59. The Gospel According to Gay Guys

In mid-afternoon on the Fourth, after most people had gathered and the party was in full swing, a big black Buick with Canadian plates pulled up the lane and found a parking place. Three people got out, parents and a grown son. Kent didn't recognize the car, so he headed toward it, wanting to meet these folks.

The father wore a gray suit and fedora; the mother had a vivid dress, red, white, black, lavender, pink and orange, and a colorful hat tilted perfectly. The son also wore a fedora and white suit, but not a tie; his eyes were bright.

Kent wondered if they might be Black. The lady was somewhat dark, the son less so, but the gentleman, maybe not. Jamie jumped up, fingers pointing in the air, shouting, "Étienne!"

The son doffed his hat to him, bowed deep and yelled, "Back home again! In Indiana, wherever this is!"

Jamie came running. Kent wasn't sure what was going on, but if Jamie knew them, they had to be friends.

Mama's progress was slow; she used a cane. But she proceeded like the Queen Mother and her menfolk were thoughtful attendants.

Jamie caught up with Kent and stayed; he wanted to run and chest-bump Étienne for getting here, but he belonged by Kent's side. Shortly the two groups met each other and the man said, "You're Mr. Kent Kessler, I believe?"

"Yes, sir." They shook hands.

"My name is Adrian Guillory." He pronounced it the French way. "I'm a patent attorney. Let me introduce my wife Vivienne, my son Étienne, also now in law school."

"How do you do, ma'am?"

"Quite nicely," Mama smiled. Étienne tipped his hat; he was slick.

Mr. Guillory said, "We have come here from Montréal, Québec. My son located your website on the internet. He thought we ought to make contact, and this might be the day to come, your family reunion on your Independence Day. We inquired beforehand. A Mr. James Foster kindly invited us and assured us we were welcome."

The blondboy piped up, "I'm Jamie Foster. Thank you for coming, madame et messieurs."

"Guillory?" Kent repeated in French. "Guillory?"

"You might know us as Gillory," the gentleman replied. "I'm not always familiar with the Indiana dialect. We believe we have ancestors in common. Your Miss Evangeline Guillory, who married Mr. Josiah Kessler, was a sister to my several-great grandfather, Mr. Antoine Guillory, who we believe passed through this country from Louisiana to Indiana, then Ontario and Québec, on the Underground Railroad, with the assistance of your ancestor Mr. Kessler."

"Guillory?! Ma'am, yes sir!" Kent cried, pumping those fists. "Right here, welcome home! After all this time? Come, come, come! We are so glad to have you!"

Étienne was a hot number and he fixed his eye on Kent—friendly to the blondboy, but he was liking that big hunka man. Jamie punched Stevie in the gut and told him to knock it off. "Aw, can you blame me?"

"No, but fuck you." Mama gave him the evil eye.

Étienne put his arm around Jamie's neck, "I don't mean anything, but I do like my eye candy," and they walked toward the party. "Dude, what you fellas have got going here is fabulous."

"I'm so glad you made it. I can only imagine that distance, the difficulty your mother might have with traveling." Jamie was always concerned about people with disabilities, thinking of Rick again.

"Travel just takes a little organizing. Mama's fine; she's a trouper."

"And that hat!" Jamie turned to her. "An actual fascinator. Ma'am, if you don't mind I'd like to nominate you in our hat contest. Your chapeau coordinates perfectly."

She eyed him, then gazed at the pleasant landscape. "If you like. Thank you."

Stevie poked Jamie, "She's always like this. We're Anglicans!"

"Well, that explains it," Jamie grinned.

"Papa's a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order, with letters in back of his name and everything; he's French, of course, but she's a Royalist from Toronto. The day his honours came out—a Black French Canadian cited for high personal service to the Crown, because of this patent case he handled—she turned into a duchess right in front of our eyes, and she's been that way ever since. You'd think she was the one who got knighted."

"Wouldn't Miss Evangeline be proud of such a nephew." Jamie held out his arm to her, "Lady Guillory, may I have a turn?"

"Of course, young man." She smiled; this American knew who she was.

They walked. "I must ask who your milliner is."

"Well," she said, "I did know you were wanting to encourage the ladies to wear hats, especially outdoors in this sun, so I looked up Indiana on the map; very close to Louieville. I thought, perfect, there must be a quality hatmaker there, or how else do all the ladies get fixed up for the Kentucky Darby?"

