Chapter 24
I was all set. My bag was packed, and for the second time in two days, I was sitting in the terminal at University Park Airport awaiting my boarding call. Yesterday's violent weather had caused my commuter flight to be cancelled, and now everything had to go perfectly just to make it to Alex's wedding before it started.
I still had a hard time comprehending he was marrying a woman. I prayed that he wasn't doing it just because he was going to be a dad. I hadn't seen him since Christmas break two years ago, and that had only been for a brief time. But it had been long enough for him to tell me about an illicit affair he and a housemate had fallen into. We had prayed together that God would help him put an end to it. I guess The Man Upstairs answered that prayer emphatically when he nudged Alex to move back into the dorms.
I had always tried to counsel him that there were choices he had to make when he was faced with temptation. Even though I wasn't speaking from experience, I told him I truly believed that if he made a conscious choice to do it, God would help him to stop having a desire for guys in that way. I know now how naïve and presumptuous that thinking was, so I said a little prayer before boarding my plane, asking God to do something to stop the wedding if Alex and Beth Ann were getting married because of what I told him three years ago. The last thing I wanted on my conscience was guilt for messing up their lives because of misinformation.
It must have been God's will, because they did it. Beth Ann was beautiful in her satin white wedding gown. And Alex... I never saw Alex smile like he did when he saw her enter the church. It was obvious to me that he truly did adore her. It also made me think about what Shelly told me about love being more than just a commitment. I'm sure that what Shelly must have seen on my face when she looked at me was something less than what I saw on Alex's face when he looked at Beth Ann. My thoughts changed to Elijah, and for maybe the first time, it actually registered with my brain that that's what she noticed when she saw me watching Elijah all those times.
"Phillip, what's wrong," Elijah asked shortly after answering my phone call that evening. As beautiful as the ceremony had been, I had been devastated when I entered the dressing room shortly after I had arrived and found Alex with what appeared to be a veritable drug store set out on the table before him.
"Alex has HIV," I numbly deadpanned into my end of the phone.
A palpable silence filled my ear as the impact of what I told my boyfriend settled into his brain.
"I walked in on him while he was taking his meds."
"Oh, hon," Elijah consoled. "You must have felt awful."
"He said it happened one night before he and Beth Ann made love to each other. Elijah, they don't know if the baby's infected or not. ...there's no way to tell until after it's born."
"Did he tell you how it happened?"
"He told me he ran into his old boyfriend from high school on campus who thought maybe they could get back together again. Eddie was always so reckless when they were dating. It's why they eventually broke up. He sent Alex to the clinic to get treated more than once. Now he's given him a life sentence.
"He's so young. It's not fair. He made a mistake and now he's got to pay for it with his life, and maybe his child's life."
"Does his wife have it?" Elijah asked tenderly.
"She's tested negative so far, but the doctor told him they wouldn't know for sure until after six months."
"Phil?" His words hung in the air as I failed to answer.
"Thank you."
Too bewildered to ask what he was thanking me for, I remained silent.
"Thanks for waiting, Phil."
"I don't understand."
"When we finally... well, if God would ever lead us to... Phil, what I want to say is whoever your life's partner ends up being, because you waited, they won't have to worry about those things."
That night was the first time we ever prayed together. It seemed the crisis at hand was far greater than the technicalities that separated our faiths. Through our prayers, we bared our souls to each other like we never before had. ...at times crying, and at other times pleading with God to intervene in other's lives. Not just for Alex and Beth Ann and their yet to be born child, but for all who battled against the hideous killer of mostly young people.
After we told each other goodnight, I continued holding the phone to my ear for a moment, thinking Elijah had disconnected.
"You still there, Sunshine?"
"Uh-huh"
"I pray and thank God every day for you, Phillip. I just want you to know that."
"Thanks. I pray for you too..." My voice trailed away, and I stood silently once more.
"Whatcha thinkin', Phil?"
"I guess I was just thinking about the things Alex and Beth Ann can do now that they're married. Elijah? I'm kind of embarrassed to say it, but sometimes I think about that stuff and worry that I'll never get to experience it. Sometimes it's really hard for me to not feel like I want to shove God out of the room when I'm with you, so we can be together ...completely together."
"Aaaaah-ooooouuu..." Elijah wailed into the phone like a bloodhound on the trail. "So you're admitting you're a horndog then?"
I never expected such irreverent verbiage from him at such a somber moment. He had never been other than a perfect gentleman before, but I realized he must have the same thoughts about me to have reacted so spontaneously to my rue.
