Rapture Practice

by Aaron Hartzler

  As I lie on Jason’s top bunk, I wish it felt that simple to me. I wish I could protect Mom and Dad from who I’ve become. Ever since that day with the radio in the laundry room, I’ve been careful to show them the son they want me to be. I’m good at teaching kids, and singing songs, and playing the piano—I even enjoy all of those things. But I also enjoy Whitney Houston, and movies with Julia Roberts.

  And that’s what troubles me. I’m very good at pretending. Dad taught me how to act and I learned well. What they don’t know won’t hurt them, but how long can I keep hiding it from them? Mom and Dad might not ever find out I went to a movie tonight, but I know I won’t be able to protect my parents from who I am forever. Eventually, they will find out, no matter how careful I am.

  It could happen today.

  It could happen tomorrow.

  It’s only a matter of time.

  EXODUS

  noun : a mass departure

  CHAPTER 8

  A few seconds after the bell rings, I spot Daphne in her cheerleading uniform and slide into the desk she’s saved for me. Not that it matters. Mr. Gregg is late to history class again.

  “Welcome to the jungle,” Daphne says, raising her voice over the din of our unsupervised classroom. This is the period following lunch. Near-lethal doses of Hostess snack cakes and Coca-Cola are flowing through the veins of our classmates.

  “Thrilled to be here,” I say.

  Daphne is one of the few African American students in grades seven through twelve at Blue Ridge Christian School. We met on the first day of seventh grade, and over time she’s become my best friend. From my short-lived, four-game appearance as the first male on the junior high cheerleading squad in eighth grade, to her house burning down during our freshman year, Daphne and I have weathered a number of ordeals, which have run the physical and emotional gamut from ridiculous to life-threatening.

  “Where were you?” she asks.

  “Going over my scenes one last time.” Miss Tyler is holding auditions for the high school play this afternoon.

  “Are you nervous?” Daphne asks.

  “Butterflies.” I point at my stomach. “I could barely eat.”

  A shriek pierces the air from the far side of the room. Daphne jerks, whipping around in her seat as if stunned by a jolt of high voltage.

  “Is that really necessary?” she asks in the general direction of the tumult. Her question is ignored, and she turns back to me with a sigh.

  “Aaron, let’s describe the class.”

  Without hesitation I turn toward the mob scene in front of us and assume the dulcet tones of a pro-golf color commentator:

  “Welcome to Mr. Gregg’s fifth-period U.S. history class, ladies and gentlemen. I’m Aaron Hartzler and this is Daphne Walker. If you’re just joining us now, we’ll try to catch you up on the action already in progress. Dan Krantz seems to be experiencing a full demonic possession as he stands on his chair singing Jerry Lee Lewis’s ‘Great Balls of Fire’ in a special vocal style that can best be described as Helen Keller with a kidney stone.”

  Daphne laughs and continues narrating where I leave off.

  “Rick Street is passing a copy of his father’s Playboy magazine around the room in a Trapper Keeper folder as Stephanie Gutierrez practices a new cheer she’s just made up with the words of the Preamble to the United States Constitution.”

  We continue to crack each other up by quietly summarizing what is going on around us until our teacher arrives. Later, when Mr. Gregg asks Stephanie to name the country he is pointing to on the map, she responds, “Texas.” Daphne turns to me and raises her eyebrows while I gently knock my forehead against my notebook.

  This is why we’re best friends. There is an understanding between us. We get it. There’s a strange comfort in knowing another person bears witness to the absurd moments going on around you—the ones no one else seems to question. Every time Daphne catches my eye, a silent acknowledgment passes between us, and I know I’m not alone.

  When the bell rings, we gather our books.

  “Staying for the game tonight?” she asks.

  I nod. “I’m not sure the clarinet is really necessary in a pep band, but for a game against Tri-City, it’s the best seat in the house.”

  I don’t really care about basketball that much, but the Crusaders of Tri-City Christian School are our biggest rivals. Last season we lost to them on our home court when our best player was ejected from the game for goosing the ref over a bad call.

