Sometimes Dad comes home from the Bible college with a fistful of flowers, and picks Mom up in the kitchen, and twirls her around in his arms while she giggles and shouts for Dad to put her down this instant, before she breaks his back.
When I was a little boy, watching this made me feel a special giddiness in my stomach—the same way I felt when I lay by the pool looking up at puffy white clouds in a wide Missouri sky, wondering if Jesus might appear in one of them right that second.
Dad was sort of like Jesus in those moments, showing up unannounced from work and sweeping Mom into the air. There was joy and excitement—a certain breathlessness about the whole affair. It seemed to stir up those feelings in all of us. Joshua, Miriam, and Caleb would race into the kitchen to be a part of it, too. When Dad finally put Mom down, she would stand on her tiptoes on top of his shoes, and they’d kiss while we giggled and squirmed between them, squealing and trying to pry them apart.
Now that we’re older, none of us try to stop Mom and Dad when they make out in the kitchen. Josh and Miriam are usually outside making basketball a blood sport in the driveway, and Caleb just rolls his eyes at me, then diplomatically suggests Mom and Dad might be more comfortable in the privacy of their bedroom.
But I like it.
There’s something great about knowing my parents are still into each other.
Nanny has to get off the phone. She’s been called to the ER to do an EKG.
“Now, Aaron, your papa and I are coming to see this play of yours,” she says. “Gonna buy the plane tickets tomorrow.”
I can’t believe it. They rarely come to Kansas City to see us. We always go to Memphis to see them. I tell her the dates, and she writes them down.
“Nanny, are you sure?” I ask.
“Of course I am, darlin.’ Wouldn’t miss it for all the tea in China.”
She tells me that she loves me, and how proud she is of me, and makes me promise to be careful in study hall.
“You’d be surprised how one thing leads to another,” she says. “Bird poop, sugar. It’s the reason y’all are all here.”
I am shopping in Water Tower Place on Michigan Avenue in Chicago with my church youth group. Our youth pastor, Jack, drove us up for a quick weekend trip to see the sights. We’ve visited the whales at Shed Aquarium and been to the top of Sears Tower, and now we’re shopping until dinner at Ed Debevic’s. Since I got that part in the play on Monday, my week has gotten better and better.
The only bad part is that my sort-of girlfriend, Erin (yes, we have the same name), couldn’t come, due to a scheduling conflict. She is my “sort-of” girlfriend because we really only see each other at church events and talk on the phone. I did take her to homecoming at Blue Ridge last fall, and once last month we kissed in an empty Sunday school room in the church basement next to the choir rehearsal room.
I’ve been looking for the perfect souvenir to take back to her all morning, but I don’t want it to be anything Chicago-themed. I want to get her something I know she’ll really like. Flipping through CDs at a music store with my friends, I see the perfect gift. As I am taking the Pretty Woman sound track to the cash register, I hear Pastor Jack behind me.
“Are you sure your parents will be okay with you buying that?”
An arrow of anger shoots up my spine. He’s not asking any of my friends about whether or not their parents will like the music they’re buying. He’s supposed to be cool. He lets us listen to Amy Grant in the van, and my parents wouldn’t like that, either.
“Oh, it’s not for me,” I say nonchalantly. “It’s for Erin.”
“Isn’t Pretty Woman an R-rated movie?” he presses.
“I guess. I’ve never seen it,” I lie, “but the music is so great. You’ve heard the Roy Orbison song, right?”
“Sure,” he says.
I can tell he wants to say more, so before he can, I head to the checkout line, and hand the CD to the clerk. I’m so angry that my hands shake as I take the cash out of my wallet to pay for it. This is my own money. I earned it working at my part-time job at the ice rink. I can spend it on whatever I want. Jack only asked about my parents because he knows them. He knows how conservative they are. I hate this situation. I hate that he’s right. Of course my parents wouldn’t want me to buy this CD.
