The Book of David

by AnonYMous

If it makes God so freaking mad, why does it feel so good?

  Later . . .

  We all drove to church together this morning, and on the way home in the car, Tracy asked Mom about Monica’s uncle and whether or not he was one of the people God was angry about. I almost opened the door of the car and threw myself into the road. I did not want to be there for this conversation.

  Dad was driving and said, “Hell yes, he is.”

  Mom put her hand on Dad’s arm and said, “Boyd, honey. Please.” She twisted around in the front seat to face Tracy. “Sweetheart, God is only upset about the actual sin. He’s not upset that people feel that way.”

  “Oh, c’mon,” Dad said. “What red-blooded American running back just ‘feels that way’? He chose to be that way. Nothing else to it.”

  I actually got dizzy when he said this. Did I choose to feel this way about Jon? I mean, my dick still works when I’m with Monica, but it sure doesn’t make me see stars. Why do things seem so much more exciting when I’m with Jon?

  “Boyd, stop it.” Mom’s tone shut Dad up in a hurry. “Tracy, honey, being tempted with homosexual feelings for another person is just like being tempted to steal or lie or cheat or gossip. It’s not actually a sin unless you act on it.”

  “But I saw this TV show where they said it wasn’t a choice.” Tracy was frowning, staring out the window—really giving this some thought.

  “Probably because homos wrote that show,” Dad said. “That’s what they want you to think.”

  Mom sighed. “Tracy, the Bible says that it’s wrong.”

  “Does it?” she asked. “I mean, I was reading this thing online that showed the place in the Old Testament where it said that it was an abomination or whatever, but then they showed this list of the other things God says are an abomination and we do lots of those all the time. I mean, you’re not supposed to touch the skin of a dead pig either, but we all feel fine about football.”

  I laughed really loudly when she said this. My little sis can be a total pain in the ass sometimes, but she’s really smart. Mom shot me a look from the front seat.

  “Tracy, God tells us to hate the things that he hates. End of story.”

  Dad pulled into the driveway, and I was out of the car almost before it stopped moving, running into the house—like I could outrun what Mom had just said. God tells us to hate the things that he hates.

  So my mom will hate me if she finds out I’m a homo?

  I was just looking up those sites Tracy was on, and it seems like there’s just as many people in the world who believe the opposite of Mom and Dad. Why couldn’t I have been born to some of those people? I feel so pissed off that I will never be able to tell my parents the truth about who I am. They think I make God angry. I hate that they think this. I hate them for thinking it. Why would you decide to worship an angry God anyway?

  Suddenly I’ve got tears streaming down my face while I write. What the hell is wrong with me? Why am I so upset? I hate myself for feeling this way—for feeling any of this.

  That’s the saddest part of all, I guess. If being gay is a problem, I’m the problem.

  Sunday, November 4

  I know I haven’t written in over a month. Well, I have written, but just not in this journal. I realized after the whole incident-in-the-back-of-the-Jeep-with-Jon entry that I had to stop carrying this thing around with me in my backpack like an idiot. All it would take is one wrong move, and what’s in this notebook could end up all over the Internet.

  I was just reading over my last entry, and after that day in church, I almost burned this journal. I took it outside with me that afternoon and tossed it on the charcoal grill out behind the garage, but something wouldn’t let me throw the match. There’s too much of me in these pages. Too much I want to remember. So I took the journal back upstairs and buried it in between my mattress and box spring—far enough into the middle of the bed that Mom won’t find it when she’s changing my sheets.

  Then I started writing in a new notebook for English class the next morning. That one doesn’t have any of the gay stuff in it. I try not to even talk about Jon in it. It’s totally lame, too. I feel like I’m writing fiction about somebody else’s life. It’s full of dates with Monica and making out with her and how hot it is. It has tons of stuff about Tyler: his progress with his knee, how he’s getting off his crutches soon, how he’s excited about getting back in shape. I can tell he’s pissed about the season we’re having without him. We’re still undefeated, and next week we start the playoffs.

