Rapture Practice

by Aaron Hartzler

  I’ll have to hide the tapes again before I pull into the driveway, and that makes me angry.

  Why can’t my mom and dad be like Bradley’s?

  I think about Mrs. Westman last night, standing in the kitchen. Her eyes were so warm, and kind. I think about how upset my mom and dad would be that Mrs. Westman offered me a drink—not angry upset; they’d be sad. There’d be tears. Mom would cry. Dad would tell me that he was “grieved” that I’d misled them about Bradley’s parents and the kind of people they were. They’d tell me that Mrs. Westman wasn’t “living for the Lord,” that she was not only breaking the state law but leading me down the broad path toward destruction.

  How could my experience of Mrs. Westman be so different? When I looked into her eyes, I saw someone kind and loving—someone who understands her relationship with Bradley and his friends differently than my parents think about their relationship with me.

  She loves Bradley, but she’s not afraid for him. Or of him. She knows it’s going to be all right. She knows he’s a good kid. She knows I am, too.

  And that’s why even though Mrs. Westman is really a perfect stranger, I told her all about my ring, and how silly I felt when I got it, and how I think the whole thing is kind of embarrassing. Those are all things that I’ve never told my parents. Not because I don’t love them, but because I know that it would hurt them. It would disappoint them. It would prove to them that I’m not the son they want me to be—that they need me to be. I could tell Mrs. Westman those things because she doesn’t want me to be anyone I’m not. She accepts me exactly as I am.

  I can see it in her eyes.

  When I walk into the kitchen to hang my car keys on the hook by the phone, Mom looks at me across the kitchen, and I see something in her eyes, too: tears.

  There’s a stack of GQ magazines sitting on the island by the sink. My stomach is instantly in knots.

  “I found these in your room today when I was putting away some laundry.”

  I have nothing to say. There’s no way to make an excuse. I hear my brother and sister shooting hoops outside. My youngest brother is practicing the piano. I wish I could be anywhere but here.

  When I don’t answer, Mom stares at me, then looks down at the magazines.

  “Aaron, these magazines are full of pornography.”

  “Mom, these magazines are not pornographic.”

  Her eyes blaze. “Then what do you call this?” she snaps, pulling open the issue on the top of the stack and flipping to a cologne ad. There’s a scantily clad female model lying across a bed, staring out at me, her hands tossed over her head. Everything is covered. Just barely.

  “Can you honestly tell me you’re a red-blooded American male and this doesn’t do anything for you?”

  I am stunned that my mother has said these words. I feel my cheeks burn. My nervousness turns to anger. What was she really asking me?

  Was that a put-down?

  “Mom! I don’t read GQ to get turned on. I read it because I like knowing what’s in fashion. I like seeing the clothes and the hairstyles.”

  “Of course,” she says. “Your hair looks like his. And his.” She points to different models as she flips through the pages. “I can’t get you out of the mirror in the bathroom. You’re more concerned with looking good than you are about doing what’s right.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with GQ, Mom.”

  “Oh, there isn’t? She flips to another page in the magazine. “Look at how immodestly this woman is dressed.”

  She holds up a fashion editorial spread: “New Suits for Fall.” The woman on the model’s arm wears a strapless minidress. “Would you want Miriam to walk around in a dress like this?”

  “No, Mom. She’s far too tall for that dress. It would look awful on her.”

  “Aaron! I am not joking.”

  “I’m not, either,” I say quietly.

  “I thought after the whole thing with the CD and the play, and putting you in a new school, you’d have learned your lesson.”

  I shrug and walk toward the living room. This is an argument I cannot win.

  “Don’t walk away from me, young man. We’re not done here.”

  I stop in the kitchen door, suddenly exhausted. “Throw them away, Mom. Do whatever you want. It’s not worth fighting about.”

  “It breaks my heart that you don’t see how wrong this is, my son.”

