TRUE STORIES | QUASI-ACCURATE TALES OF POSTMODERN LIFE

GOOD CHRISTIAN NEIGHBORS
HARD DRUGS, DEAFENING RAP, DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AND MAYBE A SPOT OF HOMICIDE.
WELCOME TO THE FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, GANGSTA.

BY CAROL LLOYD
ILLUSTRATION BY ERIC WHITE

when my boyfriend Hank and I saw the expansive one-bedroom with glassy hardwood floors, orange tree laden with fruit, clawfoot bath tub and a secret Murphy bed, all at a wildly undervalued price, we tried to control our glee. "We're reasonably interested," I muttered, stifling my urge to hop around squealing like a bad porn actress: "Please sir, I'll do anything -- just give me a place to lay my body." The silver-haired man glanced up from his clipboard. "You two married?" We paused. We had no use for such a mindless, backward institution. When my girlfriends complained of still being unmarried, I brandished arguments like a 1970s bra burner: "Do you think the relationship between 'husband' and 'animal husbandry' is some kind of linguistic coincidence?" Hank was equally didactic. Two years earlier he had created a Ken and Barbie puppet show called "Boycott Marriage," which argued that since most decent people didn't join clubs that exclude blacks or Jews, why should straight people flock to an institution that wouldn't admit gays? Now we were faced with a heinous dilemma. If we told the truth and were denied the flat, we would never win in court. We couldn't prove discrimination because our credit reports would reveal us to be assetless ne'er-do-wells. The pause -- that rupture of ethical dissonance -- lasted all of three seconds. "Engaged," my partner proclaimed. "I know it's not legal," the man explained. "But the church feels that ..." "The church?" He pointed across the parking lot to an enormous brown building emblazoned with the words "Final Evangelical Covenant of Jesus Christ." "The Lord is your landlord," he said. "I'm just helpin' out." We paused, this time for several awkward seconds. Evangelical ... yikes. Would they sneak in and burn our erotic books, tap our Working Assets phone calls, object to our devil-worshipping music? Glint, glint. The ceiling had that sparkling cottage cheese plaster from the 1950s. As a little girl, I dreamed of having stars on the ceiling -- a decorative feature my architect father and designer mother strictly forbade in the name of the family's only real taboo: tacky. "We've been planning the wedding all summer," I declared. "The Board of Directors feels like they should practice what they preach," the man said bashfully. "They try to please God and the housing authority, but it puts them in an awful ethical quandary, you know." Hank engaged the man in a conversation about their heritages. The man's last name was Johnson, as was Hank's grandmother. Could they have come from the same village of Boknafjorden Bay? Oh my, what a small world. The man told a joke about herring, ice caps and a one-armed Viking. We chuckled heartily, understanding nothing. "I like you kids, but ..." His gentle blue eyes swam around, avoiding our faces. "You haven't mentioned a date." "We can move in any time," I said. "We've got nothing else planned ..." Hank stepped on my toe and piped: "November 7th is the sacred day when we shall be united before the eyes of the Lord." The man's faced brightened as he noted this on our application. "I'll see what I can do." Two weeks later we moved into our lovely, envy-inspiring apartment (with free parking in the church lot as long as the car wore no "political bumper stickers"). I assumed the marriage issue would blow over. But they didn't forget. They inquired about my veil, asked when they should change my last name on the lease and offered their chapel for the service. "Let's just lie," I told Hank. "It's none of their business." "I can't lie," Hank said. Despite his reputation as a performance art bad boy, sadistic Catholic schooling had ingrained in him an immoderate fear of authority. He paid parking tickets the day he received them, lavished gratuitous taxes on the IRS and made weekly visits to his grandmother, the diamond-sharp 95-year-old who constantly referred to the blue dress she'd like to wear at our wedding. Before she died, that is. Which might be any second. "We said November 7th and we're getting married November 7th." I shrugged. "Just don't make me pay for it." And so it came to be. Me an unconvincing drag queen in my mother's ill-fitting wedding dress, Hank pouring alienated perspiration in an itchy wool suit, exchanging vows in his grandmother's living room before a tiny handful of intimates. It was just ghastly -- like one of those dreams where you're on stage bottomless, singing jingles in the middle of a nuclear war. With our marriage certificate filed in a knickknack drawer, we tried to return to normal life. We planted a vegetable garden and pruned the giant Meyer lemon tree. Sure, the church was right next door, beaming their puritanical judgments down on our groovy scene, but at least they'd be quiet, honest and treat us with good Christian values. NEXT PAGE: Onward, Christian gangstas