Chapter 1.1 -- Homecoming Dance -- Dancing at Church
So I went to the dance.
The church in Odessa used to be towards the center of town, next to Bowie Junior High. Bowie needed parking and a larger football field, and we had a nice, big parking lot in back that wasn't in use most of the week.
We had built much of our meetinghouse ourselves, or, rather, our parents had, and, even though they had done an excellent job on it, it didn't meet the new general Church standards.
Eventually things worked out that we sold the building and land to the Ector County Independent School District. They took the steeple down, filled in the baptismal font, turned the chapel into a lecture hall, made some other minor modifications, but mostly left the rooms and the gym as they were. And now it's the Bowie Middle School Annex.
The gym is in the south half of the building, on the left in the picture above. That's where we used to hold our dances.Strangely, or perhaps not so strangely for me, what felt odd to me that evening was not what other
returned missionaries talk about, not the being without a companion, not
the freedom to dance, but the letting someone else be the one providing the
sound system, letting someone else work the turntable.
Neil, one of the young men of the ward who was now preparing for his own mission, had taken over the dance music duties while I was gone. And that meant I got to focus on dancing.
Very few of the young women in the group I had grown up with were there. Most were off to school. Some were already married. Many of the young men I had hung around with were at school or still on their missions.
Many of their younger brothers and sisters were, however.
My best church friend's little sister was there -- his really cute little sister, now grown up, now a really good-looking woman. Would I be emphasizing too much if I admitted she had a special beauty?
She had a facial scar from a childhood operation. Restorative surgery was not as advanced back then, insurance not as comprehensive, and money tighter in general, so the operation restored her health, but did not clear the nominal blemish.
Her family was supportive. The people at church were also, relatively speaking, supportive. When they moved, I think the members in their new ward were supportive, too. School, not so much. She had had to develop a certain toughness about the scar in most social settings.
But somehow she had learned to let herself shine through. And she really was beautiful, scar included.
"Lizzie Ann! How's things? Lute here too?"
"I'm doing good. No, he's still doing great in Guatemala. He'll be another couple of months."
"Oh, that's right. What're you up to? In Lubbock?"
"Nursing school in Roswell. We heard about the dance here, so we came to crash it."
She indicated two young women that were with her, and I introduced myself.
"So you're back from Japan," she prompted.
"Yeah, just came in today. Mom told me about the dance."
"Guess you haven't talked with the stake president yet."
"Nope. But the mission president told me I can dance now I'm home. Wanna dance?"
"Sure!" She grinned and turned to her friends to excuse herself, and we went back into the gym. We closed to ballroom position and began two-stepping to a country ballad.
"You'll ask my roommates to dance, too, right?"
"Of course."
While we danced and talked, I considered asking her out. But the thought of driving 200 miles to Roswell to see her got in the way. And something just wasn't clicking for me. Might have been Beryl. Might have been Satomi. Might have been the friendship with Lute. Might have been the fact that I was still trying to figure out what goals to set for a career.
Might have been many things, including my generally awkwardness about dating.
I have sometimes regretted not asking her out while she was there that night. She'd known me for a long time, and, of all the women I have known, she may have been the most ready to understand me as I was, as I am.
I danced well more than half the dances. Lizzie Ann and her roommates got their share, and I danced with most of the other young women, as well. I had not really interacted much with the group two years younger than me before my mission, so I didn't feel like I knew them that well. But they remembered me and they knew I liked to dance. And they all knew I wasn't into kissing, so no one worried me about that. Well, none of the young women, anyway.
"So, Joe, if your mission president said it's all right to dance, you gonna get a kiss tonight?" Ken was one of the 14 year old group.
"Don't be juvenile," June, his sister, chided him.
"Ken, ya gotta be kidding," I shook my head. "From whom?"
"Anybody! If it's not off limits, ..."
"Definitely not planning on working that fast."
Why it always felt to me like the young women my own age were scared I was going to try to kiss them, I'm not sure. Maybe it was all in my own head. I sure never tried to kiss any of them. Never had kissed anyone besides my mom and my sisters.
(The real me would be 26 before his first kiss. Some people doubt me when I say that. What can I say? It was not my goal to refrain from kissing. It just didn't happen. I never liked to force things. What was not was not.)
