I Called My Son Samuel 8

The children from Sammy's school were all in the bus station.  It was quarter to four.  Lessons had finished for the day.  Toffer, Sweaty, Big Beef and Monkey were standing together outside the bus station toilets.  Monkey crossed to the central platform, where Sammy was waiting for a bus.
"Sammy, have you got 20p to put in the slot machine so we can smash up the toilets?"
"You're a school prefect, Monkey.  You shouldn't be helping people to smash up toilets."
"I'm fighting for you and your friend, Johnny Hart, of the school gay club.  Campaigning for all public toilets everywhere to be made unisex.  Until then, we destroy.  Love the mittens and the scarf, by the way.  Where'd you get them from?"
"Jo knitted them for me."
"Who's Jo?"
"We're just good friends."
"She's a good knit."
"Jo doesn't like to be called He or She.  Jo prefers to be called them."
"Unfortunately, I can't refer to a human being as Them without thinking of the film about the giant ants and the girl lying in the hospital bed screaming, 'Them, them!'  I'll just have to call your friend Jo.  Have you got 20P?"
"No I haven't."  Big Beef came across from the toilets to the central platform.
"Mind if we have a look?" he said.  Sammy took out his purse and opened it.  "You're lying."
"They are unisex toilets," shouted Sweaty.  "There's a picture of a man and a woman on the door."
"Oh well," said Monkey.  "No need to continue our 'political protest without loss of life.'  The toilets in the bus station are unisex already."
"Sweaty saved your bacon," said Big Beef.  A homeless man came into the bus station.  He was middle aged and wearing scruffy clothes.  He walked up to Monkey.
"I come from a bail hostel in Southampton," the man said.  "I was sent there when I punched my friend in the mouth and he died.  I was sentenced to six years.  I will get out after two but only if I get back to the bail hostel in Southampton tonight.  I need some money to catch the last bus to Southampton, which is at half past four, or I will be sent to prison for another 4 years."
"It must be fantastic to be in prison," said Toffer.
"This man's hard," said Sweaty.  "He gives people knock out punches.  Do you want to see if you can knock Big Beef unconscious with a knockout punch?"  The man looked at Big Beef.  Big Beef was eighteen years old but already twice his size.
"I'll hitch hike," he said, and disappeared.

Pastor David sat talking to his psychiatrist.
"Well David, you don't seem to have anything medically wrong with you.  All the tests came back negative and I don't think you're bipolar."
"Is that good?"
"In some ways it's good.  If you had a clinical mental illness it would be very serious, and you'd have it for the rest of your life.  But I just wonder what is actually wrong with you."  David sat and thought for a few minutes.
"I just don't believe a single word of it any more."
"What is it that you don't believe?"
"As a pastor in my church, I have to force people to believe and to do so many things.  But I don't believe them myself.  I did once but not anymore.  When we go into somebody's house, I'm supposed to take a look around and say, 'Nice house, sell it and give the money to the church.'  But I don't believe that they should.  I'm supposed to take my jacket and throw it over the television.  But I don't believe television is evil.  If I see a box of DVDs I'm supposed to hold it up in my hand and say, 'You could have your own little world in this box.'  Then I flick through the DVDs and look for any titles that Christians might find offensive like Dirty Dancing."
"You could watch Dirty Dancing with your grandmother."
"I know you could.  But I've got to pretend that Dirty Dancing contains the kind of pornographic images that could get you arrested just for possessing them."
"What would you do if you found the whole set of Harry Potter videos?"
"I'd pick up the television and the DVD player and throw them into the garden.  In church on Sunday, I have to stand up and ask people to pray for people in the church who love money."
"Meaning?"
"People who have their own bank account and don't live in community."
"But they usually have less money than people who live in community.  People who live in your community have quite a high standard of living."
"I know they do.  The guy keeps DVDs in an old toffee tin because he can't afford a TV aerial.  He has a tiny little car.  But I have to pretend that he has far more money than I do and that he worships it.  I don't believe a single word of it anymore."
"You need to go to the south of France for a couple of weeks."
"We're not allowed to go abroad for holidays.  I don't even have a passport."
"Spend a fortnight in Blackpool like they did in the old days."
"A fortnight in Blackpool would be rather expensive."
"Go there for a weekend."
"What do I need to go on holiday for?  I've got my brothers in sisters in the Lord.  They're my real family.  I'm in the house of the Lord.  Why should I need to go anywhere else?"  David hit his knee with hand.  "There I go, brainwashing myself again.  The trouble is, I don't believe a single word of it anymore."  The psychiatrist took out his notebook and wrote a prescription.
"Two tablets a day is peanuts.  The full dose of this antidepressant is six tablets a day.  We can go up to six when there's a lot of anxiety."
It was Sammy's eighteenth birthday.  Pastor Boris sat in the farmhouse kitchen, having breakfast with his wife Valerie.  He took another spoonful of porridge.
"I love this porridge," he said.  "Made from unmilled oats.  It takes at least 5 minutes to boil until it fuses together.  Like we had when I was a child in communist Russia. My mother could make porridge out of anything. Left over cakes make very nice porridge. We will celebrate Samuel's birthday with a special Bible study tonight, which will be followed by a meal.  Samuel will be leading this Bible study.  Oh, I would be quite happy if I heard his first sermon tonight and collapsed on the floor and died of a heart attack.  I'd be looking up to Heaven.  'Lord Jesus, my work on Earth is done, receive my spirit.'  Sammy's friend Jo will be coming here tonight.  Jo knits all of Sammy's beautiful clothes.  When she leaves school she wants to be a specialist teacher working with disabled children.  Good for Sammy to have a girlfriend.  Yes, a girlfriend," Pastor Boris repeated, smiling to himself.  That evening the table was set in the dining room for the special event.  Pastor Boris came into the room.
"Hello Pastor Boris," said Matthew.  "I would like to introduce you to my friend, Gordon Bennett."
"Hello Pastor," said Gordon.
"Hello Gordon," said Pastor Boris and sat down with the men at the table.  Valerie came storming into the room in an obviously distressed mood.
"Matthew, have you seen the plastic margarine tub that had all the chicken wings inside it?"
"I threw it in the bin."
"You did what?"
"It didn't look like chicken, it looked like bones."
"Well, chicken wings do look like bones.  They're meat on the bone."
"It was piled under everything else in the very back of the fridge.  It looked like the remains of the chicken we had 2 weeks ago."
"It was the chicken I cooked 2 days ago.  That was Samuel's birthday tea.  Gordon Bennett."
"Will you stop using my name as a swear word?"  

