Rapture Practice (28 page)

How are those guys an abomination?

The televangelist keeps saying the words
homosexual
and
gay
, hurling them away from his lips like slurs, as if he is in a hurry to get the syllables off his lips; as if simply saying these words might somehow infect him. I think about Chad Paddle
asking me if I am a girl, and Mary Alice asking me if I am gay at the ice rink. Somehow, I knew these things were connected, but this is the first time I’ve really thought about what these words
mean
. Before, I’ve been able to pretend these words refer to something abstract—to people who live far away and do vague, terrible things.
People who are not like me.

Today, they are used in reference to those two young men laughing together.
Guys who look a lot like me.
What did these guys do that was terrible? Standing there holding hands? Was it the kiss on the cheek? Nothing looked so awful about them to me. It looked like they were nice guys who were nice to each other.

I glance around the room, suddenly afraid someone might have heard this thought in my head.
They must be able to tell.

Megan is sitting next to me. She glances up at Mr. Kroger, then slides a scrap of notebook paper onto my desk. My heart is pounding.

The note reads:
What are you doing tonight? You should come over.

I smile at her, relieved. She’s right.

I should.

“How was the ice rink party?”

Bradley and I are walking toward our lockers. We have different class schedules and it’s the first time I’ve gotten to see him all day. I’ve been dying to tell him about my first
beer, but I haven’t had a chance. My smile is cautious as I glance both ways over my shoulder.

His eyes narrow and a smirk creeps across his face. “What?” he asks.

“I had a beer,” I whisper.

“No
way
!” Bradley laughs and holds his hand up for a high five. “That’s awesome, man!”

“What’s awesome?” It’s Erica at my locker, smiling. We’re going to be rehearsing after school for a scene we’re performing in chapel next week.

“Nothing,” I say quickly. “We’re planning the weekend.”

“What’s going on this weekend?” she asks.

It’s one of those awkward moments when I don’t understand why Erica can’t read social cues.
If we wanted you to know, we would tell you.

Bradley seems immune to moments like these. It’s one of the reasons I like him. He grabs his gym bag and closes his locker.

“This weekend, Erica, the party is
on
.” He grins at me and says, “Call me later, man,” then disappears down the hall toward the gym.

Erica is quiet as I grab my script and walk back toward the church auditorium where we’re rehearsing. I head up onto the stairs that stretch across the front of the sanctuary leading up to the platform and choir loft. The scene we are rehearsing is staged with me on one side and Erica on the other. We are talking to each other but facing out toward the audience.

Instead of heading to her side, Erica follows me slowly up the stairs. “So, there’s a big party this weekend?”

“Oh, I don’t know.”
Downplay. Change the subject.
The last thing I need is another lecture from Erica about Bradley.

Erica looks at me almost curiously, and opens her mouth to say something, then thinks better of it. She heads over to her side of the stairs at the stage.

“Should we run it from the top?” she asks.

Relieved, I begin the scene. It’s a conversation between a guy and a girl, teenagers, who have been on a date. They talk back and forth about the evening and how it was going: the party, how handsome he looked, how beautiful she was, and then on the way home—a car wreck.

As the scene progresses, you realize that the characters can’t see each other now, because they were killed in the accident and are now in the afterlife. She’s on her way to heaven, and he is on his way to hell. The final minutes of the scene are the guy tearfully asking the girl why she didn’t tell him about Jesus so that he could have gone to heaven. The last line is her explaining why:

“Because I didn’t want to lose you… as a friend.”

The irony implied is that the girl lost her friend for all of eternity because he died without trusting in Jesus as his savior. My dad had signed us out of classes last week to come to the chapel service at the Bible college and perform the scene for his students. We’re doing it in our chapel service here at school tomorrow.

Erica is a great actor. It’s one of the reasons I love performing
with her. When we’re done running the scene, she wipes tears from her cheeks.

“That went pretty well,” she says, and smiles, her bright eyes rimmed with red.

I smile at her and nod. “You’re terrific.”

“Thanks.”

We sit on the front pew for a second in silence.

“It’s such an important scene,” she says. “I love doing it because of the message.”

I quietly begin gathering my books. I feel like I’m tiptoeing through a minefield. I love this scene because it’s dramatic and it moves people. I can feel Erica’s eyes on me now. I know she wants me to say something.

“Don’t you think it’s important, Aaron?”

I look up at her, and smile. “Yeah. Of course.”

“I worry about you,” she says.

“Worry about me?”

“Yeah. Your dad was so proud of you last week when we did this scene at the college. Does he know that you’re going to these parties at Bradley’s house?”

I want to yell at Erica:
This is none of your business!

But I don’t. This isn’t her fault. She’s just doing what her character failed to do in the scene we’re rehearsing. It’s the thing we’re all told to do: exert positive peer pressure. Encourage your friends to stand up for what is capital
R
Right.

“Erica, nothing bad is going on at these parties.”

“You have such an opportunity to win souls for Christ doing scenes like this,” she says. “I don’t want to see you ruin
your Christian testimony by hanging out with the wrong crowd.”