  “Yes, who knows what drama may erupt on the court tonight?” Daphne says. “Meet me in the gym after school and we’ll go get some food before the game.”

  “I’ll be there right after I get the lead in the play.”

  “Break a leg,” she says.

  This is why I love Daphne. She’s never been in a play, but she knows you don’t say “good luck” before a theater performance. She gets it. I smile all the way down the hall to the drama room door.

  “How’d your audition go?”

  Daphne and I are sitting in the bleachers watching Tri-City’s basketball team and cheerleaders warm up.

  “It went well,” I say, but Daphne’s not buying it.

  “Well?” she asks. “It went ‘well’?”

  I can’t contain my smile. “I nailed it,” I whisper.

  “That’s more like it. Which role do you want?”

  “It’s the supporting male lead,” I say. “He’s got all of the funny lines. Miss Tyler was laughing out loud every time I read.”

  “Of course she was.” Daphne smiles. “When does the cast list go up?”

  “Monday morning.”

  A stray basketball flies toward where we’re sitting. I catch it on a bounce and toss it back to a Tri-City player who has bounded over to fetch it. He is tall and muscular, with curly brown hair.

  “Nice pass,” says Daphne. “You know, you really could’ve been a basketball star. How tall are you now?”

  “Six two,” I say. “And no, I could not have been a basketball star. You remember why I quit.”

  “Oh, right.” She laughs. “Didn’t you make a layup for the wrong team?”

  “Worse. I missed a layup for the wrong team.” I am laughing, too. “And that was after I went to basketball camp that summer and won the Hustle Award.”

  Daphne can barely talk, gasping with her special brand of quiet laughter. “Wait. The Hustle Award? Is that like Most Improved Player or something?”

  “No, Daphne. It is not like Most Improved Player. Most Improved Player is a separate award, an entirely different thing. The handsome plaque I received was for the player who tried the hardest without improving.”

  It feels good to laugh with Daphne about this. Two years ago it was no laughing matter. I hated basketball because I wasn’t good at it. Dad started for his college team and has coached at the college off an on. I certainly inherited his genes, but his knack for and love of the game are sorely missing from my makeup. We’ve always had a hoop in the driveway, and Josh and Miriam are naturals.

  They love it.

  They get it.

  I don’t.

  I have never liked the game enough to practice. I like playing the piano in the family room more than I do one-on-one in the driveway, and after I didn’t make the junior high team that fall in eighth grade, I was relegated to the intramural B team. In our first intramural game someone passed me the ball, and I went for a layup at the A team’s basket. Luckily—or embarrassingly—I missed. I was mortified.

  That night I told my dad, “I don’t understand why millions of people do this for fun.”

  He laughed and said, “You know I don’t care if you play basketball.”

  “Really?” I asked. “Because I’d so much rather play the piano.”

  “Aaron,” he said, “I’m so proud of you. You have so many talents. If you don’t want to play basketball, you don’t have to. Besides, music is the only thing that the Bible says for sure will be in heaven. Spend your time prac
ticing the piano. You’ll be good at that for all eternity.”

  I watch the guy from Tri-City with the curly hair go up for a three-point jump shot. His form is perfect. Swish. Nothin’ but net.

  “That’s what a star basketball player looks like,” I tell Daphne, but she is watching the Tri-City cheerleaders rehearse their halftime routine and pyramid.

  “Their skirts are so long….” her voice trails off.

  “Nearly tea-length,” I say.

  Tri-City Christian is run by a big independent Baptist church and is well known for superconservative rules and a strict dress code. The mascot is the Crusader, a knight with plumes coming out of his helmet. Even when the Tri-City cheerleaders jump, their knees stay covered. It fits somehow, these long skirts on the Crusader women. It seems almost chivalrous, as if when they leave the basketball court, they’ll return to a royal court waiting for them somewhere in Blue Springs, a suburb to the east of the Kingdom of Kansas City.

  “How can they even jump in those things?” Daphne asks. “I’d get my foot hung in the hem and break my neck.”

