Gabe is a teenage Jehovah's Witness convinced God is going to kill him at Armageddon for masturbating.

But Gabe's not alone: there's his best friend Peter, who writes swear words in the margins of his Watchtower during Kingdom Hall meetings; Jin, the Korean kid in the congregation, who subsists on Ho Hos and Doritos; and Camille, who follows Gabe around, trying to be his girlfriend. There's also Gabe's mom, who sleeps sixteen hours a day, and his dad, an elder who decides the fate of sinners (like the married couple who confess to accidentally having anal sex). There's Brother Miller, an elder with a Napoleon complex, who accompanies Gabe from door to door, encouraging him to knock with more confidence, and Sister Feeney, who looks forward to the day she can move into a Spanish-style house after its owner dies at the end of the world. And, luckily for Gabe, there is Uncle Jeff, who used to tour with Santana and now gives Gabe the only valuable girl advice he ever receives.

Being a teenager is never easy, but it's much harder when school days are spent dodging questions about your weird religion, and weekends mean preaching house to house and praying the cute girl from algebra class doesn't answer the door. Life looks dreary until Gabe falls in love with Jasmine, Camille's beautiful older sister, and begins to see her as the answer to all his frustrations.

Tony DuShane writes for the San Francisco Chronicle, Mother Jones, Crawdaddy, and other publications. He hosts the radio show Drinks with Tony, interviewing writers, musicians and filmmakers. He lives in San Francisco.

Peter ran into the street and came back with the football.
“We have to get it wet again,” he said, and we found a spigot for a hose in one of the carports in the apartment building behind us.
Back at the garbage cans we squatted and listened.
Traffic started up and Peter threw the wet Nerf football high through the air.
Boom. Boom. Thud. Screeeeeech.
We ran like Olympic stars, hurdling fences like Crockett and Tubbs pursuing bad guys, back to our apartment building. We couldn’t stop laughing and could only imagine the damage done since even looking could get us caught.
It wasn’t really fun. It scared me to death.
But I liked that feeling.
And it was another shared experience with Peter that I knew would carry us into adulthood when we both had our families and barbecued together and had lots of sex with our wives.
Crazy wild sex.
The-floodgates-are-opened sex.
Twenty-four-hour-boner sex.
Walk-around-the-house-naked-and-stop-only-to-hydrate sex.

Marriage. Girls into women. We were coming dangerously close to losing our teen years. Throwing wet Nerf footballs at cars on El Camino would end soon and our responsible lives would start. We needed stuff to talk about when we became adults. We needed some crazy antics. We braved danger, punishment, and sometimes arrest. It was a checklist. We needed it for reminiscing at future barbecues. We needed it.