Tools of the Devil Read online

  “Marlee, how does this help?”

  “I’m getting to that. See this far end of the curve? In statistics, we typically use a five percent rule to show that something is significantly different than the mean. Out here in this little tiny bit of the curve, way far away from the mean, would be your outliers or people that are way different than average. Lisa, you might be out here in terms of height, and we’d call you an outlier. Since gay people make up ten percent of the world—”

  “According to Kinsey studies,” Lisa said in response to Marcus’s confused look.

  “Since we make up ten percent,” Marlee continued, “that’s a lot closer to the mean than the alpha-level of five percent way out here. See? Statistically the top five percent are so far away from the middle that we can legitimately call them different, but the ten percent isn’t. We’re not different than the norm. Do you see?”

  Lisa put a finger up as she digested Marlee’s hurried statistics lesson. “Not enough to explain it.”

  “But I do,” Marcus said. “Amazingly, I do. We use a lot of statistics in our debates.”

  “Awesome.” Lisa high-fived Marcus and then Marlee. “Thanks, Marlee.” Lisa turned back to Marcus and said, “We’ve got this. I’ll do all the sexually immoral stuff—”

  Her friends burst out laughing.

  “Shut up, you guys, I didn’t mean it that way.” Lisa rolled her eyes, but then laughed in spite of herself when she replayed the words in her mind. “I’ll do the Revelation part and you do the math.”

  “Deal.”

  “Time,” Anne called from her spot behind the clock.

  “Phew,” Lisa said. “We figured that one out just in time.”

  “Podiums, please,” Jordan called.

  Lisa and Marcus high-fived each other as they officially stepped behind their podium. She went over the notes Marcus had written down and scribbled a few of her own. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Jordan stand up behind the cameras. This was it.

  She took a deep breath and rehearsed her opening line quietly.

  “Debaters ready?” Everyone nodded.

  “And action!”

  Lisa stood tall. “In Revelation 21:8 we are presented with the term ‘sexually immoral,’ but what exactly did the disciple John mean when he wrote that?” She looked down at the index cards carefully placed on the podium and found the words she needed. “Rape—”

  “Cut!” Jordan called out. He beckoned to some people who were hovering just outside the room. “Come in. Come in,” he said to them. To Lisa he said, “I’m afraid you’ll have to start over.”

  Lisa nodded. That was fine. She welcomed the few extra seconds to look over her notes. She looked up when she heard Sam gasp. Walking through the door was Freddie and his girlfriend Rebekah.

  “Is this the youth alliance for homosexuals?” Freddie asked.

  Lisa gripped the edges of the podium. This whole thing just got really real.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “I hereby command you: Be strong and courageous; Do not be frightened or dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.”— Joshua 1:9

  THE FACT THAT Freddie and Rebekah crashed the debate made Lisa more nervous than she already was. How could she and Marcus make their arguments in front of people who really hated them? Lisa figured that the members of the youth alliance outnumbered Freddie and Rebekah, so if the two pulled any shenanigans, they would be shut down and escorted off the premises easily. Unless they had guns or something. Then that would be a completely different story. Lisa tried not to let her mind go there.

  Despite their ratcheted up nerves, Lisa’s and Marcus’s rebuttal arguments went well. Even Marlee’s normal graph thing was well-received. By some miracle, Freddie and Rebekah were well behaved. There was no mud-slinging or Bible quoting or angry looks. In fact, they both seemed pretty calm, which was almost scarier. Why were they there? How did they find out about the youth alliance meeting?

  Although it was late, the lobby was bustling with college students and teachers coming and going. They moved to a far corner of the lobby and stood in an uncomfortable silence not knowing why Freddie asked to talk to them after the meeting.

  “I finally learned your name, Lisa,” Freddie said. “These guys wouldn’t tell me.” He gestured at Sam and Susie.

  “Why do you want to know my name?” Lisa took a step closer to Sam and reached for her hand. She needed to feel comforted. Marcus and Julie flanked Lisa as well. It was nice to know her friends were there for her. “And why are you here? Are you stalking us? Stalking me?”