All I can hear is my dad’s voice when I was a little boy:
Reaching lost souls with quality biblical drama.
Sometimes it feels like all the people I know are trying to hold me against a wall with everything they’ve got; afraid if they let go for a single second, I’ll float away forever like a balloon in an updraft, soaring past the three-cross steeple four stories over our heads.

Erica is right about one thing: If it gets out that I drink, I’ll be kicked out of school. No one will give me special privileges like performing in front of the student body or the Bible college if that happens. Still, even though I know it’s risky, all I want to do this weekend is hang out at Bradley’s house.

As I stand here looking at Erica, I realize my friendship with Bradley has become more important to me than anything else. It’s more important than performing a scene in chapel or winning souls with the Good News. Bradley and I share so much more than just our faith. We share more than a place we hope to go when we die. For the first time, I have a connection with a friend in the here and now that feeds my soul in a way I’ve never felt before—in a way my beliefs never have.

I take a deep breath to steady my voice. “Erica, I think the scene is great. I think the message is very important. I’m not doing anything that is going to ruin my Christian testimony.”

Erica doesn’t buy it. She shouldn’t. I’m lying. My friendship with Bradley may very well ruin my Christian testimony, but I don’t care. She gathers her books and heads toward the
doors of the church auditorium. Something stops her, and she turns around.

“Aaron, you’re so good at this. You’re the best actor I’ve ever seen. I’m realizing you’re so good at it you never stop. You’re acting all the time—onstage and off.”

I feel my face flush.
How dare you?
I open my mouth to retort, but I know my anger could blister the paint on the walls, and catch myself just in time.

Erica smiles at me sadly. “When we do this scene… do you even believe what we’re saying anymore?”

I am silent. I can’t answer her. Erica shakes her head, then turns around and pushes through the double doors. I throw my backpack onto the floor. Hard. Tears cloud my eyes. Suddenly I’m crying, and I’m not sure why.

Why is this so important? Who cares if I go have a beer with Bradley? Or make out with Megan? Or think there’s nothing wrong with those guys in the video holding hands?

When I told the story of Speckles two summers ago, scaring those kids about hell made me feel so guilty. It’s exactly the same feeling I have when I perform this scene.
Shouldn’t I be making people feel better, not worse? Doesn’t God want us to feel good?

I sit down on the front pew and stare up at the cross hanging over the choir loft. It’s empty, just like the one at my church. My eyes wander up to the peak of the ceiling that stretches high above the balcony. I think of the excitement I felt as a little boy to blast off through the roof, and wonder where it went.

“Jesus, if you’re really coming back, help me believe it.” I whisper these words up at the towering ceiling above the empty cross. I wait for some feeling to come over me, some sense of peace or wonder—the excitement of my eight-year-old self.

It doesn’t.

As I sling my backpack onto my shoulders, I glance back at the cross.
Where is the Jesus I used to be excited about?
I feel my chest tighten around all of the things I can’t say out loud, the ones I’m too afraid to pray about.

“I’m
in
.”

Bradley is grinning ear to ear and shoves a piece of paper in my direction. The University of Iowa’s logo stretches across the top.

We are pleased to inform you
…

I pause and take a deep breath. I know how badly he wanted this.

“That’s awesome!” I am smiling on the outside, but on the inside I want this year to slow down.
How will I make it through my senior year without you?

We are walking toward the building from our cars. There is one month of school left. Jacob gets back from Stanford in three weeks, and we’re already planning a big graduation bash at Bradley’s place.

“Did you hear back about your PSAT scores yet?” Bradley asks.

“Yeah. I’m a National Merit semifinalist.”

“That’s great. You should be able to score a scholarship to a good school with that. Where are you applying?”

I blink at him. College seems so far away, and Bradley has been way more focused on the application process than any of the teachers or my parents are. I’ve started getting catalogs from colleges all over the place—beautiful, glossy brochures in thick envelopes with applications and pamphlets about financial aid.

“I don’t really have a lot of choices,” I say. “I have to start with a year of Bible college first.”

Bradley stops short. “You’re kidding me.”

I shake my head. “Nope. Dad’s rule: One year of Bible college first, then I can transfer anywhere I want to.”

“Yeah, but that’s suicide. All the scholarships go to freshmen.” Bradley sounds truly dismayed, but I can’t even get worried about it. When I think about what happens next, I feel overwhelmed and exhausted. I want to go to college somewhere that has a great acting program, but Dad and Mom don’t have enough money to help me with college because Dad has always taught for Christian schools.

“I get free tuition at the Bible college where Dad teaches,” I say.

Bradley rolls his eyes. “Don’t they have curfews and crazy rules like this place? You have to get out of the house. Go live a little.”

I shrug. I feel trapped. It doesn’t matter that I’ve gotten straight As or that I score well on tests. There’s really no money to go anyplace else. “It’s sort of a money thing,” I say.

“But you’ve gone to a Christian school since you were in kindergarten.” Bradley is adamant. “You know everything about the Bible there is to know by now, don’t you?”

I smile. “Yeah, the Bible doesn’t change much after fourth grade.”

Bradley keeps talking about an application for federal student aid, and getting a loan, and how I have to start thinking about it now; but all I can think about right now is how my best friend is leaving for Iowa.

This place will be hell without you.