Undivided

by Vicky Beeching

  Tennessee was very traditional when it came to gender roles. Compared to life in the UK, it was like turning back the clock. Men of all ages called me Miss Vicky or ma’am. Guys always opened doors for women. And Christians in the South were often married by nineteen or twenty.

  This was, in part, lovely. The kindness and hospitality of American Southerners stood in stark contrast to the aloofness of most Londoners. In Tennessee, older women took me under their wing and baked me no end of casseroles and pot pies, all served with pitchers of sweet tea. There was always room for me at the table with these families, and I was grateful. But I feared that welcome would end in a heartbeat if they ever found out I was gay.

  I was a tomboy and a feminist and had gentle but strongly held opinions. This didn’t make for a good fit with the Southern men I was around. I believed women shouldn’t have to stay home to cook and clean; they were entitled to their own career if they wanted one.

  I was also uncomfortable with the way many Southern men took the lead in relationships and in home life. I knew I didn’t want to wear dresses or have kids, and I didn’t think the role of wives was to serve their husbands. I also wasn’t willing to join in dinner conversations about how awful gay people were and how same-sex relationships were ruining society; I stayed noticeably quiet. Increasingly, I knew I wasn’t fitting in.

  The same wall I built to keep part of me in was also, emotionally, keeping everyone out. With the grueling work schedule I was keeping, my social life needed to be replenishing, but for the most part, it wasn’t. Much of me existed behind an invisible wall, not able to talk about what I was really dealing with. Because of that, friendships brought their moments of joy, but overall felt fairly superficial.

  As the months in the States gradually turned into years, I experienced the strange cultural shifts that others who’d moved to other countries had warned me about. Years earlier, an Australian friend who’d relocated to London had told me that after a while nowhere felt like home anymore.

  She said it was like blending colors. Originally as an Australian, she’d been “yellow”; then she’d moved to the UK, which could be imagined as “blue.” The two had merged, so now she was “green.” When she went back to Australia she wasn’t yellow anymore, as the UK culture and lifestyle had changed her—she’d been in London for years and felt part British. But when she was in the UK, she wasn’t entirely blue either, as she would always be part Aussie and therefore different. She said being green meant nowhere was home. Wherever she was, she felt like an outsider to some degree.

  At the time, I’d thought this sounded a bit bleak and dramatic. But after I experienced it myself, I started to wholeheartedly agree. If the UK was yellow and the US was blue, I was becoming green and feeling less and less as though I belonged anywhere.

  If I went back to the UK to visit, I didn’t quite fit; American culture had rubbed off on me. My accent had a bit of a twang now, and I found myself saying I was going to the “restroom” instead of the “loo.” Americans saw me as quiet and reserved, but on trips home to England I’d got strange looks for being “too friendly,” for striking up conversations with strangers on public transport or at grocery checkouts, which was the norm when I was stateside but never done in England.

  My behaviors and my cultural outlook had changed. I was now “green”—and it felt lonely. When asked in casual conversations by unsuspecting strangers “So where’s home?,” it created a minor existential crisis and brought tears to my eyes. I didn’t belong anywhere.

  The one place I found solace and could finally exhale was in the air. On planes, I felt free. I was among strangers and had time to be alone with my thoughts. Planes were full of people in-between. They weren’t home; they were between spaces. It was a green zone, neither yellow nor blue.

  Up there, no one knew that I didn’t belong anywhere. Up there, very few people were with their significant other or their family. Most people were in-between. And I liked that. Up there, I felt free. Beyond countries or cultures, I was floating in a neutral place.

  I usually took overnight red-eye flights, as they were the cheapest. I’d swallow one of my trusted Tylenol PM sleeping tablets and let the tiredness sweep over me. It felt like a strange limbo, but up there, in the in-between, where no one quite belonged to the people around them, I experienced the closest thing to peace that I had.

