The Things We Do for Love, page 14
“Lord, give me strength!” Coleman’s eyes were still raised toward Heaven as he deactivated his mute function. “I have to go, Rachel. I don’t know if you have any children, ma’am—I mean, I know there’s a lot of ways a lady can get herself pregnant these days—but if you do, think of them before you drag me and my family through the mud. I swear to you that I, my wife, and everyone we know have clean hands. We’re praying for Adrian’s safe return right along with everyone in his life.”
“Well, keep praying,” Rachel said. “Because if we find out anything calling your innocence into question, we’re prepared to go ‘nuclear.’ Between Adrian’s connections to the national Republican Party and your status in the gospel industry, we could get major press coverage. Add in the controversy, sexual tension, and your proximity to power and fame, and we can force a meaningful conversation among Christians about homosexuality.”
“If you wanna do that,” Coleman said, his tone increasingly surly, “you can do it without me. You telling me you don’t have enough press contacts to stir up media coverage of these issues? Please.”
“Like it or not, you’re in the middle of this.” Rachel’s statement rang with finality. “Your wife is a homophobe who may have harmed a prominent member of our community, and on top of that, sir, you’re perpetrating a lie when you claim to no longer be gay.”
Rachel’s words had sucked the figurative oxygen from Coleman’s car. Struck by the sight of my friend’s cloudy, wounded eyes, I could only hover anxiously as he whipped his face from my view. I considered grabbing the phone and telling Rachel the call was over, but he recovered before that was necessary.
“I see,” he said, his voice shimmering with emotion, “that Adrian had a chance to share his theories about me with you before he disappeared.” He gripped the phone as if ready to crush it with one hand, then lifted it gently back toward his mouth. “Thank you for this call, ma’am. It’s been very informative and I now know what I need to do. You take care—”
“What you need to do is help find Adrian—” Rachel’s warning was clipped short as Coleman abruptly closed his phone.
I waited until we’d climbed from his car to speak. “You plan on explaining yourself?”
As my friend stared back at me, a wary glint in his eyes, I realized I wasn’t sure I wanted Coleman to explain himself. The honest truth, so help me God, was that I still hadn’t fully reconciled the existence of homosexuality with my Christ-centered worldview.
Things were so simple in my worldly days. As a kid I’d been among the most crude tormentors of classmates who gave off the slightest whiff of being “sweet.” And frankly, if I hadn’t spent my late teens and early twenties traveling the world, I could easily have been on the perpetrating end of a gay hate crime, for all I knew. By the time I accepted Christ, though, my time in the entertainment industry had familiarized me with enough gay culture that I’d come to just see them as people doing what came naturally.
Once I committed to living out God’s Word, however, I felt compelled to view homosexuals through a more discerning lens. There were too many scriptural references—from the Old Testament’s use of Sodom as the epitome of a city opposed to God’s will to the instructive, grace-covered writings of the apostle Paul—to deny that God had some issues with the homosexual lifestyle.
I was still working through the particulars of my views as recently as three years ago, when Dionne and I gathered at my mother’s home for Christmas dinner with all of my Law brothers, sisters, nephews, and nieces. Late in the evening, as everyone sat burping over second helpings of peach cobbler and sweet potato pie, the conversation—which was always heavily animated when you got all the Law kids in the same room—got especially heated when the name of a certain colleague of mine, a gospel singer with an audience twice the size of Men with a Message’s, came up.
The artist in question had stirred up a mini-firestorm by admitting, somewhat like Coleman, to a gay past. The difference was that he explained his activities in light of an abusive childhood, not to being born homosexual. My second oldest sister, Mary, who had been the lead singer and key producer for the Law Sisters group, was not impressed. “Some things are just better left unsaid,” she had stated flatly.
“Why would you say that, sis?” Larry, Harry’s twin and the older brother by two minutes, had nearly dropped his fork in disappointment. “The brother’s just being real about dirty laundry that fans of gospel need to see aired. I applaud him for opening up. I may not be performing anymore, but God’s definitely taught me as a pastor that when you let your congregants—or fans—see you leaning on God for strength and healing, it helps them trust Him that much more.”
