This story takes place after Righteous Gemstones Episode 1.8, when Scotty Steele is killed.
April 21, 2019. Easter Sunday.
Light. Intense, golden light, surrounding him. Not bright, like sunlight, just warm, comfortable, loving -- how can light be loving? -- like sitting on your mother's lap when you are a kid. Scotty wonders if he is a kid. Maybe he has gone back to the womb?
No, there are others around him, some that he once knew, and loved or hated, some who are strangers. Except they aren't strangers now -- he sees the most important moments of their lives, and they, in turn, see Scotty's. At random, not in chronological or thematic order:
1. Going out to dinner at the Shem Creek Restaurant in Mount Pleasant -- pizza and beer -- and Scotty calls Gideon "Little Lord Fauntleroy." They smile and joke, and hold hands under the table, and the song on the radio, or in his mind, is "You Knock Me Out.” :
The way you talk when you say what you see
Your smile breaking my words – you knock me out.
The way you shake it, baby, the way you get when you get down -- you knock me out
The memory of the song, of his smile, fills Scotty with so much joy that he he feels like he will burst. He looks around -- or the equivalent when you don't have a body -- and feels the others sharing his joy.
2. The Old Man, Jesse Gemstone, takes them all out on his yacht, and in the glittering of the waves, while the kids sit in the wading pool -- a pool on a yacht? -- Jesse offers to become his Daddy, and they hug. He eases into the hug, actually considering the crazy idea for a moment. They could just walk away from the scheme to steal the Easter offering from the Salvation Center, $3,000,000, and settle into lives as a good Christian Gemstone and his boyfriend.
Then he laughs to himself. No way will the Old Man ever admit Scotty to the family, knowing that his cock has been down his son's throat or up his ass...sorry, Mom....the fact that Scotty has been intimate with his son every night. Evangelicals hate gay sex even more than they hate thinking for yourself. The Easter Offering plan is the only way they can walk side by side into the future.
3. Driving from California to South Carolina so they can blackmail his father, the world-famous Jesse Gemstone, with a video of his sex-and-drugs party, get even for a childhood of neglect and abuse, and fund their happily-ever-after life in Thailand. They spend the night in a Motel 6 somewhere in New Mexico. Lucy is snoring. Scotty opens his eyes and sees that Gideon is propped up in the other bed, playing on his cell phone, his face illuminated, as if he is already in the plane of endless light. He must be an angel -- nothing in this shithole world -- sorry, Mom -- could be so beautiful.
He knows that he's going to do it, he's known since the moment they met, but still, Scotty is terrified as he climbs out of his own bed and slides in next to him. Gideon doesn't look surprised -- maybe he has always known, too. He puts his cell phone away and scoots down so Scotty can hold him in his arms and kiss him.
Then the world changes. Scotty has never been kissed before, not like this. Minutes pass, hours, months. It's more than enough for a lifetime. He doesn't even think about doing something more intimate -- is there anything more intimate? -- but eventually Gideon takes the lead, rolls him over onto his back, and moves down....he moves down...
To give him the best blow job of his life. Well, until the next night. And the next. With Gideon, his orgasms are so intense that his yells wake half the county, and he has to lie there, panting, exhaused, not sure where he is or who he is, knowing only that they are together.
Cause you and me were meant to be. One heart, one soul, one mind, two of a kind.
Whoever said that love is blind? We're partners in crime.
Scotty retreats into himself, embarrassed, but the others draw him back. There's nothing to be embarrassed about now. They've seen the moments of his life, and he's seen theirs.
More after the break
One of the others has taken on form -- not really a corporeal form, more like a recognizable presence: a young woman with 1980s helmet hair and circular glasses, a little girl in pigtails standing on a country road, a middle-aged woman holding baby Gideon on her lap. She is singing, or music is playing:
We've come so very far, just look at where we are -- What once was a dream is now a sweet memory.
I'll see you again with the valley's warm wind, I'll see you some way, but it's toodles today
Scotty knows who she is -- Aimee-Leigh Gemstone, the Gospel singer that his mom liked so much. Eli Gemstone's wife, Jesse's mother, Gideon's grandmother!
More memories emerge, and with them the joy turns to pain. Scotty never hit Gideon, except for two fights where he got worse than he gave, and the sex was always consensual -- he was forced, by his cousin, by his tenth grade teacher, by a crazy chick in a dive bar, so he always made sure that the cocksucker -- sorry, gay guy -- was into it. But he was always loving. He belittled Gideon, called him names, yelled, even threatened. He thought that the only way he could keep someone with him was by making them feel small and scared.
