Cross in My Pocket

(reading from a small metallic cross) “I carry this cross in my pocket. It reminds to take time and pray. And ask that my sins be forgiven, and ask for His mercy each day.” You wanna talk about sins, let’s talk. About yours, I mean. (an uncomfortably long beat as he stares at the audience) Oh… you don’t want to do that? You’d rather talk about mine? I picked this thing up in the giveaway bin at Dollar General. It was free. It should be, at least from what they used to teach me. Free. But when you finally tell your parents your gay, this little sucker gets real expensive. It costs a lot. When I was 12 years old our family sat right behind Robert Havens who beat his kids. He had seven of them, owned a hog farm, and beat the shit out of his kids and his wife on a regular basis. Pete was in my class and he’d miss school every Monday. It took that long to heal. Nobody ever turned Robert Havens in. It was none of our business and besides, the kids grew up alive. .. pretty much. Pete says he’ll never have kids. On the other side of the church was a lady who switched sleeping partners like other people change socks, and the head deacon was an appliance salesman who had moved his office just twenty feet out of the city limits to keep from paying sales tax. And those are just the stories I know about. I was stupid. I thought all sin was the same. I mean, to be queer.. really queer.. not old enough to be gay yet, just a queer 7th-grader… that was just like Robert Havens without the blood and bruises, right? “Mom, I think I’m queer.” “Don’t be silly.” “Mom, I think I’m queer.” “No you’re not. Don’t even talk that way.” That was the extent of my parental counseling. “Don’t be silly.”

“And Jesus went to eat with the Publicans and sinners.” It took me years to realize that the Bible never mentions whether anybody else showed up. I’ve been “eating” alone for a long time. I don’t know what it means to be gay. I am one, but I don’t know what it means. I know that it’s the church’s unforgivable sin. I know that it’s the dirtiest label you can carry.. worse than racist.. worse than bigot.. worse than … everything. Pissed? Yep. So what’re you mad at? Me? God for allowing it? God for forgiving it? Do you even know how you feel? I do. Pissed. Robert Havens lives in Arizona. Retired. Good farmer. The adultress has four grandchildren, and the tax evader has a BMW and the town’s only indoor swimming pool. I’ve got a church that is terribly embarrassed about what I’ve become. I’ve got old friends who no longer ask Mom about her son. I’ve got a big black hole inside my gut that’s got room for me and God but nobody else wants to come in. I’ve got a cross in my pocket. (he looks at the cross and throws it to the floor…a beat, he looks at it, then picks it up and puts it back in his pocket)

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