Rapture Practice (11 page)

They claim nothing ever happened until they were married. Nanny says nothing would’ve happened at all if it hadn’t been for a random bout of histoplasmosis.

“That winter your papa was traveling a lot for work, and some birds built a nest in the chimney. I was allergic to their droppings, which I wound up breathing in through the flue over the fireplace. Got sick as a dog and didn’t know why. Your papa was away, and I couldn’t get outta the bed.”

“And that’s when Dad showed up?” I smile into the phone.

“Oh, yes, sir. Here comes your daddy stopping by every other day: ‘Oh, Mrs. Davis, can I do this? Oh, Mrs. Davis, let me help you with that.’ I knew he was sweet on your mama, and I told him we had it under control, but I was finally so sick I couldn’t move—thought I might go home to be with Jesus. Next thing I know, there’s your daddy shovelin’ the walk.”

Nanny’s laugh makes me grin. “Well, Dad
is
persistent,” I say.

“And so handsome,” Nanny says. “Couple months before your mama graduated, Papa got transferred back to Memphis, but we let your mom stay with a friend in Kansas City until she graduated. She got her diploma, then moved back down here to start college. Your daddy started flying down to see her, and it wasn’t long before they were engaged.”

There’s something so romantic about the way my parents met. Dad is still every student’s favorite teacher at the Bible college. He’s got news-anchor good looks and a folksy Midwestern charm that belies his PhD. It doesn’t surprise me that Mom fell in love with him.

“Your mama could’ve had any boy she wanted,” Nanny says.

“She probably still could,” I say, and Nanny laughs.

Mom is a pint-size Southern beauty who looks like Sally Field in
Steel Magnolias
, only she has freckles across her nose like I do. (Kiss marks, she insists. Left behind by angels.) She’s only five feet tall and looks miniature next to Dad.

Sometimes Dad comes home from the Bible college with a fistful of flowers, and picks Mom up in the kitchen, and twirls her around in his arms while she giggles and shouts for Dad to put her down
this instant
, before she breaks his back.

When I was a little boy, watching this made me feel a special giddiness in my stomach—the same way I felt when I lay by the pool looking up at puffy white clouds in a wide Missouri sky, wondering if Jesus might appear in one of them right that second.

Dad was sort of like Jesus in those moments, showing up unannounced from work and sweeping Mom into the air. There was joy and excitement—a certain breathlessness about the whole affair. It seemed to stir up those feelings in all of us. Joshua, Miriam, and Caleb would race into the kitchen to be a part of it, too. When Dad finally put Mom down, she would stand on her tiptoes on top of his shoes, and they’d kiss while we giggled and squirmed between them, squealing and trying to pry them apart.

Now that we’re older, none of us try to stop Mom and Dad when they make out in the kitchen. Josh and Miriam are usually outside making basketball a blood sport in the driveway, and Caleb just rolls his eyes at me, then diplomatically suggests Mom and Dad might be more comfortable in the privacy of their bedroom.

But I like it.

There’s something great about knowing my parents are still into each other.

Nanny has to get off the phone. She’s been called to the ER to do an EKG.

“Now, Aaron, your papa and I are coming to see this play of yours,” she says. “Gonna buy the plane tickets tomorrow.”

I can’t believe it. They rarely come to Kansas City to see us. We always go to Memphis to see them. I tell her the dates, and she writes them down.

“Nanny, are you sure?” I ask.

“Of course I am, darlin.’ Wouldn’t miss it for all the tea in China.”

She tells me that she loves me, and how proud she is of me, and makes me promise to be careful in study hall.

“You’d be surprised how one thing leads to another,” she says. “Bird poop, sugar. It’s the reason y’all are all here.”

I am shopping in Water Tower Place on Michigan Avenue in Chicago with my church youth group. Our youth pastor, Jack, drove us up for a quick weekend trip to see the sights. We’ve visited the whales at Shed Aquarium and been to the top of Sears Tower, and now we’re shopping until dinner at Ed Debevic’s. Since I got that part in the play on Monday, my week has gotten better and better.

The only bad part is that my sort-of girlfriend, Erin (yes,
we have the same name), couldn’t come, due to a scheduling conflict. She is my “sort-of” girlfriend because we really only see each other at church events and talk on the phone. I did take her to homecoming at Blue Ridge last fall, and once last month we kissed in an empty Sunday school room in the church basement next to the choir rehearsal room.

I’ve been looking for the perfect souvenir to take back to her all morning, but I don’t want it to be anything Chicago-themed. I want to get her something I know she’ll really like. Flipping through CDs at a music store with my friends, I see the
perfect
gift. As I am taking the
Pretty Woman
sound track to the cash register, I hear Pastor Jack behind me.

“Are you sure your parents will be okay with you buying that?”

An arrow of anger shoots up my spine. He’s not asking any of my friends about whether or not their parents will like the music they’re buying. He’s supposed to be cool. He lets us listen to Amy Grant in the van, and my parents wouldn’t like that, either.

“Oh, it’s not for me,” I say nonchalantly. “It’s for Erin.”

“Isn’t
Pretty Woman
an R-rated movie?” he presses.

“I guess. I’ve never seen it,” I lie, “but the music is
so great
. You’ve heard the Roy Orbison song, right?”

“Sure,” he says.

I can tell he wants to say more, so before he can, I head to the checkout line, and hand the CD to the clerk. I’m so angry that my hands shake as I take the cash out of my wallet to pay for it. This is my own money. I earned it working at my part-time
job at the ice rink. I can spend it on whatever I want. Jack only asked about my parents because he knows them. He knows how conservative they are. I hate this situation. I hate that he’s
right
. Of course my parents wouldn’t want me to buy this CD.

