CHAPTER 7 – COFFEE SHOP SOUNDTRACK
Monday morning, Ray showed up unexpectedly at my door.
"What's up, Ray?"
"Happy July!" he grinned. "Time for croquet! You didn't forget, did you?"
"...How could I? Come in!"
Ray walked right over to the croquet mallets collecting dust by the living room wall and carried them to the back door. I followed him out, ready to help him set up the wickets.
We were long past setting up a traditional course. I took half of the wickets and he took the other half, distributing them randomly around the yard. When we were finished, Ray traced out a path for both of us to follow to win, including circling a few trees and trick-shooting it between two wickets without going through either of them. He started the game with three hits in a row.
"It's been too long since we talked in person," Ray commented.
"Agreed. How are things?"
"Could be better, could be worse. This summer job is kicking my butt a little bit."
"Yikes. Why's that?"
"I just have to work with people all the time. I never considered myself an introvert until recently. It's exhausting to just smile and nod at them all for four hours a day. I can't even imagine what full-time is like."
"I try not to think about it until I have to," I said. "That sounds awful."
"Anyway, how have you been? You must be busy; you haven't come to visit yet."
"Things are great, Ray," I replied honestly. "And you're right about being busy. I'll come pretend to be an angry customer as soon as I get the chance, don't you worry."
"I'll be holding you to that. What makes things so great for you?"
"Well..." I knew what the answer was, but didn't want to be that friend who only talks about their love life and nothing else. "I had a great weekend is all," I answered vaguely.
"Oh yeah? What did you do?"
Well, he asked. "I went to a festival."
He looked up from aiming his mallet at the ball and looked at me, half incredulous and half amused. "Oh my God. You two went to pride, didn't you?"
I fought a smile, looking back at the ball on the ground. "Yeah, we did. Dude, it was amazing."
He laughed once. "Seems like an emo kid like you would be a little out of his element there."
"Frank said the same thing. Still, I'm glad I went. It was unlike anything I was picturing."
"Here is where I beg you not to let me in on what exactly you were picturing."
I rolled my eyes. "Wow."
He only tapped the ball through another wicket.
We kept small talk going long enough for us to finish one game and start another. After a while, I wondered: "Ray, out of curiosity, do you follow any religion?"
"Me? No. Everyone in my family is a Baptist, but I'm a skeptic to say the least. Why? Do you?"
I was grateful that he could be so casual about this topic. I didn't need another yesterday to happen from thinking too much or getting into too-deep questions. I didn't have to worry about a debate of any kind with a friend like him.
"I don't really know. I guess that's why I'm asking. I call myself a Catholic, but I don't follow it really closely. It's more like I just know God exists. What's that called – a deist? It's only hard to say if I fall under a more specific category."
"That's fair. It's a complicated topic – the meaning of life and what comes after it."
"True. I was just curious where you stood, what you thought, you know."
"Cool. Oh, hey, before I forget, my birthday is next Friday. You're welcome to come over and hang out if you want to. Your brother and boyfriend will be invited, too."
"Sweet, thanks! I'm sure I'll have nothing else to do." Ray nodded like he knew I wasn't wrong. "Dang, you're going to be eighteen aren't you?" I added.
"Yeah. It's weird."
When we finished up the game, Ray hesitated before leaving.
"Another thing out of curiosity," he said. "What would you do if I just showed up at your house one day with no explanation as to why?"
Weird question, but he hadn't asked for details on my own questions earlier, so I'd do the same for him.
"I don't know. Depends what was going on, I guess, and what I was doing at the time. To be honest, I'd probably just assume it was the first Monday of the month and that I'd just lost track of the day."
He laughed. "Sounds fair. Just curious. Not that I plan on creeping on your house every day." He wiggled his eyebrows in my direction despite the statement, making me laugh.
"I'll see you soon, then," I joked, and he waved as he left.
***
Frank and I met up at a place called Mama's, which neither of us had been to before. It was very casual and very secluded, somewhere where no one would be around to judge our conversations.
