Breakfast ingredients were forgotten as Betty wiped her hands on her apron, then walked the few steps to the kitchen table. She sat down in the chair facing Alex but did not meet his eyes. She was silent for a few seconds before beginning her tale.
“Jesse was a great child. When he was in grade school, he got good marks, and he had quite a few friends from school and from the neighborhood. During the summer, when the weather was decent, he frequently spent most of the day outside. He rode his bike around, visited other friend’s houses, spent a lot of time at the park playing basketball or whatever. He spent a lot of time with friends at the municipal pool. He was well behaved at home. If he was a troublemaker at any of his friend’s homes, I never heard about it from his friend’s parents.
“We went to church every Sunday, and Wednesday for the mid-week worship service. He participated in Sunday school. He participated in youth activities in our church. In other words, he was a joy to be around. Alan and I felt so blessed with Jesse. He was a happy boy.
“Then, around seventh or eighth grade, his demeanor changed. It started with church. Suddenly, on Wednesday evenings, he would beg off, insisting that he had homework that needed to be done for the following day. We thought it weird that he only seemed to have a significant homework load on Wednesday nights, so we ended up asking about it during parent-teacher conferences. His teachers were all confused since they didn’t assign more homework on Wednesdays than on any other day of the week. He was getting good grades in school, he participated in class, there were no disciplinary problems, or anything. Alan and I chalked up his desire to avoid church on Wednesday evenings as simple teenage defiance. We for the most part let it slide.
“Sunday mornings started to become an issue, too. Jesse seemed to put up more and more of a fight about attending church every week. He became belligerent. He refused to participate in Sunday school or any of the youth activities. We, Alan and I, talked about it with our pastor. He agreed with us that it was teenage rebelliousness. He told us that it was fine if he didn’t participate in the youth activities. However, he stressed the importance of Sunday worship and Sunday school, and that we needed to make him comply. He told us that we should never have allowed him to regularly skip Wednesday worship.
“Then he said something that shocked us both. He told us that we needed to stop sparing the rod and spoiling the child. He proceeded to give Alan advice on how to whip Jesse with a belt. Now, Jesse was our only child, so we may have been guilty of babying him and spoiling him in his younger years. But we’d never hit or whipped Jesse, ever. When we left pastor’s office and returned to our car to drive home, we both agreed that our pastor was wrong, and that no matter how bad things got, we would not resort to corporal punishment.
“Yet, church was very important to us. While we disagreed with Pastor’s suggestion to whip Jesse, we still pretty much hung on his every word. He was the leader of our church and God’s representative to us, you know? So, to a large extent, whatever he said, whatever he told us, we took as gospel truth. He told us we needed to make Jesse comply with our, well, Alan’s rules in the house. I also got a bit of a lecture from him when I said something about our rules. They weren’t our rules, they were Alan’s rules. I needed to do as Alan said, since he was the boss of the house. Looking back, there were so many red flags with that man. But like I said, what he said was what was commanded by God, so we really didn’t question anything he said, other than the part about corporal punishment.
“So, Alan and I began to strictly enforce the church on Sunday and Wednesday evenings rule. Things went from bad to worse with Jesse then. His anger with us, his belligerence, spilled over to most any other aspect of his life. No longer was there just a fight with Jesse on Sundays and Wednesday evenings, life became a running battle at home, punctuated with periodic, uneasy truces where Jesse would go to his room and stay there, venturing out only for school, to eat, and to use the bathroom.
“After talking with our Pastor on multiple occasions, he suggested we take him out of public school and send him to the local Christian Academy, which is a K-12 school. Pastor thought that part of the problem was, you know, the secularism and the lack of discipline in the middle school. He told us that the Christian school would provide Jesse with a regimented, disciplined environment. He made it sound vaguely like a military boarding school. So, partway through grade eight, we pulled Jesse out of the middle school and sent him to the Christian Academy. Well, as bad as things were at home before, once he started attending the Christian school, things at home worsened further.
