I’m Happy
With his mouth rounded and his jaw dropped in order to accentuate his soft pallet, Dusty Ayers, with his high cheek bones and towering, slender frame, belted out the lyrics: “Show us the light, sweet Jesus, show us the light,” in such a domineering manor that his mere tenor range overpowered the singing of every other person in his pew and all of the other pews in its relative proximity. Aside from the fact that he was the loudest singer out of this modest Baptist congregation of no more than fifty people, he genuinely believed every single lyric that came flying out of his mouth, and effortlessly conveyed his unwavering faith through eager facial expressions and gentle rhythmic sways. Ever since he’d been old enough to remember and express himself, the single biggest highlight of his week was getting to attend the Sunday morning weekly services at White Rock Baptist Church, which was located roughly eighty miles Northeast of Greenville, South Carolina. Presently, at the age of sixteen, Dusty’s doting mother, Betty, and father, Clyde, couldn’t have been more pleased than to look down the pew beside them and observe what a good young man of the church they had raised, although they did occasionally—depending on the song—wish that their son were perhaps less daring and confident in his singing abilities, and would simply adopt the congregation’s conventional singing method of simply mumbling their way through the centuries old hymns.
Just as Cleo O’Donnell, the church’s longtime piano and organ player, pressed her frail and boney little fingers down on the vintage piano keys—real ivory keys, from back when that was an acceptable material—Pastor Carl, a stout, perfectly “Southern”-looking man, marched his way down from the choral loft and firmly situated himself behind the stained oak pulpit. As soon as the final notes of the hymn had echoed throughout the cozy little chapel, Pastor Carl extended both of his arms out with open palms and sweepingly pushed downward, signifying for the congregation to be seated.
Despite the fact that he knew exactly what was next on the church service’s agenda, Dusty pointedly glanced down at the program that he clenched tightly in his hands, disappointed over the fact that Pastor Carl wouldn’t allow Cleo to perform her fancy finger work for the duration of the service. Just as Pastor Carl made the opening announcements, Dusty’s skimming of the program came to an abrupt halt when he came to the next item on the agenda: the prayer list, a lugubrious and largely monotonous compilation of those who were under the weather and individual qualms over the condition of the private lives of various parishioners and their relatives.
Pulling out the dull yellow colored legal pad where he kept all of the names from the prayer list, Pastor Carl cleared his throat with a deeply resonant grumble, to which Dusty instantly rolled his eyes and slouched down in his seat in anticipation over this dreadfully painful ritual. Before hoisting the list up level with his eyes, Pastor Carl meticulously adjusted his small, wiry reading glasses.
“Alright, we let me see here… It appears as if we still have many of the same people on the prayer list as we had last week,” Pastor Carl announced in a studious diction.
Reviewing the previous week’s list, printed on the back cover of the program, Dusty realized that most of the names that were on the list had in fact been on there for months, making him seriously question whether or not Pastor Carl ever actually updated the list.
“I received a call from Mary Anne Lowman’s daughter yesterday, informing me that she had fallen and broken her hip, and I assured her that I would add her to the prayer list,” Pastor Carl said before continuing to read.
Roughly ten minutes later, Pastor Carl placed the legal pad down on the podium and looked out into the congregation, as if checking to see if anyone was still awake.
“At this time, does anyone have any additions to make to the list?” Pastor Carl questioned the congregation before stepping back and raising his eyebrows to the choir, implying the same question.
In the moments that followed his question, no one jumped out of their seats to suggest anyone that needed to be prayed for. Rather, several members of the congregation slowly turned to each other and made eye contact as if they did in fact know someone that needed the power of prayer, but were too afraid to vocalize their thoughts.
“No additions? No one needs to be prayed for?” Pastor Carl questioned as a last offering before he moved on to his sermon.
Suddenly, without announcement, Dusty reached forward and took hold of the back rail of the pew in front of him and pulled himself up into a standing position. His standing slightly alarmed both his mother and father, causing them to turn to each other in search of an answer. Then they shrugged and flashed acknowledgments of ignorance to each other, before turning to Sally, his 12-year-old sister, in the hopes that she knew something that they didn’t.
“What?” Sally yelped out at her parents with little regard for the silence around her.
Mortified at Sally’s outburst, both Betty and Clyde shook their heads and held their fingers up to their mouths in the hopes of communicating to her that she just quiet down.
“I have an addition to make to the prayer list,” Dusty said in as clear and confident of a tone as possible.
Just as he made the declaration, his mother frantically reached forward and took hold of one of the belt loops of his trousers and gave it a slight tug in an attempt to get her son’s attention. Unfazed by this, Dusty leaned slightly forward, anticipating the pastor’s response.
“Ah, Dusty. Of course, go ahead son,” Pastor Carl responded with a degree of surprise in his voice.
“I would like to add the members of the transgender community who have passed away in honor of the Transgender Day of Remembrance,” Dusty spouted off as if he were ordering a cheeseburger from a fast food establishment.
