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{the church on gay street} j.a. tyler It’s true, there is a church, a gigantic, super-Christian church, right at the end of Gay St. Ironic. Every time we pass that church - usually on a pilgrimage to more tiny bookstores in out of the way places that carry rare books for a dollar – I think about how funny that combination is. But then there is also always a small tinge of bad feeling. A feeling that this shouldn’t be ironic. I’m not sure how many times the church has asked for a name change. I could write a letter and find out – but, I bet they’ve fought the issue a half a dozen times. This church has so much money that their final new construction, right at the end of Gay St., is a monstrosity to say the least. It is a horrifically huge eyesore smack in the middle of beautiful fields that in the winter house frosted, yellow, cut stalks and nestled Canadian geese pecking at the snow. That’s what I see when I see the church. A loss of nature. An unnatural. While the church was being constructed the sign for Gay St. was on the south side of an east/west road – the church was on the north side. But once the church was completed, so was the street signage. Now, there is a sign on the south and a bigger one on the north. The big one even has an arrow pointing in the direction of the church. Ironic. My grandparents - my father’s dad and his fourth wife - attend that church. I used to go to church all the time. For a while it was a reformed church, Christian but fairly liberal. I met the people, said the phrases, sang the songs, drank the blood, ate the body, lived baptized. We repeated phrases printed in the bulletin. We spoke to each other as spiritualized robots. We waited for noon to come. We dreaded the sermon. We looked forward to the recessional. If I spent the night at a friend’s house, I even went to their church. Once a Lutheran, once a Baptist, once a big white stucco thing with a red stripe around its belly. They all seemed mostly the same. Some services short, some long, all with different communion rituals, slightly different songs, but the same people. Shirts, ties, coats, dresses, occasionally jeans, a lot of handshaking, nodding, whispered amens, dry coughs. I went to the church summer camps. Made nativity scenes out of Popsicle sticks and Elmer’s glue. Played in dramas where I was Moses and Abraham. Arranged pipe cleaners. Colored black and white pictures. Read prayers out loud under huge tents, sweltering with heat, reeking of magic markers and rubber cement. My brother and I had a lot of activities meant to get us through those services. We’d lip sync to songs and make faces like divas. Always though, the inevitable adult elbow would force a strained voice out of our young windpipes – at least until they looked away again. I have a feeling that they didn’t want to sing anymore than us. Especially my dad. Singing is torture – unless he can make my wife laugh by some off-color impression, then he’s game. During the non-singing portions of the service my brother and I would lock our hands together, four fingers on four fingers, and pull as hard as we could for at least a minute. It was best if you could do it for at least a minute. He’d time us. Our fingers would turn white and our faces gave away the struggle, even though we were facing the pulpit and trying to appear intent. Once you let go, you’d find your fingers stiffened into that pose and moving them caused the best feeling of pins, needles, and paralysis. Eventually it would relax and your fingers could move. But until then, the letting go was the best part. We also learned to make an animal sort of figure out of our hands. The back legs are your thumb and pinky, the front two your first and ring fingers, and the long snout with head attached was the middle finger. He would climb around legs sniffing at everything, trying to evoke laughter in the most sacred of places. The last trick was always planning the post-church lunch. If we could talk them into someplace good, likeable even, then we felt like something was going the right way. Back in church, I heard people asking for others to be healed or helped. Prayers were offered. People shared their good achievements. I saw money given for worthy causes. I sang uplifting songs. I saw family and friends. I said good morning to everyone. Also back in church, I heard begging for forgiveness when I felt like I hadn’t done much wrong yet. I heard sulking for money to build a newer, bigger, better, but mostly unnecessary addition to the church. I heard reams of guilt and loads of elitist banter. I heard songs that astounded me with their violence and accusations. I smelled money. I felt shaky trays of wine. I watched disapproving looks stare down our games and laughter. So I read the Bible. I needed to figure things out for myself. I read as much as I could. The story didn’t fit with the procedures. The services weren’t a testament to the testament. It said pray where and how you want. I liked that. And the small Monet seemed much more fitting of eternal grace. I liked the idea of sunsets and peace. I liked the idea of calm comfortable silence without begging or bowed heads. I don’t go to church anymore Some people disapprove. I don’t care. I still don’t bow my head at the phrase “Dear God” or finish with a whispered “amen.” But I don’t disrupt or disrespect their rituals with yelling or argument. I simple wait it out. And I still celebrate Christmas, but I usually stick with the phrasing “Happy Holidays.” I joke about being Jewish. I think about becoming Buddhist or Hindu. I read a lot about meditation. I don’t consider myself an atheist. More likely an agnostic. I don’t take communion at churches and I don’t sing the songs, but my brother and I still laugh at the games, and my parents still shoot us glares. Restrictions abound even without attending the services. At lunch with my grandparents we talked about gay people. She works at a very liberal and hippyish workplace. A progressive, unassuming, accepting company. She has gay co-workers. She sees them everyday. She’s starting to have gay bosses. She’s heard rumors. They are both very worried. My grandfather said: “It’s not that I have anything against them. I just don’t feel – comfortable around them.” I want to scream at things like this. I don’t, but I should. The first gay kid I knew was a guy named Jeremy that I worked with in theater. We joked all the time about if I was hot enough for him to want to date. It was funny to talk about. He had wavy hair, a young mustache, and a slight whispery