Girl on a Wire

by Libby Phelps

  “I’m so sorry you had to see that,” Gran consoled me as I washed my hands for the eighth time. She kept apologizing. She seemed unfazed, like this was the kind of thing she expected or dealt with all the time. I told her not to look at it, and when I had her OK I threw it away—though I wondered if one of our lawyers could somehow figure out who’d done it from the stool sample. “It’s not that easy,” said Gran, smiling anyway. Always smiling.

  THE NEXT SUMMER, BEFORE MY SENIOR YEAR OF HIGH SCHOOL, I woke up on a hot summer day with a stomachache. I knew I wasn’t supposed to complain—this was seen as being selfish instead of focusing on helping the church, which meant helping God—but while I was in the backyard watching my mom’s day care kids with her, I couldn’t help it and told her about the weird, stabbing sensation in my middle. As usual, she brushed it off; I think she always hoped if she didn’t pay attention to our complaints they’d just go away. So I just pushed through the pain until it was time to go to the noon pickets.

  I was responsible for picking up Tim and Lee Ann’s kids and transporting them to the midday pickets. The pickets today were at our regular daily spots, 17th and Gage—because St. David’s Episcopal Church was located there, and they had been the most vocal against WBC ministry in the beginning when we started out just picketing Gage Park and the Vintage. Moving slower than usual, I got into my white Corolla and got the kids. We parked on the side of the road, a block away from 17th and Gage, got out, walked to the white-sign truck, and waited our turn to pull our signs out of the truck bed. I opted against taking one of the big signs, as I normally would have. I took a little sign instead, in hopes of decreasing the stress the heavy weight put on my body. We walked the block to the picketing intersection and turned our signs in sync with the changing traffic lights, making sure everyone passing would see. I stood by Gramps.

  “I can’t think of a better thing to be doing on a nice day like today than having a nice picket with my loved ones, don’t you agree?” he said, smiling at me. He had his usual cowboy hat and windbreaker on, and he was wielding his favorite GOD HATES FAGS sign.

  “Yep!” I agreed, bending forward slightly because of the pain in my stomach. I kept a big smile on my face so Gramps wouldn’t suspect anything was wrong.

  “We gotta keep in the faces of these godforsaken false prophets masquerading as preachers,” Gramps said, which was what he always said. “Spreading the big Arminian lie that God loves everyone. They’re responsible for all these people headed straight to hell in a faggot’s handbasket. You know that, right, hon?”

  “Yep,” I said, nodding, sweating. I looked up at the traffic light to make sure my sign was oriented perpendicular to oncoming traffic.

  “Good,” said Gramps. “It’s our duty to prophesy against these so-called prophets. You ever heard of Ezekiel 13? That passage tells us to prophesy against them; it’s our duty.”

  Bending forward in even more pain, I wasn’t sure how to respond. What did he want me to say? Was I even supposed to say anything? Or just listen to him? Maybe he was just practicing for his upcoming Sunday sermon.

  “Are you doing OK, lovebug?” said Gramps. “You don’t look like you feel very well.”

  “My stomach hurts really bad,” I admitted. “I think I’m going to throw up.”

  “Maybe you need to go home,” he said.

  “But I have to take Tim’s kids to the next picket,” I said. By now my stomach was really killing me, but by golly, I was going to do my duty and get those kids to the next picket.

  “I’m sure they can walk the three blocks there,” said Gramps with a laugh. “Go on home.”

  “OK,” I said, “I’m going to go, then.” Picking up my sign, I walked toward the truck with tears in my eyes—partly because of the twisting pain in my stomach, but also because I’d failed in my duty to serve God and His people. Would Gramps think I was weak? Would he think I didn’t deserve the responsibility I’d been given to take the kids to the pickets?

  I put my sign away and drove the two blocks back to my house. Plodding up the stairs to my pink-carpeted bedroom, I lay down on my bed and curled up into a ball. Eventually, my mother appeared in the doorway.

  “Are you OK?” she said. “Why aren’t you at the picket?”

