Chapter Six
Jimmy assumed his duties the very next day, and within a month Darryl and William planned a much needed vacation. They were going to England for a month to visit William's family.
Roger and Jimmy fell into a happy routine. Every Sunday after church, they met at their favorite restaurant for lunch. It never failed that several of Jimmy's flock came over to say hello. The restaurant was in the heart of the gay section of town and was gay owned and operated. Never in his old life had any of Jimmy's congregation ever greeted him outside of the church. He delighted in these greetings and he could feel Robbie embracing him.
Jimmy was happy and content. Everything he had missed in his life was finally his; love, acceptance, friends, and a great sex life. Every night before going to bed, he and Roger recited a prayer that they had jointly written extolling God for the multitude of gifts He had given them. Every night Robbie joined them in prayer.
One Friday evening just as they were cleaning up after dinner, the phone rang. Jimmy answered.
"Pastor Roger, please," a familiar voice requested. Jimmy searched his memory bank, but could not place the voice.
"It's for you," he told Roger and handed him the phone.
"Hello," Roger said. "Can I help you?"
The voice on the other end of the phone identified himself only as Matthew. He said that he attended Roger's church, and Roger strained to remember him.
"I spoke to your friend, the other gay pastor, a few weeks ago, but I really need to talk to you, Roger. I'm so confused and I need your guidance."
"Of course," Roger said. "Can you meet me at the church tomorrow morning, say about 10 AM?"
"Yes, that will be wonderful. Thank you so much. I'll be there."
After he hung up, Roger said to Jimmy, "The young man said that his name is Matthew and he spoke to you a few weeks ago." The bell went off in Jimmy's head.
"Of course, he's the young man with the sexual orientation problem. I asked him to let us know how it played out, but this doesn't sound good."
"I never had a problem with my sexual orientation, so you're the one better able to advise him than I. Stay close to your cell phone tomorrow in case I need you," Roger requested.
"Will do!" Jimmy promised, and he kissed Roger softly on the lips.
That night as they prepared for bed, and before making love, they offered their private prayer to God. This time they added a little wish for Matthew's well being.
At precisely 10 AM the next morning there was a knock on Roger's door. Matthew did not look familiar to him at all. Roger knew that there were always people at the service who ran out quickly, just as it was concluding. They never waited to shake hands with the minister. He could not fathom why they needed to maintain such anonymity.
The two men shook hands and Roger beckoned him to a chair facing his desk. As soon as Matthew was seated, Roger smiled at him as if to say, "You can begin now," but Matthew remained silent so Roger said, "Pastor Winningham filled me in on your conversation with him. Are you still hanging out with your friend?"
"Yes." Matthew grew silent again.
"And?" Roger asked.
"He tells me he loves me and wants to have sex with me."
"How do you feel about him?"
"I'm confused. I think about him all the time, but I don't think I could have sex with him."
"Then you must be straight," Roger averred.
"I don't know. I had an opportunity to have sex with my sister's girlfriend the other night, and I ran away. I didn't think I could get aroused, and she's really beautiful."
"Gee Matt, it sounds to me like you are a virgin, and probably need a sex therapist, not me."
"I know, and I intend to go if necessary, but I wanted to ask you a few questions first."
"I'll try to answer them as honestly as I can," Roger said reassuringly. Silently he asked Robbie to show up and guide him.
"Did you ever have doubts about your sexuality?" Matthew asked.
"No."
"Did you ever have fears about sleeping with a male?"
"Of course, but it didn't stop me. I actively sought out men to sleep with. I went to the bars. Finally I met a nice guy and lost my virginity."
"Did you ever want to sleep with a woman?"
"Not really. I admit to being curious, but I have never done it. Look, my partner had all kinds of confusion with his sexual orientation, but when we met, he couldn't wait to jump into bed with me. He was confused and scared, but he wanted to do it, and he did. Maybe you just don't have strong enough feelings for your friend."
"Maybe that's it."
"Have you ever met a man or a woman that you did desire to have sex with?" Roger asked the question this time.
"Oh yes."
"Was it a man or a woman?"
"A man!"
"There you go," Roger said. "You must be gay. Was the man gay? Did you ever tell him how you felt?"
"He was gay and I never told him."
"Maybe you should tell him."
"He has a partner. I'm afraid, he would reject me."
"My partner and I are monogamous, but there are many gay couples who have an open relationship. Do you know if he's monogamous?"
"Yes, he is."
"How do you know?"
"He just told me."
