Angel, page 15
He must have had some second word in mind when he wrote it. Paul hadn’t been stuck on a sermon in quite a while, but his focus on architecture, history, and aesthetics was all too academic, and his mind kept wandering.
He was still thinking about his trip to the mall with Ian, and outsiders like Andy, who had carved out a place for themselves beyond the borders of “respectable” society. He was also thinking about the fearless love Ian had shown when he got that tattoo. He thought about the double meaning, the symbolism. Ian had Christ in his heart (and his heart on his sleeve). There was fearless love in that too. In this middle of this church, trying so hard to be respectable, he wouldn’t let anyone rob him of his soul. How many Ians were out there in the world?
Paul began to write. The sermon came to him in a torrent, as though he was taking dictation. That Sunday he stood before the congregation in his black robe and said:
This afternoon we will be voting on whether or not to approve a budget to repair the old steeple. Fixing that old thing will cost a lot of money. And there are those who will say it is money that could be better spent on something more tangible and practical than beauty. It’s a reasonable argument.
How do you measure the value of beauty? What is it? What does it do? What is it worth? Maybe nothing.
Or maybe, just maybe, beauty pleases the senses because it reminds us of a divine order and holds a mirror to the face of God.
(Paul looked into Ian’s eyes as he delivered this line.)
Fixing the steeple will not change the nature of our services, or my sermons, or our community outreach. We don’t even see it while we’re sitting here in the sanctuary. And that is really the key. Our steeple is not really for us. It is a gift of beauty that we give to the larger community. It is not only for our members or for the people who come through the doors, but for the people who never will.
A steeple points the way to Heaven. It is a universal symbol that reminds everyone who passes that there is a spiritual dimension to life—that there is something greater than ourselves, and it ties us together across time and across generations.
To the people who are afraid, who have been alienated from God, who have somehow learned the lesson that Christians are a different kind of people and that Christianity is not for them—let our steeple be a beacon. Let it send them a message.
Our message is not “come to our church.” Our message is this: No one lives without a soul. Everyone deserves to feel God’s love. No matter who you are, no matter what you do, if you think you have made mistakes, if your wife kicked you out, if you’re sick, if you’re troubled, if you’re black or white, rich or poor.
(The original draft said “straight or gay” here, but Paul lacked the courage to say it and struck it out.)
God loves you. You are valuable. Your life has meaning. God created you because He needs you.
That is our message. That is our gift. Our steeple is a gift of beauty to the larger community.
The speech had the desired effect. The members of the congregation voted almost unanimously (Mike Davis was still against it) to fix the steeple. They formed a fund-raising committee then and there and approved taking money from the existing budget to get started on the project as soon as possible.
That evening Paul took Ian to a fancy restaurant to celebrate the victory. Then they came home and made love. Afterward, Paul said, “You know, you inspired that sermon. You and your tattoo.”
Ian got up and sat astride Paul. Paul ran his hand over the image on Ian’s arm.
“So I’ll be getting that trip to Tahiti soon?” Ian asked.
“We’ll see,” Paul said, brushing Ian’s hair back behind his shoulders.
“We could go to Provincetown, Massachusetts. We can get married there.”
“Why not Iowa?”
“The ocean is sexier than corn.”
Paul’s face became serious. “Do you want to get married?”
“Do you?” His eyes were wide with expectation.
Paul’s heart sank. As he searched for just the right words, his face gave him away.
“I was just joking around,” Ian said. He rolled off of Paul and lay down beside him, looking up at the ceiling.
Paul turned to him, resting his head on his elbow. “I would if I could.”
“I understand. There’s Sara, the love of your life, and then there’s whatever I am. The troubled kid you’re helping out.”
“That’s not fair.”
“You’re right. It’s not.”
Paul sighed deeply. How had that happened? How had the mood shifted so quickly? He was trying to decide whether to argue this one out or to leave it there and turn off the light. They weren’t going to resolve this in one night, and things would be back to normal in the morning. The only difference would be how much sleep they got.
Ian made the decision for him. “I’m tired,” he said. “Why don’t we just go to sleep?”
“You know I love you,” Paul said.
“I know,” Ian said, and he reached over and switched off the light.
Ian drifted off into gentle snoring, but Paul lay awake. He was thinking about his wedding to Sara. How beautiful she had been in her mother’s wedding gown, with the cascade of tiny white baby’s breath in her hair. He remembered the little flower girls and ring bearer who had added an element of chaos to the event by stopping midway down the aisle and deciding, right at that moment, to lie down on the floor. During the months that Sara had been frantically planning the pageant of the wedding, Paul had wondered if they wouldn’t be better off eloping and getting it over with. He had not been prepared for how powerful it would be on the day to be surrounded by all the people who loved him and to have his entire community welcoming them into their lives as a married couple.
This new love was every bit as powerful as the love he had felt for Sara. Yet he was trying to contain it, to keep it in a bubble, separate from the rest of his life. The result was dozens of tiny rejections. “This is Ian, a young man I’ve been helping out.” That was the worst one of all. It not only distanced Ian, it minimized him. Paul was afraid Ian might start to have doubts about their relationship, but he didn’t know how to stop the rejections.
