by Brian Meehl
“What does any of that have to do with homosexuality?”
“I’m getting to it. You see, if the mob of Sodomites that showed up at Lot’s door were really homosexuals, and if they were anything like gays today, they would’ve simply knocked on the door, asked if the two strangers wanted to go out for a beer, maybe hit a club, and take it from there. But no, the mob that tried to break down Lot’s door wanted to ‘know’ the two strangers. They wanted to rape them.”
“Exactly,” I said, “which makes them homos.”
“No,” he said, stretching out the word. “They weren’t homos any more than cops using toilet-plunger handles to violate suspects are homos. It’s not about sex. It’s about domination and the humiliation of male rape. And believe me, back in the good ol’ holy days, male rape happened all the time.”
“No way.”
“I wish you were right, but ancient cultures had their gnarly ways. Aztecs ate the hearts and drank the blood of their conquered foes. The Holy Landers had a different way of sticking it to their beaten enemies: they raped them. But they didn’t do it because they were gay. They did it to strip them of their manhood, to turn them into women. If you turned your enemy into a lowly woman, then you’d shamed him, broken his spirit. He was as good as dead. I mean, look at what Lot thought of his daughters. He offered them up as rape substitutes.”
Ruah shrugged. “Hey, if you don’t believe me, think about how men still run around busting other guys’ balls. You hear it in every locker room and on every playing field where guys insult each other with names like pussy, faggot, and cocksucker. Of course, we don’t call it rape. We have a nicer name for it: trash talk. I hear it every day. And it goes all the way back to that mob in front of Lot’s door.
“The Sodomites weren’t a bunch of gays looking for a quickie. They were a lynch mob, or, in their case, a rape mob. They weren’t blinded by the angels and destroyed ’cause they wanted to stick it where the sun don’t shine. They were destroyed for violating the sacred law of hospitality. Their sin was a complete lack of what God sent Christ down to make clear to the world: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ ”
I’d followed his crazy, zigzag trail from the destruction of Sodom to Christ’s teaching, but it was like following a blown-up balloon that’s let go and whirligigs around the room. I didn’t know what to say.
The only thought I had that made sense was that it wasn’t Ruah who was messing with what I knew in my heart. It was God. And His message went like this: Billy, you’re gonna have to do better than that if you wanna argue sodomy with a sodomite. But I didn’t have another chance, not until I’d read another chapter of Huck Finn.
31
Shaken Out
I pulled out Chapter 32.
Ruah waved a hand. “Wait a minute. You didn’t finish the chapter.”
I held up the Huck Finn pages. “I haven’t even started it.”
“No, I mean chapter nineteen in Genesis.”
“What?”
“If you’re gonna convince me that the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah is about homosexuality, the least you could do is read the whole chapter.”
I didn’t know what he was up to, but I opened the Bible and read the last eight verses of the chapter. I’d forgotten about them. Talk about a shocker.
Lot and his two daughters escape to a cave in the mountains.
Lot has no sons and no chance of having any because his wife looked back at the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and was turned into a pillar of salt.
The daughters decide their father has to have sons.
The first night in the cave, the daughters get Lot drunk and the older daughter has sex with him, but Lot doesn’t know it because he’s so drunk.
The second night they get Lot drunk again, and the younger daughter has sex with him, but he doesn’t know it.
The daughters give birth to boys, giving Lot sons. Of course, to the daughters, they’re sons and brothers.
After I finished, Ruah stroked his beard stubble. “Hmm, now that we’ve heard the whole story of Lot, what the heck is that all about? I don’t know about you, but for me the way it depicts bad sex and good sex is really confusing. I mean, let’s say you’re right, and that man-on-man sex is nasty and bad no matter where, when, or why. But when Lot offers his daughters to be raped by the mob we don’t hear a peep from God. And when the daughters date-rape their dad, not once but twice, Old Testy doesn’t lift a finger. Call me crazy, but the only sensible one in the whole wacko crew is Lot’s wife.”
“What’s she got to do with anything?”
