Idaho Code

by Joan Opyr

  “How come we have three and they only have two?”

  Suzy laughed. “They were counting on the minister from the American Baptist Church, but unfortunately, they didn’t check with him first. He opposes Proposition One.”

  “I just hope it doesn’t look too lopsided,” Tipper sighed. “If we want to win over the muddled middle, then this needs to be a real debate. We need to win on points, not numbers.”

  Suzy disagreed. “Who cares if it’s lopsided, just so long as we win? Besides, Jones by himself is a match for any two reasonable people. He’ll be whipping out the hellfire, brimstone, and Leviticus, and the rhetoric will get so hot that any reasonable argument will just burst into flames.”

  “That bad?”

  “Take my word for it, sweetie,” he replied. “It won’t be pretty.”

  It was just after four when I got to Sylvie’s apartment. I took the stairs quickly, still pumped up from my workout. Nancy answered the door on the second knock. She looked less than pleased to see me again.

  “She’s not here,” she said shortly and moved to close the door.

  “Wait . . . where is she?” She shrugged. “Well, could I leave a message? A note?”

  She stared at me for a long moment before saying, “Wait here,” and disappearing into the living room. She came back with an envelope and handed it to me. “She left this for you.”

  It was addressed in Sylvie’s firm, dark script. I walked back down the stairs slowly, waiting until I got into my truck to open it. It said:

  Bil—I’ ve gone out to my mother’ s to talk some things over before the meeting tonight. I’ ll walk over the ridge and meet you at Tipper’ s. I love you, Sylvie.

  That was it. I sat for a minute trying to figure out what it meant and came up with several possibilities. The one that worried me the most was that she might confront her mother with what we knew, or at least what we suspected. I didn’t want her to do that without me. I’d come to accept the idea that Kate had killed her husband and that my mother had helped her hide the evidence, and whether I liked it or not, it was now my secret, too.

  I went home to shower and change before heading out to Tipper’s. Emma and Sam were sitting on the sofa, watching cartoons. My mother was laughing heartily, and Sam looked happy and relaxed. I briefly considered asking them to come to the meeting and then decided against it. If it was going to be as awful as Suzy seemed to think, then I didn’t want them there.

  I reached Tipper’s house at five-thirty. He and his mother were sitting side by side on the softball field, shooting at targets. Everyone else was sitting behind them with their hands over their ears. I got out of the truck, waiting until Tipper had fired before shutting my door. He waved at me.

  “Bil, come over here. I’ve got a bet with Mommie dearest. If she wins, she gets to smoke in the kitchen.” He sniffed in disgust.

  “I see. And if you win?”

  “Then I get a prescription for the nicotine patch,” the Captain replied.

  “So how does this work,” I asked, “and what you using?” I squinted down the firing range at the targets, which were about two hundred yards away.

  “.308’s,” the Captain said. “Tipper’s using his old Winchester 70, but mine’s an 800 action Remington. Look at that,” she held the rifle out for me to admire.

  “It’s beautiful,” I said, shuddering to think how much money the Captain must have dropped at gun shows over the years. “But is it entirely fair?”

  “Shut up,” Tipper said. “My old Winchester is perfectly good. We’re shooting five groups of three at two hundred yards. That should separate the fags from the dykes.”

  “Sitting, not prone?” I asked.

  “Sitting. Although I did offer to let her lie down, seeing as she’s an old lady.”

  “And I offered to shoot an apple off his head,” the Captain grinned.

  “You’ll never get a decisive outcome at two hundred,” I objected. “You’re both too good. Why not make it one group of three at three hundred yards?”

  Tipper and his mother looked at one another.

  “Three hundred, prone,” Tipper said.

  “Sitting,” the Captain answered, unable to resist the challenge. She was wearing her amber shooting glasses and clearly feeling cocky.

  Tipper looked at me doubtfully, but he agreed.

