Thinking Straight (24 page)

I look in Sean's direction again to see that he's come closer. “Toolbox in the office?” I ask.

“In the cabinet to the left of the door. Lower drawer.”

By the time Rye is finished, the dryer is working. Sean comes up, holding a note toward me. “Here. Go with Terry to the bathroom so he can wash his hands.”

“Rye,” Rye says to him.

“What?”

“The name is Rye. Don't call me Terry.” And he heads for the door, me in his wake.

Well, well, I'm thinking as I stand there watching him scrub grease from his hands. So he took it. My name for him. And if I so much as say one word about it, it'll be gone. My eyes travel up to the tattoo on his neck—a spiderweb, extending down his shoulder past where I can see, with a black spider below his ear. The tattoo is black, but the spider's eyes are red.

I ask, “What're you in for?”

He shrugs. “The usual. Theft. Drugs.”

“What'd you steal?”

“Cars.” Cars. Plural. He adds, “You?”

“Gay.”

He grabs a paper towel and wipes up to his elbows with it. “That's bullshit.” He throws the towel into the trash and walks away, leaving me wondering whether he meant that he doesn't believe I'm gay or that gay kids shouldn't be sent here. I decide to believe the second. I also decide not to report him for swearing.

Sean's watching the door, and as soon as we're back he comes over to us. Rye starts to go around him, but Sean steps in front of him and extends a hand.

“Thanks, Rye.”

Rye looks at his face, finally nods, and gives Sean's hand one shake.

 

At five thirty I show up at the appointed spot to meet John and Rick for barbeque-setup detail. They're there waiting for me, along with another guy. I haven't seen him before. He's stunning—nice build, grey-green eyes, and very dark hair; I'd have remembered him.

John says, “Taylor Adams, this is Peter Connors. He's going to help us, too.”

We move a lot of stuff out onto the grounds. There's a tent already set up, and we have to move the tables and some chairs, and the paper plates and stuff, and get them ready for the big event. There's a few other kids helping, too. I guess they have a different drill sergeant, and we have brother John. But it beats just hanging around and waiting for this thing to start. Peter doesn't talk a lot, but he does his share of work and more.

He pulls me over at one point and asks, “Do you know anything about setting up a sound system?”

“For what? What do you mean?”

“There's a Christian band coming tonight. We need to set up. Wanna help with that?”

Well, of course I do. So he tells John we're headed that way, and off we go. I don't know much about it, but Peter sure does.

“I used to do a lot of this,” he tells me. “My brother has a band, and I've helped them set up. I can't do anything musical to save my soul, but I love the electronics.”

I can't say I learn a lot—mostly I run cables and connect things Peter tells me to connect—but he does his best to explain it. And one thing I really like is that he laughs. Not many people around here laugh, and that absence is something you notice more when it does happen than when it doesn't.

Before long, kids are starting to arrive, and it gets crowded quickly. The band is still warming up and testing things when Peter and I head for the food tables. It's an interesting arrangement: boys go along one side of the tables and girls on the other. We're most of the way along our side, food piling up, when I ask him about this.

“You know how we're supposed to be courteous, especially around women? Well, this is a bit of a reprieve. Rather than making all the guys wait for all the girls to get their dinner, we just get our own side. Works out much better this way!” He grins and holds up his plate, which is about to overflow. And in fact, it does. We're watching stuff tumble off—a roll, a piece of corn-on-the-cob—and there's no good place for us to set down our plates and do something about it. We're laughing like idiots when I finally manage to find a spot on the table beside me where I can set my own plate down. I bend over to retrieve Peter's fallen food, laughing still, and when I stand up again I'm looking across the table and staring right into the face of Marie Downs. She lowers her eyes, which puzzles me, because I would have expected her to spout scripture at me about unseemly behavior or wasting resources.

And then I see the yellow sticker on her blouse.

You know, maybe a few days ago that would have made me feel like gloating. I would have been delighted to see her in disgrace. But that's not how I feel. She looks up again, and what I do feel must show in my eyes, because she turns away. What I feel now is sympathy. And from the way she reacts, it probably makes her feel worse than if I looked gloating. When someone gloats, it's like they give you something you can rebel against. You can deny the disgrace. But when someone feels sorry for you, there's no way to deny the reality of how you feel about yourself.

“You okay?” Peter asks. He's holding out a napkin for the dropped bits.

I snap out of it. “Yeah. Here you go.”

We decide to sit on the lawn. It leaves more chairs for the girls, and we can get closer to the band. We don't talk much, and I spend lots of time wondering if Peter is gay. There's no way I can do a real test here; so many people would see if I so much as sit too close to him. I've just about worked up the guts to ask why he's here when John plunks himself down on the ground on the other side of me. He seems to have lost Rick someplace.

“They have a great sound, don't they?” he asks. Like anyone needs to say so. He goes on about nothing in particular, and I swear mostly what he's doing is trying to keep me from being able to focus on Peter.

I decide to take advantage of his special position. I ask, “I saw Marie Downs at the table. She's in SafeZone. Do you know why?”

“Brother Taylor, if that's for you to know, you will be told.”

Well, this seems unfair; I'm sure people talked about me. They must have.

By the time the evening ends, Peter has gone off somewhere, and I've tried and failed to figure out what it means to “accompany” someone to this kind of Activity. Charles and Danielle sit together, but as far as I can tell, they're just hanging out. Other kids come and talk to them like there's nothing along the lines of a date going on. But the truth is, there's not likely to be anything, really, going on between Charles and Danielle.

