Читать книгу Thinking Straight - Robin Reardon - Страница 10

But about midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them.

—Acts 16:25

I woke up to this piercing ringing noise, sitting bolt upright before I knew where I was. Charles sat up in his own bed, hair whorled in a couple of places where his head had been on the pillow but the hair was too short to be really messed up. He got out of bed before I did, rubbed his face and exhaled, and then knelt on the floor.

Was this part of what my daily routine was supposed to be? I couldn’t remember seeing it written anyplace. Maybe it was just Charles. I got up and went to find my bathroom kit and a towel, knowing that if I did something wrong he’d tell me.

Without even looking up, Charles said, “Don’t go to the bathroom without me.” And then he knelt there another couple of minutes while I leaned on my desk, getting irritated. Did I really have to obey him like this? I was afraid I did.

Finally he stood and grabbed his own kit and towel. “You probably don’t want to wear a yellow tag on your pajamas or on your shoulder. If I’m with you I’ll be able to explain to anyone that you can’t speak.”

I shrugged; fine. I followed him to the shower room, adjacent to the toilet room, with an archway between. It was full of stalls like the ones in the toilet room, but longer, with a little space near the door that stayed dry enough to hang your clothes. The space was evidently designed for some compromise between privacy and revelation. I couldn’t gawk at the other naked guys, but I didn’t have quite enough privacy to—well, to enjoy myself in here.

The towels were huge—I think they called them bath sheets—and we were expected to wrap them under our arms tightly before we stepped out of the shower stalls.

Back in the room, before I could do so much as look for underwear, Charles closed the door and said, “Let me show you how we dress.”

Was he kidding me with this? But he selected some clothing for himself and threw it on the bed, and I did the same, and then he pulled at something on the wall between our beds that I hadn’t noticed before. A thin curtain was suspended from a track in the ceiling, and Charles pulled it across.

“Only when we’re both dressed does the curtain go back again. If you finish first, you can start making your bed.”

Wow. Did they really think the sight of Charles’s naked body would drive me over the edge of self-control? Or maybe the sight of mine…SorG? I mean, Straight or Gay?

Suddenly I really wanted to know. Why was Charles here? I knew the Program included kids who’d been caught on drugs and some kids who were violent or drank a lot. What had been Charles’s sin?

I dressed quickly, in my new clothes, which were not my style—khakis, leather belt, knit polo shirt. I was making my bed when Charles said, “I’m about to pull the curtain back. If it’s too soon, clear your throat.” I was silent.

When the curtain was pressed once again against the wall, I glanced at Charles’s bed. Not made yet. Good; I was ahead of him. I finished quickly and went to my desk. There was a pad of paper there, and a pen. It was for me to use if I had to say something I couldn’t communicate with hand gestures. Well, all right, it was supposed to be for emergencies, but that’s a relative term. I wrote, “Why are you in here?”

When he turned away from his bed and saw me holding it up to him, he froze. I will always remember the expression on his face after he read it, because it was the only honest one I ever expected to see there. It had fear in it, and admission. It told me all I needed to know.

Gotcha.

He said, “You’re supposed to do that only in emergencies.” He wouldn’t look at me. If he had, he’d have seen that I knew. Instead he looked at my shoulder, saw it was missing something, and pointed to the page of yellow labels on my desk. I shrugged and slapped one onto my shirt.

Without speaking he jerked his head in a follow-me kind of way, and he led the way to breakfast. He herded me silently through the line, pointing at trays and silverware and napkins, and I followed him to an empty table for four. What else was I going to do?

We’d been there just long enough for Charles to say a quiet grace that I guess was supposed to apply to both of us when two girls sat down in the other two chairs. They saw my yellow sticker—looked for it, or so it seemed to me—and asked Charles how he was. The smile that appeared suddenly on his face was a lie.

“Happy and grateful,” he replied. “Jessica Rifkin, Marie Downs, this is Taylor Adams. Today’s his first full day with us, and as you can see he’s in SafeZone. He’s my new roommate.” To me he said, “Jessica and Marie are roommates, too.”

I tried to look at them without looking at them; didn’t want to draw attention to myself too soon in this place. Marie was one of those girls who, for sure, will be in one sorority or another at college. You know the type? Dark hair pulled back on one side with a plastic tortoiseshell barrette; white blouse with one of those collars that has round edges that meet in the middle when you button it all the way up, which of course she did. Something prissy about her. Just missed being pretty. Jessica seemed more normal, at least in my terms, though she was definitely plain-looking. Longish light brown hair, no particular style to it. She’s the one who got the conversation going, while Marie watched Charles closely.

“You were so quiet in Prayer Meeting last night,” Jessica said, and I couldn’t quite tell whether her glance at him was more concerned or inquisitive. Did she know something interesting about Charles? What was special about last night’s meeting, other than the fact that I didn’t show up?

Charles didn’t look at her. “I just had a lot to talk with God about.” He reached for the jar of maple syrup, watching the stream of it intently as it cascaded down the stack of pancakes on his plate. Then he held it out to me, his glance questioning.

