Drowning of Stephan Jones (11 page)

The morning sun was just now peeking over the ridge of the mountain, and they both felt acutely aware of being alive and especially happy to be alive in their funny little, funky little
place high in the Arkansas Ozarks. Frank wondered how many places there were where people could come together with nothing more or less to bind them together than the joy of being human. Here in this place it really was true what they said—even the misfits
fit.

The two felt wrapped in this special privileged glow—until they reached the front door of Forgotten Treasures, when their bubble of contentment popped and all their warm and wonderful feelings ended with a sudden crash. Across the door and window of their shop, black spray paint sloppily spelled out one seven-letter word: F A G G O T S ! ! !

For several moments, Stephan and Frank wordlessly stood and stared at the desecration, as though ultimately it would dawn on them exactly how and when and why—especially why this would happen here in this lovely and loving mountain village. Finally it was Stephan who broke the silence. “There’s at least a quart of turpentine in my workshop. That should do the job.”

The offensive graffiti was laboriously turpentined from view, but it could not as easily be wiped from their consciousness. They couldn’t even guess at how many days, weeks, or even years it would take for the stain to be similarly scrubbed from their hearts and minds.

At one o’clock in the afternoon, Frank’s stomach began growling out the low, angry, roarlike warnings that it needed nourishment, since for all practical purposes, it hadn’t been attended to all day. Not unless the not-quite-fresh glazed donut that he had eaten that morning while driving the monster to work counted. Sticking his head into the workshop, he called out, “I’m starved! What’s for lunch, Stevie?”

Stephan glanced up from the art deco clock he was rewiring. “There’s a hot thermos of bean and barley soup and meat-loaf sandwiches made with whole-wheat bread, romaine lettuce, and Dijon mustard.”

Frank and Stephan sat down to steaming bowls of golden-yellow liquid. “Hmm,” murmured Frank, taking in the sight and the smell. “What is it about soup that makes it taste even better the second time around?”

“I don’t understand you,” Stephan flatly announced.

Frank sipped a spoonful of soup before answering. “What’s to understand? I’m just your average, everyday, wonderful fellow.”

Stephan rested his chin on his fist. “Here we are harassed at home, harassed at work, harassed through the mails, and that’s not even taking into account the first-degree burns I suffered, so what do you do? Compliment my cooking!”

Frank threw his friend a look that was every bit as cutting as a chain saw. “Now you just wait up one damn minute! I didn’t say I didn’t want to do anything, now did I? Think back, the only thing I insisted on this morning was that we shouldn’t go rushing off to the police. At least
not
until we calmed down, talked things over, and considered our options.
All
our options.”

When Stephan didn’t answer, Frank continued. “If you’re offended because I can still enjoy food in spite of that wretched graffiti then I’m sorry, but I have no intention of apologizing. Maybe any fool can appreciate and even applaud life when it’s perfect, but it takes something extra,
somebody
who has a little something extra, to be able to celebrate life when it’s less than perfect.”

Stephan nodded his head, allowing his sand-colored hair to bounce up and then down before it finally fell across his forehead. “I guess maybe I was jumping the gun again.”

“Yep, guess you sure enough were!” snapped back Frank, who picked up his plastic soupspoon to take another swallow of the steaming, savory stuff. They ate their meal in silence, but it was not the imposed and angry silence of locked-in-battle combatants struggling desperately to score points. Instead it
was the self-conscious quiet of people who were a little nervous, that maybe they had gone too far with each other, and yet didn’t exactly know how to say they were sorry.

Stephan stood up from his workbench to stretch. “All right, Frank, the ball is in your court. You’re so against going the police route; tell me what, if anything, you
are
for?”

“I’m not
so
against going to the police,” Frank shot back, hoisting his hundred and ninety-five pounds onto the freshly applied leather writing surface of the rolltop desk. “It’s just that I’m uncertain whether we should go to Rachetville and talk with the cops there, since that’s where the perpetrators live. Or—and this is the big question—should we explain our situation to the Parson Springs police, since this is where the assault on you and the vandalism of our shop took place.”