Chuck the Mailman
What is religion but the form? What is it but the mountain? Paul was attracted to the church as Edmund Hillary was to Everest. Being a church member was not enough. He had to climb to the top because it was there. He had to be a minister. Learning the rituals, the sacred texts, the history: they’re not the essence of faith but tools—like a mountaineer’s pickax and rope—that help you inch along the surface. Paul had never realized what it would mean to have people looking up to him. Fall, and what a long way down it is. At least at the top of the mountain, people are aware of the danger. Any mountain climber will tell you that the summit is only the halfway point. You still need to make it down safely. But with religion, when you get to the top, no one expects you to stumble. No one told Paul he was only halfway there.
Personal cars, UPS trucks, and delivery vans were always driving in and out of the church parking lot, but the mail truck had its own distinctive sound. The mail was never earth-shattering, but as soon as he heard the postal engine, Paul felt compelled to immediately leap up and walk out to Julie’s desk to collect it. It was a landmark in his day. Julie had a good rapport with Chuck, the regular postal carrier. He was blond, slim, probably around thirty, with feminine mannerisms. He and Julie would usually chat for a few minutes before he continued on his route. Paul had always been too focused on the mail to pay much attention to the person who delivered it.
On this day, mailman and minister happened to converge on the office as Ian walked past the window, pushing the lawn mower. It was hot outside, and Ian had taken off his shirt and had it hanging off his hip through a belt loop. He peered into the office window and waved as he went by.
“Ooh, he has his shirt off!” Julie said.
Emily giggled. “He is so cute!”
Chuck handed the bundle of letters and magazines to Julie, who separated the third from the first-class mail in one motion and gave the letters to Paul.
“Hi, Chuck!” she said to the mailman with a genuine smile.
Chuck leaned on the reception desk. “How are you doing today?”
“Great,” Julie said, gesturing in the direction of the window. “We’re watching our custodian cut the lawn. That’s how we pass our day around here.”
“He’s fun to watch,” Emily chimed in.
Chuck gazed out the window and watched as Ian made another pass with the mower. He chuckled.
“Well, don’t get too excited, girls,” he said, adding in a stage whisper, “he bats for the other team.”
“Really? Are you sure?” Julie asked.
“From personal experience,” Chuck said, raising his eyebrows.
Paul took a deep breath. He wanted to punch the satisfied smirk off the mailman’s face. In fact, he wasn’t that kindly disposed to the entire postal service at the moment. To avoid glaring at the mailman, he glared at the mail in his hand. He hoped this might pass for intense concentration on his personal correspondence. He should have gone back into his office right then, but he couldn’t bring himself to leave—he didn’t want to hear another word and he didn’t want to miss a thing. Both Emily and Julie were now focused completely on Chuck, their eyes wide.
“You mean…,” Emily said.
“He’s pretty,” Chuck said, more to himself than to Emily or Julie, “but he’s kind of a train wreck.”
Paul bit the inside of his cheek. A train wreck? How dare he? Paul comforted himself with a daydream of stabbing the mailman through the neck with a letter opener.
“He’s not now,” Julie said. “He’s not drinking now. I think he’s really turned things around. He’s really nice.”
“That’s good,” Chuck said, still gazing out the window. “I hope he has. Well, neither rain nor sleet nor dark of night, or whatever it is.” Then he gave a little wave and continued on his route.
“Wow.” Julie turned to Paul, delighted with this bit of juicy gossip. “Did you know he was gay?”
“No,” he said, and he retreated into his office still holding everybody’s mail. He could hear the muffled voices and giggles of the two women through the closed door. He couldn’t make out what they were saying, but the pitch and tone suggested the topic had not changed. He slumped into his chair and rested his forehead on his palms. His emotions came at him in a confusing jumble. Why had he lied? Why didn’t he say of course he’d known Ian was gay, like it was no big deal? He felt guilty. He was afraid. The gossip had started. How long could it be before it involved him too? They would be giggling behind his back soon, and that would only be the beginning.
The expression “train wreck” played over and over in his head. A train wreck? What was the mailman alluding to? How well did he know Ian? Had Chuck been burned in a terrible romance, or had it been a one-night stand? Neither option made him feel any better.
Paul couldn’t get any work done for the rest of the day. He was too busy torturing himself with thoughts of late-night drunken arguments that hinted at emotional intimacy and ridiculous images of Ian stripping off Chuck’s postal uniform and performing all manner of sexual acts on him. It made his stomach turn, but he could not keep himself from picking at the mental wound.
At the end of the day, Ian got into Paul’s car for the ride home with a big smile as though nothing had happened. After all, nothing had. Ian tried to chat, but Paul could not focus on anything he had to say.
“What’s wrong?” Ian finally asked.
“Nothing.”
“Something’s wrong.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Is it about me?”
“I told you, it’s nothing.”
