Rapture Practice

by Aaron Hartzler

  My face looks very pale in the mirror. It reminds me of that urban legend Bradley was talking about last night: waking up alive in a bathtub of ice to find a note that reads CALL AN AMBULANCE. YOUR KIDNEY HAS BEEN REMOVED.

  Anyone in that situation could not look more pale than I do right now. I lean in a little closer to the mirror.

  Am I… green?

  I turn on the cold water and splash it across my face. Mom is already up. I can hear her in the bathroom getting ready. She’ll be on her way down to fix breakfast, and drizzling green icing across her signature Palm Leaf Pastry within the hour.

  I open the medicine cabinet and down a couple Tylenol with a slurp of water from the sink. My tongue is a thick, fuzzy piece of shag carpet. I get into the shower with the water as hot as I can stand it, and brush my teeth while the jets pound my neck. When I close my eyes, I can see the print of the shower curtain in Bradley’s front bathroom where I spent at least an hour bent over the toilet, barfing up tequila sunrises last night. The light orange and purple flowers on the gray fabric materialize and expand like fireworks behind my eyelids: the Jose Cuervo garden of earthly delights.

  After the shower, I’m still moving slowly. The Tylenol has started to kick in, but I feel the throb of the headache, muted, lurking somewhere in the very center of my skull. When I walk down the stairs to breakfast in my shirt and tie, my stomach lurches.

  The last thing I want to do is go to church.

  Or play the piano.

  Or eat.

  But that’s what we do here in the mornings: eat. As a family. And before the Palm Leaf Pastry, there are hard-boiled eggs.

  I look down at the yellow plastic tumbler next to my plate thankfully. Maybe some milk will help settle my stomach. I take a big swig and then realized that the creamy liquid floating before my lips is… green.

  “Mom! Why is the milk green?”

  “Oh, sugar, it’s only food coloring.” She smiles brightly. “Happy Palm Sunday! Green reminds us of new life in Christ.”

  I wipe the corners of my mouth and rub my temples. “Green in my milk reminds me of mold.”

  Dad laughs. “C’mon, Aaron, you’d better wake up! You’ve got some hymns to play.”

  “Don’t remind me.”

  My piano teacher usually plays the piano for the congregational singing, but she’s covering for the organist today. I’m being tapped to fill in for her at the piano. It’s nerve-racking under the best of circumstances. Doing it hungover feels like sheer folly.

  “Are you okay, honey?” Mom asks. “This is what I was afraid of if you went to Bradley’s and stayed up too late.” She kisses the top of my head and offers me more eggs. I smile, then cut into the Palm Leaf Pastry. My brothers hold their plates. I make them wait until I’ve given Miriam a slice.

  “Thank you for being a gentleman.” Miriam smiles triumphantly at Josh and Caleb.

  I smile back at her, and suddenly I feel like a fraud. Now the guilt is as strong as the nausea. In her clear blue eyes, I can see how much she loves me, how much she admires me. I’m a liar and a cheat.

  The ride to church in the station wagon does nothing for my stomach, and the nerves of getting every note perfect at the piano make me sweat in my suit jacket and tie. After I get through the first hymn, the pastor makes some announcements, and I look out over the four hundred people in the congregation.

  I wonder if they can tell I’m hungover?

  Several of my friends and their parents are smiling up at me. Everybody thinks I’m this great guy because I’m only in high school and I’m playing the piano in church.

  If they only knew.

  That afternoon, Bradley calls. “Hey. I just woke up.”

  “I don’t even want to hear it,” I say. “I was at church at nine AM playing the piano for congregational singing with the worst headache I’ve ever had.”

  “Oh my god. I wondered why you were gone already when I woke up.”

  “I told you I had to play in church this morning.”

  “Really? When?”

  “Last night,” I say, “while you were pouring grenadine into twenty-seven glasses of tequila.”

  “Was that before or after the hot tub?” he asks, groaning.

  “Yes.”

  “Ow, ow! Don’t make me laugh,” he says. “My head hurts so bad.”

