by Ali Berman
“It’s kinda far. Most people from Forest Ridge go. You’ll see, it’s awesome,” says Kenny.
I kick off my shoes in the backseat and dig in for a longer trip than I expected. This place had better be impressive.
When we finally pull in, I see why they pass on the small church in town and drive out to this thing. The parking lot alone could be for a concert or a movie theater. It’s huge. We ditch his parents and Kenny texts Stan and Arty to meet us in the front of the building. Now that I’m looking around, I see a lot of familiar faces. Tess wasn’t kidding. Even though we’re an hour away from home, everyone is here.
I walk in with the guys. We head over to the first seats we find open closest to the stage. Yes, I said stage. Not pulpit or platform. There is a microphone, drum set, keyboard, and guitar up there. This church could host a Coldplay concert. I can’t even begin to guess how many seats are in here. Thousands?
Kenny, Stan, and Arty are talking about the school football team. They are all on it and from what I can tell, they think they’re pretty damn good. They talk about plays and the coach and a whole bunch of other stuff before Arty realizes I’m just sitting there staring at the back of the head in front of me.
“You play any ball?” asks Arty.
“No. I’m not really into sports.”
“What are you into?”
“I like magic. Games. Comics. Mostly, I like practicing new tricks.”
“Cool,” says Kenny. “Maybe you can show us some sometime.”
“Yeah, sure. And I’ll definitely make it to some games.”
Kenny says, “So I’ve seen you around with Tess a bunch. Are you guys together?”
“Oh no. Just friends.”
“She’s cute though,” says Stan.
“Not as cute as her sister,” says Kenny.
“So true. Angela is smoking,” says Stan.
“And if you tell her she’s hot, she might meet you behind the bleachers.”
“So, you guys can date?” I ask.
They laugh. “What do you think we are, dude?” asks Kenny.
“I just didn’t know with, you know, your religion and stuff, if you were allowed to date.”
“Yeah, man, we can date,” says Stan.
There is an awkward silence for a minute. I’m trying to think of something to say but nothing comes to mind. Then I remember.
I say to Kenny, “That’s awesome they chose your pen-pal idea. You know, writing to soldiers?”
“Yeah. My brother likes getting letters,” he says. “Especially from girls.”
“My brother is in Iraq too. He’s coming home in early December though.”
“Cool. Mine is coming home in mid-December. Just in time for Christmas.”
“It’s gonna be my brother’s first time to Colorado. Maybe they could hang or something,” I say.
A man steps up to the microphone and starts talking. The room immediately goes quiet. Everyone is focused on him.
The guy starts out decently enough, talking about scripture from some place in the Bible. Arty gives me a book and points me to the page. It’s like opening Moby Dick in the middle. If you haven’t read what comes before, you’re not going to have a clue what’s happening. Not that I’ve read Moby Dick, but my sister has.
Eventually he gets to the stuff I keep hearing about. How Jesus saves people. How we have a choice. The way he phrases it, it doesn’t sound like we have much of a choice. It’s more like, if you love Jesus, you’re golden. If you don’t, you might as well reserve your spot in the burning hellfire now.
He says either we can walk around like half-dead people with nothing good inside of us. That is to say, live without devoting our lives to Jesus. Or, we can accept Jesus and be happy.
I wish I could say I’m making this stuff up, but that’s seriously what he’s saying. That I’m half dead and not worth anything because I don’t believe in god.
Now, I wish I wasn’t here at all. In a room where everyone basically thinks I’m an awful person because I don’t worship the god they worship. I don’t worship anyone! (Maybe Houdini.)
The guy on stage goes even further and says that if you haven’t been saved, you’re an enemy of god. An enemy! Now that I’m in a room surrounded by people, thousands of people who think that I’ll be bunking with Satan, it feels awful. Stan, Arty, and Kenny keep nodding their heads in agreement. At least when they aren’t checking out the girls in the seats in front of us.
I look around and there are kids all over the place. Babies, toddlers, all the way up through teenagers. They come here every week and hear about how bad they are up until the moment they’re saved. If I heard this stuff when I was five, I’d have been freaking terrified! Of course they say they believe in Jesus. The only other option is to be a half-dead enemy of Christ who goes to hell.
No wonder no one at school talks to me. I am an atheist. I don’t believe this crap. I mean, a god? Really? And why this one? Why not any of the thousands of others throughout history? Cupid was a god once. Or worshipped as one. Now he just sells greeting cards. It’s stupid.
After about forty-five minutes of talking and repeating the same things over and over—seriously, there is a ridiculous amount of repetition—the guy finally introduces the next act. A band goes up, the lights dim and here I am at 11 a.m. on a Sunday watching a rock concert. Everyone stands up and sings along to the music. It’s like what was playing in Kenny’s car. Rock music laced with the message of god. Kenny even does some fist pumping into the air.
I look for Tess in the crowd and eventually find her sitting with her family. Angela is a few rows over with a group of friends. Tess chooses to stay with her brothers. Her friend Beth is sitting next to her too.
Tess isn’t swaying back and forth like other people, or giving the I love you look that other high school girls are giving the band. Parents stand, interested, but lacking the enthusiasm of the teenagers.