Samuel walked into the room with Jo.  Jo was a slim and gentle faced boy wearing blue jeans and a chunky white jumper he had obviously knitted himself.
"Dad.  Meet Jo."
"But Joanne, you're a man," shrieked Pastor Boris.
"I don't like being called a man.  I prefer to be called them."
"Like the film about the giant ants," said Matthew.
"Samuel, my son."
"Sammy," corrected Samuel.
"You're in love with another bloke."
"I am not a bloke," said Jo.
"Gordon Bennett," said Pastor Boris.
"Stop using my name as a swear word."
"Are we going to calm down?" asked Stanley.  "This is a happy occasion.  This is Sammy's eighteenth birthday meal and I'm sure that the problems with the meat can be sorted out.  Chicken wings are rubbish anyway."
"Chicken wings were good enough when I was seven years old in the Soviet Union," said Pastor Boris.
"The English service of Radio Moscow used to answer listeners' letters," said Matthew.  "A Mr. Jackson from England wrote a letter asking, do Russians hammer nails into apples
as a source of iron?  The announcer answered, of course not.  Russians couldn't possibly afford to buy apples.  They hammer nails into potatoes."
"Gordon Bennett," said Sammy.
"Will you stop using my name as a swear word?"  Jo looked straight at Pastor Boris.
"Do I gather that your church doesn't particularly like homosexuals?"
"It's an abomination."
"Like the abomnible snowman?" asked Jo.
"It's a serious thing," said Pastor Boris.  "The Bible uses the word abomination only twice.  Once to describe homosexuality and once to describe the antichrist standing in God's temple proclaiming himself to be God."
"Does that mean the antichrist is gay?" asked Matthew.  "The abomination that causes desolation is a man standing in the temple, like this."  Matthew did an impression of a gay man bending his wrist.  "Hello Honey, I'm God, I'm gay and you're gonna have to worship me now."  

Pastor Boris had a serene look on his face, reminiscent of the look that Saint Steven had when he was stoned to death.  He handed Sammy a Bible that looked shiny and new.
"Happy Birthday Samuel, I know we don't usually have birthday presents but this is your new Bible.  Samuel is going to preach to us tonight."
"I haven't got the faintest idea how to preach a sermon."
"Gordon Bennett," said Pastor Boris.
"Stop using my name as a swear word."
"What did they teach you in A' level Religious Education?" asked Pastor Boris.
"Nobody knows when monotheism began.  Perhaps it was when one of the pharoahs decided that the sun god was the creator of all things.  But the belief that there is one God, who is a creator being, became mainstream in Europe and the Middle East, effecting the development of the three Abrahamic religions."
"Sammy," interrupted Matthew, "this is really boring.  Your sermon makes a 2 hour lecture from Miles Board seem like having a thousand orgasms."
"I know, I know, I just haven't got it in me to be a preacher.  I know far more than any of you about God but I just can't bring it to life.  Matthew has no theological training at all but when he brings a word from the Bible or a Christian book, it's alive."
"Gordon Bennett," said Pastor Boris.
"Stop using my name as a swear word."  Sammy looked at Matthew.
"Matthew, on this, my 18th birthday, could you please give me a word from the scriptures?"  He handed Matthew the new Bible.  Matthew opened it and read a few verses.
"Joel chapter 2.  I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten, the other locust and the locust storm, my great army that I sent among you.  You will have plenty to eat, until you are full, and will praise the name of the Lord your God, who has worked wonders for you.  Never again will my people be put to shame."
"Put to shame?" shrieked Pastor Boris.  "Is that directed at me?  Are you accusing me of putting my son to shame?"  Everyone went quiet for a few seconds.
"Yes," said Matthew.  "I am accusing you of putting your son to shame.  You have a son who was born gay, who can't preach a five minute sermon if you gave him a toffee apple, and who would like to be left alone." 

Gordon Bennett's father arrived to give him a lift home in the car.  Gordon went to speak to his father in the car park outside.
"Dad, why did you call me Gordon?"
"Son, if you want to be a man, you have to be tough.  I called you Gordon so that you would be tough."
"Well Dad, perhaps if I caused you to drive home with a broken pair of glasses, it would help toughen you up."  Gordon punched his father in the face.