by Erica Sage
The pastor put his hand on Dan’s shoulder and asked if he’d give us a moment of privacy.
I waited for a lecture.
“Nick, I like you, and I know it is God’s will that you are here. I don’t get the sense, from what happened here today, and what happened in the cabin yesterday, that you do.”
“It’s a beach towel.”
“Irregardless,” the pastor said.
I opened my mouth to correct him, to tell him regardless, but I thought better of it. There’d probably be some kind of follow-up punishment for my contempt. What happened to campers who had already carried their cross? Were they nailed to it for a second offense?
“But today it is not a beach towel.”
I looked at him dubiously.
“Yesterday was a beach towel. An oversight, you argue. But today …” His words faded out. He shook his head.
“The candleholder? I didn’t mean for it to look like a vagina.” The pastor looked puzzled. “Or a penis. Or whatever part you’re seeing.”
“This isn’t about a penis.” At the mention of the word, the pastor’s face curdled into the antithesis of an Adonis face. “Or a vagina.”
“The sexism comment at the Creation Station?”
The pastor shook his head. “We can’t move forward until we confess our sins and hold ourselves accountable.”
“I did confess my sin!” I pulled my hair back from my forehead. “I put it in the box. The box you said was stolen.”
“Now you’ve hit the nail on the hand.”
It’s nail on the head. Nail on the head. Nail in the hands was Jesus’s fate. I looked around for someone, something that made sense.
“Where’s the box?”
“What?” I rubbed madly at my hair. “How would I know?”
“Young man, calm down.”
“I’m not going to calm down. I didn’t steal that box! I didn’t even want my confession in that damn thing, and now it’s there and I’m shitting my pants and you’re accusing me of stealing it.”
“Nobody’s sh—defecating.” Pastor Hot Stuff put his hands on his hips and took a deep breath. “I was told you threatened to steal the PC Box last night during the Trust Circle.”
“Are you talking about the Ouija board thing?”
“There was no mention of a demonic relic.”
“Other than my towel,” I sighed. “Look, I was joking about stealing the box.” I was sure Charles had brought this bit of information forward.
“And this morning, a very reliable source said that you were in the sanctuary alone, sneaking around backstage before crafts.”
“Yeah, looking for the PC Box,” I said.
Pastor Ryan Gosling considered me. “I didn’t want to have to do this.” He handed over a piece of paper, and my heart beat against my ribs. Somehow they must have found my secret. They’d probably already called my parents.
I unfolded the paper. And it wasn’t mine.
It wasn’t mine.
But it was the one from under my pillow. It must’ve fallen on the f loor when I made my bed or rummaged through my clothes this morning.
“If you didn’t steal the box, how’d you get this?”
“I found it.”
“Where?” Pastor Kyle would make Natalie proud with his grilling.
“In the hall, outside the sanctuary.”
“Why were you there?”
Oh, crap. “I was in the sanctuary this morning, and I went out in the hall,” I lied. Despite Dan’s douchiness, I would not snitch. I would not tell him about the pranks.
The pastor eyed me.
And then it occurred to me. “That could be my confession. How do you know it’s not something I wrote?”
“Because the person who wrote that confession came to us as soon as the box was stolen.”
“What for?”
“To pray, Nick. And to ask for advice.”
I thought of Natalie searching for Pastor Kyle the night the confessions were stolen, how she’d left our circle to seek him. I’d watched him pray with the kids who were crying. I saw him hug them, pat their shoulder, sit with them.
“Well, I didn’t steal that box,” I insisted. “I found that confession. I don’t know how to prove it, but you have to believe me.” I handed the paper back to him.
He sighed. “The Lord calls me to trust you.” He pursed his lips. “For now, that is.”
I exhaled. I hadn’t realized I’d been holding my breath. “Can you please go tell the masses that I’ve been exonerated?”
He thought for a moment. “I will tell them you bore the cross for a different transgression.”