The band plays a few songs, there are a couple more prayers, and then, it’s over. The band was way more fun than the sermon, but I couldn’t imagine doing this every week. That preacher guy was basically saying I would burn in hell. Was he trying to scare me into believing? Or just shame me into it?
The preacher ends the sermon with a sentence that makes me cringe. He says, “If you want to know about having everlasting peace, come on up to one of our people and they’ll direct you to someone who can talk to you about it.”
Damn.
“We can wait around for a bit so you can talk to the preacher, ” says Kenny.
“Maybe next time,” I say carefully. “I don’t want to hold anybody up. It’s a long drive home.”
“Your eternal soul doesn’t like to wait. Come on. Don’t be a coward.”
Kenny grabs my arms and pulls me up toward the front, around the side of the stage and into the back. We stop in front of an office with the door open. He gives me a push into the room and then I’m standing in front of a preacher, a different one than the guy who spoke. He’s smiling at me like a Miss America pageant contestant.
“Welcome. I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Christopher.”
“Uh. Hi. I’m Ben.”
“Welcome, Ben. Would you like to have a seat?”
I look out of the office window to see Kenny smiling at me.
“Oh. Actually, my friend just wanted me to come in here, but I’m okay.”
“If your friend thought you needed to see me, maybe you do. Have you been saved, Ben?”
“Oh god. I mean, um, well, I’m, uh, I’ve got to go. Thanks and everything. This just isn’t my thing.”
I awkwardly back out of the room. Christopher is still smiling his creepy artificial smile. I don’t even look behind me as I shuffle backward and end up walking straight into Kenny.
“That was fast,” he says.
“
Yeah. I think it’s a bit too soon for me. Maybe next time,” I say.
“None of us knows when it’s our turn. There won’t always be a next time.”
“Thanks, dude. I just, I think I want to get home. I’ve got a lot of homework.”
Kenny shrugs and we walk back to the other guys.
I see Arty and Stan looking at Kenny, and Kenny giving them a disappointed head shake.
Kenny says, “So, church again next week?”
It all feels like being force-fed rotten Brussels sprouts and being expected to act like you’re being offered cake.
“Let me talk to my parents. I’ll let you know.”
The guys are looking at me like they’re let down. Like they really thought two hours in church was going to make me believe. Maybe if the preacher wasn’t such a jerk to people who aren’t saved, I could handle it. Spending two hours out of every weekend listening to some guy tell me I suck isn’t fun. And if ten years of Catholic school didn’t convert me, why would two hours of this? I mean, Catholics have hell and damnation too. They just get their point across with boring church music instead of with the Christian version of Nickelback.
Kenny, Arty, Stan, and I continue to shuffle through the aisle with all the other people to get outside. A few steps in front of us is that freshman kid who was sitting behind me and staring at me during the school assembly. He’s holding his mom’s hand. Just as I notice, I see that the guys are looking at him too.
Suddenly Kenny starts staggering and pretending that he’s drunk. He even mimes holding a bottle up to his mouth to drink. The kid in front of us hears Arty and Stan laughing and turns to look back for just a second. Long enough to see what Kenny is doing, and then he speeds up a little.
“Dude,” I say angrily.
“What? That kid’s mom is a drunk. Plus, I think he’s a queer.”
“So?” I ask.
“Don’t tell me you’re a homo. Is that why you haven’t hooked up with Tess?”
“I’m not gay,” I say. In my mind I add there is nothing wrong with being gay but the words never leave my mouth.
Kenny says, “Man, you really do need to come to church. You’re even worse off than I thought. A freaking fag sympathizer.” Kenny stops walking, faces me, and takes hold of my shoulders. “I’m going to let you in on some truth, straight out of the Bible. Faggots are disgusting. They are filthy sinners and they should all be kept away from us normal people.”
I remove his hands from my shoulders and say, “You’ve never even met a gay person, have you?”
“Heck no, I haven’t. What do you think I am?!”
I want to tell him he’s an ignorant, homophobic moron. Instead I flake out. I shake my head and walk back to the car without looking at any of the guys. I want to get away from them, but there are too many people, including the kid who they were teasing. I want to tap the kid on the shoulder and say I’m not with them, but he pulls his mom back into the rows of seats and heads for a different exit.
I keep walking and hear Arty say, “Maybe he’s a fag too.”
The car ride sucks. Kenny’s parents ask me how I liked church and say they don’t mind picking me up if I want to go again.
I say, “I can’t next week but thanks.“ What I really want to say is, did you raise your kid to be a bigot? Or did that massive, hateful church make him that way? I still say nothing. My sister would think I’m a wuss. Maybe I am.
They pull up to my street. The first thing I do is look at Tess’s house and think damn. I’m having dinner there tonight and I’m supposed to pretend to be on the road to conversion. It’s either lie, or lose the only friend I’ve got.
I don’t even know if Tess’s version of Christianity is cool with gay people. What if she’s not? What would I do?
Chapter 9
WWJD? Probably Not Lie.