“If I was married to a man who would throw my daughters to a rape mob, and I had daughters who had it in ’em to date-rape their own dad, I’d turn into a pillar of salt too.”
I just shook my head in disgust. “Can I read Chapter Thirty-two now?”
Ruah shot me a huge smile. “I thought you’d never ask.”
I read the chapter from start to finish. It was about Huck going to the Phelpses’ farm to free Jim from slavery. But things get complicated when the Phelpses think Huck is Tom Sawyer and Huck goes along with it, pretending to be Tom.
When I was done, Ruah said, “Now we know why your father picked Notus, Idaho, for the next cache.”
“Why?”
“ ’Cause Huck is not himself, he’s Tom.”
“Maybe so.” He might’ve been right about that but I knew he was wrong about his way of life, because the Bible said so. But I wasn’t bringing it up again until the right moment. I was going to do like Huck says before he gets to the Phelpses’ farm. I was going to go … right along, not fixing up any particular plan, but just trusting to Providence to put the right words in my mouth when the time come; for I’d noticed that Providence always did put the right words in my mouth if I left it alone.
As the sun dropped toward the horizon I checked my GPS. We were 44 miles from Notus. Then the most incredible smell rolled through the cab. “What’s that?”
Ruah inhaled a deep breath. “Mint?”
We stared at the field of dark plants. “I’ve never seen a mint field before.”
“Me neither.”
We rode for a couple miles just sucking up the smell. It felt like my nostrils and lungs were being scrubbed out. The sun began to set as the mint field changed back to sage steppe.
Ruah broke the silence. “We might never see eye to eye on the whole gay thing, but as you were reading Huck it gave me an idea that might help you get it.”
I didn’t say anything. I just stared at the wall of clouds on the horizon swirling with yellow and orange.
He went on. “When Huck pretends to be Tom it doesn’t change who Huck is. He’s still Huck. He can make people think he’s Tom, but it doesn’t change who he is. It’s the same for a lot of gays. We can pretend to be straight, we can live in the closet, but it doesn’t change who we are. We’re still gay. And when you, or anyone else, try to turn a gay into a straight it’s as impossible as truly turning Huck into Tom. There’s a term for what I’m talking about. It’s not in your Bible. It’s called ‘sexual orientation.’ ”
“Is that like gaydar?” I asked. “Do you have a sexual orienter, like a compass, and it points you in the direction of gay people?”
He laughed. “Now you’re busting my chops. But I like that. I’ll have to tell the Society of Gay Scientists to start working on a sexual orienter.”
“There’s really such a group?”
He laughed harder. “Billy, you gotta stop believing so much of what people—”
Something flashed in front of us, coming from my side. I saw its black curved horns, and the shock of its white flank as it tried to leap away.
Ruah swerved to the right but hit the antelope. Its hind end thudded against the camper. We flew off the road, bouncing violently through the brush. Something grabbed the front wheels, I heard Ruah swear, the camper nose-dropped. It all happened in a split second: the front of the camper plunged—we caught air for a nanosec�
��full-body blow from an air bag. It hurt.
Everything went still. We weren’t falling down a ravine, or a canyon. We weren’t plunging to our death.
I heard Ruah fighting his air bag and sucking air through his teeth. “Fuck! Fuck!”
My air bag went squishy; I pushed it away. It was strangely dark in the cab. We had stuck a nose wheelie in a dry gully. The sunset’s band of orange had leapt to the top of the windshield. The headlights, augured in dirt, emitted a dusty glow.
Ruah swatted his air bag with his right hand. He hissed in a breath. “You alright?”
“Yeah.”
“Turn on the light.”
I turned on the overhead.
His left hand was caught in the steering wheel. There was a weird lump in his wrist. He tried to move it with his free hand. He winced in pain. “Shit.” He closed his eyes, sucking in air.
“Is it broken?”
He nodded and breathed out. His eyes opened. “That’s it.”
“Someone will come along soon,” I said.
“That’s what I’m scared of.”
