The Battle for Jericho Page 12

  I WAS lying on my back in bed, dead asleep. Something woke me. I opened my eyes slowly. A little line of drool had run from the corner of my mouth and down the side of my face. I wiped it off with my hand.

  “That’s a pretty picture.”

  I raised my head. Hutch was straddling the chair from my desk, smiling at me.

  “Hey,” I said in a sleep-slurred voice. I sat up slowly. “How long have you been there?”

  “I just got here. Don’t worry. You didn’t do anything to embarrass yourself.”

  A yawn bulged out of me. “I was having a having a hell of a dream.”

  “Must have been a sex dream.”

  “Nah. I was, like, this really cool prince, ruling a country. I was having this beef with some guy who was the country’s minister of affairs or something. He kept telling me I had to do a certain thing, but I wasn’t having it and I sent his butt off to jail.” Parts of the dream were still vivid, but fading fast from my memory. I shook the whole thing off. “What’re you up to?”

  Hutch shrugged. “I got tired of playing video games. I asked my dad for some money for the movies, and he told me to go to hell. So I came over here.”

  “Wow. Thanks a lot.”

  He rolled his eyes and laughed. “I don’t mean this is hell, you nut. This is like my home away from home.”

  “Always glad to be your backup plan, dude.” The aroma of baking chicken drifted down from the kitchen. It made me hungry. “What time is it?”

  “Almost four.”

  I stood up. “Come on and take a walk with me.”

  “Okay.”

  I grabbed my jacket from the closet as Hutch got up and shrugged into his. Dad was sitting in the easy chair reading some book when we crossed the living room, heading for the door.

  “Where the hell are you two going?” Dad asked.

  “Just out for a walk,” I answered.

  “Your mom’s going to be ready to serve dinner in an hour.”

  “We’ll be back by then.”

  “See that you are. Will you be having dinner with us, Barry?”

  Hutch grinned. “Sure, Dr. Jiles, if it’s okay with you.”

  “You’re always welcome here, boy.”

  HUTCH and I stepped outside. The sun was setting, sending the shadows of the houses on my side of the street stretching over to the other side. The air was a lot colder now than it was when I finished the basketball game. I zipped my jacket and, as an extra guard against the chill, turned the collar up to my chin. Then I shoved my hands into my pockets.

  “Damn it, it’s freezing out here.” My teeth chattered.

  “You were the one who wanted to go walking,” Hutch said nonchalantly. He slipped his hands into his own pockets.

  “I want to talk, and I don’t want to do it in there,” I said, nodding toward my house. “Come on.”

  We turned north on the sidewalk, as if we were heading to school. The street was deserted, which I thought was a good thing. I sighed nervously.

  “So what are we talking about?” Hutch asked.

  I hesitated before answering, embarrassment making it hard for me to get the words out. “Hutch, how do you know that you’re gay?”

  He chuckled. “Because feeling up boys is a lot more fun to me than feeling up girls.”

  “Girls don’t turn you on?”

  “Nope.”

  “Not even a little bit?”

  “Nope.”

  “You never want to kiss a girl? Touch her breasts or anything?”

  He made a face, as if he’d taken a bite of something that tasted terrible. “You’re making me sick here, man.”

  “Damn,” I said with amazement. “So when did you first know that you’re gay?”

  “Well, I knew I was attracted to boys back when I was ten, but I didn’t really think about what that meant. It wasn’t a big deal or anything because I didn’t understand what I was feeling. I used to hear the older guys in school talk about fags. They made it sound like being a fag was the worst thing in the world a guy could be, and I knew I didn’t want to be one of those. But then I turned fourteen, and I started getting this flutter in my chest every time I looked at this boy in my Religious Studies class at Holy Madonna. He was all I thought about, and when I thought about him in bed at night, I would fantasize about being naked with him. That’s when I knew I was one of those fags the guys hate so much.”

  “Did it scare you?”

