This guy was a trip.
“But,” he continued, “thank the good and righteous one true God that my scholarly parents finally had the good sense to get out of Dodge.” He held out the bottle. “Do my back?” I didn’t want to touch him (or maybe I did) so I wanted to refuse his request, but I didn’t want to be rude. He seemed harmless, so I took the bottle, squeezed out some lotion, went behind him, and started spreading it over his shoulders while he kept talking. His skin was smooth, taut, soft and warm. I felt it starting and willed myself under control. This was not going to happen. Despite the fantasies he’d invoked in me, I was still not ready. And I didn’t want him to think I was. God, that was all I needed. To throw myself at a straight guy again. “It was getting much too claustrophobic for me there. Utah wants the world to think that they’re not controlled by the Mormons, that they welcome people of any and all or no religions, but it was getting just a little too stifling for me. I needed to breathe free.”
“Well,” I said, easing back into my chair, “you might tangle with a few Baptists here in Houston, but other than that, I don’t think you’ll have any trouble ‘breathing free’ as you put it.”
“Good.”
Things were heating up a bit too much. I was becoming far too happy to be around this Finn. So I blamed my departure on the risk of sunburn, and I stood, gathered up my stuff, and took my leave. As I walked away, I turned back, involuntarily, almost. “I’m in number forty-four, Finn. Give me a holler, some time.” Why I said that, I didn’t know. It seemed like a friendly thing to do, but I didn’t need a new friend. Maybe it was a come-on, but I wasn’t looking to bust my gay cherry, either. Or was I?
“Holler!” he said. “Sixty-nine, here.”
“Nice meeting you,” I said and went home.
“Looking forward to shooting some buckets,” he called as I walked away.
As I slipped the key in the lock, my phone was ringing. I’d left it on the coffee table, charging.
“What’s up?”
“Why did your cell go straight to voicemail before when I called? And why is there a smile in your voice? You saw my name on the caller ID, didn’t you?”
I guess I was smiling when I picked up the phone. Thinking of Finn. I quickly banished the thoughts, because I was overjoyed to finally hear Mal’s voice after all these torturous days without her. “Mallory! What happened to the cell phone ban? And how did you know I was at the pool?”
“First things, first. Why the voicemail?”
I sighed. “My phone ran out of juice. I forgot to put it on the charger when we got home in the middle of the night last night, and I put it on airplane mode when I plugged in the charger before I went to the pool because it charges faster that way.” I took a breath. “So, did you really call just to hear all that?”
“Maybe.”
“Wait, aren’t you still at camp? How are you calling me?”
“I managed to sneak into the office and use my phone. I called the Grayson, and Brian said you’d gone home. So then I really wanted to talk to you. And when you didn’t answer, I called your mom, and she told me you were most probably at the pool. I dialed your number again, hoping you’d be back from the pool and pick up.”
“Slow down, Mal.”
“I just took my cue from you. You were going a mile a minute with your explanation, so I thought I’d best you.” She giggled.
That’s Mal for you. Always has to be the best at everything.
“Besides, I can’t slow down. Coach might come in any minute.”
“Okay… I’ll keep up the pace. Mom was right… pool. Strangest guy there—name’s Finn Sawyer.”
“As in Huck and Tom?”
“You got it. New guy in town. Senior at Lamar.”
“Good. Make a new friend before I get home on Saturday. But don’t get too friendly. Come Saturday, you’re all mine. Miss you.”
“I hate it that you’re still stuck there.”
“Can’t be avoided. Wanna hear all about your trip.”
There was a pause.
“Mal, you still there?”
“Criminy. Coach coming up the walk. Better scoot. Love ya, bye.”
That was the fastest phone call we’d ever made to each other. Usually, we talk for hours. I couldn’t wait until she was back home.
Three more days and I could spill my guts to Mal. She’d tell me what to do.