Roger was stunned. In fact he was speechless. His mind was working overtime. If this could happen to him, imagine how many gay men could fall in love with Jimmy in the gay church. Roger was actually shaking, but he felt Robbie's presence reassuring him. You can handle this.
He went over to Matthew and put his arms around him. "Matthew," he said, "This sounds bad, but it's really good. We have learned so much."
"What have we learned?" Matthew asked. "That I love you?"
"No, that you think you love me. My boy, the important thing that we have learned is that you are gay. It's not uncommon to think you are in love with your doctor, your teacher, or your minister. It's puppy love, and you must move on. I'm not available, but your friend is, and he's in love with you. Give him a break. At your age you have strong sexual urges. Let your friend satisfy them. Once you have made love with him, you'll see how much you two care for each other."
"Are you advising me to have sex with my friend?" Matthew asked.
"Not at all. I am advising you to make love with him if you want to. You can have sex with anyone, but you only make love to a special someone."
"I'm sorry I embarrassed you," Matthew said.
"You didn't embarrass me, but I want you to stay in touch with me and let me know what happens. I also want you to greet me and shake my hand after services. Promise? Does your friend attend church with you?"
"No, he goes to the gay church and has been urging me to go there. I kept saying no because I needed to see you and I wasn't sure I was gay."
"I think it would be a good idea if you did go there," Roger said sincerely. "My feelings would not be hurt. It might be good for you not to see me for awhile and attending church together might bring you and your friend closer together."
"Do you know the minister there? Is he as wise and compassionate as you?"
"Yes, I know the pastor and the assistant pastor there, and they are both very wise and compassionate."
Matthew rose slowly from his chair, and Roger expected a handshake but the lad ran from Roger's office without saying another word.
When Matthew was gone, Roger slumped in his chair. He knew he couldn't do another stitch of work that day, and he was grateful that his sermon for tomorrow was written, edited and approved by Jimmy. They had taken to advising each other on their sermons.
He knew that Jimmy would still be in his office, but he rushed home and decided to make lunch for the two of them. He called Jimmy just to make sure that he was available for lunch. Jimmy answered and assured him that he would be home within the hour.
Roger's brain was working overtime. He was in turmoil. Then he remembered something. He called his college friend, Alex, who taught high school social studies. Alex's wife answered, and after a few words of greeting, she put Alex on.
Without any preliminaries, Roger asked, "How do you handle students who get a crush on you?"
"Are you nuts?" Alex asked. "I ignore it. The crush always passes."
"What if they come and tell you that they have a crush on you?"
"I tell them that this is inappropriate behavior, and I am going to report them to their parents and the principal."
"You're no help," Roger informed Alex.
"Why not?"
"One of my congregants has a crush on me. He told me so. Because of that, he can't pursue a relationship with his boyfriend. He's of legal age, and I can't report him to anyone."
"Have bad sex with him. He'll appreciate his boyfriend," Alex joked.
"That won't work either. He has never had sex with his boyfriend or anyone else so he can't compare."
"Then send him to a sex therapist," Alex advised.
"I've already recommended that to him."
"Then ask Jimmy for advice. Something like this should be right up his alley."
"You're right," Roger said. "And guess what? The boyfriend goes to Jimmy's church."
"OY!" Alex groaned and hung up.
When Jimmy got home, Roger did not hesitate to lay out the whole dilemma. All Jimmy could say is, "I wonder which of my guys it is?"
"That's not helpful," Roger said.
"I know. Let's discuss the problem over lunch. For what it's worth I've got a crush on you too." Jimmy gave Roger a crushing bear hug. They both heard Robbie laughing.
Stop laughing and help us out here, Roger thought, and he hoped Robbie got the message.
Chapter Seven
Several weeks went by and Roger did not hear from Matthew. He searched for his face among his congregation, but he never saw him. Christine, who managed the church office, kept the records of donations for income tax purposes. Roger enlisted her help and they found seven Matthews. Roger knew them all. He resigned himself to the realization that he would probably never hear from Matt again.
Then one afternoon there was a knock on Jimmy's office door. "Come in," he said automatically. A young man walked in. He smiled disarmingly at Jimmy.
"What can I do for you?" the pastor asked.
"I'm relatively new here," the man said. "I've been coming for the past few Sundays with my boyfriend. I used to go to St Benedict Episcopal, and someone just happened to mention to me the other day that you and Father Graham were partners."
"Yes we are. Do you know Roger?''
"Intimately. You stole him from me, you bastard." The deranged Matthew whipped out a pistol, aimed it directly at Jimmy's chest and fired point blank before Jimmy could react. Then he took the gun, placed it to his temple and shot himself.