I had pancakes, too, so I reached for it. He must have been watching my face closely, ’cause when my mouth opened to thank him he withdrew his arm a little. Instantly I understood the warning. I nodded and held out my hand for the syrup.

But Jessica wasn’t done with him. “We’re supposed to be sharing our communication with God. In Prayer Meeting. Do you need some coaching, brother? Are there secrets that need to see the light?”

I glanced at her sharply, feeling—to my total surprise—defensive for Charles. At least he’d treated me decently so far. But I couldn’t speak. So all I could do was notice that the smile plastered on Charles’s face seemed to hurt him. But his voice, hard but clothed in something soft, cut her off at the proverbial knees.

“Why, sister, I’m touched at your concern. Thank you. But no, nothing God and I were talking about at the meeting was secret. Nothing you don’t know.”

I looked at her, thinking, Take that, sister Jessica. Then I sat back, a rather stunning idea occurring.

Whoa. Could this be deliberate on their part? Are they playing “good cop, bad cop” with me? Is this just a ploy to get me on Charles’s side somehow? So I looked at him again, assessing.

No. Don’t think so. He looked genuinely uncomfortable, and uncomfortable knowing that was how he looked. No one could fake that. Don’t be so suspicious, I told myself. Silently, of course. So I went back to my original suspicions. They were bad enough: lying, brainwashing, mind control, hypocrisy.

At least Jessica showed a true color, even if it was an ugly shade of passive-aggressive. But her voice, as well as her words when she asked Charles if he needed “coaching,” had sounded spooky. Haunted. Haunting, that’s for sure.

Their conversation changed rather abruptly, which I was sure was okay with Charles, when Marie said, “I’ve been trying to reach out to Leland, but he hasn’t been very responsive. Any hints you can give me, Charles?”

For just a second, Charles stopped chewing. Maybe it wasn’t so okay after all. But he didn’t look up from his plate, and he sounded calm enough when he said, “Leland may need a little more time. He might not be ready to see that what you did was in his best interests.”

“You’ve been talking with him, then?”

Charles’s head snapped up. I wasn’t sure if it was anger or fear in his eyes, but all he said was, “Sister, you know that Leland is in SafeZone again.” Then his voice got really pointed. “If anyone is speaking to him now, especially about what happened, it would be irresponsible. We must all help him to preserve his current parameters. Perhaps now is not the best time for you to be reaching out to him.”

Jessica looked like she had an opinion about this, but before she could get it out, there was a woman smiling down at me. She wasn’t very tall, but something about the way she had her hair pulled back made her seem—I don’t know, stern or something. And there was this streak of white, almost two inches wide, that swept up from her forehead adding to the effect. The rest of her hair was pretty dark, though there were a few shots of white in it. She might have been pretty, but it was hard to tell with that hairstyle, and with the way her face seemed pulled tight.

Charles practically jumped to his feet, so I figured I had to stand as well.

The woman said, “Taylor, I know you’re in SafeZone, so let me just introduce myself to you. I’m Mrs. Harnett, and I’m the staff leader for your group. I’m sorry I couldn’t be here yesterday to meet you, but I had to be elsewhere.”

I nearly said, “That’s okay,” but Charles was boring a hole into the side of my head, so I remembered in time and just nodded.

“As your staff leader, I’m here to help you in any way I can. Please stop by my office before you report to your first assignment. Charles will show you where it is. God bless you, Taylor.”

And she left. It was only at that point that I noticed that Marie and Jessica had not stood when Charles and I had. I made a mental note to review the rules about how “men” and “women” were expected to act with one another, if only so I would know what was going on.

I kind of wanted the interrupted conversation to continue; it had been making Charles uncomfortable in one way or another, and I’d been thinking that might be a useful thing to know how to do. But evidently Charles wanted to talk about other things.

“Have you both got companions for Friday’s barbeque dinner?” He pushed a forkful of pancake into his mouth.

“Marie hasn’t. But I’m sure she will.” Jessica’s smile was as big as Mrs. Harnett’s, but it didn’t look warm. “What about you, Charles?”

He nodded, and when he had swallowed he said, “Danielle has agreed to go with me.”

I swear Marie’s tongue nearly poked through her cheek as she took over from Jessica. “That will be nice. The two of you must be getting to know each other quite well. Hasn’t she accompanied you a number of times now?”

He didn’t look at her. “If you recall, sister, Andrea went with me to the lake for our Fourth of July picnic.” He stabbed the last bit of pancake and ate it with the last piece of bacon on his plate, and then he looked at my empty plate. “You must have been hungry, Taylor. Why don’t you finish your juice, and then we’ll go to Mrs. Harnett’s office.”

I was dying—dying!—to ask Charles what was behind the questions those girls had been asking. What was the link between Charles and Leland, if any? What had Marie done to the guy? And who was this Danielle person? Marie had made it sound as though seeing too much of her would be, like, frowned upon. And she’d done that mostly by making it sound like the opposite.

Christ, I hoped everyone wasn’t going to be like this. Would anyone actually say what they meant around here? Would anything be real?

It wouldn’t be Mrs. Harnett, from what I could tell. She thanked Charles for his escort service, dismissed him, shut her office door, and steered me to a chair with an iron grip on my shoulder.

