This is a work of fiction. It is a sequel to the other stories, beginning with "A Letter from America" that have appeared in adult/youth, young pals, and no sex. Not one single character is , or is based on, a real person. I have borrowed the names of places, and even of some buildings and institutions in those places, but their personnel remain fictitious. They do not represent real people. Not all characters were created by me. There are some that were created by another author -- Jacob Lion. I am grateful to Jacob for permission to use his characters. I hope you enjoy this story. I'm grateful to Nifty for publishing it. Nifty makes no charge, neither for me to publish, nor for you to read these stories, but it does cost money to publish them. If you enjoy the stories, please consider making a donation to Nifty at http://donate.nifty.org/donate.html so that he can continue to bring these stories to you.
Howard Chapter 8
By Jonah
When we had got home on Friday I discovered that I was decidedly unpopular when Simon found out that I had arranged homework for him (fortunately Peter didn't know that I had tried to arrange it for him and Luke too). When I suggested that he go into school on Monday he protested, until I told him about taking Kori too. Kori, of course, was Kori, and was never going to be anything but excited by the idea.
Saturday I actually got the boys motivated enough to go out. Jason assisted in that, and he and Sammy persuaded our boys that they wanted to go to South Kensington to visit the Science Museum.
All of the boys had been there before, indeed it had been where most of us first met Jason, but the less said about that the better. For my part I was just glad to get the boys out of the house and to give them something else to think about, apart from the obvious. Of course, we used the train from Harrow and Wealdstone to take us into Euston, so as to keep the trainspotters amused, and then used the Circle Line from Euston Square.
On Sunday we were at Cannon Lane and Ian Timmins was leading worship. Jason was there as usual, and Cecilly accompanied the Davis family. Her sister had never done that, preferring to walk to North Harrow.
I didn't invite the Davises back after the service, since they had Cecilly and, in any case, I had put in a joint of mutton which had been roasting slowly since early morning. We didn't get to eat alone though. Rob and Ben popped in on their way back from North Harrow, and it seemed only decent to invite them to dine with us.
Well, roast mutton with roasties, two veg and mint sauce was nice, but afterwards it got interesting.
Ben, off course, had missed out on most sounds. I know I said that thought could be independent of language, but it had at least prepared Ben for language. It had not prepared him for animal noises. Luke, who seems to only need to look at the hymn-book to learn the words -- he always remembers what he has sung in Church -- decided to entertain Howard with "O' Love that wilt not let me go", a perfect tune for Howard to join in with, and the dog happily obliged. He leapt onto Ben's lap and accompanied Luke. Ben was astounded by the range of sounds that the puppy could produce, and Howard knew it. You could almost hear Howard saying,
"If you think that was something, listen to this....."
Both boys found it hilarious and Howard loves to entertain.
It seemed that Rob had another reason for wanting to call in. While Ben played with Howard he asked if he could have a word, so we went upstairs and sat on my bed.
"What's on your mind Rob?"
"Jonah, you know me, and Ben have been going to Church this last few weeks?"
"Yes, I knew that." I replied.
He seemed to be having difficulty knowing what to say - or plucking up the courage to say it -- one, or the other. Finally, he said,
"Jonah are we wrong?"
"About what mate?"
"Well, I'm a gay man, and you're a gay man, and we both live with small boys."
"And did anyone in Church say you shouldn't?"
"Nah, but there's looks."
"Looks don't say anything. You have to use your imagination to make them do that."
"Yes, and there's all that stuff in the Bible about being gay."
"Have you read the Bible? All of it?"
"Hell, I couldn't have read all of it."
"So, you've only read the bits that say you can't be gay?"
"Well, to tell the truth, I haven't found any of those either."
"Well, they're there, if you look hard enough, and someone must have wanted to find them really badly. Trouble is none of them actually say what everybody says they do. There's the Sodom bit where all the homophobes say God punished them for being gay. It never occurs to them that he might have been punishing them for trying to commit rape. There's a bit that says you shouldn't lie with a man as you would with a woman too. What they never seem to mention is that a gay man wouldn't lay with a woman. If what they say is right, it only says you shouldn't be bi-sexual, and I don't even believe that. Truth is the Bible takes a long time to get around to it, but eventually it gets to the point, which is that God loves you. It is our job to share that love around and anyone in any Church who says it tells you who you SHOULDN'T love has missed the point."
"wow!" Rob breathed.
"Alright," I grinned, " soapbox put away. What exactly is it that you think God didn't want you and Ben to do?"
"Well Ben's worried that I won't let him do anything, though it was different on the island."
"But that was then, and this is now?"