  “Hold this,” the Captain said, handing me her rifle. I held it as I’d been taught, the breech resting on the crook of my arm, the barrel pointing down at the ground. The Captain and Jane walked out onto the field to move the targets back.

  “Thanks a hell of a lot,” Tipper whispered. “Now you’ve guaranteed that my mother will get emphysema, and I’ll have to live with a smoke-filled kitchen.”

  The Captain came back and sat down. There was some rustling behind us until I gave Suzy the eye. He settled down quietly to watch. The Captain and Tipper each fired three shots.

  “Shall I do the honors?” I asked. I retrieved the targets from the bullet traps and brought them back for inspection. Both groupings were good, but one was slightly better than the other.

  “Sorry,” I said, handing the Captain the targets.

  Tipper handed his rifle to me, hiked up his skirt, and danced around the field. The Captain took it well, though I caught her closely inspecting the sight on her rifle.

  In the kitchen, the Captain made a show of breaking her cigars in two and throwing them into the trash. Then we gathered around the table, the Radical Faeries perched up on the counters, and we discussed strategy.

  We decided that the thing to do was ask intelligent questions and to remain calm at all costs, no matter what was said. We needed to look like reasonable people. Jane suggested at one point that perhaps Tipper and Suzy should consider wearing suits, but the Captain said, “Nonsense, Jane. This is about who we are, not who they think we are.”

  In the end, Suzy opted for a plaid kilt with a neat white blouse, and Tipper just wore jeans.

  “I’m having a butch spell,” he explained. “I expect it will pass.”

  We waited until a quarter to seven for Sylvie. Then the others got ready to leave, and I promised to follow as soon as Sylvie arrived. As they were climbing into their cars, a full-size pickup truck came up the driveway. It stopped in front of the house, and Kate and Sylvie stepped out.

  “Sorry we’re late,” Sylvie said, kissing me. “My mother’s decided to come to the meeting.”

  I was too surprised to know what to say. Thankfully, the Captain came to my rescue, stepping forward and holding out her hand. “Hi Kate,” she said. “I’m glad you’re with us.”

  Kate smiled and shook her hand. “Every little bit counts. These are scary times for all of us.”

  “They are indeed. So, who’s riding with whom? Tipper’s driving my car, and Jane’s driving the van. I assume Sylvie’s riding with Bil.”

  “I can take someone,” Kate offered, “possibly even two, if you don’t mind being cramped.”

  “You can take me,” the Captain replied. “The van always makes me a little seasick.”

  Jane looked as if she were about to object. Then she thought better of it and took her place behind the wheel. The Faeries piled into the station wagon, the Folksong Army into the van, and we rode in a convoy to the Community Center.

  As we drove downtown, I took Sylvie’s hand.

  “So, I guess you’re now out to your mother?”

  “I’m out,” she said, smiling. “I told her about us, so I guess you could say we’re out.”

  When we arrived at the Community Center, there was a large crowd already assembled. The Lesbian Avengers were sitting on the front row, all wearing T-shirts that featured a ticking bomb and the logo, “Lesbian Avengers—We Recruit.” They looked like a cross between Dykes on Bikes and the Guardian Angels, and I envied them. A. J. smiled, and I nodded and waved. Sylvie gave me a sharp pinch on the backside, which made me laugh.

  Sarah and Ruth were in the audience, as was my grandmo
ther. They sat on opposite sides of the room, my sisters just three rows in front of me. Sarah turned around and winked, and Ruth looked over her shoulder and raised her eyebrows. I tried to ignore them, though I made sure that Granny saw me by waving every time she turned her head. Reluctantly, she waved back. Helen was with her, scowling, as usual.

  “I think Reverend Jones has brought an amen corner,” I whispered to Tipper.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “We’ve got our own.”

  The moderator, a tall man with an ill-fitting toupee, introduced the combatants and then began the debate by reading the text of Proposition One. The legalese seemed a little fudged to me, but the gist of it was that no law protecting the civil rights of gays or lesbians could be passed in any county or town in the state of Idaho. There was also a lot of language about prohibiting state funds from being used to promote homosexuality.