She walked around her desk and didn’t speak until she was settled in her chair, from which she gave me her full attention.

“Welcome to Straight to God, Taylor. We’re pleased to have you here. I trust you’ve studied your Booklet? Just nod if it’s true.” I nodded. “Good, good. So you’re familiar with the Program Rules. They may seem strict, but let me assure you that if they were any less strict they wouldn’t be nearly as helpful to you. Can you understand that, Taylor?”

She smiled and waited. I came so close to shrugging, but the last thing I wanted was another session in the chapel with Reverend Bartle. Not even for another one of his hugs. On the other hand, I didn’t want to lie. Can a nod be a lie if the answer is no? Actually, though, I did understand. Maybe not in the way she meant—I understood that I wanted out of this place, and anything that would help that was okay by me—but I nodded, saying inside my head, You bet, lady.

“Then please remember that at times when the rules may seem a little harsh. Do you understand what your MI is?”

I nodded, saying in my head, Yeah, but I don’t think you do. After all, the thing was so incorrectly named.

“Good. Then I’m sure you also know that you will write four of them a week, at least for now. You will submit them to me.” She reached into a desk drawer and handed me four large envelopes. “Start today. While you’re in SafeZone, you’ll be required to spend two hours of quiet time alone in your room from four to six o’clock. With the door open, remember. This would be an ideal time to write your first MI. Then seal it in one of these envelopes and put it in the basket mounted on the wall beside my office door on your way to dinner this evening. I’ll expect the next one tomorrow night, and then one on Thursday and one on Saturday. Always in the basket sometime before dinner.” She was scribbling as she spoke. “Any questions about that schedule?”

I shook my head. At least this response was honest, and she didn’t ask me what I thought about it.

“I will read each one no later than the morning after I receive it. On Thursday, please stop by my office at ten o’clock in the morning, and we’ll review the first two. Most residents need some guidance in order to get the most benefit out of this exercise. Next Monday we’ll meet at ten again to make sure you’re on the right path. Starting the week after that, we’ll meet each Tuesday at eleven o’clock; that will be our time together, to talk about anything we need to discuss.” More scribbling, and then she handed me the paper, which had MI due dates and meeting times on it. I pocketed it. “Clear?”

Nod.

“Good. Now, if I think we need to meet at other times, I’ll let you know, either by finding you, as I did this morning, or by leaving you a note in your mailbox in the front office. And if you need to speak with me in between our scheduled sessions, you may leave a note in my mailbox. Now, do you have any questions that you need answered right away? If so, you may write them down.” She was still holding the pen.

I had questions, all right. Like why would they give a gay transgressor—that would be me—a gay roommate? But I just shook my head.

She smiled hugely. “Taylor, everyone here loves you and wants your life to be a glory to God. Sometimes residents find this hard to believe in the beginning, but in time I’m sure you’ll come to feel that love coming from everyone, and you’ll love them as well. And that’s where the glory starts.” Another few smiling seconds and then she pushed her chair back. I stood as well.

“Do you know where your first assignment is?” I nodded. “Good.” It seemed to me she said “Good” an awful lot. “Then just take this slip of paper and give it to the laundry supervisor. He’ll know you’ve been with me and you won’t be marked down.” She handed me a small bit of paper with something scrawled on it, probably her signature. One final “God bless you, Taylor,” and I was free. Of her, anyway. And on my way to the next room in this prison.

I walked into the laundry room with my little piece of paper clearly visible and waited to be noticed. The place was warm, and there was a loud thrumming noise from huge industrial fans set high in the walls sucking air out. I stood there a minute, and then this black guy with a bald head—maybe twenty years old—saw me. He was talking with a repairman, and he held up his hand, like he wanted me to just wait here. Fine. I looked around the room.

The door from the hall opened onto a kind of upper level, with an office off to one side, and five steps down was the rest of the laundry room. Washing machines—all white—were all on one side of the lower section, and the white dryers on the other, and there were all these white wire carts that must be how the wet stuff gets to the dryers. I’d been in a public laundry a couple of times, and they had baskets like these, but usually they were all scattered around, like people just left them someplace when they were done with them. But not here. Any carts that weren’t in use or waiting patiently next to a machine were pushed together like grocery carts at the front of the store. Very neat, very orderly.

The dryer area had lots of long, white tables, and some kids were using them to hold things they were folding. Boys were doing sheets and towels toward the back, and at the front tables girls were folding clothes. Lots and lots of clothes.

I felt like I needed to giggle. Not wanted to; needed to. And I almost did. With all the white, including the white linoleum floor, the place seemed positively antiseptic. The kids all looked like so many little robots, all dressed in similar clothes, all with similar haircuts, all moving in this regular, automated motion. No one looked up, and no one talked. Some of them had yellow stickers on their shoulders. Like me. Antiseptic white everywhere, like a sterile toilet seat, with the occasional yellow spot of piss.

“You must be Taylor.”

The voice startled me, and maybe saved me from giggling, which probably would not have been a good idea. I turned toward the guy, the black guy who’d seen me come in, and opened my mouth, and he held up a hand. I nodded.

