The Good Homosexual - Part Three

TRES

An hour later, Peter Terrance pulled his new silver Porsche out down his long driveway and into the street, where he throatily worked his way quickly through the gears as a grin tugged the corner of his mouth. Peter was much too serious a person to smile very openly, but this car was like butter. He was in fourth by the time he passed Miguel. Out of the corner of his eye he thought he saw a raised arm, and the further he got down the road, the more certain he became that there had been a severely damaged human being lying there.

This put Peter in a bit of a spot. Today was a big day for ICBN, where he was the chief producer. Fox network wanted their relatively small Christian Broadcasting company to handle production on local sports news – an arrangement that would give their organization a serious financial shot in the arm (and help them reach that many more people with the Message). Peter was point man on this project and was trying to get to work early to go over the graphs to make sure that everything was just right. If he did not do his job right the deal could fall through – a risk he could not take.

ICBN needed him, the kingdom needed him, and somebody else would surely see the poor chap and help him out, he decided as he fingered the volume on his satellite radio and nodded as he caught the chorus of one of his favorite Michael W. Smith tunes. “Gotta remember to have Michael in for another interview”, he thought, as he cornered at fifty miles an hour and raced on towards glory.

After another hour had passed, Miguel groaned and rolled over. He could see through a slit in the crusty dried blood around his right eye that the sky was lightening a bit. What he could not see was James Banks, walking towards him on the sidewalk on the other side of the street. He could hear the whining of Mr. Banks’ dog, however, but there was nothing he could do about it. James had noticed Miguel almost immediately when he walked down his driveway because Abe, his golden retriever, had started whining and straining at the leash. James was initially curious, but soon noticed the dark skin and bedraggled, look of the fallen youth. You can always tell border-jumpers, James thought.

This presented a problem. James was extremely Republican, and toed the party line on everything from Kyoto to Communism (bastard reds). He was even more vehement these days, now that the party was being run by a good respectable, Bible-believing native Texan like himself. As a devout church-goer and Texan, it seemed to James that God was at long last getting his way in this country. James’s hobby horse, though, was the Republican border-tightening penchant. While James had managed to claw his way to comfortable wealth through hard work, luck, and some ruthless and (it must be admitted) occasionally questionable insider trading, for his father it had been a different story.

Not that James had particularly liked his father, mind you, but John Banks would not have been such a hard, violent man if he had been able to find and keep a good construction job without having it yanked out from underneath him by some “god-damned wetback”.

James would probably have turned and walked the other way – just on principle – but he was also a creature of habit (methodical, he liked to tell himself) and if he had done that he would have had to walk an extra half hour to get to the corner Starbucks where this morning every week he enjoyed a nice hot brew and the company of his men’s accountability group. James Banks walked quickly by, dragging Abe with him.

Miguel thought briefly of the cur he’d kept alive with scraps back home, then blacked out again completely – for so long that he did not even hear the white Lexus purr by with Simon Stopps inside. He didn’t. Stop, that is – but before you get to thinking that I’ve made this man and even this story up (that name it is just too neat and ironic, you’re thinking), know that it was not entirely Pastor Stopps’ fault. He was a very busy man, the leader of a five thousand – plus church that was bursting at the seams. He had a million folks to care for (well, at least half a million, if you count the TV audience) and no end of responsibilities.

Simon saw Miguel’s plight, yes, and to his credit he made a mental note to call the police when he got to the office (he had a strict policy against cell-phone use in the car – it wasn’t safe and it distracted him from one of the few quiet times he got with the Lord.), but just before he pulled into his spot in front of the ten-million dollar blockish pink monstrosity that was his sanctuary, he thought of a perfect story to complement this week’s sermon and in his rush to get in and have his secretary write it down, Miguel just plumb slipped his mind.

Miguel, you may care to know, was at that moment rapidly wheezing his way towards a final breath. The initial beating had been bad, but with early attention he probably would have pulled through fairly easily. His protracted time on the street was rapidly cutting his chances short. As he flickered in and out of consciousness, the strangest things began to pop into Miguel’s mind: random conversations, the smell of burning enchiladas, a mudfight after a game of rain soccer. Mostly, though, he thought of his mother and sister, and wondered if they were thinking of him, too.