God Says No

by James Hannaham

  Gay guessed that I was worried about what would happen at the clinic, and told me in reassuring tones that I’d be in a dorm room for a couple of days, and then I’d join a group of eleven other guys with unwanted SSAssame-sex attractions. They had a year of fun stuff planned that would help me get rid of the bad desires.

  “It feels strange now, but you’ll probably look back at this as one of the happiest days of your life,” she beamed. “Because it’s really the first day when you’ll truly begin to serve God and live for Him, not selfishly.” Bill nodded in agreement, possibly watching many sweet memories pass through his head at once. The two of them had a special glow about them when they talked about God. I felt right at home, like I’d gone back to college.

  Inside, the building even reminded me of a high school. A bunch of gray stone steps led into a glass lobby. On the right, I could see into the office through some glass walls. Like my dorm at Central, the walls were cinder blocks painted with glossy white paint. Two hallways went down either side of the lobby, lit by a series of bare bulbs screwed into wall sockets. The speckled green linoleum floor looked super clean and had a freshly mopped ammonia scent. I felt like Br’er Rabbit-they’d tossed me into a place I already knew.

  “Do the therapies get rid of the homosexuality completely?” I asked. Gay looked at Bill for permission to say something, and he nodded.

  “Well, we can’t guarantee complete healing,” she said gravely, “but I have yet to see a method with a better success rate.” We followed Bill into the office. “A lot of our graduates enter a celibate lifestyle. Some of them learn to control the behavior, and a few go on to lead fulfilling heterosexual lives with husbands, or wives, and children, pets, and vacations.” A colorful vision of myself living a perfect life like Lisette’s opened up in my mind. I thought back to a moment when Annie and I had been lying on Daytona Beach at sunset, before we got married. Most of the people had left, and tiny waves fell over themselves one after another at the shoreline. They made a fizzy sound like a Coke can opening when they came near us. We sat in silence for a long while, trying to see the cargo ships on the horizon. The cries of gulls and the wash of the surf mixed with laser-beam noises coming from hit radio stations in cars on the strip. All of a sudden, Annie sat up and sang a Samoan song from her childhood. She warbled it sweetly, at a low volume. I’d never heard her sing before. Her voice had a gentle but strong tone that lifted it above all those other sounds.

  There had been attractive men walking up and down the beach all day, oily and muscular, but I had resisted the urge to stare or imagine them sexually. I was proud of that. My lust crumbled into nothingness compared to what I felt when Annie sang, a feeling of connection to ancient, sacred things-earth, sea, sky, woman, music, and God.

  “This is perfect,” Annie sighed when she finished. I told her how beautiful the song was. Her words helped me to think of myself as a real man, one with responsibilities. I had given her a life of pleasure. “Thank you, Jesus,” she said, “for putting this wonderful man in my life.”

  The practical urgency of my first night at Resurrection broke through my daydream. “First order of business, Gary,” Bill said, poking me in the chest. He addressed Gay. “We’ve got to get this big guy registered and get him some clothes.”

  “Registration! Clothes! Cornin’ right up,” Gay announced, turning on more fluorescent lights in the office. She edged around a couple of desks and touched the RETURN key on her computer. A flock of flying toasters disappeared from the screen. Down the hall, I heard men’s voices. They sounded like guys playing a game, a series of sudden whoops and grunts. Hearing a sign of life in the clean, empty surroundings gave me hope.

  Bill must have noticed my attitude perking up. “Say,” he suggested, “while Gay sets up your files, maybe you’d like to run down the hall and meet the guys. It’ll be good to have something to look forward to after Safekeeping. “

  “Yeah?” I said, forcing a smile. I wasn’t sure what he meant.

  “Is that okay, Gay?”

  “Fine. Leave me here.” She smiled.