  “I was playing the piano, afraid that God was going to strike me dead with an electrical jolt from the nearest microphone.”

  “I wish somebody would strike me dead.” Bradley groans again. “I am wrecked.”

  I smile. “Brad?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Last night was a blast.”

  “It was, huh?” he says.

  “Thanks.”

  “For what?” he asks.

  “For having me over. For being my friend.”

  “Whatever, man. Wait’ll I’m back this summer. Your graduation party is gonna be epic.”

  “I’ll have to check my schedule,” I say.

  “Shut up,” he says, and laughs. “See you tomorrow.”

  Mr. Friesen finds me in the hall between classes the next day.

  “Aaron, we need to talk.”

  I am sitting in his office, smiling. He’s not. He takes a seat behind his desk. He leans back in his chair, sizing me up.

  “While you were on ensemble tour last week, the kids from Bob Jones University were all home for spring break. Tyler Gullem and Dr. Spicer’s sons came to see me.”

  Tri-City students are encouraged to go to college wherever the Lord leads them, but you can tell that most of the teachers and the administration hope that the Lord leads you to Bob Jones.

  “It seems Tyler Gullem is really concerned about some things that are going on here at Tri-City. Namely, students not living for Christ.”

  I am not smiling anymore.

  What does this have to do with me?

  “Tyler told the Spicer twins he saw you drinking alcohol at a New Year’s Eve party at Bradley Westman’s house.”

  As soon as he says it, I have a strange sensation—a sort of knowing: This is the beginning of the end.

  “Really?” I say. My face is incredulous, puzzled, perfect. “That’s strange.”

  “Are you saying that you didn’t have a drink at the New Year’s party, Aaron?”

  “No. I had plenty to drink—Diet Coke, all night long.”

  Mr. Friesen chews his front lip, then sits up, takes off his glasses, and rubs his eyes. When he looks up at me, he seems tired.

  “Why would Tyler lie about something like this?” he asks.

  “I’m sure he doesn’t mean any harm.” I smile. “You know Tyler. He always wants to do the right thing.”

  “Aaron, this is a serious allegation,” he says. “You don’t seem concerned.”

  “There’s nothing to be concerned about. I wasn’t drinking at Bradley’s party.”

  “Tyler seems to be under the impression you go over to Bradley’s to drink often.”

  I give a single, silent laugh. “Don’t know what to tell you, Mr. Friesen. I haven’t seen Bradley very much this year.”

  “You know that if you were drinking, that’s grounds for expulsion.”

  “So why would I drink?” I ask him.

  He is quiet again for a moment, then puts his glasses back on.

  “I’ll be calling your dad.”

  “Please do,” I say. “I’m sure he’d be interested to know that somebody who never liked me that much has decided I was drinking at a party six months ago.”

  It’s a challenge, pure and simple. I almost can’t believe I said the words. I’ve never talked back to an adult authority figure like this.

  I stand up to gather my books. “I’m also sure he’ll be interested that you’re more inclined to believe Tyler Gullem than me.”

  Am I shaking with anger or fear? I can’t tell. I am barely able to hold on to my stack of library books. I’m writing my senior thesis on Oscar Wilde and want to get a litt
le reading done in journalism next period.

  “We’re not done yet, Aaron.”

  “Oh?” I ask.

  “Senior trip is next week. I’m not sure I’m going to allow you to go.”

  “Why would that be, Mr. Friesen?”

  “I don’t like the attitude I’m getting from you about this.”

  Will there ever be a day when I’m not being questioned by adults?

  “Maybe I’ve misunderstood.” I smile broadly to mask my rage. “I’m not going to be able to go on the senior trip because the pastor’s sons say Tyler Gullem thinks he saw me drinking at a party?”

  Even I am surprised at my tone. It’s not respectful at all. Who is this person? Where did the guy who plays the game go? I can’t seem to stop myself. When Mr. Friesen is silent, I pepper him with questions.

  “Is there any evidence I was drinking? Is there some way to prove that there was anything in my glass other than Diet Coke? And if there was drinking going on at the party, what was Tyler Gullem doing there?”