Many of the people there asked me about my plans, and I talked about taking general education classes at Odessa College, where my dad taught, while looking for a full four-year college to go to. It would save me a lot of money to get two years out of the way at home.
"Do you think about going into medicine at all?" Lizzie Ann asked during a break between dances.
"Not really. I'm more looking at physics and electrical engineering."
"Hard stuff," one of her roommates laughed.
"Medicine ain't all that easy, either."
"True," her other roommate pursed her lips.
"Yeah, before I went out on the mission, I was thinking it'd be okay to just be a TV repair tech for my whole life. It'd give me time to mess with stuff I want to mess with."
"Uh, huh," Lizzie Ann nodded. "You've got that really complicated stereo."
"Hah."
"It has good sound, but I was always scared to touch it."
"It doesn't bite. I can show you how to use it."
"I think I'd still be a little scared of it."
"Anyway, now I'm thinking maybe I should set my sights higher, academically."
"How about BYU?"
Brigham Young University.
"Not really considering BYU. Mom doesn't want me to go there. Too churchy in the outward-churchy way. Although, for studying Japanese, BYU would be a logical choice."
"Well isn't it Mary?" The four of us looked up as Sister Patton and Sister Warren joined us.
My first name is Marion. People usually call me Joe, for my middle name. Sister Patton and a few others of the women at church had teased me when I was younger, calling me Mary or Josephine. It had initially upset me. But Mom said they just wanted to see me react. So I quit reacting, and they quit teasing. Mostly.
"Hi, Sister Patton. Sister Warren." It really no longer bothered me.
"So how long have you been back?" Sister Warren asked.
"Just got back."
Sister Patton creased her eyebrows. "I'm surprised that you were able to speak with President Price so quickly."
"My interview with the stake president will be in two weeks." I decided to bait her in turn, ignoring the question she was implying.
"But you're here at this dance alone? Of course you haven't been dancing ..."
"And waste the opportunity? Of course I've been dancing."
"But what about the rules?"
"Rules?"
"Mission rules."
"I'm just doing what my mission president told me to do in my final interview."
"Oh, really?"
"He said that once my mom picked me up at the airport, the rules that apply are the rules for any good member of the Church."
"Does President Price know about this?"
"He mentioned it to my parents a week or two ago, so I guess so."
"Well, if that were true, what would keep you from just kissing a girl?"
I noticed one of Lizzie Ann's roommates turn to her and ask her a question, and she just gave her a puzzled look and a shake of the head.
"I never was one to kiss a woman without permission, and I'm not planning on working that fast tonight."
Kenny Rogers's "I Don't Need You" started playing.
"Hey, Lizzie Ann, you want to dance this song, don't you?"
"Sure!"
And I made my escape, with Lizzie's help.
"Joe?" her voice was just loud enough for me to hear her over the music.
"Yeah?" I finished leading the turn and we closed and shifted to simple two-step.
"Can I ask you a question?"
"Shoot."
"Doesn't it bother you when Sister Patton calls you Mary?"
"She's just trying to tease me. Ignoring it seems to be the smartest thing."
We danced for a few steps and I dropped her lead hand. We opened and turned back for a double turn under and closed again.
"Uhm, my roommate Karen asked if you were gay."
I broke rhythm for a moment. She waited, and we picked the rhythm back up and continued.
"There is no such thing as gay. Well, the gayest guys I've ever met were the guys in the locker room who teased other guys about being sissies or gay."
"That doesn't make sense."
"It's a pecking order thing. They tease you and look for a response. If you respond, they claim you for their buka."
"Boo-caw? Book?"
"Buka." I dropped her hand and we stopped dancing while I wrote the Kanji in the air:
部下
She watched in amusement. "Not that I could read that even if you wrote it on paper."
"Japanese for subordinate or," I had to think, "underling. Peon. Servant. Follower. Minion. And if you break the line, they demand favors."
She nodded, and we returned to dancing for a bit before I continued.
"I've watched friends get dragged into the male version of cliques by that kind of teasing."
"It's a kind of bullying?"
"Bullying, and a bit more. Some of the favors they demand are sexual."
"That's ... perverted."
"And perverting. People should be able to love each other without them having to be suspected of wanting sex, and the whole social question of being gay makes it harder for that to happen."