I don’t want to think about them right now. I don’t want to feel guilty. I don’t want to worry that I’m disappointing them, or disobeying God’s command to obey them. I don’t think God really cares what CD I buy for my sort-of girlfriend.
I take a deep breath and smile as the clerk hands me a bag with the CD in it. I don’t understand why it seems I have to go through this over every choice I make. I try not to think about my parents for the rest of the trip.
On the way back home in the van, I memorize lines for the play, and when I see Erin the next Wednesday night, I give her the CD.
She loves it.
See? I made the right choice.
It’s no big deal. Mom and Dad will never know.
“Hey, Aaron.”
It’s Dad. He’s stuck his head in my bedroom door. I casually close the purple paperback I’m reading, and deftly slide it under the bed. It’s a copy of To Kill a Mockingbird. My cousin Sadie slipped it to me at Christmastime along with One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and The Silence of the Lambs. She’s taking AP English at her public school in Memphis, and there are all these books on her reading list that I’ve never even heard of before. I know Dad and Mom wouldn’t want me reading To Kill a Mockingbird because it deals with a rape. I can see Dad has something on his mind. Probably best not to complicate the issue with a book I shouldn’t be reading.
“What’s up?” I ask him.
“When you went to Chicago with the youth group last month, you said that Erin didn’t go, right?”
Instantly, my stomach is in knots. What does he know?
“No, she had midterms that week.”
“You said you bought her a souvenir—a CD, right?” he asked.
“Yes.”
Dad looks down at the carpet in the room I share with my brother. I stand up and grab my backpack. I have homework to do and lines to review before tomorrow’s rehearsal.
“Aaron, I talked to Pastor Jack today.”
Crap.
Dad is looking at me with his “grieved” eyes. I hate this look. It’s the look that says “I’m disappointed” without a single word. I don’t want to disappoint Dad, but it’s getting harder not to. So much normal stuff disappoints him.
“When I asked you if you bought Erin a souvenir on the trip, you told me that you got her a classical CD,” Dad says. “Is that the truth?”
“I said I bought her a classic CD,” I hedge.
“Was it classical music?”
“It was oldies. Roy Orbison.”
Even as the words tumble out of my mouth, they sound lame. I’m smarter than this, and Dad knows it. It’s insulting. Why do excuses like this always work so much better in my head? When Jack asked me if my parents would be cool with my buying this CD, why did I justify it by being able to say Roy Orbison is “classic rock”? What made me think Dad would consider this a reasonable excuse if it came up? My stomach is doing backflips right now. I think I might throw up, and I’m angry. Why do I have to lie about buying this CD in the first place?
“Jack told me that it was the sound track to an R-rated movie you bought,” Dad says quietly. “Is that true, son?”
“Yes, it was a sound track, but—”
“Have you seen the movie Pretty Woman, Aaron?”
I roll my eyes like this very idea is a personal affront, like he’s being utterly ridiculous. “Dad, when would I have seen that movie? Even if I were allowed to go to the theater, I can’t get into an R-rated movie yet. I’m only sixteen.”
He seems satisfied by this, but I know he isn’t stopping here.
“Last weekend, your mom came with me when I spoke at that little church out in Kansas,” he says quietly. “We we
re in our hotel room Sunday night and, flipping through the TV channels, we came across part of Pretty Woman. Aaron, that movie is about a man who hires…” He pauses, barely able to continue. “… a prostitute.”
The word swings from Dad’s lips toward the ceiling like a trapeze artist, somersaulting through the air in slow motion, high above the net.
Pros-ti-tute.
“We turned it off right away,” Dad says quietly.
Of course they did. So they didn’t see the funny and touching and sweet parts. They only saw the sexy parts.
Dad looks down at the carpet again, and when he looks back up at me, his eyes are filled with tears. “Why would you buy your girlfriend the music to a movie about a man paying money to use a woman sexually?”