  Bill and I made our way down the shiny hallway on the right to a slightly open door. Four men were playing doubles ping-pong in a large rec room with a pool table at the far end. Closer to the door, a maroon sectional couch and some folding chairs hugged the walls. It looked like a place where people could shoot the breeze about important things. A low coffee table sat in the middle, with the box for the game Connect Four set in the center. One of the men, a stocky guy with a mustache wearing a yellow sweater, scampered away to the far side of the room to fetch the little ball. When the others saw Bill, they threw their paddles down on the table and rushed over to bear-hug him and pat him on the back like he’d just come back from a yearlong trip, even though they’d met him only in the last few days. “Bill!” they shouted. “How’s it going, buddy?”

  When the horseplay ended, Bill introduced me to the guys. I had already sized them up, afraid that I’d be prisoner in a program with lots of guys I wanted to service. Dwayne was a pale, skinny guy in his thirties who wore glasses from the 195 as and parted his hair in the middle. He stooped a little when he walked, and he breathed through his mouth. “Welcome to Resurrection, Gary!” he said, tripping over his tongue a little. “We’re really glad you made it.” Jake was younger, maybe twentysix, with reddish-brown hair. He wore a dark blue golf shirt and khakis, but he had a tough-guy look in his eye, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep up with him. He wore a Band-Aid on his neck. George had gray skin and very feminine mannerisms, thick glasses, and hips as wide as if he’d stolen them from a shapely woman. He could’ve been in his mid-forties. We shook hands. He had a weak, wet grip. I greeted them all, trying to match their brave smiles and go-getter attitudes. Fortunately, I didn’t feel too attracted to any of them, even though I had done plenty of sexual stuff in bathrooms with way uglier men.

  The fellow who’d gone after the ball returned and greeted me warmly. His name was Tom and his body looked like a smaller, white version of mine. He blow-dried his hair back neatly and his face shone with moisturizer. When he talked, Tom’s double chin jiggled and his eyes sparkled. “The blessings are going to rain down on you, Gary,” he promised, poking my rib cage with his index finger. “Are you ready for a miracle?”

  “Are you ready for twelve miracles?” Dwayne added.

  “Yeah! I sure am!” I shouted back, maybe louder than I’d meant to. The guys gave a good-natured laugh.

  In the office, Gay found a clipboard with a card on it where I filled in my name and answered some questions. As my problem, I checked the box marked HOMOSEXUALITY. The ministry also dealt with drug and pornography addictions, physical and sexual abuse, incest, and child molesting. I didn’t know if that meant you were the child or not, so I didn’t fill it in. I didn’t like thinking I had come to a place where there might be child molesters.

  Gay told me that she already had my contact info on file. They’d only contact Annie in an emergency. She led me downstairs to a damp basement area with a chicken-coop-type structure filled with shelves and racks packed with clothing of the type you might find in thrift stores. One side of the little area had women’s clothes, long dresses in pastel yellows and pinks, sea-green windbreakers, low-heeled feminine shoes, floral blouses and hats, but no pants. On the other side were men’s clothes, including dress shirts and polo shirts in dark, solid colors or zigzag patterns, pants made of polyester and khaki, and black and brown loafers.

  Gay showed me to a tiny changing room with a slop sink and a mop in it. She told me to take off my clothes down to the drawers. In there, I took Manny’s phone number out of my jeans and stuck it behind the sink before I came out. I stood in front of her in just my drawers. Gay looked at all the clothes I’d handed her and confiscated the ones with false images-that meant anything sexy or popular. I got to keep my polo shirt, but she took the jeans. The boxer briefs had to go, too, so she gave me a package with an XXi pair of striped linen boxers i
n it, and a pair of khakis. Back in the changing room, I slipped Manny’s number into the back pocket of the new pants.

  To replace my Doc Martens, she gave me Hush Puppies, just like I’d worn as a kid, but new ones, not thrift-store specials. They didn’t have much clothing in my size, but I found a couple of shirts, some pairs of pants, and more boxers. Gay dropped my old clothes into a large bin. Then she went through all the items I had taken out of my old jeans. “We’ll save them, but you probably won’t want them later.”

