There's a guy I see some days on my commute. He walks stiffly, wears a scowl, and reads mean-spirited church newsletters. The one that caught my eye had a regular feature called "The Homosexual Agenda." When I saw that, I was reminded of the Anne Lamott quote, "You know man has made God in his image when it turns out that He hates all the same people that you do."
On Monday morning, the uptight guy was standing on the train platform reading a text called "Sodom and Gomorrah." It didn't look like a travel brochure.
The train was already full when it pulled up, and all the seats were taken. Those of us boarding at my station had to stand in the aisle. Uptight Guy nudged a sitting passenger and said "Hey Steve, how are you?" He smiled, the first time I'd seen him perform that trick. Steve greeted Uptight Guy. They made some quick, predictable small talk about vacations being too short. Then Steve returned to his work.
I was standing up next to Steve and had a clear view of his lap. He was writing in blue pen on a yellow legal tablet. It struck me as quaint, a very 20th century activity. I saw his leather valise and tasteful suit and made him for a lawyer. Because I'm nosy, and since I couldn't read my book while gripping the seat back for balance, I started to read over Steve's shoulder.
We came up from the riverbank and Suzie laughed because her pants were stained
How sweet, I thought. He's writing a letter. Maybe it's to his daughter at summer camp.
She pulled them off, and then her panties too.
Okay, maybe. If Suzie is two years old, then this is still fitting into my framework.
We decided to go up to my place because Suzie thought her parents were home.
Just as I was growing sure that this was not a camp letter, Steve sailed into a minor writer's block. He used his sunglasses case to shield his writing from the woman sitting in the window seat, who wasn't watching anyway. He worried his lip, wrote a few words and scratched them out. Finally, he moved to a new line and added in a spasmodic burst,
When we were done, we came downstairs.
Steve! You skipped over the most important part!
Our train pulled into the terminal, and Steve packed away his legal pad. I struggled to align the facts into a sensible narrative.
- Steve is friends with uptight gay-hating guy
- He writes erotic fiction on the train
- He doesn't enjoy it and/or he has no talent for it
My conclusion: Steve and Uptight Guy met each other in an Ex-Gay program. Steve was working on his homework assignment.
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