  Mr. Friesen glances down at his desk, and moves a pencil back in line with several others that are lined up in a military roll call at the edge of his blotter. He straightens his tie clip. He looks back up.

  “Tyler and the Spicer twins will be home from college by the time you return from the senior trip. At that point, I’ll need to meet with you and your parents. Then we’ll see what he has to say.”

  “We certainly will,” I say, smiling. “I’m so curious to hear all about this.”

  The adrenaline surges through me as I walk out of Mr. Friesen’s door and down the hall to class. I am still shaking as I sit down in journalism class and flip open my copy of The Picture of Dorian Gray, but I can’t see the words on the page.

  All I can see is Tyler Gullem in the doorway at Bradley’s New Year’s Eve party, looking down at my cocktail.

  Mom is putting the finishing touches on the Empty Tomb Cake when I walk in the door from school, and I remember that it’s Good Friday.

  The Empty Tomb Cake is one of Mom’s specialties, a cake in the shape of the grave where Jesus was buried after he died on the cross. It’s usually chocolate cake with gray frosting, the color of stone. She’s puts shredded coconut into a plastic Baggie with green liquid food coloring and shakes it onto the plate around the cake so it looks like grass. She adds a round Hostess Ding Dong to the front as the stone that seals the door of the tomb, and stands a little cross ornament in the frosting on the top.

  The cake will sit in the middle of the table tomorrow as a centerpiece, then late tomorrow night, after everyone has gone to bed, Mom will steal into the kitchen under cover of night and roll the Hostess Ding Dong away from the door of the Empty Tomb Cake. She’ll retouch the frosting and add her small black Bible to the display, the book open to the passage where the angel speaks to Mary in the garden:

  Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen.

  I feel like a dead man.

  I have to tell Mom and Dad about Tyler Gullem and the conversation with Mr. Friesen. I decide to wait until after dinner.

  When I get to my room, I close the door. Mom has left some clean laundry folded on my bed. I open the top drawer of my dresser and put away my socks and underwear. In the back of the drawer underneath some T-shirts, I pull out the tiny pink scrap of paper with Kent Harris’s phone number.

  I walk into my parents’ bedroom, and sit on the bed next to the phone on Mom’s nightstand. I pick up the phone, and dial the numbers.

  My heart races as I wait for a voice to answer.

  What if he actually picks up? What will I say?

  An answering machine clicks on, and when I hear his recorded voice on the message, my stomach flips, and it’s hard to catch my breath. I can see his clear blue eyes staring at me on the rink last month. I can feel his hand in mine.

  When I hear the beep, I pause for a split second, then hang up the phone.

  Idiot. You’re an idiot. What are you doing?

  A new book in the stack on Mom’s nightstand catches my eye. The picture on the cover is a silhouette of a child walking on a balance beam. The title says something about raising children in a risky world. I flip the book open to a bookmark stuck in the pages. The chapter is about helping young men remain morally pure. The word homosexual jumps off the page at me.

  Is this the chapter that made Mom and Dad want to get this book?

  I’m afraid Mom might walk in on me reading this book, so I scan through the chapter, skimming the information from the Christian author, hoping. Maybe there is something here that will make it okay, explain it, ease my mind. As I read, words pop out at me one after another—abomination, agenda, molested, predatory, sin, pedophiles, addiction…

  The phone rings. I jump at the sound. My stomach fills with dread.

  What if Kent is calling back?

  Quickly, I close the book and slide it back into place. I slip the pink scrap of paper into my hip pocket, then head back to my bedroom and close the door. As I am hiding Kent’s phone number under the T-shirts in my underwear drawer, I hear Mom call up the stairs:

  “Time to eat.”

  “That was Mr. Friesen on the phone before dinner,” Dad says.

  “I thought it might be,” I say. “He called me into his office today to tell me that Tyler Gullem told Dr. Spicer’s sons I was drinking at Bradley’s New Year’s Eve party.”