"Of course," Jamie smiled.

"So from there I simply telephoned the wife of the rector of the biggest Anglican parish in town; that is, the Episcopal church. Surely Mrs. Rector would know. And she told me about a lady named Stansbury with a shop called Darby Fascinations. We spoke, I sent her swatches from my dress so she could match the colours, and a couple of photographs so she would know the shape of my face; and two weeks after the Darby, a man delivered it to my door."

(A few hours later, the ladies voted Mrs. Guillory the runaway winner of the Best Hat Contest, and she posed for her official photograph. Aunt Miriam was second and Cher came in third, wearing a homemade concoction with peachfaced lovebirds. She told everyone, "This one's Jamie and that one's Kent!")


Kent put his hand on Mr. Guillory's shoulder, "We have some special guests this year, members of the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Crawfordsville, our county seat. They were a stop on the Underground Railroad too and worked with Father Josiah all the time. We don't know for sure, but they may well have helped the Guillorys make it here those last nine miles. Coulda just given directions, ya know? Follow the creek, then when you come to a grove of hickory trees, that's the place."

The gentleman surveyed Kent's face, open, honest, down to earth. "I look forward to meeting them."

***

People ate, kids swam, Frisbees went flying, dogs ran around; Gypsy was in rare form, barking down dogs who ventured where she didn't want them to go. She wasn't allowed in the house, so they didn't get to go there either. Once they understood that, she was all smiles and tail-wags. Jamie looked over and found her surrounded by acolytes. Then she took off and snagged a Frisbee clearly intended for someone else. That dog yapped and chased her, but she stood there, plastic in mouth, staring, whereupon the defeated dog quickly gave up and joined the royal court. Gypsy dropped her blue disk and nudged it with a paw toward the other dog, who picked it up and ran away, then looked back at her. She waited patiently, soon the other dog brought it back and handed it over, so Gypsy ran it back to Uncle Wesley, who was really good with dogs and a Frisbee.

She was a showoff, that Gypsy; she was an alpha dog, she lived here, and the rest of them were mere visitors.

The Youth Steel Orchestra played from Frederiksted on St. Croix in the United States Virgin Islands, the highlight of their diocesan fundraising tour. The dance band combo from New Year's would take their place in the evening while all the kids got ice cream.

Aunt Penn and Judge Schneider introduced John of California to Jamie; tall, shaved bald, with deepset black eyes, John Kessler Schneider, Lincoln's son. He hadn't been back to Indiana but once in 24 years, six years ago when his mother died. He and his father corresponded occasionally, but they hadn't talked much since. John said, "I would never have come back, but you're making it safe here."

Jamie kissed his cheek, "Welcome home, John, we want you here. What do you do?"

"General practice attorney like my father. Though the contexts are very different, he's Hizonner and I'm just one guy in a crowd. Do some civil, criminal and civil rights work, immigration cases; divorces are my bread and butter, but every now and then I'm a U.S. magistrate in bankruptcy court."

"Would you ever consider coming home?" Jamie glanced at the Judge and Aunt Penn.

"Well… probably not, but the cost of living is so cheap here."

"What is it like to come back home after all these years? What is it like to find this place, with the family who have always loved you, but only now learned to speak your name?"

John gazed at the gorgeous blondboy and smiled, "Don't tempt me. I have a nice life in San José."

"We need you, though. If San José ever gets tiring, come back and be with us."

John leaned down and kissed his cheek, "I'll consider it. I won't plan on it, but I'll think about it."

"We're a lot more fun than bankruptcy court. When your father retires years from now, we'll need the best possible family counselor. John, might that not be you? Come home, run for judge, I'll back you."

John caught his father's eye. "It's not a bad idea, son. Come home, you'll like it here. I'd love to see you sitting at my old bench."

Aunt Penn said, "I'd think, as Lincoln's son, you'd stand a good chance. People respect your father; why wouldn't they go for you?"

John told Kent, "Get him away from me, Satan."

Kent grinned and told him, "Come unto me, all you guys who work too hard. I got me a blondboy here, and you never know what he'll do next."

John said he would consider it, then moved on to other relatives. His father faced Jamie, "There was never anything I could do to get him back to Indiana. But you brought my son home. You, when I could not." They hugged, and Aunt Penn closed her eyes in thankfulness, remembering little Johnny in the fifth grade. Smartest kid in his class; what else would he be? The Kessler kid who fled the Town of Friends, then finally came back as a Kessler man.

