by Maren Smith
I turned around in a panic, certain that everyone must have heard her. But the room had cleared out. The smirk on her face let me know that my mini heart attack was amusing her more than a little bit.
“You can’t say things like that. He’s not my boyfriend. You know that. I couldn’t do that, and he wouldn’t.”
“Settle down. I was just teasing, Asa. Come on. Let’s get to fellowship. Maybe he’ll say hello to you.”
“I don’t want him to.”
“You said that too fast. Now, come on. If I miss Sister Mattie’s banana pudding, I’m going to be pissed. However, if I get my pudding, I might be interested in being your church basement wingman.”
“Stop saying things like that. And don’t you dare say a word to him. Don’t say anything to anyone.”
“Well, that’ll look weird. I’m kind of a belle of the ball sort of gal.”
Bess dragged me from the room and down to the massive fellowship hall. I never liked that walk. The church was cavernous and ancient. The lower basement was wood paneled, covered with pictures of dead church elders on one side and closets that held too many decades of memories on the other. There were old robes, bibles, hymnals, seasonal artifacts, and altar dressings. Trailing behind Bess, I felt safe, though. Bess never let bad things happen to me, well unless she thought it was good for me in the long run.
As soon as she saw the desserts and Sister Mattie at one corner of the food table, my human shield was gone. Bess became a moth to the flame, and I couldn’t compete with Sister Mattie’s banana pudding. As she beelined away from me, I tried not to fidget or look conspicuous as whatever conversation Malik was having ended, and his eyes seemed to hone in on me. He was the reason no one else measured up. He was my idea of debonair perfection. The man was the poster child for ministerial sexy. He knew how to grow a goatee. It was full and perfectly trim. His three-piece suit looked even better than the robe. The pride lapel pin was a nice touch. He didn’t hide who he was. I made myself stay rooted to the spot, convinced that fleeing the room would look far worse.
“You sounded beautiful up there, honey.”
In a blink, Mama was in front of me. Why did the women in my life insist on sneaking up on me? She wasn’t tall enough to block my view, but she totally pulled my attention.
“Thank you, Mama. I don’t know how you could hear me as loud as you were singing.” I loved it when I had a chance to tease her. “Why don’t you join the choir?”
“No, no, that’s for you young people. I can make a joyful noise from my seat. I did miss getting the Word from Bishop.”
Here we go. Mama was not a fan of change or any new interpretations of the scriptures. I knew what was coming even without her conspiratorial look over her shoulder and the leaning in she did before she went on.
“I don’t know why Bishop insists on inviting these new free-loving, free-thinking ministers into the pulpit. We need to stick to the Word as it’s meant to be so we can save more souls. That’s the kind of pastor you’ll be, I just know it.”
“Of course, Mama. Let’s go and get something to eat.” It was always easier to agree with her in these situations unless you wanted her to start praying for you and screaming scripture quotes loudly.
“We need to go and thank Pastor Creswell for his message.”
“Uh, I thought you just said you didn’t enjoy it.”
“No matter. There’s no excuse for poor manners. Come on.”
This was one of my nightmares come true. The last thing I wanted to do was go over to Malik with my mother. There was no getting out of it. The woman had already pointed her feet in his direction, and there would be no turning back. Looking around, I tried to get Bess’s attention, but she was hemmed up with her own mother and Sister Mattie. I knew it was mean, but I hoped she choked on that pudding—at least a little.
Wedging her way into the small group surrounding Malik, Mama acknowledged the other church members and then launched into her perfectly polite greeting.
“Pastor Creswell…”
“Ma’am, please call me Malik.”
“Of course not. I wanted to thank you for bringing the Word this morning. We are always honored to have a guest in the pulpit.”
“It’s my pleasure, ma’am. It never hurts to have a different perspective. Hello, Asa. It’s good to see you again. I really enjoyed the choir selections today. You all sound really good.”
