Sin to Get Saved

By Michael P. Thomas

Hubert knows he brings shame on himself and on the Lord by being a queer -- his grandad and the pastor of his evangelical church tell him as much all the time. So when he dies in a freak accident, he's as delighted as he is surprised to waltz right through the Pearly Gates, no questions asked. He even gets a beautiful angel named Bartholomew as his very own guide to the Afterlife.

But when the angel makes brazen overtures, Hubert realizes his soul may have taken a wrong turn. Hubert beseeches Bartholomew to keep his hands to himself and help him find his rightful place in the Heaven he's always heard about. As they set out to explore his options, Bartholomew hopes Hubert will learn a thing or two along the way about the deeply personal definitions of Paradise.

• Language: English
• Publisher: JMS Books LLC
• Release date: Jun 10, 2017
• ISBN: 9781634863933

Michael P. Thomas

Michael P. Thomas is a former flight attendant whose mid-life career change to 911 operator has shown him that the widespread fear of sharing and receiving love is a real emergency. He writes to spread love and encourage others to do likewise. And a little bit to scare the gay-haters. For more information, visit facebook.com/GoReadMichaelPThomas.

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Chapter 1

Hubert loved sitting next to Big Jimmy on the bus. He was jocular, he was loud, and though he might not have been smart by any elitist Hollywood definition, Big Jimmy knew everything there was to know about the Bible. He certainly knew everything about the Bible as Reverend Jarvis preached it, which Hubert and everybody else on the bus knew was The Holy Unbreakable Truth, and he wanted you to know it, too. Plus, under that thickening layer of fast food and French fries, a ravenous addiction to which everyone knew was Big Jimmy’s Cross to Bear, he was still all-football jock muscle, and Hubert thrilled when the pile of Big Jimmy’s thigh spilled just the littlest bit across his seat and pressed up against him.

Not that it was about that. Hubert was drawn to Big Jimmy for his gregarious, backslapping nature and his unswerving dedication to setting others on the righteous path. Was his broad, beatific face wholesomely handsome? Did his big butt bounce around in his shorts like the beach balls Hubert had seen batted about by the crowd at a Third Day concert? Was the smell of cheeseburgers, cheap soap, and the pits of yesterday’s T-shirt that wafted off him maddeningly intoxicating? Perhaps. But if there was one message Reverend Jarvis strove to hammer home above any other—especially since last Fall when The Demon Satan Himself had sent those loose teenage girls, all that cocaine, and those cops to his hotel room in Bakersfield to test him—it was that Passion is the Gravest Sin of Sins, and Hubert understood that a place in Paradise was infinitely more important than any place next to Big Jimmy more intimate than the shared seat of a school bus could ever be. Hubert knew that the desperate longing that swirled around him was his Cross to Bear, and he could only pray with a breast-beating fervor that The Lord would forgive him for those dark-of-night transgressions when the visions The Demon sent him of Big Jimmy sitting on his couch watching television in nothing but an old jock strap proved more than his earthly hand could rise up and resist.

Hubert also knew that spreading the news of Salvation was the surest way into The Lord’s heavenly heart, and his personal struggle dictated that he actively minister to the fallen, fornicating homosexuals, who desecrated the Divine Plan every time they kissed each other on a street corner or usurped a starring role in yet another situation comedy. Leading America’s youth down the garden path away from The Lord is no laughing matter, Reverend Jarvis had preached on more than one occasion. Those who do not show an iron Will in the face of these trumped-up temptations will surely know no Grace! The amen!s near-about raised the roof on the Worship Center.

The Church of God’s Intended Love boasted four hundred sixty-three members, and Hubert had basked in the light of the Holy Unbreakable Truth as far back as he could remember. Ever since his Fool Mama, as Grandad called her, did the only sensible thing she ever did in her life, as Grandad called it, and left him as a toddler twenty-seven years ago to be raised up right with the only man’s gonna stand between you and your fiery damnation, as Grandad called himself. God’s Intended Love, Hubert knew, was of an upright man for his chosen woman, and her undiluted devotion to her children. Anything that stood in the way of a man’s right to dominion over a family was a shameful affront to The Lord, and unmarried Hubert was often offered up to the congregation as a warning.

"Scrawny, meek, a face we know not even a mother could love—do you suppose this was God’s plan? Of course it wasn’t. But Good Brother Hubert here fights against his failings every day, praying to The Lord for the miracle that will one day help him stand up straight and see Salvation. He knows he brings shame on The Lord, but that doesn’t stop him from witnessing His Glory. You see him pray! You see him proselytize! You see him pass the collection plate—you’d better see him pass the collection plate if you want to see The Holy Unbreakable Truth represented at the Kauai Council of Churches next April! Will you do less for your Lord than this sorry supplicant? Jesus weeps on his throne at the prospect."

The Lord, everybody knew, had sent Reverend Jarvis to Earth to spread this unimpeachable word. And it was a vocation the Reverend Jarvis took to heart—just this last year he and pretty Annie Percival had taken The Lord’s message that a man must love a woman to the grateful people of Bora Bora, the Bahamas, and Paris, France, and they had plans to minister to the guests of an all-inclusive resort in Mexico coming up at the end of this next month. While Hubert yearned to be selected to testify on one of these missions abroad, he succumbed to a sinful flash of Pride each time the congregation was reminded that his personal struggle guaranteed—nay, mandated—that he be awarded one of the coveted seats on The Church’s one bus when it traveled the hundred and twenty verdant miles to shepherd the lost in San Francisco.

Convert us some queers! as Big Jimmy liked to holler. Right, Q-Bert, buddy? The Lord spoke to Hubert quite plainly through Big Jimmy—the surge of want that electrified his body when Big Jimmy slapped him on the thigh a thrilling reminder of how very vigilant Hubert needed to stand.

Tonight’s had been a particularly hot bus ticket, for if ever