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“Oh, Mom. What sitcom did you steal that line from? Or are you listening to that old Allan Sherman album again?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She was silent for a minute, and I pictured her sitting on the little padded stepstool we had in our kitchen in East Liverpool, just beneath our white wall-mounted phone. The clash of what I was doing while picturing her face—her olive skin, big nose, and curly dark hair that spoke of her Sicilian heritage—was more than uncomfortable. It was sickening. But I tried to breathe, to get through this weird and awkward moment she had no idea was taking place. “Anyway,” Mom said, trotting out the question that usually opened our phone conversation, “what are you doin’?”

I closed my eyes for a moment and couldn’t help it. A single panicked laugh escaped me. I wanted to say something like “If you only knew” or just blurt out the truth.

I could never do that. Never, ever. I was the only son in the family—my two sisters bracketed me, one much older, the other much younger—and the only one so far to continue on after high school to college. I was the golden boy, even if my coloring mirrored my mother’s. The one everyone was so proud of.

The upcoming wedding was like the icing on the cake of that pride. It had been all the family talked about for weeks.

If you’ve ever experienced deep-seated guilt, the kind that rises up with a nauseating sense of self-revulsion, you’ll have some idea of what went through me just then. The ardor and passion I had felt only moments before vanished like an errant puff of smoke in a strong breeze. I sat down on the carpeted floor, worried that my legs could no longer support me.

Carlos looked over at me, cocking his head with concern. His dick began to droop too. Mine had pretty much retreated into its shell.

“You there?”

“Oh, sorry, Mom, I was just distracted by something on TV.” I leaned forward to snap my little portable on so I’d have some noise to bolster my lie.
Hill Street Blues
was just getting started.

Carlos shifted on the bed and pulled a sheet over himself. The flickering images from my little portable black and white I’d had since college reflected over his face.

This was a mistake. A horrible mistake.

“Well, is everything okay with you? How’s the job? And more importantly, how’s the wedding planning coming along? The witches want to know if they need to bake cookies.” The witches were my mother’s aunts, Congetina and Sarah, Sicilian immigrants who had raised her when her own mother passed away from cancer at the tender age of twenty-eight. Witches was a term of endearment.

Back in high school, I had been in a few plays—
Harvey
,
The Front Page
,
West Side Story
—and now I’d have to really call on my very limited thespian skills to get through this conversation. What I wanted to do was cry. But I had to keep my tone light and my voice from shaking. Her question about her aunts was an issue we had gone round and round about for weeks.

In our Sicilian family, it was traditional for the women to get together and bake Italian cookies—
pizzelles
, sesame loaves called
giuggiulena
, little chocolate raisin balls glazed with pastel-colored hues—and my wedding, even if it would require bringing the cookies all the way to Chicago in July, was no exception. Yet this was an issue that didn’t gibe with Alison’s wealthy North Shore family, who were planning a lawn reception with a string quartet and a helicopter to carry the bridal party to and from the wedding.

The food for the reception was already picked out and would have a French flair, the menu supervised by a celebrated chef who had restaurants downtown and in Highland Park. The cookies would look like lipstick on a pig. The guilt stabbed at me for thinking such a thing.

“I think it would be great. No one in Alison’s family has had cookies like that.”

My mother laughed with relief. “I don’t know why you were giving me crap about it, then. I’m just so glad you came to your senses. We’ll do the candied almonds too. And your cousin Angela already has the design for the cake—yellow and white, right?”

“Yeah, Mom,” I said, a little out of breath and feeling the heat of tears prick at the corners of my eyes. “With the bridges and the little fountain.”

What was wrong with me? How could I have even contemplated doing what I had almost just done? I looked over at Carlos on the bed. He had turned against the wall, no longer looking at me, which compounded my shame. He was a good guy. How dare I drag him into my turmoil and confusion?

No, I needed to make things right. To get back on the—you should pardon the pun—straight and narrow. I had to atone.