***

The Annual Meeting was held; Jamie gave a short, hard-hitting speech. His news was mostly good, but not all. He demanded a dividend freeze before they bankrupted themselves; the market wasn't doing that well and he feared a deep recession.

Their Indiana land was undervalued on the books by millions of dollars, based on that Purdue survey; far worse, they were charging their renters $75 less an acre than the competition got. "Times 23,000 acres, that's some money!" He called it "a thorough scandal," caused by too many dividends and not enough watchdogs, with (obliquely speaking) his husband the President, his advisers and the Annual Meeting all to blame. They could have been making much more money all this time, but they fell asleep. But Jamie wouldn't give them more money until they built up their cash reserves; if the economy declined they'd have something to fall back on.

Philadelphia was in better shape; unused livings were a problem, that golf course and wilderness area, but the Bank of Friends was "conservative, strong and sound," with a well-capitalized loan portfolio. He announced he was bringing back Robert as vice-president of agricultural lending, a great relief to the people afraid of the new kid in town or any other hint of family discord.

They didn't mind that Robert got demoted—they were all his customers and he screwed over everyone, nickel-and-diming them to death—but Jamie said the bank was well-run, which could only be Robert's doing, so it felt good to knock him down a peg or two but keep him on.

Jamie glowered, "But I have not and will not rehire Jill Padgett."—and at the mention of her name Robert turned bright red. His dimwitted wife Susan was gabbing to someone and missed the whole thing.

Jamie then tripled the family's charitable contributions and cut their taxes. He announced a million-dollar gift to the National Museum of African American History and Culture, part of the Smithsonian in Washington, and that Cuttington University in Liberia would soon break ground on Josiah and Evangeline Kessler Hall.

People enjoyed the artist's renderings and campus photographs. The Kesslers knew they weren't Black, but they liked thinking of Miss Evangeline's roots and imagining Africa.

Overall they were fairly shocked at Jamie's blunt talk, but he had all his figures, so they voted him everything he asked for—carte blanche. He made a study paper available online on male primogeniture and the entail; he was determined to repeal male supremacy. "It isn't Kessler-like. It isn't just. It isn't Quaker, it isn't Christian, it isn't Methodist—it isn't American. We meet here on the 4th of July, when Thomas Jefferson opposed this English nobility protection racket. If all are created equal, why is not the fourth-born equal to her brother?"

His look withered everyone in sight. "It's oppressive to half the population; it impoverishes our leadership and endangers our future. Don't pass over a competent woman to empower an incompetent man. Don't enthrone a first-born when the second- or fifth-born is smarter, with better character, better training and more ability.

"The good news is that it's given us Kent, the latest in a long line of great leaders. But next year even he will ask you to repeal male primogeniture."

Martha, Miriam, Aunt Penn, Cher, Aunt Nora and Kiera all stood up and applauded—and so did Uncle Micah, shifting back and forth on his feet, half-scared to be drawing attention to himself.

Then Joey came up, put his arm around his dad and started yelling, "We want girls! We want girls! We want girls!"

Kent stood, "You already got yourself a girl, and she's more woman than you can handle. So stuff a sock in it." Joey disappeared, and Kent stood there applauding the women in his life.

Robert rose to his feet too, and people noticed that.

Kent didn't wait a year to endorse Jamie's study paper, which soon came to be labeled the Titanic Report; iceberg up ahead, let's try not to hit it this time, uhkay?

Then Kent passed out the checks and everyone was ice cream.

Later Jamie huddled with him, and they asked if Mr. and Mrs. Guillory would sit with them in the parlor. They showed off Mr. Abner's marvelous woodwork.

Jamie said, "We're about to unveil a sculpture outside, dedicated to your ancestors and ours. We'd like you to help us with it."

Mr. Guillory listened closely, then turned to his wife, "Mama, I think this is your department."

She looked over the liturgy; Jamie pointed out her parts. She was a Lay Reader in the Anglican Church of Canada; once Jamie heard that, the deal was done. The Youth Steel Orchestra started up again; those kids were great.

***

Food, sunshine and baseball: Kent and Jamie played on the same team this time, a winning combination, though no one really cared who won; the game was about the kids, especially little ones—and taking pictures. If a kid could handle a pitch she got one; if not, Kent placed the ball on the ground right in front of home plate so she could smack it and run run run!