  The woman from the Idaho Library Association spoke first. She spoke eloquently and at length about those parts of the proposition that would affect the purchase and distribution of library materials. If Proposition One were enacted, she said, collection development at both public and academic libraries would be seriously compromised. She also estimated that it would cost an astronomical amount of money if libraries were forced to restrict access to any materials regarding homosexuality to those over eighteen.

  “We’d have to set up something akin to the beaded curtain at your local video store,” she said. “This proposition is so broadly worded that we might have to restrict access to the Bible, which, as you are aware, makes some mention of homosexuality.”

  The Republican representative, Phil McCauley, was given two minutes to respond. His answer was that the Idaho Library Association exaggerated both the scope of the law and its potential costs. Then he gave a speech about tradition and family values. The idea of two gay people raising a child seemed to make him particularly unhappy.

  “The gay agenda,” he said, “has to do with social engineering. The American family is currently under attack, and homosexuality contributes to our moral decline.”

  “I wish I could make myself temporarily deaf,” I whispered to Sylvie. She wrapped her arm around my waist but said nothing.

  The Reverend Jones agreed to let the UCC minister and the ACLU attorney speak one after the other, and he allowed McCauley to deliver the rebuttal for both of them. This gave him the chance to make a big closing speech and then walk off in godly triumph.

  He rose to speak, smiling, his helmet of brown hair perfectly sprayed into place. He looked handsome and distinguished in a plastic way. Worse yet, he looked plausible. Suzy stirred in his seat. The Captain laid a hand on his knee and squeezed it reassuringly.

  Jones began by reading from Genesis: “For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother, and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.” He looked out at us and nodded slowly, as if the meaning of what he’d said was only just beginning to dawn on him.

  “Friends, we are all born of one man and one woman. This is the human condition as God has created it, as he has intended it to be, and as it has indeed remained for time immemorial. The fact that we are made by the union of male and female is what unites us and defines us. In supporting Proposition One, what you are being asked to do is simply to reaffirm the laws of nature, created by God, and recognized and revered by our Judeo-Christian forefathers.”

  Several heads on the right-hand side of the room had already begun to nod in affirmation, including my grandmother’s. I resisted the urge to go over and shake her until her false teeth rattled. Jones spoke on, smiling often and spreading his arms open wide. He didn’t avoid looking at our side of the room, instead casting benevolent and even beseeching looks our way whenever possible. The Lesbian Avengers remained motionless, their arms folded across their chests.

  I glanced over at Suzy, who was sitting very still in his seat, crying. I thought about the time he’d spent in Exodus International, and I felt sorry for all the times I’d found him really irritating. The Captain put her arm around his waist, pulling him close, and Jeff, who was sitting behind him, leaned forward and whispered something in his ear. Suzy nodded and sat up, wiping his eyes.

  Jones went on with his sermon, in full swing now and feeling his power. When he finished, several of his supporters applauded.

  Then, it was time for the questions. One of the Lesbian Avengers asked Jones and McCauley if they followed all of the restrictions laid down in Leviticus.

  “Do you eat shellfish,” she asked, “or wear blended fabrics?”

  Jones smiled and gave a brief lecture on St. Paul’s thinking about Jewish dietary laws.

  There were a few questions for the ACLU attorney and a couple for the UCC minister about open and affirming congregations. She was a good speaker, as effective in her way as Jones, if not as showy. Then, just as things were beginning to wind down, I stood up to ask a question. Summoning the whole of my biblical knowledge, which, thanks to my mother’s strident atheism, was sadly limited, I said to Jones, “You spoke earlier of Paul’s vision. Just which parts of the Bible do you want to see written into Idaho code?”

  He smiled. “Paul is very clear on those parts of the law which are important in a Christian civilization.” Then, looking back at his amen corner, he said, “We should never apologize for our beliefs, and we should never back down.”