  He paused, and I could see that he was reviewing his memories. “Yeah, it did,” he said. “Not only was I afraid of what the guys at school would say or do to me if they found out, everything I’d been taught in church and in school said that I was going to hell for what I was feeling.”

  I felt a shimmer of fear myself. “So you believe being gay is a sin?”

  “I did at first, but I don’t believe that now. The whole idea is just so stupid. I mean, come on, why would God punish gay people? We can’t help the way we feel.”

  “But the Bible does say that gay people should be put to death, man.”

  “Jerry, the Bible says a lot of stupid things.”

  I took a giant step back from Hutch.

  He looked at me and grinned, puzzled. “What the…? What are you doing?”

  “I just don’t want to get hit when God drops a comet on your head.”

  His grin shrank down to a little apologetic smile. “Sorry. You believe in the Bible, and I shouldn’t have knocked your belief.”

  “So… you’re an atheist now or something?”

  “No. I still believe there’s a God.”

  Now I was very confused. “Wait a second. You’re saying you believe in God, but you don’t believe in the Bible? That doesn’t make sense.”

  “I said there are a lot of stupid things in the Bible, which was probably not the best way to put it. I guess what I should have said is that a lot of things in the Bible don’t make sense to me.”

  “Like what?” I was afraid to ask but I did it anyway.

  “You mean, aside from the one about God wanting a whole group of people put to death for being the way he made them?” A gust of wind blew locks of hair down over Hutch’s eyes. He brushed them back with his hand. “Well, how about the whole idea that God is jealous,” he said. “You had people back in those times who would carve a god out of stone and worship it. And the Bible says God was jealous of that. God is all-powerful, all-knowing, everlasting, but he’s jealous of a rock. That doesn’t make sense to me. Jealousy means that you’re feeling envious and insecure. I’m supposed to believe that the Almighty is envious of a rock? I’m supposed to believe the creator of the universe can be intimidated by a stupid rock?”

  We started walking again. There was this bristling sensation in my chest. “I think you’re twisting things, man,” I said. “When the Bible talks about God being jealous, that’s simply saying that he’s the only god we should be worshipping.”

  “I know that. But the Bible doesn’t just say that we should only worship God. It specifically says God is jealous. The Bible also says God had chosen people, and on occasion, he’d order his chosen people to wipe out whole tribes of people that he didn’t like, right down to the children. They even had to wipe out the tribes’ animals, oxen, sheep, donkeys, all of them.”

  He paused. I turned away from him, looking out over the street ahead. The Tillmans’ front yard was covered by a dense blanket of brown leaves. That was like sticking their hand out for a citation from the town council for violating the lawn ordinance. They had twin boys, twelve years old, a pair of lawn-raking machines that apparently had been idle since September. My parents only had one lawn-raker, and they’d kept me busy all season. That didn’t seem fair to me. If you think my brain was digressing, you’re right. Thinking about the lazy Tillman twins was better than thinking about what Hutch was saying.

  Hutch went on. “Children, man? God wanted his chosen people to wipe out the children of these hated tribes? God wanted his people to kill babies? A
nd what sin did the livestock commit that God wanted them dead too? That bothers me on so many levels, I don’t even know where to start. Every human being is a creation of God, so how can he have a ‘chosen’ people? Wouldn’t a loving God care about all human beings, even the ones who are evil or don’t believe in him? Would a loving God want children brutally murdered even if they are members of some tribe he considers his enemies? And how could God or his chosen people have enemies? What threat could a bunch of humans pose to God or his chosen people that he couldn’t wipe out in the blink of an eye? That kind of stuff is so stupid—”

  “So my mom and dad are stupid, huh?” I snapped, spinning on him. We both stopped in our tracks. “That’s what you’re saying, right? My parents are stupid for believing in the Bible. Only somebody with a head full of Froot Loops would take anything in the Good Book seriously, is that it?”

  “What?” Hutch looked upset. “No, man. That’s not what I meant at all. You know I’d never say anything like that about your mom and dad. I’m just trying to explain why certain parts of the Bible don’t work for me. I think everybody’s entitled to his or her own religious beliefs. You and your family live by whatever belief works for you, and I’ll live by what I believe. In my opinion, no one should try to force another person to live by his religion.”