  “It’s baffling,” I agree. “Like they’re cheerleaders from Little House on the Prairie.”

  “Whatever. It’s nice that they have a couple of black guys on their basketball team. At least it adds some color to the contest.”

  “Red and gold isn’t enough for you?” I ask, nodding at the Native American warrior painted on the floor of our gym.

  “No, Aaron, it’s not,” she says with a smile. “And frankly, I think our mascot may be a little bit racist.”

  “It could be worse,” I say. “At least we’re not the Redskins.”

  “I suppose you’re right.” She checks her watch. “Well, I should go greet the Tri-City squad.”

  “Don’t you mean ‘Tri-Pity’?” I ask with a smirk. Everyone has been referring to our rivals with this nickname all week in anticipation of the game.

  Daphne rolls her eyes. “Be nice,” she says. Then she winks at me and walks toward the corner of the gym to say hello to the girls whose knees are covered by purple and gold.

  Every so often a family from Tri-City will migrate to Blue Ridge. They come bearing horror stories: Girls have to wear culottes during PE class, and bring their junior/senior banquet dresses in to have them approved by a female teacher for “modesty” before the big night. The guys tell stories about getting into serious trouble for going to see movies or listening to the wrong music, benched from their sports games, kicked out of the musical groups and other extracurricular activities.

  I only know a couple of people who go to school there, acquaintances from a church camp I’ve attended; but because Dad trains lots of Christian schoolteachers at the Bible college, he knows a lot of people on staff at Tri-City. He’s friends with the principal and even speaks in their chapel services every now and then. Dad tends to defend the rules and the administration at Tri-City.

  “They are a little strict about some things,” he says, “but their kids sure have an excellent testimony for Christ. They know how to train students who have a sweet spirit about the things of the Lord.”

  Maybe they do, but the students who immigrate to Blue Ridge all have a special bond: the camaraderie of people who have survived something together. You never hear about a family pulling their kids out of Blue Ridge and sending them to Tri-City. It’s always the other way around, and we’re proud to keep it that way.

  A game against Tri-City sets everyone here at Blue Ridge on edge—even a lot of the parents who attend. None of the adults say it out loud, but it feels like there’s this attitude in the air—that because Tri-City has stricter rules and longer skirts, they must think they’re better than we are somehow. It’s almost as if they’re the Crusaders of old, storming Jerusalem to bring truth to the infidels by force.

  The rivalry is fierce, and tonight is no exception. The metal bleachers lining both sides of the gymnasium seem to hum with an electric current, and the fans on both sides are on their feet most of the time.

  Tri-City has twin guards, and the guy I tossed the ball to before the game is their starting center. I find myself watching him as he sinks shot after shot. He never seems to lose his cool, no matter how physical the fouls get. He nails a final jumper at halftime to tie the game, and as I play “Louie Louie” on my clarinet with the pep band, he looks over at us on the stage that stretches across one end of the gymnasium.

  A slow smirk spreads across his face. He shakes his head, then turns and jogs into the visitors’ locker room with the rest of his team. He is so calm and collected it’s almost unnerving—like he has prior knowledge of a secret weapon that will ensure their success. In that moment, I know somehow that we will lose, and I am correct. At the final buzzer, Blue Ridge is down by two.

  While I am putting away my clarinet and Dan Krantz is packing up his trumpet, Dan sees the tall, curly-haired center zipping his warm-up jacket and heading toward the door and their team’s bus in the parking lot. As the player passes us, Dan slams his trumpet case and speaks loudly enough so the guy will hear him.

  “These Tri-Pity kids,” he says in disgust. “They think they’re so much better than us.”

  The guy from the other team stops, and slowly turns around. He looks at Dan, then at me.

  I glance up at the scoreboard. “Tonight, they were better than us.”

  Dan huffs and jumps off the stage into the throng in the gym, as the Tri-City center catches my eye, and nods. It’s a simple thank you, a nod of respect. A silent understanding passes between us. This is the camaraderie of acknowledgment—of surviving an awkward moment, of bearing witness.