For about a mile, Paul didn’t speak. Ian glanced at him, then at his feet, then back at Paul. Finally he could take no more. “What? What did I do?”
Paul shook his head. He knew better, but he couldn’t restrain himself. “Tell me about Chuck.”
“Chuck who?”
“Chuck the mailman.”
“Chuck the mailman? What are you talking about?”
“He delivers the mail to the church. You haven’t seen him there?”
“No.”
“You don’t know him?”
“I don’t get it. Do you think I’m cheating on you or something?”
“He says he knows you.”
“How?”
“Very well, apparently.”
“I don’t know anybody named Chuck. What, this just happened to come up while he was delivering the mail?”
“As a matter of fact….”
“That’s crazy.”
“He saw you mowing the lawn. He said he knew you before. He knew you before. Is it true?”
“You’re telling me the guy who delivers the mail came in and mentioned in passing that he fucked me?”
“Yeah.”
“To the minister? He just walked in and said to the minister, ‘Here’s the mail, and by the way, I fucked your custodian’?”
“Not like that, but basically, yeah.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“You’re avoiding my question.”
“I don’t know. I don’t remember. Maybe.”
“How can you not know?”
“That’s a stupid question,” Ian said, crossing his arms across his chest. “I’m sorry, it just is.”
“How could you just….”
“Just what? Have a life before I met you? What do you want me to do about it? You’re talking about the past. What exactly do you want me to do about it now? Do you have a time machine?”
“No.”
“Well, then shut up.”
Ian tightened his jaw and turned to face the window. They rode the rest of the way home in silence. When they got back into the house, Ian went immediately into the kitchen and started preparing dinner, banging the bowls and pans as he went. Paul sat in the living room for a while, listening to the slamming drawers and the vigorous chopping. When the noise had died down sufficiently, Paul went into the kitchen. Ian was standing at the stove with his back to the door, browning hamburger and chopped onions in a frying pan. He didn’t turn around.
Paul leaned against the door frame. “I’m sorry,” he said.
Ian kept right on pushing the food around with the spatula.
“Look at me,” Paul said.
Ian turned. There were tears on his cheeks.
“You’re crying,” Paul said.
“It’s the onions,” Ian said, wiping his cheek with the back of his hand. He turned back to the hamburger.
Paul approached him from behind, swept his long hair back, and kissed the side of his neck.
Ian snapped his shoulder back and moved away.
“I’m sorry,” Paul said. “It’s my fault. I was jealous.”
Ian finally turned to speak to him. His eyes were red and puffy, his brow pinched. “You were supposed to be the one person who doesn’t hold my past against me. Everyone else can think…. I don’t even know what they think of me. But you. I thought it was different with you. I thought you saw me… that I could be a new person with you. But I can’t. It’s all still there just waiting to come back at me.”
Now Paul’s eyes welled up. “I never want to make you feel that way.”
“Yeah, well, you did,” Ian said, turning again to his skillet.
“Hey,” Paul said. He reached across Ian and turned off the gas, then picked up the skillet and moved it to the cold back burner. He took Ian by the shoulders. “You don’t understand at all. Listen to me. Are you listening? I remember when you first walked into my church, the very first time. For a minute, I actually thought you were an angel. Even when you were drinking, I couldn’t stop thinking about you. I never thought this could happen. I don’t think badly of you. Are you crazy? I love you. It was love at first sight. That’s why I get so jealous. It hurts me to think about the other men.”
“Well, then, don’t,” Ian said. “I don’t. I’m with you. I’m only with you.”
Blood Drive
“And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea: and the third part of the sea became blood.”
—Revelation 8:8
Rella Peters vibrated. She was a thin woman in her mid-sixties. Thin, no doubt, because her nervous energy burned every calorie off before it had a chance to settle. Her synapses were constantly firing, taking her from one thought to the next without…. She would start talking about the chairs in the sanctuary and then…. You know, she has a son in Florida who makes benches and…. The service was very nice, but that song the choir sang reminded her of…. Oh, when were they going to be having the fall rummage sale this year? Because she needed to…. You know, she meant to sign up for the donations to the homeless shelter but…. Did that coffee order ever come in?
Being a minister meant dealing with all kinds of personalities. Paul managed to find a method to interact with almost everyone: the depressed ones, the brusque ones, the falsely cheery ones. Then there was the category he privately labeled “extra grace” people. He needed to summon extra grace from God to deal with them. The one personality type he found hardest to cope with was nervousness. The vibes nervous people gave off put him so on edge that he wanted to go screaming and running the other way. Rella combined her vibrating with the even more annoying habit of standing about one inch too close. She would start talking to a person at one end of the social hall. They would back off an inch, she would move forward. They would back up again, and by the end of the conversation, she had her poor companion pinned to the far wall, unable to retreat any further.
Rella poured her energy into just about every committee in the church. Paul could not escape her. When he knew he was going to have to meet her, he would plan ahead by taking deep breaths and centering himself with the mantra, “She is a good soul. She is a good soul.” Sometimes, though, she approached him on a Sunday, when Paul had had no time to prepare.
