Chapter 10 Gay Chapel
Paul Olson walked like a condemned man, shoulders hunched, shuffling gait, eyes fixed on the ground in front of him. He was headed to chapel and didn’t even know the lions were sharpening their claws, that fags were on the menu.
Matt intended to warn him. He’d persuaded the GM to let him at least do that. Warn Paul and then go on to chapel alone was the plan. It was too risky for gays to congregate on campus anytime. It was reckless to do so for Gay Chapel.
Paul’s recruitment to the GM? Paused indefinitely but not terminated—a small victory as far as Matt was concerned.
Matt loitered in front of the Norick Learning Center, watching his fellow students file past on their daily trek to chapel. The late morning sun was bright. The air smelled of freshly cut grass.
Paul wasn’t hard to spot. Harley had described him well: short, stocky, stringy black hair, glasses. Spooked by his own shadow.
Whatever gaydar was, Matt’s didn’t work. He would have put Paul in the misfit toy tribe and looked elsewhere for a closeted gay. But Harley and William said this kid was one of them.
“Paul Olson, right?”
Matt was all smiles, slouched down to minimize the half foot height difference between them, hands shoved in his pockets to appear less threatening.
Paul applied the brakes and came to a stop a couple feet from Matt. “Present,” he mumbled, as if answering a prison roll call.
They were on the sidewalk, impeding the flow of traffic, which put them on a stage where their fellow students could observe and possibly overhear them.
“My name’s Matt Griffith. A mutual friend told me about you.”
“Who’s your friend?” Paul’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. They also scanned Matt’s body, checking him out. It was a quick scan, done in an instant—something Matt wouldn’t have registered had he not known Paul was gay.
Matt considered asking Paul to move their conversation onto the grass, away from eavesdroppers. Decided not to risk it. The guy was too skittish, like a feral cat sniffing a proffered can of tuna. Any sudden movements and this kid would dart for cover.
Luckily, approaching students couldn’t see Paul’s facial expressions. What they saw was Matt standing here casually and composed. Chill.
What they overheard was still a concern.
Matt kept a frozen smile on his face. “My friend’s name is Harley,” he whispered.
Paul’s eyes went wide. The blood drained from his face.
Matt knew that look, knew the gut punching fear it entailed.
“Stay calm, Paul,” Matt said through his smiling teeth. His voice was low. “You, Harley, and I all play for the same team. Got it? I need you to trust me.”
“What team?” Paul blurted. “I don’t play any sports!” He pushed his glasses further back on his nose.
A gaggle of girls swept by, a collage of swishing skirts and bouncing boobs. Their chatter was loud and piercing, like birds squawking at each other.
One of the girls heard Paul’s protestation about sports and cocked her head quizzically. Then the gaggle was gone.
Matt laughed loudly as if Paul had said something funny.
“It’s a metaphor,” Matt whispered. “Think about it. Some of us are pitchers. Some are catchers.”
Paul was still confused. He shifted his weight. His eyes looked beyond Matt, charting escape routes.
Matt saw two of his soccer teammates approaching.
Shit!
They were about fifty feet away. They would spot him at any moment. They would be curious about what he was doing with Paul.
Matt tried one last time to pierce Paul’s concrete thinking. “Paul,” he hissed, “our team—the team you, Harley, and I play on—likes to play with balls. Get it?”
Paul gulped and nodded just as Matt’s two teammates strutted up to them.
“Mustang!” one of the guys called out, using Matt’s team nickname.
“Call him ‘Senator’ now,” joked the other. “And salute when you say it.”
Yes, Matt had won the election. He was a representative. There were no Senators, but he wasn’t going to argue the point. And he was dreading tomorrow evening when he would attend his first SGA meeting.
“Let me do the talking here,” Matt whispered to Paul, then turned his attention to his teammates. “Idabel! Yukon!” He held up his hands to accept high-fives.
Idabel growled. “Come Saturday I’m going to singlehandedly stomp Saints University’s butts. No one’s gonna be calling me ‘Idabel’ after that!”
