Songs of the Heart - 1. Chapter 1 - Who Says You Can't Go Home

Isn't it funny how we think we leave the past in the past until it comes up and kicks you in the ass to remind you it's there? Never in my life did I ever think I would go home again, and now I was expected to return to one place I never wanted to see again Heartsville, Texas. Life in small towns is never easy, especially when your father is the lead pastor at a small but old thinking church. You the type, “burn the gays! Destroy the books that corrupt the children!” My father's church makes those west baptist loonies look sane. What is worse, is the dark side that remains hidden within his church. It still amazes me to this day about how he can get officials to look the opposite way with a little bit of cash in the right hands. One thing for sure, this trip will not have any warm and fuzzy family moments.

Why go back to a town I obviously hate? Well, my band, JBM is just about to break through and be America's next hot band, and we were hired to headline a music festival that the town has hosted every year for the last thirty years. Except for this year the festival was to be a benefit set of concerts to help raise money for a variety of charities throughout town. I knew of the family whose family ran the concert, and I knew my father had no way to get his hands on the money. Its the only reason I signed off on this idea, well that and to maybe set right a mistake from my past.

Before I set the record straight on that mistake, let me tell you a little about Heartsville. Cute name, everyone knows everyone's business, and worse thing happening is a teenager getting drunk and breaking curfew. Well t east to most people, but I found out that small town people really don't want to know what's going on behind other peoples door unless it benefits them. Of course, I think many people would expect a town of 1700 people to be just like that. It really wasn't a bad town to grow up in, well for most people it wasn't. Unfortunately for me, when my father became a pastor for one of the churches in town his personality completely changed. Where once was a kind and soft-hearted man. Now stood a cruel and vile man, who used his pulpit spout hate and fear of anything that wasn’t white and Christian. Thankfully most of the town didn’t attend his hate mongering, but enough did to make the town hard on people who were different.

I bet by now you are kind of curious about me, well there's not much to tell. My name is Brady Nathaniel Jordan, and I'm roughly six feet tall, blond hair blue eyed, muscled Texan cowboy. Girls and guys both go crazy over my tight abs and big biceps. I have always known I was gay, but to protect the boy I love I had to hide it. I am embarrassed to admit that all through school I was a bully, this was encouraged by my father, and knowing he had eyes everywhere I feared what would happen if I did not do as he pleased. I did the only thing I could do, I targeted the weakest person I could and the boy that I loved. His name is Nessay Rodriguez, and he is the mistake that I will fix. His name still haunts me to this day, I should have ran to him and his family. Instead, I stayed, and it cost me the love of a boy that to this day is the only one my heart ever wanted. I can remember when we first met, all those years ago.

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(Fall of 1992 Kindergarten)

"Hi, I'm Ness! What's your name?"

The first time I ever laid eyes on him, I felt it inside we were meant for each other. He was so cute as a kindergartner. Black hair, rimmed glasses, skinny and couple inches short than me. This look would be stuck on him for all the years we went to school together.

"Hi, my names Brady! Do you wanna be my friend?”

The next thing I knew I had a bundle of energy in my arms hugging me. He proceeded to grab my wrist and drag off towards his mom, babbling about his new friend. I wished we could've stayed like that, innocent and young. His mom was the type of parent that any kid within reach was her kid, whether related or not. Growing up she quickly became someone I loved and more of a parent than my own father. She let Ness finish his story about his new friend, before wrapping me in a big hug of her own. I have missed that since my own mother had passed giving birth to me. From that day on we were inseparable, closer to being brothers than a friend. If we would have been a little older, we may have realized that brothers wasn't the correct term for it either.

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(Summer of 1998)

"Brady do you make white stuff yet?"

We were between the ages of 11 and 12, that age where a boy's body starts to become a man. The question that started to change things between us. We were having one of our weekly sleepovers, camping out in Nessay's tree house. We had discovered each other's bodies, enjoying discovering things that we both enjoyed. It was also the first time my heart fluttered, a feeling that would hit me anytime I looked at my handsome friend.

This was also the age where my father became the lead minister for the church in town. Something I wasn't ready for, and something I don't think the town was ready for. My father went from a loving man to hate filled doom us all preacher. This was when my father started to voice his disapproval of Ness, about how much of a “faggot” he was, or “girlie” he looked with his long hair and slim body. No matter what he said I just blew it off as someone who was jealous. Though I was having my own issues with my conflicting feelings towards Nessay, and what my father said God wanted from me. We kept our activities just between us, sworn to blood oath of brothers. If someone had taken a snapshot of us then, they would probably thought we would be together forever! We should have been together forever, but then the night happened that would change our lives forever.