  Leading worship still brought me immense joy. I loved it as much as ever—looking out at a church full of people, teaching them my new songs, and experiencing God’s presence together. It was deeply meaningful, and I felt lucky to do it as my full-time job.

  But years were passing, and the relentless schedule was wearing my body down. Money was very tight, as the recording industry had been hit by the digital age, and downloads and streaming were killing the old business model. We all suffered as a result; gig budgets decreased, and record advances shrank. By chance, at the same time, airlines started to charge more for checked baggage, so it cost a fortune to take all the band equipment and cases of CDs and merchandise from state to state. Emotionally and physically, it was grueling, and now financially I wasn’t making ends meet.

  I often wondered if I should just move back to the UK, but this never seemed a viable option for me. A full-time career in church music was my dream, and that was virtually impossible in the UK; making a living relied on bookings from megachurches, airplay on huge Christian radio networks, and forty-city tours—all of which were unique to North America. Executives and managers in Nashville kept reminding me that “thousands of people would do anything for this opportunity,” so the pressure to feel grateful weighed on me, and I tried to stifle my concerns.

  Everyone around me told me I was living the dream, but in reality it looked like empty hotel rooms, heavy equipment, and endless pressure to smile, sing, say the right things, and keep quiet about my utter exhaustion, and my sexuality.

  I was now in my late twenties, and most of my Christian friends were married or engaged. I had no clear answer to give to the guys who asked me out. Many of them were wonderful, and it was tough not to tell them the truth: I just wasn’t attracted to men. Instead, I had to find excuses, none of which seemed to ring true. Usually they walked away feeling hurt and rejected.

  One of those situations became extremely serious. I was out on tour and, due to budget constraints, didn’t have a road manager with me, so I was in charge. It was just me and three session musicians, various players chosen from the industry who would rotate depending on who was available that week.

  One of these musicians, Tyler (not his real name), told me he’d developed a major crush on me. Tyler believed that he and I were destined to be married and didn’t seem able to take no for an answer. Because I couldn’t talk honestly about my gay orientation, it created a weird vacuum. He knew I was single, and because we got on like a house on fire and had so much in common, he couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t give dating him a try.

  As the months went on, his crush seemed to turn into an obsession. He was in a lot of emotional pain and became increasingly withdrawn, angry about my lack of romantic interest. I tried to believe it would get easier, not wanting to lose him from my band, as his musicianship was excellent and he could be a thoughtful, kind guy. But for now, that side of him seemed to have been swallowed up by pain.

  After the closing night of a weeklong camp where we’d led thousands of young people in worship, I asked my band members where Tyler was. We needed to clear the stage and get ready to leave.

  No one knew. I remembered he’d looked very strange during the final songs we’d played; his face had been blank and expressionless, rather than engaging with the rest of the band or the sea of people watching us. As soon as we’d finished the song, he’d walked offstage, and no one had seen him since. That had been at least forty-five minutes ago.

  A few minutes later, looking as if he’d seen a ghost, one of the team ran up to me and said, “I don’t know how to tell you this . . .” He explaine
d that Tyler had tried to commit suicide in a backstage locker room. “We found him there a few minutes ago, struggling to breathe. We’re figuring out what medical help he might need, and also trying to contact his parents.”

  It was awful. An unimaginable shock. I felt light-headed, dizzy, and sick. My heart ached for Tyler and the pain that had driven him to this.

  One of the conference organizers had run over and joined us too. Looking frustrated, he chimed in, “You need to handle this extremely carefully. I don’t want anyone on the premises who might be a danger to themselves; we have thousands of teenagers here, and we have our brand reputation to protect. Take care of this right away.”

  The weight of the situation hit me—I was in charge. I felt totally out of my depth, and my eyes swam as I scrolled through the numbers on my phone, trying to figure out who would even be awake at such a late hour.

