The Battle for Jericho Read online

  Ahhh.

  On the evening of May 21st, I took her out to celebrate her birthday. Dad drove me over to pick her up, and then he dropped us off at the mall. I don’t have a driver’s license. Damn it. And at the rate Dad’s giving me driving lessons, I won’t get one until I’m forty. Damn it, damn it. Once, just once mind you, my foot slipped off the brake onto the gas pedal, and Dad’s vintage black Mustang roared through the red light of a busy intersection. Oh, there was lots of screeching of tires and such, and one lady hit her brakes so hard it popped her airbag and sent her wig flying out the window, but we didn’t so much as scratch another vehicle. No big deal, right? Yet Dad cusses at me every time I get behind the wheel now. Which isn’t all that often.

  Lissandra, a sci-fi buff (another reason I love her), chose to see the latest Star Trek movie. We shared nachos and a giant Coke and snuggled in the magic dark of that theater. Afterward, we rode the mall’s carousel and kissed. Then I took her to the food court for barbecue pizza and more Coke and more kisses. When I escorted her to her door, at nine on the dot as I’d promised her parents, I kissed her deeply even with my dad sitting behind us in his car. It was a perfect first date. We’ve had many wonderful dates since.

  I remembered all this in the first ten seconds after I uttered those three deadly words in Dylan’s living room. My entire heterosexual life flashed before my eyes.

  Dylan knew bullcrap when he heard it. “I think that’s the one-tenth percent of alcohol in the peppermint flavor talking there,” he said. He glanced at the mug in my hand, as if wondering whether I’d had enough coffee too.

  “No, I’m serious,” I insisted.

  “It’s okay. You’re off the hook, at least as far as I’m concerned. You don’t owe me anything.”

  “I want to be a part of the cause. I want to fight straight society.” Where the hell was this coming from?

  Dylan put down his mug and stood up. He reached over and plucked the mug from my hand. “Jericho, you don’t know what you’re saying. Okay, let’s say that I believe somebody who just committed a gay-bashing is actually ready to come out as gay himself.” He paused, as if parsing that last sentence in his own head. “Actually, that’s not such a farfetched idea. It’s happened before. In any event, coming out is one of the most drastic steps a person can take—”

  “I’m ready.” Somebody slap me. Please! “What makes you think I’m not serious?”

  “Thirty minutes ago you were hysterical. You’re full of guilt.”

  “I know what I’m doing.” No, I didn’t. Seriously, I didn’t.

  “If you do this, you could lose your friends. Your relationship with your parents may never be the same. My father disowned me when I came out. And later on, you could face job discrimination—”

  “I could face job discrimination regardless,” I replied, pointing at my dark brown face and short, kinky Afro. Then a shudder ripped through my body from head to toe as an even graver thought struck me: I’d have to give up girls. Just the idea of it made me want to cry again. I could feel my eyes beginning to water. Damn it.

  “You’re scared to death,” Dylan said. “I see that all over your face. This is not something you have to rush into now—”

  “Yes, it is. I have to do this. It’s the only way.”

  “Jericho, don’t do something rash that you’ll regret later.”

  I’d already done something rash that I regretted later. And I was going to pay for it, somehow. What better way to make up for beating down a gay man than to become gay myself? That would be karma, kismet, and poetic justice, all rolled up into one. “No, I’m ready. I’m ready to make the switch from straight to gay.”

  Dylan frowned. Suddenly, he looked confused. “Wait… what?”

  I felt a moment of frustration. What part of this was so hard for him to wrap his brain around? “I’m joining up, Dylan. I’m jumping on the gay train.”

  “You think people choose…?” Dylan stopped talking and just looked at me. I could tell he still didn’t believe a word I’d said. In fact, it wasn’t just disbelief I saw in his face now. He was staring at me as if I’d said something outrageous, as if I’d told him there was a paisley Pop-Tart sticking out of his head and I wanted a bite of it.

  “I’m ready to do my bit for the gay cause,” I repeated, dropping my voice an octave as if that would make me more convincing.

