How Father Tam Ruined Ash Wednesday for Everybody: Part 1, The Two Edies

When you write a story, you first have to attract attention with a weird and barely intelligible title. I hope I succeeded. HFTRAWfE might not stay the title of the story, but that's what it is for now.

I'm still writing it. I'll post here the parts that are finished, or at least presentable. Nothing I ever write seems to be finished, but that's part of the fun.  Or so I tell myself.

How Father Tam Ruined Ash Wednesday for Everybody,

Part 1: Two Edies

I crashed a Halloween party Justin hosted and that's how we met. It was around the time that the Barrymore/Lang "Grey Gardens" hit the cable networks and we both dressed up as Little Edie Beale, both with bald head skull caps under white scarves. He confronted me about not shaving for the part. "Little Edie with a beard? Blasphemy," he told me. "This is my fucking gala, so you will go and find yourself another costume. There can be only one Little Edie." So I followed him all night, at first because it annoyed him and then because it was funny. A white Whoopi Goldberg screamed “Look! Two Edies!” and then we were the belles of the ball. Both of us could do Little Edie’s accent, or at least Drew Barrymore’s impression of it. We had impromptu spats about what cat food is made of and where Long Island republicans go when they die. His condominium’s expansive party room was packed and we worked it like pros.

Also, I am not really a drinker. A bowl of sangria sparkled deep red and all I tasted was fruit punch, so I had waaay more than I realized. Tanked, I was forbidden to drive. I couldn't get my boyfriend on my cell phone and at the time I lived way, way up in North Austin. Nobody else at the party lived even close. Our mutual friend, Miss Lyvinda Prahcheks (I was her escort that night), asked Justin if I could stay with him for the night, swearing to him I was house broken and not an ax murderer.

“He's a cuddly, mostly harmless teddy bear," she said.

"Wait. 'Mostly harmless'?" he asked.

She paused a moment and adjusted her teased Nancy Sinatra circa 1965 hair. "Oh, it's nothing," she assured him. "It's only that he can be -- how should I put this -- quite generous with his penis.”

Later when we became friends Justin would claim that she described me as "a wanton debaucher who would fuck a mud puddle if it had bushes around it.” I was outraged; that was a blatant misrepresentation of Miss Lyvinda's propriety.

"Why can't you take him back to your place? You invited him," he said.

"Yes I did, and that was ungratious," she admitted. "For some reason I thought you two would bond or something; what could I have been thinking? Of course I'll bring him home, let him sleep it off." She retrieved her cellphone from her bra. "But excuse me one moment, darling, while I leave myself a reminder to call several people to cancel the omelet du fromage brunch I was hostessing tomorrow."

Justin rolled his eyes. "Lyvinda, it will not work."

"Oh of course it will, dear. I'll simply call and leave messages at the first light of dawn. There are only nine people who have RSVPd, maybe ten. Well, fifteen at the most. Anyway, I'm sure they will understand. I will remind them that you are one of my dearest, truest, most understanding friends. And I'll gladly bring poor, sweet, soused Carla all the way back here in the morning to pick up his car."

"I'm immune to your arts, Miss L. I don't even know him, for fuck's sake."

"Of course you don't, darling Justine. I shall take him home immediately. But first let me inform that particular King Leonidas" (she pointed to a buff man in a crown and a toga) "that I will be unable to meet him later tonight for the astronomy lesson I'd promised. We were going to watch Jupiter make its way through Cassiopeia, but it will have to wait until the next time such a conjunction occurs. In 2019. One hates to disappoint the King of Sparta, especially one so ... well, so Spartan, but of course it must be done."

So after the party Justin took me to his apartment and let me flop onto his sofa overnight. He made it clear that this was a one night, platonic event, just one Edie helping another, and that if I made a single advance upon his person he’d have Jackie Kennedy disown me. So that night I slept on his sofa and kept my unmuddy penis to myself. He was still asleep when I got up that morning and went for breakfast tacos. I didn’t remember to unlock the door so when I got back I rang the bell and pounded on the door until he opened it. He fussed and steamed about waking him but I pushed my way in. I found plates and loaded them with tacos. This whole time, he walked circles around me, using all the polysyllabic words in his arsenal (some totally made up) to detail how affronted he was. When he noticed that I was sitting at his table eating and laughing at him, he sighed his infamous weary sigh and sat across from me.

