The room was silent. I didn’t know how long I’d been talking, hours it seemed. Dad had interrupted me, told us dinner was ready, invited Terry to eat with us, but when we’d said no, Dad had left, and other than that few seconds pause, I hadn’t stopped talking. I hadn’t been sure I’d have the ability to start again if I stopped, and once I’d started, it had been too large, too immediate, too much. I just couldn’t stop. It was like upchucking. Once you’ve done a little bit and the urge is still there, you’re not in control any more, and what wants to spew out simply spews. That was what telling this felt like.
I’d finally reached the end. I’d reached where Shawn had told Dad I’d raped him. And then I stopped. I was spent. Out of energy and emotion. Just spent.
Terry sat there looking at me. He’d stopped registering emotion, shock, concern and disbelief a few miles back. Since then he’d just been sitting there listening. Now he was just sitting.
Eventually, he got up. He paced around the room a little, not finding it any larger or more interesting than the last time he’d done that. Then he sat down on the bed next to me.
“Are you going to tell me the rest of it?”
“It just keeps getting uglier, Terry. Do you want me to go on?”
“I think you want to. I think you want to get rid of it. You’ve been holding all this in for months, and now that I’ve heard it, I can’t imagine how you did that. I’d have been a basket case. And there’s even more. I think you need to get it all out. But if you want to stop, I understand. What do you want to do?”
Considering how I felt, I knew the answer to that. “I guess I want to finish. There really isn’t much more. Then I’ll be done, and maybe you can understand a little better why I’ve never wanted to talk about myself.”
“So what happened after Shawn said you’d had sex with him?”
“When he said that, Mom got a strange smile on her face, then told Dad again that I was going to go into counseling with Reverend Ellison to straighten me out. Dad said that wasn’t going to happen. They got in a big argument. After all that had happened that day, another argument was too much for me. I just left. Went upstairs and went to bed. I don’t even remember it very well, I was so exhausted, emotionally more than physically.
“Anyway, the next day, when I got up, Mom and Shawn were gone. Dad told me she’d said she was going to divorce him, and he’d agreed that was best. That shook me, and I asked him why she wanted a divorce, and he told me he’d insisted on going to the police, that he didn’t believe for a minute that I’d had anything to do with Shawn sexually, no matter what Shawn said, and he knew it was Reverend Ellison. He told her once Shawn was questioned by the police, everything would come out in the open. He told her her story was crazy, that there was no way I could have been repeatedly raping Shawn for a period of time, yet the rectal exam he’d had showed that he’d been having anal sex over a lengthy period of time. He said it was apparent she had talked Shawn into supporting her story to protect Ellison. That’s when she said she’d divorce him.
“Dad did call the police, and there was a huge mess. Eventually Reverend Ellison was arrested on suspicion of molestation, sex with a minor, I don’t know, there was a whole list of things. They did a background check and it was learned he had a history of sex crimes with children. He’d been in jail for it. Ellison wasn’t even his real name, nor was he a minister. Then, there was a trial. Shawn had to testify. I still don’t understand him. He wanted to protect Ellison. He’d been so brainwashed by the guy that he didn’t think what they’d done together was either wrong or bad. He was distraught that Ellison had been locked up and they couldn’t be together any longer. The day before he was to testify, he tried to kill himself.
“He and Mom were staying at a church friend’s house, and her husband just happened to walk by his bedroom and glance in and see him cutting his wrist. He was calmly sitting on the bed with the door open and had already cut into himself when he was caught. There was blood all over the bedspread.”
Terry broke in. “What happened to Shawn? Is he all right?”
“He was committed to a place that cares for mentally troubled teens. That was almost a year ago now. Dad calls them every month for reports. He’s not well. He doesn’t seem to get better, either. I don’t know, Terry. I just don’t know. I think Ellison really got into his head somehow, and Shawn got overcome by the religious messages and the sex and I don’t know what all, but he got them confused in his mind somehow. He wasn’t good in the end, and it doesn’t sound like he’s improving. Dad wants to go visit him, but it’s a long way from here and Mom has custody.”
“What about her? What happened to her? Did she file for divorce?”
“No. My dad did. They had a hearing. She had to admit under oath that she’d talked Shawn into saying I’d had sex with him so Ellison wouldn’t get in trouble. I think she realized better than Dad or I how screwed up Shawn was, and she actually convinced him that I was having sex with him. That was really whacked, and I still have problems with that. I don’t understand how a mother can do something like that.
I could tell Terry was having trouble believing that, too.
“Her thinking was screwed up, Terry. After the trial, after Ellison was found guilty and sentenced, she just sort of fell apart. The church closed down. The members drifted off, some going to other churches. Some, I don’t know. There was the divorce hearing. Dad only asked for custody of me and half the assets of the marriage, and he got that. They sold the house so they could each get half the money. He didn’t want us to stay there any longer, partly because it had become public knowledge that I was gay. I mean, in a divorce, in a small town, you can’t keep much of anything private; everything gets laid bare, and Mom was vindictive. I think he moved just for me.”
“And your mother?”