I couldn’t take my eyes off his wrist. “We gotta get you to a hospital.”
He turned to me with a clenched expression. “We aren’t doing anything. The cops show up, your trip’s over, I’m busted. And I sure don’t wanna be busted with a teenage kid in my RV.”
“But—”
His right hand flew in front of my face, his finger nearly poking my eye. “Be quiet and listen.” His hand dropped to the console as he winced. “We’ve had our little debates, but this isn’t one. You’re gonna grab your backpack, a couple water bottles, the flashlight, your sleeping bag, and the bike off the back. You’re gonna walk off the road, hide the bike in the brush, then walk into the brush until you’re outta sight. Someone’s gonna come along, get me to the hospital, and I’ll deal from there. Tomorrow you’ll get on the bike and ride to Notus; it’s less than twenty miles. Trip’s over, Billy. It’s been a great ride. Now get going.” He jerked his head toward the back of the camper. “That way, it’s probably safer.”
I looked at his hand still caught in the steering wheel. “Are you gonna be alright?”
“Don’t worry, I’ve had plenty of broken bones. Now get going before someone shows up.”
I grabbed my pack and scrambled over the console. I didn’t have to go far for the water bottles. I stepped on one. In the crash, the fridge door had flown open and bottles and jars had slid to the front of the aisle. I walked up the tilted aisle. It was weird, like walking up a slide in a playground. I pulled the flashlight from the netting over the couch and grabbed my sleeping bag. I opened the side door. It flapped open and banged against the side of the camper.
I looked back down the aisle. Ruah was watching me in the rearview.
“If you’re ever in Cincinnati, look me up,” he said. “I owe you a ball game.”
I couldn’t see anything but his eyes. “Will you be playing in it?”
“Dunno, kid. Now get going.”
I dropped out the door and landed on dusty ground. I looked for the shape in the road that would be the antelope. There was nothing. The back of the camper stuck up in the air like a crash-landed spaceship. I could barely reach the Trek and undo the straps. I wanted to tell Ruah that the antelope had only been grazed and had gotten away, but headlights loomed down the road.
I pushed the bike into the brush. When I heard the car, I looked back. Ruah had turned on the flashers. The car slowed. I dropped the bike behind a bush and ducked down as the car pulled over.
I watched a man get out of the car; a woman on the passenger side stayed inside. The man talked to Ruah for a bit, and it looked like he was helping him do something. The camper’s flashers turned off. The man helped Ruah out; his left arm was now in a sling made from a towel. In his right hand, he carried a book. I would’ve sworn it was a Bible.
As Ruah moved to the back of the car, he looked toward me, then got in. Before they drove away, I saw the glow of a cell phone in the woman’s hands. I didn’t know if she was calling a doctor, a hospital, or a tow truck. It made me realize I still had Ruah’s cell phone.
I sat for a while, watching the stars come out. Only two other cars drove by. I was surprised how calm I felt. The crash had gotten me all revved, but I was back to a low idle. It felt weird not to be scared. I remembered what Mom always told me when she left me alone at night. “Don’t be afraid. Your Heavenly Father is here in the house, looking after you.” He was in this house, too. The ceiling was just higher.
I turned the flashlight on, climbed up the slope, and looked for a flat spot to sleep. I didn’t find one, but I did find a barbed-wire fence. It stopped my climb. I scooped out a level patch in the dirt and got in the sleeping bag. The stars were even thicker than at Lake Scott.
The most awesome thing was the silence. It was so still and intense it seemed to make a noise. I told myself it was the sound of God breathing. I knew He was close. How could He not be? That’s the thing about God. When He sends you a sign, like He sent me that morning, and you don’t read it right, He comes back to make it real clear. That morning, He’d sent messengers disguised as prisoners emptying garbage cans. I’d listened at first, then twisted His message into something else; I’d climbed back into Giff, the great white trash can. God doesn’t like being misunderstood. It pisses Him off. So He grabbed the can and shook me out.