“Well, all right,” he said. “But after you eat, you’re going back to frolick with your fellow bears, or otters, or whatever you call yourselves these days. This complex has a strict no pets policy.”

“What arre you saying, motherr darrling?” I said as Little Edie, “I see moy days at Grey Garrdens arre limited.”

From then on I was his friend. So that next summer when his roommate Tyrone moved out, he asked me to move in.

About Tyrone I knew only two things:

(1) He was popular with the guys. If there was ever a case to be made that there is more to sexy than just looks, Tyrone was proof. Unless you had a Kardashianesque thing for black men, you’d never see a picture of him and go Whoa. Yet everybody I ever met liked him or at least wanted to sleep with him. His most effective come-on line was a single word: ‘Wassup?' He packed it with confidence and lust not seen outside of porn studios, so he never needed to elaborate. He could give you a head-to-toe then toe-to-crotch look and you’d know: he had just sexed you up and it was orgasmic on an atomic level so if you didn’t hurry and start kissing him right now, you’d regret it.

(2) I knew he was a slob. He lived with Justin a year and a half and never vacuumed, dusted, or used the closet, at least not for clothes. Even after he moved, proof of his popularity kept popping up in odd places: between the carpet and the wall, under the bathroom sink, in the closet; two had glued themselves to the bottom of the night stand drawer. But I had bright orange rubber gloves, bleach and no judgments. At least Tyrone made safe sex a fun part of his life. And a good thing came of it; his jetsam helped me convince Justin to tear out that old Berber and put in a bamboo floor -- laminate, but it looked awesome.

What Tyrone and I did have in common was an ability to love Justin. Justin had enough well-wishers to make his parties full and fun, but few friends. To transition from the one to the other required only one thing, the ability to understand that the grumpiness he made into a Zen art form was his way of loving you. Tyrone and I, along with Miss Lyvinda and a few others, were an elite squadron who possessed this super-power.

K-Karl (I was C-Carl) had Justin's 3rd bedroom at the residence. Working at night and sleeping through anything, he was a nice enough probably straight recluse and most of the time all that reminded us of his existence were food related notes like "bought icecream help yourselfs [sic]" or "low on rice will buy more 2morrow". To see him was rarer than a sighting of Nessie or albino dolphins. His coming and going was stealthy. Not sneaky, no: there wasn't anything furtive about him, but we'd hear him moving around in his room getting ready for work, then, *poof*. He was gone and nobody had seen him exit the apartment.

"Every so often I check his room to make sure he doesn't sleep in a goddam coffin," Justin said.

Then K-Karl's mother died and left him the house in Beaumont. He told Justin he'd move out at the end of the month and true to form, we came home on the 29th and all that was left of him was a check for the next month's rent and a note saying "thanx 4 ever thing" [sic]. That’s when we started looking for a new roommate.

Asking me to help with interviews was enormously out of character for Justin. I was stunned. "You're standing there blinking instead of answering me," he said. "If that's morse code, you're wasting your time."

"Sure," I said. "I'll be there, but ... why?"

"Because you read people, right?"

"What do you mean?"

He said this like he was accepting a crushing defeat: "What I mean is..." sigh "... that one of your talents is this eerie fucking ability to know what people are feeling and thinking." By 'people,' he naturally meant himself. "It's almost extra sensory and I don't mind telling you that sometimes it virtually creeps the hell out of me."

"Oh don't gush."

"That's why you're interviewing with me. I don't know how you do it but you can sense bullshit while it's still on the horizon."

"How I do it is the same way a flower can sense the sunlight. Through daily exposure."

He checked his calendar. "Our first interviewee tomorrow is G. Arroyo, 5:00. We show him the room, ask a few questions laced with subtext, then tell him we'll be in touch. Don't be late."

Somewhere in Stephen Hawkings' observations of the universe and physics, there is a law that the first ten potential roommates you meet must all be liars or boneheads. You can never foresee the innumerable ways there are for people to be incompatible until that point. Mr. G. Arroyo exuded stale smoke, so when Justin mentioned the "non-smokers" part of our ad, he said, "I quit smoking 5 years ago." The next interviewee had manscaped his eyebrows into Joan Crawford arches of death, making his interview -- as far as I was concerned -- quick and perfunctory. There is something deeply askew with people, men or women, who shave off their eyebrows then re-draw them in with a brown crayon. The next guy made a good impression but too casually asked our opinion of the local buses, i.e. to find out if we owned cars. Justin's favorite (and by 'favorite' I mean least favorite) was the emaciated aging skater guy who rubbed his crotch and wondered if money was ever short, whether or not we could "work something out."

