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.
“Paul! Paul!”
“Jesus, help me,” Paul muttered.
“About the Worship Committee meeting, I was thinking about the music that if we…. Did you see the order form for new hymnals, I think we ought to…. I’m so glad we decided to fix the steeple, by the way…. Your sermon about that was so…. Do you have a transcript of it, I’d like to…. Do you think they need a treasurer for the Fund-raising Committee because…. I did that for the rummage committee, you know, and….”
Paul was standing with his eyes wide, backing up half inch by half inch, glancing over his shoulders for an escape route.
“Excuse me, Rella.” Thank God for Ian. “I’m sorry to interrupt. But Emily needed to talk to Paul for a minute.”
“I owe you one,” Paul whispered as they walked over to the table where Emily was seated. She and Margaret Fletcher, one of the church’s most generous donors, were manning the table to sign people up for the annual blood drive.
“Ian, are you going to sign up for the blood drive?” Emily asked.
“Oh, I would but I can’t,” he said.
“Why not?”
“They don’t let you if you’re gay,” he said.
Although the rumor mill had done its work and everyone in the church now knew about Ian’s sexuality, it was the first time anyone had heard him directly acknowledge it himself. Emily blushed. Margaret glanced around uncomfortably. Paul turned pale. He was looking at the sign-up sheet and the time slot where he had written his own name— the very first slot of the day. Ian followed his gaze. When Paul glanced up, their eyes locked.
“If you’ve had sex with another man, you’re not allowed,” he said directly to Paul. Both women giggled nervously at the mention of sex with men.
“I didn’t realize that,” Paul said softly.
“Sorry,” Ian said. He wasn’t apologizing that he couldn’t give. He was apologizing for changing Paul’s life. He walked off, back to the supply closet.
Until she got sick, Sara had been the driving force behind the annual blood drives. Paul and Sara used to kick off every blood drive as the first donors, leading by example. After her death, Paul had continued the tradition himself. Encouraging community service and giving was one of the most meaningful parts of his job. It was a ritual the church counted on him to provide. Having to sit the blood drive out filled him with a profound sense of loss. And it made him feel dirty, like a person from Biblical times who’d been labeled unclean.