I could see campers walking down the path outside the window. These kids thought I’d stolen the box. I didn’t really care what Pastor Kyle told them. I didn’t care about the towel or the clay vagina, or whatever other minor thing I’d done. But I did not want people to think I stole their secrets. It was enough that I was already an outsider. I didn’t want to be despised.
I thought of Diana for a second. Of what it must feel like to doubt what people were thinking of you, for the connections between you and others to be so tenuous. To feel so apart from the crowd, to not know who condemned you and who accepted you. I didn’t want to feel that.
The pastor looked a bit contrite for a second. I thought maybe he’d apologize then, but he didn’t.
We were all choking on apologies. Even the reverent.
“Can we use those phones?” I asked.
He cocked his head. “Well, now, phones are for emergencies at camp.”
“The PC Box is kinda an emergency.”
He started to say something.
“I just want to talk to my family,” I said, hoping that sounded appropriate and true.
“That’s the thing, Nick. We’re trying to disconnect you from your family here at camp. Only for a bit, so that you can get in touch with your real Father. Your Heavenly Father.”
I could only stare. Disconnect us from our family? “I’m upset,” I said. “I’m embarrassed.” These two things were true, but they weren’t really why I wanted to use the phone.
Either that clued him into my imperviousness to his holy intentions, or he succumbed to whatever guilt he felt about his wrongful accusation. “Okay. This is obviously an emergency,” he said, lifting the receiver of an old phone that actually had a cord attached. He looked at me and waited.
I told him the phone number. Outside the window, Payton and Holly walked by. He had a hose over his shoulder. She had a computer bag. They didn’t even glance inside. I wondered if anyone knew where I was.
Pastor Kit Harington (the hair was wrong, but the jawbone was right) put the receiver to his ear, and I thought for a second he was going to do the talking, in order to make sure I wasn’t checking in with my dealer or pimp or something. But after the first ring, he handed me the phone.
It rang and rang and rang, and I thought about that confession I’d found. Whoever that person was, they had sought out someone to confide in. I wanted to talk to Leah.
But the phone just kept ringing.
I hung up. I had hoped she would answer if she didn’t recognize the phone number. I didn’t want to talk to Pastor Kyle, even if he was probably an okay guy. I wanted to talk to someone who actually knew Diana.
My confession settled back in my throat.
But I didn’t hand the phone back to Pastor Kyle. I didn’t want to go back outside yet. The haze of accusation still lingered. I wanted to talk to someone.
And if I couldn’t talk to Leah, then there was someone else I wanted to hear from. Someone I hadn’t talked to in months. I didn’t need to apologize to her like I did Leah. In fact, the reverse was true. I wanted to hear an apology. If I had to be at this camp, she should at least have to explain herself. After breakfast that morning, when I had realized that there were Christians on this planet—and even at this camp—who weren’t pink-swastika-carrying homo-haters, I kept thinking about her. Eden Springs w
elcomed Goth, who was openly gay. It welcomed Dan who, while a bully, didn’t hate Goth. It also welcomed Charlotte years ago, and I didn’t understand how she became the way she was, and why she couldn’t accept people for who they were.
Or maybe I just hadn’t understood her. Maybe I just needed to hear her out.
“Um, can I try a different number?” I didn’t tell Pastor Kyle the new number was for someone else entirely. But this was actually for family, so I didn’t feel too bad.
The phone rang three times before she answered.
“Hello?”
“Hey.”
“Who’s this?”
“Your brother.”
Silence.
“Really?”
“Yes, Charlotte. It’s Nick.”
“Wow. Nick. Hi. How are you?”
Awkward is how I was. I hadn’t talked to her since before the funeral.
Charlotte had called the house after the funeral. She’d asked for me after talking to my parents. But I’d refused. But as I stood there at Eden Springs, with the old phone to my ear, I thought about how maybe refusing her calls was something like Leah refusing mine. I thought about Diana trying to talk to me in those last few weeks. How I’d been too irritated with her to really listen.