Jimmy felt a strange vibration in his chest. He felt as if he was disintegrating. He was getting light headed, and was somehow floating in air. He looked down and could see Matthew lying in a pool of blood. Indistinctly he could see another person lying close by, but he couldn't tell who it was, or if he even knew the man.
He became aware that someone was calling his name. He looked up and there in front of him was Robbie. They grabbed each other and embraced. Robbie was crying. "It wasn't supposed to happen like this. You were supposed to have a long and happy life. I wasn't supposed to lose my heart twice."
"I know," Jimmy said. "You promised me years of happiness with Roger."
"Nothing like this was supposed to happen," Robbie wailed. They held each other tightly trying to comfort one another. Suddenly Jimmy was ripped from Robbie's arms and everything went black.
When Darryl heard gunshots coming from Jimmy's office, He ran toward the sounds without thinking that he might be in danger himself. He threw open Jimmy's door, stopped dead in his tracks and gasped. Trying to avoid all the blood, he ran to Jimmy's desk and called 911.
At the precise moment that Jimmy was shot, Roger was dictating a letter to Ellie. Suddenly he felt like he had been stabbed in his chest and he let out a shriek. He looked down fully expecting to see blood all over.
"What's the matter?" Ellie screamed.
"I don't know. I'm OK now, but I got this pain in my chest."
Heart attack, Ellie thought. She ran to her desk and got two aspirins. She made Roger swallow them over his objections. As he was downing the aspirins, he heard Robbie telling him to go to Jimmy.
He has rejected Robbie's heart, was all he could think. Without heed to Ellie he ran out to the parking lot, got his car, and headed for Jimmy's church. He drove recklessly, but he got there without incident. The area around the church was blocked off by a slew of police cars. He was unable to drive in to the church parking lot, but he saw an ambulance speeding away. Roger instinctively followed the ambulance to the hospital. They went to the very hospital where Jimmy had received his transplant.
At the emergency room entrance the paramedics unloaded a gurney and rushed into the ER. Roger parked and followed them in. He assumed it was Jimmy. He had never gone into the church to check. A team of hospital personnel were working on the man on the gurney. Roger could not get close. He tried to get the patient's name, but for the moment he was admitted as John Doe.
Roger wisely called the church and asked for Darryl. The switchboard did not want to put him through, but when he told them who he was, they connected his call.
A weeping hysterical Darryl was on the other end of the line. Between bitter sobs, Roger learned that a young man had entered Jimmy's office, shot Jimmy, and then shot himself. Jimmy was barely alive and was taken to the hospital. The police took the murderer away in a body bag, and as of now Darryl didn't know who he was.
Roger went to the nurse's station in the ER. The nurses recognized him immediately. "Good morning Father Graham," one of them said. "Can I help you?"
"Yes, the man who they just brought in, the one who was shot, he's a fellow clergyman. He has no family at all. His church family is all he has. Can you get me any information? We're like brothers."
The compassionate nurse told Roger to have a seat and promised to find out what she could. "Thank you," Roger said and broke out crying.
"They just took him into the OR. I'll check on him for you," she said. Before she went into the OR, the nurse got Roger a cup of water.
It seemed forever, but it was only a few minutes when the nurse returned. "Your friend had a heart transplant here several months ago." Roger nodded. "He's very lucky," she continued. "The bullet missed the heart by a hairline, but his left lung was punctured. He's in the OR now. The doctors are trying to repair the lung. If he survives the operation it will be a few days before we'll know what his chances are. He was shot at very close range and he lost a lot of blood."
"Thank you," Roger said, as the tears flowed again. The staff asked him to please wait in the hospital lobby, because the ER tended to get pretty hectic at night and it was getting late.
He sat in the lobby waiting for the operation to be over and for some more news. He was praying hard when someone called his name. He looked up to see Peter. "I was just passing through the lobby to go home and I saw you. What's happened?"
Peter sat down next to Roger. His horror grew as he heard the story. "How come Ellie didn't call me?" He asked nobody in particular.
"God, I never called her back." Roger got on his phone and Ellie answered immediately.
"You had me worried sick," she complained. When Roger filled her in on the shooting, they both started to cry so hard that Peter took the phone.
"I'll stay with Roger," he told Ellie. Why don't you come down here as soon as you can? We shouldn't leave him alone."
The words weren't out of his mouth when Darryl and William showed up. They tried unsuccessfully to comfort Roger and finally they decided to leave, since there was nothing they could do here. They made Roger promise to call as soon as he knew something.