He took the paper from my hand. “I’m Sean. Come with me and I’ll show you the ropes.” He jerked his head sideways and led the way down to the lower level, while I, following behind, watched his ass. I couldn’t help it. The guy was gorgeously built, muscles showing through his clothes as he moved.

He showed me the ropes, all right. Not that he needed to. I was put to work folding towels, which were—can you guess?—all white. Sean told me that after lunch I’d be learning how to run the washers. In my head I told him, Can’t wait.

So I stood there on the white floor in front of the white table folding white towels, looking down at my work like all the other kids, except when I cheated and looked around. Not that it did me much good; what was there to see? Pretty soon, after spending some time contemplating how weird it was that a black kid with an Irish name was supervisor over this blindingly white environment, I began to zone out from boredom. I kept my mind occupied by humming one of the tunes Will and I like—the usual stuff about being in love, with a few references to, um, the physically enjoyable aspects, without getting too terribly explicit. But it also talks about touching souls. I could barely hear myself, though; the place was humming itself, what with all the machinery. I was thinking, just before the bell rang for lunch, that if I could do mindless stuff like this and keep my own thoughts, I might just make it through without incident.

At lunchtime, the quiet and coolness outside the laundry room were a bit of a shock.

Charles was watching for me, standing just outside the dining hall entrance. Was this normal behavior, I wondered? Not that there was much I could do about it. I couldn’t complain even if I wanted to. But to tell the truth, I was actually kind of glad to see him. Since I couldn’t talk to anyone, I couldn’t make any connection with the other kids in the laundry room. And there were so many of us with yellow stickers that anyone who wasn’t in SafeZone probably didn’t talk out of—I dunno, maybe courtesy? Or maybe they’d been told not to talk at all so they wouldn’t accidentally speak to one of us? Anyway, it was a relief to be with someone who had even the vaguest idea of who I was.

This time Charles took no chances about having troublemakers sit with us. He steered us to a table with two guys already seated, and after he said grace for us, he introduced me to Hank and Sheldon. Sheldon had a yellow tag like mine, and when Charles introduced us and we nodded obligingly, he said that Sheldon was Hank’s new roommate. So we were a matched set, though Hank seemed almost as humorless as Charles, so no one who could talk made any cracks about bookends.

Lunch conversation went from how great it had been to have Kelley—whoever she was—open up at Prayer Meeting last night about her sexual escapades with any boy or man she could get and how Jesus had led her to safety, to anticipation of the dinner on Friday. Hank, it seemed, had not convinced any girl to “accompany” him, as they kept phrasing it, so I was thinking that he wouldn’t be going. And, for that matter, that I wouldn’t. But at some point Charles turned to Sheldon and me and explained that although Danielle would accompany him, everyone would go. He talked about it being a great time for Fellowshipping. Made me wonder why anyone would care about having a “companion.” I mean, if you wanted to go someplace with a date, wouldn’t you want a little quality time alone together? It made no sense to me. But I was new here. And, I reminded myself, Charles was gay—he had to be. So how much quality time would he want with a date named Danielle, anyway?

Sean pulled me aside as soon as I got back to the laundry room, and we went into the office just inside the entrance. He closed the door.

“Taylor, I need to coach you about something. This morning at the folding table, you were humming. Is that correct? Nod if it is.”

Good thing he said to nod; I was about to say, Sure, so what? And then, How the hell did you know that, anyway?

“And the song you were humming had FI lyrics. Do you remember what that is? From the Booklet?”

I had to think about that one. I wasn’t quite sure what the FIs were all about, anyway. Former Images—what did that mean? I must have looked puzzled, ’cause Sean opened a drawer and pulled out a Bible. He flipped through to find the spot he wanted and read.

“Ephesians, chapter four, verse twenty: ‘But you did not learn Christ that way; if indeed you heard him, and were taught in him, even as truth is in Jesus: that you put away, as concerning your former way of life, the old man, that grows corrupt after the lusts of deceit; and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new man, who in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of truth.’”

He set the Book down. “We all need to remember to leave our old selves behind. I’m sure you felt those songs were great in your former life, but they have no place here. They have no place in your new life, and they don’t suit the new you. In fact they make it harder for you to come into your new life. They help trap you in the old one, the one you have to leave behind. So it’s bad for you, and it’s bad for others, too, to hear those songs. Do you understand?”

I should have nodded, I suppose. He’d made it clear enough what he’d meant. But instead I had to be a wise ass. I went over to the desk, found a pen and pad, and wrote, “I hear what you say.”

Sean’s teeth ground together. “Don’t make this harder for both of us, Taylor. If you resist, it means I’ll have to report you, and I don’t want to do that. I hate doing that, do you understand?” He actually looked like he meant it. “Now, please, nod to let me know you’ll stop. Please.”

He looked almost desperate. I nodded. But then I wrote again. “How the—could they hear me in there?”

Sean obviously didn’t know how to answer that one, so I scratched it out and wrote, “Who told you?”

Sean’s eyes closed just for a second. “I can’t tell you that. Now, come on. Let’s go to the washers so I can show you how to use them.”