  There are tears in her voice, and when I look into her eyes, I see the disappointment once more. I feel it leap out of her and land on my chest in a crushing weight. I’m on a balance beam, shakily walking the line between who I am and who she wants me to be. The force of her need makes me wobble; it makes me want to give up, to spread my arms and let myself fall backward into the nothingness.

  I know I’ll always think about fashion and want to look good. I’ll always read GQ. I’ll never be the guy who thinks cologne ads are sinful. I’ll never be the son you want.

  “I’m sorry, Mom,” I say quietly. She thinks I’m apologizing for the magazines. She sighs and shakes her head.

  “Don’t you want to please the Lord, Aaron?”

  Please the Lord. I realize I don’t know what those words mean. I only wish I pleased her. Right now, I do not.

  “Of course,” I say. This is the dutiful answer, the answer Mom wants to hear. The one I know will honor her, even if it isn’t the truth.

  “From now on, for every minute you spend in the mirror fixing your hair and getting ready for school, I want you to spend at least one minute reading God’s word.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” This is always the answer: more God.

  “ ‘Draw nigh unto God, and he will draw nigh unto you.’ ” Mom quotes the book of James, but I don’t know how I could get any closer to God. We pray at every meal and before each class at school. I have Bible class five times a week, not counting chapel services, or devotions after dinner. If reading the Bible made me closer to God, one might think I am already as close as I am ever going to get.

  And still, in this moment, God seems very far away.

  CHAPTER 17

  “If you search for God you will find God.”

  Dr. Spicer, the pastor of Tri-City Baptist Church is speaking in chapel today. He is very adamant that God is close. Very close. But must be searched for. There’s a code to it—a combination that unlocks the mystery. You have to seek God with “your whole heart” in order to find him.

  “The prophet Jeremiah tells us in chapter twenty-nine, verse thirteen that God says, ‘And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.’ ”

  Then, he leans into the microphone. His voice is dramatic, and filled with urgency. “Young men and young women, are you searching for God?”

  With that question, he begins his closing prayer, but instead of bowing our heads and closing our eyes, Erica and I get up and make our way to the front. We’re closing today’s chapel service with the duet we’ve been practicing. I see the pianist take her place at the grand piano stage right with the photocopy of the sheet music where we Wited-Out Sandi Patty’s name.

  As Dr. Spicer prays, I see Coach Hauser get up from his seat at the end of a pew near the stage and station himself at one of the auditorium doors for hair check. Miss Foster stands at the other doors in the back. Today, the boys will file out past Coach Hauser, who will check to make sure our hair is short enough, and the girls will file out past Miss Foster, who will check to make sure that their skirts are long enough.

  We don’t search for God here at Tri-City. It seems he’s already been found and written into law. Our God here believes in long skirts and short hair. I realize I don’t have to look very far for this version of God at all—he’s everywhere, and he can hear my thoughts right now. That doesn’t feel comforting, because once again I’m afraid he doesn’t like what he’s hearing.

  Not only is there no search for God, there’s no escape from him.

  As Erica and I are singing the second chorus, I see J
anice sitting six rows back on the right, smiling and mouthing the lyrics along with us, and realize we’ve made a terrible mistake. Erica and I assumed that no one would know who sings this song, because most of the families at Tri-City don’t listen to contemporary Christian recording artists. We were wrong. Janice knows.

  This wouldn’t be a cause for alarm in and of itself, except that Janice is sitting next to Tyler. Tyler is not smiling. He looks very serious—as serious as I suddenly feel. Erica and I finish singing and take our seats. I walk back and sit down next to Megan as Principal Friesen reminds the student body that today is hair-and-skirt-check day.

  “That was great,” Megan whispers. She’s talking to me again. My make-out session with Ashley seems to have been forgotten since Ashley told the cheerleading squad about the football player from Lee’s Summit she made out with the next night.

  I smile back at her and notice Janice a few pews down, rushing over and hugging Erica. Tyler is right behind her, and he stares directly at me. No smile. No nod. He simply catches my eye and stares.