  Stay calm. It’s your word against Tyler’s. You’ve won this game before.

  “Were you drinking at the party at Bradley’s?”

  I act astonished. “What? No! Dad!”

  “Well, son, why would this rumor be going around if it weren’t true?” Dad stares directly into my eyes, his gaze heated, unwavering. I feel like I’ve been kicked in the stomach. Why are you surprised? He has no reason to trust you.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Were other people drinking at this party?” Mom looks stricken. “Do his parents drink? Do they keep alcohol in their house?”

  It’s time to give them a little bit, so that they buy it. I can’t escape this totally unscathed.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “You never told us that, Aaron,” she says. “You knew we wouldn’t want you spending time around people who drink.”

  “I’m so disappointed in you,” Dad says.

  I’m angry now, and I don’t have a leg to stand on. “We go to Royals games all the time, Dad. They have beer there. You don’t drink it. I don’t drink it. Besides, it wasn’t like Bradley’s parents were drinking every time I was over there.” My voice is unwavering. I’ve become an expert liar.

  “But people were drinking at this party at Bradley’s over New Year’s?” Dad asks.

  “I don’t know,” I insist. “I wasn’t.”

  “What do you mean you don’t know?” Dad is firm.

  The fury of the situation bubbles up inside me again, and I have to tamp it down. Do not blow your cover. I speak slowly. I try to keep the sarcasm from creeping into my voice, and only barely succeed. “We all walked around holding glasses of liquid. Everyone was drinking something. The only thing in my glass was ice and Diet Coke.”

  “Were there other students at the party from Tri-City?” Mom asks.

  “It was mainly public-school kids—friends from Bradley’s old school. I was the only current student.” There were a couple other guys there from the basketball team, but Mom and Dad certainly don’t need to know that. If this all goes south, the last thing I need to deal with is a witch hunt.

  Dad looks at Mom, then shakes his head. “This is exactly the kind of situation that happens when you don’t avoid the appearance of evil,” he says.

  “Dad, nothing evil was going on.”

  “But was anything good going on, my son?” Mom’s eyes are sincere and search mine for an answer.

  CHAPTER 27

  I am stuffing graduation announcements into envelopes at the dining room table. There are two envelopes for each annou
ncement. I’m writing the mailing address on the outer envelope, the first names of the people at that address on the inner envelope. The announcements are embossed on front with a loopy purple foil that spells out a shiny GRADUATION ’93 over the Tri-City Christian crusader and shield in gold.

  I have fantastic handwriting. I taught myself calligraphy in third grade with the Sheaffer fountain pen calligraphy set that Mom got me for my eighth birthday. I used to sit at the desk by the window in my bedroom during the summer, practicing calligraphy and listening to the Kansas City Royals game on the radio. As I write addresses in my angular script, the phone rings.

  Mom answers. It’s for Dad.

  Each invitation has a feathery edge along the bottom, ragged, like it was torn. I insert a tiny name card into the precut slots of each announcement, then stuff it into the inner envelope.

  Dad takes the call in the kitchen. It’s Mr. Friesen.

  After a while, I hear Dad hang up the phone, then I hear him talking to Mom quietly. Both of them come into the dining room. Dad sits down at the head of the dining room table. Mom crosses her arms, and leans against the door frame, as if she’s bracing for what may happen next.

  “That was Mr. Friesen,” Dad says as I lick a stamp and press it onto the envelope of another completed announcement.

  There is silence for a moment as Dad decides what to say next. I continue to put little cards into precut slots.

  The Senior Class

  of

  Tri-City Christian School

  announces its

  Commencement Exercises

  Saturday afternoon, May twenty-ninth

  Ninteen hundred ninety-three

  two o’clock

  “Pastor Spicer wants to meet with us tomorrow morning. Tyler Gullem will be there, too.”

  I pick up two senior pictures and put them into the announcement I’m holding. Friends and relatives who live far away are getting two senior pictures. Both are wallet-sized. One is a profile picture of me in my purple cap and gown. I lick another envelope closed, then take up the pen to write an address.