  A little twitch hit my right eye. I was filled with irritation, and it seemed to be exhausting me. Suddenly, I just wanted to sit down somewhere.

  Hutch studied my face carefully. “Look, I’m sorry, Jericho. I didn’t mean to make you angry.”

  “I’m not angry.” I just want to drop a comet on your head myself. Damn it. I didn’t even understand why I was so upset with him. I inhaled deeply, filling my lungs with the frosty air. It made shiver. “Come on. It’s too freaking cold to walk. Let’s go back.”

  We turned, heading back down the street to my house.

  Chapter 14

  MAC’S mood had soured again. I went next door after getting home from church on Sunday, but he was shut up in his room, and he wouldn’t let me in. I wasn’t really in the mood for being around anyone myself. I spent the afternoon in my room, and aside from a quick telephone conversation with Lissandra after she and her parents returned home from Atlanta, I lay on the floor in front of my television watching football games.

  I was back at Mac’s house Monday morning so we could walk to school together, but he had gone ahead without me. Hutch was waiting at the corner again. I got my first smile of the day from him. We stayed away from all talk of religion and same-sex desires, instead passing the time on our commute by discussing yesterday’s NFL games.

  Walking through the main doors of the school building, Hutch headed off for his homeroom, and I went straight to Mac’s locker. He was there, digging around inside the compartment for something. He looked angry and uneasy, emotions I was all too familiar with myself lately. I thought I was justified in being moody, but not him. He’d spent Saturday afternoon with a hot, spicy honey whose parents were nowhere around. He should have been sporting a grin as big as the moon and bragging about all his freaky moves with Gina Marie.

  I walked right up to him, a look of fake offense on my face along with a crooked smile. “What the hell, man? You ran off and left me this morning.”

  He snapped out a curse, which I won’t repeat here because it was so masterful I’m thinking about getting it trademarked. “I didn’t know you couldn’t find your damn way to school without me,” he said harshly. “What’s next? I gotta hold your dick to keep you from peeing down your leg?”

  The offended look wasn’t so fake suddenly. “What’s wrong with you, damn it?”

  “Get a flipping life, Jerry!” He slammed the locker door, flashed me a look that would turn a certain Gorgon to stone, grabbed up his backpack, and took off down the hall.

  At the other end of the hall, Lester Graff, one of the other guys from the football team, suddenly came around the corner. Roughly the same size as Mac, he had been on the team since last year, and it was no secret around school that he wasn’t happy to have Mac—who was faster and more agile—overshadowing him on the field now. When he and Mac spotted each other, they both froze for an instant, both looking very uncomfortable. Then they continued on their respective ways, each passing the other in the hall with his eyes on the floor.

  I knew through bitter experience that it wasn’t a wise move to press Mac when he was pissed, but this latest mood swing of his had me so peeved that I was about to go after him and cuss him out for dumping on me. After all, I was grappling with my own issues, but I didn’t put him in the crosshairs of my lousy mood and pull the trigger. Fortunately (for me, not so much for Mac), Lissandra walked up behind me then.

  “Hey, baby,” came her smiling voice over my shoulder. Her arms wrapped around my waist from behind, and her lips pecked at the back of my neck.

  I turned around to her and kissed her hard. It surprised us both.

  “Wow,” she breathed when I let her go. “You really did miss me, huh?”

  “Yeah,” I replied. “I’m glad you’re back.” I took her hand, and we started walking down the hall, and I tried to stop the guilt, which had slammed into me when I heard her voice, from burrowing any deeper into my heart.