  When she saw a picture of Russ I kept in my wallet, I held it in my hand, away from the discard pile. “He’s very handsome,” she said, eyeing me in a mock-suspicious way. Despite her joking tone, I felt violated and untrusted. “That’s Russ, my college roommate,” I said lightly, as if that meant I couldn’t find him attractive. She squinted and held her hand out. I placed the photo in her palm and took a last look at his tempting lips.

  Hugging my new clothes, which smelled like the basement, I followed Gay back upstairs to the office. She walked over to a strongbox where they kept the keys, found the correct ring, and locked the box again. She brought me to the third floor, down a hall where all the rooms had numbered plaques on them. I heard religious music coming out of a couple of the rooms.

  We stopped in front of a room marked 307. Gay opened the door and turned on the light-one naked bulb fixed high in the ceiling. This was my room, a narrow corridor almost, with just enough space at the far end for a large window. The window had a grate stretched across it and a dusty air conditioner stuck in the top half. On our right stood a twin mattress and box spring on wheels, with a gray wool blanket over it. Across the room sat an old wooden desk with a lamp clipped to the top, paired with a chair from an elementary school. A Bible lay open in the center of the desk, like somebody had just gotten up from reading it. Several blue Postit flags stuck out from the pages. Right next to me and Gay stood a dresser with an electric clock, a portable cassette player, and a set of towels and washcloths, topped with a bar of soap. Immediately to our left I noticed a dark, open closet and another door that I figured might be the bathroom, but it was locked.

  “Welcome home, Gary,” Gay said, walking over to turn on the air conditioner. The mechanism sputtered and then hummed steadily. “We’ve had some trouble with this one. Let me know if anything goes wrong with it. They’ll be bringing breakfast up to you at 7:30 tomorrow.”

  The room didn’t look like such a fun place, but living at the Patriot Inn was worse, and I had done that by choice. I grew eager to go downstairs and get to know some of the other residents. I put my new clothes down on the bed and started putting them on hangers.

  “Do you have any questions?” Gay asked. “Are you going to be okay?”

  “I think so.”

  She turned to leave. I wanted to ask her to stay and talk, since she was so funny and personable, and I felt scared about this new situation. But I sensed that she had other business to attend to.

  “Can I have the key?” I asked.

  “Actually, Gary, the first couple of days we call Safekeeping. You need to be in isolation, focusing on God’s word and on Jesus Christ for that time.” She nodded and pointed at the Bible with her head. “It should just be a time of meditation and reflection on your life up until now, and what you want in the future. So you’ll stay here, and someone will bring your meals. Touching yourself is strictly against the rules here, obviously. If your wife sends along some of your things, we’ll have to make sure there’s nothing in the package that will stimulate you, like photographs of John Stamos, or sexy clothes, or even letters you might have received, okay? Because there’s full accountability here, and if anyone finds out you have stuff like that, they’ll report you. We’ll revoke some privileges and you might be asked to leave the program.” She swung the door back to reveal an intercom on the wall like you’d find in any apartment building. “If you need to use the bathroom immediately, or there’s an emergency, just buzz downstairs and a helper will escort you down the hall.”

  As eager as I was not to be homosexual anymore, these restrictions made me feel as jumpy as a field mouse at a cat show. They kept the place clean and everybody acted friendly, but you couldn’t leave, and that made it like you’d done something wrong, not like you wanted to get cured. As Gay held the door, I must have given her a real pathetic hangdog look.

  “You’re going to feel really spoiled, trust me,” Gay said, smiling broadly. She locked me in the room and I turned away from the door.

  When I thought about it for a moment, I realized that much of my man activity had taken place during moments of too much personal freedom. So it made sense that the program should start by taking away some of my rights and the ability to do things on my own. Before Gay could get down the hall, though, I ran to the door and banged on it. I yelled her name to get her attention. She returned and opened the door a crack.

  “Is something the matter?”

  “What if there’s a fire?”

  She sighed. “In the unlikely event of a fire ... Well, first the sprinklers will go off-” she pointed to a little spigot thing on the ceiling on a pipe that went through both walls. “And then someone will come around and get you. This is a totally safe building, Gary. You have nothing to worry about. Now, I am really not allowed to talk to you until Safekeeping is over, so ... goodnight.”