  I didn’t get to choose the school I attend. My parents prayed for guidance, then announced God had given them peace about where to enroll all of us the fall of my seventh-grade year. I’ll bet this guy from Tri-City didn’t choose his school, either. He turns to leave, and I watch him push through the door into the parking lot. As he slips out of sight, I feel genuinely sorry for him and very fortunate, all at once.

  CHAPTER 9

  Monday morning, during second period, Miss Tyler posts the cast list on her classroom door. There’s a crowd of upperclassmen in front of us by the time Daphne and I get all the way down the hall. Luckily, I’m tall enough to peer over the heads of everyone in front of me, and I see my name: It’s fourth on the list, right next to the character I want to play.

  “Congratulations.” Daphne’s a head shorter than I am. There’s no way she can see the paper hanging on Miss Tyler’s door.

  “How did you know?” I ask her.

  “The subtlety of your gigantic smile.” Daphne has mastered the art of the perfectly timed, comically droll understatement.

  “That big, huh?”

  “From space, Aaron. You could see it from space.”

  “Well, darlin’ that’s just wonderful.”

  Nanny is the first person I call when I get home from school. It’s a slow night in the cardiology department in Memphis, so she has time to talk. “I was telling the nurses up in the unit about you the other day: ‘That Aaron has it all. He’s the most talented kid I got.’ ”

  I smile when she says this. I know she shouldn’t have favorites, but I’m secretly glad she does.

  “Now, when do y’all practice?” she asks.

  “Mostly during drama class and after school,” I say. “Sometimes we rehearse during study hall.”

  “Well, you be careful. All sorts of things can happen in study hall. Just ask your mama.”

  I don’t have to ask, but I love hearing the story the way Nanny tells it.

  When Mom was a junior in high school, Papa was transferred from his job in Memphis to Kansas City. Mom enrolled at the school where my dad had recently started teaching junior high classes part-time while he worked on his master’s degree. It was a small school, and the junior and senior high students attended class in the same buildings. One day, Dad poked his head into the door of Mom’s senior high study hall and asked the teach
er if a couple of the girls could help him grade history papers. When a friend of Mom’s volunteered, Mom came along to help, and apparently Dad was hooked.

  They claim nothing ever happened until they were married. Nanny says nothing would’ve happened at all if it hadn’t been for a random bout of histoplasmosis.

  “That winter your papa was traveling a lot for work, and some birds built a nest in the chimney. I was allergic to their droppings, which I wound up breathing in through the flue over the fireplace. Got sick as a dog and didn’t know why. Your papa was away, and I couldn’t get outta the bed.”

  “And that’s when Dad showed up?” I smile into the phone.

  “Oh, yes, sir. Here comes your daddy stopping by every other day: ‘Oh, Mrs. Davis, can I do this? Oh, Mrs. Davis, let me help you with that.’ I knew he was sweet on your mama, and I told him we had it under control, but I was finally so sick I couldn’t move—thought I might go home to be with Jesus. Next thing I know, there’s your daddy shovelin’ the walk.”

  Nanny’s laugh makes me grin. “Well, Dad is persistent,” I say.

  “And so handsome,” Nanny says. “Couple months before your mama graduated, Papa got transferred back to Memphis, but we let your mom stay with a friend in Kansas City until she graduated. She got her diploma, then moved back down here to start college. Your daddy started flying down to see her, and it wasn’t long before they were engaged.”

  There’s something so romantic about the way my parents met. Dad is still every student’s favorite teacher at the Bible college. He’s got news-anchor good looks and a folksy Midwestern charm that belies his PhD. It doesn’t surprise me that Mom fell in love with him.

  “Your mama could’ve had any boy she wanted,” Nanny says.

  “She probably still could,” I say, and Nanny laughs.

  Mom is a pint-size Southern beauty who looks like Sally Field in Steel Magnolias, only she has freckles across her nose like I do. (Kiss marks, she insists. Left behind by angels.) She’s only five feet tall and looks miniature next to Dad.