The Less-Dead Read Free Page A

sucker when it comes to wanting to save my soul, but he’s no dope. He graduated with honors from UT Law School and went on to Dallas Theological Seminary, where he became an expert on eschatology or whatever you call that end-time crap. As he stands there tapping his foot and waiting for my explanation, my mom walks in. Perfect timing. “Noah! Oh, thank goodness you’re home.” She breathes a sigh of relief and gives my father a scolding look. “John, why didn’t you tell me?”
    “Oh, sorry, hon, I was about to, I just …” FYI: my mother is the only person who can render the Bible Answer Guy speechless.
    She walks over and gives me a hug, then pulls away all hurt and disappointed, which kind of kills me. “We were
very
worried about you, Noah.” I can tell she’s about to ask where I stayed last night but stops herself. It’s all part of the tough love thing. Pretty ridiculous, if you ask me.
    “I know. I’m sorry, Mom. I won’t let it happen again. I promise.”
    My dad clears his throat. “Laura, Noah’s asking to go to the Drag today with the youth group. What do you think? Can he do his chores tomorrow?”
    Her eyes widen. “The youth group? Why … sure. Of course. Um, that’s wonderful.” I haven’t shown interest in attending youth group meetings since eighth grade, so this is probably quite a shock to her. Fortunately my mom doesn’t question my motives. Now I need to get out of the house as quickly as possible.
    “Okay, well, great,” I say. “I better hit the shower and get a move on.” I tickle Melanie in the ribs one last time. “See you later, kid.”
    I shower, get dressed, and grab my guitar and harmonicas, and just as I’m about to walk out the door, I see my dad sitting in his study, staring at the wall. It’s risky to go in there now—he may have caught on to my devious scheme—but I do anyway. “Dad?” He turns to me. His eyes are a little glassy. “Um, did you see the article in the paper yesterday? You know, about the murder?”
    He nods. “Yes, I did.”
    “Looks like they caught the guy, huh?”
    He sighs deeply. “I hope so, Noah. I really do.” Right after we heard the news that Kyle Lester had been killed, my father contacted the police. The murder was a pretty high-profile case in Austin, probably because the city, smack in the middle of the Bible Belt, is an oasis for gays and lesbians. It was a long shot that the psycho calling in to my dad’s radio show was the killer, but still, the cops followed up on every possible lead. The investigation went nowhere. The guy was like a ghost.
    “Yeah, me too,” I say. “So have the police called you? Do you know who they arrested? It didn’t say much in the paper.”
    “No. I don’t know anything. I’m not sure I want to either.” There’s a moment of awkward silence, and then my dad says, “Well, have a good time today. I’ll put some gas in the Weedwacker so you’ll be all set for tomorrow.”
    “Oh, okay, thanks, Dad.” What I really want to do is tell my father I’m sorry for what I said that night, one week after Kyle’s murder, when I came home drunk from Ben Huber’s party. When my father saw that I’d been drinking, he started going off on me about how I’d turned my back on my family, on my church, and, worst of all, on God.
    I couldn’t take it anymore. “Turned my back on
God
?” I screamed. “You’re
such
a hypocrite! Just like all the other phonies at church. You think you’re better than everyone else because you’re a Christian? All you do is spread
hate
on your stupid radio show. You say, ‘Hate the sin, but love the sinner’? Well, let me ask you something, Dad. How are you supposed to love a gay person when you’ve never even
known
one? You pass judgment on people, condemn them for who they are. You could have done the right thing, stood up to that caller, but you didn’t. The truth is,
you’re
the one responsible for Kyle Lester’s murder. That’s right,
you!
The