  “No, no.” Freddie’s face turned red. “Nothing like that. I just wanted to thank you again for, uh...”

  “For preserving his dignity,” Rebekah said. “Everyone knows he had a seizure at the dance, but no one knew...” Rebekah had a loss for words.

  “Do you have the thing?” Freddie asked Rebekah.

  “Yeah.” She pulled Lisa’s silk wrap out of her purse and handed it to Lisa. “Thank you for its use.”

  Now Lisa understood. They wanted to say thank you for keeping the secret of his incontinence. No one, no matter who you were, would ever be able to live down wetting your pants in school, even if it was during a life-threatening seizure.

  “It’s been dry-cleaned and pressed,” Freddie said. “I wanted to make sure it wasn’t ruined.”

  “Thanks,” Lisa said, “but how did you know we’d be here tonight?”

  “That took a little detective work, but my social studies teacher showed your YouTube video in class on Monday, you know, the one about respect? It was awesome, by the way. I saw you in the video, and when it said it was created by the Rainbow Youth Alliance of Clarksonville, I looked up when your next meeting was, and voilà I found you.”

  “That’s kind of scary how easily you did that,” Sam said. “Returning her wrap—are you sure that’s the only reason you came here?”

  Freddie crossed his heart and put his right hand in the air. “Promise. Although...”

  “Although, what?” Sam exchanged a glance with Lisa.

  “I wanted to ask why you four were at my church on Sunday. I thought maybe you were going to protest the service or something. But you didn’t, so I’m really confused.”

  Lisa answered. “It’s hard to be a gay person and find a church that accepts you, to help you connect with God. My own church, the one I was baptized in and have gone to since I was born, told me I was a sinner. I’ve been going to different churches lately to find one that might be a better fit. We loved your church, as a matter of fact.”

  Sam, Marlee, and Susie agreed and chimed in that they liked the music and the energy.

  “But then we read in one of the brochures that your church does not condone same-sex relationships.” Lisa frowned.

  “Pentecostal churches tend to take the Bible literally,” Freddie said quietly. “Homosexuals are not viewed in a good light there.”

  “Dude,” Julie said, “you’ve gotta tone down the word ‘homosexual.’ It makes it sound so clinical. Just like when people call me ‘negro.’ It’s archaic and more than a little insulting.”

  “It is?” Freddie’s eyes grew wide as he exchanged a glance with Rebekah. “What do your people like to be called?”

  “Human,” Marcus answered first even though he was as straight as they come.

  “Exactly,” Lisa said. “Don’t separate us by our differences. Don’t make the fact that I’m going out with Sam into some big thing. You don’t have to get angry. We’re not hurting you. Should I point at you two and say, ‘Look at that heterosexual couple’?”

  “Breeders,” Susie said pointing an accusing finger at them. The tone in her voice let everyone know she was kidding and was just furthering the point.

  “I see what you’re saying,” Rebekah said. “The word ‘homosexual’ makes it sound like a label. Like a one size fits all thing.”

  “And it isn’t,” Freddie added. “Our church teaches that homo—, excus
e me, gay people were influenced by the devil and turned away from God.”

  “A lot of churches teach that,” Lisa said, “so that’s why it’s so hard for me to find a way to reach God without persecution. And you know what? God made me and God made you. He made all of us. Hey, Sam, can you look up a Psalm for me? It’s one of the last ones, in the 130s or 140s, I think. Look up the one about God forming us.”

  “Got it.” Sam opened the Bible she was carrying.

  “God made us in his own image,” Lisa continued. “So who are we to judge His work? Who are we to judge God? That sounds a little blasphemous, don’t you think?”

  “Here it is.” Sam held the Bible out to Lisa, her finger pointing to a particular passage.

  “Thanks, baby,” Lisa felt weird using her term of endearment for Sam in front of Freddie and Rebekah, but she wanted them to know that they were a couple just like them and shouldn’t be treated any differently. “Let me read it out loud, okay?”