“Like I said earlier, Jesse was always a good student. He did well in his studies. He participated in class. Never once did we get a poor report from any of his teachers. That, however, all changed when he went to the Christian school. He still did his schoolwork during the remainder of grade eight, except he wouldn’t participate in the religion classes. So, by the end of the school year, he had earned lots of As and Bs in his classes, but he got an F in religion class. He also became a disciplinary problem at school. Mostly, though, that seemed to revolve around his willful disobedience and his attitude in his religion class.
“Jesse had lots of friends up until seventh or eighth grade. He went to elementary and middle schools with his friends from the neighborhood. However, he never made any friends at the Christian Academy. He never got to see his neighborhood friends because he was, basically, permanently grounded when he wasn’t at school. His life became school and his bedroom.
“We were at our wit’s end. Alan and I agreed to give the Christian Academy another shot for grade nine. Things continued to spiral downward, though. In grade nine, he became even more withdrawn. Then he started to do things that surprised even us. He stopped doing his homework. He began skipping school. He ended up becoming ‘chronically truant,’ I think is how it was referred to. His best grade the first semester of his freshman year was a C or C-. Many were Fs.
“Again, we didn’t know what to do. So, who did we turn to for help and advice? Our pastor. Even though we felt things couldn’t become any worse than they already were, they did. His second semester of grade nine was even worse than his first, academically. We tried to take Jesse for counseling with the pastor, but that was a horrible disaster. We didn’t tell him where we were going, so when we pulled into the church parking lot, a screaming match ensued. Pastor came out of church and physically dragged Jesse into his office. Pastor wanted to talk to Jesse alone, so we waited in the front lobby of church.
“After only a few minutes, we heard screaming. When we looked at each other, trying to decide what to do, we saw Jesse come bolting out of Pastor’s office. He ran straight past us, out of the building, then kept running down the street. He never came home that night. We wanted to go look for him, but Pastor kept us from going after Jesse. Instead, he lectured us on our poor parenting skills. He told us that our parenting was the cause of the problem. We ended up getting a two-hour parenting class that evening instead. Once we got out of church, we checked at home, and when we discovered he wasn’t there, we drove around most of the night looking for Jesse. You know, Jesse never did tell us where he spent the night. We also didn’t know that Pastor had hit him, either, until much later.
“Then, around the end of the school year, we happened to see Jesse shirtless. His back was a maze of red marks. When we asked him what they were from, we received a torrent of curses. It turned out that he’d been whipped by the school principal as punishment for his truancy and bad behavior. He told us this had gone on all year. Alan and I were horrified. We apologized. We said we’d have yanked him out of that school had we known. Jesse would not accept our apologies. That was the first night I cried over what had become of my baby. Unfortunately, it was by no means the last time I’d cry. You know, if you look at his back, you can still see the scars.”
Alex could see the tears beginning to well in Betty’s eyes. She was silent for several seconds. Alex was about to tell her that she should stop her story, but she took a deep breath, then continued.
“Well, Jesse never went back to that Christian Academy. The end result was a lost year. He needed to repeat his freshman year of high school.
“Things improved slightly in the fall. He returned to the public high school, and his good grades returned. Once again, he was an A and B student. But the friends he’d had from elementary and middle school were now largely sophomores. They had new friends, and were in different classes than Jesse, so they didn’t get much of a chance to interact. Of course, he was still, basically, permanently grounded at home, so he didn’t get much of a chance to socialize outside of school, either. I don’t think his friends intentionally dropped him, they just kind of drifted away. He really didn’t make many new friends in the freshman class, either.
“Things were still hell at home. Alan and I religiously continued to go to church,” Betty said, then, with a hint of a smile, she added, “no pun intended.” The interruption in her story seemed to do them both some good. Alex got up from the table and went to the cupboards. He found drinking glasses in the second cupboard he opened. He took one, filled it with water from the faucet, then returned to the table. He handed the glass to Betty, who thanked him, then he returned to his seat.