  “Help,” I moaned, unable to pretend anymore. “It hurts so bad I can barely move.”

  I must have really looked awful, because she decided to take me to the emergency room. But I didn’t know if I could get up. I’d never felt pain like this before. Along with the pain came a crippling sense of guilt. I didn’t want to interrupt everyone’s day, and I certainly didn’t want to be the center of attention. What if the church decided that my heart wasn’t in the right place, so God was punishing me by giving me this awful pain? Would I be admonished for whatever sins had caused the illness? I found myself crying again.

  “Come on,” my mom said. “I’ll help you.”

  Small as she was, she supported my weight as I got off the bed and limped downstairs to the garage. She drove to the Topeka hospital’s emergency room while I sat next to her in the front passenger seat, moaning in pain. For some reason the moaning seemed to help ease the pain. Maybe it was all in my mind, but the vibration from moaning felt like it helped lessen the pain in my internal organs.

  The ER waiting room was bustling, and my mom checked me in. “There’s going to be a wait,” said the heavyset nurse on duty. “We’re busy today.”

  Ugh, I thought, sinking onto the nearest chair and putting my hands on my stomach. I overheard the staff talking about another patient. “He comes in all the time, I’m sure there’s nothing wrong with him, as usual,” one nurse said to another. I got up and bolted for the restroom, making it just in time before I threw up. I was getting worse. Why wouldn’t they take me back? I felt like I was going to die.

  “David, come on back,” they called to the man they’d been talking about earlier. Seriously? I grumbled to myself. The guy who comes in all the time with nothing ever wrong with him gets to go back before me? I continued to wait for what felt like hours, bent over in my chair with my arms around my middle. Finally, they called me back; I told the nurse I had a terrible stomachache, the worst I could ever remember.

  He gave me a hospital gown and told me to put it on, then left the room. I didn’t know how to put on a hospital gown. I’d never needed to wear one before today. I decided to leave it open in the front, because they needed to get to my stomach. The nurse came back in and told me with a smile that I had put the gown on backward. When he gave me another, I overlapped the two; I didn’t want to be lying around with my naked rear end immodestly showing out the back of the gown.

  The nurse reappeared, and had me lie down on the exam table. He pushed down on my lower right abdominal area and I screamed in pain; I hadn’t thought anything could feel worse than my stomach already did, but this was worse.

  “I think you might have appendicitis,” he said, “but we’ll need to do further testing before we decide what to do. Until then I’ll give you some medicine for the pain. I’m going to need you to sign a few papers approving the medicine and testing,” he said, handing my mom some forms. To my relief, she didn’t hesitate after looking them over, and signed them.

  Minutes later, I was mercifully numbed with pain medication, and wheeled on my hospital bed to get an MRI. I was met with a smile from the MRI technician, a good-looking young gentleman with dark hair in his early twenties. He explained that he would be putting me in a tube and that I was to lie still while the machine worked. I was transferred to the MRI table, and as half of my body entered the machine, I sat up and threw up all over myself and the MRI machine. I was too weak and in too much pain to feel very embarrassed, but I apologized out of habit. He was very sympathetic, and smiled at me, and told me it was fine. He cleaned it all up, then got me back in position. After the MRI was completed, I was wheeled back to my room. Shortly afterward, Dr. Hamilton, the surgeon, came in. I smiled, again out of habit more than a
nything else.

  “I know you must be in a lot of pain if you’re smiling when the surgeon comes in!” he joked. I tried to laugh through the pain.

  “She has pretty severe appendicitis,” the doctor told my mother. “Close to bursting, but it hasn’t yet. We need to get her into surgery as soon as possible to remove it.”

  Surgery! I turned to my mom, wide-eyed. She smiled gently at me.

  “It will be all right,” she said. I didn’t know if it would be. This was a really big deal. What had I done wrong that had put me here?

  “What are they going to do?” I asked my mother.

  “I’m sure they’ll walk you through everything,” she said. “I’ll be with you until you go in.”

