“Hey.” Paul sat down on the bed beside Ian. “You’re wrong. You’re completely wrong. I’m very proud. When I look at you, and how you’ve turned your life around, I’m so proud of you. I can’t wait to see what you do next. I loved Sara. But you’re my angel.”
Ian sighed and lay down on the bed. His anger had faded, but it had been replaced with something else, a quiet uncertainty. He gazed at the ceiling, lost in his own thoughts.
Paul put a hand on Ian’s leg. “Do I really have to sleep on the futon?” he asked.
“No,” Ian said with a deep sigh.
“I’m sorry,” Paul whispered.
Ian didn’t say a thing.
The Attachment
Every five hundred years, give or take a century, part of Mount Rainier collapses, releasing a mudflow into the valley below. The town of Orting, Washington, rests in that valley on a foundation of mud that was at the top of Rainier about five hundred fifty years ago. A destructive river of mud is, perhaps, overdue. The three thousand or so residents of the farm town below know that if the mountain collapsed, it would take less than an hour for the sludge to come down, burying everything in its path in twenty feet of mud traveling at thirty miles per hour.
About two weeks later, Paul was wandering through the church, looking for Ian. It was time to go home, and he was nowhere to be found. Paul finally discovered him in the large conference room. He was painting the molding and had lost track of time. He was completely splattered with white paint. It was in his hair, on his clothes and shoes, and smudged across his cheek.
“Did you get any on the walls at all?” Paul asked.
Without thinking, he reached out to Ian and, with his thumb, rubbed the paint from his cheek. He was still standing with his hand on Ian’s face when he noticed the two figures standing in the doorway. Two members of the board had arrived early for their meeting. They were frozen in the doorway—staring.
The concept of gossip originated with the Old English word “godsibb,” which is a bit like a “God sibling”—a person related in God. Human beings are, by nature, storytellers. Sharing a story binds us together. A secret story is even more effective; it defines who is “inside” enough to receive information. Gossip says, “I trust you with this information. We’re on the same team.”
Ian’s theory that people were too wrapped up in their own lives to care about theirs would probably have been true under normal circumstances—were Paul not the minister. But he was the minister, the center of the community. He was a common point of reference, a natural focal point for community stories.
The story of Ian and Paul had everything: a church leader and a beautiful boy with a questionable past, the thrilling possibility of scandal, and the opportunity to increase one’s moral standing by expressing outrage while simultaneously engaging in entertaining homoerotic fantasy. People love a good mystery too. They could compare notes in a game of “are they or aren’t they?” It was like looking for “Paul is dead” clues in Beatles records. There was no chance that the rumors were going to just go away.
The carefully crafted biography that Paul had been trying to write about himself had been wrenched from his control. Now the gossipers were the authors. They would decide the moral and meaning of Paul and Ian’s story.
The members of the church wanted to know the nature of their relationship. Even if they got to the heart of that mystery—if they learned “the truth,” what would they know? Only that the two of them had sex. Was that really the “nature of their relationship”? How could they ever know the “nature of their relationship”? That is something two people spend a lifetime trying to understand.
Why had God brought these two souls together? What divine force had allowed such an unlikely pair to meet and fall in love? What did it mean—to love? Why did Ian inspire Paul so? Could either of them have become what he was without the other? Of all the mysteries about Ian and Paul, whether or not they had sex was by far the least interesting.
The next morning Paul sat at his desk with a mug of coffee and fired up the computer. When the e-mail program had loaded, he clicked on the envelope icon and watched the messages download. He could read the subject lines as they did. “Free V1agra!”, “Fund-Raising Committee Meeting Schedule,” “A Special Offer from Kohl’s,” and then “Church Policy on Homosexuality.”
Paul’s chest tightened. It took a minute for the messages to finish downloading so he could click on the one he wanted to read. It seemed like an eternity. The e-mail, from Mike Davis, had a paper-clip icon indicating there was an attachment.
“Paul,” the message said, “the board has decided to put together a sheet clarifying the church’s policy on gay and lesbian issues. Could you please review this and give us your input?”
Attached were all of the official church statements on homosexuality, cut and pasted together into one document. There was nothing new. It was the same mumbo jumbo about not discriminating but not encouraging, welcoming gay couples but not blessing them in marriage, welcoming gay individuals but not supporting gay organizations, and of course, the real reason the document had been sent—the passage about “avowed, practicing homosexuals” not being allowed in the ministry because it was “incompatible with Christian teaching.”
The document had not been sent to Paul for his review or input. It was a warning.
Paul got up wi
thout reading the rest of his e-mail and walked around the church. He was thinking about the Worship Committee meeting scheduled for that evening. Once a month the committee, which was chaired by Mike’s wife Janice, met at a member’s house. This time they would be meeting at Paul’s place. The thought of having Janice Davis and Ian together in his house suddenly filled him with dread. He had no idea what Ian might say. He didn’t want to paint the picture of their domestic life. It was too late to cancel the meeting. Ian simply could not be there.
Paul wanted to raise the issue with Ian on the drive home from church, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He was distracted throughout dinner, unable to find the right moment to ask him. Ian loaded the dishwasher, and Paul said nothing. Paul took aspirin. He paced. Finally, he could wait no longer. He had to bring it up now, before the ladies arrived.
Ian was sitting cross-legged on the floor, leaning over a music magazine. He was listening to his iPod, bopping his head and singing under his breath in a tuneless mumble.
“Ian.”
He didn’t look up.
Paul shouted, “Ian!”
“Yeah?” he answered a little too loudly. Paul pointed at his own ear. Ian pulled the right earbud out and let it dangle on his chest.