So I had three hours before my “quiet time” to think about what had just happened. Someone who recognized that tune had ratted on me to Sean, who seemed like he didn’t want to be the disciplinarian. Someone who must have been close enough to me to hear what I almost couldn’t hear, myself, and close long enough to figure out what I was humming. I tried hard to conjure up the faces of the two guys who had been nearest me, but all I could remember was that one of them was short and had really black hair.

At break, around two thirty, we went in single file through a door in the back of the room that led out to an enclosed yard. There was a green roof over part of the yard, fiberglass I think, the kind with white swirly strings. Some of the kids who weren’t wearing yellow tags talked to each other, but I was looking for Shorty. I mean, the short guy with the black hair. I felt like I wanted to punch his lights out, but when I saw him, I realized how pathetic that would have been. First, I wasn’t sure it was him who’d ratted. Second, he was a pipsqueak. So instead I decided to find out more about him. I needed to believe that not everyone in this place was a rat, which meant that it would be really helpful to me if I knew which ones were which.

Slowly I made my way over to where he was kind of huddled into a corner, watching everyone else. I stood near him, which wasn’t hard, since no one else did—not a good sign for him; it could mean everyone knows he’s a rat and hates him. Then I started humming. Very quietly I began the tune from the “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” which has at least seventeen different sets of alternative lyrics, ranging from silly to scatological. I watched Shorty out of the corner of my eye for any signs at all. If he hadn’t ratted, he’d look puzzled. If he had, he’d look either guilty or defensive or both.

At first I wasn’t sure he could even hear me, ’cause I couldn’t catch a sign that anything had registered at all. So I started humming a little louder, in my head hearing lines like “We’ve wandered down the halls writing cuss words on the walls,” and “Shot ’em up to heaven with an AK47.”

Suddenly his hand flew up to cover his mouth, and this confused me enough that I looked right at him. He was laughing. Laughing! Like he was thinking in his head some of the raunchier lyrics and couldn’t stop himself singing along silently. Well, this didn’t seem like the reaction of someone who had just ratted on me for humming, so I grinned at him. He dropped his hand and grinned back.

Even though he didn’t have a yellow sticker I couldn’t talk to him because of mine, so I wandered away again before anyone wondered what was going on. I lost sight of him after that, until he wandered out toward the other end of the yard.

This little encounter brightened my whole afternoon. For the first half-hour I hummed for all I was worth, going over the “Battle Hymn” again and again, loudly enough that I was sure to be heard over the other noise in the room, until Sean finally came over to me, looking like he was trying not to grin.

He said, “Okay Taylor, that’s enough. You’re driving everyone around you crazy, you know.” He squeezed my shoulder and said, really quietly, “You’ve made your point. Quit while you’re ahead.”

So I had to stop humming. Which meant I had to find some other way to occupy my mind, because otherwise I knew I was gonna be looking around trying to figure out who’d ratted on me. I looked around anyway, trying to identify something that would lead to other thoughts. And that happened in a way I really didn’t want it to.

What came to me was thinking about Mom. It was the laundry room itself that did it, actually. Like I said, the laundry room at home is where she usually goes when something awful has happened, like when Dad got arrested a few years ago for getting into a fight at this beer joint he goes to some Friday nights. He hadn’t started it; one of his buddies had. But when he tried to break it up, the thing escalated, and…well, he never was one to walk away from an injustice, as he saw it, or from a friend in need, as he probably would have seen it. So he got involved, and a whole bunch of them were hauled into jail for the night. Nothing came of it, but Mom spent quite a while in the laundry room that evening.

What hurt was that she’d freaked as much as Dad when I’d told them I was gay.

It had nearly made me crazy seeing Dad go over to Mom and put his hand on her shoulder, like he was making it them against me. ’Cause I don’t believe she saw it like that. And I don’t think she sees it like that now. I don’t know if it has anything to do with being gay, but I’ve always felt closer to her than to Dad. Well, I suppose some of the reasons I might not feel close to him are obvious. The gruff approach to everything, the temper, the heavy-handed attitude toward anything that smacks of gay or veers in any way from the literal Word of God. I mean, I believe in God. And I read the Bible. It’s just that…well, here comes Angela’s voice again. If you don’t have to make sense…And sometimes taking scripture literally just doesn’t make sense. But to Dad, that makes no difference.

Mom’s attitude toward everything is gentler. More reasonable. More…human, I guess. Sure, she’s devout, she believes. She’s saved. Maybe the difference is in the way they see God. Dad’s God is this big, powerful guy who throws down justice in the form of punishment when he’s disobeyed. The God Mom prays to is a loving God, a God who understands and forgives despite being just as strict about the rules. I like Mom’s God better. And I’ve always liked being with her more than with Dad, probably for the same reasons.

Interesting. Dad’s God acts like him, and Mom’s acts like her. And here I’d thought God was supposed to have created us in his image, not the other way around. B, WDIK? For that matter, what does anyone know?

