Stories Written on Lined Paper - 4. The Chapel Door Was Missing

February 2006

Noah pulled his scarf tight around his neck, the wind biting cold as it rushed into his face, and slowly walked up to the end of the cul-de-sac. There it stood, sandwiched between two rows of terraced houses, the Chapel.

He stopped on the pavement in front of it and just stared at the building, trying to ignore the cold that was seeping through his clothes. Hanging off its wall was a battered For Sale sign. The Chapel was not just closed, but was falling into decay. The once great oak front door was missing, leaving a dark gap in the wall, boarded up from the inside with mis-shaped planks of wood. The building’s red bricks were worn down to a dirty brown; in many places, the mortar was grey and crumbling away. Not one of the windows was left unbroken, the frames and remaining glass turned black with dirt. Slates had fallen off the roof, in a haphazard pattern, leaving it exposed to the elements. The building was abandoned and pathetic, slowly rotting away.

He stood there for a long moment. That building and all it had stood for had been so dominant during his formative years, especially during his teens. Now, it was just an empty shell. He didn’t know what he felt- the emotions filling his mind were not just strong, but they were very strong. There was no singular simple emotion, but so many of them shouting for his attention.

While growing up, in this East Coast town, the Chapel and its firebrand version of Christianity had been almost the mainstay of his family’s life. His father, the local butcher, had taken them all there twice every Sunday, plus all the weekly bible studies and social events there filling up the rest of the week. There, he had heard Pastor Williams, a short, round man, preach hellfire and damnation every Sunday. The worst anyone could be, in Pastor Williams’ eyes, was a “pervert” – always something to do with sex.

Growing up, Noah had simply accepted and believed it all because he knew nothing else, knew of no other way. His family, everyone around him, believed it and he had no other influences. As he grew into his teens, a realisation about his own sexuality also began to grow but, in fear, he had ignored it and buried those feelings deep within him. He didn’t want to become one of Pastor Williams’ “perverts”.

At eighteen he had met Leo when Leo joined the Chapel’s Young Peoples’ Fellowship. A mutual love of music had drawn them into a new friendship. Noah had never had a close friend before. At school, he’d always been treated as an outcast for being so religious and openly “Christian” as he was told to do at Chapel. At Chapel, there were other boys his own age, but everyone socially in families. And the families his family socialised with had no sons - one had two daughters and the other had no children at all, though that was a silent shame in itself. Leo was the first friend he’d made in his own right and Leo’s friendship had opened his eyes to how lonely he had been. He’d just accepted it as his normal mode, to be on his own, but Leo’s friendship had shown him how wrong he was. He came alive in Leo’s company: someone he could talk with without fearing he would say the wrong thing, someone he could share things with, someone to be happy with, someone who’s company he enjoyed and would seek out. Leo was his first real friend.

But not even to himself did Noah admit how deep his feelings for Leo ran. As the weeks turned into months, they seemed to spend more and more time together, mainly listening to music together in each other’s bedrooms. There was little else for them to do together there in that town, outside of the Chapel or the few pubs in the town’s centre. Things might have remained like that except for that Tuesday afternoon.

It was his day off from working in his father’s butcher shop, and that afternoon Leo and he had his parents’ house to themselves. They had been sat together on his bed, listening to Noah’s latest CD. Their thighs had brushed together. First by accident, a casual touch that lasted only a few seconds before they pulled themselves away. Then their thighs had touched again, but this time neither of them had pulled away, their thighs pressing together. It felt warm and comfortable sitting there, and Noah didn’t want to move. He didn’t want the warm and exciting pleasure to end. During a slow track they had looked at each other, a look heavy with meanings Noah was only half able to read. Then Leo bent forward and they were kissing, awkward and nervous but kissing. Then, even more suddenly, they were making haphazard love, their jeans down around their ankles, there on Noah’s bed. Their hands were pulling down each other’s underwear and reaching inside. Noah was surprised and delighted to find Leo’s cock as erect as his own. Leo was enjoying this just as much as he was. Their love-making was no more than mutual masturbation and deep kisses, though at least Noah knew how to masturbate himself (though always in secret, his bedroom door firmly closed, and always careful to clean up every trace of his activity afterwards) and had quickly found that the hand-strokes that had given him pleasure also gave Leo the same sexual pleasure. And Leo’s hand on his erect cock felt so different and so thrilling, so different from his own hurried strokes late at night.

Afterwards, they just lay there, their arms tightly holding onto each other, their underwear and jeans still bunched up around their ankles, their semen sticky groins pressed together. Noah tried to tell his mind that this wasn’t the “perversion” Pastor Williams was so obsessed with. This had been love-making. He loved Leo, he knew that now. So what they had done was love-making and not sin he told himself in that moment, though not a hundred percent certain of his own argument.

Soon, he and Leo were making love at every chance they got, usually in each other’s bedrooms when they were certain of their privacy, but occasionally out on a lonely spot along the coastline. Their relationship was very passionate, with hindsight maybe naively so, but they were two eighteen year old boys in love, and when alone they could not keep their hands off each other. Apart, all he could think about was Leo and when he’d next see him. He pushed down any thoughts that what he and Leo were doing was a sin, a perversion in the eyes of Pastor Williams and the Chapel. With Leo he was happier than he ever remembered. They had no plans beyond when they would next see each other. Then their little world fell apart.

