Before I could encourage her to continue, another hand shot up.
“Yes, Bubba.” Donnie pointed again.
A huge football-player-looking boy with a shaved head looked at me with a huge grin on his face. “Do you wear dresses?”
I laughed. “No, Bubba, I don’t. Only pants. I don’t even wear shorts. No tan.” He and his friends grinned at each other. Obviously, he had been dared to ask. “Bubba, do you mind if I ask you a question?”
He stopped smiling and his eyes grew wary. “No.”
“Is your real name Bubba?”
He relaxed and shook his head. “No. It’s Randall.”
I smiled and gestured to Donnie. “We went to school with a guy named Bubba. He was about as big as you are. His name was Alvin.”
The next hand belonged to Darwin. “Do our parents know you’re going to be teaching us?” I felt bad for the kid. I was sure he was about to come unglued at the seams. His voice trembled with nervousness. His question was obviously shared by the rest of the group, as everyone looked at me in anticipation.
“No, Darwin, they don’t.” Eyes got wider. “However, Pastor Bron asked me to join Donnie in leading the group, and Pastor Thomas… has been informed as well.”
“What if they find out?” He looked on the verge of tears.
“Darwin, it is okay if they do. I will never ask any of you to keep anything we talk about, either in here or on our own time, a secret. And if any of your parents have questions, I am more than happy to meet with them as well.”
My answer didn’t seem to make him feel any better. In fact, I was fairly sure he was going to start crying if he didn’t get out of the room quickly. It seemed Donnie had the same impression, as he broke in. “Let’s go ahead and dismiss. Feel free to stay and play games and eat snacks. Brooke will be here with us, so if you have more questions or just want to say hi, please do.”
Sure enough, as the rest of the room started to disperse, I saw Darwin duck quickly into the restroom.
Otherthan simply giving me a nervous smile, most of the kids didn’t approach me, but there were only a few who seemed to be intentionally shunning my presence. The only ones who came up to me were a few girls. They werevery welcoming and genuinely cordial. No one asked me any questions. I began to get nervous after my talk was over. I felt like I was the center of attention in a room full of people who would prefer I leave so they could talk about me.
As Bubba walked by, he punched me playfully on the shoulder, which rather hurt, actually. I did a good job of not showing it. “Good talk, bud.”
“Thanks, Bubba.” It had been so long since I had a kid speak to me so informally that I almost corrected him. I managed to remember I was now in a church, not in a residential treatment facility. He was gone before I could say anything else to him. His punch, however painful it might have been, helped me feel a little bit better.
I saw Donnie playing pool with a couple of the older boys, so I followed his lead and went over to the Ms. Pac-Man machine and asked to play the winner. It was somewhat awkward, but every time I ran into a ghost, I took on so that soon we were laughing together.
By the time the kids had left and Donnie and I were cleaning up, I was feeling better about the entire situation. It was going to be okay. The kids had responded well overall, and it would only be a matter of weeks before I wasn’t really thought of as the new gay youth pastor. I would just be Brooke, who used to work with jail kids and squeals when he plays Ms. Pac-Man.
“I’m pretty sure when I took the garbage out to the trash heap that I saw Darwin lurking around your car.” Donnie wiped his hands on a paper towel. “Probably wants to talk to you alone. Looks like Mandy’s right.”
“Mandy is definitely right. That poor boy is one bucketful of glitter.”
Donnie laughed loudly and shook his head at me. “You’re horrible.”
I grinned at him. “I know.” I looked at him more seriously. “Would you mind staying here until he leaves? Maybe glance out the window from time to time? That way you can be a witness.”
“Paranoid much?”
“We are alone in the country at night. I’ve learned the hard way that you can’t be too careful.”
“Sure, sure. I can do that. Darwin would never accuse you of anything.”
“Probably not. But Mom would.”
Donnie rolled his eyes. “Let’s not think about her right now. The night was too good.”
“You think?”
He looked at me in surprise. “Yeah, don’t you? There was all sorts of stuff that could have gone wrong tonight. I thought it was really smooth.”
