Chapter Fifteen
“Mike.” Keithe was routed to his childhood friend’s voice mail. “Man, look. Whenever you can, I want to talk to you. I’m out of your business. But I do need to talk to you. Just call when you can. I’m out,” he expressed through the phone. “Oh, and if it makes any sense, I just care about you both and don’t want to see either of you hurt.”
Keithe wanted to break the thick wall that had been built between them. Being in one another’s lives since their childhood, Keithe didn’t want bridges to be burnt with someone he considered a brother. It had been a week he’d been trying to get through to Mike. Ever since he’d spoken with Kenya, Keithe had tried to do the same with Mike.
Plus he wanted to find out what ol’ dude’s name was that Mike had been on a date with a while back. He seriously doubted it was the young man back at Stoney’s dad’s house he’d seen when he dropped her off over a month ago, especially since he was marrying Mercy, but still.
With no answer, Keithe went through the church doors and readied himself for Wednesday night’s Bible Study.
“Yes’sah, Deacon Morgan,” Mother Gladstone beckoned. “Would you like some water, a soder, uh, soder water ... some tea,” she so politely asked. “Or what about some honey?” The older missionary kindly flopped down on a bench outside the sanctuary doors with none of the beverages she named anywhere in sight. “Heeeeee,” she squealed, laughing at herself, figuring she still had “it.” “Ya early. Come on and sit with an old lady, son.”
Shaking his head, Keithe wondered, if he did want a beverage, just who would get it since she decided to sit down before he gave his answer. Or maybe she never planned on getting him anything, anyway, he thought. He shrugged. Looking at the bench, Keithe did what he was told even though he couldn’t figure if it would be her protruding hip he would be sitting on or the small space she’d left him on the bench. He took his chances.
“Um, you okay?” she asked, when it sounded like she was the one in pain.
“I’m fine,” Keithe answered as he sat on a cushioned seat.
“Yeeees, good Lord you are. God is worthy to be praised.” Pastor Peter’s mother gave a wide smile with her 1980s gold teeth that lined her mouth, yet were holding on.
Keithe really didn’t know if the praise was for him or the good Lord, but he wasn’t about to ask.
“That’s a fine job you and Evangelist Kenya are doing with them there divorce-arees, ya know.” She tilted her head and tried to cross her ankles to no avail. “You one of them there divorce-arees too, Deacon?” Blunt was her middle name.
When he lifted his shoulder and nodded his head, Mother Gladstone shook her head in disgust. “A mess. Um. Back in the day when I was married to Vernon, Lee, and Woodrow, ain’t nobody talk about divorce. That wasn’t the going thang,” she slurred while crunching her fingers in the air as quotations.
Thinking he ought to point out what she’d just said, Keithe just sat, trying to hold his tongue. He was afraid to respond out of fear of being reprimanded again. Or maybe, just maybe they had all died.
Missionary Gladstone was well known at the church as one of the elderly mothers who just didn’t play. While the other mothers were as pleasant as they could be, Mother Gladstone was a tell-it-like-it-is saint.
“I see you still have the sweets for Sister Kenya, too?” She raised her bushy eyebrows, as if they would make her whisper. No luck.
“The what?” It took Keithe a minute to catch on.
“The sweets, the hots. Ya know, some kinda seasoning for that gir!” She was irritated. “Boy, you know what I’m talking ’bout.” She smacked him on his shoulder.
“Oh! Oh, okay. Well, Mother. You know. Well ...” Keithe wasn’t comfortable in his seat or in the conversation, but he was ready to share the good news with her about him making a move. “Actually I spoke—”
As she raised her hand, Keithe didn’t know if the older woman was going to backhand him or wanted him to cease talking. Looking directly at her nugget pearl and tarnished gold rings, Keithe held his breath and waited.
“I see you didn’t take my advice. See, that’s what’s wrong with y’all young people these days.” She flipped her hand over and wanted Keithe to help her up. “Help me up, son.” Agitation rose up in Mother Gladstone. “Walk with me this way. I need to go get my cane ’fo’ my son see me without it. I don’t need him to stop taking care of his mother ’cause she hardheaded.” She walked with a limp. “So you let your friend go after the lady you adore, huh? You know good and well that ain’t gonna work. Right?” She stopped for a moment and dared him to object. “That’s what I thought.”