Stephan snapped his finger just as though the solution, too, was an equally easy snap. “Don’t you know that the cops that have the jurisdiction are
our
guys. Besides, the local law is always more sensitive to the human mix in Parson Springs than those redneck yahoo lawmen in Rachetville could ever be.”

“Right!” boomed out Frank, pointing a decisive finger in the direction of his partner. “Precisely my point! Just let a member of the police department wearing his lily-of-the-valley shoulder patch drive over to Rachetville to question young Mister Harris and his gang and what you’ve done is created a bona fide local hero.”

“And once that’s accomplished,” added Stephan, following his partner’s logic to its conclusion, “then Andy becomes bolder, recruits more followers, and becomes literally unstoppable.”

Together the antique merchants silently bobbed their heads back and forth in agreement while they seemed to fall deeper and deeper into thought. “Well, what if
their
police handled it?” asked Stephan.

“How do you think they’d
handle
it?”

Stephan shook his head sadly but knowingly. “Considering the fact that one of their cops, Virgil Miller, is rumored to be grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, my guess is that Andy and his pals would be given gold medals in the town square while the high school band played ‘For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow.’”

It was clear from Frank’s expressive face as well as the ironic smile that played off the corner of his mouth that he was taking in Stephan’s vision and then some. “I can see it now,” he interjected. “A gaggle of guys wearing white sheets would be the honor guard for Andy Harris and his gang while there would be a great outpouring of proud townspeople there just to cheer them on.”

But just as suddenly as the smile played across his face, it abruptly left. “Forget going to the Rachetville police,” Frank said. “The only thing that would accomplish would be to trade three
known
enemies for an entire community of enemies.”

“Sounds like our options are narrowing.”

Frank nodded thoughtfully. “We could, I suppose, go to the hardware store, try talking with Andy’s father.”

Stephan forced a sad-sounding chuckle. “Give me a break! Where do you think he learned his hate to begin with? Why not go to the one person who should be able to replace hate with love?” he asked before pausing for a seemingly interminable period.

“For Christ sakes, out with it Stevie!”

“I was thinking ... what if we went to see the Harrises’ minister, Reverend Wheelwright?”

This time Frank’s eyebrows jumped halfway to his hairline. “You don’t mean
that
Reverend Wheelwright? Not the Reverend Wheelwright that probably broke the majority of his fist bones while pounding on his pulpit, pleading with his parishioners to join Jesus’ army to destroy homosexuals? Surely, goodness and mercy, you certainly can not possibly mean
that
Reverend Wheelwright?”

“Granted. Granted everything you say about him is true. He deserves to be called what he seemed to be in his sermon: a true minister of hate. ... Still and all,” said Stephan, shaking a warning finger in Frank’s direction, “still and all, Frankie, what you probably can’t fully appreciate is something that I learned at the Weston School of Theology. For the most part, men of the cloth really do want to do the right thing once they come to know what the right thing is. Besides, what he said from the pulpit is not taken all that seriously either by him
or
his congregation. For a minister, there’s always two kinds of truth.”

Suddenly Frank swung his arm as though he were preparing to lead a mighty cheer. “Hooray for the two kinds of truth! Hooray for the three musketeers. Hooray for the four winds! Hooray for the five walls of the Pentagon! Hooray for the six—”

“All right, Frank! Be cute if you want to, and do what you want to, but do me a favor—leave me out!
Out!
”

“Hey! Hey! Calm down ...” Frank advised, while gesturing with his hands in a way that made it look as though he were busily patting down the air. “And you don’t have to tell me because I already know it! I talk too much! Comes from my mother’s side of the family; it’s only my Italian roots showing. I’m always trying to kid even when I should be
trying
to listen.”

“Well ...” said Stephan, filling his lungs with air, “what I was
trying
to say before I was so rudely interrupted is that there are two kinds of truth. Reverend Wheelwright was giving what most everyone in his congregation would understand as merely a Sunday truth. A Sunday truth is something that you might half believe while the preaching is in progress, but by the time Monday morning rolls around, you won’t only
not
believe it, you won’t even remember it.”

“Try again, Stevie, I’ll remember it.”