Creeper got mad and angry eyes – one look from him can paralyze.
Upon his lips the taste of pain, venom kiss of love insane
He got a rod beneath his coat – he gonna ram it right down your throat.
Make you grovel on the floor, spit up and scream and beg for more
Scotty retreats into himself, hating himself for hurting so many people, fearful that Gideon's grandmother has come to judge him. But all he feels from Aimee-Leigh is love. She nods -- or its equivalent -- and the memory continues.
On Easter morning, Gideon comes down the elevator alone and says "It's over." He chose the ritzy Gemstone world over the dream of Thailand, the Old Man over the love of his life. The smiles, holding hands under the table, the kissing, the orgasms that burst across the universe -- all ignored. But Gideon isn't the one who ignored it -- Scotty could have said "It's ok, I don't want the money, all I need is to be by your side." He didn't.
After that Scotty sees nothing but red rage. He retrieves his van, beats up Granddad Eli, forces Gideon and Jesse to open the vault, ties them up. He yells "You made your choice, and you broke my heart!" Then he zooms away from the estate, not sure where he is going, nowhere, anywhere, into the abyss. He doesn't care; his life is over already.
Aimee-Leigh waits patiently for his despair to wash through the others. Then she asks "Are you ready to go, darlin? We've got work to do."
Calling him "darlin'," as if she is really his grandmother! Wait -- of course she is. There are no lies in the endless light. "But how? He must hate me. There's no coming back from what I've done to him."
"He's already forgiven you. But you need to forgive him."
August 18, 2019
They are sitting together in a Sunday morning service at the Gemstone Salvation Center. Crowded -- it's a wonder someone doesn't try to sit in their laps. Down on the stage, Grandad Eli is preaching: "We move through this world, crossing paths with friends, family...and I believe that the goal of all that colliding is to make us appreciate one another, to find empathy.
Scotty looks around, hears about everyone in the congregation -- Keefe, Uncle Kelvin's boyfriend, working security; BJ, Aunt Judy's boyfriend, in the pews; Dot Nancy; Chad and his wife, Martin. "Where's the Old Man...I mean, Daddy Jesse?"
"If you're not rooting for your enemy's salvation, you are not in line with what the Spirit wants," Eli preaches.
Oh. She wants him to forgive Jesse. Of course...why wouldn't he?
"Aimee-Leigh knew this. That's why she wanted to help, no matter what."
Scotty gulps....or the equivalent. Aimee-Leigh has been rooting for him all along, before he had even heard of the Gemstones, trying to help through every moment, forgiving him every time he let the pain take charge. He starts to cry.
He cries for a long time, and when he stops, he's ready to see Gideon.
July 27, 2024
They are standing behind a fence, looking out over a vast field somewhere on the Compound. The Gemstones, all of them together, are sitting on lawn chairs, watching a monster truck rally. Each of them gets a turn driving. "Awright!" Scotty exclaims. "My family really know how to have a good time!"
Gideon is sitting with his brothers and Mama Amber. Scotty thought he would be overwhelmed by love, but actually he feels anger, at himself and at Gideon. So this is what it feels like to betray the love of your life. He forces himself to look away, to the end of the row, where Uncle Kelvin and Keefe are sitting on matching rocking chairs, carved with the roots of the tree for Keefe and the branches for Kelvin.
"Are they married yet?" he asks.
"Not yet. You're seeing the joy in each other that they felt every moment since they met in this life."
"Must be nice to know right away."
"They didn't, darlin'. Well, they knew, of course, but it took three years for them to admit it."
Glimpsing into their past, Scotty sees why they couldn't admit it. Keefe had done every kind of sex, used every kind of drug, tried to kill himself a hundred ways, and now he was trapped inside himself, afraid of the world. Loving him would be difficult, dangerous, and Kelvin was broken, hating himself for being gay -- and for having a small dick, although when Scotty flashes back to his first blow job, it looks fine. Kelvin had never even had a boyfriend before. How on Earth was he qualified to be Keefe's lover? So he had to push him away, pretend that they wee just buddies or work associates. It took a crisis, a death and resurrection, to admit what they both already knew.
October 13, 2019
They are standing in a jungle, looking out over a trench that will soon bring water to the villages in the Foret des Pines in Haiti. Gideon is digging with the others from his missionary group. His shirt is off! Watching the interplay of muscles on his shoulders and back, his biceps, his face, his soul -- Gideon is the hottest guy on the planet, the most beautiful. How could someone like that ever think of Scotty as more than a friend, or a fuck buddy? Sorry, Aimee-Leigh
But she laughs: "Don't worry, I've said a few choice words in my day."