“I’ve seen you run,” Matt joked. “You’ll still be ‘Idabel’ when you’re a Senior.” He did not remind Idabel that, since the Saints game was an exhibition one, there was no opportunity to shed their nicknames.
Yukon laughed at Matt’s joke.
Idabel and Yukon glanced at Paul, obviously expecting Matt to make introductions.
Matt felt a moment of panic. Maybe he was being paranoid, given the whole Gay Chapel thing, but he wanted a plausible enough story about his connection with Paul that would not invite follow-up questions.
“Guys, this is Paul. He’s… going to tutor me.”
Idabel and Yukon greeted Paul.
Paul nodded, adjusted his glasses, but didn’t say a word. Apparently, he took Matt’s instructions literally.
“What’s he tutoring you in?” Idabel asked. “I could use some help, too.”
Matt shook his head. This was exactly the type question he wanted to avoid.
“No poaching my tutor. Find your own.”
Matt shooed his friends away. “Now off you go! I’m talking business with Paul, and we’re almost late to chapel. I’ll see you later.”
Idabel and Yukon loped off.
Matt waited for them to be out of earshot.
“Walk with me,” he said, leading Paul towards the chapel.
Most of their fellow students were already inside, so he was less concerned about being overheard.
Still, he kept his voice low as he explained that they were headed to “Gay Chapel” and that was not a good thing.
Dixon Chapel loomed into view like a Mayan temple tucked into a jungle clearing.
The building’s understory was squat, windowless, u-shaped.
Two narrow staircases climbed to a small platform in the middle of the u, on top of which was stacked another shoebox which was itself topped by a steel-roofed pyramid.
The whole modernist pile was cold and impersonal and assaulted the senses with its abrasive misproportions.
It was the sort of dystopian structure where sadistic priests would perform human sacrifices, tossing the still-bleeding corpses of their victims down the stairs.
Paul slowed as they neared the entrance. His fear was palpable.
Matt’s instructions were to usher Paul into that horror show, washing his hands of further responsibility for the hapless kid, then take a seat with the soccer tribe.
He couldn’t do it.
“Hey Paul,” he said. “Can I tell you something? I’m not sure I can hold it together for this. Would you mind sitting with me? I could use the support.”
Paul smiled.
By the time they took their seats, the opening prayer was ending.
Matt spied Jake about five rows ahead of him, at roughly the ten o’clock position.
He hadn’t seen Jake since they had fucked four days earlier.
They now shared a special bond, like the one Matt shared with William.
And here he was in Gay Chapel, about to be told that gay love was a nasty, shameful thing.
Everyone stood to sing “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”
Mine eyes have seen the glory
Of the coming of the Lord
He is trampling out the vintage
Where the grapes of wrath are stored.
He hath loosed the fateful lightning
Of His terrible, swift sword.
His truth is marching on!
They sang the other four stanzas too, crammed with martial pomp, bristling with judgment wrought by men on God’s behalf.
And this song had been chosen to whip the crowd into a blood frenzy as they weeded out the fags, separating wheat from chaff.
All because of poor Adam Maxwell who was still in the hospital.
Hadn’t there been enough bloodshed already?
This was the doing of the mysterious Colton Langley, the kid who had ratted Adam out to the dean. The kid who, Matt had learned, was a self-hating gay.
Paul pushed his glasses back on his nose, blinked his bug eyes fearfully.
Dean Smith took the stage, motioned for everyone to be seated, and proceeded to introduce their guest speaker, Michael Benson, Executive Director of Mended Hearts Ministries.
Michael. Of. Course. The man who sashayed onto the stage matched his name.
He was no Mike, never had been. Michael was a barrel-chested man in his mid-thirties, with perfectly coiffed salt and pepper hair.
He wore a suit and tie. And he was barefoot.
He swung a pair of Nike tennis shoes from his hand like a purse.
The students greeted him with polite applause.
Michael’s effeminate voice played through the speakers. “There are students in this audience—males and females—who are struggling with same-sex attraction.”