"Woof!" I saucily barked into the phone.
"Thought so"
"Someday..." I whispered into the phone after I realized our conversation had digressed sufficiently that if someone had overheard us, they might think we were on a 900 line.
"I 'll see you tomorrow at the airport."
Sunday, Elijah met me at the Philadelphia International airport so we could travel together to my parent's home some fifty miles to the north. I had just collected my bag and made my way to the sidewalk as he pulled to the curb in his freshly washed Crossfire. Once more I marveled as I watched the top retract into the boot, dropped my bag behind the seat, and climbed over the door without opening it.
As soon as I was seated, I looked over and noticed my boyfriend's eyes darting up from looking at something well below my shoulders.
"Woof!"
He looked so cute, as he snapped his head around to stare straight forward into nothingness, having been caught in the act of checking me out. Out of character for me, but feeling bold, I twisted myself around and pulled his face toward me and planted my open mouth over his for a brief moment.
"Hi to you too," he finally said, and gently kissed my lips.
"I guess I should have waited until after I greeted you to fold the top back," he said meekly after a passerby mumbled "damn queers."
"He's just jealous because I get to kiss you and he does't," I said loudly enough to be heard by the man who was now several steps away from the car. I then leaned in for another taste.
"m-m-m-m... I've been in a fog ever since my Rising Sun set in California," he said as he ruffed my hair.
We talked about the wedding and about our pending summer occupations some, but mostly we just sat and held each other's hand.
As we neared the Walmart in the town before the one where I lived, I asked, "Do you think we should stop and get some gel, so you can put my hair in points? ...just for shock value."
"Phil, be serious. Your parents are probably shocked enough as it is. They don't need you to look like you really have joined the other side."
"Oh-h? ...and what other side is that?"
"The rebellious college kid side."
"True, but I've always been their fuzzy-haired little boy. Maybe changing my hairstyle would be a way to get them to see me differently; to see that I've grown up."
"We could dye it jet black, and paint your fingernails. You might look interesting in goth."
"Will you be serious?"
"God, we really must be gay. We're sitting here discussing hair styles," I said out loud as I directed Elijah to turn into the parking lot.
I just about melted into my seat as we sat in a remote corner of the lot and my boyfriend, gosh it felt good to finally allow myself to admit that, worked the gel through my still orange hair. We had decided that instead of twisting my hair into peaks, it might look good just to pull the sides back, and work the entire top upward into a sort of expanded Mohawk.
"You nervous?" Elijah asked as we pulled back onto the road to drive the final five miles to Stirling Heights, where both my families lived.
I reached over and grabbed the hand that was resting on the gearshift knob, and smiled.
"You are definitely nervous," he said pulling his hand away from my icy cold grip.
"I'll be alright. Mom tried to make it sound like she was really looking forward to meeting you, when I called her last night. ...Yeah, a little nervous, I guess."
Pulling into the drive at Ed and mom's house, we looked at each other. I began chewing my lip when mom didn't burst through the kitchen door to greet us. She never missed the sound of a car pulling in.
"What's up," Elijah asked, looking at my face, his own radiant smile clouded over with concern.
"It's just that mom always comes out to greet people when she hears them. Maybe I should've given them more time to get used to the idea of me being queer."
"You're anything but queer, Phillip Johnson. Maybe she just didn't hear us."
Just as I felt despair beginning to well up inside me, mom appeared behind the screen door.
Even through the darkened mesh, I could see she was anxious. Maybe more than seeing it, I could sense her disappointment.
The door opened slowly as I walked toward her.
"Oh Phillip," she gushed when I finally reached her. She threw her arms around me and just held on like she was afraid to let go of her little boy. When she finally did let go of me, she straightened herself, trying to be brave, and gave Elijah a rather stiff embrace.
"Welcome to our home Elijah," she said in a rather strained voice, inspecting him carefully.
I prayed under my breath that somehow God would work things out between us.
She backed up and grabbed one of each of our hands in hers. "Look at you, Phillip. What have you done to your hair? You look," her breath caught for and instant. "...it looks like my little boy's grown up."
"You like it?"
"Well-l-l-l, I wouldn't exactly say I like it, but it does make you look older.
"Ed, boys," she called into the house. "Phil's here."
Her words stung. She hadn't even acknowledged Elijah's presence to the rest of the family. My boyfriend looked at me a forced a smile.
Arn was the first one after mom to greet us. He literally took a flying leap at me and nearly knocked me over.
"Aar-o-on," I complained, "you're too big to be throwing yourself at people."
