1. beginning

That was its beginning. That was the house. That was the porch. That was the place.

****

April, 2005
The rain was coming down harder now, splashing the tin roof above our house. We sat on the porch, crowded around a patio table, laughing, joking.
Brandon and I were smoking cigars. Nate was smoking his pipe. Derrick was coughing and his face was taking on a greenish hue. He wanted to fit in so bad, but he had never smoked before. My God, he was funny, though! Several weeks earlier, he spent the night in an emergency room after racing Brandon out of a building and accidentally running through a glass door. It was those double doors that are found in libraries and auditoriums, the kind with the bar you push to make it swing open. Brandon’s door opened easily. Derrick’s was locked. The scars are sadly funny to us, covering his hands and arms and the left side of his face, the stitches recently removed.

“Those are disgusting,” said Christen, turning her nose at the cigar smoke and waving it away from her face. “How can you suck on those?”

“I like the pipe, but the cigars smell like poo,” Catherine added.

Stacey started laughing his high-pitched laugh. We looked at him, confused. He pointed at Derrick, who was obviously about to puke.

“Man, you really don’t look so good,” I told him.

“I just haven’t had much to eat today.”

“Whatever you have or haven’t had is about to be all over my porch. Why don’t you go to the bathroom?

He shot up and ran into the house. Nate was beginning to tear up, about to fall out of his chair. He was imitating the look on Derrick’s face. I stared at Christen until she looked back, and then I made this flirty look towards Adam, who wasn’t looking, batting my eyelashes and letting out a sigh. Christen had a huge crush on him, and only Caroline and I knew.

“John!” yelled Christen.

“What did I do?”

“You know exactly what you did,” she said, throwing a wadded up napkin at me. I caught it midair and fired it back.

“Let that be a lesson to you,” I joked as the napkin, wet from the moisture of her cup, got her square in the face.

Caroline’s leg, tan and tight, found mine underneath the table, and she began to rub it up and down. I turned my face towards hers and she held my gaze, her blue eyes the perfect contrast to the dark hair framing her face. She cut her eyes to the table and back, then smiled seductively. It was the look that meant, “If we don’t kick our friends out soon they are going to get a show, because I want you now. I want you right now, on the bed, on the table, it doesn’t matter.”

“I’m getting tired,” I lied, faking a yawn and a stretch.

“It’s only 10:30,” said Brandon.

“I know, but I’m old.”

“You’re 25.”

“That’s ancient. I would be dead now if I was a dog. Besides, it’s not like we won’t be doing this tomorrow night. We do this every night.”

“Awwwww,” sighed Christen. She was always acting sentimental. Christen was a junior at South Carolina. She went to the same high school in Indiana Axl Rose graduated from. Their mascot was the Buckin’ Broncos, but on the school’s first basketball jerseys they misspelled it, and stuck with it. I was wearing a T-Shirt she gave me that said GO Buckin’ Bronchos! She had a hard time her first year at Carolina, being away from friends and family, and with no real place of belonging. Next to Caroline, Christen was one of my favorite people in the world. She was my biggest cheerleader, the one person who continually reminded me that what I was doing with my life was making a difference. “I love that we do this every night. I love all of you so much. You’re my family,” she said, “You’re my church. This is my church.”

This was my church. It wasn’t a building; it was a porch, a second floor porch; connected to a bedroom that was my sanctuary. The patio chairs were my pew, and the bodies in them were my family. Two years earlier, Caroline and I moved to Columbia to start a church, with no money, no place to meet, and hardly anyone to meet with. The church had grown significantly, but those few people who were there in the beginning were still our closest friends.

We said goodnight to everyone. Caroline and I shut the front door and went up the stairs. We turned the corner, past the computer, through the door and into our room. Caroline shut the door. She smiled. We left a light on.

Life was irresistible. This was my wife- gorgeous, intelligent, supportive. This was my sanctuary- peaceful, safe. That is my church, I thought, looking out the window at the table we had been crowded around an hour earlier.

I may always be haunted by front porches.