Justin went down the list scratching off names. "Access denied. Access denied. Fucking access fucking denied."

A few nights later I had a dream about a friend who had died, Michael. I was watching a National Geographic special that evening, then I dreamed I was standing in front of Ankgor Wat. Michael was squatting on a giant banyon tree root on the roof, grinning down at me.

"Come down here!" I said, throwing wide my arms like I would catch him. He held out a piece of paper between his thumb and one finger, then with a wide smile, let it go. I grabbed it out of the air. It was a page of paper fringed like the ones kids rip from spiral notebooks. On it was a wrinkled foil heart, attached with big, crude strips of tape.

"Michael! Michael!" I called to him, but he turned away and climbed the banyon tree. Then, like he was in no danger whatsoever, he hopped off, waved once, and slid down the other side of the roof.

He was gone. A doctor tugged me onto a gurney. The only part of him visible were two kind dark brown eyes over a surgical mask. He saw the paper and said four different things using only three words: "A foil heart," "A felled heart," "A fool heart," and "A full heart."

"This is fiction, right? I'm dreaming," I said as he wheeled me past a convenience store with large koi pond in its parking lot. "It's not the truth. Right?"

"The truth is dull," he said. "Like a fish. Slippery, hard to grab and hold onto. Fiction is a fish with handles."

"You're not my usual doctor," I said.

Even with his mask on I could somehow tell he was smiling. He patted my stomach. "It's okay. I'm the OB."

My clock radio came on to Michael Bublé singing "Quando Quando Quando" and I thought, Obie.

How Father Tam...part 2:The Art of Gay Fiction

How Father Tam Ruined Ash Wednesday for Everybody

Part 2: The Art of Gay Fiction


My first job out of college was in Waco and I learned something: Being Yankee, liberal, and gay in east Texas is like loudly singing Italian arias in a country western bar; most people have no idea what any of your words mean and they all, politely or not so much, want you to either shut up or leave.

I also learned about the political geography of Texas. After working there less than a year I noticed a common phrase in casual conversation was "the liberals down in Austin" uttered in a disgusted tone  . I imagined the city as a twinkling blue oasis in a surly red state, so I blanketed Austin with my resumes and waited. When I left, my co-workers were polite but clearly glad the bad man who called G. W. Bush an idiot was going away.

My goal was to find some friends and one thing that caught my eye online was a gay men's book club. I thoroughly enjoyed those weekly meetings except for one guy there. My God, it was the corniest of sit-com clichés; we argued about anything and everything, and everybody knew we were hot for each other except us. We fought about what good literature was, whether author’s intent was a valid part of critique, whose writing style influenced David Leavitt, paperback vs. hard cover, the nuances of semicolons. We never agreed on even the simplest text interpretation and he was completely unreasonable. E.g., for some unknowable reason he maintained that first person narrative was dead and called any writer who used it a hack, an opinion I obviously don’t share.

His name was Michael Jones and he would eventually be Obie’s first long term relationship. Almost long term. Meningitis killed Michael a few weeks before their 3rd anniversary.

I really did want a relationship with Michael, though he was the antithesis of my type. My friends were shocked. You may not know it but gay men can be way too into ‘types’. To some it's sacrosanct; if last year you only dated ginger twinks, time and space will crack if you dated a brunette bear this year. You’d think that if anybody knew the ridiculousness of stuffing people into pigeonholes, wouldn't it be us?

Michael was lanky and congenitally unable to produce facial hair; he was 12 years older (“Dating out of your decade is unseemly, Carly,” Miss Lyvinda admonished); he was apolitical; he still had 60s tie-dye tee shirts whose psychedelic colors had faded to pastels. But one July night we were at a pool party and knew no one except each other. There were 4 kinds of men there; stoned looking young men in Speedos, stuck-up flittery musclequeens, loudly happy bears, and whatever Michael and I were. We floated away from the crowd to the deep end of the pool, he on a blow up raft and I on an blue foam noodle. I remember saying something about being able to be civil as long as the topic of Quentin Crisp didn’t come up and the next thing I know, we were kissing.