After drinking about a third of the glass of water, she continued. “So, Alan and I kept going to church. We’d stopped trying to force Jesse to go to church with us, so some of the screaming matches no longer occurred. It was usually as if our house was experiencing an uneasy truce. There were still fights and screaming, mind you, just not as much as in the previous school year.
“Now, we would still get lectures from pastor every time we were alone with him, and even sometimes with other people around. Of course, the whole congregation was aware of our problems with Jesse, but when other people were around and heard what poor parents we were, I think more talk got around. People who’d been friendly with us in church became cold and distant. Jesse had already been shunned by pastor and the church. Now it was Alan’s and my turn.
“That’s how Jesse’s second year of grade nine passed, and most of his sophomore year as well. The uneasy truce punctuated with occasional verbal battles. Towards the end of tenth grade, one of those battles occurred. We were having some trouble with the garbage disposal, so we had called the plumber. He was a member of our church. Alan was home, too. It was during the work week, so it was unusual for him to be home. I can’t recall why he wasn’t at work that afternoon. It was a little before 4 pm, I think. The plumber was just finishing up, taking his tools out to his van, when Jesse got home from school.
“I really don’t know what the fight was about, either. But we quickly got into a screaming match with Jesse right here in the kitchen. The plumber came back into the house, but when he heard the fighting, he understandably wanted to stay out of it. So, he sat down in the living room and waited.”
Betty paused at this point. Alex, who’d been staring at his hands as he listened, looked up. Once again, he could see tears welling in Betty’s eyes. She seemed to steel herself, then began again.
“I don’t recall what I said exactly, but it was something to the effect of ‘I don’t know what your problem is, Jesse.’” I do recall the words of Jesse’s response, however. They’re burned into my memory.” Again, a brief pause before continuing, “He said, ‘do you want to know what my problem is, mom? You really want to know? I’m a faggot, mom. Nothing but a filthy, dirty, faggot!’ Then he ran upstairs to his room.”
At this point, the dam in Betty’s eyes broke. She began to sob uncontrollably. When she was able to speak, the only thing she said, repeatedly, was, “We were horrible parents. We didn’t do anything.” Alex got up from his chair across the table from Betty, stepped over to Betty, and pulled her up from her chair and into a hug. Betty clung to Alex as her body was wracked with uncontrollable grief. Alex held her tight, then began to rub her back gently with one hand while repeatedly offering assurances to her. “It’s alright, Betty, it’s alright. I know there’s a happy ending to the story, because Jesse is here now, and he loves you and Alan, and you love him.”
Gradually, Betty began to get control of her emotions once again. After the sobbing had stopped, she pulled Alex to her even more tightly. She finally said, “Yes, there is a happy ending, Alex. But I haven’t finished this part of the story yet, and then there’s a whole other chapter.”
‘Oh, shit,’5 thought Alex.
Betty sat back down in her chair. Rather than walking to the opposite side of the table, Alex sat in the chair next to Betty. He took one of her hands and held it in his. Betty continued.
“I was sitting in this very chair when Jesse made that announcement. I was stunned. I didn’t say anything. Alan sat down in the chair you’re in and remained silent as well. We just stared at each other. We now knew what the problem was. Jesse was gay, and he’d heard nothing but hateful diatribes from Pastor about the scourge of homosexuality for his entire life. It was no wonder he didn’t want to go to church.
“At this point, the plumber came into the kitchen to leave us with his bill. Both of us had completely forgotten he was there. While he’d been sitting in the living room, he heard the entire fight. He’d heard Jesse’s announcement. By evening, everyone in that church, including the pastor, had heard. I think by the following morning, everyone in town knew.
