cause more acrimony. I’ve known this young man, Jason Banning, for a long time. I’ve known his family. I believe that he has made a mistake. That he deserves a second chance.”

  That had pissed Jason off royally. Reverend Tull didn’t know him, not at all. And he didn’t need a “second chance” from the pompous fucker. He ought to be getting a fucking award for exposing what bullshit the camp was. Instead, he was a leper, and the reverend got to play the benevolent god, allowing Jason to go on with his life instead of trying to ruin him.

  Jason didn’t want to be in the Tulls’ debt.

  He’d wondered about Nathan. If Nathan had agreed with his father that going after Jason wouldn’t change anything. If he had been prepared to turn the other cheek.

  In the end, all the story had gotten Jason was near fanatical support from a leftwing nutjob group called Civil Liberties for All. They’d admired his tactics— “there aren’t any true muckrakers anymore!”—they’d lambasted Moving Forward, and, when Jason’s reputation couldn’t recover from the scandal, they’d helped him get to Afghanistan as a freelance photographer for their news blog.

  It had gotten his shinbone blown to shards.

  He stayed at the lookout point until it was completely dark and a welcome silence set in, and he saw bats flying over the gorge. He tried not to think about anything, but it all came to him in a rough and desolate flood: A brown and endless desert. Soft light on the mountains. The nights he’d lain awake worrying about what would happen to Aunt Rose if he didn’t make it home. That nagging, prickling feeling that had started just after his first year that maybe he didn’t want to make it home. The thought of Zac and Zoner and the car with the Our Family decal on it became heavy enough to slow him down when he ran, when he spoke. Part of him still believed he’d have somehow noticed and bypassed the IED if his brain and body hadn’t been slogging through that promise of domesticity and normalcy thick as the dust in the air.

  Sand in his lungs, trapped in the sweat on his skin. Trying to pass time in the hospital thinking about something besides the pain. Thinking about Nathan, and drawing forth a new kind of pain.

  He snapped around at the sound of laughter somewhere to his right. A man and a woman. He wondered briefly if it was Nathan and Marissa, but the laugh was too deep to be Nathan’s. The sound died away, and Jason went back to thinking about wars that could never be won. The slide of shoes on stones as people scrambled toward what they thought they wanted—some warped idea of freedom or justice or safety or love.

  You tried to do a good thing, and it exposed some part of you—some dark and ruthless part that existed outside of morality. That had never known goodness at all.

  “Nate?”

  Nate had tried to sneak past the study door, but his dad had ears like a bat. So Nate plastered a smile on his face and pushed open the door. “I thought you’d be in bed by now. It’s late.”

  “Just going through the admission interviews.” His father rubbed his eyes.

  “Isaac?” Nate asked, thinking of the unhappy kid.

  “Leanne did the interview,” his dad said with a sigh. “And she’s a good woman. Sharp as a tack. It’s not like her to miss anything, so I have to wonder if this unwillingness is new to young Isaac. Maybe he’s been receiving some bad guidance from others.”

  Nate nodded. These kids were all computer-savvy. There wasn’t a corner of the internet they didn’t feel at home on. And there were plenty of people out there willing to shout from the rooftops that Reverend Tull was some sort of evil bigot, that his camp brainwashed innocent kids. It hurt Nate to read stuff like that. His father loved these kids, and only want
ed the best for them. He wanted them to live according to God’s plan. He wanted to help them walk that difficult path, and safeguard their souls. How could that be wrong?

  His father tapped his fingers on the desk. Smiled—tiredly but with a sincerity that made Nate feel safe. “Still, enough about that. How was your night?”

  “Good.” The word sounded hollow.

  Saw Jason Banning.

  I hate him. I shouldn’t hate him, but I do. He betrayed me. If I’d stayed strong, stayed righteous, he wouldn’t have been able to do that. It’s my fault, my sin. But I hate him because it hurt.

  “How’s Marissa?”

  “She’s fine.”