Just as soon as the words barreled out of Dusty’s mouth, there wasn’t a jaw that hadn’t dropped throughout the entire congregation.
“Come again?” Pastor Carl immediately snapped back at Dusty in disbelief.
Scrambling to jerk some sense into her son, Betty reached forward and shoved her hand down into the back of the waist of his slacks—which were perhaps a size or two too large—and violently jerked him backwards. Startled by his mother’s sudden action, Dusty leaned forward and grabbed onto the back of the pew that was in front of him for support before twisting himself to the side to see what the problem was.
Still not having heard a reply, Pastor Carl again asked, “Come again, son?” in the hopes that he had perhaps misheard the young man’s request.
Refusing to acknowledge the fact that his mother was staring daggers at him with her pupils dilating larger and larger with every passing second, Dusty raised himself back up to a perfectly erect standing position and responded, “The Transgender Day of Remembrance… It’s a day where people remember all of the transgender people who have been murdered throughout the year. I think we should pray for them.”
During Dusty’s response, Pastor Carl simply looked on and listened in complete shock at what he was hearing. Never had the pastor heard the term “transgender” uttered before in person, only on the news, let alone in the house of the Lord. In the seconds that followed his response, Dusty simply stood pointedly with a sincere expression of wanting his prayer list addition to be taken seriously. Every gray-haired old lady and tough old veteran in the chapel nearly broke their necks trying to twist around, just to get a single brief look at the soft-voiced source of this disruption. Betty and Clyde sat stiffly in their seats, mortified, wanting nothing more than to crawl under their pew and hide, while Sally sat stone-faced, unable to make heads or tails of what was happening.
“Alright everyone, go ahead and take out your Bibles and turn to Genesis: 13-14,” Pastor Carl eventually said, continuing to visually maul Dusty.
Following the service, neither Betty nor Clyde spoke a word to each other or their two children, they simply both latched on to one of their son’s arms and gently guided him to Pastor Carl’s office, which was located in the back of the church and beside the kitchen. At that point, Dusty knew that something that he said must have been taken the wrong way, but despite racking his mind for answers, all he could come up with was that the people that he suggested be added to the prayer list weren’t in fact worth praying for in the eyes of the pastor and congregation. Sally followed along, not knowing what else to do with herself. On their way to his office, the family of four passed Pastor Carl as he made his way to the front of the church in order to shake all of the hands with the members of his flock. As he walked past them, there appeared to be a subtle acknowledgment between the pastor and the parents—a slight head nod that there was unsettled business between them.
The family of four sat silently, without so much as a grunt or eye contact, for nearly fifteen minutes until the pastor anxiously fidgeted with the door knob and entered with a considerable amount of hesitation. Upon seeing the pastor’s face, Dusty’s mother and father collectively let out a sigh of relief, feeling as if the reinforcements had arrived.
Pastor Carl paused after entering the room for a moment and then he quickly glanced at Dusty before taking a good look at his parents, as if the answer to the question that he was seeking could be found in the family’s eyes. Abruptly forcing him out of his ponderous glances, Dusty sat forward in his seat and turned to Pastor Carl in the hopes of finding out what he had done wrong. Startled by Dusty’s look, the pastor made his way over to the large bookshelf that lined one of the walls of the office and pulled out a large Bible of considerable age before settling behind the desk.
“Did I do something wrong?” Dusty asked, uncertain.
Swallowing deeply, Pastor Carl looked down at his Bible, and then up at Dusty.
“Can I have Dusty’s TV when he goes to Hell?” Sally asked, breaking the awkward silence.
Nearly snapping her neck out of socket, Betty jerked herself forward and leaned over her husband in order to look at her daughter dead on.
“Sally! Don’t say something like that!” she snapped.
Sally simply shrugged off her mother’s stern command.
Having stewed long enough, Clyde slapped his hands down onto his knees and turned to face his son.
“Son, why would you say something like that? Transgender… Do you even know what that means?” he questioned in a huff.
Her husband’s directness made Betty’s cheeks glow with embarrassment.
“Why shouldn’t we pray for them? They don’t deserve to die,” Dusty snapped back in a naïve way.
“Where did you hear that from? Who told you about those people?” Betty asked, trying to defuse the situation between her husband and son.
Without giving Dusty more than a second to respond, his father threw his hands up in the in his frustration.
“Friends! Friends at school told me about the Transgender Day of Remembrance and I thought what was happening to some of them sounded just horrible,” Dusty said.
Finally intervening, Pastor Carl quickly slammed his Bible shut with a quick thud, and removed his glasses.
“Dusty…are you a homosexual?” Pastor Carl asked with the directness of a missile.
The room instantly went silent and a thick veil of tension filled the air as Betty, Clyde, and Sally all turned to their beloved son and brother in the hope that his answer would be a stern “No.”
“I’m happy,” Dusty said before a wide, toothy smile stretched across his face from ear-to-ear.
Aila Alvina Boyd is currently pursuing her M.F.A. at Lindenwood University. She also holds a B.S. from Radford University. She lives in Virginia.