I don’t recall the rest of our conversation. It was most likely more about the wedding, whether my mother should invest in a long dress, how they would handle the rehearsal dinner, stuff like that. All the while we talked, I groped around in the shifting blue light from the TV, gathering my clothes and pulling them on as Mom yammered, blissfully unaware of the crisis her son was having at that very moment.

By the time we hung up, I was dressed again and knew what I had to do. Carlos was sitting on the edge of my twin bed, looking at me.

“I guess we’re not gonna finish,” he said sadly. He glanced at me, and I could see the hope in his eyes as he waited, presumably, for me to correct him.

“I can’t do this. I’m sorry.”

He didn’t say anything for a while, then, softly, “It’s okay.”

I went over to the closet near the front door, opened it, and reached inside my jacket pocket for the note I had written. I returned to the bed and held it out.

“What’s this?” he asked, turning it over in his hands.

“Not much. But I think when you read it, you’ll understand where I am.” I looked into his eyes, much as it pained me to do it. “And why we can never allow this to happen again.”

He nodded and set the note down on the mattress. He stood and got dressed quickly.

He left a few minutes later, without saying a word.

I curled up on my bed in a little ball, feeling nothing.

I
HURRY
down the stairs, emotions ricocheting through me like I’m some kind of human pinball machine. Disappointment, rage, and sadness compete in equal measure. Part of me wants to turn around, march back up the stairs, and make Andy finish what he started. It had all been going so well until the call from his mother.

Why didn’t he just let it ring? Would it have made that much of a difference if he had simply talked to his mom a couple of hours later or tomorrow?

I shake my head, knowing I will do the right thing. I get to the bottom of the stairs, thinking how it’s appropriate that the entrance to Andy’s home is a set of back stairs, hidden away. They kind of reflect who he is. I pause before exiting, knowing the door will lock behind me, and questioning myself. Am I sure I want to step out into the night? In a sense I’ll be burning my bridges behind me.

But then I think of Andy telling his mom how he can’t wait for July and that “Alison” is “dying” to see her.

That bridge is already in cinders.

I step outside. The night is still. The rain has stopped and the air is cool, fresh, and clean. Lake Michigan, opposite the apartment building, shimmers under the light of a half moon, peeking out from behind a bank of slate-blue clouds. Waves dissolve on the shore in soft yet rhythmic pounding.

I walk across the street and climb up on the boulders near the breakwater at the south end of the beach. It’s cold here, and I shiver. I’m grateful for the chill—it’s bracing. I take a few breaths of the marine air, inhaling its slight fishy tang, and try to let my anger go. Yeah, you could call the guy a tease. He had flirted with me from day one on the train. And then he invites me over, gets me all worked up—if there really were such a thing as blue balls, I’d now have the world’s worst case—and then pitches me out the door. I know I have every right to be furious. My emotions and my libido have been toyed with. It isn’t fair to me, who had no idea this guy was getting married, for Christ’s sake. He’s so deep in the closet, he’d have to drive just to get to the hangers.

I shake my head. I can’t be mad. I watch a seagull fly across the sky, its form a silhouette against the moon’s illumination.

The poor guy. I knew from the first moment I saw him that he was conflicted, tortured, whatever word you want to use. Maybe that’s what drew me to him. I have always wanted to be the one who bestows kindness on strangers. I was always the one to coax the stray home and feed him, build a nest in a shoebox for a wounded bird, let countless friends cry on my shoulder. Maybe that’s why I started out studying for the priesthood. Maybe that’s the reason I now work with little kids, who drive me nuts and, at the same time, make me happy.

Andy. Andy. Andy. Why are you doing this? Why can’t you just let yourself be who you are? You can hide from your mom, from Alison, from your family and friends, but you can’t hide from me how hot you were for me. You can’t hide that you were hungry for me. Starving. That’s so sad. Will you carry this burden, this need, around with you forever—never getting it met? Are you going to spend your whole life pretending you’re someone you’re not? Will you go through the rest of your days wondering if those who love you would if they knew the real you?