I struggle to describe his kisses and only come close with a series of 'buts'. Angelic but demonic. Passionate but respectful. Urgent but reined in. Out of control but in a measured way. Exhausting but sating. Most important, he turned me on like a rave DJ cranks up the volume. We left and went to my place. I am not known for being hesitant to get naked, so as soon as the front door closed I shucked all my clothes while trying to kiss him at the same time. I wanted his lips on mine again, and there was clearly other parts of me that wanted attention too.

He stayed in his clothes but I was happy to pull them off for him. He let me strip him, kissing me all the while and moving his hands up and down my back, along my sides, down my legs, everywhere except where I wanted most to be touched. Yo, Mike. You noticed this thing straining at you like it was a divining rod and you were the ocean?

In my bedroom and I finished ripping off his pants and underwear. To all appearances, he was at least as happy about what we were doing as I was. More kissing, more hands pawing, kneading, touching every part of me except the most … er, salient.

Enough of that. I’m not writing porn here. My point was that when we did have sex, I pretty much had to prop him up and insert tab C into slot M or pull slot M onto tab C. I got no cooperation except for kissing and upper body caressing.

When it was over I wiped his DNA off his belly, swaddled my condom in Kleenex, and I asked what was up with that. He answered me clearly and unashamedly: He didn’t much like sex. He considered himself wholly gay and loved men, just not especially their penises (and definitely not the immediately accessible part of their intestinal tract).

“Wow, really? But yet you’re, um, very adept at it,” I said. True, I had done all the physical labor, but still my scalp was tingling from the orgasm.

“Well I can have sex. That’s not the issue. It’s just not something I especially enjoy. Sex is overemphasized, especially among men,” he said. “You can love one single person for the rest of your life without it.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Of course. Think about all the people in the world who for whatever reason can’t or won’t have sex.”

“Like monks?”

“Monks and things excluded. Not people who take vows of chastity, but regular people. Suppose it’s a birth defect or a psychological trauma and they can’t do the sex thing. Are they really relegated to a life of bachelorhood? Think about it. You can't be lovers without sex? I thought that's why they're called lovers and not 'sexers' or 'fuckers'. If you're somebody's LOVer what should define you is love."

"But if there's no sex, then aren't you just, I don't know, roommates?"

"So you mean true love, a real marriage can't exist unless there's sex? Can two people have that kind of intense forever committment without sex?"

"I guess so, if you don't have sexual needs."

"Sex is not a need," he grumbled. "It's a desire. No one individual ever died from lack of sex."

Sleepy, spooning there with him, his back to my front, I thought This is a special kind of man. Odd, but special. So when he told me that my taste in literature notwithstanding, he wanted to see me again, I just said, “Hmm.”

Then he turned over to look at me and said that if we started dating, any time I wanted sex, he would without hesitation and as often as I wanted, do it.

“You just saw,” he bragged, “I am pretty good at it, even if it isn’t my bag.” Undeniable. He did have an amazing embouchure.

“Even if you don’t like it? Why would you want to?”

“Because I like you,” he said. And that was a good answer.

We lasted about a year. I grew to love him but it became way too frustrating for me. Sex somehow isn’t right when you know your partner is not loving it, not getting all his bells rung and whistles blown. I hated the thought that he was doing something he didn't like just for me. First came a few pangs of resentment, then I started thinking about other men so I knew it was time to go.

You can ask a carnivore to fill up on the lushest fruit from exotic lands, but sooner or later he’ll start eyeing the gazelle in the next savannah. Feeling like a Neanderthal, I told Mike it wasn’t working. He teared up a little, went for a 30 minute walk, then said he understood. We still got together for lunch, coffee, workouts a couple of times a month though, even though at first it was almost too melancholy to deal with, but we inched into a friendship with a solid base. And of course we still debated books. Then one day he told me that he had met a man with nine syllables to his name: Obadiah Hernandez Marquez.