He stood on the mound, loving his life at the James Earl Kessler Stadium for Baseball. He didn't know how he got so lucky as to be born here, or have Jamie make things so good.

"Swing batta, swing batta!" his shortstop cried, pounding his mitt. Étienne Guillory, now in jeans and a red Spandex T, picked up a bat, settled into the box and looked for a pitch. Kent went for a strikeout, got him down to 0-2 in the count; Uncle Wes was the umpire, padded up and bending down.

Then Étienne punched a hard line drive—Jamie leapt and brought it right down in his glove, whack! At that second all three of them knew, You're out, Stevieboy. No hunka man for you.

Étienne was slightly gracious, "Nice shag! For a blond."

And Jamie said… well, he would have, but Mama gave him that evil eye.

She was having fun, didn't mind these boys; Mama was a Jays fan and loved her baseball.

***

As nightfall came on, preparations for the fireworks began. People gathered in the meadow next to the hickory grove, with the charging creek behind them.

Kessler men, the firefighters, were deployed at five ignition stations across the field. This year they had an Italian woman pyrotechnics expert to guide them. Much of the job was now computerized, but someone still had to light the match and prevent the consequences.

Loudspeakers, new this year, started up with music—not the usual "Washington Post March" or other patriotic crap, but the New World Symphony by Antonin Dvorak.

Oohs and ahhs. Randy helped shepherd Sammy, J.J. and Cherisse; the kids lay on the ground and watched the sky explode.

Mrs. Shuey put her arm around her son Chad, who just got a tennis scholarship at Wyoming State.

Robert sat in a lawn chair amidst all the popping sounds and somehow accepted reality. The queer was his boss now; Robert was VP of ag lending.

Pow! Wow! Pow!

***

When the fireworks were done, everyone proceeded to the front circle. The scaffolds were gone, but the tarp was still up; people were extremely curious.

Jamie stepped up to a mic and lectern with the Hickory Grove logo. "Ladies and gentlemen, children and young adults, members of the Bethel AME: thank you all for coming. We are here to dedicate a sculpture, which we hope you will consider a symbol of our family."

Kent came up. "He gave the money. It did not come from the trust, it's Jamie's gift. I'm excited we've finally come to this, I wanna see what he came up with. I been lookin' at this big thing in my front yard and thinkin', What's that boy done now?"

Cher laughed and pumped her fist.

People could see, despite Kent and Jamie's decorum, how much they loved each other. Jamie accused him of messing up the land rents; Kent wondered what this monstrosity was.

They fit together like a man and a man.

Randy walked up, bent down the mic and said, "This is a memorial to a father and a mother, and the children they had." He looked at the little hickory tree, right in the front yard.

Judge Schneider said, "We're very proud this evening to welcome Ms. Vivienne Guillory, wife of a direct descendent of Miss Evangeline Guillory Kessler's brother, Mr. Antoine Guillory, who, we can document by recently discovered records, arrived here on June 29, 1854, because this house was a stop on the Underground Railroad. That's right, Jamie has finally located Josiah's old account books, which were hidden behind a false bookcase in his attic library. Finally, Aunt Penn has the proof she's been looking for all her life.

"Folks, I give you your aunt and cousin, Ms. Vivienne Guillory."

The applause for Mama swelled and swelled. She stood there taking it in, from her husband's family.

The Kesslers were a whole lotta White people, that blondboy most of all. But the Bethel members leaned forward, everyone was eager and listening, so she began. She had the voice of the Black Church.

"This is a reading from Exodus, chapter 13:21-22. Moses describes what the people of Israel saw, as they traveled in the Sinai Desert from slavery to freedom.

"The LORD went in front of them in a pillar of cloud by day, to lead them along the way, and in a pillar of fire by night, to give them light, so that they might travel by day and by night. Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night left its place in front of the people."

Four Kessler EMTs untied ropes and pulled the tarp off; the sculpture was intertwined stones of black New Hampshire granite and white Indiana limestone, a tall, stylized pillar, modern and exciting.

Then water started gushing out. It was a fountain!

The people stood there listening and watching, seeing something for the first time. Kent pulled Jamie close.

Ms. Vivienne continued, "These waters symbolize many things; the waters of baptism, by which we are joined to the Lord. The river of Jordan; the waters of the rivers Evangeline and Antoine crossed, the Mississippi, the Ohio, the Wabash, the Sugar—with their father Abner the Woodworker.