“What did Alan and I do? Nothing. That’s what we did, nothing. Can you believe what horrible parents we were? Our son makes a huge declaration, revealing the burden he’d carried around for several years, and we did nothing. We were just too stunned to do anything.
“Well, that isn’t entirely true. We did do something. Instead of talking to Jesse, we decided we needed to talk to our pastor. That evening, we called and asked to meet with him. Of course, he already knew what we were calling about. We left Jesse in his room, alone, while we went to talk to what we thought was God’s representative on earth. The message was clear. Jesse was damned for an eternity unless he stopped being gay. He would never be welcomed back in the church unless he first made amends with pastor and renounced his own sexuality. He told us, of course, Alan and I were still welcome. What I think he really meant was our money was still welcome. Believe me, it had been a long time since we’d felt welcome there, and we never felt welcome in that church ever again.
“So, things at home settled back into an uneasy peace. There were no more fights. Of course, we almost never spoke with Jesse. His life was school and his bedroom. Fortunately, when summer came, he got a job at a local sandwich shop. His life then was work and his bedroom. It’s a wonder they hired him, since they knew he was gay. He was largely ostracized in town. His childhood friends, the ones he still spoke to, all distanced themselves from him. For the most part, his teachers treated him the same as they treated the other students. But in his final two years of high school, he was frequently subjected to taunts and bullying. He was still in a living hell.”
Betty took her hand from Alex’s and wiped her face. She appeared to Alex to be emotionally drained. She then said, “Well, that’s part one. How about we eat a little something before we begin on part two?” Alex smiled a smile that communicated sadness rather than happiness. He nodded in agreement as Betty stood. “I kind of like your idea for breakfast, Alex. Let me put away the things I’d gotten out for French toast. We have raisin bran and cheerios, and, I think…” she said as she opened a cupboard, “…yes, we also have frosted mini-wheats.”
Alex rose and they quietly prepared their own bowls of cereal. Without saying anything, Betty pulled a bottle of orange juice from the refrigerator, got a glass from the cupboard, and set them down on the table. Alex poured himself a glass while Betty poured herself a cup of coffee. They ate their breakfast in silence.
Once they’d finished, they both stood to clear the table. Alex then returned to his chair while Betty poured herself another cup of coffee. As she returned to the table, she said, “Okay, round two.”
“So, for the next two years, Jesse continued with high school, which I know wasn’t a pleasant experience. He poured himself into his schoolwork, though, and became a straight-A student. Even though we were told we were welcome at church, no one there would speak to us. After a few months going to services where people either looked at us with pity or turned away from us completely, we stopped going to church altogether. And, gradually, our relationship with Jesse grew stronger. We were talking. The fighting had stopped. We learned to accept Jesse’s sexuality. While Jesse grew happier at home, he was still dragged down by the reception he was receiving at school, and elsewhere in town for that matter, so not all was well. But compared to what it had been, life at home had improved significantly.
“Then Jesse earned a nearly full scholarship for college. He went away, hoping to find a more accepting atmosphere and was excited to be learning. He was out at college, and most importantly, he was happy, as happy as he’d been when he was in grade school. We were happy, too, though we did miss Jesse terribly.
“Jesse was successful in college. He graduated with honors. He got his first job at the company where he currently works. He was happy. Now, I’d like to point out that Jesse had never been in a relationship with anyone, male or female, at this point.
“That all changed when he met Ryan. Ryan was a smooth operator. He’s a salesman of some sort, and I know he’s very good at his job. He could sell ice to the Eskimos.”
Alex grimaced when he heard the word ‘Eskimo,’ but managed to stop himself from correcting Betty. Betty, however, didn’t notice Alex’s grimace and continued with her story.
“When Ryan met Jesse, he had Jesse under his spell nearly instantly. When we talked to Jesse on the phone, he told us all about Ryan. He was smitten.