"Dad said I could try out for Midget League football next year, so I'm just practicin'."
"Practicing," I corrected
"Mom tell you say that?"
"Did mom," I again corrected.
He just rolled his eyes, then he fastened his gaze on Elijah. "That him? Is he your boyfriend? He's got a big nose."
"Aar-o-on, That's rude!" I warned, waving my balled up fist in front of his face, thinking for an instant that with one jab I could probably make his nose match Elijah's. "I'm gonna bust you if you don't apologize."
"It's going to bust'," he chastised, "not gonna bust'."
Elijah was laughing as he made his may over to shake Arn's hand.
"Where'd ya get the cool hat?' he asked Elijah, "Can I see it?"
"Aaron you are such a pain."
"I know. It's a good thing I'm so cute, or I'd probably get into more trouble than I already do."
"Who says you're cute? You're a brat."
"What rock did you crawl out from under? Everyone says I'm cute."
"I give up. ...and it's a yarmulke."
"What is?"
"What he has on his head – it's called a yarmulke. It's part of his Jewish faith.
By now Ed was in the room greeting us, and my brother Sammy was timidly hanging at the edge of the room.
"You must be Elijah," Ed said as he reached out to greet him.
"Yes sir"
"Sam, come over and say hi to Phil and his friend."
Sam just turned and quietly slunk from the room.
"Mo-om," I protested, "what's that all about? Sam," I called after him, "dude, you are being so ignorant."
"Phillip, please. You know how sensitive he is. Please don't force things with him. He's young. He doesn't understand."
I heard her words, but my mother's eyes said so much more. More than I think she wanted them too.
"You don't understand either.
"Mom, Ed, until a few weeks ago, I didn't even understand. But a pastor... Father Tim Wallace, who's interning at a church I've been going to in State College, has helped me to work through the scriptures and see that the passages in the bible that they always tell us forbid gay relationships, aren't exactly like they seem. They're talking about more specific things than just relationships in general.
I was surprised how easily the "g-word" had rolled out of my mouth.
The room went deathly quiet as I reached over and took Elijah's hand.
"He's an intern?" mom asked, staring at our interlaced fingers. The inference was hard to miss.
"Can I show you one simple passage in the bible he showed to me that may help you understand how we believe God sees relationships?" I asked. "It's in Galatians chapter three, verse twenty-eight."
Mom pulled her New International Version of the bible off the kitchen table and opened it to the verse.
"There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female; for you are all one in Christ," she read aloud, and then looked at me, trying to figure out what I was getting at.
"Either of you have a copy of the English Standard Version?" I asked."
Ed walked into the next room and pulled his bible out of the end table drawer beside the sofa.
"I just bought a copy," he said, returning to the kitchen as he leafed through the pages to find the passage. "Mark Kauffman told me it's a more literal translation."
He must have seen immediately the point I was going to make, and hrmphed.
"Look here Ellen, this one reads ... Greek nor Jew, slave nor free,' but then it reads: there is no male and female.' It's like Paul's distinguishing between different religious and social groups, but not necessarily gender. He's written this like he believes that maybe God sees male and female as the same thing when he looks at us. ...like maybe we're just people in His eyes."
Elijah moved over beside Ed, who moved the bible to where he could see the words. As a follower of Jewish Orthodoxy, he had likely never read any of the New Testament. I could see the `wheels' turning in his head.
"Are you a believer in Yeshua Hamashia, Elijah?" Ed asked rather easily.
Ed's words seemed to impress him.
"Ah, no sir. I believe... well I've always been taught that the Yeshua you're referring to was a false prophet who tricked his followers into believing a lie. That he actually staged his own... sorry sir, but I was taught he faked his death by bribing the Romans. I... I'm sorry sir. I don't mean to offend you, but that's what I've been taught since I can remember."
"You would see Phillip as an infidel then?"
"We're goyim, Ed," I chuckled, remembering the time Elijah had called me that.
"That would be a gentile. Correct?"
"Yes sir. But I don't really see Phillip as an infidel because I know he worships Hashem1. I guess I don't understand much about his faith, but I know in my heart that he loves the same one I do."
Ed put his arm around Elijah's shoulder and guided him into the living room, leaving mom and me standing there. I took her hand in mine and we prayed together that Elijah would understand who we believed Jesus truly was, and that he too would one day become a believer in who we understood to be the messiah.