  We watched television for a few minutes to get our minds off the upcoming operation. By this point, it was ten at night, well past my bedtime, and I was exhausted.

  Finally, they came to get me, stopping halfway down the hallway to tell my mom she couldn’t come any further.

  “I love you,” she said to me, kissing me on the forehead. It was the only time I could remember her giving me a kiss. I imagine she’d done it when I was a baby, but never after that.

  I was scared, but I lay back and tried to relax as they continued wheeling me in. The anesthesiologist put a mask over my nose and mouth and asked me to count back from 100. Destiny’s Child’s “Say My Name” was playing in the background, I was humming along, then began to count down, 100, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95—I was out.

  I woke up to the sight of my mom’s face beside my bed, and a nurse beside her. “I can’t believe you didn’t wake up and ask for any pain medicine,” the nurse said. “That’s amazing!” Compared to the way I’d felt before the surgery, this was nothing.

  I smiled at my mom as my vitals were taken. I felt so much better. “Let me know if you start having pain and need pain medicine,” the nurse told me.

  Soon, my aunts and uncles started calling to check up on me and sending get-well cards and flowers and stuffed animals. I had been so afraid I would be shunned for getting sick, but it seemed like I had escaped the wrath of the church. I happily accepted the warm wishes, comforted by the seeming security of my family’s love.

  I’m picketing with my cousin, Megan, in Greensboro, North Carolina, at the Southern Baptist Convention. We were always told to look happy and joyous when proclaiming God’s word to the masses. June 2006.

  Picketing a soldier’s funeral in Maryland, May 2006. The police set up a barricade of orange cones for us to stand behind. Patriot Guard motorcycles are parked across the street.

  Our finished product from our shirt party. Top row left to right: Shirl, Megan, Libby, Jael, Katherine. Bottom row left to right: Bekah, Sara, Lauren. June 2006.

  I’m picketing with my nephew, Seth, at an out-of-town picket in Los Angeles. Lucy Drain is in the background. October 2007.

  Before the picketing began, my cousins and I frequently got together to play. I’m with my cousins, Jael and Megan, playing in a sandbox. 1989.

  The church men are playing a game of basketball in the backyard of the church. Summer 2008.

  I’m holding my go-to TURN OR BURN sign at one of the earlier pickets. This was well before the sign shop times and all signs were handmade. My sister, Sara, is holding GOD HATES FAGS and our church friend, Katherine Hockenbarger, is holding FAG = AIDS. 1995.

  The picture of me with my sister, Sara, in bikinis. This is the picture that WBC members questioned me about, which ultimately led to the intervention and my departure.

  Me with my sister, Sara, plus Gran and Gramps at my twenty-fourth and my sister’s twenty-sixth birthday party. April 2007.

  Logan and I in front of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France, during a vacation we took together in summer 2010. No one is allowed to leave the country while at WBC. This was my first trip outside of the country. We went to England, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Italy, Switzerland, and France.

  Logan and I swimming in a cenote in Mexico on our honeymoon. July 2011.

  Logan and I with our children: Paxton, two, and Zea, nine months. We’re teaching our children to be kind and accepting of everyone. September 2016.

  Logan and I on our wedding day in Cozumel, Mexico. July 9, 2011.

  NoH8 photo shoot with the amazing Adam Bouska and his lovely boyfriend, Jeff Parshley, at the Equality House. April 2014. Left to right: my friend Blake, me, Paxton, Logan, Davis, and Amelia Markham, who works at the Equality House.

  I’m writing a positive message in response to vandalism on the Equality House. January 2017.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  EARLY ADULTHOOD

  WHEN THE DAY CAME TO GRADUATE FROM HIGH SCHOOL IN the spring of 2001, I had twice as much to do as my classmates. Before it was time to walk onto the stage at the Kansas Expocentre in Topeka and accept my diploma, I’d be standing outside with my family, picketing the ceremony I would later be attending.

