How Can Loving You Be So Wrong? Part 13

How Can Loving You Be So Wrong? Part 13

I lookup and it is a young guy maybe twenty or twenty- two, and he says “may I have a word with you please?” His face looks so familiar he says “you don’t know me but I really need to speak to you about your husband.”  Just then it clicks that is my husbands boy toy Ezekiel. He ask if he can speak with me alone. Teresa says, “if you want I can leave” and I tell him if he’s got something to say he can say it in front of Teresa or step off.  He asks if he can be seated and I told his ass no cause he won’t be here long. He then proceeds to tell me that he has been seeing my husband and that they have been having unprotected sex for a while and he also knows for a fact that Craig has been having random sex with strangers in parks and picking people up on the internet. He said that Craig gave him and STD twice, and then all of a sudden this fool starts crying like a new born baby. I tell him to have a seat and motion for the waiter and ask for a glass of water.

He then says that he just got the results from his HIV test today and he has tested positive. My knees started clapping but I refused to let him see that I was moved. I ask what does that have to do with me and he says I think your husband gave it to me. My heart is in my ass but I will not give this guy the chance to see me cry. I tell him that I don’t have it because I have not had sex with my husband in almost two years. He says that he is so scared and doesn’t know what to do. Teresa pulls out her blackberry and gives him a number to call for a support group and I ask him to leave. As he walks away I start to tremble and Teresa says “what the fuck oh hell no girl, I’m goanna get my vaseline and my knife and we gona march our black asses over to that church and whip his fucking ass.” She calls the waiter over and pays the check “girl let’s go!”

When I try to stand, I can’t, I collapse and fall on the table and roll on to the floor. “Someone call 911!” I can hear people talking but I can’t respond, I tried to move my lips but they ain’t saying anything. Child, I think I saw the light; all I could think was walk towards the light. Just then Teresa takes a glass of water and throws in my face and damn, I was back. I was shaking uncontrollably and now I was crying. I was scared and not sure what the hell was happening. I thought I was a strong black woman and that I could handle anything. But, damn I could be HIV positive and so could my husband. This must be some cruel joke. I tell her to just get me to my car and I will drive myself home. She said no, she would drive me home and that I would leave my car here. As we get to the car and drive down the road, Teresa begins to tell me about her experience with church, “you see this is why I didn’t go to church for a long time because some church folks are hypocrites.”

She went on to say that black church folks are the worse. I grew up in church and went to church with my brother Timothy he was such a cutie. I never knew she had a brother, so I said your brother and she said “yes, my brother was only twelve or thirteen at the time and struggling with his sexuality. He wanted God to make him straight, he prayed and prayed and he was still trying to be the perfect saint, but he still struggled. He would witness to other children in school and would be on the church television broadcast dancing and praising the Lord every Sunday. He sang in the choir and ushered on the board, he loved the Lord with all his heart. But he had one issue he said he was gay and he knew that he was different when we was five years old. My brother said that he was ten when he had he was raped by my uncle for the first time. He said a few months later my uncles son raped him and a few times they all three had sex together. I hate to say it but they are both dead now and they both died terrible deaths. I am glad they are dead because children are a lot safer now. I hope that did not sound to cruel.

Timothy also said that church men, usually older and married would him brother money to suck their dick and have anal sex with them. We were so poor that he would take the money from his sexcapades and buy food for the family.  That is the type of special kid he was, he would endure the shame and sacrifice himself just to help the family. After his sexcapades he would run back to church and repented and beg God to forgive him and to please help him. But God never changed him; all he wanted was for those feelings to go away.

It got so bad that he went to our pastor and explained his problem because he wanted help and did not want to die and go to hell. Our pastor told Timothy that he knew his struggle and that he could see it in him. Right after that our pastor put his hand on his leg and stated stroking it, he then he kissed him on the mouth and unzipped his pants and had him perform oral pleasure on him. He then bent him across his desk and violently raped him and when he was through with him he said now see what your demon made me do? The pastor then wanted to have prayer but Timothy ran out of the pastor study and he was so distraught that he lost all hope in church and the so called man of God.

It was disgusting, especially since our pastor had preached down homosexuals that previous Sunday. You know that God made Adam and Eve and not Adam and Steve, my brother went to the deacons and told them what happened and the deacons called him a liar. The word got around church and the people found out and talked about him and laughed at him and called him nasty names.  The kids teased him and laughed behind his back and distanced themselves from him. They would say that is the little fag and their parents would not let him play with them. He really wanted to be straight but he was who he was. He would go to prayer meetings and the church mothers would pour oil on him and pray in tongues and try to cast that demon out but end the end he was still gay.

In the churches eyes gay people or fags or sissy’s (as they would say) were abominations and were doomed to hell and he didn't want that. Who would? One evening when I came home from school I found Timothy hanging from the ceiling fan. He left a note that said I just wanted to be normal and that he was sorry for all the shame he bought on the family and church. All the church people wanted to have a big funeral at the church but my granny said no and she blamed those same church people for killing him. She said where else could kids learn such hatred but from their parents. We had a grave site memorial and my uncle spoke words over him and then we released some balloons. I miss Timothy so much but those church people killed my baby. They raped him, pimped him, used him and messed him up with their twisted theology. They did not help him they hurt him telling him he was a demon, my God he was only a baby.”

At this point we both begin to cry, Teresa pulls the car over on a side street and we cried some more. Teresa goes on with the rest of her story,” my family left the church and shortly after that my father started to use drugs, he was so heart broken and died in a crack house. My mother missed Timothy so much that she started drinking and died an early death as an alcoholic. I had low self esteem and older men saw that, by the time I was nineteen I had had sex with over a fifty men and six abortions. I now know all I was trying to do was cover my pain, hurt and disappointments. When I was twenty two I found out that I had and herpes and that I was HIV positive. I thought my life was over until I started attending a support group at the First Rising Fellowship Church. Pastor Jamal gave me the word and helped me get my life back on tract.

I never thought that I would ever walk into another church but right after I got my results, I was walking down the street like a zombie. It was a Tuesday night and I heard singing and preaching coming from a church I stopped and this is no lie, I heard my little brothers voice and he said Sis go in. That night Pastor Jamal was preaching let go and let God, he said you got to let go of your pass so that you can go forward. It was that night I gave myself back to God. I joined an HIV and AIDS support group where this nerdy looking brother named Karlos Morgan is the group leader. I use to hate his ass but child now the man is my husband, he is HIV positive and we love each other so much and have so much in common. We now have a son and his name is Timothy Bernard Morgan, yes, I named my baby after my angel. Child, I thank God for seeing me through even the tough times in my life.

 Look Kara, no matter what the outcome, for God has promised He will be in the midst of our problems. Girl you just have to keep the faith and continue to believe that life works and true faith allows us to live on the edge between hope and despair, between love and death and holding both. So, here is to life the whole damned disaster of it.” Teresa drops me off and the house seems so empty without the kids. It is late and I have no clue what time Craig is coming home. I sit in the living room in the dark and wait for his arrival, it is time we talk. It is now after 12:00 am and no Craig. A few minutes later I hear his car pull up and the garage door open and close I then hear his voice and another voice; I am thinking that it is Juan and that they have been hanging out. When he comes in I hear them laughing and then they go silent. I am still sitting in the dark and when I turn on the light I get the shock of my life, he is standing there kissing some man in the middle of my living room. I lose it and I reach in the cocktail table drawer where we keep our gun and I unload the pistol…

 To Be Continued

 Malek Arial aka MA