Placing himself on her right hand, Keithe offered his left hand to the woman who sure had her own unique way of giving out wisdom.
“See, son, it’s not about sitting back and watching to see what’s gonna happen. It’s about doing what thus said the Lord. That’s where a lot of y’all—yes, I said y’all—in the Christian realm get it wrong. We are God’s prized possessions. He wants the best for us, but us’s have to know it.
“A few years ago, a snake came through this church.” She stopped and pointed downward. “Yes, right here. Showed up, yessir, and thought she was gonna take over. Thought she was gonna take the praise off the team. Take the beat off the drum. She thought she was gonna take the missus out of the mister. Yep, she thought she was gonna take my son from his wife. But what you gotta know is that serpents can only camouflage for so long. They ain’t as quick as they think.
“You got to know that all that looks holy ain’t holy.” She looked to see if he took the hint. “All that looks like glitter ain’t gold.” Mother Gladstone waited to see if what she was saying was registering with the much-younger man. When she got tired of trying to add some intelligence to her spiel, Mother Gladstone decided not to hold her tongue any longer and just tell him like it was.
“Boy, you got to know that boy is gay and that girl is just using him to cover up some stuff. Just stupid,” she said, throwing his hand away from her and walking away.
Left standing in the hallway, not moved by the fact that Mother Gladstone had recognized Mike being gay, Keithe couldn’t believe her other revelation. If it were true, Keithe couldn’t wait to figure out just what Kenya was hiding.
Mike had listened to the voice mail and figured it was typical of Keithe.
“That figures!” Mike said with a loud, drunken voice as he pushed seven on his phone’s QWERTY pad.
It was one of Mike’s pet peeves with Keithe: he never did not support him. But he could never just come out and support him, either.
From the very beginning of Mike figuring out his own change in his manhood as a teenager, Keithe simply shrugged his shoulders at his friend’s findings and kept his beat. Even then Mike would have loved a dialogue with his best friend. Especially since his family gave him no time at all.
Mike’s parents had long ago kicked him to the curb because of his choice in living a homosexual lifestyle. He was sure that even if he told him that he was bisexual, to make his lifestyle sound as if he wanted to give a woman a real chance, it wouldn’t make a difference. They were so-called devout Christians and instead of just hating the sin, it seemed as if they actually hated him as well. Years ago he had even shown up at his father’s church on a Sunday, just to attend worship. Before his tailor-made suit could hit the padded wood seat, one of the ushers had escorted Mike to the back of the church, to his father’s office.
When he walked in his father had been wiping his reading glasses on his robe. He didn’t even bother to look up as he heard his office door open.
“Whatcha doing here? Didn’t I tell you not to show ya face ’til ya ready?” The good pastor looked through his spectacles he held in the air, in front of the lamp. “Are you ready?”
Mike had no idea he would be put on the spot when his every intention only had to do with hearing the Word on first Sunday. “I was ... I was. Um, I just wanted to come visit and see if we could talk,” he managed to get out as he stood tall with one hand in his pocket.
“You mean, talking like when you called to tell your mother and me about you being gay?” The reverend threw his words at his first born. “Now you have the nerve to come face to face. Huh? After you done gone and tore your mama’s heart apart?” Tears had trampled the wrinkles under the pastor’s eyes. With a trembling lip he said, “Unless you’ve come to repent and to throw yourself at the mercy of the good Lord, it’s best you go.” He hadn’t bother to finalize his sentence with “son,” as he usually did.
When Mike took one step forward, wanting to embrace his father as he had all of his life, he was halted once he saw all of the anger that his father’s face held. The fist by his father’s side let him know that it was an anger that wouldn’t die that day.
“I mean it. I can’t preach God’s Word and accept what you’re doing,” he cried openly.
“But I’m not asking you to, Dad. I’m asking you to be my dad. Like always. Nothing has changed.” Mike hadn’t wanted to leave without trying.