“She got custody of Shawn, and he got committed and sent to a hospital in Mansfield. She got an apartment there. She got a job. We don’t hear from her. Dad knows someone who knows her, and they say she isn’t going to any church anymore, so I’m hoping maybe someday she’ll get her head cleared. She was a good person once, Terry. She just let Ellison and his preaching screw her up.”
We were both quiet then, and in the silence, I heard his stomach growl. I grinned. It felt good to grin. I was starting to come down from the emotions of telling him all this. I stretched, stood up and shook my arms and rotated my neck, then told him we should go down and eat dinner. He said okay, grinned at my grin, and we went downstairs.
I reheated our plates, and we sat at the table together. After a few bites, he looked up at me and asked, “Do you know why all this happened? It seems it started when your mother started going to that church, but that’s just when, not why.”
I swallowed some milk and thought about his question. Finally, I said, “I really don’t know. I’ve talked to Dad about it a lot, because I’ve wondered the same thing. He doesn’t know either. All he can say is, religion is a strange thing. He says for most people, it’s just one part of their lives. For some, it’s an important part, for others it’s less important. Some people aren’t religious at all. But he told me some people get caught up in religion, especially fundamentalist teaching. They get told the Bible is the Word, not to question it, and that their thinking about everything begins to change when they really believe everything they’re told. They begin to let it control them, control their thinking. He thinks that’s what happened with both Mom and Shawn. But we don’t know for sure. What drives me crazy is, religion is supposed to do good. How can it do so much bad?”
Terry looked at me, then dropped his eyes. He looked a little uncomfortable. Then he set his fork on his plate, even though he wasn’t finished.
“What? What’s the matter?”
Terry looked back up at me. “Tim, I think there’s something you don’t know. My father’s a minister. Our church is here in town. It’s one of the reasons I think you heard John call me Saint Terrance. It’s a joke. But I feel strongly about religion. It’s why it’s important to me to try to help people. Now I’m worried you hate religion and won’t want anything to do with me. Maybe even more so when you find out I want to be a minister too. I think what my father does is about the best thing a person could do with his life. I want to do it, too. I want to help people and make their lives better.”
I looked at him, surprised. I hadn’t known he had anything to do with religion. I thought about it while looking at him. Did I have a problem with him if he was religious? If his father was?
I thought, but I really already knew the answer. I’d been thinking about Mom and Shawn and Ellison and religion for a long time now. “Terry,” I said, “I don’t hate religion or religious people. I react to people as they are. If I meet someone now who spouts religion to me, tries to recruit or proselytize me, yeah, it upsets me, and makes me take a step back from them. I think—well, I know—religion can do lots of harm. It did to my family. But religious people don’t have to be intolerant and hypocritical, no more than anyone else. Some are and they bother me a lot. Not all of them are like that, though.”
I smiled at him and told him to eat. He smiled and picked up his fork. Then I continued what I’d been saying.
“Terry, you’re one of the nicest and certainly the most caring guys I’ve ever met. If you get that from your religion, if your religion is the reason you’re like that, then your religion is good, and it’s helping you to be a good person. I think you’ll make a fantastic minister. So, no, I have no problem with you being religious, or wanting to be a minister. But if someone lets me know right away they’re religious, I’m careful around them. I guess actually I’m careful around everyone.”
“Yeah, what about that? You said when you were young you were cocky. Now, you’re almost shy. Did you change because of all that happened.”
“I changed a lot, Terry. Yeah, I used to be outgoing and sociable and had lots of friends. I wasn’t one of the most popular kids. We didn’t have enough money for that and I wasn’t very athletic, but I knew everyone in school and was friends with most of them. It was a small town. But with everything that happened, I saw what trusting people who are close to you can do. You can get betrayed, like my mother betrayed me, like Missy betrayed me, like Shawn did. So that taught me not to be so open with everyone, or so trusting.
“When we moved here, it was to get away from everything back in Ohio. I wanted a fresh start. I didn’t want anyone to know how bad I was. Because I was bad, Terry. Look at it. I ruined my parents’ marriage. Because of me my brother almost killed himself and is locked in a mental institution. I needed to keep all this hidden. When you start making friends, people find out about you, and I just was afraid. I still am. I’m gay, Terry. That’s probably the cause of most of the problems I’ve had, my whole family had. If I hadn’t been having sex with Jed, maybe all this stuff wouldn’t have happened.
“Tim—” Terry said, trying to interrupt my soliloquy, but I wasn’t finished and plowed on. I needed to get through this.
“I’ve thought about this a lot, Terry, trying to understand it, and I figured it out. Being gay is why Mom hated me because she knew, she just knew. Moms know when their kid is gay. Maybe that was why she wanted to go to church in the first place, when I was ten. Then, when her religion emphasized how sinful homosexuality was, that may have caused some of her problems. Maybe all of them. She just couldn’t accept me. I don’t know, but I think that’s what did it.
“When we came here, I wanted it all done with. I didn’t want anyone here to know I was gay. I didn’t even want to be gay. It would solve so many problems if I just hadn’t ever been gay.”