Maybe when people reach out to you, you should reach back. Like Jack said, our words are our bridges.
“I’m good, I guess,” I said.
Maybe her apology was lodged in her throat.
“I was just calling to say hi,” I continued. “I’m at that camp you sent me to. Well, the one you told Mom and Dad to send me to.”
“That’s great. I thought you’d like that.”
Really? “Yeah, it’s great.” Lie. The apology, the explanation, nothing was forthcoming. Maybe she needed a hint. “I was wondering if I could ask you something.”
“Sure.”
It was silent as I tried to think of the exact words, to build up the courage for any words at all. How do you ask for an apology? It wasn’t even for me. She owed it to Diana.
In the background, I could hear her kids—my nieces and nephews—arguing or playing. It was hard to tell the difference.
“Nick?”
“I’m here.” And then I just asked it: “Why didn’t you come to Diana’s funeral?”
Silence. I watched Pastor Kyle shuff le papers, put pens in boxes. Then she said, “You called me from Eden Springs to ask me that, Nick?” Her voice was high-wire tight, and part of me wanted to take the question back. I didn’t want to hear the wrong answer. I didn’t want it to be what I’d thought. I wanted Charlotte to be better than I’d thought.
I didn’t want that hope-f lame to die out completely.
“Well, I’ve been wondering for a while, but—why didn’t you go to the funeral?”
A deep sigh through the phone lines. “Nick, you know why. I didn’t approve of her lifestyle.”
And there it was. “Her lifestyle?”
“Or how she died, frankly.”
“How someone dies is a matter of approval?” The pastor looked up. I turned around so that he couldn’t see my face. I knew my eyes would give away my desperation.
“Suicide is a sin, Nick. And so is homosexuality. And the last thing I’m going to do is go to some funeral where people think I condone that.”
“It’s Diana. It’s your sister.” This was not the reaching out and reaching back that I’d expected. That I’d hoped for.
“And I sure as heck didn’t want to have to see that Leah person. Her …” Charlotte couldn’t even say it.
“Her girlfriend, Charlotte. And you didn’t even know Leah.”
“How cool her girlfriend is doesn’t make the sin less of a sin. Suicide and homosexuality, Nick.”
“It’s how you die and how you’re born,” I nearly shouted. I could feel the pastor watching, but I refused to turn around.
“We choose whether or not we go to hell. She chose.”
I couldn’t believe I was related to this person. “Did you choose to be such a bitch?”
And here it was again.
In that millisecond of silence, I heard the decrepit bridge between me and Charlotte collapse, falling into the rushing river below, debris breaking on the rocks on its way down.
“Okay, Nick,” I heard my sister say, and the pastor was reaching around me to grab the phone, an echo of Charlotte: “Okay, okay, that’s enough.”
“It’s not okay,” I said to both of them. “None of this is okay. It’s not fine. None of this is fine. Not you, and not you. I’m not fine.”
And I wasn’t. I’d had two sisters my whole life, and now I had none. And I was stuck at some camp for God, and He was the one who’d stolen them both. He stole Charlotte, feeding her some kind of bullshit where she could trade in being judged for judging others. And He stole Diana entirely. He swiped her off the earth.
Charlotte had already hung up, but I gripped the handset and kept saying the truth, “I’m not fine,” aware that there were tears on my cheeks. By the time the pastor wrested the phone from me and said good-bye into the receiver, I was panting.
He stood there, red-faced. “Let me appraise you of the situation.”
“It’s apprise,” I said, pressing the heels of my hands to my eyes. “The word you are looking for is apprise, not appraise. Appraise is to assess value. Apprise is to inform.”
“I don’t know what that phone call was about, Nick, but I do know that cursing out a family member—anyone at all—is disrespectful and certainly not the will of God.”
The f lood of anger was sinking back into my brain matter, leaving me too rational. Too aware of what I’d just done.