He gazed into the audience as if scanning for the closet cases.
Matt watched as everyone sank down in their seats, avoiding Michael’s scrutiny, then, having apparently realized that made them look guilty, sat back up. It was like watching people do “The Wave” in a stadium.
Michael resumed. “Same sex attraction, the so-called ‘Gay’ lifestyle will leave you broken. I have good news for you: God can heal your brokenness. He healed mine. Once I was blind. Now I see. Once I was gay. NOW I AM FREE!”
Wild applause.
Matt felt the cold chill of fear. These people had to realize this Michael guy was a big ole queen, and yet they cheered. They just wanted to see fags tossed to the lions.
Michael launched into the story behind the shoes he was carrying. Fourteen years earlier he’d been “heavily in the Lifestyle.” One night he hooked up with a guy, who drove him to the riverbank, where they had sex in the back seat of the hookup’s car.
Gasps from an audience of virgins (or proclaimed ones), as if the backseat sex was all the punchline they needed.
“It gets worse,” Michael assured them and then went on to relate that afterwards, the hookup had become abusive and demanded he hand over his shoes as trophies.
More gasps.
The hookup had kicked Michael out of his car and made him walk home.
That night, walking home barefoot in the mud, Michael had given his heart to the Lord, and was reborn a straight man.
The moral of the tale was that Satan lured kids into the “Gay Lifestyle” like the anonymous hookup had enticed Michael. Then, once Satan got what he wanted, he’d strip you of your dignity, kick you out of his “car,” leaving you alone and metaphorically barefoot. Blah. Blah. Blah.
Matt quit listening and just stared at Michael in disgust, trying to decide if the man was delusional or just a garden variety snake oil salesman pedaling a cure that clearly hadn’t worked on himself.
This self-proclaimed straight man was as freakish as any two-headed calf at the state fair.
And just like those oddities, Michael didn’t belong in this world other than as a side-show curiosity.
He certainly didn’t belong in the hetero-world.
And if he truly wasn’t attracted to men, despite his mannerisms, he didn’t belong in the gay one either.
Matt felt a tiny speck of sympathy for Michael. He must be a very lonely man standing on his soap box at the fair, looking out at all the people staring back at him.
Michael finished his stemwinder and did a sort of altar call, asking for people to come forward if they were struggling with same sex attraction.
Two did. One blubbering guy and a stony-faced girl walked the plank.
“I know that guy,” Paul whispered. “He’s in one of my classes.”
“Was,” Matt corrected him. “That kid was in one of your classes.”
Michael ushered his two recruits to a side room to pray.
Dean Smith motioned for the students to quiet down.
He had something to tell them. Adam Maxwell was no longer a student at MCU.
According to the dean, Adam had voluntarily withdrawn so that he could focus on fixing his same sex attraction.
And, yes, the dean continued, Adam had then attempted suicide.
Matt heard a couple of muffled sobs. Mostly heavy silence. Gay Adam Maxwell didn’t merit anyone’s concern. A straight kid with a paper cut would make everyone’s prayer list.
Dean Smith continued. “There’s someone who deserves special recognition. Someone who recognized the face of evil and did the right thing!”
The dean scanned the pews. “Colton Langley, where are you? Come up here, son.”
Loud applause. Commotion in one of the pews as kids stood, making room for a preppy kid to climb around them.
Colton joined the dean on stage. Cuffed khaki pants. Leather belt. Tasseled loafers. Polo shirt tucked into his pants.
Matt stared at Colton, studying every detail about him, burning the guy’s face into his memory so that the next time he saw him he could exact revenge for Adam.
Dean Smith draped an arm around Colton’s shoulder, continued addressing the student body. “Colton loves God and hates sin. I want to personally thank him for alerting us to the grave sins of Adam Maxwell!”
Colton gave an aww, shucks shrug, beaming in pride, basking in the praise.
Dean Smith released Colton’s shoulder, reached for his hand to shake it. “Thank you, Colton. Keep up the great work! I’m excited to see what you do this year as president of the SGA!”