  As Megan walks toward skirt check and I fall into line for hair check, I watch Erica chatting with Janice, and know one thing for certain: We’ve been caught.

  “Ready for the big dance-off this afternoon?”

  Bradley punches me in the shoulder. We have a special “choreography” rehearsal this afternoon. Mrs. Hastings insists that Baptists don’t “dance.”

  “Um, I’ll be doing Approved Baptist Choreography this afternoon,” I say in mock seriousness.

  “You do whatever you want,” he says, and grins. “I’ll be dancing.”

  “Don’t look now, but Tyler Gullum is shooting daggers our way.”

  Bradley glances over at him and shakes his head. “Poor guy,” he says. Then he raises his arms and swivels his hips like Elvis. “Just needs to shake his moneymaker.”

  After our haircuts have been approved by a nod from Coach Hauser, we walk to my locker. I stop to grab my chemistry book. As Bradley continues down the hall toward his next class, he turns around and points at me. “See you in dance practice. And good singing, Hartzler. You make Jesus proud.” Bradley doesn’t see Tyler watching him as he struts down the hall “dancing.”

  But I do.

  Tyler shakes his head as he gathers his books and closes his locker, then turns and walks away.

  “If anyone asks, we are not dancing.” Mrs. Hastings is standing at the front of the drama room by a television on a cart. “This is choreography. There’s a difference. Especially to most Baptists.”

  When I laugh, Mrs. Hastings smiles, her fuchsia lipstick framing perfect pearly whites. We’re sharing this joke. There is no difference between dancing and choreography. It’s all semantics.

  Call it whatever you want….

  The choreography we’re learning for Christy! the musical is a jig, based on an Appalachian folk dance. There’s a big scene at the end where my character, the drunken, angry hillbilly, finally makes peace with everybody after Christy almost dies of a mountain illness that has been ravaging the rural community. The original music composed by Mr. Green is great, especially this jig at the end—upbeat and peppy. Mrs. Hastings had a dance instructor friend choreograph an authentic jig after researching the time period and region, and then record video of it at her studio.

  We spend some time working through the steps. They’re sort of tricky, but Angela, Megan, and Heather pick them up quickly. They’re cheerleaders, after all, and used to moving their bodies in rhythm. Bradley and I are slower but get it down after about twenty minutes. Turns out jigging is really fun.

  Mrs. Hastings clicks off the TV at the front of the classroom, and we move the whole rehearsal onto the stage in the auditorium so we can practice in the space where we’ll be performing. It’s a little harder on the stage without the instructor on the TV, and I hear Megan laughing on my right.

  “What?” I ask.

  “Nothing. You look… like you’re thinking.”

  “I am!” I say.

  “You guys, shut up!” moans Bradley. “You’re messing up my count.”

  “Well, at least try not to stick your tongue out and frown. It looks bad,” teases Heather.

  “Might I remind you that you’re wearing culottes?” I ask her. Megan laughs when I say this. She’s dancing in the skirt she wore to school today.

  Heather laughs, too. “Pretty sexy, huh?” She holds out the fabric of her split skirt while continuing to jig.

  “Why won’t they let you wear shorts?” Bradley asks.

  “The lower the hemline, the closer to God,” I say, loudly enough that even Mrs. Hastings laughs, and we all lose the step.

  “Take five, everybody,” Mrs. Hastings says. “We’ll do this one more time, and I’ll watch you guys.”

  I follow Megan down the hall to the water fountain. “How was your date last weekend?” I ask.

  She slowly wipes a drop of water from her lip as she stands up. Her eyes narrow, and she flips her long curls over her shoulder. “If you want to know how a date with me goes, why don’t you ask me out on one?”

  She turns and strides back down the hall toward the auditorium.

  “One condition,” I call after her. She stops but doesn’t turn around.

  “What’s that?”

  “You have to wear culottes.”

