Shaking the Sugar Tree (32 page)

“And your name is?” the reporter said, fiddling with his tripod and setting the camera in place.

“I’m not going on the damned television,” Bill said. “But you should interview Wiley. He’s my brother and we support him all the way.”

I felt something catch in my throat when I heard Bill say that. I felt as though I had been waiting my whole life to hear him say that.

“Do it,” Jackson urged, bending to whisper in my ear.

Do you want to be on TV?
I asked Noah.

He beamed, displaying his god-awful teeth.

“It’s both of us or neither,” I said to the reporter, putting my hands over Noah’s chest and holding him close like a talisman.

“Great,” he said with a big smile, making a last minute adjustment to his camera, then digging out a large microphone.

“We’ll start with a test,” he said. “Just state your name and your age, and your son’s name and his age, so I can check my levels.”

He held the microphone in front of my face.

At this point, many people had gathered around to watch and I was suddenly very nervous. Jackson stood off to the side, offered me a thumbs-up.

“My name is Wiley Cantrell and I’m thirty-two,” I said. “And this is my son Noah and he’s ten.”

The reporter looked at his equipment, smiled rather greasily, then stepped in front of the camera while keeping the three of us in view.

“Why are you here today?” he asked, quickly putting the microphone in front of my lips and looking off to the side while I answered.

“We’re here today because we’re tired of the AFA comparing us to Nazis and thieves and liars and all the rest of it. We’re just human beings. I’m a father and this is my son. I don’t want my son to be ashamed of who his father is. We’re good people. We’re just like everyone else. I don’t want the AFA out there telling people every day that gay parents are bad parents. We’re not bad parents. We’re no better and no worse than other parents. If the AFA wants to go on the air every day and lie about the members of the gay community, well, we have the right to call them out on that. We have the right to tell the truth about ourselves.”

“Your son is deaf? Is that correct?”

“Yes,” I said. He waited for me to continue. Not knowing what to say, I rambled a bit. “I’m a single father. I’ve taken care of my son since the day he was born. We’ve been through a lot together. I couldn’t ask for a better son. I love him very much and it hurts me to hear what the AFA says about gay parents. If they really are the American
Family
Alliance, why don’t they support me and help me? Why are they always running us down? Hatred is not a family value. Lying about gay families is not Christian. Someone needs to point out to them that they’re talking about real people with real lives, and that their words are hurtful to people like me and my son.”

“If you could talk to the AFA, what would you tell them?” the reporter asked.

“I’d tell them to stop lying,” I said straight off. “If I said some of the things these people say on their radio programs, my mom would wash my mouth out with soap. She taught me to respect other people, not lie about them.”

“You don’t think their reporting is fair?”

“They’re not a news organization. They offer personal opinions, that’s all. Why don’t they come out here and talk to us? What are they so afraid of? They go on the air every single day telling their listeners all kinds of garbage about gay people. Well, here we are! Why not come out and talk to us and find out what we’re really like? Are they scared?”

The reporter smiled.

“What challenges have you had as a gay parent raising a deaf child?” he asked.

“Every day is a challenge when you’re a gay parent,” I said, sounding more bitter than I intended to. “People look at you and they just assume you’re a child abuser. They don’t care about facts. They treat you like you’re a joke, like you’re not a real parent, like you don’t even have a real child. And people feel sorry for your child. They feel sorry. Like your child would be so much better off if you were straight. Like that makes any difference to a child. And when you have a special-needs child like Noah, a child who’s deaf, it’s just all that much more difficult.”

“What about his mother?”

“She died recently,” I answered.

“I’m sorry.”

“Can I ask what happened?”

“I’d rather not talk about that,” I said.

“I understand. So you take care of him by yourself now?”

“I’ve taken care of him his whole life. I’ve always been a single father.”

“It must have been difficult.”

“Yes and no. The point is, we’re protesting the AFA because they say they care about families. Well, what about my family? What about my son? What about me? How can you say you want to protect families when you’re encouraging parents to reject their gay children, when you’re destroying families and driving families apart? The only reason we’re here today is because they call themselves the American
Family
Alliance and they say they’re Christian. What’s so Christian about spreading lies and encouraging parents to reject their gay kids or shame them into a life of silence and suffering? I know what all of this hateful talk does to people because I’ve suffered from it. I’ve seen what it’s done to my relationships with my family. When is someone in this town going to stand up to these people and tell them this is not right? When are you guys in the media going to start telling your viewers that the AFA has been listed as a hate group because of their constant antigay bigotry? When are you guys going to strap on a pair and stop being a bunch of pussies? Every time we have one of these events, some of you guys will go right over there to the AFA and ask for their reaction, but you never ask any of the other religious leaders in this town for a reaction. Why not? The AFA is not the only religious group here. I think if you went down to the All Saints Episcopal Church, you’d get a much different answer than the one the AFA is going to give you. Yet you just keep repeating the same bullshit from the AFA. Why don’t you guys do your jobs?”

“We’re trying,” the reporter said with a shrug. “Is there anything else you’d like to add?”

There was a lot I could say, but I shook my head. I felt like I had already said way too much, and would probably regret it.

As the reporter put away his microphone, he said, “By the way, my next stop is All Saints. I’m going to interview the rector there.”

“Thank you,” I said, and I meant it.