  Dylan took my arm and pulled me to my feet. Another tingle went through me, making me tremble slightly. “Tell you what,” he said as he escorted me to the door. “Go home and sleep on it. I go back to work tomorrow, but I should be home by five. If by then you still think you want to tell the world you’re gay, come back and we’ll talk.”

  I started to protest—actually, I started to grab the doorjamb to stop the eviction—but suddenly I was standing outside on his porch, listening to the deadbolt click behind me.

  MONDAY was a weird day for me. It helped that Lissandra didn’t make it to school. I knew, having spoken with her Sunday night, that she was still suffering from a head cold, which had come down on her three days ago, and her mom was keeping her home. There was no morning or in-between-class kiss to distract me. But in her absence, I found myself staring at just about every girl I passed. I couldn’t get enough of breasts. Mrs. Rockmond, my forty-something geometry teacher, even caught my eyes lingering inappropriately on her chest during her lecture that morning. She was so uncomfortable—and offended—that she sent me down to the office of the curvaceous, thirty-something vice principal, Mrs. Carter, where I spent the rest of the period sneaking glances at her knockers.

  “What’s the matter with you?” Mac asked me as he, Hutch, and I made our way through the line in the cafeteria to get our lunch. He had reached out to get a carton of milk while my hand was also in the cooler. His finger accidentally grazed my wrist, and I jerked my hand back so frantically I sent the carton of apple juice I’d just grabbed hurtling like a fly ball. Luckily, Hutch managed to nab it before it smacked into anyone’s head.

  I mumbled something in reply to Mac’s question—even I don’t know what I said—then took my tray and marched off to find a table by myself. Of course, Mac and Hutch followed. Hutch sat across from me, babbling on about the new video game his dad had gotten him Saturday. Ordinarily, I’d have been trying to make arrangements to play that sucker with him—it was a game I wanted myself and probably wouldn’t get until Christmas—but all I could think about was how close his knees were to mine under the table. Mac sat right next to me, and his right thigh was practically touching my left.

  I slid down the bench from them and drew in my arms and legs, turtle-like.

  Hutch and Mac looked at each other, and then they looked at me. “Are you all right, man?” Hutch asked.

  “I think I’m coming down with something,” I muttered. For effect, I sniffled and then hacked out a little cough.

  Later, in PE, after forty-five minutes of calisthenics, I didn’t want to get in the shower—something I’d done without a second thought since my first PE session in seventh grade.

  “Jericho, I can’t let you go to your next class without a shower,” Coach Gabe snapped as I stubbornly tried to pull my jeans on over my sweats. “You’ll stink up the room and then your teacher will come complaining to me.”

  “I’m cool, Coach,” I said. “I used the heavy-duty deodorant before I left home this morning.”

  Coach wasn’t having it. He jabbed a finger at the showers. “Get your funky behind in there before I throw you in, clothes and all.”

  By that time, the other guys had finished their scrub-downs and were getting dressed at their lockers. I stripped down, wrapped myself like a mummy from chest to knees in bath towels, and scurried past them, eyes on the floor.

  Mac was concerned. After school, at my hall locker, as I was unloading the books from my backpack that I wouldn’t need again until the next day, Mac came up to me. “Is there something you want to talk about, man?”

  I feigned an air
of nonchalance, avoiding his eyes. He had some really nice eyes. So did Hutch. “Nah.”

  “Everything okay at home?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah, I’m cool, Mac. I’m cool.”

  He wasn’t convinced. Damn it. What happened to my credibility? Right now, it didn’t seem as if I could even sell him on the idea that we were standing on a little planet called Earth. “You’ve been… weird, Jerry. All day.”

  “What’re you talking about? There’s nothing weird about me, man.” And in my haste to get away from him, I slammed the locker door on my hand. “Jesus!” Make no mistake. That was an expletive. I did a little pain dance, hopping from one foot to the other and then spinning around.

  “Let me look at that.” Mac tried to take my injured hand.