Joy for him and relief for myself: Michael deserved love on his terms, at least as much as any of us do, and this lessened my guilt about my inability to provide it. To introduce us, he took us to Ladybird Lake hiking trails where I pronounced Obie to be entirely worthy. I spent the first few minutes of our acquaintance marveling at his hair. I had never seen anything like it and was in awe. He said it was called a faux-hawk and it was the coolest do I'd ever seen on a man. Naturally the very next week, everybody and his Lesbian friend had one, but on that day they were too off the radar for the untrendy bear. And as if ogling his hair wasn't nerdy enough, I asked him if I could touch it. He let me.

It must have been either late September or early October, because it was hot, but waning, stirring under the sound of crickets. Michael and Obie stopped every few yards to take deep breaths of the extraordinarily sweet smell of four-o'clocks; I tried but my allgeries had my sinuses were closed for business. We followed the trail through a cypress canopy tunnel, recently strewn red caliche scraping under our soles. The cicadas chirring was eerie and beautiful, but between that and the crunch of  the caliche, I strained to understand what they were saying. They were already fine tuned to a quiet newlyweds' conversation so they heard each other and I smiled and nodded. I was just elated to see Michael so content. When we cleared the trees and cicada choirs the sun was turning the same color as the trail, setting directly in front of us. In my memory there was no breeze, only all this blazing light. I had sunglasses and my Saints cap but Obie and Michael squinted into it, cupping their hands like visors.

"Will you look at that," Obie said. "It's like, another inch and the sun will alight onto the trail."

"Light unto the trail?" I misheard.

"Onto. Alight onto. Like a bird?"

"Beautiful." Michael said with satisfaction, like he'd aligned the trail and sun and tilt of the earth himself so we could enjoy the show.

"You can't see all the colors with your sunglasses on, Carl," Obie said.

I took them off, but put them right back on again; it was still too bright for my comfort. "Yes, I can," I lied. "It's astonishing."

Michael told him how we met. Obie laughed. "Seriously? The name of the book club was 'Unafraid of Virginia Woolf'? That's ... very gay." He made it sound like a compliment.

"It served its purpose," I said. "No heterosexual every wandered in without knowing who we were unafraid of."

"Who you were afraid of," Obie said neutrally. Then, the question I predicted and dreaded: “Why did y’all stop dating, if that isn’t too tender a thing to ask?”

Michael turned to me to speak, but my answer was smooth with perfect timing -- I'd rehearsed it all day. “Conflicting points of view on the art of gay fiction,” I said. “A west coast, east coast thing, totally irreconcilable. He was into Armistead Maupin and I’m an Ethan Mordden man.”

“Oh yeah.  They sound familiar," Obie said.

And then I went on a rambling riff on contemporary gay literature. Michael laughed uncomfortably. Or maybe that's the slant time added to that memory. After that day he and Obie got into the whole nesting thing and I saw less and less of him until I never saw him at all.

If you haven't figured it out yet, I'll confess with limited compunction: I do have a flip streak. It's a benign, playful streak, or it's meant to be, but still. My flip non sequitors that day were supposed to deflect attention from the topic of Michael's asexuality because I assumed that sooner or later his young, faux-hawked new boyfriend would leave like I did.

But ever notice how easy it is to focus on protecting the feelings of somebody else instead of looking long and unsentimentally at your own? I guess I was sincere about wanting to protect Michael from something I hadn't even clearly defined for myself, but I was working hard to solve a problem that didn't exist. I couldn't have known it, but that was the last time I had the chance to be real and present with him. And I blew it.  And here is the missing line of data that crashed my program that day: when you think you're protecting others from the truth, you're really in the end just trying to protect yourself.

How Father Tam... Part 3: Secret Ingredient Cinnamon Spritzers

How Father Tam Ruined Ash Wednesday for Everybody

Part 3: Secret Ingredient Cinnamon Spritzers

So then Obie moved in and one year later presented a strange request -- to have his priest over for supper. We knew he was Catholic, active in his church, out to his priest even. Clearly his religion was important to him, but having a priest over? I grew up Catholic, so I wasn’t unfamiliar with the concept, but Justin had let’s just say, a history with religious institutions and men of the cloth in particular. So naturally his first response was “That will absolutely never happen.” Then I talked to him on the DL and asked basically what would it hurt? I reminded him of what a good roommate Obie was: kind, responsible, intelligent, quiet, an amazing cook, not to mention the embodiment of the term ‘strapping’.

