Page 15 of Lula Dean's Little Library of Banned Book
“I don’t care what anyone says,” Crystal told him.
“Were you really out in the woods casting spells?”
“I considered it, but then I realized I don’t need a spell to get what I want.”
“And what’s that?” Russell asked.
“I just want us both to be happy now,” she said. “Our marriage was a complete success.”
Chapter 7
Chicken Soup for the Soul
Elijah Wright was bored out of his ever-lovin’ mind, but he wasn’t about to budge. He’d been hanging out on a bench in Jackson Square for three hours, waiting for the beautiful Bella Cummings to jog by. Elijah didn’t know if he could survive the weekend without seeing her. He wondered if she knew how cruel it was to disappear from his life for two whole days in a row.
He’d had to suffer even longer than the week Bella got suspended from Troy High. People were saying she’d started some kind of rebellion just by wearing spaghetti straps. Elijah definitely wouldn’t put it past her. Bella was smart as hell and she could do a split better than anyone he’d ever seen. He had to bite his lip just thinking about it.Damn,that girl made him crazy. So what if there were a few years between them? Maybe in high school three years made a difference, but when they were older, wouldn’t nobody blink an eye. Of course by then he’d be filthy rich and famous from playing in the NFL. Girls would be throwing themselves at him right and left. He’d be swimming in so much cooch he’d need a snorkel. But he would never love anyone the way he loved Bella Cummings.
Even back in middle school, he’d been besotted. That’s what his older brother, Isaac, called it. Elijah had looked up the word to make sure it fit—and damn, if it didn’t. Isaac and Bella had been best friends since kindergarten, and soon they’d both be graduating and heading off to college. Elijah had always wondered why Isaac never made a move. Bella liked guyswho were book smart—and everybody said his brother was the town genius. When Elijah had found out why Isaac wasn’t interested, his first reaction had been sheer relief. He didn’t need any more competition. As far as Elijah was concerned, it was as simple as that. Since then, things had gotten a lot more complicated.
Now Elijah was sitting on a park bench with a book he’d borrowed from Lula Dean’s library. Isaac would be pissed as hell if he heard that Elijah had gone anywhere near the crazy lady’s house. The shelves at the high school library were half empty now, thanks to that “book-burning barbarian,” as Isaac called her. Elijah wasn’t quite as quick to condemn Lula Dean. He supposed she thought she was protecting them all by hiding the books about sex and such. It was kinda sad and a little bit funny, truth be told. She and her crew seemed really concerned that kids might learn about butt plugs. Like every other boy he knew, Elijah had been secretly watching internet porn since the sixth grade. If Lula Dean had seen evenhalfthe stuff he had by age twelve, butt plugs would have been the least of her worries.
If they were planning to refill the shelves with books like the ones in Lula’s library, they might as well ban reading altogether. Elijah had stood in front of it for a full fifteen minutes. He needed a book to read so Bella wouldn’t think he’d been sitting in the park just waiting for her to run by. But Bella was never gonna believe he’d pick up a book by some pasty politician namedNewt. He skimmed the back cover ofThe Art of Crochetbefore he put that back, too. Everybody at school knew he’d flunked art class. It almost got him kicked off the football team. Finally, he pulled out a copy ofChicken Soup for the Soul. It promised inspiration and everyday miracles, and the whole Wright family was desperate for a bit of both.
By noon, it was hotter than hell, and Elijah had pretty much given up on Bella running by. Still, he stayed put on the bench he’d come to think of as his own. He hadn’t slept well the previous night, he’d left his wallet on his dresser, and all his friends had taken off for the lake. There was nowhere for him to head but home, and that was the last place Elijah wanted to be,even if he would have killed for a nap. It seemed like his mother had been crying for three weeks straight. His father never shed any tears. He just sat on the back porch and fumed in silence. The preacher was there half the time, talking in hushed whispers with one of Elijah’s parents or attempting to counsel his older brother, who was polite as ever, but showed zero interest in the man’s advice.
“I am exactly as God made me,” Elijah heard Isaac inform the preacher. “I will not question God’s wisdom and neither should you.”
Elijah hadn’t been the only one eavesdropping when he said it. Their mother let out a sob when she heard and locked herself in her room for the rest of the day.