It’s tragic, really. I understand Andy’s confusion. I went through it myself. The priesthood was my naïve way of thinking I could escape my own feelings toward other guys. I tried to bury those urges beneath scripture when I was younger. How stupid was that? A bitter laugh escapes me as I think how entering a seminary to get
away
from homosexual inclinations was like a dieter hunkering down at Dunkin’ Donuts.

But at least I can take comfort in the fact that I’m not running from myself. While I don’t broadcast who I am (it would
not
go over well at the Catholic school where I teach), neither do I hide it from those closest to me. My good friends know and don’t care. Yes, some of them are gay too, but even the straight ones just look at my proclivities as a variation on the human theme.

I think Andy looks at his desire as something revolting. And how can he? It’s part of him. He’s one of God’s children, created in his image. He’s beautiful and whole just the way he is.

I wish there were a way I could help him see. I wish now we hadn’t begun having sex, because maybe there would have been a chance I could have befriended him and talked to him about his conflicted feelings and desires. But I know that would have never worked. It was our loins calling to each other, not our intellects.

It was all about sex. And a damn shame we didn’t even get to finish that. The poor guy’s probably up there right now—I turn my head to glance at his window, where the blue light from the TV flickers—beating off and thinking about what we could have done. After, he’ll feel soul-crushing guilt and will probably renew his promises to himself that he will not allow himself to have these urges ever again.

I could save him the trouble if I could talk to him. I could tell him you can’t wish away who you are, any more than you can wish away those green eyes that so captivated me.

I remember the folded piece of paper he handed me and open it. The moon’s light is just bright enough that I can read his words. They’re stark black letters, typewritten, on the page, but that just belies the emotion and melancholy that accompanies them.

The note pulls at my heart, and I feel tears spill over as I read. He talks about having a “clean heart” when he gets married.
Oh,
carino
, your heart isn’t dirty because you want something she can’t give you. I wish I could make you understand.

But the part that really makes me hurt deep down inside, an almost physical ache, is when Andy confesses his hope that he can change. I know firsthand how impossible that will be for him. And I can see into his future, into this life he will have with the innocent “girl,” Alison, and the pain that’s in store for both of them.

It doesn’t have to be that way, Andy. You’ll hurt her if you back out now, but in the long run, you will all be better off.

How can I know that? Maybe Andy is the one in a million who can make the lie work. Maybe, deep down, he’ll be miserable the rest of his life, but he’ll make Alison, none the wiser, happy and be a good dad to the children he hopes to father with her.

I know what the odds are, and I don’t have high hopes for Andy or his future.

I slip down from the rocks because I’m finally getting too cold. I will go home, and yes, I will masturbate thinking of Andy, completing what was begun in his cramped little studio in the much wider and more open space of my imagination. There, there will be no hesitation, no guilt. There we will couple like animals, devouring each other in our lust, and it will be okay. It will be natural. I will enter him and will feel the gripping, smooth heat of his hole as it tightens around my cock in joy and passion. And in my head and in my hands, I will spurt.

I think of communion, “This is my body,” and push the thought away.

After, I’ll try and forget Mr. Andy. I’ll begin a new regimen for work and get in at least a half hour sooner each day, taking the train earlier so chance will not afford us the possibility of meeting again. I can do that much for Andy, give him that much.

And I will pray for him. First that he has the wisdom to not move forward with his plans, to recognize that he cannot be someone he isn’t. Not really. Not deep down inside.

Maybe he’ll wise up.

Maybe I’ll still be around, waiting.

Maybe not.

But I will also pray that, if he does go through with his wedding and the years of marriage that will follow, he will somehow come to terms with his desires and find a measure of comfort in the love of his wife and the companionship I hope she will offer.

I head up South Boulevard and see the train tracks ahead. I quicken my pace, now in a hurry to get back to my little apartment in Bridgeport. I’ll be safe there, and I’ll do my best to put this episode behind me, shaken as I am by it.