It didn’t take long for him to grumpily agree to it and call me brazen blandisher. But when Obie explained that he wanted Justin to actually be there at the table with him, he reconsidered. Specifically, he said he would “sooner drink fucking hemlock.” So I thought the matter was closed; it’s Justin’s apartment, end of discussion. I underestimated Obie, though.

"He isn't what you imagine," Obie explained. "He's not what you think of when you picture a priest."

"Now you're a mind reader too? And what do you think I picture a priest as?"

"A cliche," Obie said calmly. "A hypocrite.  Maybe a child molester.  Like a lot of people, you have a piecemeal idea of what a priest is. All the most lurid, sensationalistic details from the evening news put together to make a huge clerical-collared straw man. You're saying you won't give me a chance to show you the difference, but I know you. You're smarter and kinder than that."

Justin's mouth had been open for something sarcastic but that stopped him cold.

"He's right," I said. "Appearances to the contrary, you are."

"You're ganging up on me. That's not fair," he said. "I supposed he's going to fling goddam holy water through the place to bless all the queerness out?"

"There isn't enough holy water in the oceans," I said.

"Just supper," Obie said. "And he's bringing me a crucifix, but it's for my bedroom."

"Afraid of vampires, Jonny Harker?" Justin snorted.

"Not all of them. Just the ones who suck blood," he said.

“It’s fucking crazy.” Justin walked to the living room and back again. “Why the hell do you want me there? Carl is your man, your fellow Catholic.“

“Ex-Catholic,” I corrected.

“No such thing,” he said, stomping from the kitchen to the living room again. “Me, I’m an atheist, the very worst kind; the kind who hates the God he doesn’t believe in, who hates only one thing more than God -- his goddam priests.”

Obie sat in a swivel chair at the breakfast bar and Justin stood ranting in the middle of the living room.

“If you’re trying to convert me …” Justin said.

“I think you know me better than that.”

“Then explain why,” he demanded. One arm extended over the sofa, hand extended, palm up: the universal sign for 'You’re on.'

Obie extended his hand exactly the same way. “Because you and Carl are important to me.” The same gesture as Justin’s, but now it was an invitation, Do this with me.

"Father Tam is important to me too. It’s not the supper itself, it's having the three of y'all in the same room with me. Look, when my father told me to flip a switch and become heterosexual, I lost my 4 brothers. We were close and 2 iof them email me behind Dad's back, but I haven't seen them since.  And that really hurts. Plus, everybody told me that what I was looking for didn't exist and I'd never have love or brothers or a family again. But I did have all of that, with Michael, for so long. Till he went.”

My eyes watered and my throat closed up. “Ah,” I said. “Michael was like a brother to you?”

“Among other things.”

“Ah,” I said again, stupidly.

He didn’t hesitate. “Yes. You know that I love being gay. It’s this wonderful, mysterious gift God has given me and I’m grateful for it. Except for one thing. It took my brothers away from me. I couldn't say this to 90 percent of the men I know, but that’s how we feel to me, like brothers. Please don't think I'm crazy but I feel like Michael brought us together, because he knew more about love than anybody I ever met. He knew when people had the capacity for this off the charts kind of love and how rare it was."

“I don't think you're crazy,” I said, sniffling. And no, I never told him about my Angor Wat dream.

"Oh, Lacrimose Louise is crying. Who could have seen that coming?" Justin proclaimed. He enjoyed reminding me that I cry when Pixar cartoon characters die and during coffee commercials where the long lost brother comes home for a Christmas surprise. He's right -- but I hate it when he can predict it.

Obie and I were both careful not to look at him. After a while he said, “I’m only child and now at the age of 35 I’m an asshole and a curmudgeon who's going to stay that way. I don’t know if I’d be a very good substitute brother to anybody.”

“Not substitute,” Obie said. “Additional. And you already are so it's undebatable.” He stood up slowly. “My point is that I don't think of you two as just roommates and I wanted to share this other part of my life with y'all. If either of you absolutely don’t want any of this, just tell me. I see the intense weirdness magnitude of what I’m asking and …”

"His name is Father Tam?" Justin said. "As in 'Tam O'Shanter'? Oh please please please tell me he's Irish."

Obie looked confused. "No." he said. "Korean. Why?"

