True Believers(4)

“Don’t you ever wonder what it would be like, to be like Chickie? We all get frustrated with him, I know. He’s such a flaming stereotype in some ways—”

“Well,” Aaron said, “flaming would be the word.”

“Yes, exactly. But maybe that’s better than what we are. You and me. Maybe it’s more honest. Or maybe it just—precludes prevarication.”

“I don’t think it’s a choice, Daniel. I don’t think people decide to be flaming queens, not to put too fine a point on it. Any more than they decide to be gay.”

“I don’t think they decide, either.” Daniel had put his coffee cup down on the floor next to his feet. Now he reached into the pocket of his trousers and brought out his open roll of soft mints. He offered them to Aaron and was refused. He took one himself. Somehow, at seven o’clock, he was supposed to go downstairs and lead a Matins sung prayer. At the moment, he didn’t think he could remember the words.

Aaron sat down on the edge of the archway lip with his back against the rail. “So,” he said. “What’s all this about? Scott? It’s odd about Scott, isn’t it? You’d think it would be easier. He didn’t die from AIDS. He didn’t get beaten to a pulp in some back alley somewhere just because a couple of good old boys got liquored up and let loose.”

“He fried his system on cocaine and died of a convulsion at the age of thirty-two.”

“People do that, Daniel. People do it who aren’t gay men.”

“Scott did it because he could never accept who and what he was. And I’m at least partially responsible for that. St. Stephen’s is at least partially responsible for that.”

Aaron turned around to look over the rail. Scott’s mother looked like she might have been asleep, she was that still. “He was molested at the age of eight by his own priest,” he said. “You know that. We handle the settlements the archdiocese made, and not just for Scott. All the men who were victims over there are screwed up now. And on top of that, Scott’s father was a son of a bitch. Is a son of a bitch. You know all this as well as I do.”

“In two weeks,” Daniel said, “it’s Valentine’s Day Sunday. And they’ll be back. Roy Phipps and our friends from down the road.”

“And?”

“And I’ll go stand out there while they’re having their demonstration. Wouldn’t it be a good idea if I didn’t go alone?”

“We’d go if we thought we could. It’s not safe.”

“Is it safe for me?”

“You’ve got the collar to protect you.” Aaron stood up. “Look, I don’t understand what you’re so upset about here. It’s not like we’re all in the closet. It’s not like St. Stephen’s is in the closet. Everybody knows—”

“Everybody knows, but they never say it out loud.”

“Maybe that’s the best we can do at the moment. Look, what’s going to happen to us if you decide to make an issue of this and get kicked out of the clergy? Even Spong couldn’t make them budge on this, and he’s got a lot more clout than you do. What happens if St. Stephen’s gets shut down? Or if they put a conservative in here, or some asshole who thinks his mission in life is to convert gay men to heterosexuality? This is an incredible place, Daniel. This is the first place I’ve ever found where I can hear God. I don’t want to lose it.”

Daniel got up. The adrenaline was back. Over the course of this night, he had sometimes felt as if he had ingested methamphetamine in a time-release capsule. Every hour or so, it surged back at him. He looked down at the altar, at the plain gold cross that hung above it. Some of the men in the pews were in pairs, pressed up close to each other or holding hands. Others were solitary, like Chickie George, mostly because they were always solitary. They were the ones who knew where all the back-street bars were, and which of the leather shops would run a private account.

“Do you believe in it?” Daniel asked Aaron. “What it is we say we believe every Sunday. The virgin birth. The Resurrection. Do you believe in it?”

“I don’t know what you’re getting at.”

“I’m getting at the fact that I do believe in it. I’m not John Shelby Spong. I don’t think it was all a myth. I don’t think it was all a metaphor. I think it really happened. The Annunciation. The miracle of the loaves and the fishes. The walking on water. But most of all, the Resurrection. And that’s the point.”

“I think I’d feel a hell of a lot better if you’d start making sense,” Aaron said.