Chapter 8
That summer, Jerry took a field education job directing a youth center for The First Presbyterian Church in Joppa, Maryland, a suburb of Baltimore. The center consisted of a large room with a couple of sofas and chairs, a ping pong table, knock hockey board and boxed games. There was a basketball hoop outside in the parking lot. Jerry worried that it lacked the comfy quality of Rog and Barb’s home.
High school kids with all their turbulent energy, could he keep them under control? What if there was an uprising, and they ran him out of the youth center?
Jerry launched a film festival after he discovered films were free at the local library. He scheduled speakers including an entertaining hypnotist who got the tough kid to sing “Tiptoe Through the Tulips.” And he held a ping pong tournament.
At the tournament, one girl stood out above all the others. True, Jennifer was older, being a college sophomore, but she also was intensely competitive. She mentioned she pitched on a local softball team.
On a free evening, Jerry attended one of her games. Her dark eyes zeroed in on the hapless batter. Her arm windmilled around, slapped the side of her body and hurled the ball. No one could touch her. As she walked off the pitcher’s mound she caught sight of Jerry. Her eyes drilled his as if he were another batter. Jerry’s hands sweated.
August arrived, the senior pastor’s vacation month. Jerry agreed to house sit his place while he took his family to their vacation home in Maine. The first weekend, Jerry threw a party and invited some of the older kids from the youth center over, including Jennifer.
Around 1 a.m., after everyone else had left, Jennifer remained with Jerry on the living room floor.
Conversation stopped; Jennifer’s gaze held.
Jerry had a proposition before him, as if a thigh slapping pitch was headed his way. Hey, batter, batter.
Swing? He had to decide. Part of him just wanted to bolt. His hands perspired; his heart pounded.
He leaned in and kissed her forcefully, as if to prove something. She responded with equal intensity, then it all became a mad blur, lips, tongues, fingers, different conversations between different body parts, a cacophony of story lines, pressing, rubbing, sliding, building into a crescendo of pleasure.
Yes, it felt good, yet underlying this frenzy, fear persisted. A certain part of him just wanted it to be over, wasn’t even there, gone into hiding, only to come out after it was all over. This part viewed this banquet of flesh as an act of violence.
Jerry climaxed, and in the aftermath, he felt relieved. He had accomplished some kind of man test. He successfully hid that other part he didn’t want to acknowledge, much less have anything to do with.
Come morning, in the bedroom, Jerry disentangled himself from Jennifer and the covers. In silence, they exchanged sheepish smiles.
“Coffee?” he asked.
“Sure.”
“Ping pong?”
“You’re on!”
With coffees in hand, they padded over to the youth center and whacked the ball back and forth.
“Game?” she said with insouciance.
“Sure,” said Jerry.
It didn’t take long for the competition to turn fierce. Jennifer fired slam after slam. Jerry returned with an arsenal of spins.
An alarm sounded in Jerry’s head.
“Shit! I gotta go, ” he said.
“I’ll be right here,” she said sweetly.
He sprinted home, got dressed and made it to church with seconds to spare for the worship processional.
***
On the final weekend, Jennifer invited Jerry to her family’s cabin. He agreed to meet her there after he closed the youth center Saturday night.
“Are you listening to me?” asked a young girl at the youth center who had been talking to Jerry about the fight she just had with her boyfriend.
“I’m sorry,” Jerry confessed. He had been imagining Jennifer’s tanned face, the dusting of freckles along the top ridge of her nose that drifted down to the top of her cheeks, her full lips, her straight brown hair that refused to be tucked behind her ears.
He glanced at his watch.
At the stroke of ten, he locked everything up, bid a hasty farewell to the kids and tore out of the parking lot in his beat up Pontiac LeMans.
He followed the lengthy directions to the Susquehanna River. The highway regressed into a narrow macadam road, then into a dirt road which dead ended. He pulled next to the one other car there. Through the trees, he made out the silhouette of a small cabin.
He turned off the engine. The wind gusted, rustling the leaves. A shiver shot through him. Rain coming, he thought. He rolled up the windows and got out.