My sister Darla, who may or may not have spent all evening nipping from a bottle of scotch out in the garage, shook her head in response. “Hmmph. Folk don’t want all that drama from us. They just want to hear good sangin’, Larry.”
Opinions flew around the table as voices rose in volume, and Mama predictably began to referee. “You-all are getting out of control,” she cautioned a few minutes later. “Lord have mercy. One at a time.”
Taking in my family’s antics with a hint of amusement, I looked over my brother Harry’s bald head to see my oldest nephew, Larry Jr., standing in the dining room’s doorway. A senior in high school, the tall, thin boy had his mother’s good looks—my sister-in-law Anna was Miss Alabama the year she and Larry met. Dressed in a pair of ratty jeans and a plaid pullover sweater, Larry Jr. watched us with his arms crossed and his lips pursed. “Uncle Jesse,” he asked, his raspy voice penetrating the clatter suddenly, “what you think about these old singers going on about homeboy’s testimony? You the only one here who’s still recording music.”
“Boy,” I replied, chuckling, “didn’t anybody tell you that you don’t qualify for the ‘grown folk’ conversation until you turn eighteen?” He knew I was playing. Even though I only saw Larry Jr. and his family a few times a year, we had retained a special bond. I was his “cool uncle.”
The room erupted in laughter, but my nephew would not be moved. His smile tightened a bit as he said, “Naw, for real. Everyone else has said where they stand. I wanna hear what you think.”
“Well, Neph Number One,” I said, referencing the nickname I’d tagged him with since he’d been four months old, “since you’re the first to ask, I personally think folks need to leave the brother alone. I’m with your dad. I think any testimony that shows a gospel artist or minister leaning on God to overcome the flesh is a good thing.”
“Okay, I hear you,” Larry Jr. replied, straightening his stance, but keeping his eyes trained on me. “Let’s say that the brother wasn’t just saying he used to do gay stuff. What if he just said, ‘Hey, Church, I’m gay.’ Would you be down with that?” For a second it seemed time stood still—the room grew so silent—and my nephew caught it too. “I already know what they’ll say, Uncle Jesse,” he said. “I’ve been hearing gay jokes and slurs at every family gathering since I was two years old. What about you, though?”
Mary looked over her shoulder, right into Larry Jr.’s face. “Boy, stop being silly and go back downstairs with the kids.”
My brother Larry had an increasingly pained look on his face, but he looked up at his son with stern eyes. “Not right now, son” was all he said.
“Take a seat, youngblood.” I stood, patting my chair. “It’s past time we started treating the teens in the family as growing adults.” As Larry Jr. made his way toward my chair, I leaned against the wall, one hand on my mother’s shoulder. “And I’ll answer your question. If this brother had said he was actually living the gay lifestyle now, he’d be admitting to a sin. No worse, but no different from admitting that he was committing adultery or fornication with a woman. Sin is sin. As long as he’s trusting God to overcome it, though, he’s on the right track.”
“What if he’s born gay, though?” Larry Jr. looked up at me, then let his gaze hop from one face to another. “What if being with someone of the same sex is the only way he’ll ever have a fulfilling sex life, the only way he’ll ever have a family of his own?”
“I hate to open your eyes to a biological fact, virgin,” Harry said, elbowing Larry Jr. suddenly, “but no man ever gonna make a baby with another man. Hello!”
“It’s not natural,” Mary said. “That’s why it’s best kept quiet. Let those folks do what they do—I just don’t want to hear about it.”
“So you don’t want to hear about me, then.” Larry Jr. was out of his seat now, his back coiled and his eyes piercing his aunt Mary in a manner I personally found disrespectful. Though my heart heaved with sympathy, I quickly moved to my nephew’s side.
“L.J.,” Mary said, her eyes growing wide at the anger in the eyes of a child she loved dearly. “I know you’re not saying that you’re—”
“Gay.” Larry Jr. leaned over the table, hands on his hips. “Say it, Aunt Mary. ‘I have a gay nephew.’ Wake up! This stuff is in the Law family blood too, as much as it’s somewhere in every family tree! We ain’t that special.”
