Yours in the Bond (Men of Beta, Volume I) by Rashid Darden

Author:Rashid Darden [Darden, Rashid]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: fraternity, gay, black, romance, LGBT, African-American, college, urban
Publisher: Rashid Darden
Published: 2019-04-21T07:00:00+00:00

“Hello, Antonio,” I responded, eight years later in the airport baggage claim.

“It’s been a long time,” he said.

“Yes, it has. Well, goodbye.”

I grabbed my bag and walked toward the exit.

“Eustace, wait.” I turned around.

“Antonio, leave me alone.”

“Please.”

I stopped.

“If you’re going to give me a Watchtower magazine, I’m not interested.” He laughed.

“I’m not that guy anymore. I swear. Please. Let me give you a ride to your parents’ house. I rented a car. I’m cheaper than a taxi. And a taxi driver won’t have nearly as interesting a story to tell you. And I come with apologies. Eustace, please.”

“I ain’t walking to no parking lot. You pick me up out front like anybody else.”

“Fair. I’ll see you in ten minutes. Please, don’t get in a cab. For real.” I nodded.

God sure did have a terrible sense of humor. I might not have died on the plane, but I was surely in Hell already.

Antonio had a little more weight, a little more hair, and a little more charisma than I remembered. I hated seeing him again, but I did wonder what had happened to him.

“It’s good seeing you man,” he said as we pulled off.

“I wish I could say the same. But I’m willing to hear your story.”

“Damn. I guess I deserve that.”

“You guess? The last time I saw you, you were a Bible-thumping ex-gay that wanted me to be ex-gay with him.”

“Yeah. I was that. But now I’m not.”

“So what happened?”

“I realized that you were right all along. That you can’t make somebody not be gay anymore. I was born this way—designed by God.”

“Something tells me you didn’t come to this realization overnight.”

“Nah, not at all. You know I never liked learning anything the easy way. When I got to Lincoln, I got taken in by these nice people who happened to be part of a repressive church. Some might call it a cult. We weren’t sacrificing animals or going on crime sprees, but they had all the hallmarks of a cult. We weren’t allowed to question our leader, Pastor Mike. We needed to spend our entire weekends in service to the church. They considered it community service, but we were just out trying to recruit even more members. And we weren’t supposed to socialize with anyone who wasn’t in the church, unless we were recruiting for the church. That’s why I didn’t come home for Thanksgiving.”

“But you came home for Christmas.”

“Yes, for the last time. I told Pastor Mike that I could convince you to join our network. Maybe even come to Nebraska.”

“But you always knew I wanted to go to the Northeast.”

“Yes, I did. But that’s how the church gets you. They had me convinced that I was going to Hell, man. That everything I knew was wrong. They convinced me that my depression was God’s way of telling me that I was living in sin. I didn’t need church. I needed a good therapist! I was still dealing with the trauma of getting kicked out of my parents home—and somehow still missing them.

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