Running to Save Marissa
Running Toward Hope, Chapter 8
“I said don’t call me Luke, Mom.
“My name’s LT. Like I told you, Grampa said I should …”
Pastor Tim cuts me off, wrinkling his face up like I’m a piece of spoiled food on his plate. He’s eating with us in the kitchen. “Don’t interrupt your mom, young man. You don’t have a living father to honor, but you still owe obedience and respect to your mother.”
Becky doesn’t say anything, but I see her kick him in the shins under the table. She spears a green bean with her fork and half smiles at me. I’m confused because her husband always seemed like the nice one. He’s always been the guy at church everybody loved. Becky’s quiet and thoughtful rather than cheerful.
Her smile gives me the courage to tell Tim what I’m thinking.
“Young man? How old are you? 27? 28? I’m 18, and you’re not even close to being old enough to be my dad. I don’t have to listen to you, and I won’t.”
Mom’s spoon clatters against her plate, almost as loud as her gasp. “Luke Thomas, you watch your mouth!”
“Do I have to remind you why I’m here?” asks Tim. “Do we really need to get into the details of what I caught you at in the church basement? Disgusting! Watch your tone with me, and respect your mother.”
“Why are you even here? You already ripped out some of my hair after you snuck into that bathroom stall! You told me not to come back to church until I repent. That ain’t gonna happen. So, just leave, OK? I’m done with you and your church.”
Tim’s mouth drops open. He looks like somebody slapped him. I start to laugh, but Mom’s voice cuts me off.
“Stop it right now! As long as you’re living under my roof, you’re living with my rules. Which means you go to church and you listen to Pastor Tim. I will not have you turning out like my dad. I never should have let you spend so much time out at the farm. I knew better!”
“Don’t you talk about Grampa like that. He loved me, and he was my friend!”
“Oh, yeah? Well, there’s a lot you don’t know about your friend, and one day I’ll tell you all about it. The crap he put my mom through. Me through. You have no idea!”
I don’t know what to say, so I pick up my milk glass and take a drink. Mom looks at the table. Tim looks self satisfied as he stuffs an extra thick slice of smothered pork chop into his mouth.
Becky breaks the silence.
“Guys, can we maybe start this by acknowledging that everyone at this table loves one another in the Lord? Can we remember that we’re Christians and that we don’t judge one another?
“Please?”
Tim swallows his meat and scowls. I can see him fight to change his face into a smile. He almost makes it. “There’s a difference between loving IN the Lord and loving sin. True love of the Lord begins with repentance. Love of the Lord begins with submission to the Lord’s will.”
Becky retorts immediately. “Hate the sin, love the sinner, Tim. Have we forgotten the love part?”
I’m glad she’s standing up to him, but I can’t let that go. “Hey. Who you callin’ a sinner? Me?”
Her mouth is the one dropping open now. She looks confused.
Tim jumps in instantly — triumphant. “Persisting in sin is a sign of spiritual rebellion, of rejecting the Holy Spirit. Luke, I have grave doubts that you’re actually saved.”
“Oh, yeah? Once saved always saved. You know that. And besides, God’s way bigger than you. You think you can put limits on him, but you can’t. I know better than that.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you don’t know God’s mind. You don’t know what he wants for me. Grampa taught me that.”
“Listen here, you little fa…”
Becky stops him from saying the word. “Tim! Enough! That’s not the Lord speaking through you and you know it.”
But she turns to me with serious tension in her face. “Luke, you can’t mean what I think you mean. I know you can’t believe it’s OK to be gay. I don’t judge you for it, but it’s not God’s plan. It’s a special burden he’s reserved for you as a mark of his love and maybe as a sign he’s set you apart to do great work for him.”
My next sentence changed my life. I never should have said it. I meant it, though. I believed it then, and I believe it now.
“Becky, that’s total bullshit.”
Man, did the sparks fly! Silverware got thrown, let’s just put it that way. Tim didn’t actually hit me, but I think if Becky hadn’t been there, he would have.
Mom screamed at me half the night.
Even when she screamed that I was a queer like Grampa, I never figured on what she was gonna do. I never believed she’d actually stop loving me. Even when I came home from community college three days later and found my clothes in a pile on the sidewalk, I still didn’t believe it.
Bobby shouts into his phone .“Marissa! Where you at? What dumpster?”
I jump up and grab for his phone, but he snatches it back. “Bobby, gimme! Lemme talk to her.”
His eyes dart between me and the cops who are still trying to get his story. He lowers his voice, but they can hear every word he says. “He’s trying to get her! Marissa, she ran away and Tomas is chasing her. Hang on, Marissa. Hang on. One sec.”
I grab, put the phone to my mouth and do some shouting of my own. “Girl! You OK? Talk to me!”
I don’t think I could have taken much more. I was about done, honest to God. I had no family and exactly two friends in the whole world. It looked like the cops were about to take Bobby away, and Marissa was about to get killed or worse.
Tomas was a mean mother fucker. I’d seen his worst with my own eyes.
So, I was about to break. If I’d been standing on the Manhattan Bridge right then, I probably would have jumped off. When Dan asked me why I was crying, I didn’t even know I was. I just knew my whole life was a giant ball of white pain.
I’d been living on my own for almost two years. Sometimes with a place to sleep, sometimes not. Usually, I had food to eat, but sometimes I didn’t. But that was OK.
You know what the hard part was?
I didn’t have anybody to love. I couldn’t make a friend and expect to keep them. Nobody in my life was permanent. I couldn’t expect anybody to stick by me and nobody could expect me to stick by them.
I couldn’t take that anymore. I’d rather be dead than that.
So I told the cops about Marissa and got back on the phone and told her to please be quiet. To keep hiding. That help was coming. What I was thinking is that she was my sister no matter what. I didn’t care what it took or what was gonna happen to me. I didn’t care if I went to jail.
I decided she was more important than me.
When I was riding downtown in the unmarked car with the detective lady, I decided Bobby was more important than me too. I made her promise not to send him back to his stepfather to get beat up. Then I swallowed hard and I decided to trust her.
I told her his real name.
We’re pulling into the alley, me and Pat — she’s the detective —she raises an eyebrow at me.
“Yeah, this has to be it,” I say. “That’s the dumpster right there. I know it is, I know this neighborhood good as anything.”
We get out of the car and walk past some drunks sleeping behind the drug store. I start to run as we get close the dumpster.
“Marissa! We’re here, girl!”
It doesn’t worry me she doesn’t answer.
I don’t even see the blood yet. I open the dumpster lid and don’t see nothing. Nothing but a few old cardboard boxes.
Pat elbows me aside to have a look, herself.
That’s when she points down at my feet. My sneakers are stained red.
This is chapter eight of a serialized short story dealing with homelessness among LGBTQ youth. Over forty percent of homeless youth in the United States identify as LGBTQ. That’s extraordinary given that queer youth don’t make up more than 3 to 7 percent of the general youth population.
While the details of this story are fictional, I’m writing from my heart and from my experiences. I’ve known these kids. I’ve been there in many ways. The issues are very real and very serious. I’m fictionalizing the stories of real people.
I’m telling their stories because they need somebody to speak for them.