  The event organizer added a final comment: “This may be uncomfortable to hear, but I think it’s important to pass on all that we know. When we asked Tyler why he tried to kill himself, he said it was because of you—because you broke his heart by rejecting him.”

  I went pale. This was another layer to the story I hadn’t been ready for.

  Pausing to catch my breath, I dialed my manager’s number. Because money was so tight, we’d been traveling on tour without him, knowing he was just a phone call away. But in that moment, I felt utterly panicked by the pressure of being in charge. Tearfully, I told him all that had happened and asked for help with the logistics of getting Tyler help and the rest of us home.

  The next few days went by in slow motion. Tyler was picked up by his parents and would stay with them for a few weeks. Meanwhile in Nashville, my manager, my other bandmates, and I tried to debrief what had happened and the ways it had affected our team.

  One thing was clear: there was no way he could continue to play in my band. So my manager agreed to make the call and tell him that news. I assumed this would be the outcome expected by everyone, including Tyler himself.

  In the days that followed, I discovered this was not the case. Tyler reacted badly to the news. He was hurt and outraged and began making threats.

  My manager, and other band members, were the ones keeping in touch with him and handling the sensitive phone calls. They decided not to tell me what type of threats he was making, hoping things would cool down. I had to leave Nashville again for another gig, as the tour needed to continue despite the shock we all felt from the suicide attempt. With a new musician filling Tyler’s old spot, we headed to the next venue, an arena in Canada where eight thousand people were expecting us.

  I’d taken a later flight than the rest of the band, as I had a radio interview to do that afternoon; this happened more often than not—flying alone was pretty much my norm. As I stood in the airport on a layover, my phone rang, and the voice on the other end sounded panicked. It was one of my bandmates saying he’d heard from Tyler again: “He’s furious not to be on tour with us. And he’s still threatening stuff . . .”

  The airline announcements blared out loudly, and for a moment I couldn’t hear the voice on the other end. “Sorry, what?” I asked.

  “Are you somewhere private?” he asked me. Not waiting to hear back, he carried on: “Look, Tyler is threatening to . . . rape you.”

  The words echoed inside my head, and the room grew blurry. He continued, “He told me he’s really serious. He knows where you live, and where you’re traveling to. He said he’s coming after you, to make you pay for rejecting him.”

  I couldn’t speak. I just listened, taking it in.

  “It doesn’t seem like a joke or a throwaway comment, Vicky,” he went on. “Tyler has phoned me incessantly for the past forty-eight hours, raging and saying he’s going to come back to Nashville and rape you as punishment for rejecting him romantically and for taking him out of the band. I didn’t want to tell you, but I feel like I have no choice . . .”

  My knees became weak and unsteady. I went into shock, and the phone slipped out of my hand and onto the floor. Shaking, I knelt down on the airport carpet to find it and scrambled to reach behind an airport trash bin where it had landed.

  But once I was down on my knees, the shock of those words paralyzed me. I was already exhausted and stunned from his suicide attempt a few days earlier, and now . . . this. I totally lost it. In front of an airport full of passersby, I sobbed into my hands like a baby. I rarely ever cry, but at that moment I broke down on a monumental scale.

  Looking back at it now, my self-controlled British personality is horrified at the thought of all those strangers witnessing such a tremendous outpouring of grief. But in that moment I was too broken to even think about it.

  Somehow, I got up from the floor, put on sunglasses to hide my puffy red face, and found a quiet corner to sit and focus on my breathing. I called my manager to ask his advice, and he confirmed he’d heard the same threats too. We agreed that—if I possibly could—I’d continue to Canada and play the arena event, as eight thousand people had bought tickets. Then I’d fly home to Nashville, where my manager would accompany me to the police station, and we’d ask them what we should do.

  “The show must go on,” as they say in the touring business, and I’d come to believe it. The fact that I managed to go and do the Canadian show was proof of how adept I’d become at hiding what was really going on inside. Looking out at that sea of faces, I lost myself in an evening of worship, but emotionally I felt numb from shock and totally shut down; I was running on autopilot in an attempt to cope.