  “Don’t touch it!” I jerked my hand away from him, elbowing a passing girl hard in the ribs. She yelped and dropped her backpack.

  “Oh man. I’m sorry,” I said, reaching out to retrieve her backpack.

  “No you’re not,” the girl snarled. As I bent down, she brought her knee up, delivering a solid blow to my chin that made my teeth click. I fell back into my open locker.

  “Now you’re sorry,” the girl said.

  Mac moved quickly between us, shielding me. “Step away, Wonder Woman.”

  The girl scooped up her backpack and strode off down the hall, cursing under her breath. I watched her go. Her jeans were tight. She had a phenomenal butt.

  I was going to miss phenomenal girl butts.

  Mac reached down and tugged me out of the locker opening. I desperately scooted away from him as if he were about to jab a knife in my chest. He stared at me for a second. “You’re really starting to scare me here, Jerry.” He closed the door to my locker and spun the dial, making sure it was locked.

  “Don’t worry about me, Mac.” Holding my stinging left hand against my chest, I hefted my backpack onto my shoulder. My jaw ached. I wondered if that was punishment enough for me to forget about joining the gay team. Then I thought about the broken Dylan and knew I had not suffered nearly enough. I sighed. “I gotta go.”

  “Hold on. Hutch has his mom’s car. He’s gonna give us a ride—”

  “You dudes go ahead. I got something else to do. See ya.” I tossed the words over my shoulder as I ran for the exit. Mac started after me, I poured on the speed, and he gave up, knowing there was no way he could catch me.

  I thought about Dylan again. I’d been thinking about him a lot today. Every time he crossed my mind, I felt sort of funny, anxious-like. It was a lot worse than the weird feeling I usually got when I let any notion of homosexuality into my head.

  Chapter 6

  DAD was happy to learn that I’d “found” my cell—so happy, in fact, that he took it from me. “Maybe I’ll just hold onto it for a while,” he said. “Maybe that will teach you to keep up with your things.”

  Being without a cell would be no excuse for failing to follow the rules. I knew, as I ran down the steps outside the school’s south entrance two at a time, that I wasn’t going home just yet. That meant I had to let Mom or Dad know where I would be.

  The only pay phone in town that I knew of was mounted outside the service bay door of an auto repair shop on Highway 72. The shop was run by the family of Gavin Coles, a guy I’d known since fifth grade. Gavin said the phone had been there since before he was born, and he’d never seen anyone actually use it. I wasn’t about to hike the seven miles to the shop to find out if the thing really worked.

  Dummy! I was so out of my head I forgot all about the pay phones at school. By the time my memory kicked in, I was already three blocks from school, and I sure as hell wasn’t going back. Instead, I headed for the Webster’s Glen Library.

  The afternoon was sunny, and it was warm for late October. That made it a great day for running. I spend a lot of my free time in the Popular Fiction section, hunting for newly released sci-fi paperbacks. The women who staff the desk there used to let me use the department’s phone to call home, back in those dark days before Dad broke down and got a cell for me. Despite my being sweaty and out of breath when I reached the desk, the woman on duty today, Mrs. Kingston, was glad to see me.

  “Of course, you’re welcome to use the telephone, sweetie,” she said with a big smile, bending down to grab the phone from the cubbyhole beneath her desk. It was kept there to mute the sound when it rang. Mrs. Kingston is a graduate student in Library Science at the university. She has a soft, round face, is somewhere in her late twenties, and is what my mom calls “full-figured.” She was wearing a turtleneck. It fit her perfectly. For the first time in the two years since she started working at the library, I realized what nice lips she has. And eyes. And ears. Even her nostrils are cute.

  I almost sighed when she put the phone in front of me.

  I called Baptist Hospital first, which is perched on the eastern border of Webster’s Glen. Mom is a nurse there in the neonatal intensive care unit. Dad has degrees up to his neck, including a PhD in Business Administration. Professionally, he is Dr. London Jiles. Mom only has her bachelor’s degree, but there’s a nursing shortage across the country. RNs are in high demand and command some correspondingly high salaries. I think it bugs Dad that Mom not only has a shorter commute but earns more money than he does.

