Yellow （1977）
We haven’t been too concerned about the whispers and speculation.
That is until this morning in church. When Reverend Jack called sinners to the front to confess their sins and repent, my grandfather rose and pulled me to my feet.
I stood bewildered as he pushed me into the aisle and toward the front of the church, where Reverend Jack stood like a storm cloud about to release a bolt of lightning.
On the other side of the church, Jackson’s mother pushed him to his feet and into the aisle.
With their hands on our shoulders, my grandfather and Jackson’s mother pushed us to our knees.
Reverend Jack called out the demon possessing us, urged us to repent our sin and pledge to return to the path of righteousness. He named neither the demon nor the sin; neither did he assign a name to the path we’d strayed onto.
Two weeks ago, Reverend Jack, from the pulpit, had thundered about the sin and scourge of homosexuality.
“That word is the sin,” Jackson had whispered to me.
“I hate it, too,” I’d whispered back.
Now, I wondered why Reverend Jack was holding back, why he was refusing to name the obvious thing.
I glanced over at Jackson, who looked terrified.
Praying no one would notice, I reached over and squeezed his hand before quickly drawing it back to my side.
My prayer was in vain. The organist’s tempo increased; the drums grew louder; the prayers grew more fevered; one of the deaconesses swaying in the aisles fainted.
The praying over us wasn’t the worst part, though. The worst part was the “laying on of hands.” Hands from every direction, so many hands. Touching us, clutching, grabbing, as if they would tear us to pieces.
Finally, we were allowed to return to our respective pews, while other, lesser sinners replaced us in front of Reverend Jack.
After service, we met, out of sight, in the field behind the church, shaken if not chastened. Jackson stumbled into my arms. We held on tight to each other until our heartbeats slowed, until we were able to speak again.
Thursday, January 20, 1977, Locust Hollow—His truck wheezed, shuddered, and came to a halt as Jackson guided it to the curb; steam rose from under the hood.
“Overheated,” he sighed. “Again.”
The old truck was leaking coolant. Jackson was waiting till he had enough money saved to fix it. He refused my offer to pay for it, knowing I was saving for college in the fall.
“We just have to wait for it to cool, so I can add more coolant,” he explained.
I nodded, looking past him at the row of attached houses in front of which we’d halted.
The houses, brick-fronted, were wood-framed, stacked tinder boxes waiting for a lit match or a carelessly discarded cigarette.
When one went up in flames, the others fell as well.
It had happened periodically throughout the years. The houses frightened me.
We leaned our heads back against the bench seat and leaned towards each other. I was just starting to drift into sleep when I heard what would turn out to be a broom being beaten against the side of the truck. Jackson leapt from the cab, grabbed the broom.
“Miss Lurene, what are you doing?” he demanded.
Lurene paused in her efforts, apparently recognizing him. “I’m sweeping away sin,” she shouted, her chin jutting forward.
“What are you talking about?”
“I—I saw you,” she spluttered, then lowering her voice, “doing unnatural things with he—” and now she pointed her broom at me. “That spawn of the devil hisself!”
“What are you talking about? My truck overheated. We’re just waiting for it to cool down so we can keep driving.”
“Why are you—a preacher’s son—running around with that filthy boy? It ain’t right.”
“Now Miss Lurene, you know the Lord doesn’t think any of us is filthy—not if we have love in our hearts. And Oren here has more love in his heart than just about anybody in this town.”
She looked less sure of herself. “Get moving,” she spat, “before I have to get Lidell to come out here.”
“Now Miss Lurene, wasn’t it just last Sunday Reverend Jack talked about being hospitable to folks in need? I know you heard him. I saw you nodding your head and shaking your tambourine. How ashamed of you do you think he’d be right now?”
Lurene looked absolutely cowed. She lowered the broom and, muttering, walked back to her tinderbox house but not before giving me the stink eye.
Climbing back into the cab and slamming the door, Jackson said, “I see why you hate this town. And everyone in it.”
“Not everyone. I don’t hate you,” I said.
“Or Rio,” he said wryly.
I looked at him. I wondered if he was jealous. He had no reason to be. Rio was a dream; Jackson was the dream made flesh.
“Why not?” Jackson asked.
“Why not what?”
“Why don’t you hate me like you hate everyone else?”
“Do you really not know how special you are?” I asked.