I feel split down the middle. Part of me wants to run to my dad and wipe his eyes and beg him not to cry. I want to tell him that it’s okay, that I’m sorry I lied, that I’m sorry I am lying now. I want to bury my face in his neck the way I used to when I was little and we hauled firewood in his old ’57 Chevy pickup truck—the light blue one with freckles of rust and no seat belts. Long before laws requiring children to be strapped down, I’d stand on the seat next to him, pinned in by his right elbow, my left arm around his neck. I’d lay my head on his shoulder against his soft flannel work shirt and watch the landscape fly by.
The other part of me knows that there’s no way to make this better for Dad, and hot tears of frustration well up in my eyes. I don’t see anything wrong with this movie, or movies in general. I don’t think God does, either. This movie made me feel good when I watched it. If it was so sinful, why would God allow me to like it so much?
I’m angry I have to lie about the music I listen to, and the CDs I buy, and the movies I see. I want to make my own decisions about these things and not be questioned, or have to sneak around. Why does Dad have to make this a big deal? I’m not a bad kid. After all, I didn’t buy a prostitute. I only bought a CD.
I can barely breathe as I struggle not to throw my backpack against the floor. But I don’t. My fear tempers my anger with practicality. Time to cut my losses, minimize the damage, and brace for what comes next—probably the belt. I haven’t been spanked in a while, but no matter how I cut it, this is deceit, pure and simple; there’s no getting around it. I’ve been caught. I can argue the semantics of “classic rock” versus “classical music” all night long, but it’s not going to do any good.
“Why, Aaron?” Dad repeats himself, waiting for an answer.
This is not a rhetorical question. He really wants to know, and stares directly into my eyes, trying to find the answer.
“I don’t know,” I say quietly.
For the first time tonight, I’m telling the truth. I don’t know why I like this music and this movie so much. My brain goes all mushy when Dad asks these kinds of questions—it’s like slush. I can’t marshal the words that so rarely fail me.
How do I tell Dad that of all the movies I saw last summer with Jason, Pretty Woman was my favorite? That one day I want to live in Los Angeles and climb up a fire escape with flowers in my hand for somebody I’m not supposed to love? There’s a crazy guy on the street at the beginning and end of the movie who walks around saying, “Everybody’s got a dream. What’s your dream?”
My dream is to be an actor and live in that sunny city and ride around in a limousine and make movies like Pretty Woman and have my dad see me in them—really see me—and not mutter “sick” and change the channel. I dream that one day my dad will watch the whole story and see that the man who searches everywhere for love finds it in the place he least expects it. I don’t know if my dream pleases God or not, but it pleases me. And doesn’t God love me? Doesn’t he want me to be happy? It feels like everything I like is always wrong.
I don’t know how to say any of that. Instead, I whisper, “I’m sorry.”
Dad looks at me, perplexed. “Didn’t you know that if you asked me if you could buy that CD for Erin that I’d say no?” Dad asks.
“Yes.” I speak softly, trying not to let too much slip out.
“And yet you did it anyway. Then when I asked you about it, you lied to me because you wanted to have your way. You wanted to make your own decisions, instead of honoring your father and mother. God’s word calls that rebellion.”
I take a deep breath and close my eyes. Here comes the snake.
“Satan was an angel before he was a serpent, Aaron. Lucifer—the angel of light—the most powerful angel in heaven. What does the Bible say was Lucifer’s sin?”
“Rebellion,” I say.
As Dad works his way through the rebellion speech one more time, I feel the scorn clawing its way up the back of my throat. I know all of this. I’ve heard it so many times I could give the speech myself.
“Satan wants to murder you, to take your soul to hell for all eternity. You’ve trusted Jesus as your savior, so he can’t do that, but he’d love nothing more than to murder your testimony for Jesus Christ by tempting you with all the things that this sinful world has to offer: the movies, and the rock music, the sex…”
“Dad, I don’t go to movies,” I lie, “or have sex.” This is true, but Dad doesn’t seem to hear me.
“This is more than a lie about a CD,” Dad says. “This is about you choosing whether or not you are going to serve the Lord Jesus Christ.”
I can’t stand it any longer. “So, are you going to give me a whipping?”