I was feeling pretty sorry for myself by four, when Sean called all the kids with yellow stickers—about eight of us—together toward the front of the room. The way he spoke you could just hear the capital letters. “It’s Contemplation time for everyone in SafeZone. For many of you, this is your first Contemplation. If you have questions, please refer to your Booklet. It’s a good time to write your MI and a good time to pray or read your Bible. And remember to leave the door to your room open at all times. Dinner is at six. See you all tomorrow.”

So we all experienced for the second time that day the change from the warm, noisy room to the relative cool and near silence of the rest of the building. It felt like some kind of rite of passage, though what kind I couldn’t have said. It was part relief, part emptiness.

My room felt kind of like that, too. I knew I was supposed to leave the door open, but I shut it part way anyway, just to see if anyone would notice. I had to leave an MI at Mrs. Harnett’s office before dinner tonight, so I sat down at my desk to get that over with. What to write? “Struggles, thoughts, or temptations that have to do with sex, drugs, violence, or disobedience…”

Well, I could say that I’d been reprimanded about humming a song—no words, but even so—that had FI lyrics in it. That was true enough. But what were they going to do with this stuff after I wrote it? If Mrs. Harnett asked me whether I understood why that was wrong, what would I say?

“Well, idiot, you can’t say anything, because you can’t speak.”

The sound of my own voice was kind of creepy. I hadn’t heard more than a word of it in—well, for some time. I looked up at the half-open door to see if there was anyone out there who might have heard me talking to myself, but it didn’t seem like it.

Anyway, I was wrong, because by the time we would sit down for another cozy little chat, Mrs. Harnett and I, it would be Thursday morning at ten and I’d be out of SafeZone. That is, unless I did something horrendous between now and then.

She’d said we’d review the MIs together. Something about my getting benefit from them, wasn’t it? Ha. Benefit. And she’d called me a Resident. I felt more like an Inmate.

I allowed myself a loud sigh—no words in that—and started to write. I figured it would be a little unbelievable if I didn’t write anything, and I’d get hell anyway. So I wrote about the bad words that had come into my head at various times since I’d been dumped off here. And I wrote that I’d been caught humming that tune. I also said that I’d tried to make up for it by switching to the “Battle Hymn” after Sean had yelled at me. And maybe it was a lie of omission, but I didn’t put down that I’d been imagining the alternate lyrics.

Then I put down that I’d accidentally spoken aloud to myself in my room during Contemplation.

I was about to write something about how I understood why all these things were wrong and that I would repent, change my ways, but I decided to let her say that. It should make her feel like she was having some effect on me. Besides, there was enough untruth in the thing already. And I’d always prided myself in the past on telling the truth as much as possible.

But pride is a sin, no? I’d have written that down, but then I’d have had to say why I wasn’t proud anymore, and that would’ve meant confessing that I had lied in my MI, and—man, what a freakin’ complicated thing this is! And then I remembered one reason I’d always tried to stick to the truth. I wouldn’t have to remember what I’d lied about, or what I’d said when I’d lied.

Thanks to my concentration on this ethical dilemma, I was barely aware of someone passing in the hall. Only after I couldn’t hear footsteps anymore did my brain register that they had slowed a little as they passed my partly open door. And when I realized this, it made me angry. It seemed like they were spying on me. Some anonymous “they.”

More on impulse than anything else I wrote: “I hate that writing this thing makes me want to lie. Lying is wrong. But I didn’t mean to hum something forbidden. I just wanted to pass the time and I liked the melody. So I hated being reprimanded for it, and I wanted to lie by omission and not put it in. I don’t blame Sean, or whoever turned me in, because they couldn’t understand. And I couldn’t help them understand, because I couldn’t talk to them. So SafeZone makes things worse because I can’t explain myself, and this ‘exercise’ (Mrs. Harnett’s word) makes me want to lie about it.”

I was kind of hoping this would confuse her. At least it would give her something relatively harmless to sink her teeth into, and maybe she wouldn’t bug me for more.

So then I was done, the half-truth/half-lies sealed in the manila envelope Mrs. Harnett had given me, and I still had over an hour until dinner. I could read the Bible, I could pray, I could contemplate my sins. Or I could just sit here and feel alone.

I decided to contemplate my sins. Specific sins. Which was to say, times with Will. I’d made a pact with myself that I’d spend at least half an hour every day, even if it wasn’t all thirty minutes together, thinking about him. And not just in passing. I hadn’t really done that today, so maybe this would be a good time. Of course, there are certain dangers involved in thinking about Will. At least, in this place they’re dangers. I glanced at the half-open door. Then I went and stood in it.

From the doorway, there were certain spots in the room I couldn’t see. One spot, of course, was behind the door, but that was on Charles’s side of the room. The other place that I couldn’t really see, not very well at least, was the near corner to the left of the door. The room was just big enough that I had to step into it before I could see into that corner. Plus my desk was in the way.

I took the folded blanket from the foot of my bed and set it on the floor almost in the corner. I grabbed a handful of tissues from the box on my desk. Then I put my desk chair right into the corner, and I knelt on the blanket with my elbows on the seat of the chair. It was the position Charles had assumed when he was going to pray last night, and I’d done it, too. So I knelt there, facing the corner like some naughty kid doing time-out, thinking of Will.