"Well yeah."
"I get the same with my boys, but that's just part of the deal. Whatever they think they want, I'm the adult, and I know right from wrong. Hell, Rob, nobody said it was supposed to be easy."
"So how do you deal with it?"
"It's not easy but there are ways. Don't forget there have been gay people in the world for a long time. The apostle Paul says he had a thorn in the flesh, he didn't say it was homosexuality, it might have been something else, but whatever it was, he said it was something he had to struggle with, and he was convinced that God's grace was big enough to cope with it. You love Ben don't you?"
"Hell yes, you know I do,"
"So, you don't want to do anything that might hurt him. The important thing then is don't ever ask him to keep anything you do quiet. Don't ask him to keep a secret, and don't you keep one either. Always talk to someone about it - to me, or Dave, or June. If Ben wants something you're not sure if you should do with him, just think how easy or hard it will be talking to June about it tomorrow. Ask Ben. If he wants to go farther than you feel comfortable with say, "sure Ben, I can do that. I'll have a chat with Reverend Bennett about it tomorrow." If he changes his mind, you'll know you shouldn't do it."
Rob laughed.
"I knew you were the right person to come to with that," he said.
"Oh, don't go thinking I'm the fount of all wisdom," I replied. ""That wasn't mine anyway. It was Simon told me that one. His dad was a policeman and he was bringing those boys up right too. I've learned one or two pearls of wisdom from one or the other of them. You'll find the same. It's not your job to teach and Ben's to learn. You both learn from each other, and the fact that you care enough to come and talk about it means you're doing it right."
"Jonah, will you tell Pete to let me use the computer? I've got work to do for school tomorrow but him and Liam are playing "Train Simulator" on it."
"See what I mean Rob?" I commented - "fount of all wisdom."
Well next morning we packed Simon and Kori off to school. I would dearly have loved to have been a fly on the wall there. I'd even more dearly have liked to have been able to tell you all about it, but you'll just have to use your imagination as I had to do. Certainly, the teaching staff wouldn't know what hit them. Kori was a natural teacher, and the rest of the teaching staff might as well have gone home. I'm pretty sure everybody will have had a good time, and not least of all, Kori himself. He's always prepared to talk if people will listen and, for the most part, they do.
After tea we discovered a little of what happened, but not how we expected.
We were sitting around in the lounge when Kori said, "It was good going to Simon's school. I'm kinda glad they let me."
"Didja enjoy it?"
"Well I kinda did, but we had humanities this afternoon and everybody got to talking about death. "
"I'm surprised at that," Jake remarked.
"Well it started because we got different gun laws in the States to what they got here. I didn't know they were that different, but it seems they are. Then some of the kids started to talk about death in general and I just wished the teacher would've told them to shut up, but he didn't."
"I knew he wouldn't," said Simon. "Fossett's like that. I expect it was as soon as he saw the expression on your face that he decided to run with it. He'll have thought it was better to talk it out."
"Well it was, and it wasn't," said Kori. "I mean the funeral hasn't even been yet, and in any case, we're kids. We shouldn't be thinking about things like that for a long time yet."
"It's not the first death you've known Kori," Jake reminded him. "Your Uncle Dirk took four bullets to the chest and there wasn't a lot of mourning then. Hon Li took four bullets to the chest too. I don't think Ning grieved. Of course, they made their own beds. There was plenty of sadness when your Mammy died. It doesn't stay like that though. When you die you don't just go from being a friend to being a tragedy. You go from being the unpredictable enigma that living people are, to being a fond memory. If you're a good person people will cry when you die - for a while. After a bit they will smile when they remember you. It isn't about how old you are either. People are all the same age when they're born, but they don't all die at the same age."
"How does Ben cope with it?" said Luke.
"Don't know," Simon replied. "You've been inside his head more often than any of us"
"Not since he started to hear," Luke replied. "I don't know whether he can still do that."
"He'll still know how," I said, remembering my own experiences with my twin sister. "He just might not be able to make enough effort."
"Yes, but I wasn't talking about Monica, " Luke persisted. "Ben saw his whole family die with a lot of strangers. How did he cope with that?"
I thought about that, but Jake answered for me.
"He wouldn't have," he said. "The trauma would have been too much for him, but he found Rob, drifting in and out of consciousness, but trying to scramble onto a wing. He had to save Rob, so he didn't have time to be traumatised. Then afterwards, him and Rob had to look after each other."
Well we slept as we had become accustomed that night. Simon and Kori in the boys' room and everybody else, human and canine, in with me.
Tuesday was rapidly looming up.
TO BE CONTINUED