The Less-Dead Page 2

  Before he can go any further, I say, “Dad, I’m really sorry about last night. What happened was, I stopped by Aubrey’s after our gig and I didn’t realize how late it got.” I take a deep breath and try to look as sincere as possible. “I know I have a lot of work to do around the house, but, well, I was wondering if I could go to the Drag today. You know, with the youth group? Carson wants to go too. I’ll cut the grass and weed-whack and paint the fence and do whatever else you want tomorrow, okay? After church.”

  The “after church” insert was brilliant, if I do say so myself. Also, notice I didn’t lie. I never said Carson and I would be witnessing on the Drag. It’s one of those sins of omission, which, in my opinion, is about on the same level as coveting your neighbor’s ox or donkey.

  My plan seems to be working. I’ve definitely thrown my father off guard (his jaw is hanging open) and Melanie’s helping me out by making these big, sad pleading eyes. “Well, I suppose you could do your chores tomorrow,” he says. “But I’m a little confused, Noah. Why the sudden change of heart? And now Carson wants to join you? It’s all very odd, to say the least.”

  This is true. My father might be a sucker when it comes to wanting to save my soul, but he’s no dope. He graduated with honors from UT Law School and went on to Dallas Theological Seminary, where he became an expert on eschatology or whatever you call that end-time crap. As he stands there tapping his foot and waiting for my explanation, my mom walks in. Perfect timing. “Noah! Oh, thank goodness you’re home.” She breathes a sigh of relief and gives my father a scolding look. “John, why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Oh, sorry, hon, I was about to, I just …” FYI: my mother is the only person who can render the Bible Answer Guy speechless.

  She walks over and gives me a hug, then pulls away all hurt and disappointed, which kind of kills me. “We were very worried about you, Noah.” I can tell she’s about to ask where I stayed last night but stops herself. It’s all part of the tough love thing. Pretty ridiculous, if you ask me.

  “I know. I’m sorry, Mom. I won’t let it happen again. I promise.”

  My dad clears his throat. “Laura, Noah’s asking to go to the Drag today with the youth group. What do you think? Can he do his chores tomorrow?”

  Her eyes widen. “The youth group? Why … sure. Of course. Um, that’s wonderful.” I haven’t shown interest in attending youth group meetings since eighth grade, so this is probably quite a shock to her. Fortunately my mom doesn’t question my motives. Now I need to get out of the house as quickly as possible.

  “Okay, well, great,” I say. “I better hit the shower and get a move on.” I tickle Melanie in the ribs one last time. “See you later, kid.”

  I shower, get dressed, and grab my guitar and harmonicas, and just as I’m about to walk out the door, I see my dad sitting in his study, staring at the wall. It’s risky to go in there now—he may have caught on to my devious scheme—but I do anyway. “Dad?” He turns to me. His eyes are a little glassy. “Um, did you see the article in the paper yesterday? You know, about the murder?”

  He nods. “Yes, I did.”

  “Looks like they caught the guy, huh?”

  He sighs deeply. “I hope so, Noah. I really do.” Right after we heard the news that Kyle Lester had been killed, my father contacted the police. The murder was a pretty high-profile case in Austin, probably because the city, smack in the middle of the Bible Belt, is an oasis for gays and lesbians. It was a long shot that the psycho calling in to my dad’s radio show was the killer, but still, the cops followed up on every possible lead. The investigation went nowhere. The guy was like a ghost.

  “Yeah, me too,” I say. “So have the police called you? Do you know who they arrested? It didn’t say much in the paper.”

  “No. I don’t know anything. I’m not sure I want to either.” There’s a moment of awkward silence, and then my dad says, “Well, have a good time today. I’ll put some gas in the Weedwacker so you’ll be all set for tomorrow.”

  “Oh, okay, thanks, Dad.” What I really want to do is tell my father I’m sorry for what I said that night, one week after Kyle’s murder, when I came home drunk from Ben Huber’s party. When my father saw that I’d been drinking, he started going off on me about how I’d turned my back on my family, on my church, and, worst of all, on God.