“Oh no,” Darla replied, leaping to her feet and grabbing at Larry Jr.’s elbow. “You just confused, baby! Don’t say you gay! Oh, Lord Jesus!”
“I’m out of here,” Larry Jr. muttered, pushing past his own father, then stopping when I placed a hand on his shoulder. “What you want?”
Yanking my nephew out of the room and into Mama’s foyer, I pressed my nose close to his. “You don’t just drop a bomb like that and step,” I said. “Show some respect, L.J.”
Larry Jr. looked at me, genuine shock in his eyes. “Why I owe you that, of all people?”
“What are you talkin’ about?”
“If nobody else understood,” he said, his eyes tearing as he pulled away, “I thought you might have.”
I halted him in place, simultaneously shooting a nasty look toward Mary and Darla, who had begun to inch in our direction. “You thought I would understand because I used to be out in the world, is that it?”
“Yeah,” he replied. “You know how the world works, and you know people aren’t born like this unless it’s God’s will.”
“Larry,” I said, lowering my voice, “I don’t think we know that God willed anyone to be gay.”
“Oh man,” Larry said, shaking his head almost violently now, “you’ve drank the Kool-Aid just like the rest of them. Get off me!” The emotion animating my nephew’s eyes now sent a clear message: either I let him go, or I’d have to take him out with my fists.
He was still my “Neph Number One,” still the loving little boy who’d idolized me as a preteen. I dropped my hands from him, and he bolted out the front door.
I’d had three years since that afternoon to put everything together, but to be honest, it felt like I had erased the rest of that evening from my memory. All I can say for sure is that from the moment Larry Jr.’s revelation set in, the room erupted in tears, recriminations, and a solemn appeal for unconditional love from my brother Larry. That’s about it. One thing I knew: Larry Jr. went away to college and hadn’t graced a family gathering since.
Coleman never chose to explain himself, but his words pulled me back into the moment. “Four and a half minutes,” he said, one eye on his watch as he picked up a brisk jog that I quickly matched. Peering straight toward the backstage door flanked by two security guards, he addressed my question. “I meant what I said, brother. God spoke to me during that call.” He came to a dead stop about fifty yards from the door as we both stood vainly trying to shield our hair from the intensifying rain. “You don’t need to know much more than that. No time to explain it now, and once I kick things off, it’ll be between me, Adrian, these kooks in GET UP, and God. I want you and Dionne clear of all this, man—you’ve done plenty for us.”
“Just don’t forget to give the group a heads-up, whatever you’ve got in mind,” I said as I took a step toward the door, which one of the guards had already opened upon seeing us headed his way. As much as we’d prayed we could cool things out before Coleman’s past became public, I took his grave tone as confirmation of what my gut had long told me: if we stayed quiet much longer, Micah and the rest of the group would hear about everything from someone else. With a control freak like Micah, that was the last thing any of us needed.
18
Jesse
I don’t know about Coleman, but the only way I got through the next forty minutes—our return to the dressing room, the final primping from hair and makeup, the group prayer, and our emergence onto a stage towering above thousands of screaming fans—was to release the players in our respective dramas to God’s divine will. As we walked the backstage corridor with Rachel’s threats fresh in our heads, I prayed for Adrian’s safe return, for Suzette’s ability to get over Coleman’s past and Adrian’s role in it, for Vanessa and the baby’s health and strength, and, finally, for Dionne’s ability to forgive me whenever I got around to delivering the terrible truth. It made for a mouthful of a prayer, but if I’d carried those burdens onstage, I’d have never gotten a single note out.
From the minute we launched into “Rubber Meets the Road,” our new single, I felt God’s anointing on the entire band. The one nice thing about opening spots, which were usually limited to four or five tracks, was that you could pour everything out in one fell swoop, often upstaging the main act in the process. We had no desire to disrespect Ms. Yolanda like that, of course, but by the same token this was a chance to expand our audience, to pick up more unchurched folk, so we had to go for it and we did. The crowd exploded with what felt like pleasant surprise as Coleman and I alternated lead vocals on “Rubber,” an up-tempo funky cut evoking the sound of the Neptunes; swooned in spiritual meditation as I held court with “Perfect in Weakness,” my newest ballad; hopped in the aisles with “Up in Here,” Micah’s old-school, organ-heavy but fast-paced number; then finally swayed reverently as all three lead singers harmonized on “Fill Me,” the classic soul-styled ballad that first put us on the map.