Will.

I closed my eyes. I must have looked very penitent with my brow going into knots as I imagined running my fingers down the side of his naked body, seeing the wicked grin on his face that turned slowly into something else, his mouth and eyes half-open as my hand explored other parts of him. With my other hand, the one not touching Will, I undid my belt—only not just in my imagination. I stopped and listened carefully, then undid the button. Oh so slowly I pushed the zipper down, tooth by anxious tooth, until I was touching both of us—me and Will, at least in my mind—one hand for each.

My ears strained for anything like a quiet footfall, a voice in the distance, the creak of a door. Nothing. I bent my head. And I pulled.

Fortunately I’d gotten very good at keeping quiet doing this at home. It’s true my breathing was a little—well, raspy. But other than that, the only thing I heard was in my mind, when Will came, that rich “ah” sound he makes at the very end. And a little grunt of my own. I gritted my teeth and clamped my lips shut so I would be as silent as possible.

I got the tissues into position just in time.

That had hardly taken half an hour, so I had the luxury of kneeling there for a while longer, eyes still closed, picturing Will’s sleepy eyes, his smile languid with satisfaction and affection. For me.

Elbows on the chair seat again, head bent against my hands, I resumed a prayerful attitude. “Please, Will,” I begged in a whisper, “don’t forget me. Don’t give up on me. I’ll be with you again.” I swear I felt something on my lips. Like he had kissed me.

Kissing Will. I thought of the first time we’d kissed. Now, don’t get me wrong; I wouldn’t give up my first kiss with Will—or what happened afterward—for anything. But once we got back to school, we had to act like nothing had happened. Straight couples have this whole scene they can get to know each other in. Dates, dances, mixers, parties—it goes on and on. They get to have their first kisses in as romantic a situation as they want, and then they get to talk about it. Not us.

My friend Nina Stern came running to me every time she had a new boyfriend, or any time she thought maybe she was going to. But do you think for one minute I could go running to her with stories about Will? And all over school you could tell when some new couple was forming. The kids who went to my church were a little more reserved about it, but even with them you could tell. Between the googly eyes and sitting as close together as possible in the cafeteria, the hetero couples were all over the place. So sweet. So cute. So infuriating.

I didn’t begrudge them their happiness. Well, maybe just a little, because after all, weren’t they begrudging me mine?

Will was brave. He smiled at me, at least, whenever he saw me. But you didn’t catch us holding hands as we walked down the hallway. Hell, you didn’t even see us walk down the hallway together.

All that next day in school, after that first kiss, I could barely pay attention to what was going on in my classes. I kept wondering what gay couples do to arrange their next nondate. Should I call Will? Would he call me? If he didn’t call me in a few days, was that a bad sign, or was he just being cautious? We’d exchanged cell phone numbers before he left my bedroom the night before, so calling was an option. But would it be a reality?

The test in World History, of course, was the hardest part of a difficult day, because Will was right there. I could almost feel his tongue in my mouth.

The teacher asked Will to collect all the papers at the end, and as he was coming down my row I looked up at his face. He was smiling at me. Something welled up in my chest, and I couldn’t trust myself not to do something really stupid, so I closed my eyes until he was past. After that, the challenge was to catch my breath and adjust my jeans.

I was on the bus on the way home when my cell rang. Will’s number! “Hello?” My hand was shaking, and it wasn’t just the bouncing from the bus’s lousy suspension.

“Hey! Where are you?”

“On the bus.”

“Why?”

“What?”

Silence. I checked my signal; still okay. Then, “Didn’t you get my note?”

My silence now. Note? “What note?”

“You goof. I dropped it onto your desk when I picked up your paper in History. I was gonna try and sneak it to you after class, but then I got that opportunity.”

“I didn’t see it. What did it say?”

“I asked if you wanted to go and watch the football team practice. More homoerotic subtexts out on the field than in Ben Hur and Lord of the Rings put together. I’m here at school, waiting for you.”

“Oh…”

He laughed. “Look, never mind. Next time. Call me after dinner. Say, nine-ish?”

I tore into my messenger bag for any sign of the note, irritating the hell out of the guy next to me in that cramped space. Finally, toward the bottom of the bag, I saw it.

Meet me by the bulletin board EOD and come watch boys being boys. CUL.

—W

Green ink. CUL. See you Later.

Repacking my bag, I forced myself to stay calm. It wasn’t like I’d missed another make-out session, after all. We would have been no freer to make moony eyes or hold hands on the bleachers than inside the school. But I would have been with Will. God, but I was pissed.

I called him that night, and we talked. And talked. We went over the test, and it seemed I hadn’t done too badly after all. And then we talked about us.

I told him how upsetting it was that we couldn’t be ourselves. That we had to hide who we really are, what we really are to each other, from everyone.

“Well,” he said, “not everyone.”

“Yeah? Like who? Who can we be honest with?”

His voice took on a funny edge. Like he was teasing me or something. “What about your friend Nina?”

“What about her?”

“I can’t believe you haven’t told her you’re gay.”

“Will, I haven’t told anyone I’m gay.” With a shock, I realized that was true; I’d never said the words out loud before. “And why would I tell her?”