We stood in silence and listened to their conversation for a few moments. ...well it wasn't really a conversation. I wondered if Ed had finally met his match. He was very persuasive when he shared his Christian beliefs with someone, but Elijah, in keeping with his training, was not overmatched and was literally arguing the meaning of scriptures with him. They were both trying to mine understanding from the depths of their own biases, as well as persuade the other to their own viewpoint.
Mom smiled at me, and gave me a gentle nudge as I looked back the hallway toward my brother's bedroom.
Knocking softly, first, I pushed open the door to Sammy's, room.
He was lying on his back in the middle of his bed, staring at the ceiling.
"Mom's been crying a lot," he softly spoke without looking at me.
I sat down on the edge of his bed.
"What's it like when you go on a date? Do people stare at you and make fun of you all the time?"
"Sometimes," I gently whispered, recalling a few of the more poignant remarks that had been hurled our way in the past few weeks. "It's not easy for a lot of people to understand why you want to hold another guy's hand."
"You really liked Michelle too, didn't you?"
"We're still good friends. She has another boyfriend. It was really hard for a while when I'd see them together."
"Do you think she would've married you if it weren't for Elijah?"
"I try not to think about it, Sam. She loves God, and I want her to be happy. I just try to be happy for her."
Sammy's brown eyes latched onto my own green ones, his gaze searching, I supposed, for the role model a big brother should be. "Do you remember when that guy came to our youth group and spoke about waiting until marriage?"
"Justin Thompson?"
"Yeah. You remember how you told mom and dad you signed the pledge to wait?"
At that moment, I was glad Elijah and I hadn't given in to our desires for each other. "Almost the entire youth group took that pledge," I said softly, wondering to myself how many of my peers had actually kept their promise.
"Do you think God ever forgets about stuff like that because you didn't know what you were really saying?"
"Not likely, bro. Why?"
"Why didn't you keep your promise, Phil?"
"The pledge?" I asked, beginning to understand why he was so sullen.
"Yeah."
"What makes you think I haven't?"
"Come on, Phil. Everyone knows that's what gay guys do."
"You mean have sex?"
"There's this guy in my class at school, Leroy. He's always bragging to everyone at school about being gay. He's always trying to get guys to come over to his house so he can show them what it's like. My friend Conner ...well he told some of the guys not to get the wrong idea about him, but that he wanted to teach Leroy a lesson and was going to go to his house. The next day he admitted he'd been thinking about letting Leroy do what he said he would do to him just to see what it was like. He said when he got there Leroy was... well he was kind of busy with someone else.
"So you kinda figured that's how all gay people are?"
Sammy looked at me resignedly.
"Look, you like girls don't you?"
"You mean instead of guys?"
"Yeah"
I watched my brother's cheeks turn red.
"Do you think you'll ever invite some random girl over here when mom and Ed are away so you can do something like that with her?"
"Why would I do that?"
"My point exactly. Do you know any straight guys at school that would do that?"
"A couple... There's this one guy in my gym class that brags about all the girls he's done."
"So you know a few sluts in your school, then ...one gay and the rest straight?"
I could see Sammy wasn't making the connection.
"Listen, little bro, my point is that some people think the world revolves around sex. It doesn't matter if they're straight or gay. Not everyone's like that."
"Does that mean you've kept your promise?"
"Except for kissing... Does that count?"
"That's gross."
"I don't think the pledge included kissing, so the answer to your question is yes."
"So you're never gonna do anything?"
"Why do you say that?"
"Du-uh, two guys can't get married."
"Says who?" I asked as I lunged at him and started tickling his ribs.
"Phil, stop. Stop it." Sam shouted through his giggling. "Please!"
"I don't see in the bible where God ever said that two guys can't get married to each other."
Sam and I spent the next hour looking at and discussing what I understood the scriptures to actually say about same sex relationships, and as I got off his bed to go see what Elijah was up to, my brother jumped off the bed and pulled me into a hug.
"Thanks, Phil, I kind of think that's what mom's been crying about. I think she's worried that you guys are like Leroy."
"Thanks for the heads up, bud. I'll talk to her about it."
"Phil?"
I paused at the door and looked back to Sammy, again sprawled across his bed, looking at the ceiling.
"You're not... well like, you guys aren't gonna kiss each other when we're watching are you?"
"Would that be a problem for you if we did?"
Sammy paused to think. "I guess not. It'd be kinda little weird, but I guess if you really like him like that, I'll try to get used to it. Just try not to be too gross if you do it, okay?"
"Gotcha"
1 Hashem: "the name" (in Judaism, it is commanded to never write the name of God. Many out of respect, do not speak his name either)