  I’ve been writing in that notebook about all the college football stuff. The week after I committed at USC, ESPN actually showed up at our game and shot some footage. They did interviews with me, and I’ve been on a bunch of sports talk shows on TV and the radio.

  Jon has been giving me a hard time about all the publicity, mainly because he knows how much it bugs Tyler that it’s happening. He has gradually won Tyler over because Tyler loves it when Jon calls me a “media darling” and tells me I need to borrow some of Monica’s mascara the next time I go on camera.

  Of course, I just smile when Tyler laughs like a hyena at Jon’s jokes, because I know that Jon is purposefully bagging on me to throw Tyler off our scent. Jon and I have found an easy rhythm. We see each other mainly after our big group dates with Amy and Monica and Tyler and Erin. We’ll all go hang out after the game on Friday nights, or go play mini golf, or to a movie or something on Saturday nights. Then, usually on Saturdays, Erin will take Tyler home because he’s still in a brace that doesn’t allow him to drive. Once they’re gone, we’ll make out with Monica and Amy for a little while and then drop them off, and then I have Jon all to myself for a little while before I go home.

  Yeah, so I’m not writing about that in the other journal. At all. That’s why I had to pull this one out again. Jon and I just got back from the big hunting trip. I got off a few shots, but neither one of them were clean. Dad and Randall mainly drank the whole time. They’d have had a lot more luck if they hadn’t been so freaking drunk and loud the whole time, but I didn’t mind. It was lucky as hell that they were loud on several occasions because otherwise Jon and I wouldn’t have heard them. Randall almost caught me with my pants around my ankles in the middle of the forest yesterday evening while Jon was getting . . . well . . . “adventurous,” as he likes to call it. I’ve never pulled up my pants so fast in my life. We laughed our asses off about it in the tent that night, but I was also scared shitless. If Randall had seen us messing around while he was holding a gun, I’m not sure both of us would still be alive.

  Ironically, Jon, the only one who doesn’t hunt with a gun, wound up being the star of the show. Right before we left to come home this morning, he took his bow up into the stand one more time and bagged a freaking buck. Dad and Randall were both fit to be tied. They couldn’t believe it and kept talking about how Jon was a “regular Robin Hood.”

  The buck is hanging up in the garage right now. Dad’s draining it tonight, and then he’s gonna skin it and clean it tomorrow night. Mom is less than thrilled about the deer carcass hanging in the garage and all the bloody clothes she’s washing right now, but she’s pleased about the prospect of venison stew at Thanksgiving. She made Jon and me strip down to our boxers in the mudroom and give her our clothes so she could put them directly into the wash. Then she shooed us upstairs to hit the showers.

  I had to run because being that close to Jon in his underwear always makes me noticeably excited, and that’s a conversation I’m not ready to have with anybody yet—much less my mother. In fact, I don’t intend to talk to her about that ever. I’m just going to get to California. That’s pretty much as far as the plan goes right now.

  But that’s enough.

  I’ll figure out the rest when I get there.

  I’m getting ready to crawl into bed, and I keep feeling like I forgot something. It hit me just a second ago that for the last two nights I got to sleep next to Jon all night. The first night when we got into th
e tent, we just lay awake and talked for a long time, quietly so that my dad and Randall couldn’t hear us in their tents. I think we were both too scared to actually make out that first night—afraid maybe my dad would hear us—but that’s the fun part of hanging out with Jon. I have such a good time just talking to him that we don’t have to be constantly making out. It’s like I have this awesome, sexy buddy who I never get tired of talking to.

  After a while I started getting really sleepy and told Jon I was tired. He sat up and kissed me good night. Then scooted his sleeping bag over so that I could feel him behind me. He put his arm around me and pulled me close to him, and within a few minutes, I could tell he was asleep. It felt so good just to lie there next to him like that.

  I wish I could do that every night.

  Monday, November 5

  After classes today, Tyler walked with me to the locker room before he left for physical therapy. We passed Amy and Monica, who were selling tickets to homecoming next weekend. He reminded me that we have to get our tuxes.

  “Wanna go with me and Jon tomorrow?” I asked.

