That’s what you were really after.”
Jonah leaned forward and gently kissed Dare on
the lips. “As the Reverend Clayton C. Wallace
might’ve said, with no awareness of the irony,
‘The Devil is a cunning deceiver’.”
Dare’s mind didn’t know which to register
first: the truth in Jonah’s words, or the message in
that sweet, soft kiss.
Chapter Thirteen
“EVERY predator,” Jonah said with undisguised
bitterness, “has a xylophone.”
“And what was Wallace’s?” Dare was finally
pulling his fractured self together. He’d finally,
step by sorry step, begun to make sense of it all.
The sun slanted farther, falling below the
windows. Jonah slid toward an end table and
turned on a lamp.
Jonah
1999
IT STARTED with private Bible study. I never
questioned why the lessons were one-on-one.
Guess I was too focused on feeling special. It’s
hard for a kid not to be blinded by positive
attention, especially from an adult he idolizes. And
one who’s very charismatic, in both senses of the
word.
Clay did have a reason for this instruction. He
said I had a lot of catching up to do if I wanted to
know, really know the Lord. But his invitation
came with a warning: “You probably shouldn’t tell
anyone. The other children might get jealous. They
might even want to hurt you. Their parents could
start turning their backs on you. Even godly people
can lapse into pettiness.”
Those
possibilities
terrified
me—I
desperately wanted to fit in—so I kept my mouth
shut as I began a new routine.
On Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, I’d
walk to the Church of the Living Spirit. There was
a room behind the worship area where Reverend
Clay said he had “personal communings” with God
and worked on his sermons. Nobody was allowed
to bother him on those evenings. Nobody. He even
locked the place, front and back, to make sure. He
kept the blinds closed and the curtains drawn.
I’ll never forget those ugly old curtains, how I
came to depend on them as much as despise them.
They were patterned with grinning monkeys
swinging from palm trees. Sometimes I swung with
the monkeys, carefree and mindless, just to escape.
At other times they seemed to be leering and
jeering at me. At us .
Clay had me sit on his lap for Bible study.
The way his arm curled around my butt and down
my thigh reminded me of the monkeys’ arms. I
wasn’t bothered at first. Barely even noticed. I’d
sat on Santa’s lap, and this didn’t seem much
different, except for the open Bible in front of me.
The Reverend was slick. He made his moves
in small, subtle stages over the course of weeks.
Then one day, when I inquired about baptism—
because he had a kind of big bathtub or water tank
in the church area—he asked if I wanted to see
what baptism was like.
He climbed in with me so I wouldn’t be
afraid.
The communing room and water-filled trough
became our playgrounds. He especially loved
getting us in the water together. The Bible lessons
were dropped. Lessons on becoming a man took
over.
Hallelujah, I was learning how to become a
man.
I still don’t know how he managed to
convince me of our godliness. We were God
damned, that’s what we were.
“ HE WAS, Jonah. Not you.”
“I know that now. I even sensed it then. But of
all the painful things we resist talking about—we
survivors, I mean—that’s the one we resist the
most, the fact our bodies sometimes responded,
even if we felt sick to our stomachs.” He gave
Dare a pointed look. “I suppose I don’t have to tell
you .”
He sure as hell didn’t. Dare’s eyes and gut
still ached from his own confession.
“I’ve thought about that a lot since I got
sober,” Jonah said—and it was evident he had. He
was reflective, not hysterical like Dare had been.
Battling one demon had apparently given him the
courage to face another. “How was I supposed to
know what that feeling was, the pulsing,
Jonah leaned forward and gently kissed Dare on
the lips. “As the Reverend Clayton C. Wallace
might’ve said, with no awareness of the irony,
‘The Devil is a cunning deceiver’.”
Dare’s mind didn’t know which to register
first: the truth in Jonah’s words, or the message in
that sweet, soft kiss.
Chapter Thirteen
“EVERY predator,” Jonah said with undisguised
bitterness, “has a xylophone.”
“And what was Wallace’s?” Dare was finally
pulling his fractured self together. He’d finally,
step by sorry step, begun to make sense of it all.
The sun slanted farther, falling below the
windows. Jonah slid toward an end table and
turned on a lamp.
Jonah
1999
IT STARTED with private Bible study. I never
questioned why the lessons were one-on-one.
Guess I was too focused on feeling special. It’s
hard for a kid not to be blinded by positive
attention, especially from an adult he idolizes. And
one who’s very charismatic, in both senses of the
word.
Clay did have a reason for this instruction. He
said I had a lot of catching up to do if I wanted to
know, really know the Lord. But his invitation
came with a warning: “You probably shouldn’t tell
anyone. The other children might get jealous. They
might even want to hurt you. Their parents could
start turning their backs on you. Even godly people
can lapse into pettiness.”
Those
possibilities
terrified
me—I
desperately wanted to fit in—so I kept my mouth
shut as I began a new routine.
On Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, I’d
walk to the Church of the Living Spirit. There was
a room behind the worship area where Reverend
Clay said he had “personal communings” with God
and worked on his sermons. Nobody was allowed
to bother him on those evenings. Nobody. He even
locked the place, front and back, to make sure. He
kept the blinds closed and the curtains drawn.
I’ll never forget those ugly old curtains, how I
came to depend on them as much as despise them.
They were patterned with grinning monkeys
swinging from palm trees. Sometimes I swung with
the monkeys, carefree and mindless, just to escape.
At other times they seemed to be leering and
jeering at me. At us .
Clay had me sit on his lap for Bible study.
The way his arm curled around my butt and down
my thigh reminded me of the monkeys’ arms. I
wasn’t bothered at first. Barely even noticed. I’d
sat on Santa’s lap, and this didn’t seem much
different, except for the open Bible in front of me.
The Reverend was slick. He made his moves
in small, subtle stages over the course of weeks.
Then one day, when I inquired about baptism—
because he had a kind of big bathtub or water tank
in the church area—he asked if I wanted to see
what baptism was like.
He climbed in with me so I wouldn’t be
afraid.
The communing room and water-filled trough
became our playgrounds. He especially loved
getting us in the water together. The Bible lessons
were dropped. Lessons on becoming a man took
over.
Hallelujah, I was learning how to become a
man.
I still don’t know how he managed to
convince me of our godliness. We were God
damned, that’s what we were.
“ HE WAS, Jonah. Not you.”
“I know that now. I even sensed it then. But of
all the painful things we resist talking about—we
survivors, I mean—that’s the one we resist the
most, the fact our bodies sometimes responded,
even if we felt sick to our stomachs.” He gave
Dare a pointed look. “I suppose I don’t have to tell
you .”
He sure as hell didn’t. Dare’s eyes and gut
still ached from his own confession.
“I’ve thought about that a lot since I got
sober,” Jonah said—and it was evident he had. He
was reflective, not hysterical like Dare had been.
Battling one demon had apparently given him the
courage to face another. “How was I supposed to
know what that feeling was, the pulsing,
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