But then it struck me like a two-by-four across the forehead, and why I didn’t think of it before, I don’t know. Mal would take his side. Oh, she might sympathize with me about the lying stuff, but in the end, she’d be all over me about acceptance, and she’d demand I go to that wedding. I can’t say anything negative about my dad around her that she doesn’t pounce on me for. I don’t know why, but she thinks Brian Hardy hung the moon, and I should kiss the ground he walks on. Normally I’d agree with her. But his lying was eating at me once again. It didn’t take much to bring it all back. Someday in the distant future, I maybe could forgive Dad for lying to me, forgive him for not being there for me when I needed him the most, even accept totally that he was remarried, but that future was not as close as August 16, 2015.
Well, there was no way in hell I was going to the joyous nuptials. Mal would just have to get over it. It wasn’t any of her business anyway.
Chapter 16
MOM GOT home, looking zapped.
“It’s been a rough day. I’m pooped. What say we get dinner out, huh? Celebrate your homecoming.”
“Sounds great, Mom.”
“But wouldn’t you know it, Jakie? I’ve got to go back to the church for a meeting tonight. Would you drive me there after we eat? You can use the driving time. I know you. You’ll be at the DPS early Monday to get your license. I’ve already told Pastor that I’ll be coming in late. So, please, please drive my aging, exhausted soul to church. I know you probably don’t want to spend your first night back with an old lady at the church, but I don’t think I could get there and back without running off the road. That’s how tired I am.”
“Hold your horses. You had me at practice. I need the time behind the wheel. I want to up my driving skills before my test. But if you’re that pooped, why don’t you just skip your meeting?”
“Skip it? The Lord’s work is not to be skipped.” She said it very matter-of-factly, a tone of voice I was totally used to. That “the Bible is inerrant, the Lord is not to be ignored” tone.
“Now—what do you want to eat?” She added, “As if I didn’t know.”
“Chuy’s?” I was salivating just thinking about those nachos and enchiladas.
“I knew it. Where else but Chuy’s? It’s always Chuy’s with you, my predictable charmer.”
There were four or five Tex-Mex places around town I could eat at and enjoy, but I never turned down Chuy’s. I had about a zillion and two of their T-shirts.
“But, since we’re going to church after, let’s forego the Chuy’s shirt tonight? Okay?”
Mom was not all that amused by Chuy’s humor. I, on the other hand, thought what they screened on their shirts was hilarious. Usually they played off of current events or popular movies, and most of the time, the shirts were right on target.
“You got it, Mom. No T-shirt. But can we sit in the Elvis shrine?”
The legend of Chuy’s states that Chuy’s in South Austin once had a tortilla with the image of Elvis in it. So, natch, the Elvis Shrine table.
“I don’t know if I feel comfortable sitting in a shrine to that man. After all, shrines are supposed to be religious places.”
“Well, there are a lot of people who worship the king—of rock ’n’ roll, that is!”
“Jacob Hardy, if I weren’t so tired and so very glad to have you home, I might let you goad me into that bruising you’re cruising for.”
I loved it when Mom dusted off her grandmother’s old sayings—“cruisin’ for a bruising.” I laughed at Mom, then gave her a hug. She can be a great mom. When she’s not high on church, c
hurch, church. Which is most of the time, but I take the lighter moments when I can get ’em.
My hug must have been a little tighter than I intended because she stumbled a bit, gasping, “Okay, Jakie. I love you too.” Well, that just made me squeeze harder. “Enough. I need to breathe a few hours longer here.”
I released her. She kissed me on the cheek.
It was good to be home and back on familiar ground. Mom was Mom… nothing hidden there.
She smiled at me.
“Give me a few minutes to freshen up, and then we’ll go, okay?”
CHUY’S WAS awesome, as usual. I spent the time, between bites, giving Mom the G-rated story of my vacation. She demanded I tell her everything, but there were a lot of details I just wasn’t going into. I still felt like she knew most of it, but I didn’t want a big discussion. Partly because I wanted to enjoy my Chuy’s and partly because I didn’t want all the negatives flooding my soul once again. So my account was basically, “The Basketball Hall of Fame was neat, Boston was fun, Portland was really pretty.”