Ellie showed up about a half hour later. She and Peter never left Roger's side. He had no appetite, but they made him drink juice or coffee, whatever they could get down him.
Rabbi Joe was making his late afternoon rounds when he heard the news. He rushed down to the lobby and found Roger. He threw his arms around him and rocked him gently as Roger sobbed against his chest.
"Don't lose faith," he said. "We are all praying."
Shortly after Joe left, Peter went to find out what he could. He came back in a few minutes. "The operation just ended and they are taking Jimmy to ICU. The doctor will be out shortly to speak to us."
The doctor recognized Roger immediately as one of the hospital chaplain's. He also knew that Jimmy and Roger were life partners and he determined to treat Roger as a blood relative, and ignore hospital privacy policies which allowed only blood relatives to receive news about or to visit a patient in ICU.
"The good news is that he survived a very delicate and complicated surgery. It will be at least 48 hours before we'll know what his chances are. If he's a fighter, I believe he has a better than even chance to make it. Is he a fighter, Roger?"
"You bet he is," Roger said slightly relieved.
"There are some policemen in ICU. They want to question him as soon as he wakes up. They won't let anyone stay with him until they interview him, so why don't you go home. I'll leave orders to call you if necessary."
"Thanks doctor. I think I'll just hang out here."
"You can stay with me tonight," Peter said. You shouldn't be alone."
"Please everybody, I appreciate your concern, but I really would like to camp out in the hospital tonight. I promise to keep busy. I'll make my rounds in the morning."
Finally everyone gave into his wishes. Roger settled into the most comfortable chair he could find in the lobby. He called Darryl and brought him up to date. Before hanging up Darryl asked him to stay with him as well, but he declined.
Just before midnight, a young man came running into the lobby. He went to the information desk and the women at the desk pointed at Roger. The young man hurried over to Roger.
"Father Graham?" he asked.
"Yes. Do I know you?"
"No, but I think you know of me. My name is Ira Lawrence. I am, I was, Matthew's friend. I am so sorry for what happened. Had I been smarter, I might have prevented it."
Roger put his hand on the young man's shoulder. "How could you have prevented it?" he wanted to know.
"When I met Matt, I immediately fell in love with him. He was so shy that I found it appealing. I tried to get him to open up, but it was useless. We went out a lot and I tried to maneuver him into bed, but he kept insisting that he wasn't gay, which was pure bullshit. My gaydar never lies.
"One day he told me that he had a long talk with his minister and that now he thought he might be gay after all. He said that you advised him to go to the gay church with me. I actually hoped that now, he would go to bed with me, but he kept on resisting my pleas.
"Last Sunday after church a few of us were in the social hall having a cup of coffee. Matt mentioned that he used to go to St Benedict. One of the guys asked if he knew you. He said he did.
"The guy then asked if he knew that Pastor Jimmy and Father Roger were life partners. He never answered. He just leered at all of us and ran out of the hall. He was acting like a crazy man. I could see it, but I didn't think it would lead to anything as violent as this. I also attributed his virginity and his inward personality to his being shy, but now I can see how sick he was. God, Father, I feel so guilty for not telling anyone. I am so sorry."
Ira began to cry. Roger put his arms around him to console him. "Go home now, Ira," Roger said. "You could not have known what would happen or prevented it from happening. Don't let this ruin your life. I am making it an order. Go in peace and pray for your pastor's life."
Ira kissed Roger on the lips and ran from the lobby. Roger fell asleep, and slept for three hours from sheer exhaustion. In the morning, his position allowed him to wander freely through the hospital. He found an empty room, where he showered, but he had to put on the same clothes. He knew he would have to go home for a brief while to change, but he wasn't going to leave until Jimmy woke up. He went to the cardiac ward where Peter worked and found his friend.
"Can you tell me anything? Is there any news?" Roger asked.
"Yes, I was looking for you. Jimmy woke up about an hour ago. The cops are questioning him now and then he is being transferred to the surgical floor. Unfortunately, I won't be his nurse, but I promise to look in on him."
"How is his condition?" Roger asked.
"Serious, but stable. He's not out of danger, but they are watching him very closely." That didn't sound too bad, and Roger allowed himself to breathe.
"Can I hang out in the lobby until they bring him to his bed?"
"You can, but he won't be there for two or three hours. Why don't you go home, freshen up, and by the time you get back, he might be there."
That made sense to Roger, and he told Peter he would see him later. On the way home, he stopped at his church. He knelt before the altar and prayed like he had never prayed before. He felt something at his side and he knew that it was Robbie, who was praying also.