  The next morning, I boarded the flight back to Nashville, fighting tears all the way home. My manager came to meet me and was incredibly supportive, saying he’d do anything it took to protect my well-being. We went to the police station together to file a report. It all felt surreal.

  The police said that if Tyler knew where I lived, I should consider moving out of my apartment immediately. I lived alone and it seemed dangerous to put myself in such a vulnerable position. So my manager took me to my place to get a few things. I walked in nervously, asking him to check that the place was secure. Then, trying to force my brain to think clearly, I figured out what essentials I’d need for the next few weeks. I placed the items into a suitcase and got out of the apartment as quickly as I could.

  Getting into my own car, I saw a police car driving slowly along the street. The officer nodded at me, rolled down the window, and said, “We’ll be driving past to keep an eye on this place a few times a day while you’re gone, just to make sure the guy doesn’t show up or attempt to break in.” I felt comforted by his calming Southern accent.

  A couple of friends said I could stay with them short-term before I began the work of finding a new apartment. One of them had a porch swing, a common feature of Tennessee homes. Unable to sleep much, as I kept waking up with nightmares about Tyler, I would get out of bed, slip out of the front door, and sit on the swing. Out there, I could hear two of the most recognizably American sounds for me: crickets chirping loudly and the horns of distant freight trains.

  The porch swing was a good place to breathe and to think. I knew there had been various factors involved in Tyler’s situation. It was complex. But as I reflected on it all, I couldn’t shake the feeling that my gay orientation had contributed significantly. If I’d been able to be honest about why I hadn’t been attracted to him, perhaps he would have understood it wasn’t a personal rejection. Even if he had been the most incredible man on the planet, I still wouldn’t have wanted to date him because I was gay; surely his sense of rejection would’ve been less painful if he’d known that. Hiding that part of my identity was creating pain and complications for all of us. It was devastating to see it damage the people I cared about and worked with.

  My mind flashed back to my moment of total breakdown on the airport floor. All I’d wanted in that moment of utter isolation was a girlfriend or a wife to hold me while I sobbed, then help pick me up off the ground and take me home. Someone who would
lie next to me while I fell asleep. A life partner to be strong when I was weak. Not having that person in my life was getting harder and harder as the years went by and the pressures of my career grew.

  Lots of recording artists traveled with their spouses, often having them work as musicians, road managers, or backup singers. It gave them strong emotional support on tour, and they had someone special to share the positive memories with. They had a partner to help them deal with demanding and exhausting schedules, and a soul mate to turn to for support when unforeseeable events hit.

  Because I was gay, that was never an option. Friends and bandmates could try and help carry the load, but it wasn’t the same. What I needed, and wanted, was a life partner and a lifelong commitment. And that person needed to be female. I felt isolated and alone.

  As the weeks passed, things gradually calmed down. Thankfully, Tyler got the help he needed, never acted on his threats, and moved to another state to start over. I decided to get some therapy myself, to process the shock and fear the situation had created, as I was struggling to recover from the anxiety it had triggered in me. Being in a foreign country and carrying the weight of difficult work situations along with all my private pain were taking a huge toll. I knew I was breaking. Something had to change—and soon.

  17

  In stark contrast to all this inner turmoil, on the outside my life looked fantastic. Billboard magazine had dubbed me a “hit-bound riser” and “one to watch,” and Christian radio stations were giving positive feedback about putting my singles into higher rotation. I was headed out on tour with two of the biggest acts in my genre: Delirious?, the most successful Christian band ever to come out of the UK, and Rebecca St. James, one of Christian music’s biggest female artists, who I’d heard of back in my late teens because of her prominent role in the True Love Waits movement. I knew Delirious? and Rebecca personally, as we’d played at many of the same events and megachurches, and I was looking forward to spending time with them all during the forty-city tour.