I didn’t realize I was crying till Terry handed me a tissue. He was looking intently at me when I was finally able to look at him. My tears were still wet on my cheeks. My breathing was still a little ragged. I felt naked and exposed and raw. I hadn’t really intended to tell him that last part.
I forced myself to stop the waterworks and tried to pull myself together. He got up and came over to me and put an arm around my shoulders. His presence was comforting. He may have been giving me a message that my being gay made no difference to him. I don’t know, but his arm felt good. I needed that, and he was there. Supportive as always.
“And you still don’t want anyone to know, do you?” he asked.
“Of course not. How could I? How could I open myself up again?”
“You did to me,” he said, mentioning the obvious.
“You’re special.” I replied, and this time I was able to meet his eyes. The fact Shawn had used the same phrase when telling me what Ellison had called him never occurred to me till much later.
He thought for a minute and started fidgeting. I thought I knew what was coming, and I was right.
“Tim, you do know I’m not gay, don’t you?”
“Not for sure, but I figured you weren’t. But you are special. Hey, Terry, you don’t have to worry about me, you know, liking you like that. To be honest, I did at first. But, when you first approached me, I didn’t worry about it, even though it was such a priority no one could ever find out I was gay. And you know why I didn’t worry? It was because you were so much out of my league that I felt safe. I could like you, I could fantasize about you, even, but there was no problem in that because we’d never get together, you being you and me being me.
“Then, when we’d spent some time together, I got to know the real you, not the you I’d imagined you to be, the idealized version I’d created in my head, and it sort of became clear to me you were straight. Maybe it was when you were talking about your brother, I don’t know, but I realized you weren’t gay. I got over it. Mostly, anyway.” I gave him a weak smile.
He smiled back but seemed to be thinking about something else. Me liking or not liking him didn’t seem of much interest to him. After a couple quiet minutes, he spoke, soberly. “Tim, you said a lot of things a minute ago. You claimed all the problems you’ve had were your responsibility, some because you were gay, some just because you were you. We have to talk more about that. Because none of it was your fault. Absolutely none. Being gay, people reacting to you being gay, that’s not your fault. And I think you know that. Your mother had her own problems, and most likely they didn’t have anything to do with you. That’s what you need to start thinking about.
“But,” he continued, “I’m still a little confused. After all you’ve just said, this might seem trivial, but it’s important to me. You ran away from John. I sort of understand now, but not all of it. He said your story made him think you were writing about an empty life—not you being dead—and you freaked. Why, Tim? Why freak that he might think that?”
I’d told him so much, telling him this just seemed more of the same, which was strange because I’d panicked earlier at the thought of John seeing it. Funny, I had no problem discussing things with Terry that I didn’t want John to know. Anyway, I wasn’t reluctant to spill this now. At least to him.
“Terry, I’m not going to be gay any longer. Well, I guess that’s a little crazy because I can’t help it that I’m attracted to guys. But I’ve decided not to act on it, or even feel it if that’s possible. That’s the emptiness in the story. The emptiness is the dead emotions, the lack of emotions, the denial of emotions. But that’s the secret I was keeping. John figured out part of it and did it so easily it scared me. If he could figure that out, maybe he could figure out why the kid in the story was feeling empty. You asked the same thing, you reacted the same way about my mother. You figured out when all this began with her, then asked why? John will probably do the same thing with the kid in the story. He’s really smart. He’ll figure it out, then figure the kid is me. So I ran away. I couldn’t face him. And I didn’t want him thinking about it.”
Terry looked worried. “You’re going to deny your sexuality? How can you do that? Especially at your age? I’m horny all the time. I think about sex all the time. You’re who you are, Tim! You can’t be someone else. You have to be you. Sure, it’s harder being gay, but you can’t just carve that part of you out. You’ll go crazy.”
I looked down at the floor. I really didn’t want to discuss this any more. I was really tired. “Terry, I screwed everything up back home. I came here and told myself I wouldn’t do that again. The only safe way is if I don’t start in with any guy again. So I have to stay away from people that I’m attracted to. I’ve tried. I’ve really tried. But I got lonely and got friendly with you; then I got a crush on you. I fought with myself about that and lost. But I told you how that worked out. Now I’m getting friendly with John. It’s too hard—you’re right, I do need to be with people. But I just don’t want to be gay. It’s all too hard.”
Terry looked at me with compassion and sorrow on his face. Then he said, “Tim, I’m going to go home now, but we’ll talk. And I’ll call John. He needs to know he didn’t do anything wrong. I don’t know why all my friends like to blame themselves for everything. Most of what you went through—no, not most; all of it— wasn’t your fault. You ran away from John and that wasn’t his fault, either, but he’s taking the blame for that. You’re taking it for your family’s problems and that too wasn’t your fault. I guess I’m just attracted to weirdos.”
He smiled at me, not his high wattage smile but a smile nevertheless, then stood up and left. I went back up to my room, fell back onto the bed, closed my eyes and was probably asleep before he got out of the house. I don’t think I moved at all till morning.