I would never say it out loud, but in my head the words holy fuck were absolutely bouncing around. We’ve spoken plenty before, but usually as a result of an activity where he was in charge and I was taking direction. Or, he was teaching, and I was at his knee like an obedient student. He’d noticed me in the choir stand. He thought I sang well. Well, the choir. There was no way my voice stood out. Why was he staring at me? Oh, no, I haven’t said anything. He probably thinks something is wrong with me. Damn it, Asa, find your voice.
“Thanks, Malik. I enjoyed your sermon too. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen you preach outside of youth functions or one-on-one teaching. You’re really good.”
His smile was hypnotic. I couldn’t take my eyes off of his mouth.
“So, what have you been up to? It’s been a long time. You stopped working summers helping out with youth sports. We’ve missed you.”
“Nobody misses the volunteer snack coordinator and second assistant coach,” I managed to get out. Tacking on a smirk to my self-deprecating remark felt like the way to go.
He can’t possibly know how he’s short-circuiting my brain. Why is this happening in front of Mama? God absolutely has a sense of humor. The man of my dreams is focusing on me, and all I can do is grin at him like a broken hyena. Not that I would do anything else. I cannot go there. Well, not again. Not anymore. I wasn’t even fooling myself. It didn’t matter that I’d made and broken that vow at least a dozen times every couple of months.
“I decided to stay on campus during my summers and volunteer with campus ministries. It means I can accelerate graduation and start graduate school earlier than planned. It’s in divinity too.”
Thank you, brain, for pushing that out.
“That’s wonderful. I’m so proud of you. Vocations to the ministry are low. I remember you being interested, but what a blessing it is that you followed through.”
“Asa is a good boy. He knows how important it is to be true to his word and honor his commitments. He will study under Bishop and hopefully, one day, take over here at Third Street Baptist.”
No, the hell I am not! If there is a God, now would be the perfect time for him to show me with a miracle. Lord, let the ground open up and swallow me now.
“Well, actually, Asa is a man, and he will need to step out on faith and decide who he wants to study under. It will allow him to minister in a way that suits him best. He’s a smart guy. I don’t doubt he’ll make good choices.”
I don’t know if Malik realized that Mama’s head was about to explode, but he was seconds from making her lose her church lady manners.
“Thank you for that, Pastor. Asa and I need to move on now. Bishop is waiting to speak to him too.”
“Mama…”
“No worries, ma’am. I’m sure we’ll catch up again soon, Asa.”
“Yes, sure. Nice to see you. Bye.”
There wasn’t any time to analyze the look he gave me as we walked off, but I would swear I felt his eyes boring into me through my suit jacket.
Chapter Two
Malik
Driving away from the church, I let a string of expletives fly. Swearing was still a struggle, and I tried not to slip up, but in the confines of my own car, I let loose. The windows were up. It wasn’t anybody’s business. I knew I shouldn’t have let her get to me. She was his mother, and I had one of my own that I’d spent years navigating, but that woman seriously made me want to lay down my religion. I watched him deflate with every syllable she uttered and then slink away like a chastised puppy.
My Asa. A lot of time had passe
d. I haven’t seen him in more than a year. It didn’t matter, though. I would always recognize his soulful eyes with their constant hint of mischief and his crooked, perfect smile. A lot of life had been lived, but seeing him brought back too many feelings and all of my memories of him at once. The wave crashed in so fast and hard I had to keep my hands clutched together to keep from reaching for him. I knew I shouldn’t be as frustrated as I was, but the minute I stepped onto the altar and looked into the choir stand and saw him, I envisioned how our conversation would go. What I hadn’t planned on was his mother.
Slamming my hand on the steering wheel repeatedly made the nice lady in the car beside me do a double take and very likely pray for the light to turn green. Maybe meltdowns in my car weren’t just my business when I didn’t have tinted windows.
It was my own fault. I had no business even thinking about Asa with any type of lust in my heart. His mother’s interruption was certainly God’s way of telling me to back off. It wasn’t inappropriate because we were men. That was a bullshit construct I had thrown off years ago. It was because of the things I wanted to do to him and with him. The words consume and dominate came to mind.