  Another lie, but Nate didn’t know how to explain it to himself, let alone his father. How lately Marissa’s company made him itch, like he was desperate to put some space between them. How every little irritation was suddenly bigger than it had any right to be, all because of Nate’s own bad mood. He ought to have been forgiving of her sins, not cataloging them.

  Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?

  She’d forgiven him for Jason. What did it matter if she took the Lord’s name in vain or playfully wished a bunch of douchebags would fall off a cliff? Marissa’s sins would never—never—be as terrible as Nate’s.

  His dad stood up from his desk and walked around it. He knew. He always knew when Nate was stumbling. He put a hand on Nate’s shoulder and drew him close. Held him, and rubbed his back.

  “It’s okay, Nate,” he said. “I love you. God loves you. You’re stronger than your phantoms.”

  Nate was scared that wasn’t true. He was scared that in a year, in ten years, in twenty, he’d still be working here at the camp, married to Marissa, his skin itching all the time, while he slowly grew to hate her as much as he hated himself. He was scared he was using her, when she deserved someone who wanted her for herself, for all her faults, not just someone who wanted her because he thought he ought to. He loved her, as a friend, but he wasn’t blind. He’d seen other young couples, and there was an energy between them, a spark, that he and Marissa didn’t share. Was it so wrong to question God’s plan for them?

  Of course it was. It was questioning God’s plan that had landed him in Jason’s bed in the first place.

  “I saw Jason tonight,” he said at last, and his father’s grip tightened, as though he suddenly feared Nate was falling away. Nate squeezed his eyes shut.

  “How did that make you feel?”

  “I don’t know.” Hurt. Angry. Ashamed. Stupid, because underneath everything a sick, rebellious part of him had reacted in a different way. Had been pleased to see Jason again. Safe, alive, handsome. Stupid, because Nate wasn’t the same kid he’d been that weekend at UW. He wasn’t dizzy with fear and hope, both pressing on his chest so hard he could barely breathe. Stupid, because Jason had set a trap for him and he’d dived straight in. Stupid, because he hated Jason Banning, but still shivered in the middle of the night when he remembered the way Jason had touched him. “I don’t feel strong.”

  “But you are.” His father released him. His eyes were dark with concern. “You are. You must believe that, Nate. The Lord tests us, but He loves us. He doesn’t set us up to fail, Nate. He knows you’re stronger than the phantoms.”

  Nate didn’t know if he believed that. He was just so tired of fighting this battle, so tired of the constant fear of backsliding—like one of those alcoholics you heard about who hadn’t touched a drop in twenty years before going on a bender for no reason at all. Once a sickness like that was in you, once it was eating away at your soul, you never got rid of it. You never recovered from it. A thing like that didn’t go back in its box at all.

  “You’re tired,” his father said, showing him a worried frown. “Go on and get some sleep. We’ll talk again in the morning.”

  “I’m sorry,” Nate murmured.

  “You have nothing to be sorry for. You’re a good man. You’re doing your very best, and that’s all anyone can ask of you. Even Him upstairs.”

  Nate managed a small smile at that. “Thanks, Dad.”

  His father hugged him again. “I love you, Nate.”

  Nate's throat ached with unshed tears. “I love you too.”

  Chapter Four

  Those people who said you could never go home again? Wishful thinking.

  Jason stared at the wall of the small bedroom he’d lived in for those three years between his parents’ deaths and college, watching the way the sunlight slanted through the wooden blinds and landed in bright stripes across the posters of bands that Jason had taped there in high school. Bands whose lead singers wore tight shirts, chains on their jeans, hair gel and guyliner. Bands whose lead singers were glaring at Jason angrily, as if they somehow remembered the number of times desperate teenage Jason had jerked off over them.

  He closed his eyes for a moment and rubbed his forehead. He hadn’t slept well. His was on new pain meds—the old ones had been strong enough to drop a rampaging bull—and these weren’t as good. But his doctor had warned him that unless he wanted a drug addiction to worry about too, he needed to start weaning himself off them. He’d made a trip to the cannabis dispensary in Arlington and stocked up there. Which helped sometimes, but more often than not, left him irritable and sluggish.