  I couldn’t take it anymore. “Turned my back on God?” I screamed. “You’re such a hypocrite! Just like all the other phonies at church. You think you’re better than everyone else because you’re a Christian? All you do is spread hate on your stupid radio show. You say, ‘Hate the sin, but love the sinner’? Well, let me ask you something, Dad. How are you supposed to love a gay person when you’ve never even known one? You pass judgment on people, condemn them for who they are. You could have done the right thing, stood up to that caller, but you didn’t. The truth is, you’re the one responsible for Kyle Lester’s murder. That’s right, you! The Bible Answer Guy.”

  He raised a hand like he was going to hit me, and honestly, I wouldn’t have blamed him if he had. It was a rotten thing to say. Besides, who was I to talk? Sure, I knew some gay kids at school, but it wasn’t like I was friends with any of them. Did I even want to be?

  My father’s hand fell to his side. He started to cry. I stood there, stunned. My father’s not an emotional person, and I’d never seen him cry before. But there was no way to make this right, so I walked away, slammed my bedroom door behind me. For once, he was the person being judged.

  To my surprise, in the morning, my father skipped the lecture, reached out, and gave me a hug. I had a wicked hangover—my head was splitting, and my stomach churning—but I managed to hug him back. “What’s past is past,” he said. “Let’s move on.”

  But I don’t know. Words like mine are not easily forgiven.

  Or forgotten.

  {three}

  CARSON AND I set up on the corner of Twenty-third and Guadalupe and begin our Austin debut with a little Pearl Jam. After that, it’s Smashing Pumpkins, and soon we’re rocking out on Jet’s “Are You Gonna Be My Girl.” Our plan was to start out with a few cover songs to draw people in, and it’s working. A small crowd of UT students is gathered around, seriously digging our music, and dollar bills are piling up in our guitar cases. One guy throws in a five. I’m beginning to wonder if Carson and I can make a living doing this.

  Across Guadalupe, on the sidewalk of the UT campus, the Christian youth group zealots are handing out cartoon tracts entitled Heaven or Hell: Which Will You Choose? I’ve seen the tracts before. St. Peter is welcoming this repentant drug addict into the pearly gates, but there’s good old Lucifer, complete with horns and pointy tail, tossing some poor sucker—a college professor holding a book by Friedrich Nietzsche with the slogan “God Is Dead”—into the lake of fire. A pretty obvious scare tactic, if you ask me.

  Anyway, when we first arrived, to keep up appearances and stay out of trouble, I checked in with Marty, our twenty-three-year-old youth pastor, who thinks he’s all hip and cool, all down with the teen scene, which he’s not. Then I stuffed some tracts into my pocket and told him I’d be performing music across the street with Carson. I guess he assumed we’d be playing upbeat Christian songs, but what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him, right? I’m so pumped up right now from doing Jet’s song that I want to scream, Hell! I choose hell, you idiots! but then I see Carson pointing across the street. “Whoa, look at that!”

  A skater dude, about our age, is carrying a big wooden ramp over his head. Marty helps him set the ramp in the street and begins placing orange cones around it to ward off cars. Next the skater picks up his board and starts doing all these amazing stunts. Meanwhile our fans are crossing Guadalupe to watch, and the youth group is having a field day handing out their tracts.

  “Who is that guy?” I say, mostly to myself. “I’ve never seen him at church before.”

  “Hmmm, I don’t know,” Carson says. “But isn’t that Aubrey?”

  “Huh?�
� Aubrey has always been anti-street evangelism. Like me, she believes that if a person wants to find God, God will find him or her. But there she is, looking especially beautiful, leaning against the UT campus wall and watching the skater. Standing next to her is a girl I don’t recognize.

  Carson’s mouth hangs open. “Wait a minute, who’s the girl with Aubrey?” His eyes are glazing over, and he’s got that hungry, horny wolf look. “Noah, come on, grab your stuff. Let’s go over there and say hi.”

  One thing about Carson is that he has no idea when a girl is completely out of his league. Which is most of the time, including right now. The girl standing next to Aubrey is hot. “I don’t know, man. I don’t think it’s a good idea—”

  But before I can object any further, Carson’s packing up our guitar cases and pulling me across the street. “Hey, Aubrey!” he shouts.