If it had not been for his desk in front of him, the slap he needed to land on his son’s cheek would have done so. Mike knew it.
“Boy, don’t you stand in my face, talking about nothing has changed. Listen here; you want to do all the gay pride stuff? Do it outside of the church, do it on your own time. But I will never accept it. Your sister got three babies by three different men.” He pointed as if she were down the hall. “I don’t accept that mess just like I don’t accept your mess. It’s tight, but it’s right,” he said through drying tearstains.
Mike knew, even after all of those years, his father’s hatred toward his lifestyle had been the reason he had gone back and forth with who he was. He did try to detour his mannerisms, his likes, and his preferences in life. Mike knew when he declared at one point that he wanted to walk the straight and narrow, he only did so thinking his family would receive him once more. When he realized that road had become too hard to travel back down, it wasn’t long before Mike reverted to what he said came natural for him.
It came natural to him, but it wasn’t like he wanted it to. Mike knew if there was a choice given, he’d certainly choose to be straight. He wanted to be straight. He just didn’t know how.
His reality was that he didn’t get it himself nor did he have the answers. When people would ask him, he didn’t know if he was born “that way” or if it was a learned act. He definitely knew it wasn’t because of being molested as others had claimed linked them to the lifestyle. It wasn’t that it couldn’t happen. He just knew it wasn’t the case with him.
And then when it came to being born gay, Mike knew deep within, if he believed in God’s Word, the Bible, he knew God hadn’t formed him in his mother’s belly as a gay man. If anything, it had to be a spirit that latched itself to him.
All Mike knew was that he was drawn to the likes of men. It wasn’t that he didn’t like women, but he knew it was only for their beauty and their softness. Just the same, his likes for men were because of their handsomeness and hardness.
“Why ...” Mike stopped short, not wanting to name the Lord as the recipient of his question. He knew he wasn’t angry with God because he truly believed God loved him regardless. Mike just felt if he didn’t bring up his lifestyle to God ... if he didn’t put it on the altar, he could remain doing what he did.
He sat at his kitchen table with his fifth mixed drink in his hand.
“I pay tithes ... I get in the prayer line ... I worship.” He still didn’t want to acknowledge God in his personal battle. “I just want to be happy as well.” Hiccup.
Staring deep into his drink, Mike felt nothing. The more he wanted to clarify why he deserved to be happy, the more his tongue became heavy in his mouth.
“I claps my hands and stumps my feet.” Mike gagged while tears ran down his face. “Why am I miserable?”
Being reared in the church, Mike couldn’t even pinpoint when he’d made the jump to a lifestyle his father preached against Sunday after Sunday. He’d sat on the pews, he’d played the drums and sang in the choir. Whatever his parents needed of him, he was always willing and able.
There were sacrifices he too had to make as a child growing up with both parents in full-time ministry. He and his sister both. The majority of the time it was just the two of them, at home alone, figuring out a way to make life roll while their parents helped other families.
Sundays were mandatory days for them to be at church. In the summer, whenever the church doors were open, they were required to be there. But during the school year, things changed.
Because his father wanted better for his kids and believed in education, he allowed Mike and his sister to stay home during the week when church services were going on. They would barely see their father after they left for school in the morning. Sometimes not even before they’d rest their head at night. For that, Mike missed a lot of one-on-one time with his father.
There was always someone the good reverend would have to go pray for, a hospital visit that just couldn’t wait. But in the same breath, there was always a fishing trip that had to get postponed, or a lesson on shaving or an afternoon rebuilding engines that was always skipped over. For that, a lot of Mike’s time would be spent between his sister and mother.
“He didn’t care! He didn’t care!” Mike nearly jumped out of his seat, getting angry trying to figure out who to blame. “What was I s’posed to do?” He knew it was too late to go backward.
“How was I s’posed to know?” Mike gave in to his tears as he tumbled his glass over and laid his head face down in the mixed liquor.
It was too much. Mike couldn’t put his finger on it. Who was he to truly blame? And if he knew, would he really want to blame them?