69) Are we still courting?

ON THE THE first weekend of October, as the cold began to creep down into northern Mississippi and the trees were a wild riot of oranges and reds, we made one final camping trip on Mama's property. We loaded the four-wheelers and Noah led the way into the colorful woods. I stopped to show Jackson some of the sugar trees Mama would tap, explaining how she would collect the sap and turn it into maple syrup, how she would sell some of the jars, store others in her pantry, how it was tradition to use the first jar on Christmas morning pancakes. first weekend of October, as the cold began to creep down into northern Mississippi and the trees were a wild riot of oranges and reds, we made one final camping trip on Mama's property. We loaded the four-wheelers and Noah led the way into the colorful woods. I stopped to show Jackson some of the sugar trees Mama would tap, explaining how she would collect the sap and turn it into maple syrup, how she would sell some of the jars, store others in her pantry, how it was tradition to use the first jar on Christmas morning pancakes.

At the campsite, we tested the cold water for a quick bout of skinny-dipping, decided against it, and got busy listening to KUDZU and collecting firewood. Noah took his pole and a plastic container full of worms and went to sit on the rocks in the sunshine where it was warm. I took many pictures of him before wandering back to camp to take pictures of Jackson.

"Have you thought about it?" Jackson asked as we waited for the hot dogs to grill.

"It's all all I've thought about," I admitted. I've thought about," I admitted.

"So will you move in with me and be my love slave?"

"It's a big step," I said.

"The first of many, I hope," he said.

"Do you mean that?"

"I want to marry you, Wiley Cantrell. I want to be your husband. I want us to be a family-you, me, and the cheese-eater. Isn't that the point of all this courting?"

"Are we still courting?" I asked with a smile.

"Don't I have enough skin in the game yet?"

"I love it when you talk Southern," I said.

"I hate it when you stall. I've been clean all summer. I'm never going back to that. I love my job and everything is going well in my life except one small detail, which is that I can't live with the man I love. I want to wake up in the morning and see your face. Is that so wrong?"

I said nothing.

"What?" he pressed.

"What if it doesn't work?" I asked quietly. "Everything I touch turns to s.h.i.t. You should know that by now."

"Noah's not s.h.i.t, is he?"

"No."

"And I'm not s.h.i.t...."

"No."

"So... does that mean you sometimes do something right?"

"I don't know," I confessed.

"I think you're just scared," he said.

"Maybe," I admitted.

"So why are you scared?"

"Did you ever want something so badly that just the thought of losing it made you want to cry?"

"Yes," he said. "You."

"If it didn't work, I don't know what I'd do."

"It's going to work," he said confidently.

"How do you know that?"

"Because I do. Because we both want it to. We're not kids anymore. We're consenting adults. So let's do some consenting."

"You're awfully confident for someone who needs a note from his mother to get out of gym cla.s.s."

"That's what you like about me," he said.

"I'm a 'Stand By Your Man' kinda guy," I pointed out. "If we move in together, that means you're going to have to put a ring on my finger and make me respectable. And I don't want to hear any talk about a 'd-i-v-o-r-c-e' and 'me and little J-o-e going away'."

"We'll run off to Boston and get gay-married. Then we'll be Mr. and Mr. Ledbetter-Cantrell."

"Cantrell-Ledbetter," I corrected.

"Mr. and Mr. Ledbetter is a perfectly acceptable alternative," he said, smiling.

"So is The Cantrells."

"Do you always have to have the last word?"

"I'm a Southerner. You know I love to talk."

"Let me give you something to talk about."

He moved over and, before I could respond, pressed his lips against mine. He eased me onto my back as if he meant to have me right there.

"If that's how you feel about it," I said, gasping for air.

"So you'll move in with me?"

I shrugged.

He kissed me again, harder, more pa.s.sionately.

"And?" he prompted.

I started to giggle.

"Oh, all right," I said.

This prompted some making out while the hot dogs burned.

Noah wandered over and I wiped at my lips sheepishly. He held a decent-size large-mouthed ba.s.s up in my face, his lips parting to reveal a goofy grin.

Cool, I signed.

He looked at the hot dogs, then at us, his disappointment more than obvious.

Sorry, I said.

He put the fish down, turned to Jackson, and signed: What did he say?

He said yes, Jackson signed.

I told you!

"Have you guys being conspiring behind my back?" I demanded.

"Of course," Jackson said.

I grabbed Noah, dragged him down on top of us, and began to tickle him as he hooted and giggled.

70) Do you really know the way I feel?