They were just kissing, sat on Noah’s bed (no chance of sex because his parents were home), when his father walked in on them. They had sprung apart but too late, his father had seen all.

Suddenly his father was screaming at them as Leo fled from the house, and then his father was hitting him. Hard and sharp blows rained down on his head, and Noah had numbly accepted it, curling up into a ball as his hands automatically went to protect his head.

The next day his father marched him around to see Pastor Williams. Shut-away in Pastor Williams’ office. he found himself on the receiving end of a tirade of hate from the pastor, words that both repulsed and frightened him. In Pastor Williams’ eyes, he was condemned to hell, to a lonely life of promiscuity, sexual disease, alcoholism, lack of any career or home life and then an early grave. Pastor William’s words had frightened him, terrified him. He knew nothing of his sexuality beyond that he loved Leo and loved the sex they had together. The picture of homosexual life that Pastor Williams painted that day had terrified him: he didn’t want that life - he wanted to be safe and normal. In tears, he’d agreed with Pastor Williams and begged for the man’s forgiveness, for God’s forgiveness.

The following Sunday, at The Chapel’s morning service, his father and Pastor Williams had pulled him up in front of the whole congregation and there proceeded to “cast out the daemons of homosexuality” out of him. All he felt, as their long prayers went on and on and on, was hurt and anger, and a pain in the back of his neck from the weight of all those people’s hands pressing down on his head. He certainly didn’t feel any profound change, anything turning him away from being gay to being straight. (When he got home that Sunday afternoon, hiding away in his bedroom, his cock still became erect when he remembered how he and Leo had made love).

He never saw Leo again. He heard that Leo had joined the town’s Church of Scotland church and was engaged to a girl, but there was no one with whom to share his dejection with. He had never had a friend before and now he was back to being on his own. In their East Coast town there was no one there to advise him and guide him about being gay, no one he knew of.

The next six months were a nightmare. At the Chapel, no one spoke to him except to remind him that he’d been “saved” from his sins. He seemed to be an outcast there now, as well. His father virtually kept him under house arrest, refusing to let him go anywhere accept to work or the Chapel. It was the loneliest time of his life. They had told him that homosexuality was a lonely and miserable life, but all he found was loneliness and unhappiness from the Chapel: it was the Chapel and Christianity that were destroying his life. With Leo, though it had been secretive, he had been happy and nothing they did was harmful. Now, all that happiness had been snatched away from him. Amongst all that unhappiness and misery, the last traces of his belief in God had died away.

When the offer of a job in Edinburgh came, he had jumped at it. He had secretly applied for it, using his school as a reference so as not to inform his father what he’d done, but had not expected to get it. When the letter offering him the job had arrived, he felt that suddenly something good was finally happening to him. His father forbade him from going, claiming Edinburgh was a pit of vice and sin and would drag him back to the “homosexual life”. Noah just ignored him and took the job. Part of him actually hoped his father’s prediction would come true - didn’t he deserve a bit of homosexuality back in his life? Only his mother, tearful but silent, saw him off at the station, when he left that windy Saturday morning. She had hugged him and tearfully begged him not to go Edinburgh. He’d felt a stab of guilt as he pulled himself away from her and climbed onto his train. The guilt had soon evaporated when he settled back into his seat as the train had out of the town. He was finally escaping that hellhole of a place, finally escaping to a new and gay life.

Now, ten years later, he was back here for the first time. He was here at his mother’s request. Four months ago, his father had had a massive stroke. Now, he was still barely recovered. He could speak mumbled and slurred words, but he still couldn’t dress or feed himself. All he could really do was sit in a chair for hours on end, staring off into the middle distance. This weekend, his father was being moved from the hospital and into a nursing home. This was his first contact with his parents since he left home at eighteen, and it was James who had encouraged him to come back.

He carried on staring at the derelict chapel. The building was empty and neglected. It had been such a symbol of the homophobia and oppression to him growing up. People there had predicted that his life would only he depraved and worthless because of his sexuality. His life, over the last ten years, had been anything but that: he had a demanding job that he enjoyed and had been with his lover, James, for fives years now. They had a home together that he loved and a wide circle of friends, but most of all, he had James. He loved James and James loved him back. James always had his back, always supported him. Most importantly, James knew him better than any other person, certainly better than his parents had ever done. He had a good and happy life now, and he wouldn’t change it for anything, certainly not to return to a cold and angry Christianity.

During the same ten years, the Chapel had fallen into disuse: the congregation had gone; Pastor Williams had disappeared unnoticed; and the building was falling into pieces. He knew he did not want to feel smug, but there was a very pleasing satisfaction in the comparison.

Again, he pulled his scarf close around his neck, turned around and walked away from the derelict Chapel. He needed to get back to his mother’s home so he could call James. He hadn’t spoken to James all day and he missed the sound of James’s voice.