lisp. He introduced me to The Rocky Horror Picture Show. He flirted with the girl I was dating. They tickled each other and giggled shamelessly. He reproved me for one night stands. He took pride in my work. I took pride in his. He was a riot. And he was gay. I’ve met a lot of other gay people too. One guy was tall – six foot something – dark skin and a harsh, bushy, short Afro of hair. He could sing like crazy. Another guy had a big nose and long, 90’s, parted down the middle hair. He didn’t come out until college. Another had bright red hair and a soft fragile voice. I’m not sure that he ever came out. Maybe he wasn’t gay after all. He was a super nice guy either way. A kid we used to baby-sit is now gay. He had an effeminate voice even as a three-year old. We’d jokingly call him a girl. He’d respond “I’m not a girl I’m a lady.” His sister turned out to be gay too. She wears her hair short and has a twin who is straight. She always seemed the more like a tomboy, but I don’t think that really means anything. We sat next to two lesbians at breakfast a few mornings ago. One ordered for the other. They touched underneath the table. They looked at each other like last night was the best night of their lives. They looked at everyone else to make sure that they weren’t looking. One had fruit and pancakes, the other had gravy and sausage and eggs. Both were pretty. One had short hair and one long. One wore a leather jacket and the other wore soft clothes that showed off curves. They spoke in the telltale whispers that divulge love. They looked beautiful. They looked content. They looked normal and good and right together. One of my best friends in high school turned out to be gay. He liked sports, went to church, loved his parents, had a bunch of friends, sang bass in choir, was respectful to teachers, took up smoking, drove a beat up old-school mustang, ditched class with me to watch movies and eat fast food, had me over to play Monopoly until two a.m. and then talk about all the shit we hated. Later on he started aggressively smoking pot. It took over the friend that I knew. I tried to talk with him but it didn’t work. I tried to talk with his circle of friends but it didn’t work. I never tried smoking up with him. I got him busted through a counselor at school. He lost his job and a part of his relationship with his parents. I was a mean kid. I was a caring kid. We didn’t talk for a long time. Then he ran into my dad on a college campus. They exchanged numbers and he was going to call me. He never did. Much later, years in fact, my wife and I saw him at an amusement park. We saw him waiting in line for a rickety, old, wooden roller coaster. He was wearing a sleeveless shirt and a cropped haircut. He introduced himself to my friends as Steven rather than Steve. We talked for a bit every time that the line doubled-back. He said he was doing well. He said he meant to call. He said he missed hanging out. He said that he worked as housekeeping at a hotel in town. He said that he’d worked in computers but got bored with the whole thing. He said that he’d come out of the closet. He said that he’d finally come to terms with who he was. We exchanged numbers. He met my wife. He met my friends. I met his. He asked about the status of our short, quirky, Philippino friend. We said we’d find time to hang out. We said nice to see you again. We said take care. We hugged. I hope I see him again. I’ve yet to. On Gay Pride day, while the parade rolls slowly in the hot sun, people wear signs that say “I love my gay son” or “I support my gay friends.” Everyone wears rainbow colors to show support. There is usually a large portion of chubby, hairy, motorcycle men in chaps with their butts showing. We all cheer and wave our rainbow flags at them. There is also usually a section of people who work for companies that support their gay workers. You couldn’t pick them out of a dozen straight people. And every year, as the parade totes its last float the crowd wraps in with everyone and follows the whole processional to the city park for food and drinks and celebration. This is always the part we dread because we have to pass the giant stone church and its protestors. They hold up signs that say “fags burn in hell” and “gay is wrong.” They shout obscenities, spit, and turn stomachs. They wear ties and button-down shirts. Their signs are written in capital letters with bold, black markers. They stand in the middle of the street and almost invoke fights. They hold hands and steady for violence. We pass under a guise of hatred. But we pass. We pass. Approaching a restaurant for lunch one day, amid Gay Pride but out of its range, the realities came fast. Passing the covered patio, all of the sudden the prideful gay voices grew into more whisper and less yell. The laughter turned from raucous gulps to giggles. And a rainbow flag was moved from a hat, where it was standing tall and proud like a Yankee feather, to the back pocket, resigned to never show its passionate color in such mixed company. I was amazed that this reluctance came out so quickly. Then I saw the stares as we walked into the place. And there was nothing tell-tale gay about anyone in our crowd. But they knew somehow, and watching that persecution, even in its mildest form was overwhelming. No wonder hand-holding is a thing too often reserved for Gay Pride day. Imagine having to hide love. There seems to me nothing worse. When we sat and ate lunch with my grandparents, and they talked about gayness as a disease, a cancer, a rotting of the human system, it looked as if they were holding their own huge tag board signs written in permanent markers. A voice in my head screamed, but nothing came out of my mouth. Afterwards they told us how they work for an anti-abortion extension of the church. They have bottles, clothing, bedding, diapers, formula, and everything else to get a struggling mother off to her best. They talk mothers into keeping their babies. They give all the supplies you’d need to start. It’s good stuff. The church has money for it. My wife wonders what they do for those mothers later. They give all the newborn goods but do they pay for the field trips in kindergarten, the haircuts every four weeks, the clothing that they grow out of so quickly, the food that they need – and will need – three times a day for the rest of their lives? So what happens to the mothers then? The church just wants them to keep the kids. Keep the babies from being aborted or orphaned. That’s all. Keep them. But what if that saved child turned out to be gay? What if? Imagine. Ironic. God on Gay St. |
