the 13 of them pile into jesus’s old pickup truck, pull the tailgate down even though it creaks and spits rust at them. 5 in the front: jesus driving, john right up next to him, the twins sharing the second seat, and judas pressed against the passenger door, hanging his head out the window. the other 8 of them are a tangle of arms and kneecaps and sweat in the truck bed. there’s a bumper sticker that says “god is my co-pilot.” jesus rolls his eyes.
“my dad thinks he’s hilarious. my mom taught me to ride a horse, but he taught me to drive.”
simon peter screams bloody murder every time they hit a pothole and laughs when it makes everyone else jump. thomas elbows him and he shuts up.
“c’mon, man,” john says, checking all the rear view mirrors & then looking over his shoulder for good measure. “we can’t afford that shit. you know what people around here think of boys who look like us.”
& they do: judas with his long hair and his glittery nails and his tattoo that says HERETIC PRIDE loud enough for zealots to spot it two states over, simon peter with his buzzcut and his unbound chest, thomas with all the rainbow pins on the jacket he stole from his sister, jesus with his braid and his black lipstick and his shirt that says SODOMITE in a font not quite cursive enough to come anywhere close to obscuring it.
13 boys, none white, which is enough of a risk already.
& john the most careful of them, plain t-shirt & plain jeans & curly brown hair barely long enough to tuck behind his ears, and yet people always sense it on him anyway.
jesus gets them to the beach safe, though, and they’re sprawled in the sand, a mess of sharp fashion and loud voices and boy limbs, & andrew asks, “hey, you remember when we met?”
everyone does. a beach like this.
it sure is something, huh?
jesus throws a rock into the ocean. it sinks. “my dad’s got christmas again this year,” he says, and everyone sighs, like, fuck that. mary’s there for all the mundane shit, all the bruises and recitals and hair dye and honor roll certificates and suspensions, and then his old man thinks he can slip him some wine at a wedding and they’re cool now, just like that.
“he’s got all these plans for me,” jesus says, and john thinks, we made out in that truck last week. he wonders if jesus’s dad would slash the tires if he knew.
because it’s like that: john stuffs a bunch of band t-shirts and his copy of the great gatsby into his backpack, because he’s not an optimist, and he sits down and tells his parents he’s in love. like hell you are, they say, and he says yeah, exactly, like hell, and he gets up and leaves it all behind, do not pass go, do not collect $200, do not turn into a pillar of salt.
most of them did, or at least something close enough to it: you wanna pick up some guys? jesus asks, & they do, more than anything, have for longer than they’ll ever know how to name, and he shrugs and says, c’mon then, follow me.