  Frankly, after a night of tossing and turning because his fucking leg wouldn’t give him a moment of peace, the drug addiction sounded pretty fucking nice.

  He could hear Aunt Rose rattling around in the kitchen, and remembered that he’d come here to look after her, and not the other way around. Knowing Rose, if he didn’t get up and stop her, she’d be knocking on the door in twenty minutes with a breakfast tray.

  Jason pulled his blankets off and swung his legs over the side of the bed.

  Even that hurt.

  In the field hospital, and then in Germany, he’d begged them try and save his leg. Maybe they would have tried anyway, but for some reason Jason had gotten it into his head that they were going to amputate. So now his leg was held together with enough bits of metal to really excite TSA agents at airports, and Jason wished he’d had the presence of mind to say, “Fuck it. Cut if off.”

  A prosthetic couldn’t have hurt this much.

  He limped out of the room and down the hall. In the kitchen, Rose wasn’t making breakfast. She had a mug of earl grey and was staring out the window.

  “Hi,” he said softly. She didn’t jump, so she must have heard him come in.

  “Good morning.” Things had been weird between them after Jason’s article about the Tulls. It wasn’t that Rose liked Moving Forward any better than he did. But she, like everyone else, had been disturbed by his tactics. Successive goddamn governments could talk about collateral damage and civilian casualties, and people understood that, but they drew the line at Nathan Tull? Well, fuck them. Jason had been fighting a war too.

  He thought of the kid from the diner, misery written all over his face. Isaac.

  Jason was still fighting the war for kids like that.

  “There’s tea in the canister,” Rose said. “I’m out of coffee. Kristin’s coming later to pick up my shopping list.”

  “Kristin?” His leg ached as he limped toward the kettle.

  “Kristin Tull. She’s been helping me with my groceries, though God knows she’s got enough on her plate.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t let those people in the house, Rose.”

  She sipped her tea. “This is my house, Jason. I needed help, and you were on the other side of the world getting shot at. What would you have me do?”

  “I could have sent you money! Hired someone!”

  Rose raised her thin, gray brows. “Don’t talk nonsense.”

  “I’m here now,” Jason said, splashing hot water into his mug. “I’ll do your shopping for you.”

  Rose looked at him, lips pursed.

  “What? I can handle the fucking grocery shopping.”


  “Language,” she said mildly.

  He shook his head. Shoved a tea bag in his mug and headed to the living room. He and Rose had both always been stubborn. Sometimes they got along well; sometimes not so much. Jason leaned back on the couch. “Tenacious,” Civil Liberties for All had called Jason. “Bold.” They’d blogged about how Jason had done Nathan Tull a favor. Which was what Jason had wanted to believe for so long. Still, part of him hoped Nathan had never seen that post.

  Jason had forced him out of the closet. His father had forced him into the camp’s brainwashing program. The CLFA blogger, Tina Frank, had said Nathan ought to be thanking Jason. Maybe now, Tina had written, with the support young Nathan Tull is getting from the LGBTQ community, the reassurances that it’s okay to be who he is, the promise that he doesn’t have to cave to his father’s backwards and damaged way of thinking—maybe now, Nathan can start to live a healthy life.

  Everyone talking about Nathan like he was some orphaned child or animal that they needed to find a home for. Nobody asking Nathan what he thought, except the reporters who stuck recorders in Nathan’s face. Nathan, expression half-hidden by the fringe of his hair, had kept his head down. “No comment.”

  Jason liked Tina—she’d been instrumental in organizing his trip to Afghanistan. But had it ever occurred to her to ask what Nathan would have considered a healthy life?

  No. And Jason couldn’t fault her for it.

  Because it sure as hell never occurred to me.

  And he still believed—no, knew—that if Nathan would just let go, embrace his sexual orientation, he’d be happier. Sometimes when people didn’t know any other way of thinking, it damn well was the responsibility of others to expose them to new ideas, new ways of life.