“That’s where that beautiful little bowl came from, isn’t it? I just love it so much. It was very thoughtful of you to get it for me.” Then she added, “But you shouldn’t have.”
That’s what her voice said. Her eyes showed she was happy as a clam (another of her grandmother’s expressions) that I brought her that gift.
“No sweat. I saw it and decided it was you.”
“Well, I’ll cherish it. It came from my thoughtful son.” She touched my hand.
“Enough, enough. It’s not like I bought you a diamond necklace.” I pushed her hand away, but I smiled to let her know that I wasn’t mad. “Now, where was I? Oh yeah—the CAT ferry was incredible, Nova Scotia is beautiful….”
“So it is, is it? And have you gotten used to the idea of your dad living there?”
“Yeah,” I said, not adding anything else. But I had to wonder what she thought about the upcoming big gay wedding. With her stance against gay marriage, I’d expect her to be livid about Dad’s plans to play house with his Paulie. But Mom had never said a word to turn me against Dad, so I knew she wasn’t about to spout anything against him now. I could maybe pull it out of her, but I pushed that thought away. We were having fun here.
“And,” she sighed, “I have to ask. Did your Dad drag you all over Halifax because of his beloved Titanic?”
“Don’t ya know it. But it was bearable.”
Mom had had her fill of Titanic too, so she thankfully didn’t ask me to elaborate. She did, though, ask if I had found out anything about the other Jacob Hardy.
“I got mostly nowhere.” I gave her a quick rundown of all the details. “I hit a dead end, and I guess I just gave up.” And other things raised their ugly heads, I didn’t add.
“But you were so excited when you told me about finding Jacob’s grave.”
What could I say that wouldn’t lead into the spilling of my guts about my quarrels with Dad? “I was. I guess I just got distracted on the rest of the trip.”
She bought that without further explanation. Thank God.
I grabbed a mint on my way out the door. Mom handed me the car keys. “Now, drive carefully,” she admonished. I had only been driving for a few months, so she was always a little nervous when she let me take the wheel. But she was right about one thing, I was ready for that driving test. License. Monday. Certainty.
And I did just fine chauffeuring her. I managed to keep it just under the speed limit the whole way, and no one honked at me once.
When we got to the church, I steered the car into the massive parking lot, trying to get a spot near the door that led to the meeting rooms.
I killed the engine, and Mom said, “That was some very nice driving, Jacob. I’m proud of you.”
It’s funny, I thought, how little things can make you feel like you’re king of the world. Then I realized where that phrase came from, thought of Le-ho, flashed on Dad, and felt miserable again. No, don’t think about him. You’re home now, and you’ve got a life here.
Mom led the way to her meeting room. “This will be over in two hours. You can go play basketball if you want. I’m sure some of the youth are there now. They’re here every night on the court.”
I thought of that and decided I didn’t want to deal with anyone tonight trying to push me around and grab a ball out of my hands.
“Why don’t I just sit in the back of the room, here? I promise I’ll be quiet.”
She looked at me like I was crazy. It’s not every day that I join her in one of her causes. In fact, it had never happened. She shook her head and said, “Well, if that’s what you want.”
The room quickly filled up with lots of different types of people. Some were in business suits, others were in shorts and flip-flops. There were both men and women. And there were even children. The youngest looked to be about six; the oldest couldn’t have been much older than I was.
They milled about, greeting like they hadn’t seen each other in ages, and I knew full well most of them were like Mom, at the church every time the doors opened. Like every other megachurch in the land, Mom’s church bred pod people like that.
Reverend Stillmore came in and immediately said, “Shall we pray?”
Everyone bowed their heads except me. I never did. It stemmed from when I was real little and wanted to know what everyone else was doing during those prayers.