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(Fall of 2000)

I found myself in the basement of my father's church. This room had become something quite familiar to me, it was where all his “purifying” had been done to chase the devil out of our bodies. Honestly, it was a room few knew about, that let him abuse me and many other of the church's children. As in this case, I was being held by two of his favorite member's arms spread wide on my knees. My father was behind me, wielding a belt. A favorite tool of his to beat the devil out of his flock. I had been down there for a couple of days, fed and given just enough water to keep me going. He had taken great pleasure in beating me until I fell unconscious, just to wake me later and start again. This beating was brought on by one of his “Flock” seeing me and Ness kissing. I was never going to stop seeing my boy, and he could beat me all he wanted. It was his next words that would change our lives.

“Listen here faggot, you can go ahead be resistant to the lord's way. Understand though if you try my patience too much I will make you watch s I beat the faggotness out of that little SPIC!”

With that, he delivered one more blow and I collapsed to the floor. I don't know how he did it, but no one at the school missed me, except for one young man who knew something had changed.

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(Summer of 2002)

"I am in love with you Brady!"

The words that ended everything between us, my heart was broken when he said those words. Why did he have to say that shit and break our brotherhood apart? I had started to pull back from him, and it had reached a point where my heart could barely look at him without hurting. We had to be cautious and sneak out to meet each other. I struggled the most when I would run into his mom, she would always attempt to hug me and I would always avoid it. I was afraid I would break down and tell her what happened if I let her hug me, and I could not risk that happening.

My father had told us all about the sins, and wrongness of two men laying with each other. I had acted like a good pastor's kid, especially since the beatings had continued. I had to end things now if my father ever found out how much he meant to me, he was going to do something far worse then beat him with a belt. I had developed a nasty set of scars across my upper back, and somehow my father had worked it out I never would have to change in front of someone. Anytime Ness and I were alone, I always made sure to keep my shirt on. To this day only my band mates and my grandfather's lawyer have ever seen them. I gave one long look to the boy across from as a tear fell from my eye.

I did the only thing I could do, and shoved him away from me and stormed out of the tree house. Hearing him yelling my name, desperate for me to stop. Instead, I ran and then turned the next three years of his life into hell. I had to do it, I would save him from me and my demons.

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(Spring of 2006)

"Look at that little fag and his buddies!"

I couldn't help but chuckle one of my lackeys pointed out our favorite targets. We were seniors and about to graduate, getting ready to leave this dusty little town in our tracks and not look back. I had been planning this year out for the last four years, and I could not wait to escape. I had come to enjoy tormenting Nessay, it meant I would get a little bit of his attention and it gave me an excuse to get close to him. Isn’t there a saying about youth and stupidity, well I was the definition of it. I should have run sooner, or at least went to his mom. Instead, I stayed and did what I thought was best. Soon though I would be free, and I was going to show this boy now a young man my love and what is true to my heart.

We never did get in trouble for t any of the incidents. I still remember the day a couple of weeks later when we were informed Nessay was leaving the school and would not walk with us in the spring. Little did I know that would be the last time I would see Nessay before I would leave town. I did one afternoon try to visit Nessay and, talk to him but I was only met with a door opening then being slammed in my face by his mom. That was the only time I had ever seen them, and not sadness when she looked at me. I should of have tried harder, instead I gave up and hopped into my truck and never looked back. That is when my life changed, my phone began to ring with a number I did not know. My way out had become a lot easier, but harder at the same time.

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The call ended up being a lawyer of my grandfather's, he was a family member on my mother's side who I knew nothing about. My grandfather had passed and left his fortune to me. To inherit it I would need to graduate with a 4.0 gpa, then his several million dollars and a huge ranch would be mine. I had no plans for the ranch as I was never going to stay in Texas, that I leased out and let the people who knew how to run it do so.

First thing I did when I graduated is was by a plane ticket to New York, I needed to get away and find myself. What better place then somewhere where I was a nobody. The next thing I did was pay off the mortgage on the Rodriguez house. No debt meant my father couldn't reach them financially. I also sent a letter to Nessay's mom, and in it I told her everything. I also left a blank check for Nessay's college. It was the least I owed him. Maybe with time has forgiven me, forgiveness I will never deserve.

Now I was returning home, to a town that never wanted me but now needs me and my band. Little did I know the homecoming I would be receiving would be more interesting than I ever planned it to be, and more tragic and heartbreaking than I knew it could be.