I HADN HADN'T been to confession in many years, so many I had trouble telling Father Ginderbach exactly when my last had been. been to confession in many years, so many I had trouble telling Father Ginderbach exactly when my last had been.

"I think I was fifteen," I said to him. "And that was almost twenty years ago."

"And what do you want to confess?" he asked.

We were sitting in the confessional room in comfortable chairs. The cold wind of Christmas Eve seeped in through the old windows. Ginderbach wore a purple stole over his shoulders and a friendly look in his eyes. He had set aside two hours in the late afternoon for those who wanted to go to confession in preparation for Midnight Ma.s.s.

"I don't know if I really want to go to confession," I admitted. "I love G.o.d and I'm sorry for my sins, but I'm not sorry that I'm a gay man. I'm not sorry because my conscience doesn't accuse me of doing anything wrong. I'm sorry for my one-night stands and all the mistakes I made. I'm sorry I took drugs. I'm sorry that my taking drugs might have led to my son having birth defects. I'm sorry for all the ways that I've been bad person. But I will never be sorry for who I am, because it's the only thing I can be. I don't know what else the church expects of me."

"Maybe that's enough," he said.

"I'm in a relationship now," I admitted. "It's going well. We're creating a family. I wish the church would bless my family and stop condemning me. I wish I could go to church and not have people wondering why I go to communion since I must be in mortal sin for being a h.o.m.os.e.xual."

"Do you want to confess your sins and receive absolution?" he asked kindly.

"I do, but I'm going to walk right out that door and sit with my boyfriend. You're not going to stop me from loving the man that I love. If I have to go to h.e.l.l for that, I guess that's how it is."

"I doubt that anyone is going to go to h.e.l.l for loving someone else."

"It's Christmas," I said. "I want to be right with the church again, but I don't see how that's possible. But if it is, I want to confess my sins and receive absolution. At the end of the day, I believe in G.o.d. I believe in Jesus. I believe G.o.d is a loving G.o.d and I don't think He's as mad at me as the pope is."

"Neither do I," Ginderbach said.

"My heart accuses me of some wrongdoing," I admitted. "Over the summer, for example, I had casual s.e.x with a deaf man a couple of times. I shouldn't have done that. We weren't hurting anyone, but it wasn't in the context of a loving relationship, and it just felt sort of wrong."

"Would you like to confess that?"

"Yes," I said.

"If you confess it and you're determined not to do it again, G.o.d can forgive you. What else would you like to confess?"

Father Ginderbach walked me through the last twenty years of my life and I wound up confessing a great many things that perhaps weren't big, huge sins, but were things I was sorry about, things I might have been better off not doing.

When he offered absolution at the end of it, I felt clean again for the first time in many, many years.

"You know I'm going to walk out this door and go home with my boyfriend and have s.e.x with him?" I asked.

"If you love him, if you're committed to him, if you're in a stable, permanent relationship with this man, a relationship based on mutual love and respect and concern and care, then... follow your own conscience, Wiley," he said. "There are some things that G.o.d will have to sort out, things that are currently beyond the church. My only hope is that you'll leave room for G.o.d in your life, and that you'll give away some of the love He has so freely given to all of us."

I smiled hesitantly at this sentiment.

"Thank you," I said at last, and I meant it.

I went outside to the pew and knelt next to Mama. Noah went in next and I waited for him. He was not in the habit of going to confession because few priests knew how to sign. Even if they did, I would not have allowed him to bare his soul to just anyone. But Father Ginderbach was not like most priests. Something about him made me want to be a better person. Something about him made me want Noah to get to know his church better.

"I can't believe you went to confession," Jackson said, leaning over and whispering in my ear as I knelt on the kneeler and said my penance.

"It's a Catholic thing," I said, whispering back.

The church had been gorgeously decorated by the Junior Auxiliary. An army of poinsettias marched out from the sanctuary to engulf the pews. Christmas lights twinkled in the growing gloom. The side altar to the right had been transformed into a nativity scene.

The dark skies outside offered a slight chance of snow, rare, but not unheard of in Union County, Mississippi.

Noah was all smiles when he came out. He knelt down next to me and folded his hands in prayer, closing his eyes and pursing his lips together rather earnestly.

As I knelt beside him, I looked up at the large crucifix hanging in the sanctuary. Words from "Walking in Memphis" drifted through my mind.

Tell me are you a Christian, child?And I said man, I am tonight!

I had never considered myself a Christian, perhaps never would.

But Jesus was all right with me.