Frank greeted me with a tight hug, asking again and again if I was truly feeling better than last night, and I was. With time to sleep on it and having Ray over, I'd nearly forgotten about how scared I had been the night before. I was back to ignoring the problem that was arguably the biggest problem a person could have – deciding what was morally right and wrong. Most people ignored that kind of thing, because it never seemed like a pressing problem. No one wants to know what they're doing is wrong. How proud we are of our image as individual people always seems to overpower that. Yet something in me hungered to know if what I was doing was okay; if I could pass a fact check with the highest power I knew of.
So here I was in the middle of the day in an abandoned diner, sitting with my boyfriend to discuss how people interpreted the Bible.
Never expected to be in this position.
When we had both ordered muffins, Frank started off the conversation with a question.
"This is a really broad topic," he warned me, "so where do you want to start?"
"That's a really broad question," I replied, laughing nervously. "I guess my biggest question is... why is any Christian against it?"
"Gotcha. I can explain that."
Frank, the absolute nerd that he is, pulled out a notebook riddled with annotations. He ran his finger down the margin, getting a dusting of ink on the tip of his finger. Soon finding what he was looking for, he tapped the page twice.
"Leviticus twenty, verse thirteen: 'If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.'"
"Sounds pretty straightforward to me," I muttered.
"It does," he said. "But here's another way to look at it: in that time period, the lifespan wasn't as long. The infant mortality rate was high. None of the modern conveniences we have now were even a thought back then. So by sleeping with someone of the same sex, you weren't planning to reproduce, of course. It was expected that if you were going to sleep with someone, you had to do it with the intention of raising a child from it. This is such an old book, and you don't think some things have changed since then?"
"I mean... I guess they have. Of course they have. But the law doesn't change with the times?"
"I think you'll find that Leviticus is not the place to look to find an image of what God wants and doesn't want of your life. Also banned in that book: eating seafood. Planting different seeds in the same field. Cutting your hair. Marrying a widow. Wearing mixed fabrics – hey, look, we're both doing that right now." He gestured between us. "Cotton and denim. Unacceptable!"
I laughed as he returned to the notebook.
"All I'm saying is, not all of these are relevant anymore. Even if being gay were a sin, we're no more or less sinful than anyone who has gotten a haircut." He looked back to me, prompting me to respond.
"You keep saying 'if it were a sin.' Are you saying it's not?"
He sighed, scratching the back of his neck. "This one is... controversial. But the way I see it myself, no, it's not a sin at all."
I waited for him to continue.
"It's just my speculation, I guess, but... God is love, right? First John four-eight, like I've said. God is love; sin is harmful and stops spiritual progression. I've never seen a same-sex relationship do any harm like sin does just by being a same-sex relationship.. I've never even heard of that happening. There are plenty of gay, bi, pan, ace, and otherwise queer Christians in existence. If they can be happy in their relationships, if those relationships are healthy, it can only be beneficial for them. So how can God possibly condemn that? It's just unrealistic, I think. Sin can't have the power to make people truly happy, and love can't have the power to make them truly unhappy, right?"
"I can't see why it would," I replied. Lying, stealing, killing; all sins that people used for their own benefit but never in good conscience. Being a part of a relationship was nothing like any of that.
"So, in my opinion, something must have been mistranslated or misunderstood. Misrepresented. I don't know. Something's off about it."
"Okay."
He'd given me something to think about, that was for sure. Before I had a chance to come up with anything else to ask about, he closed the journal and stood.
"I hate to cut this short, but I told my mom I was at the library. I don't want any suspicion."
"Oh, of course. We can continue this conversation later. Anytime." Before I let him go, though, something occurred to me. "Frank?"
"Hm?"
"Is your mom's religion a part of what stops you from coming out to her?"
"I – yeah, I guess it is. It's why she doesn't believe it's 'valid in the eyes of God' or whatever."
"Do you think, maybe, if you told your mom all of this, she'd maybe begin to understand where you're coming from? You're making logical sense."
He hesitated, staring at his feet. "I mean... maybe she would. I don't know. I'd like to think so, I just... I don't know."
"That's okay." I pulled him into a hug. "Just another thing to think about. Maybe one day we won't have to cut dates short."
"I hope so, sweetheart, I really do."
"See you around."
"See you."
He kissed me quickly on the cheek, then left the shop without another word. I took my time walking back to my car, mulling over it all. Maybe I'd do some research of my own soon.
For now, though, all I had was what he said. That was enough to keep the anxiety away.