As Scotty watches, more pain emerges. He relives, again and again, that sickening moment when Gideon descends the elevator alone and says "It's over." How can he ever forgive that?
"Darlin', that's why you got to see Kelvin and Keefe first."
Suddenly Scotty understands. He's Keefe! He had been trying to kill himself since he was ten years old. Drugs, sex, arrests for prostitution and dealing, three years in prison. The same things that attracted Gideon --his strength, his anger, his raw sexual energy -- made loving him dangerous. And Gideon was a shy church boy who rarely dated, had never been with a man before, didn't even realize he was gay. So he had to push him away, tell himself "I'm not in love with Scotty" over and over to avoid admitting what they both already knew.
So many moments could have been different. He didn't have to be the Devil.
The anger fades away, replaced by a quiet longing.
"Can I just stay here and look at him forever?"
"No, but you can visit other moments of his life. And you should -- your job is to watch over him, make sure he's on the right path."
"Like a guardian angel, huh?"
"Sort of, except you get to take liberties that guardian angels can't. Now kiss him goodbye, promise that you'll be right back, and then we gotta scoot. You got a lot more forgivin' to do."
"Kiss him? But I don't have a mouth..." But Scotty moves down and envelops Gideon with love until he stops digging and stands still, looking perplexed. Then he moves in for the kiss. Gideon smiles.
I'll see you again with the valley's warm wind, I'll see you some way, but it's toodles today
October 23, 2045
You'd expect to find boredom in watching someone read, but Scotty enjoys loving Gideon when he is doing ordinary things, when there is no crisis, no diverging pathway, nothing to distract him from the joy of the everyday. Tonight he is sitting on the couch in his living room while his husband cooks dinner and their son is doing something loud in the game room.
Scotty peeks at the title. Kierkegaard -- no surprise there. Gideon wrote his doctoral dissertation on Kierkegaard on Faith and Despair. But when he reads the line: "forgiveness is not simply a spontaneous act, but rather an event that consists of hard spiritual work on the part of the one who loves," he pulls out his ipad and writes: "Every day I work to forgive Scotty, and to forgive myself, for the moments lost to pettiness and fear."
"Great sentence!" Scotty exclaims. "It sounds like the first line of a book."
December 28, 2083.
Dr. Gideon Gemstone, professor emeritus of homilectics at Charleston Baptist Seminary, retired senior pastor at the Gemstone Salvation Center, author of seven books (The Hard Work of Forgiveness is about his romance with Scotty), sits at his desk. He has put aside an article on koinonia to chat with his grandson, a high school chemistry teacher visiting for the holidays.
"Is he almost ready?" Scotty asks.
"Almost," Uncle Kelvin says.
Keefe is with him of course, and there are others: Aimee-Leigh, Granddad Eli, Jesse and Amber, Gideon's husband, his mother-in-law, his best friend from seminary....
"I can't imagine how you must feel, waiting for so long. I only had to wait for Keefe for six months -- he practically followed me to the cemetery."
"It's been an eternity." Scotty admits. "But also just a few minutes. I've been with him through all the moments of his life."
"Our weding night?" Gideon's husband asks, pretending to be embarrassed. But of course there's no embarrassment here. Scotty has shared the joy of that night many times.
"Come on, darlin'," Aimee-Leigh tells him. "Let's give the boys some privacy."
The others move away. Scotty watches, loving Gideon, as he sits at his desk, chatting. Then suddenly he gasps, and his physical form slumps forward. His grandson rushes to him, calls for someone else in the house...and Gideon is with him in the endless light, an old man, a little boy, and hottest guy Scotty has ever seen, with a smile that can light up a room. Now it is lighting up the whole universe.
"I was married for 28 years," he says. "But I was hoping that it would be you."
"He's here, and many others. But this moment is just for us."
Gideon nods, or its equivalent. "Can we kiss here?"
"Darlin', we can do everything here."
February 18, 2019
A run-down hotel somewhere in New Mexico. Lucy is snoring beside him, and Gideon is propped up in bed, playing with his cell phone. He knows that he's going to do it, he's known since the moment they met, but still, Scotty is terrified as he climbs out of his own bed. Gideon doesn't look surprised -- maybe he's always known, too. He puts his cell phone away and scoots down so Scotty can hold him in his arms and kiss him.
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