  Everyone nodded, and Lisa cleared her throat. “Psalm 139, verses thirteen through sixteen. ‘For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed.’”

  “I like the line ‘Wonderful are your works,’” Freddie said.

  “Me, too,” Sam chimed in. “And I like the part about all the days being written for you. That kind of means that God knows what our lives would hold for us. He knows the challenges we have now and in the future. He knew we’d struggle with being different than the accepted norm.”

  “To make us strong, maybe?” Susie offered.

  “Maybe,” Lisa said.

  “That is definitely something to think about,” Freddie said. “Rebekah and I came here tonight to thank you again and give you your wrap back, but in return you’ve given us a lot to think about.”

  “Eh?” Lisa said.

  “I’ve always blindly accepted my church’s teaching about homo—” He groaned. “Sorry. I’m going to have to break myself of that habit. What I’m trying to say is that I need to figure out some things for myself and not accept everything that’s told to me.”

  Rebekah reached for his hand. “Me, too.”

  “And I know the perfect way to do that,” Freddie said, excitement growing in his voice.

  “How?” Lisa asked him.

  “By joining your side of the debate.”

  The air got sucked out of the lobby as everyone gasped.

  “For real?” Marcus said.

  “Yeah, why not? I want to understand all of this. I’ve met you guys, and you’re all really cool and nice and not demons at all.”

  They all laughed, but Lisa’s laugh was guarded. She knew that some people truly did think gay people were possessed by the devil.

  After lingering in the frigid parking lot of the college discussing their blown minds over Freddie’s announcement, it was time to go home. Lisa pulled Sam into a tight embrace and seared her with a kiss to last until Friday when they’d be able to see each other again.

  In the van on the way home, Marlee, Julie, and Marcus were talking a thousand miles an hour about Freddie and Rebekah and then about the debate and Alivia and Ronnie’s arguments. Lisa threw in the appropriate responses at the right times, but she was happy to be going home. She was wiped out and had a mountain of homework ahead of her.

  Lisa said her goodbyes to her friends and hurried to the front door. Her mother greeted her with a cup of hot chocolate.

  “Thanks, Mom.” Lisa hung her coat on the hook with her name on it and took the hot mug. “Winter’s here to stay, eh?”

  “Sure feels like it. Oh, good. You found your wrap.” Lisa’s mother pointed to the silk wrap that Lisa had placed on the bench by the front door.

  “Yeah, Sam brought it to me.” It was a little white lie, but she couldn’t tell her mother about Freddie and Rebekah. She hadn’t told them how Freddie and his friends had harassed them at the dance. She didn’t want her parents to worry.

  “You’d better put that away before it gets ruined.”

  “Good idea.”

  “When you’re done, come back out and sit at the table with me.” Lisa’s mother went over and sat at the kitchen table where a fresh plate of family-made sugar cookies lay on a Santa Claus plate.

  “What’s the occasion, Mom?” Lisa set her hot chocolate on the table and grabbed a cookie. Debating the Bible sure made her hungry, but these days everything made her hungry. Crap, was she in another growth spurt?

  “Papa’s getting the kids ready for bed, and I want to touch base with my daughter to find out how the debate’s going.”

  “Okay, I’ll be right out.” Lisa scurried to her room, threw the silk wrap in a drawer and kissed Bridget goodnight. “Where’s Papa? I thought he’d be helping you with your prayers.”

  “He’s making sure Lawrence Jr. brushes his teeth,” Bridget said. “Did you have fun at your bate?”

  “My bate?” Lisa’s mind whirled. “Ah, yes, I had fun at my debate. I saw Sam and Susie and Marlee and Julie—”

  “I like Julie. She’s brown.”

  Lisa laughed. She had to have Julie over more often so her brown skin wasn’t the only thing Bridget remembered. Hmm, Lisa thought, just like being gay was the only thing Freddie had known about her and her friends.