  He rolled his eyes. “Why does that kid have to come with us everywhere now?”

  I got totally irritated. “He’s my friend.”

  “Yeah, got it, man.”

  “What has he ever done to you, Tyler?” I tried to keep my voice calm, but I could tell I sounded annoyed.

  “I’m just sick of hearing about how he’s the best at everything. He’s the star of the show. He’s got the fastest two hundred on the swim team. He’s a great singer. He bagged a buck. Blah blah blah.”

  “It’s not Jon’s fault he’s good at a bunch of stuff,” I said. “You even think he’s funny when he’s bagging on me.”

  “I just miss hanging out when it was just you and me, man.” Tyler actually sounded sincere when he said this.

  I smiled at him. “Dude. Chill out. It’s just a trip to the freaking mall. You don’t have to throw him a parade.”

  “Fine,” he said. “Whatever. When are we going?”

  “Let’s hit it after practice tomorrow night. I’ll pick you up. Text me when you’re home from physical therapy.”

  It still makes me nervous to hang out with Tyler and Jon at the same time. I don’t know why. It used to be that I was afraid that Tyler would call Jon names and stuff. Now I think it’s more that he’ll figure out something’s going on between me and Jon.

  God, I hate this whole situation sometimes. It’s just so complicated. It’s bad enough trying to hide this from Monica and my mom and dad. I wish I had somebody I could talk to about this who would get it. There are these sites online that offer “support for gay teens.” They all have hotlines to call, but what would I say if I called? I clicked onto a chat screen on one of the sites, and somebody came on and asked if they could help me. I just sat there staring at the curser blinking on the screen; then I closed the box.

  I mean, what’s my end game here? Play well at college? Then what? Hopefully get drafted into the NFL? I mean, even if that were a possibility, I’m not gonna be able to come out then. Sure, there are people coming out of the closet all over sports. But football? And then have it be all over the news? My dad would flip his shit. Mom would have a breakdown. How is somebody sitting at a computer on the other side of the country going to fix that? How are they going to be able to help me?

  This is what happens when I let my head run with this idea. It just seems totally hopeless. But how long can I hide what’s going on with me and Jon?

  Tuesday, November 6

  We actually had fun getting fitted for tuxedos. After practice, I picked up Tyler, and then we swung by to get Jon. He had called the place over by the mall to make sure they’d still be open after I got done with practice at six p.m.

  When we got there, we looked around at the mannequins and at the selections they had hanging on the racks. I decided to go with basic black, single breasted with a white shirt. The shirt I picked has a full lay-down collar with French cuffs. My grandpa gave me some cuff links before he died that I’ve never really worn, so I decided I’d try them out.

  Jon went with an ivory-colored dinner jacket with a shawl collar and black tuxedo pants. I think he’s going to go with a long skinny tie. He kept talking about Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack as his inspiration.

  I held Tyler’s crutches for him, and he hopped into the dressing room to try on a few things. When he poked his head out of the door, he had this grin on his face, and I realized I hadn’t seen him smile in a long time.

  “You assholes ready for this?” he asked.

  Without waiting for an answer, he swung the door open and took a couple of hops out into the area by the mirror, holding his leg in the brace out in front of him. He was wearing a powder-blue tuxedo that looked like it came straight from the seventies, with a giant ruffled shirt and a bow tie the size of my head. I almost fell down, I started laughing so hard. Jon silently walked over and held up his hand for a high five. Tyler laughed and smacked it.

  “You win, man,” said Jon. “That’s the bomb.”

  “You think this is it?” Tyler asked.

  “Dude . . .” I was wiping tears out of my eyes. “If you wear that, you are the biggest badass our school has ever seen.”

  Tyler looked at the lady who was running the place and said, “I’ll take it.”

  He says he’ll be off his crutches for the dance on Friday. Hopefully Erin won’t kick him in the knee when he shows up that night.

  Wednesday, November 7

  Study Hall—Fifth Period

  I am so pissed right now, I don’t know what else to do except write about it. Thank God I threw this journal into my backpack this morning because I had it out last night and was running late to school this morning. So, instead of taking the time to hide it under the mattress again, I just tossed it in with my books. It’s almost like I knew I’d need to write in it.