Before going to sleep I thanked Him for tossing me out gently. And I asked Him to do two things: (1) Heal Ruah’s wrist so he could play baseball again, and (2) heal his gay heart.
32
Notus
I woke at sunrise, and jumped out of my sleeping bag. Beyond the highway, sage steppe reached to a faraway ridge of dry hills. The camper was still sticking its nose wheelie in the gully.
I ran down the hill to see if the cops had come in the night. But there was no orange sticker like the kind they leave on the window or mirror of disabled vehicles. I wondered if Ruah had even called the cops. I climbed into the camper and checked the glove compartment and the console. All the paperwork—the rental agreement, the registration—was gone. That was why Ruah had taken his Bible; he’d hidden the paperwork in it.
As I walked back up to get my stuff, I saw what was beyond the barbed-wire fence: a long slope up a high hill. The steep was spotted with thinning sagebrush till it got bald at the top. I bent through the fence and climbed. I didn’t see a critter or snake all the way up.
On top, I found a big patch of dust. I took off my sneaks and walked to the middle of it. I dropped a foot in the soft dust and lifted it away. A perfect impression of my foot stared back at me. Adam was here.
As far as I know, that footprint, only seen by soaring hawks and eagles, is still there. And will be, then-now-forevermore.
* * *
I packed up and mounted the Trek. According to my GPS, I was 15.5 miles from Notus. I could ride it in an hour. I started fast to put distance between me and the camper before any vehicles spotted me. Luckily it was early; there was no traffic.
After a few miles, I left the highway for county roads as I followed the GPS’s compass arrow north. If I’d had a mountain bike instead of a roadie, I could’ve gone off-road. That would’ve been awesome, especially since I was back in mint-farm country. Bombing through mint fields, crashing in the mint, and bringing home a mint Christmas tree would’ve been a first ever. But riding road wasn’t bad either. When your lungs are sucking mint clouds you don’t grind up a steep, you fly it.
I crossed a small river and some railroad tracks, then hit a highway that took me into Notus. It was a dusty little town, with boarded-up stores and one main intersection where a couple places still survived: a restaurant-market and an auto parts store.
The compass pointed to a square white building between the road and the railroad tracks that ran past a grain elevator. Next to the white building was an old fire truck with faded red paint. It said NOTUS VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPT. on the door.
As I rode toward the building, my GPS raced down to under 70 feet. I couldn’t believe it was going to be this easy. I got off the Trek and leaned it against the fire truck. I was 30 feet from the cache. I walked around the building, which turned out to be a tiny museum all shut up. On the GPS’s screen, the feet ticked higher and the arrow swung back toward my bike.
I went back to the fire truck and pulled out the last page of Chapter 32. I reread the clue poem.
Now that Huck has set his waypoint,
And goes on down to Satan’s joint,
Do consider what he might drive,
Should he wish to survive.
I had to laugh. If you’re going to hell, go in a fire truck. I walked around the truck. The back bed, where they used to put ladders, was empty. So was a storage box in a side panel. I tried to unscrew the caps on the hose connectors. They were rusted shut. Then I remembered the last lines. I yanked out the page.
Look for fuel to throw on fire,
And there you’ll find your heart’s desire.
I went around to the truck’s gas cap, opened it, got the flashlight out of my pack, and shined it down the hole. Nothing but an old spiderweb snaring a couple dead beetles. I racked my brain for what else “fuel” might mean. I drew a blank. I rechecked my GPS. I was inside 15 feet; I was right on top of it. I looked under the truck, around the gas tank: nothing. I jumped up on the running board. The ladder beds were empty, but the two hose spools behind the cab were coiled with cracked hoses. And there, behind the spools, was what I was looking for. Two old five-gallon gas cans.
The blast of a train whistle almost knocked me off the running board. I looked down the tracks. Luckily, the train wasn’t slowing down.
I moved down the running board, lifted one of the gas cans, and shook it. Even if there was something in it I wouldn’t have heard it. The train began thundering by. I waved to the engineer like I was just a kid checking out a fire truck.