I don’t want to think about them right now. I don’t want to feel guilty. I don’t want to worry that I’m disappointing them, or disobeying God’s command to obey them. I don’t think God really cares what CD I buy for my sort-of girlfriend.

I take a deep breath and smile as the clerk hands me a bag with the CD in it. I don’t understand why it seems I have to go through this over every choice I make. I try not to think about my parents for the rest of the trip.

On the way back home in the van, I memorize lines for the play, and when I see Erin the next Wednesday night, I give her the CD.

She
loves
it.

See? I made the right choice.

It’s no big deal. Mom and Dad will never know.

“Hey, Aaron.”

It’s Dad. He’s stuck his head in my bedroom door. I casually close the purple paperback I’m reading, and deftly slide it under the bed. It’s a copy of
To Kill a Mockingbird
. My cousin Sadie slipped it to me at Christmastime along with
One Flew
Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
and
The Silence of the Lambs
. She’s taking AP English at her public school in Memphis, and there are all these books on her reading list that I’ve never even heard of before. I know Dad and Mom wouldn’t want me reading
To Kill a Mockingbird
because it deals with a rape. I can see Dad has something on his mind. Probably best not to complicate the issue with a book I shouldn’t be reading.

“What’s up?” I ask him.

“When you went to Chicago with the youth group last month, you said that Erin didn’t go, right?”

Instantly, my stomach is in knots.
What does he know?

“No, she had midterms that week.”

“You said you bought her a souvenir—a CD, right?” he asked.

“Yes.”

Dad looks down at the carpet in the room I share with my brother. I stand up and grab my backpack. I have homework to do and lines to review before tomorrow’s rehearsal.

“Aaron, I talked to Pastor Jack today.”

Crap.

Dad is looking at me with his “grieved” eyes. I hate this look. It’s the look that says “I’m disappointed” without a single word. I don’t want to disappoint Dad, but it’s getting harder not to. So much normal stuff disappoints him.

“When I asked you if you bought Erin a souvenir on the trip, you told me that you got her a classical CD,” Dad says. “Is that the truth?”

“I said I bought her a
classic
CD,” I hedge.

“Was it classical music?”

“It was oldies. Roy Orbison.”

Even as the words tumble out of my mouth, they sound lame. I’m smarter than this, and Dad knows it. It’s insulting. Why do excuses like this always work so much better in my head? When Jack asked me if my parents would be cool with my buying this CD, why did I justify it by being able to say Roy Orbison is “classic rock”? What made me think Dad would consider this a reasonable excuse if it came up? My stomach is doing backflips right now. I think I might throw up, and I’m angry.
Why do I have to lie about buying this CD in the first place?

“Jack told me that it was the sound track to an R-rated movie you bought,” Dad says quietly. “Is that true, son?”

“Yes, it was a sound track, but—”

“Have you seen the movie
Pretty Woman
, Aaron?”

I roll my eyes like this very idea is a personal affront, like he’s being utterly ridiculous. “Dad, when would I have seen that movie? Even if I were allowed to go to the theater, I can’t get into an R-rated movie yet. I’m only sixteen.”

He seems satisfied by this, but I know he isn’t stopping here.

“Last weekend, your mom came with me when I spoke at that little church out in Kansas,” he says quietly. “We were in our hotel room Sunday night and, flipping through the TV channels, we came across part of
Pretty Woman
. Aaron, that movie is about a man who hires…” He pauses, barely able to continue. “… a prostitute.”

The word swings from Dad’s lips toward the ceiling like a trapeze artist, somersaulting through the air in slow motion, high above the net.

Pros-ti-tute.

“We turned it off right away,” Dad says quietly.

Of course they did. So they didn’t see the funny and touching and sweet parts. They only saw the sexy parts.

Dad looks down at the carpet again, and when he looks back up at me, his eyes are filled with tears. “Why would you buy your girlfriend the music to a movie about a man paying money to use a woman sexually?”

I feel split down the middle. Part of me wants to run to my dad and wipe his eyes and beg him not to cry. I want to tell him that it’s okay, that I’m sorry I lied, that I’m sorry I am lying now. I want to bury my face in his neck the way I used to when I was little and we hauled firewood in his old ’57 Chevy pickup truck—the light blue one with freckles of rust and no seat belts. Long before laws requiring children to be strapped down, I’d stand on the seat next to him, pinned in by his right elbow, my left arm around his neck. I’d lay my head on his shoulder against his soft flannel work shirt and watch the landscape fly by.

The other part of me knows that there’s no way to make this better for Dad, and hot tears of frustration well up in my eyes. I don’t see anything wrong with this movie, or movies in general. I don’t think God does, either. This movie made me feel good when I watched it. If it was so sinful, why would God allow me to like it so much?

I’m angry I have to lie about the music I listen to, and the CDs I buy, and the movies I see. I want to make my own decisions about these things and not be questioned, or have to sneak around. Why does Dad have to make this a big deal? I’m not a bad kid. After all, I didn’t buy a prostitute. I only bought a CD.

I can barely breathe as I struggle not to throw my backpack against the floor. But I don’t. My fear tempers my anger with practicality. Time to cut my losses, minimize the damage, and brace for what comes next—probably the belt. I haven’t been spanked in a while, but no matter how I cut it, this is deceit, pure and simple; there’s no getting around it. I’ve been caught. I can argue the semantics of “classic rock” versus “classical music” all night long, but it’s not going to do any good.