“I appreciate your time. I forgot to ask, though, that song you were singing… ‘Someday There Be Freedom.’ I’ve never heard that song before.”

“That’s because I wrote it.”

“You did?”

I nodded.

“That was a great song. Can I get your contact information? I’d like to do another story when I have more time.”

I scratched out my cell number and handed it to him.

He hurried off to interview more people.

“Good deal!” Jackson exclaimed, patting me on the back.

“I probably sound like a fool,” I said.

“You made a lot of sense,” Bill said. “And I heard what you said about your own family.”

I took in a hesitant breath, trying to remember exactly how I had worded it.

“And you’re right,” he added. “We haven’t made it easy for you. Are you guys hungry?”

“What do you have in mind?” I asked.

“I was thinking maybe the four of us could take the kids out. A double date, I guess.”

“Are you going to hit anyone?” Jackson asked.

“No,” Bill said with an embarrassed grin.

“As long as Wiley doesn’t spend the whole time talking about his penis, I think it’s a great idea,” Shelly said.

“Me too,” Jackson added with a grin.

“I can’t really afford it,” I said quietly, not wanting to be a stick in the mud.

“Supper’s on me, little bro,” Bill said.

“We have to be home in time to see the news,” I pointed out.

“We’ll make it an early supper,” Bill promised.

O
N
THE
first weekend of October, as the cold began to creep down into northern Mississippi and the trees were a wild riot of oranges and reds, we made one final camping trip on Mama’s property. We loaded the four-wheelers and Noah led the way into the colorful woods. I stopped to show Jackson some of the sugar trees Mama would tap, explaining how she would collect the sap and turn it into maple syrup, how she would sell some of the jars, store others in her pantry, how it was tradition to use the first jar on Christmas morning pancakes.

At the campsite, we tested the cold water for a quick bout of skinny-dipping, decided against it, and got busy listening to KUDZU and collecting firewood. Noah took his pole and a plastic container full of worms and went to sit on the rocks in the sunshine where it was warm. I took many pictures of him before wandering back to camp to take pictures of Jackson.

“Have you thought about it?” Jackson asked as we waited for the hot dogs to grill.

“It’s
all
I’ve thought about,” I admitted.

“So will you move in with me and be my love slave?”

“It’s a big step,” I said.

“The first of many, I hope,” he said.

“Do you mean that?”

“I want to marry you, Wiley Cantrell. I want to be your husband. I want us to be a family—you, me, and the cheese-eater. Isn’t that the point of all this courting?”

“Are we still courting?” I asked with a smile.

“Don’t I have enough skin in the game yet?”

“I love it when you talk Southern,” I said.

“I hate it when you stall. I’ve been clean all summer. I’m never going back to that. I love my job and everything is going well in my life except one small detail, which is that I can’t live with the man I love. I want to wake up in the morning and see your face. Is that so wrong?”

I said nothing.

“What?” he pressed.

“What if it doesn’t work?” I asked quietly. “Everything I touch turns to shit. You should know that by now.”

“Noah’s not shit, is he?”

“No.”

“And I’m not shit….”

“No.”

“So… does that mean you sometimes do something right?”

“I don’t know,” I confessed.

“I think you’re just scared,” he said.

“Maybe,” I admitted.

“So why are you scared?”

“Did you ever want something so badly that just the thought of losing it made you want to cry?”

“Yes,” he said. “You.”

“If it didn’t work, I don’t know what I’d do.”

“It’s going to work,” he said confidently.

“How do you know that?”

“Because I do. Because we both want it to. We’re not kids anymore. We’re consenting adults. So let’s do some consenting.”

“You’re awfully confident for someone who needs a note from his mother to get out of gym class.”

“That’s what you like about me,” he said.

“I’m a ‘Stand By Your Man’ kinda guy,” I pointed out. “If we move in together, that means you’re going to have to put a ring on my finger and make me respectable. And I don’t want to hear any talk about a ‘d-i-v-o-r-c-e’ and ‘me and little J-o-e going away’.”

“We’ll run off to Boston and get gay-married. Then we’ll be Mr. and Mr. Ledbetter-Cantrell.”

“Cantrell-Ledbetter,” I corrected.

“Mr. and Mr. Ledbetter is a perfectly acceptable alternative,” he said, smiling.

“So is The Cantrells.”

“Do you always have to have the last word?”

“I’m a Southerner. You know I love to talk.”

“Let me give you something to talk about.”

He moved over and, before I could respond, pressed his lips against mine. He eased me onto my back as if he meant to have me right there.

“If that’s how you feel about it,” I said, gasping for air.

“So you’ll move in with me?”

I shrugged.

He kissed me again, harder, more passionately.

“And?” he prompted.

I started to giggle.

“Oh, all right,” I said.

This prompted some making out while the hot dogs burned.

Noah wandered over and I wiped at my lips sheepishly. He held a decent-size large-mouthed bass up in my face, his lips parting to reveal a goofy grin.

Cool
, I signed.

He looked at the hot dogs, then at us, his disappointment more than obvious.

Sorry
, I said.

He put the fish down, turned to Jackson, and signed:

What did he say?

He said yes
, Jackson signed.

I told you!

“Have you guys being conspiring behind my back?” I demanded.

“Of course,” Jackson said.

I grabbed Noah, dragged him down on top of us, and began to tickle him as he hooted and giggled.