“Most gracious Lord,” Stillmore intoned—he was a Baptist preacher, after all—“we come to you this evening asking for strength, strength to fight one of the greatest battles of this century. We must be the Davids who fight this Goliath. Help us defeat the mayor’s gay agenda. Help us to affirm your spirit, Lord. Give us the power to vanquish activist judges. Make us lightning rods to strike down the ultraliberal city leaders. Let us do your work, Lord. Let us fight HERO. Let us turn out the vote in November that will eradicate it from the books. No man in a dress shall ever be empowered to molest our wives and our children. In Jesus’s precious Holy Name, amen.”
There was a chorus of amens. And I found my mind racing.
It never occurred to me that this was the kind of meeting Mom meant. I should have known, but when you’ve spent half your life with a mother who is into every church cause there is, you sometimes just don’t think. I mean, after all, she also chaired a committee to ban cell phone use while driving in the church parking lot.
I craned my head to see Mom in the first row. She beamed.
“Okay, folks, let’s get down to business. How are we doing on our calling?” the reverend asked.
Mom spoke up, “Our committee is proud to report that we’ve called the offices of every city council member. We think we can count on some of them to support our cause.”
“Grand. So we’re being heard.”
“Well, by some, we think,” Mom said. “Most of the time, we only talk to staff members, and they promise to pass our message on. I hope they do, but we’re not naïve. We all know that they’re trained in what and what not to say. They have to keep all the voters happy, not just the ones that agree with their bosses. Being loud and obnoxious won’t gain us any points with the staffers.”
“You’re right about that,” a woman in the third row said. “But talking on the phone is not the only thing we can do. We need to do something bigger, something more dramatic. We can’t risk the ultraliberals destroying the fabric of our society. We’ve got to get out there and make the majority, the God-fearing people like us, get out and vote against this abomination.” She was shouting by the time she finished.
Destroying the fabric of society? One thing Dad explained was that gay people are denied so much. They need rights, like anybody else. That’s what HERO was all about. I could still be livid at my dad and believe everything he said about gay rights. And why oh why did they always latch on to the ridiculous word abomination? I’m not even very religious, and I know that the real abomination is not following the commandment to love one another.
“Look,” a man shouted out. “We’re going to get nowhere if we keep spouting negativity about the gays. Yes, we know they’re sinners. Yes, we know our rights end where theirs begin. But there are too many people out there who don’t think the way we think. We have to focus on the transgender thing. That’s how we’ll defeat this ordinance. No men should be allowed in women’s bathrooms to molest our wives and our children!”
The place erupted. Shouts of agreement pierced the air.
The gay-rights thing aside, I did find myself questioning the bathroom-rights thing. They were all worked up over somebody who just wants to pee in peace? I don’t even begin to understand transgendered people, but from what I’ve seen of them on TV, it’s not like they are out there with AR15s shooting up the land. Seems to me, they just want to live happy.
How many of you people are happy? I almost shouted.
Then I realized that was something Dad would do. I didn’t want to take his side, not now, not ever. Not after the trip from hell.
“Yes, and this is Texas… a very conservative state. History is on our side,” a little lady in the front chimed in, all politeness and lace.
“Yeah, well,” a muscled bald guy roared, “don’t forget that sooner or later Texas gives in to pressure. You remember the civil rights movement, don’t you?”
What is he saying? Does he think people just caved in when it came to the black struggle? From what I’ve been taught, it was a bloody, bloody battle to get rights for African Americans. And this battle is pretty much the same thing. These people right here have proven they’re not going to give up without a fight.
“Now,” the little lady countered, “I don’t think we need to get racist here.” Muscles laughed at her. She looked over her shoulder, burning her message into him. “Black folks deserved their rights. They didn’t ask to be born with a different color skin. Homosexuals are different. I’m not sure we can make a comparison between our black brothers and sisters and these sinners.”
Titanic Summer Page 14