  Lisa gave Bridget another hug and headed out to the kitchen table. Her mother wanted details, but Lisa didn’t quite know where to start. “The debate’s going fine. Marcus is really good at teaching me about the delivery and stuff. Marlee even gave us some math to use.” Lisa’s mother’s eyebrows shot to the ceiling. “Mom, if I was close to understanding it, I’d tell you. I let Marcus explain that part.”

  “They quoted Leviticus, didn’t they?” Her mother sat back and took a sip of her coffee.

  “No, and that was surprising. Ronnie kept texting me about Leviticus this and Leviticus that, but then they didn’t use it, the stinkers. I think they’re holding it back so they can slam us with it later.” Lisa smiled when she heard Bridget in their room saying her prayers and her father trying to get her to talk in her “inside voice” because God could hear her no matter what, even if she whispered.

  “How about Sodom and Gomorrah? Did they spring that one?” her mother asked.

  “Not even that one. They used something from Revelation about sexual immorals not getting into heaven.”

  “Wow,” Lisa’s mother said, “this debate is truly getting serious.”

  Lisa nodded and took a slow sip of her hot chocolate. She filled her mother in on the details of debate, all except the parts about Freddie and Rebekah.

  “Eventually, you know they’ll use the story of Sodom in Genesis and that passage in Leviticus,” her mother said. “Somewhere in Matthew, Jesus tells the disciples to go into the world to heal the sick and spread the good news. He told them that any town that did not welcome them would suffer a worse fate than that of Sodom and Gomorrah.”

  “Just because they didn’t welcome the disciples of Jesus? Because they weren’t friendly?”

  “Yes, because they were not hospitable. They wouldn’t welcome strangers into their homes and help them out by providing food, water, and a place to sleep.”

  Lisa put her cup down. Forget the hot chocolate; she had to digest what her mother was saying. “So was that the issue God had with Sodom and Gomorrah? They were unfriendly and downright rude to strangers and travelers?”

  Her mother nodded. “That was definitely part of it. Try to find other Bible verses that mention Sodom. Look in Ezekiel in the Old Testament. The people of Sodom were unfriendly, unkind, unwelcoming, rude people, and God didn’t like that. You can play up that angle.”

  Lisa sat back
and sighed. “It’s all about playing angles, isn’t it? The interpretation? But I want to know what those passages really mean.”

  “I don’t think we’ll ever truly know. That’s why there are so many different churches and different beliefs.”

  “What about non-beliefs? Atheists? I think Marlee might be one.”

  “That kind of makes me sad for Marlee, but she’s a good and kind person. God knows where her heart is.”

  “I guess you’re right, so how do you know so much about that Matthew passage?”

  “When I was pregnant with you, my parents thought it would be a good idea if I joined a Bible study group. I was the only high school student. We studied the New Testament, the book of Matthew.”

  “Maybe that’s why Matthew’s my favorite.”

  “If you were a boy, I was going to name you Matthew.”

  “Really? Why did you name me Lisa?”

  “I had one friend in high school who stuck by me. Everybody else flew to the hills. It wasn’t as if they could catch it. My friend’s name was Lisa, so I named you for her.”

  “Mom, that’s sweet. How come I’ve never met her?”

  “Her father got a transfer right after you were born, and they moved overseas. Denmark, I think. We lost touch.” Her mother got a far off look in her eye, so Lisa didn’t intrude for a few moments.

  “Mom, thanks for letting me join the youth alliance and do this debate.”

  “You’re going to help a lot of people, Lisa.”

  “I hope so.” Lisa jumped up and gave her mother a hug.

  “You’re a kind and loving young woman, Lisa. That’s all that matters in God’s eyes.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  “For God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.”— 2 Timothy 1:7

  LISA SAT IN her usual seat by the windows in her Anatomy class. She’d stayed up a little later than usual so she could look over her notes, hoping the extra studying would pay off on the endocrine system quiz. This was definitely the one class in which she wanted to excel. In fact, she’d kind of gotten a reputation in the class as a brainiac. Okay, that had never happened before, but she’d take it. For one period a day, she got to feel the way Marlee probably felt every day of her life.