  She turns around slowly and walks back toward me down the long hallway of coat hooks outside the auditorium, one hand languidly trailing along the wall, her head tilted to one side with a sweet smile.

  Usually, this hallway is bursting with noise. Now I realize how quiet it is with only Megan and me, and the spin in my brain. She stops in front of me and leans in very close.

  Too close.

  Against-the-rules close.

  If Mrs. Hastings walks around the corner right now, we’re dead.

  Her lips are almost touching my ear. Her whisper is full-blast, and I can smell her Trésor by Lancôme. “If I say yes when you ask me, you’ll be so incredibly lucky, that you’ll be thrilled if I show up wearing culottes.”

  She straightens the collar on my polo, pats my shoulder twice, and walks away.

  After rehearsal, I head home to practice the piano. I start by warming up with scales: up four octaves, down two, contrary motion for two octaves out and back, then down to octaves. Up one half step. Repeat.

  My fingers fly over the keys on autopilot. All I can think about is Megan’s breath on my ear. It made me feel all sorts of things. I’m trying to figure out what, exactly. Sometimes it helps to distract myself with the piano. When I fall into the music, ideas come. I can drop into focus on a particularly hard passage and forget about something that’s bothering me, or I can play easy stuff like scales and let my mind search out answers about something.

  Or someone.

  Someone like Megan.

  It’s true: I can tell Megan likes me. It’s pretty clear she wants me to ask her out, but I don’t know that I feel excited about it. It feels inevitable somehow, like these scales I’m playing. After years of practice, I know what the next move is; my fingers just know where to go. It feels like the next move everyone expects me to make is to ask Megan out on a date. I want to be more excited about it.

  Bradley talks about girls with this confidence I don’t feel I have. He seems to think that I should have this same confidence, but I’m not sure I’m feeling the right thing. Maybe being excited about going out with Megan is like the piano: I’ll get better at it with practice.

  I finish my scales and open the sheet music I’m working on for competition in the spring. I’m drilling the andante espressivo section in the middle: “a walking pace, expressive.” The notes in this section swirl around each other in competing rhythms. Sometimes they bump into one another or barely miss each other. It is a sweet, mournful cacophony. I work these twenty measures for an hour or so, until the notes pour out of my fingers like syrup, slowly, sweetly, swelling, to a place where the beautiful layers meld into a single not
e, repeated in triplets over and over. This repetition swells in volume and speed until tumbling back through the dissonant full-keyboard runs at the end the piece, each driving to an explosion of four chords in the last measure. When played as written, these final fistfuls of notes sound violent and jarring, as if a barrel of bricks has been dropped onto the keyboard from a great height.

  Dad walks through the door from work as I’m finishing, and listens, shaking his head as I bang out the final chords.

  “The sound of war is in the camp,” he teases me with a smile. I follow him upstairs to the kitchen, where Mom is getting dinner ready. He kisses her hello, then I help him set the table.

  “Is that your new recital piece?” Dad asks.

  “It’s the piece I’m taking to state this year. The Khachaturian Toccata in E-flat Minor.”

  “The catcha-who-what?” Dad asks with a grin, and I laugh.

  I started taking piano lessons when I was four years old, and a couple of years later I begged to quit. Dad grew up on a farm, the middle son of five boys, and he told me that the way he saw it, I didn’t have any cows to milk, or chickens to feed, or hogs to slop, so the least I could do was give him thirty minutes a day on the piano. Now I’m good enough to win competitions and accompany choirs at church and school. It’s the one thing I’m grateful Dad forced me to do.

  “He’s a Russian composer,” I explain, folding napkins to the left of each plate. “This is his toccata. A toccata has lots of fast-moving passages that emphasize the skill and dexterity of my nimble fingers.”

  “I dunno,” Dad says. “Sounds like a big train wreck to me.”

  Mom comes to my rescue as she takes a homemade chicken potpie out of the oven. “Aaron has been very diligent with this piece. It sounds incredibly difficult. I’m not sure how you even tell when you’re playing the right notes.”