  When Aubrey sees me, she frowns and folds her arms across her chest. I wonder if she’s seen the article in the paper about the murder suspect. I know she’d be interested. Suddenly I’m desperate to talk to her about it. Aubrey was always the one I could confide in, but not anymore. Carson sets down the cases, smiles at the new girl, and holds out one hand. “Hi, I’m Carson, and this is Noah. Don’t believe anything Aubrey’s told you about us.”

  The girl laughs and shakes his hand. Carson holds on to it longer than he needs to. “All right,” she says. “I won’t. I’m Kat. I just moved here from Dallas. Are you guys with King of Glory?”

  King of Glory Christian Center is the name of our church. Well, my parents’ church. Except for a grueling hour on Sunday mornings, I try to avoid the place as much as possible. Which is difficult, since Aubrey’s father is the founding pastor. Carson’s been there a couple of times with me, mostly to piss off his dad, but he’s certainly no regular. Too hard-core for a guy who’s been told all his life that religion is the opium of the masses. “Oh, yeah,” he says. “Yeah, we go there.”

  Aubrey rolls her eyes. “What are you guys doing here, anyway?”

  “What do you mean?” Carson says, looking all offended. “We’re here to spread the Word.”

  “Spread the Word?” I say. I expect Carson to break into his highly entertaining impersonation of a televangelist, but he doesn’t.

  “Yes.” He shoots me a warning look and turns to Kat. “Noah and I were just playing some gospel music across the street, and now”—he digs into his pocket and pulls out a tract—“we’re going to witness to the lost.”

  Kat seems to think Carson is incredibly funny. She’s also buying his story. “Great, that’s what we were about to do,” she says.

  I raise an eyebrow at Aubrey. She looks away. I inch closer to her and whisper, “Did you see the article in the paper? About the murder? They caught the guy, the one who killed Kyle Lester.”

  She looks at me, stunned. “Wow, that’s great. I’m glad they finally got him.” For the moment, she doesn’t seem angry with me anymore. It’s almost like we’re back to being friends. She’s about to say something else, but now the skater dude comes flying toward us.

  “Hey, girls, what’s up?” He’s wearing a T-shirt that says Got Jesus? In fact, he kind of looks like Jesus: long hair, carpenter’s build, life-of-the-party kind of guy. He hops backward off his board and uses just enough upward torque to catch it with one hand. “Hey,” he says, “you’re Noah, right? Son of the famous Bible Answer Guy?”

  “Uh … yeah.” I don’t like the way this guy is standing so close to Aubrey. Like he owns her or something. Also, how does he know my name? Probably heard it from Marty, who no doubt clued him in that I was a pagan.

  “Cool,” he says. “I’m Brandon. I guess you already met my sister, Kat. Anyway, I’m a big fan of your father’s. I tune in to his show whenever I can.”

  “Groovy,” I say, although I doubt he catches my sarcasm. Actually, I’m barely listening to this guy. Mostly I’m watching the way his arm is brushing against Aubrey’s and how she doesn’t seem to mind it one bit.

  “Hey, I like your dreads,” he says to Carson. “I tried to grow those once, but, well, let’s just say it didn’t work out.”

  Carson beams and touches his nasty locks. “Thanks. The trick is the rubber bands.”

  “Brandon, this is Carson,” Kat says. “He goes to King of Glory.”

  “Awesome.” Brandon slips his hand into Aubrey’s. My stomach plummets. “So are you guys here to evangelize and hand out tracts too?” he says.

  “No,” I answer, staring hard at Aubrey.

  “Oh, I am,” Carson says. “But, well, I’m sort of new at it, so maybe”—he grins at Kat—“I could tag along with you?”

  “Sure,” she says.

  I glare at Carson; he ignores me.

  “We’ll do guy-girl teams,” Brandon says. “That’s how Marty likes it.” He looks at me. “You, uh, sure you don’t want to join us, Noah? We could use your expertise.”

  Expertise? Is this guy kidding? “Yeah, I’m sure. Actually, I was planning to wander around, check out the new age shops, buy some tarot cards, score a gram or two.”

  “Oh, okay,” Brandon says, laughing. “I guess we’ll hook up with you later.”

  God, this guy is such an idiot. “Yeah, later.” I pick up both guitar cases and whisper to Carson, “See you around, Judas.”