  FRIDAY afternoon, I walked home alone under a cloudy, gray sky through a misty rain. It had been a long but fairly typical week at school, and I was glad it was finally over. Lissandra kept suggesting all sorts of nice, romantic ways we could hang out after school, and I had to keep manufacturing excuses to avoid being with her. Needless to say, she wasn’t all that happy with me, but I felt that I had been unfair to her in some fundamental way, and going out on little mini-dates with her would only make things worse. By Tuesday, Mac had improved a bit in the mood department and even apologized for the way he treated me Monday morning. We started hanging out again, but I noticed that he didn’t say a word all week to either Gina Marie or Lester. I went through the week keeping my eyes off the other guys in the locker room after our PE workouts. That meant that I spent so much time looking up at the ceiling it had some of the guys wondering aloud if something had come loose in my head. I was especially determined to avoid any sight of Hutch in the showers. It made me very nervous now when he was naked, whether I looked at him or not.

  I prayed a lot that week. My thoughts and my emotions were a jumble worthy of a master puzzle maker, and I was desperate for some answers. My questions were simple. Who was I? Who was God? Did God love me or hate me? See, nothing weighty there at all. I tried to call Dylan a couple of times, to bounce some of my troubling thoughts off him again, but he was never in, and I didn’t want to leave messages that would probably only make me sound as crazy as I felt.

  After school on Monday and Wednesday, Hutch didn’t walk home with me. Some young (and sexy, but you didn’t hear that from me) college-type dude rode up to the front of the school both days and whisked Hutch away on a shiny red motorcycle. It made me insanely and inexplicably jealous. Hutch told me that he and the guy, whom he called Neal, were on some planning committee in the MLGBT Society, and they were meeting to organize the next dance for the teen members. He took off after school on Friday for another such meeting. Mac was on a bus ride to Benton High this afternoon, where he would be starting in his first game as a member of Gordon Browning High’s football team. I was dying to go to the game, but Mom and Dad wanted me to come straight home after school because they planned to leave for Louisville at four, and they had no intention of beginning their trip without making sure I was home safe and sound. In fact, they’d already told me that I was to stay at home all weekend while they were gone.

  I did mention that my parents are kind of strict, didn’t I?

  Their bags were stacked neatly by the door to the garage when I let myself into the kitchen. “Mom? Dad? I’m here.” I dropped my backpack on the floor, shrugged out of my jacket and dropped it over my backpack, and then went to the fridge. No Gatorade, damn it. How could Mom and Dad let the
Gatorade run out? What did they expect me to use to kill my thirst? Water? I grabbed a bottle of apple juice, filled a glass, and started gulping it down.

  Mom came into the kitchen wearing blue jeans and a lavender sweater, which made her look very girlish. She carried her shoulder bag by the strap. “London, bring my jacket, please,” she called over her shoulder. “And get a move on. We should try to beat the rush hour traffic.” She looked at me and smiled. “How was your day, Jericho?”

  “It was fine, Mom. You look pretty.”

  “Thank you. Sit down. There are a few things I want to go over with you.”

  I took my glass of apple juice to the table, pulled out a chair, and sat. Mom fumbled around a bit in her shoulder bag, pulled out her keys, and then placed the bag and keys on the table. She looked at me. I knew what she was going to say. Hell, I could have recited it with her word for word because it was only the fifth time this week that she’d gone over this with me. But I listened attentively, nodding at all the right places.

  “Your dad and I agreed to leave you here by yourself this weekend,” she said. “But I’m still not very comfortable with the idea. So I want to go over the ground rules with you again. Rule number one: Do not have anyone in this house while we’re gone. Rule number two: You are not to leave home while we’re gone. It’s okay for you to go next door to visit Maclin, but only if one of his parents is there. You two have a tendency to get each other in trouble. You can go to Maclin’s but no farther. Be sure you lock up the house if you go next door. Rule number three: You must eat actual meals while we’re gone, not junk food. Rule number four: Keep the house clean. Rule number five: Your Uncle Vic and Mrs. Travis will be checking in on you from time to time. Do not argue with them. If they tell you to do something, you do it. Are we clear on the rules?”

  I saluted. “Ma’am, yes ma’am!”

  Mom smiled at that. “My son, the nut. Come load this luggage in the car for me.”