  This did not strike me as odd or contradictory. We always picketed the local school graduations, so there was no question that we would be there. And I had to graduate from high school, so of course I would also be a participant. As I got ready on the morning of May 19, putting on my new orange organza dress from Maurice’s and my white Keds, I wondered what the other students would be thinking as they filed past me and my family to go into the 10,000-seat arena—which would be half full at best, but the crowd would be made up of all my classmates and their families. My excitement about graduating began to be tempered by a prickly anxiety about how it would look to stand outside with an anti-Topeka West High School sign before heading in to join the line of soon-to-be grads.

  But Gramps’s voice echoed in my head, reminding me that this was an important life juncture, something the rest of us would repeat to anyone who questioned us at the picket. It was a stage in young people’s lives when they’d be making important decisions about where to go and what to do next—so this was a key moment to tell them how to get on the righteous path, even if we knew none of them were actually going to take our advice.

  At around ten a.m., about twenty of us gathered in front of the stadium across the large parking lot, armed with our usual Topeka West High-themed signs. In my hands was the one emblazoned with the slogan WEST FAGS—a reference to my school and their Gay Student Alliance, the GSA.

  Usually, on a picket, we’d want to be holding a sign that garnered the most attention and vitriol from people passing by. I liked when people would yell at me, because it meant I was doing my job right. By this point and for the most part, instead of feeling shock and disbelief and being scared of those who disagreed with us, I learned from my family to take joy in getting an undesirable reaction. The feeling we’d get when someone would vehemently disagree with us was like the adrenaline rush you get when your favorite sports team wins a big game. Today, though, I yearned to blend in, chameleonlike. I didn’t want my classmates to think I was a hypocrite, but there wasn’t any way for me to get out of the picket without being yelled at by Shirl.

  My friend Elizabeth and her parents passed by the picket on their way in. She’d always been someone I liked a lot. We never really talked about WBC, although I knew she knew about my involvement in it—nobody could be in school with me and miss that fact. We just acted like it wasn’t a thing. We talked about homework, about singing, about volleyball—never religion. It was a bit of a weird dynamic, but it worked (and I’m proud to say we are still great friends to this day).

  I smiled nervously at Elizabeth and she grinned back in return. Her parents were equally friendly, but others hurried past as if we were about to attack them.

  I stayed with the picket for about half an hour, then put my sign back in the truck, grabbed my purple cap and gown out of our car, and hurried into the Expocentre. My mom and dad and siblings stayed out for a bit longer, then filed in to find seats in the gargantuan stadium. When I walked up the stage stairs to get my diploma, they cheered as loudly as any other family. They may have oppose
d the school on its gay policies, but they were still proud of me—and didn’t see any disconnect between the two.

  I was also allowed to have a graduation party, but not because the church thought it was an acceptable reason to have a party (those were reserved mostly for the monthly birthday parties we threw). This was because a French news crew was filming footage for a segment about our pickets. The family gathered in the backyard by the pool, and one of my aunts gave me a twenty-dollar gift card to Bath and Body Works. It felt weird. By church edict, nothing we did was supposed to be about us or celebrating specific people for their accomplishments. So it was hard to accept their congratulations without feeling like I was being arrogant—or being judged for accepting them. At the same time, I was expected to play up my happiness for the occasion, because there were cameras filming. I felt slightly ridiculous putting on a show for reporters just so we could get publicity, despite the fact that we had always been told we didn’t have celebrations like this. It seemed hypocritical. I thought about it for a few minutes and then put it out of my head, putting a big smile on my face.

  IMMEDIATELY AFTER HIGH SCHOOL, I STARTED A TWO-YEAR program at Washburn University to become a physical therapy assistant. Sara enrolled in the same program, which I was excited about; we’d always been friendly competitors academically. (There was a single instance where she scored higher than I did on a test, beating me by one point, and she celebrated all day. I was happy she got to beat me—once.) As soon as I started the program, I knew I’d want to go on and get my doctorate. I liked studying and I liked challenging myself to see how well I could do, how far I could go. I graduated from Washburn at age twenty with an associate’s degree in physical therapy assistant and again at age twenty-two with my bachelor’s of health science with emphasis in health administration.