“I can tell you’re struggling, Nick. Is there something you want to talk about?”
I looked at this man, who likely had never had a problem in his life. Perfect complexion, perfect teeth, perfect physique. God had given him everything and taken nothing. He’d been blessed by God since slipping out of the womb with a perfect smile through a painless birth.
Was there something I was struggling with, besides the fact that he’d forced me to walk across campus carrying a cross for a crime I didn’t commit? At least I’d just given him something to tell the campers. That I’d carried the cross for cursing my sister out. Definitely not following the Golden Rule.
I shook my head. “I’m sorry,” I said to the pastor. “I’m fine.”
Before sending me back to my cabin for a big-kid time-out, he put his hand on my shoulder and closed his eyes. His lips started moving, and I could tell he was praying.
I didn’t have the energy to shrug him off.
Apparently the story about my rash hadn’t reached him yet.
When I opened the cabin door, Jack Kerouac stood in the middle of the room applauding.
I stared at him. Finally, the clapping slowed to nothing.
“Is this ovation for swearing at my sister?” I asked.
“I liked that, indeed.” Jack appeared on the top bunk above me. “But, more so, you have them convinced you’d actually steal something.”
I sighed and walked over to my bed. “I wouldn’t do that.”
“Oh, that I know. That’s your problem.”
I grabbed my notebook from my backpack and sat on my bed. I added a tally mark for Jack, as well as DOGGY DOG WORLD and IRREGARDLESS and APPRISE/APPRAISE to my list of verbiage faux pas.
He looked over my shoulder to see what I wrote. “One of your problems.”
Jack’s legs dangled over the bed above mine. He held a licorice stick between his fingers like a cigarette. He dropped an open bag of Twizzlers down to me. I took one, chewed on it as I lay back on the bed.
“You got any of that piss-beer like the other day?” he asked.
“Seriously?”
“Sadly, no. Unlike the handsome pastor, I do not think you’d risk a rule for a fun time.”
“It’s not a fun time when someone is reading all of our shit. You know that, right?” I kicked a
t the top bunk. “The stuff about my sister is in that box. I’m in full panic mode down here and you’re bummed I didn’t steal the gawddamn box myself.” I sighed, chewed my licorice. “For God’s sake, what is so wrong with being a rule follower?”
“Oh, Nicolas … these words. This idea. This is your soul-leech.” He sat before me now, a sofa chair appearing suddenly underneath him. He was going for the full philosopher effect now. “You’re not meant to be a rule follower at all. You’re not supposed to follow rules. They’re not a trail up a mountain. They’re not even a sidewalk through a dirty city. Rules don’t lead anywhere. They’re tools, is what they are. Yes, yes. You learn them, know them, pick them up, and put them in your pocket. Use them when the time’s right. But good lord, do not follow them. You follow what you love.”
“Are you done?”
“Well, one more thing. Don’t pick up too many rules either. They’re heavy as stones. And you gotta travel light. Yes, you do.”
I lay back on my bed and closed my eyes, imagining soft leeches crawling around in my chest, searching for a little life left to suck out of me. “You stole the box, didn’t you?” I said.
“Now, I would do that. But I did not.”
“But you talked about how you wanted to know what was going on in everyone’s heads. You just said that yesterday.”
“I cannot steal that box any more than I can walk into a store and purchase a fifth of whiskey.”
“Then who did? You said you see everything.”
“I saw you call Leah.”
“Yes, because I needed to talk to her.”
“I know what you want,” he said quietly. Kindly, in fact.
I sighed and admitted why I’d called Charlotte. “I wanted my sister to apologize.”
“You can’t ask for people to react any way, this or that. Not apologies, not forgiveness, not grace. You can only extend these things.”
You can reach out, but you can’t expect them to reach back.
“There a radio here?” Jack asked, suddenly across the room, peering into cubbies.
I shook my head.