My job at Mercy High School was my first year out of college. I had decided to take the year to figure out what I was going to do with my life and if more schooling was in the plan. My dual degree in education and sociology made it possible to return to my alma mater as a guidance counselor. I was comfortable in my skin and with my sexuality, but I didn’t imagine my principal, my colleagues, or my team would receive it well. So, even though I wasn’t in the closet I didn’t keep a pride flag up in my office either.
I was shocked, at first, when Asa signed up to be the equipment manager for the basketball team. Honestly, though I’m typically not one to stereotype, I couldn’t help feeling like sports were way out of his comfort zone. It was basically signing up for constant abuse from the players. A twenty-four-hour a day hazing gig was what it amounted to. His only reprieve came when we traveled to away games. Freshmen couldn’t travel. Then he started being around all the time. He and his friend Bess. Well, at first, I thought she might be his girlfriend, but I’d busted him staring at me once or twice and his eyes roving around the locker room with more than a passing curiosity. I remembered doing the same when I’d started high school, way back when.
Yeah, tits didn’t do it for me, and it was clear they didn’t do it for him. He didn’t seem to realize it at the time, and it would’ve been rude to out him to himself. Coming out in high school could be tumultuous and I decided to be there for him if he ever needed me.
I tried to be friendly and to give off a vibe that would make him feel welcome to a conversation, but he never bit. Two years and barely two syllables. I knew I was going into the seminary for graduate school and it ended up being four years before I laid eyes on him again. That was an interesting summer for sure. He was about to turn twenty. Our age difference seemed less significant then, but he was no closer to coming out.
When I pulled up to my apartment complex and was sitting in my assigned parking space, it dawned on me that I’d made it home on autopilot. Plagued with memories, I didn’t remember a minute of the drive since getting the weird look from the lady at the red light when I first left the church. At least the journey was uneventful. I assumed I hadn’t left a trail of wreckage behind me.
“Hey, you’re late. Change clothes, Pastor, so we can go.”
The door had barely closed behind me before my roommate, Craig, started in. I couldn’t even remember where we were supposed to be going.
“Cool it with the pastor stuff. I’m not in the mood, dude. Aren’t you on shift today?”
“Not until tonight. What’s with the mood? And, isn’t that what the flock calls you?”
“Shut up. You know I don’t have a flock. Can I just sit down for a minute? I am exhausted.”
Craig reached into the fridge and grabbed me a cola, dangling it over the kitchen counter that separated him from me in the living room.
“You’re the one that burned the midnight oil for the last week working on your speech.”
“Sermon. It’s a sermon. Not a speech.”
“Don’t call you pastor, but it’s not a speech it’s a sermon. Whatever. Didn’t it go well?”
“Yeah, I mean, it felt like it did. I just didn’t connect—”
“Say no more. This is about Asa. Lately, it’s always about Asa.”
“You make me sound like some sort of creeper. Worse. A pathetic creeper. Things just didn’t go the way I planned it out in my head. His mother was there and getting him away from her wasn’t possible.”
“I’m going to throw this out there, again. Please go out on a date. You don’t have to fall in love. Hell, you don’t even have to be looking for love. But, you seriously need a distraction. Check out one of the clubs. Find a group online to party with. Something. How about a road trip? I’m off starting on Wednesday. You’re not too old for a wild weekend out.”
“That’s a lot of suggestions. Any other areas of my life you think need addressing? Anything else I should be doing?”
Craig came around the counter and leaned on it with his legs extended. He kept staring at me until finally clapping his hands and saying, “You do need a distraction. Like now, so go get changed. I’m starving and you’re late. We’re going to brunch and you’re treating.”
“When did I agree to this?” I was getting up off of the couch as I was saying it, so he didn’t get any more bent out of shape. I was hungry, too, and frankly, he wasn’t wrong about me needing a distraction.