  There was scattered applause, but Tipper interrupted, saying, “Excuse me, but I believe that the Bible calls for the stoning of law-breakers. Do you think we should be stoned?”

  Jones paused, and in that moment of hesitation, Suzy stood up. His eyes were red but dry. He said, “Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.”

  For the first time, Jones dropped the smile. His jaws clenched, and in his booming pulpit voice he said, “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind. It is an abomination.”

  “Judge not, lest ye yourselves be judged and found wanting,” Suzy replied. “I sleep with men, sir. Do you think that I should be killed?”

  “I make no apologies for the word of God,” Jones said firmly. “His will be done.”

  The debate, for all intents and purposes, was over. There were a few shocked gasps, but a scary number of people clapped. In the confusion that followed, several people left the room. One of them was my grandmother. I didn’t dare to hope that she’d seen the light. It was more likely that she wanted to be first in line to the bathroom.

  As Suzy brushed past on his way out the back door, I touched his arm.

  “You were great,” I said. “You certainly know your Bible.”

  He smiled grimly. “I also know Jones’ son. Biblically.”

  Chapter 28

  Sylvie and I went for drinks and doughnuts with the Radical Faeries. Kate, Captain Schwartz, and the Folksong Army all declined, pleading old age and fear of insomnia. We took two outdoor tables at the Cowslip Café and pushed them together.

  Suzy lit a cigarette. “I feel it’s incumbent upon me to get in the good reverend’s face whenever I can. I owe that much to the memory of Trevor Jones.”

  “Did he . . . is he dead?” I asked.

  Suzy laughed. “No. He’s living in queer bliss in Portland, Oregon with a lovely Jewish man named Jacob. I meant the memory of our relationship. Between his father and mine, plus all the time we spent together in Exodus, we just couldn’t make it work. Two fundamentalist preachers’ kids—it was a nightmare. Besides, it would take more than proselytizing to kill Trevor. Or me, for that matter.”

  “It would take stoning,” Tipper observed. “Can you believe that bastard?”

  We sat in silence for a while. Then, gradually, small conversations began to build up again. Jeff and Brian argued about the Seattle Mariners, Alan and Suzy told each other off-color butt jokes, and Tom did his best to flirt with Tipper, who pretended to be indifferent.

  “Well,” I said t
o Sylvie, “here we are, odd dykes out.”

  “Do you really mind?” She was leaning back in her chair, holding my hand. People walked by, and one or two cast us a backward glance.

  “I don’t mind at all. Sometimes, it’s nice to be alone in a big crowd.”

  “There is safety in numbers,” she agreed. She looked tired but happy.

  “What did you say to your mother?”

  “I told her about us. I said that I loved you, and that I wanted to be out to her.”

  “And what did she say?”

  “First,” she squeezed my hand, “she said how much she liked you. She said she was happy for us. Most of all, she was happy that I told her. Then we talked about my father.”

  “Your father?” I sat up in my chair.

  “Not about that,” she said in a low voice. “We talked about the rumors. I told her how I felt about them, how they’d kept me from telling her long after I knew I was gay. She said she was sorry she hadn’t contradicted the story before, but she didn’t know how to broach the subject. She’s thought for a long time that I might be a lesbian. She didn’t want to ask, and she didn’t know why I hadn’t told her. Bil, I believe her. That’s why she didn’t say anything. I think . . .”

  We were interrupted by a tap on my shoulder. A. J. and Nancy stood behind us. A. J. was smiling her broad, sharky grin.

  “I thought you might be here,” she said.

  “What do you want?” Tipper piped up. “Planning to set fire to downtown Cowslip to promote lesbian visibility?”

  “I don’t know why you hate me,” A. J. replied. “I’ve never done anything to you, and the Lesbian Avengers have already done a lot of good.” She turned back to Sylvie and me. “I wanted to see if you two could come to our meeting on Sunday night. We’re planning an action.”