“Jesse brought Ryan down to meet us over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. We were pleased to meet him, and it was plain to see that Jesse was head over heels in love with Ryan. To be honest, I was quite taken with him, too. When they left at the end of the weekend, well, that was the first chance Alan and I really had the opportunity to talk with one another about Ryan. I, of course, gushed at what a gentleman he was, what a wonderful personality he had, and the like. I was shocked when Alan said to me, ‘I don’t like him one bit. He’s a charlatan. He’s a snake, and I’m afraid Jesse is going to be hurt by him.’ We had no idea how badly Ryan was going to hurt Jesse.
“Alan is clearly better at reading a person than I am. I was shocked at Alan’s opinion. I hadn’t picked up on it at all. We didn’t see Ryan again until the spring. I made sure to watch him closely. At first, I still didn’t see in Ryan what Alan saw. But then I did pick up on a few things that made me question his honesty and intentions. I began to think Alan just might be right.
“I gradually came to realize that Ryan was extremely manipulative. You know how cult leaders can indoctrinate their followers to make them give up all their money, their families, their entire lives, to follow them? That’s really the best comparison I can give you for Ryan. Jesse hung on his every word. I think Jesse would’ve murdered for that man if Ryan had told him to do it.
“It took a while, but they eventually moved in together. They lived together for around a year, I think, when Ryan’s employer asked him to move temporarily to Seattle for a longer-term work assignment. Ryan worked in advertising and marketing, which seemed to be the perfect job for what turned out to be a con man. He needed to relocate to Seattle for a period of six months. I think the company he worked for had asked him to help establish a new office for them in the Pacific Northwest. Well, six months is what it started out as. He ended up working in Seattle for more than a year.
“While they were apart, Jesse remained faithful to Ryan. I am quite certain, however, that Ryan was not faithful in return. Actually, I’m positive that he was cheating on Jesse before Ryan even left for Seattle. More than once, Jesse mentioned that Ryan hadn’t come home for one or two days, but it wasn’t like he was traveling or anything. He was still in Des Moines. Jesse believed anything Ryan would say, though. The lame excuses Ryan gave Jesse bordered on absurd, yet Jesse never doubted a single word Ryan ever said.
“A couple of times, Jesse flew out to Seattle to visit Ryan. Now, I realize that Ryan was working, but he frequently couldn’t get away from what he was doing to even spend time with Jesse when he’d flown halfway across the country for a visit. And during the entire time he was in Seattle, Ryan never once went back to Des Moines to visit Jesse.
“So, after more than a year in Seattle, he finally returned to Des Moines. Ryan moved right back in with Jesse from the get-go. They moved out of Jesse’s apartment almost immediately, before Jesse’s lease was even up. Ryan found them a much nicer, swankier apartment overlooking a country club. He also drove a flashy car, a BMW, I think, and wore expensive clothes. They could afford it, no doubt. Jesse told us that Ryan had done very well for himself in his career. Jesse was quite proud of Ryan’s accomplishments.
“Once Ryan had gotten back with Jesse, we saw very little of our son. Ryan seemed to be even more controlling of Jesse than he had been before. We went up to visit a couple of times, but even then, Ryan tried to keep Jesse and us apart. Jesse came down for Christmas and maybe one other time during the year. Ryan never came down with him. Apparently, he didn’t like staying in a simple house, and Pratt doesn’t exactly have any luxury hotels.
“This went on for around two years. A few times, we tried to warn Jesse about Ryan’s manipulative behavior, but he’d hear nothing of it. To him, Ryan was like a god. Then, Jesse came down to visit for a week during the summer. It was the longest period that we’d spent with him since Ryan had returned to Des Moines. After the week he spent here, Jesse returned to Des Moines, only to find an empty apartment.
“While Jesse was visiting us, Ryan moved all his personal things out of the apartment. He didn’t even leave a note saying goodbye. All Jesse knew was he was gone. Jesse was devastated. But, now realizing that our warnings about Ryan had been right on the mark, Jesse was too ashamed and embarrassed to ask for help. We didn’t know anything about Ryan leaving until several months later. Jesse hid the truth from us.