Dad looks past me and rubs a hand over his thick auburn hair. When he focuses on me again, there’s a faraway look in his eyes, as if he’s seeing a stranger.
“Son, I don’t think a whipping is going to fix this. You’re too old to spank.”
Something about this news should be comforting. Instead, it’s chilling. If he’s not going to spank me…
“I am so grieved about this that I don’t know exactly what to do. Your mom and I have been praying about how to discipline you. She is as heartbroken about your rebellion as I am.”
They’ve known about it for days. This was an ambush. I walked right into it. Dad gave me enough rope to hang myself. As I swing from the gallows of my own deceit, tears fill his eyes again.
“Do you remember when you were little and you asked me who spanked me when I did something wrong? Do you remember what I told you?”
Dad waits. I don’t want to be having this conversation. I feel a desperate panic in the pit of my stomach.
“You said God spanked you, but not with a belt; that there are some things that God allows to happen as the consequences of our actions that are worse than a spanking.”
Dad crosses his arms and leans against the wall in my room. His gaze wanders past me toward the ceiling.
“I’ve been praying about this, Aaron, searching for the answer. How do I handle my own son lying to me?”
He pauses. The silence is horrible.
“I’ve talked to your mom about it, and I feel like you need to lose something that’s so important to you that you’ll never forget this lesson.”
I can’t swallow. I can’t blink. I stare at Dad, waiting.
“I’ve made an appointment to talk to Miss Tyler up at Blue Ridge on Monday. I think as a consequence for lying to me about this CD, you’re not going to be able to be in the play at school.”
When Dad says these words there’s a roar in my ears like the sound of the jets flying over the air force base down the road from our house. It rockets into my chest, then full throttle out of my mouth.
“Dad, you can’t do this!”
Mom appears at the door of my bedroom. I am crying and yelling and I don’t care. “That punishes the entire cast, not just me. I’m one of the leads. I’m in almost every scene. Monday is the beginning of spring break, and we have rehearsals every day until we open.”
“I realize that, son. Which is why I’m going to talk to Miss Tyler about it. I don’t want to put her in a bind if I can help it.”
“A bind? Put her in a bind? We open the
show in two weeks!” I am so angry that I can see spit and tears flying as I speak.
“I understand that, but if Miss Tyler feels that she can recast your role and still open the show as scheduled, I’m going to pull you out of the production.”
“Dad, please don’t do this,” I say quietly. I hate myself for begging. I hate that he can win like this.
“Aaron, I love you so much, and I know how much this means to you. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came to earth and suffered and bled and died for your sin of lying. He knew while he was hanging on that cross that one day Aaron Hartzler would lie to his dad about buying a CD for his girlfriend, but he loved you so much that he let those Roman soldiers crucify him anyway.”
“I’m sorry, Dad!” I am hysterical, but I can’t stop the explosion. “You can spank me if you want, or don’t let me drive. Why do you have to take me out of the play?”
Even as I say the words, I know that I’ve just sealed my own fate by bargaining. I can see it in his eyes: he knows he’s hit me where it hurts.
Game over. He wins.
“Aaron, this play is more important to you than anything else. I feel like being an actor has become more of a priority to you than your commitment to Christ, and nothing should be more important than that.”
I can’t argue with this, because he’s right. Being in this play is more important to me than Jesus.
“Dad, I can still love God and be an actor.”
“I know that, son, but not if you’re lying and being deceitful. Jesus Christ is coming back to the earth very soon. We need strong young men like you who stand up and say, ‘I’m living for Jesus Christ.’ If God has called you to be an actor, you can do quality biblical plays that you tour around to churches, or direct Christian school kids in plays that lead people to the Lord.”
I don’t want to tour churches or teach at a Christian school. I can’t imagine myself doing that as an adult. My head hurts from crying and yelling, and I want to not be in the same room with him anymore.
“When do you talk to her?” I ask.
“Monday morning at ten thirty.”
Rapture Practice Page 8