  {four}

  NOW THAT Carson’s been born again, I guess I have to go solo. I walk several yards to the UT campus’s main entrance, take out my guitar, strap on my funky harmonica headgear, and find a seat on the concrete steps. I’m in a pretty melancholy mood right now, so I decide to sing some haunting old folk tunes by Lead Belly.

  It’s kind of weird—most people think I don’t believe in God, but I do. I pray when I’m alone, and it’s like me and God are having a conversation, even though I do the talking. It was a couple of years ago, right around the time I discovered what my dad would call worldly pleasures—art, poetry, literature, and secular music—that I realized how much I was missing. I figured out that I don’t need a church or a sermon or a plan of salvation to feel close to God. All I need is my music.

  I begin with “Where Did You Sleep Last Night?” Mr. Flynn, our former AP music theory teacher, was the one who introduced us to Lead Belly. And even though Mr. Flynn ultimately hung me and Carson out to dry for the hash jelly experiment, I have to thank him for opening my mind to new genres. After I heard Lead Belly, something inside me changed and I began to think about my music in a totally different way.

  I sing the chorus a few times: “My girl, my girl, don’t lie to me. Tell me where did you sleep last night?” Then I close my eyes and play the melody on the harp. The notes are all minors and it almost sounds like my harmonica is crying.

  “Man, someone must have seriously broken your heart.”

  I open my eyes and see this tall, wiry guy—about my age, maybe a little older—standing on the steps right in front of me. He’s got pale blue eyes, and he’s watching me intently. His hair’s pale too—blond and long, reaching to his shoulders. There’s something familiar about him, but I can’t place him. “No, don’t stop,” he says. “Keep playing. It just sounds so sad, you know?”

  “Okay.” I shrug and continue. “In the pines, in the pines, where the sun don’t ever shine, I would shiver the whole night through …” This time I keep my eyes open. I sing the chorus a few more times, and when I finish, he smiles. He’s good-looking in that grungy, bohemian kind of way. No doubt he’s had better luck with girls than I have.

  “Hey, is it all right if I sit down?” he asks.

  “Yeah, go ahead.”

  He pulls a small leather notebook and a pen from his back pocket, takes a seat beside me, and begins to write.

  “Um, what are you doing?” I ask.

  “Oh, I’m jotting down those lyrics, if that’s okay. I’ve never heard that song before. It’s great.”

  “Thanks. It’s an old slave song, by a guy named Lead Belly.”

  He looks up. “Lead Belly?
”

  “Yeah. He was this real tough dude who supposedly had an iron gut for liquor. He played a twelve-string and sang gospel and blues. His music’s amazing.”

  The guy nods. “Cool. I’ll remember that. Thanks.” He finishes writing, closes the book, and looks at me. “Anyway, was I right? Did someone just break your heart?”

  I nod. “Yeah. Last night my girlfriend, well, ex-girlfriend, I guess—it’s complicated—anyway, her name’s Aubrey; she told me she didn’t want to see me anymore.”

  “Rough.”

  “Yeah, she’s over there with a skater named Brandon. Do you see him? The guy who looks like Jesus? They’re witnessing to the lost souls on the Drag.”

  He peers across the street and smiles wryly. “Lost souls, huh? You mean like me?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Like you and me.”

  He lifts his chin. “See Doomsday over there?”

  Across the street, standing on the steps of the Methodist church, is the old, bearded homeless man, a street evangelist who’s been a fixture on the Drag for as long as I can remember. Today he’s wearing a sign that reads ARMAGEDDON IS NOW! “Yeah, I see him here all the time,” I say. “Is that his name? Doomsday?”

  “Yep. He’s a friend of mine.”

  “Really?”

  “Don’t be shocked. Doomsday’s an interesting guy once you get to know him. But when he’s all riled up, he likes to preach at me, tell me how the end is near and how I need to get right with God. I always tell him the same thing: I am right with God. And I’m not afraid of dying.”

  Personally, I am afraid of dying, but I decide to keep it to myself. This whole conversation is pretty strange. I’ve known this guy for, what, five minutes and we’ve already discussed my nonexistent love life, God, and death. I’m not really sure what to do at this point, so I hold out my hand. “Hey, I’m Noah.” We shake.