“Jesse was so devastated, his work productivity soon cratered. He was given several warnings at work, but eventually he was let go. He’d let his immediate boss know what had happened, and why he was so depressed. But his boss was eventually told by the big boss that Jesse had to go. His boss had really liked Jesse and had been impressed by his work up to that time, so he told Jesse if he ever got back on his feet that he’d work hard to get Jesse his old job back.
“Then it turned out that Jesse’s was the only name on their apartment’s lease. What’s more, Ryan was using two credit cards that were only in Jesse’s name. Jesse had been struggling to pay the rent, the utilities, and Ryan’s credit card bills. Up to that point, Jesse had managed to stash away some money in a savings account. He’d also accumulated some retirement savings in a 401K through work. He burned through his savings quickly to pay all his bills. Then he had to drain his retirement account, even though there was a financial penalty for early withdrawal. This went on for several months.
“During this time, Jesse had grown more distant. He seldom called and didn’t want to talk to us when we called him. He kept Ryan leaving and all his financial woes to himself. Eventually, the money ran out. He got evicted. We were sure surprised when he showed up at our door one day, his car full of his belongings, a broken man.
“We ended up paying Ryan’s credit card bills and cancelled the cards so he couldn’t do any more financial damage. While the financial toll was pretty high, it was Jesse’s emotional well-being that took the biggest hit. Jesse was absolutely devastated by the abandonment, losing his job, being evicted, the whole bit. He’d made it through about six months without letting us know the scope of his financial mess, much less the damage to his psyche.
“When he returned home, he was completely withdrawn. He spoke little. He spent all his time in his childhood bedroom. He pretty much only came out to eat, and he wasn’t eating much. We tried helping him the best we could. We eventually convinced him he needed to see a therapist to help him deal with the emotional toll of the abandonment. He went to a therapist here but seemed to make little progress. Then he started seeing a therapist in Wichita, who really seemed to reach him. The only problem there was that he’d lost his insurance when he lost his job, and since he was nearly 30, he could no longer be on our insurance. All the therapist’s costs were out of pocket.
“He decided he needed to find a job around here to help with the costs. He was against getting a job in Pratt, though. I’m sure he didn’t want a job in a town where everybody knew he was an outcast who then ended up returning to his mom and dad’s house, a failure in life. I can understand not wanting to see the faces that had tormented him in high school day in and day out. He did find a part-time job, but it was in Wichita.”
“I’m sure he also wanted to avoid your old pastor,” commented Alex.
“Oh, none of us will need to worry about seeing him for a few more years,” replied Betty. When Alex looked at her questioningly, Betty giggled and replied, “Oh, he got his comeuppance. First, he was found to be having an affair with the church secretary, so the congregation kicked him out, as did his wife. Shortly after that, he was arrested. He’d been embezzling money from the church for several years. He’s taking an extended vacation at the state resort for criminals in Lansing, courtesy of the State of Kansas.” Alex smiled at that news.
“Ultimately, it took two years for Jesse to get back on his feet. Once he’d shaken off the yoke that Ryan had put on him, he decided he wanted to return to Des Moines, which surprised me. He called his old boss, and, true to his word, he was willing to re-hire Jesse. The only thing was, though, he was back to square one, with a starting salary below what he’d been making when he was let go, and without any seniority. He really started over from scratch.”
By the time Betty had finished her story, Alex was the one with the tears in his eyes. Betty and Alex rose from the table and embraced one another again. Betty softly said to Alex as they hugged, “Please don’t hurt Jesse. He’s been hurt too much already. By his ex-boyfriend, his classmates, his pastor, and I hate to admit, but by his own parents as well. Please, just take care of my boy.”
Alex couldn’t manage to find his voice. He simply nodded.
Posted 15 January 2025