  “Thanks, Gay. Goodnight.”

  “Goodnight.” Gay locked me in again and I heard her feet hurrying down the hall.

  I sat down on the bed and tested its firmness. It sagged in the center, but I didn’t think that would be a problem. I turned on the lamp, turned off the overhead light bulb, and sat down at the desk. The chair was uncomfortable, and, of course, too small for my body. I reached forward and opened the Bible. It was a nice edition with golden edges and many color drawings inside. I opened to a picture of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego coming out of the furnace that didn’t burn them. The picture meant that I’d get through everything fine, so I thought about reading the whole Bible from end to end, but I didn’t want to wait to read about Jesus. So I skipped to the New Testament and read the first few chapters of Matthew. Whenever I read the Sermon on the Mount, I always thought about how exciting it would have been to hear Jesus saying the actual words of Jesus. Maybe afterward I could’ve pushed my way through the crowd and shaken His hand and gotten an autograph. I could’ve been one of His first followers and warned Him about Judas and told Him not to worry because one day everybody would worship Him.

  Around the parables, I stopped reading and skipped through to the illustrations and the places where they’d put the blue flags. Every flagged passage was about the badness of homosexuality. Reading them became depressing, so I got up and listened to a tape of the Clymer Sisters that they’d left in the radio. I lay down on the bed and marveled as the ladies’ razor-sharp voices tore through “Trust in Him,” “Almighty Faith,” and other hits, and mouthed along to the words. Side one finished and I got real drowsy. I stared up at the ceiling and the pattern of light that the lamp shade made against the wall, the same shape as South Carolina. Bill and Gay wanted me to think on my broken past and how Christ could fix everything, and for a while I did that. I worried a lot about whether I could stop disappointing my wife and be a man. But after a while, my thoughts wandered back to sex with Manny.

  As I undressed for bed, though, I found his phone number in my pocket and crumpled it up. I had been dishonest. Then I uncrumpled it and tried to memorize it. That turned out to be harder than I expected, so I slipped it between the mattress and the box spring. I knew I was doing a bad thing. But it wasn’t an actual bad thing, just an action that could lead to a bad thing, and I still believed that that didn’t count.

  Once I got done with Safekeeping, Gay brought me down to my new room, 210, which I would share with a struggling brother. She knocked on the door to see if he was around before giving me the key. I was so sure that my roomie would be another feminine older man with froggy ey
es that when Nicky Johnson swung the door half open and leaned against the knob, my blood took a wrong turn into my legs and I nearly lost my balance. To keep myself from staggering, I took a careful step backward.

  If I’d known any better, I’d have given up right then and gone home to be gay. Physically, Nicky was kind of like Russ, but he had Euges easy ways and Hank’s green eyes. It wasn’t just Nicky’s chestnut-brown hair, his gently crooked nose, or his skin, smooth and warm as oak tag, that distracted me from Jesus’s plan. From that first moment, everything floored me: his casual posture, those puppy-dog eyelids, always half-closed, the scar that cut through his right eyebrow, the shy smile, never big enough to show real happiness, his habit of biting his chapped lips-Oh boy, I could go on. But my attraction to him was more than physical. I looked at him and I knew nothing good could come of rooming with him. I knew it like a sneeze, or like thinking of a name I couldn’t remember.

  “Nicky, this is Gary. You guys are bunking together. Like everybody here, Gary’s dealing with same-sex attraction issues and some difficulty in his past. Nicky’s dealing with the same as well as pornography, and drugs, too, aren’t you?”

  “Yeah, and compulsive? I’m compulsive, sex-wise, too,” he said, nodding. When he talked, the ends of all his sentences were question marks.

  Focusing on Jesus, I shook Nicky’s hand and told him how glad I was to meet him and help him through his troubled time, and weren’t we going to beat this thing through the love of Christ. He wouldn’t make eye contact. Gay nodded and patted our shoulders, excusing herself to let us get acquainted before the first meeting of this year’s B-group men.