A half-moon played peek-a-boo through fast moving clouds. Making his way to the cabin, he climbed up a couple of stairs. Through white, gauzy window curtains, the soft glow of a single candle greeted him. He turned the doorknob, opened the creaking door and tiptoed in. With a solid click, the door shut and left the blustery wind behind.
He slipped by two leather stuffed chairs, used and worn in like old baseball gloves. They were positioned before a river rock fireplace darkened around the edges from years of use. At the window, Jerry extinguished the candle.
The crisp ticking of a clock amplified the quiet. He retraced his steps back to the entryway. Feeling forward with his hand down a hallway, he reached a doorknob and turned it. Inside came the sound of measured breathing.
He removed his clothes and slipped under the cool sheet next to Jennifer’s naked, warm body. She stirred. He pulled her into a spooning position. He felt her bottom press into him. He nudged back with a growing erection. She laced her top leg over his thigh. He slid his penis into her. They moved in unison.
Jennifer turned around and climbed on top of Jerry. Inchoate fear tasered Jerry. That certain part of him scrambled into hiding again. He lost his erection. He kept going, praying it would come back, but it was no use.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
She tried to resuscitate him with her mouth, but that didn’t work. He could feel her mouth going up and down his penis, but that was it, nothing building, nothing pleasurable even.
“Let’s just go to sleep,” Jerry said. “We can continue this in the morning.”
“Did I do something wrong?” Jennifer said.
“Of course not, no, nothing, you’re wonderful. I don’t know, believe me, I don’t get it. I’m really embarrassed.”
“Shhhhh, it’s OK, like you said, new game tomorrow.”
And they returned to spooning.
In the grayness of dawn, the rain beat hard on the roof. Jerry climbed out of bed and made coffee. The church service was at 9 a.m. Jerry wanted to leave himself some time to prepare so he would get going by 7:30; it was about a 45-minute drive back to the church.
He made breakfast and as he was popping up the toast, Jennifer shuffled in wearing a white t-shirt and boxers.
“Good morning,” she said.
“And to you, kind lady.” He handed her a plate of toast and scrambled eggs. “Coffee?”
“Absolutely.” She flopped down on one of the chairs around the eating table.
They ate in silence, side by side, always something touching, a finger, a foot, a calf.
They kissed and parted. Jerry started the car and ascended the steep hill, however his tires spun out. The dirt road was a sea of mud. Currents of water raced down the carved out tire ruts. He backed the car down and tried to climb the hill with some extra momentum, but again halfway up, he spun out, wheels spitting gravel, digging deeper into the mud.
“Shit.”
Self-condemnation beat down on him like the rain on the roof. He would miss the service, and there was no phone for miles to alert them. They’ll fire him. This’ll get back to seminary. He’ll be thrown out of seminary. He was a bad, bad person.
He pictured all the parishioners sitting in their pews, the organist playing Bach, the choir processing in, followed by…no one.
Would they do the service themselves? They all knew it by heart. The worship bulletin was a step by step instruction manual. Or would they just leave, relishing the extra time.
“Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit!” He smashed his fists against the steering wheel with each invective.
He got out of the car. Rain buffeted. Lightning flashed with an instant crack of thunder. He lifted his face to the sky. “I am sorry, God! I am so sorry! I fucked up! Please forgive me!”
Jerry suddenly wondered, Did I just pray?
He dropped his arms and sloshed back inside. Jennifer was in the sun room rolling a joint. She offered it to Jerry who waved it off. It was everything he could do to keep his thoughts under control.
When he drove home later that afternoon he reflected on the afternoon. Was he closer to God after one year of seminary?
In a word, no. With the Bible study, he learned about other people’s experience of God. They heard God in their dreams; they had visions. They frequently acted against popular opinion based solely on their communication with God. Yet all this brought Jerry no closer to God.
People like Nancy, and there were plenty of them on campus, were comfortable referring to Jesus as their constant companion. Jerry was uncomfortable just saying His name unless it was in a cursing context.
***
“Chris, have you ever talked with God?” asked Jerry.
It was way past midnight, now home from his summer field work, this was Jerry’s last night at the Bekers’ before he moved onto campus. Chris, ensconced at the kitchen table, lifted his head up from his book. His bloodshot eyes struggled to focus on Jerry.
“Are you fffffucking kidding me?” he said, saliva spitting out from between his pursed lips.