As was always the case, I brought “Fill Me” to a close, ad-libbing praises to God and stretching out falsetto notes as the audience wept and moaned a few feet beneath me. My eyes closed, a hand raised heavenward, I can honestly say that for those moments my sins with Vanessa and the coming storm around Coleman were as good as vacuumed from my mind. The personal journey I’d overcome was foremost on my mind: the idea that this little biracial bastard child, who spent years scorning Christians and seriously questioning God’s existence, had come to feel His embrace so warmly, so viscerally.
“We want to take the time now,” I said finally, my voice reverberating through the concert hall, “to bring up any of you who haven’t accepted the Lord Jesus as your Savior. I know that Sister Yolanda will make the same offer when she’s up here, but neither tomorrow nor the next few minutes are promised to us, y’all. If you need to get right, now’s the time. Won’t you accept the nudging of the Holy Spirit and come on down?” I stepped back and swept an arm toward Coleman, whose hardened expression made me doubt that he’d been mentally transported in the way I had. “My brother Coleman Hill, the ordained minister among us, stands ready to pray with you. Please come!”
The band’s music swelling behind us, Micah, Coleman, and I continued with our meditations and harmonies as a few dozen people trailed their way down front. Not surprisingly, a high percentage were young, scantily clad sisters, the type who tended to be more interested in laying their hands on us than vice versa. “You know their hearts, O Lord,” I whispered, trying again to dismiss years of evidence that our music’s message didn’t always hit home.
Once a good mass of folks had congregated at the edge of the stage, I hopped down among the crowd with Coleman and Micah, reveling in what could be one of our last times doing this. Joe, our manager, had been after us for years, insisting we start conducting our invitations from the security of the stage. “You don’t see Kirk, Fred, Donnie, or any Winans walk the aisles at their shows, do ya?” Never mind that none of us had attended every concert by every major gospel star—no one knew for sure how often anybody got down with the masses. That said, with our audience expanding and with increased warnings about possible lawsuits if we accidentally landed on top of anyone or had to defend ourselves from an irate fan, we’d accepted that pretty soon we’d have to take Joe’s advice.
Flanked by Micah and me, Coleman made his way down the line of penitents, placing a hand on each one’s head and personally praying the salvation prayer with them as the hall filled with grateful shouts of “Hallelujah!” As Coleman completed each prayer, we hugged the women (having to work harder in some cases to end the hugs than in others) and exchanged vigorous handshakes with the brothers, breaking policy only with the kids under eighteen, whom we bear-hugged without restraint.
We were two-thirds of the way through the line when we reached the physical outlier of the group, a lanky but massive thirty-something brother standing well over six feet. As we had worked our way through the line, he had kept his eyes closed and his fists clenched, seemingly lost in his own world. Based on his gear—a shiny, expensive-looking leather sweat suit—and the blazing intensity in his eyes, I figured this was probably his first salvation experience. This didn’t seem to be a brother interested in “playing church.”
“Jesus is real, brother,” Coleman said, smiling, as he stood toe to toe with him. Coleman’s eyes had a new light now, a sign that his prayers over the others had lifted the burdens on his shoulders as well. “May I pray with you now, uh—what is your name?”
“Name’s Earl.” The brother held on to Coleman’s offered hand and trained his eyes onto my boy’s as if they were deadly weapons. “Earl Wilkes, ‘brother.’ Funny you should greet me with that phony term, ’cause God only gave me one biological brother—Adrian Wilkes.”
Here’s the difference between me and my good friend Coleman Hill: he froze, while I jumped into action. I instinctively ran interference by signaling offstage security with my pager, then taking Micah by the shoulder. “Dude’s talking gibberish,” I whispered into his left ear as if sharing a state secret. “Best to let Coleman keep him talking while the bodyguards get over here. Help me see to this next lady’s needs.”