“Everyone in this town is the same, believes the same things. It’s like they’re all cut from the same dull pattern and living according to some sort of mass-produced template.
But you—you’re different, rare. I was waiting for you to show up, without even knowing it.
Someone like you only shows up once in a great while.
” I fell silent then. “Blue Moon,” I whispered, speaking again. “You’re my Blue Moon.”
“What’s a Blue Moon?”
I sat up and wiggled my fingers against his.
“The moon cycles through phases that last about a month, so there are typically twelve moons in a year. But the moon’s phases actually take twenty-nine and a half days to complete.
If you do the math, you’ll see it takes just three hundred and fifty-four days to complete twelve lunar cycles.
So, every two and a half years or so, there’s a thirteenth moon within a calendar year.
That moon is called a Blue Moon. You are my Blue Moon. ”
“Are you making that up?”
“No. Don’t you believe me?”
“’Course I do. “Now I believe in something new, in something I didn’t know existed. I believe in you, Oren.”
Monday, February 14, 1977, Locust Hollow—Today is Valentine’s Day—our first together. Jackson makes me happy. It doesn’t matter what we’re doing; as long as we’re together, I’m happy. This is quite a different feeling from the hot passion I feel when I look at him, when we touch.
Somehow, he has opened up long-forgotten memories. Even though I try not to dwell on the past—for I find that memory can become like Prometheus’s eagle—I can’t help remembering.
Early on, before the arrival of my brothers, before the drinking and shouting began, my mother had been my favorite person.
As long as I was with her, I was happy. Closing my eyes now, I can catch glimpses of us back then—making peanut brittle together in our sun-splashed kitchen that was painted bright yellow; her chasing me along the bank of a river, playing hide-and-seek in the trees.
I remember my parents’ anniversary party, the last party they had before we left Springfield.
I can still see Dad standing, a whiskey sour in one hand, a cigarette in the other, wearing a sportscoat with suede elbow patches, watching my mother floating through the crowd in a navy-blue-and-orange chevron-patterned sheath dress, offering hors d’oeuvres and wine and gracious thank-you-for-comings.
The adults in the living room held drinks while dancing to the stacked 45s, which dropped to the turntable in turn: Miriam Makeba’s “Pata Pata,” Hugh Masekela’s “Grazing in the Grass,” and my favorite “Wack Wack” by the Young Holt Trio, which all the kids present danced to.
That I was happy before, that Jackson and I have found each other, makes me believe, for the first time, I can be happy again.
Saturday, May 7, 1977, Locust Hollow—Our picnic today was rained out.
Rain here tends to be like a toddler’s tantrums. It erupts suddenly out of silence and clear skies with a sound like a clapper bell from hell, then a torrent of unstoppable water pours down, eventually stopping as suddenly as it started.
Then, as soon as you’ve gotten used to the silence ringing in your ears, the clapper bell rings, and the storm rages again.
Like a toddler’s incoherent fury, you are left wondering what in hell has caused it.
Undaunted, we unpacked our picnic in the cab of his truck and holding hands, we ate, talking about everything and nothing, sometimes singing along with our favorite songs on the truck’s scratchy AM radio as the storm raged around us.
Sunday, March 20, 1977, Locust Hollow—Each Sunday since January when Reverend Jack prayed over us, someone in church has conspired to separate Jackson and me after service.
The conspirators seem legion—the elders, the deaconesses, sometimes a particularly righteous parishioner.
So today, we decided to meet up before Sunday service—in the orchards behind the church.
When I arrived, Jackson was there with Reuben, the choir director.
It was impossible to tell what his body looked like under his voluminous choir robe, but his rounded face with its soft features is actually quite attractive.
He speaks quietly but plays the piano like a demon.
“I’m glad I caught you boys,” he said, pulling a cigarette from a new pack and lighting it. Jackson and I looked at him in astonishment; Father Jack forbids the smoking of cigarettes.
“Why?” Jackson asked.
“I—I wanted to tell you boys—I envy your courage,” he said quietly.
“Courage?” Jackson repeated, sounding confused.
“Yeah. Courage—the courage not to let them,” he jerked his thumb towards the church, “weaken your devotion to each other. Each Sunday, you stand tall and defiant as they lay their hands on and pray over you. I can see in your faces that your faith in the rightness of your relationship is stronger than their prayers.”
“That’s not courage,” I said.
“You’re too young to know what courage is,” Reuben said, smiling.