At five o’clock, I walk across the street for dinner at Tess’s house. I still have no idea what I’m going to say. I’ve thought about it. I even wrote down a list of things I could say. All of them either seem like lies or are way too truthful. I guess it depends on what they ask me. Maybe I’ll grovel. Say something like, religion isn’t for me, but please please please please let me be friends with your daughter. She’s the only person who’s nice to me. Jesus was friends with a prostitute. Doesn’t that mean she can be friends with an atheist? Yeah . . . that’s probably a surefire way to have them send me home before dessert.
I knock on the door. Tess answers. She sees that I’m not smiling, or maybe I just look like I’m going to throw up.
“What’s wrong?” she whispers.
“I hated church.”
“I think we both knew that was going to happen. You did it to fit in.”
“They hate atheists.”
“They just don’t understand them.”
I try to smile as Mrs. Colston walks toward us from the dining room.
“Hi there, Ben. So nice to finally meet you,” she says. “Come on in and have a seat. We just finished setting the table.”
I immediately go right to the best piece of making parents love you advice that Pete ever gave me and ask, “Can I help with anything?”
She looks at me approvingly and says, “No, I think we’re all set, but thank you for asking.”
Danny, Paul, and their dad are sitting at the table. I say hi to the boys. Danny asks me to do a magic trick but his dad hushes him.
I hold out my hand to Mr. Colston. He smiles and shakes it.
“Hi there, Ben. Tess has told us a lot about you.”
“She’s been really nice to me since I moved here.”
“It’s never easy transferring to a new school. My father was in the marines so we moved around quite a bit.”
“Wow. My brother is in the army and he says the marines are tough. Did you make new friends?” I ask.
“I found the other kids with dads in the service and made friends with them.”
I nod and there is silence for a moment. Tess is in the kitchen helping her mom.
“Is your brother in Iraq?” he asks.
“Yeah.”
“How long has be been there?”
“This is his third tour. He’s coming home for a break in December.”
“God bless him.”
“Were you in the service too?”
“No. My father wouldn’t let me,” he says. “I think the marines who saw World War Two from the Pacific didn’t want their kids to go through what they went through. He said it was more important to get an education than learn to fight.”
“My brother got both. He got his degree and then decided to give a few years to his country.”
Tess and Mrs. Colston come in with plates of food.
“Tess, can you go get your sister?”
Tess runs upstairs and comes back down with Angela. She’s wearing a skimpy top and, without even being able to control it, I look directly at her chest.
Mr. Colston says, “Angela, we have company. Go put on a sweater.”
“It’s hot.”
“I don’t care.”
There is an uncomfortable silence as Angela runs upstairs, puts something else on over her tank top, and comes back down.
“Wonderful,” says Mrs. Colston. “I think we’re ready.”
I make a slight move with my hand to serve myself, but Tess gives me a gentle kick under the table.
Everyone lowers their head and holds out their hands. Right. Praying.
I take Tess’s hand and Danny’s and bow my head. Mr. Colston starts to give thanks to the lord. All I can think about is how nice and soft Tess’s hand feels. She’s warm and she’s not just laying her hand over mine. She’s squeezing. I think my hand is beginning to sweat in hers and I know the thoughts now entering my head are probably not okay for the dinner table while grace is being s
aid. I’m just glad I already put my napkin on my lap.
When Mr. Colston finishes his prayer, I let go of Tess’s hand and feel my pulse start to go down.
The food is passed around the table and we all begin to eat. As I chew I start to freak out about when the questions are going to start. I eat each bite really fast so if they ask me something, my mouth isn’t full of food. Instead, Angela is talking about her basketball team and how bad the freshmen are at free throws.
Eventually the conversation turns to me, and I’m ready for it. The church question. But it doesn’t come. Instead, Mr. Colston asks me what my parents do and why we moved all the way from Massachusetts. They seem like pretty easygoing people. By the time we’re done eating, I almost feel relaxed.
Tess clears our plates while Angela cleans some potatoes off her brother’s chin. Mrs. Colston comes back in with three small dishes of ice cream.
She hands them to the kids and says, “Dan and Paul, I want you to go to the den to have your dessert. You can watch one television program and then you all need to finish your homework. Angela, you’re excused.”
“Are you sure? I can stay,” she says, eyeing me.
“Go on upstairs. Now.”
“Fine.”
Mr. Colston just sits there, waiting for his wife to come back from the kitchen. I guess this is it. They didn’t want to grill me in front of the kids. Or in front of fat-mouthed Angela.
Mrs. Colston puts a bowl of ice cream in front of each of us. Before she even sits down with her own dish, she says, “So Ben, I think you know why we asked you over here. We have some concerns. Would you like to speak on your behalf?”
“I’m not sure what you want me to say?”
“Well, we’re curious about your feelings on Christianity and if you’ve decided to become a member of the church.”
Tess looks at me and smiles. I smile back, feeling a little sick. When I’m quiet for about five long seconds, Tess says, “I told you, Mom. Ben was at church this morning. He wants to be saved.”
“I’d like to hear it from Ben if you don’t mind. Ben?”
“Yeah. Sorry. Tess is right. I did go to church this morning.”