“When I threatened to set up a Tinder account for you if you broke plans with me one more time. Sidebar: that threat is back on the table.”
Glaring at him with the stern face I gave my students, I issued the same warning I gave every time he mentioned his fool idea. “You better not. I don’t mind practicing my spanking technique on you. Pushy roommate.”
“I have to be, with you. Nobody else has the spine to push back. And, you know what you can do with your little threat. I’m not into that kinky daddy shit.”
“You’re a menace. You need your mouth washed out. I’m either dealing with a mouthy sixteen-year-old girl or a horny sixteen-year-old boy. Any chance I can deal with my twenty-eight-year-old firefighter roommate for brunch?”
“Probably, if my blood sugar doesn’t get too low. Plus, I can’t wait to tell you all about my date last night.” Craig waggled his eyebrows at me and had me taking off down the hallway. I was not about to get a blow by blow of his latest conquest. There were some things you never needed to know about an ex.
As we drove to wherever he was taking me, I still had Asa on my mind.
“You’re thinking too loud. Tell me what happened.”
Craig did not believe in beating around the bush. He’d been the one to hit on me first our freshmen year of college, and he’d been the one to break it off, telling me we would make much better friends. He wasn’t wrong then and when it came to facing things head-on, he’d rarely ever been. I thought, or over thought, and Craig leaped.
“Fine. I’ll talk. But, I swear not one I told you so at least until I’m done.”
Making a ridiculously big show of zipping his lips, my annoying best friend and ex gave me the nod to go ahead and then focused back on the road to let me get it all out.
“The only reason I even considered stepping foot in that church or dealing with that sanctimonious blowhard Bishop Chambers was that I thought I’d get to see Asa. He would be forced to engage at least a little or be considered rude. When he wasn’t around the past two summers for youth sports, I realized how much I missed him. Look, even I know you can’t just go around hunting down folks’ contact information and asking them out. I know that’s what you would have done, but most people wouldn’t.”
“Talk like that is gonna have me commenting.”
“I digress. I get how unreasonable all of this sounds out loud. In my head, though,
it made perfect sense. I believe in divine order and this is meant to be, trust me. I would not have spent the last eighteen months celibate without good reason. I have respected his age, his fear, and his hiding. I learned what it meant to want to pick up that daddy title. I am ready to bring myself to him. To take care of him. I worked on myself. I cleaned up my own less than stellar behavior.”
“You mean your man-whore ways?”
“That is not keeping it zipped.”
“But it wasn’t I told you so either. Carry on.”
“Look, when I came back to work youth sports the first time and he was one of the counselors I was thrilled. I thought, surely, he’s out by now. He’d been away at college for two years, but he was like a nervous cat around me. Plus, his mother was like a hovercraft. Adult or not, that woman would’ve reported me for whatever lewd act is still on the books in Tennessee and had me arrested. So, I pushed it out of my mind.”
When Craig only looked at me without comment, I took it as a green light to proceed. It was hard to believe he either didn’t have a comment or was able to hold it.
“Bruh, he was responding to me all summer. I thought the boy has got to be out by now. He hung out with the group sometimes. We talked about all sorts of things, scriptures, and he even shared that he was considering the ministry. Then there were the looks he gave me and the ones I caught were screaming go, go. I figured I would take him out during the last week after the camp was done and he was on board. All I did was touch his shoulder and I know he felt it too.”
Craig looked at me from the corner of his eye. “Shut up. I know it was there. I know what I felt.”
“The spark. Yeah, you’ve mentioned that a few hundred times.”
“We were good, man. I’m telling you. Even if he never came right out and said, ‘I’m gay and into you.’ He was feeling me. We were ten minutes from making an exit when his mother texted. I watched the light go out of his eyes. I don’t know what her message said, but he turtled up. The retreat was instantaneous. It wasn’t just that he rejected me or backed out of our plans. He backed out of being himself. I wanted to hug him to me and tell him it was going to be okay and that he could be honest with me and, for god’s sake, with himself.”