“Isn’t she a good friend?”

“Yeah, so…”

“She knows I am.”

“What?”

“Calm down. I didn’t say anything about you, silly. I’d never out someone else. But she doesn’t go to our church. And she’s cool. She’s got no problem with my being gay.”

Well, no, she didn’t go to our church. She’s Jewish. “How did you…When did you…I didn’t even know you knew her!”

“We live next door to each other.”

Holy crap. Will lives right next door to Nina? It wasn’t like I’d been to her house a lot. We didn’t want her kid brother to start thinking we were an item and making a pest of himself. But still…

I took a shaky breath. “Okay. I’ll think about it.”

“Ty? I just want you to know I loved being with you last night. I hope you’re still feeling good about it, too.”

“I loved being with you, too. And I still feel frigging wonderful.”

“So, we could do it again sometime?”

“Sure. Wanna come over now?”

I loved the sound of his laugh. “I wish. Tell you what. Can you hold the phone in one hand?”

It took me a nanosecond to figure out what he was headed for. “Let me lock my door.”

Phone sex. I’d never had phone sex. Hell, I’d never had any sex, really, before last night. This guy was opening my world. And I have to say that although I preferred his hand on me, when his “ah” sounded right in my ear it was still great.

Before we hung up, I asked, “What’s with the green ink?”

“My signature color. It helps me to remember to take chances. To keep going forward, like a green light. To try new things and open myself to new ideas. And always to do it my way. You like?”

“I love. Yeah.”

“Good night, Ty.”

“‘Night.”

It had felt like he’d kissed me that night, too.

Once or twice as I knelt there—after my ministrations, that is—I heard someone walking by in the hall. When I finally got up, there was no sign of anyone, and of course I couldn’t know if anyone looked in on me. But if they had, all they’d have seen was my back bent over the chair.

The wastebasket next to my desk seemed the best place for the used tissues, so I dropped them in. Blanket back on the bed, chair back at the desk, I sat down and opened my Bible. But the words just blurred in front of me, running together, no meaning to them. I sat there staring at nothing for a minute before I realized I had to take a leak. Was I allowed to do that during Contemplation? I couldn’t remember seeing any rules about that, so I left the Bible on my desk and went down the hall.

I couldn’t have been gone more than three or four minutes tops, but when I got back to the room, there was Charles. He stood there, his face a weird combination of anger, pain, and something that looked like betrayal. He was holding my wastebasket.

Shit.

I stopped in the doorway and waited for him to say something. When he didn’t, I acted like I didn’t know already what he’d found. I shrugged like I was asking, “What’s your problem?”

Anger won. “Don’t pretend with me,” he said, nearly snarling. “You know very well what I found in here.” He held the wastebasket at arm’s length in my direction and shook it.

Jesus. He must have held the tissues to his face and smelled them; how else would he know what was on them? And he obviously knew what was on them. I shrugged again. This time it said, “Whatever.” I walked toward my desk while he rotated in place to follow me, the basket still held out. I picked up a pad and pen and scrawled, “Enjoy yourself?”

Even as I held it up to him I knew it was a stupid thing to do. I should have apologized, cried even, anything to make him feel I understood the need for contrition. He looked as though he wanted to throw the wastebasket, but instead he walked back to where it had stood before he snooped into it and set it firmly down onto the floor.

He said, “I see you’ve already sealed your MI. Did you include this—this episode—in it?”

I just stared at him. No answer. No head motions.

“You must open it again. You must confess this infraction.”

His eyes and mine entered into this battle of wills. Then I reached for the pen again and I wrote, “This is my Contemplation time. You’re supposed to leave me alone. So leave me alone. Go away.”

This was true enough, and Charles knew it. He shouldn’t even have been in the room. Come to think of it, why had he come here, anyway? Sure, it was his room, too, but the resident in SafeZone has two hours of solitary Contemplation in his or her room that are not supposed to be interrupted except by someone in Leadership. (See? I’m getting the hang of this.) Strictly speaking, Charles was just another resident.

His eyes shot darts at me before he turned on his heel and left. From over his shoulder I could barely hear the words, “Don’t forget to bring your Bible to Prayer Meeting tonight.”

That’s it, Charles. Stay on message, whatever you do. However angry you are.

I went back to my Bible, looking up in the concordance section things like spy (Galatians 2:4: “This was because of the false brothers secretly brought in, who stole in to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage”) and observe (Isaiah 42:20: “You see many things, but don’t observe”), and betray (Proverbs 11:13: “One who brings gossip betrays a confidence, but one who is of a trustworthy spirit is one who keeps a secret”).

This was amusing but not terribly instructive. I’ve had to admit in the past, and again now, that using the concordance at times like this may lead me to something really true and painful, something that stabs directly at a sin and sears into me like a hot poker, but mostly it’s just a way for me—or anyone, really—to find what I want to find, to prove my own point. It takes things out of context and lets me apply my own interpretation.

So I gave that up and, feeling a little sinful and self-indulgent, I turned to the Song of Songs and imagined myself with Will again. No tissues this time; it was just love.