I find myself thinking how frustrating it must be for Jessica, and for Dawn, not to be able to hang together—to have Jessica tied to Marie like it's some kind of penance. Or some kind of sacrifice. Like it was for Will and me at school. Only maybe even worse.

 

Saturday, although I had expected something different, is essentially the same as any other day of the week. So I spend my day in the laundry room, and I spend my break time with my eyes glued to the chain-link fence. And today, it pays off. I don't get to see much, but I'm watching Nate as he saunters that way during afternoon break. I've positioned myself so I'm at an extreme angle to the spot where Will must have been the time I saw Nate take something through the chain links and as close to that fence as I dare; if I see Will, I'm not sure I'd be able to pretend I wasn't looking at something worth more than gold to me.

Nate's progress is slow and casual, and he walks past the spot at first. He leans against the fence, facing the inner yard, gazing at nothing for a minute, before he turns and heads back.

And that's when I see it. Will's hand, with the leather thong on his wrist. Nate is dragging his hand along the fence, and I imagine it must have my note in it. And sure enough, when he gets close enough to that hand, there's an exchange. Just for a second I see Will's fingers snatch the scrap of paper, and then they're gone. My hands grip the outsides of my thighs in a superhuman effort to force myself not to call out, not to run to the fence and scramble over it, not to go after Will and wrap him up in myself so tight he'd nearly strangle.

Finally Nate moves away from the fence, his gaze grazing everyone in the yard including me. And, just barely, he winks at me. I close my eyes and struggle to calm my breathing.

I've sent him away. I've told Will not to come again. What was I thinking? Was I crazy?

But I know this is the only way we can win. We just have to wait them out.

 

Saturday night there's a movie. Some Disney thing. They've set up folding chairs all over the Fellowship room. We all go, or most kids do, because the only other thing to do is read or pray. Plus there's popcorn and soda.

Marie is at the movie, and her sticker is gone; guess Harnett just wanted to make a point. The barbeque eclipsed the Prayer Meeting Friday, and the movie takes over tonight, so there's no opportunity for me to spout scripture at her. Not that I know enough of it to do that, anyway.

After the movie there's a few announcements, like about the luau that's happening this coming Friday night. Then I go to the library to see what's there, and I sit looking through some book about the differences among various translations of the Bible, not reading it, but instead trying to come up with cool topics for tomorrow night's circle meeting. I'm not even sure I'll be allowed to suggest anything, being the newest member—don't want to appear presumptuous, do I? But I want to be ready.

I really liked what Nate had done—stated something with an interesting twist to it and had us reduce it to assumptions. I wish I could scribble a few notes down, but it's such a hassle to destroy stuff. Besides, this place is watched over by at least two librarians at all times, one of them wandering around and checking out what everyone is doing. So I just think, trying to make a list of some of my own assumptions. What assumptions had I made before my folks dropped me off? What assumptions had I made about the leaders? About the other kids? About why I was here?

I do remember wondering, that very first night, if being here was a Job test for me. And because of that warm gush that happened, I assumed that was God's answer: “Yeah, kid; you're Job, and this is a test.” But was I right?

So let's review. All these horrible things happen to this dude who's always been devout and God-fearing, or whatever a good Jew of the day was supposed to be. And yet God allowed Satan to destroy the guy. He loses his livestock and his family members, he gets hideous plagues, and people reading that story have always seen it as a test of Job's faith.

But would God kill one person just to test another? It's never made any sense to me to hear someone moan about losing a child or a loved one and wonder if God is punishing
them,
not the loved one. I mean, who the hell do they think they are?

So if I'm in here as a test, then why is everyone else in here? Would God put all of them in here, through all this, just to test me? Isn't it pretty stupid of me to think a place like this exists just to test me? If killing everyone else to get at Job is stupid, then what was it Job was supposed to learn? Maybe that it wasn't all about him?

Whoa. Where did that come from? Was it
not
all about Job? And if it isn't all about me, then this place doesn't exist to test me.

So what everyone assumes first is that whatever “it” is, it's all about them. Is that wrong? If it's wrong, who's it all about?

God.

And what is God?

Love.

Bingo. It wasn't just a test of Job's faith. It was a test of his understanding. If Nate's right and Strickland isn't evil, if Strickland thinks he's acting out of love but in a very limited way, then Strickland is really trying to make this all about him. Strickland wants me to be like him.

But this isn't about him. It's about God.

I slam the Book shut and several people, including both librarians, glare at me.

Strickland and everyone else need to learn to love me for who I am, for who God made me, not to try and make this all about them. Which means they have to question their own assumptions about homosexuality. They assume that God is just as uncomfortable with it as they are. So it's as much a test for them as for me. And
that's
why everyone is in here together.

Gotcha.

And
I've got a heck of a topic for a circle meeting.

There's still a good forty-five minutes before lights-out. I want to find Nate and ask if this can be our subject tomorrow. Where would he be? I try his room, which I have to look up on the library roster. His roommate is there, but he doesn't know where Nate is. I try the dining hall to see if he's raiding the kitchen; nope. It isn't until I start roaming the halls where the Prayer Meeting rooms are that I find him. He's in Isaiah, with Leland, and they're reading scripture together. Or, at least from my peek in, I can see they have Bibles open.

It's tempting to listen, but that's rude.

Okay, so I stand there for only a few seconds. Nate is saying, “So how bad is it?”