I was depending on our shared background in the Church for her to understand what I meant, referring without saying so to the pure love of Christ.
"I think I see what you mean."
"You know, the word 'gay' could just mean wanting to enjoy life, and being willing to express that joy."
"Like in that Christmas carol we used to sing, 'Deck the Halls'."
"Exactly. And novels from the last century." Two centuries ago, now. "Well, I think the word has always had a dual meaning, but now the sexual meaning is forcing the more general meaning out."
After a few more steps, I continued, half to myself, "Homosexuality is an artifact of false equivalences in our metalanguage."
After a few more steps, she asked, "So you think homosexuality isn't real?"
We opened again and moved into a cuddle.
"I don't guess I can really say that. I know that some people don't go through full physical differentiation as they grow up, and I'm pretty sure so-called corrective surgery is not usually the right answer."
We opened again, joining both hands for a dual turn under.
"Full physical differentiation?"
"Actually, I think everyone is a little different. 'Full physical differentiation' probably implies something that isn't real."
"I've studied enough medicine I think I can agree with that."
We danced a bit more, before she continued.
"So is that all there is to being gay?"
"Well physical nature affects hormones, and hormones affect emotions, and society tries to coerce men to not feel anything at all. That's wrong. Gender really isn't binary, and society tries too hard to make it binary. Trying to coerce conformity tends to make things worse. People should be allowed to work out their own feelings and what they do about them, without society getting its prurient interests and dirty hands all over things by insisting on seeing, defining, categorizing, and forming people."
She stopped, and I stopped, and she gave me a look of curiosity.
"What?" I asked.
"What about the sin?"
"No parking on the dance floor!" One of the young men slapped me on the back as he and his partner two-stepped past, and I turned to exchange grins with him.
I held out my hands, and Lizzie Ann took them and closed with me and we continued dancing.
"So?" she prompted.
"It's not a sin to want someone to be happy. Hugs are not sinful. Well, not usually. It's not a sin to love someone. We should be free to love everyone. But sex outside of marriage tends to be sinful whether it's homosexual or heterosexual. And you don't have to have sex with everyone you love."
It took several steps for her to respond. "Are you sure you're not interested in medicine or psychology?"
Now it took me several steps to respond. I shook my head. "I don't think I could deal with the hypocrisy."
"Uh, huh." She sighed. "You've been a perfectionist for as long as I can remember."
Now, before you go charging me with racism (incorrect use of the word) or sexual bigotry or other unreasoning bias, this was the language we used at the time. It was the take I had at the time on the arguments brewing just underneath the surface in popular discourse.
But I'll admit my fundamental opinions haven't changed. Gained a bit of nuance, but not really changed.
Homosexuality shouldn't be a thing. None of us meet the Machiavellian, Freudian, or Harlequin ideals. Most of the arguments about gender and sexual orientation are society poking their noses into things that aren't any of their business, and when society gets involved, they -- we -- usually just make things worse.There is a political conflation of two diametrically opposed ideals marching around under the rainbow banner now, and they were present before the rainbow became metalanguage for tolerance. One is radically tolerant of people's differences, and the other is radically anything but tolerant. And both those principles are found in the extremes of both sides of the political middle. Just like all politics, when they become too radical they circle around and meet on the other side.
God goes neither to the left nor to the right, and is definitely not traveling the middle of the road.
But I didn't get into the rest of that with Lizzie Ann that night. And I never had another chance.
"Metalanguage?" Again, she prompted.
"What we think meaning means."
She shook her head with a grin and a chuckle, which I echoed, and we finished out the dance, and I danced again with her roommates, and we got back together for one more before they headed back to Roswell.
Maybe I should have asked Lizzie Ann out. Next I heard, she was engaged to a guy from New Mexico.
(Okay, the events in this chapter did not happen all in one night in the real world, nor was the conversation with Lizzie Ann all with just one woman. Telling it exactly like it happened would take way too long, and, like I say, wouldn't allow me to make my calculations about a different course history might have taken.)
I stayed to help clean up after the closing prayer was said and the last song played and danced to, then went home to bed, wondering what I had lost by failing to properly consider the possibility of dating my best church-buddy's grown-up kid sister.
First backup at https://joel-rees-economics.blogspot.com/2020/01/bk-33209-homecoming-dance-dancing-at-church.html.
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