At first, he figured his parents were pissed ’cause Isaac was everyone’s favorite. Their hopes and dreams had always been pinned to his brother’s perfectly ironed sleeves. They probably thought Isaac would grow up to be a rocket scientist, marry a supermodel brain surgeon, buy them a vacation home somewhere with mangoes, and give them lots of bougie grandbabies. Now that Isaac was gay, they’d just have to be happy with Elijah and Bella’s kids. And they weren’t gonna be some crappy consolation prize, either, dammit. They would be gorgeous badass geniuses. There wasn’t a doubt in his mind.
Then the preacher pulled Elijah to the side, and he learned that being gay was far more dangerous than he’d ever imagined from watching Felix and Will make out onThe Walking Dead. The gay lifestyle could lead to disease, drug addiction, and debauchery. Elijah figured that, along with the butt sex, could ensure Isaac spent eternity in hell. No wonder his mom wouldn’t stop crying. She had to know all the misery that was waiting for her oldest son. And to be honest, Elijah hadn’t slept well after his chat with the preacher, either. There had been quite a few nights when he’d lain awake imagining Isaac burning when he would have much rather been thinking about Bella Cummings. He joined his parents in begging his brother to get some help for his condition. The preacher said there were programs specially designed for kids like him. Isaac refused to consider the option. Youcouldn’t cure being gay any more than you could cure being white, Black, or Brown, he argued.
“There is no gay in my DNA,” their father said. “You chose this for yourself.”
“Was that Mr. Minter involved?” their mother whispered once when their father wasn’t around. Mr. Minter was a beloved music teacher at the high school who’d been fired after someone from Troy saw him exiting a gay bar in Atlanta. “Did he recruit you before he left town?”
“It isn’t the army, Mom,” Isaac had replied. “No one getsrecruited. By the way, why hasn’t anybody asked how Mr.Concerned Citizenjusthappenedto be in the parking lot of a gay club at three o’clock in the morning when Mr. Minter came out?”
Their mother had gasped, one hand to her chest. “I don’t even want to think about what you might be suggesting.”
“Sounds to me you don’t want to think at all. You just want to believe everything you’re told. ’Cause if you sat down and thought it through, you’d know that I’m right. I haven’t changed one bit since the day I was born.”
But their parents refused to believe it was providence. At night, as he lay in bed sleepless, Elijah listened to them speculate about the cause of Isaac’s condition. Their father, a fan of talk radio who’d long leaned a little to the right, threw out Isaac’s soy milk and had the water tested. Then Lula Dean discovered the dirty cake book that Elijah’s friend Mack had slipped into the library. She and her committee showed up at the high school library a few days later and started yanking books off the shelves. Turned out a few of them had “homosexual themes.” Elijah’s mom recognized one of the covers. Isaac had brought the book home at the start of the school year. Finally, their dad had his answer. He knew why his son was gay.
Isaac and their parents stopped speaking after their dad began spending time with the book-banning buffoons. Only a few months earlier, their house had been one of the happiest in town. Now family dinners were silent aside from their mother’s sniffling. Their father spent most evenings with Lula’s committee. Isaac joined the small group of protesters dedicated tofighting them. And Elijah was tortured by dreams of his beloved brother burning in hell. It was hard to believe it was all happening just because Isaac liked dudes. For the two thousandth time, he closed his eyes and let God know he’d do anything—anything—to bring his family back together.
It was so hot on the park bench that Elijah couldn’t find the energy to open his eyes when the prayer was over. He nodded off for a second andChicken Soup for the Soulslipped off his lap and landed open on the ground beside him. As he bent over to grab it, a single word caught his eye.
Penis.
Elijah snapped back up and left the book spread open on the cobblestones. Of all the words in the world, why had his eyes landed onthatone? Is this how it started? Was this the slippery slope? Eventually curiosity overtook his fear and Elijah leaned over again and scanned the page for the word. Maybe it had been used in some harmless, personal hygiene kind of way.He took Jaylen’s penis into his mouth.
Elijah sat bolt upright, eyes wide. His whole body was burning. Were the flames he felt licking him a preview of what was to come? A mysterious figure appeared on the other side of the park, and Elijah knew for a fact that God was reaching out to him at that moment when he recognized Lula Dean and her dog. She was prancing straight toward him, a pink cupcake of a woman with a dollop of marshmallow fluff trotting beside her. Elijah reached down, snatched the book off the ground, and held it open in front of his face, hoping she’d walk on by.
Instead, Lula stopped right in front of Elijah, the fumes from her perfume wrapping his head in a choke hold. “Elijah Wright. Did you get that out of my library?” she demanded to know.
“Yes, ma’am,” Elijah replied, knowing he’d just been outed.