  I’m not sure if I’m more mad at Tyler or at Jon. Tyler was just a total dick at lunch, but then what about Jon? How come he didn’t give me the whole story? I mean, what is his deal?

  Okay, I have to start at the beginning. I’m so angry, I can barely sit in this study hall. I feel like running until I freaking drop dead.

  So, we’re sitting at lunch today. Jon is telling Tyler and me how much the limo his dad is renting for us is going to set us back. Once we get the financial details worked out, we spring it on the girls: We’re picking you up in a limo. Amy, Monica, and Erin are totally excited about it. Monica is practically in tears. She throws her arms around my neck and kisses me full on the lips right in the middle of the cafeteria.

  “Was this your idea?”

  I shake my head. “No. I was gonna toss you in the back of my truck.”

  She giggled and said, “Then who? Tyler?”

  Tyler said, “Nope. This was all Jay.”

  We all sort of turned to look at him, and he had this weird look on his face. He was staring at Jon.

  “You mean Jon?” Erin asked.

  “Didn’t used to be Jon, did it?” Tyler was still staring at Jon, who was sitting there sort of frozen, not looking at Tyler. His face had gone sort of pale.

  “Jesus, Tyler. What are you talking about?” Monica could sense that Tyler was up to something. She has a strong no-bullshit meter.

  “Dunno. Why don’t you ask Jay here?”

  Tyler had this smug look on his face that made me want to smack him. My stomach was instantly in knots. Whatever this was, I could tell it was going to involve Tyler being an ass. I remembered that night I told my dad we’d talk about USC later, and I took a deep breath.

  “Tyler, what the hell?”

  He turned to me. “Did a little digging on Facebook last night and clicked a few links. Found out our boy Jon Statley here used to go by Jay at his high school in Chicago. Big interview in the Chicago Tribune back when he was a sophomore.” He turned to look at Jon, and his tone became mocking, like he was talking to a baby. “Turns out litt
le Jay got picked on a lot at school.”

  I’d had it. I slammed a fist down on the table and made everybody’s trays jump. Tyler held up both hands. He wore his little shit-eating grin. “Dude. Chill. I’m just reading what it says online. Isn’t that right? Jay?”

  Monica was pissed. “Tyler, you’re such a moron. What does this have to do with anything?”

  “Wanna tell her why you were being picked on in Chi-Town, buddy?” he asked Jon. “Or should I?”

  Jon looked up at Monica and over at Amy, then glanced down the table at Tyler and Erin. He looked at everybody sitting there. Except me. Slowly, he pushed his tray back, slung the strap of his messenger bag over his shoulder, and stood up. He stared Tyler down for what seemed like a long time.

  “Tell ’em whatever you want, tough guy. I’m out.” Then he turned and slowly walked out of the cafeteria.

  When he left, Monica whirled on Tyler. “You are such an asshole. What is the big deal? What was this all-important issue you just had to bring up?”

  “Dude started a GSA in Chicago, Monica,” Tyler said.

  “A GSA?” Amy was confused.

  Monica rolled her eyes. “A Gay-Straight Alliance.”

  “What’s that?” asked Erin.

  “It’s a club where gay students and straight students meet up to be supportive,” Monica said. “Jeez. Don’t you watch TV?”

  “They actually have those in high schools?” Amy frowned.

  “Uh, yeah. Just not ours. Yet.” Monica shot this at Tyler, who rolled his eyes.

  “Ever, if I can help it,” he said.

  “It doesn’t mean anything,” I said. “Who cares if he started a Gay-Straight Alliance?”

  “Doesn’t mean anything? Dude!” Tyler was laughing. “Are you kidding? Before Jon transformed himself into a singing swim god and changed his name, he was the laughingstock of his high school. Dude is a total homo.”

  “No, he’s not !” Amy was pissed now. “He’s a really good kisser, and he’s my date for homecoming. You’re just an asshole, Tyler.”