“Yes,” agreed Stephan, obviously warming to his subject.
“That’s only because you took it personally. I also took it personally, as did however many closet gays they had sitting in those pews. But you know what?”

“No, not really.”

“Nobody, repeat
nobody
else took it personally. Or even believes it!”

“Oh, come on ...”

“Okay, okay,” shot back Stephan, rising to the challenge. “You didn’t see him calling for volunteers for this army of his to fight us, did you? You didn’t see him handing out assault rifles from the pulpit or calling for after-church target practice, did you? It was nothing but talk. A Sunday talk ... not even a Sunday truth.”

Frank propped up his chin with his thumb before verbally retaliating: “The first weapon of war is invariably propaganda. Before you’re taught to use that assault rifle on your enemy, you’re taught to
hate
that enemy.” He threw up his hand like a traffic cop. “I suppose I could be wrong about Wheelwright. I suppose it’s possible that he spoke out of ignorance instead of out of hatred. Maybe he could still be sympathetic.”

“I really think so because he
is
a man of God, and in the Bible doesn’t it say that the Lord is full of compassion and mercy?”

Frank slid off the desk. “If you say so.”

“Trust me on this, Frankie! If you knew your Bible you’d be much more upbeat. Jesus is our model and he walked and preached among the saints
and
the sinners alike.” Both of Stephan’s hands were now stretched out in a clearly pleading position. “And something else. Want me to tell you something funny?”

“Make me laugh!”

Stephan, who clearly was becoming wound up, seemed to take no notice of Frank’s blatant skepticism. “All of these ministers who rail from their pulpit against us Sunday after Sunday
are not just preaching hate; they’re also preaching bad theology.”

“How so?”

“Because they have scratched around and found some isolated verses from scripture, most with ambiguous meanings, taken out of context, that they use to justify hating homosexuals.”

Frank feigned a yawn. “Yeah, but you still haven’t made me laugh.”

“Try to listen; this is important. The Ten Commandments do not mention homosexuality. And most significant, in all of Jesus’ more than three thousand different teachings, there is not a word—not one single word—about homosexuality.”

Frank’s lips formed a tight, thin line. “I’m not one bit concerned about Jesus persecuting us. I’m concerned about Reverend Wheelwright and the Christian fundamentalists persecuting us.”

Stephan waved a single index finger in the air. “Not so. Wheelwright, as a
Christian
minister, would have to be committed to Jesus’ most important advice.”

“And that is?”

“Jesus pleaded with his followers that if they forgot everything else he taught them there were two things they absolutely must never forget: to love the Lord thy God with all their hearts and all their might, and surely, Frankie, even you must know the second part.”

“To love thy neighbor as thyself,” Frank piped in, beaming proudly at his accomplishment.

‘Precisely! Precisely!” Stephen applauded. “So now you can understand why Wheelwright has no choice. He must come to the aid of the victims, rather than the perpetrators.”

Chapter 12

C
ARLA LIFTED THE
lid of the cast-iron kettle and breathed deeply, savoring the aroma. To test the cubes of beef for tenderness, she poked them with a long-handled fork, and she estimated that it was the right time to throw in the potatoes and carrots. The zucchini could wait.

Almost by accident, she discovered nearly six years ago that she had something of a knack for cooking. That’s when she wanted to buy her mother a cake
and
a present for her thirty-sixth birthday, but quickly discovered that she had money for one or the other but not both. Carla chose a pair of dangling earrings that moved through the air like miniature mobiles, and she made the birthday cake from scratch, a cherry angel food cake that touched Judith so deeply that she had to use the sleeve of her blouse just to soak up the sudden rush of tears.

Carla heard the key turn in the lock and glanced up at the kitchen clock; surprisingly it was only a quarter after four. It was not at all like Judith to make it home until much before six or even six-thirty. The door opened and then quietly closed. In the front hail were the predictable sounds of envelopes ripping open. Not much mail today: a bill from the Rachetville Department of Water and Sewer, the magazine of the American Library Association, and a postcard from Aunt Marcia and Uncle Allan who were “having a wonderful time” in Delray Beach, Florida.