013: Good Friday

It was on a Good Friday. It happened not quite fifteen years ago … See, it wasn’t exactly fifteen years ago because in that year, unlike this year, Good Friday was in April and fell on the Thirteenth. It was on that Good Friday…

“It’s the first room to your left, and here you go,” and I get handed a plastic bag. Inside it there’s a piece of paper with instructions laid on top of a white gown. Obviously I’m to change into it. I push open the door, walk in, and I gasp … followed with out of control saccadic eye movements, quickening palpitation, flushed cheeks. With my head downcast, I weave through a forest of naked legs to the most inconspicuous corner. It’s not as though male nudity is something novel, yet my mind shuts down, unable to reconcile this strange visceral pang…

Fast-forward three years. It’s past midnight, I’m sure of it; standing on a hilltop facing the Summer night sky, I tip my hand to thank my guide, the quarter moon, for lighting my way, and my guardian, the constellation Orion, for being my heroic companion. While everyone in the cabin slept, I’ve escaped. I had to. The touch, his hand caressing my bare leg, his cooing voice telling me how sexy I am… I had to escape. I know it was all a joke, a gag performed in front of his friends, for a measly laugh, at my expense. Ha ha ha… But still, I had to escape. That little joke stokes a fire, waking within me a desire, a wanting I’ve identified as evil, a longing I’ve learned to suppress. That little gag, also, sends a cold shiver running up my spine, freezing my mind, stunning me into a dark silence. And again, I am back in the changing room.

The door slowly opens letting in a shaft of light to illuminate our way up the staircase. As we ascend, the sweet sounds of Amazing Grace, played on the organ, sung by the congregation, growing louder and stronger, enter my ears, filling me with a warmth so reminiscent of a mother’s embrace, so reassuring, and calming. One by one, we walk through the doorway, crossing the darkness into the light. Before me faces of witnesses stare back at us, at me, and I am exposed. My foot touches the water, it’s warm. I wade over to the pastor. He faces me to the congregation, and speaks,
“Do you accept Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, believing that He died and rose for your sins?”
“I do,” comes my reply.
“I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” He covers my face with a towel, and slowly he dips me into the water, and I am fully submerged.

I’m sitting down, up on a hilltop with my head turned up towards heaven, praying for some wild animal to strike me down, to devour me into oblivion. Have I not promised Him purity—purity of body, mind, and soul? Yet, most nights the urge, the pull, the throb throws all restraints aside, and the beast inside demands expression and reprieve. In the aftermath of sublime resolution, I feel the taint dirtying every inch of me. Like their touches from so many years ago, however much pleasurable, the lingering uncomfortable awkwardness, needing to be hidden, requiring to be unspoken, I feel the same taint. Still. And tonight, this boy, his hand, the soft caress… I am spinning for the shear sensuality of the moment, the pleasure unleashed by his fingertips, my body singing in response, for there can’t be anything wrong with it, for once everything is right, and I am frightened.

As I break the boundary of water and air, resurfacing, taking in a new breath, I am said to be reborn.