  Of course, the shortage also means nurses work a lot of hours. Sometimes Mom misses dinner. And church. And little things like grade school graduation and basketball games.

  The person who answered said Mom was with a patient and couldn’t come to the phone. I left her a message. To cover all my bases, I also called Dad’s cell. I knew he had a class from three to four on Monday afternoon, so I left a message on his voice mail telling him I’d be at the library until six. I thanked Mrs. Kingston and handed the phone back to her, forcing myself to look no lower than the delicate little dimple in her chin.

  Actually, I was only in the library until four forty-five, during which time I finished my homework for American history. After loading up my backpack, I walked outside and down Baxter Boulevard, slowly, as if going to my own execution.

  AT TEN after five, Dylan parked his Camaro in the driveway and climbed out with a leather satchel in hand thick enough to knock down walls. He wore a gray suit, a gray dress shirt, and a black tie. His hair had been trimmed close to his scalp to blend in with the landing strip the doctors made when suturing his wound. The buzz cut and the suit made him look like a military recruiter, and it gave me a flutter in my chest. I was still a little scared of him.

  He seemed surprised to find me sitting on the steps to his porch. “What’re you doing here?”

  I stood up. “You told me to sleep on it and come back if I really want to go gay.” I spread my arms. “I’m back.”

  He brushed past me wearily and started unlocking his door. “Go home, Jericho.”

  “But you said—”

  “This isn’t a game,” he snapped, turning to me, a scowl on his face. “And I’m not in the mood to play.”

  “I’m not playing, Dylan,” I told him with a sudden seriousness that seemed to come from some part of me that was far older than my sixteen years. “I have to do this. I’m going to do this, whether you help me or not.”

  The burden was back on him now, and I figured I’d give him a few seconds to decide what he was going to do. He glared into my eyes, looking for the slightest waver. I didn’t even dare blink. Maybe half a minute later, he got this sly look in his eye, and he said, “You’re telling me that you’re ready to give up girls?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you believe in God?”

  “Yes.”

  “You realize that the ultimate goal of the gay agenda is to alter the institution of marriage as set forth by God and forever undermine society’s traditional moral values?”

  “I do.”

  “And by choosing homosexuality, you’re willing to risk not just the end of all sexual relations with the females yo
u naturally desire, not just the loss of your family and friends, not just the condemnation of your church, not just discrimination by the local, state, and federal governments, but the everlasting wrath of the all-powerful and eternal Master of the Universe?”

  Gulp. “I am.”

  He studied my face for another thirty seconds before he finally unlocked the door. “Follow me. There’s some paperwork involved.”

  Paperwork?

  Dylan led me through his living room and down the hall to a bedroom he had converted into a home office. There was a small, contemporary desk against the rear wall. Dylan pulled out the chair and told me to sit.

  As I seated myself, he opened the filing cabinet next to the desk and hauled out a stack of white, legal-sized paper, which he plopped down in front of me.

  “What’s this?” I asked, afraid to even look.

  “That’s the standard membership contract,” Dylan replied. “You know, for joining WHO, the World Homosexual Organization.” He uncapped a pen and dropped it on the desk. “Read it over, then sign and date it.”

  I read the contract. Or tried to. There were enough wherefores, in witness thereofs, agreed heretos and other legalese in that thing to scare the pee out of a Supreme Court justice. The gist of it was that I agreed to become a fully committed gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgendered individual (the form allowed me to take my pick) for life. The terms and conditions obligated me, as a guy, to get busy on a regular basis with at least one member of the male persuasion. My responsibilities also included, as Dylan had already pointed out, destroying all precepts regarding male/female relationships and the moral teachings of society, especially those established by the Bible, Quran, and all other holy books. This wasn’t just limited to fighting for same-sex marriage. WHO would also be pushing to expand the legal definition of marriage to include bigamy, adult/child unions, human/animal nuptials, and knot-tying between people and bacteria.