"It also symbolizes the tears of the oppressed—and tears of joy, when liberation finally comes.

"The waters of Sugar Creek run right behind this house. The waters of the Weas, the Shawnees, the Miamis and Potawatomis who lived here, and whose land this will always be.

"This land is Indiana, the land of the Indians. This land is also, for the slaves out of Africa, the first foot of freedom.

"May it always be this way, no matter who the oppressed might be; may this land forever be the first foot of freedom."

She spoke the prophetic voice of the Black Church with Anglican precision.

"As we look at this monument to a Black woman and a White man, Mother Evangeline and Father Josiah, let us come to understand it as symbolizing, in its spray, a Pillar of Cloud. Clouds disperse and re-form, like the rainwaters do. The spray is the Pillar of Cloud, as we can visualize it now."

She leaned her forearm on the lectern, focused her soul, adjusted her cane, eyed that fountain and let 'em have it. "God led the slaves into freedom. That is what God always does. The message of Exodus is the same as the message of Christ; God leads the slaves into freedom, to the land of plenty, if only they can accept it. Let us pray that with the deep, abiding courage of Miss Guillory and Mr. Kessler, we always accept and embrace our freedom, with the wisdom and compassion to fulfill our responsibilities to each other."

She sat. Jamie gave her the good eye with a wink. She knew what he was like, she just didn't care for four-letter words.

Aunt Penn stood with Kent, Martha, Randy and Judge Schneider. Kent handed Penn a remote, showed her which button to push. She didn't get it right the first time, so Randy showed her the mistake. Then she mashed it.

Flames soared high. The water sculpture ignited into a Pillar of Fire.

Kent almost fell over, he was so amazed. Jamie propped him back up and told him, "That's what your boy's done now."

Kent stared at the fire and slowly knew that every prediction ever made about Jamie was true; that they would be equals, no matter how much that boy liked dick; that Hickory Grove had a new prince, and the family a new sheriff; even that Episcopalians are expensive to keep around.

He gazed at the blond royal next to him, then bent down and gently kissed his neck.

Jamie wasn't an aristocrat; he grew up in a garage east of Bucyrus. His father was violent and his mother was cold. He was oppressed for being Gay every day of his life until, at 14, he struck out on his own by moving to a big city. There it was possible for him to rise by his own merit, and rise he did.

Kent eyed the flag by the new monument next to the fence; this boy was an American who believed that all are created equal, and when that proved to be untrue, he set out to make it come true.

That was why no one was more important to him than Daveyboy. That was why, when the Incident came down, Jamie traded his life; Davey meant everything to him, even a total stranger.

Maybe that was how the red-shirt boy ended up in Kent's unit in Jamie's arms—how Jamie ended up that day in Dublin in the arms of Christ.

Did any of it really happen? Hadn't Kent seen it with his own two eyes? He shut them, trying to comprehend.

Maybe it didn't really happen as his senses thought it did; maybe he saw what no one else could. Maybe it was all a vision, and Jamie just took a nap that day on the floor.

Maybe the entire Bible was one gigantic parable, not of what actually happened, but of what should; of what men and women ought to make happen for the love of God, and for God's love of them.

Or maybe Jesus loved Jamie literally—and Kent, the family, Gay people, the whole entire world—just as the Gospels describe. Was the Testament journalism, allegory or both?

A giant tingling sensation started in Kent's scalp and ran down his entire body. He became frozen to the ground, he couldn't move. His chest stopped moving, his lungs quit.

But it didn't last as long as it did that first time at the state police post when Jamie walked in; it was only a recollection of that time God struck him dead. When his body became kinetic again, by instinct he grabbed Jamie and said, "I love you."

They looked at each other, and Kent stared at those emerald eyes, adoring him back.

---

The sculpture's flame was also the dance bandleader's cue back in the pavilion; he waited five respectful minutes for the people to gaze at their new artwork and discuss it.

The Kesslers' whole family story was finally out in the open; their history right up to the present, back home again at Hickory Grove.

Then the conductor gave a downbeat and the band launched into "Le Jazz Hot" from Victor/Victoria. Their young guest artists, sitting in from Frederiksted, beat their drums like drag queens, the trombonist took Julie's spectacular glissando—and the Kesslers had themselves a ball.++

THE END

Josh Thomas
The Gospel According to Gay Guys

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