"Because then he'd at least be entertaining. Like a James Joyce character: skeptical, spritely yet priggish, utterly wise and therefore completely without hope."

"He's picturing the Lucky Charms leprechaun with a Roman collar," I said. Justin's face was deadpan and irritated at the same time.

“So are you saying yes?” Obie asked.

“All right goddam it,” Justin said. “I guess we’re all going to be dining in with a fucking priest.”

This was good. It proved that Obie’s gliding serenity could go eye to eye with Justin’s fake misanthropy. Usually Obie's undisturbed bliss drove me nuts because it was impossible for me figure out what he was thinking. But this time, I had him. A microfiber of a smile gave him away.

“Thank you. I love you two very much.”

“Of course you do,” Justin said into the storage space under the sink. He rooted around for a minute then stood up with the watering spout. “And what kind of conversation are we supposed to have with this priest? Recent solar panel additions to the Vatican? The absurdly small ratio of bottoms to tops among Austin's gay cowboy community? Showers versus growers? Can we even mention penises?"

"Really Justin?" I scolded.

“No, it’s cool. Anything,” Obie said. "Talk about dicks if you want.  Curse and drop the F bomb if you want."

"I do not want. I'm a cranky gay atheist, not a boor," Justin said.

Obie laughed and said, "And apropros to nothing, did I mention that I was thinking about making blueberry pancakes Sunday morning?"

"That's some fucking cheek. You think you can bribe me with blueberry pancakes?"

"Yes."

We watched and waited. He closed his eyes and his chin hit his chest. "Fine. But those blueberries better be picked by left-handed Oaxacan virgins and flown in fresh by goddam peregrine falcon."

"Can we say fuck and goddam if the topic of Bill O'Reilly comes up?" I asked.

Obie tore a small page of paper from the magnetic tablet on the refrigerator and whipped a pen out of his jeans' pocket. "Do not bring up Bill O'Reilly because Father Tam is likely to say fuck or goddam himself." He scribbled something and said, "I know all three of you like Italian so I was thinking lasagna, porcini mushrooms with rice, salad ..."

Justin pointed the spout at me. "The resident bear has been uncharacteristically quiet. Are you up to having Italian with a Korean priest?”

"I’m up to it," I said. "If Father Tam doesn't mind supper with two outrageously flaming queens and me, why should I? He does know we're gay, right?"

"I never used the word,” Obie said. “But yeah, he probably gets it.”

"And he's all right with it?"

With that sweet but sphinx-like face, Obie said "Yes. He gets it."

Justin, looking down into his Boston fern, asked the question that had been wobbling through the air like a bubble. “But isn’t it a sin in your church to 'get it'?”

If it fazed Obie, he didn’t show it but he didn’t answer it either. “I promise, it’s cool, really. He's an awesome guy and you'll love him. Thank you both. A lot. I love you so much." he said and disappeared down the hall.

"You didn't comment on my slightly understated age of 35," Justin said.

"Oh believe me, I don't have to," I said. "Wow. Brothers. That is so intense and Obiescent. You realize he’s completely sincere about all of this, right?"

Justin said "He's young, tall, and baritone, so does it matter?" Then he exhaled a sigh that was weighted, even for him. “Jesus, Mary, and all the saints help him, I have no doubt that he is as sincere as the rain."

After that, Justin and I called it the Feast of Father Tam. I was looking forward to it, but on that morning before sunrise, dry straight-line winds blew through Austin and caused damage around town. Obie came home and broke the news to us that the Feast of Father Tam would be delayed. During the night a gale blew down a tall old China ball tree onto the church. It took out some gutters and a few roof tiles, but worst, a limb hit a stained glass window of St. Cecilia, Virgin and Martyr, and shattered it. Apparently Fr. Tam and a few handy parishioners were working overtime to clean up the mess, and he had to reschedule.

"Poo-yi-yi,*" said my boyfriend Cage. He sat next to me on the sofa playing games on my laptop and Justin was watching TV from his ratty blue recliner.

"And that was one of the coolest windows in the church," Obie said. "She had a harp in one hand, a lute at her feet, and looked a little like Gwen Steffani." Obie's habit was to say these odd things with so little inflection Justin and I had trouble knowing if they were jokes of ultra-low-frequency understatement or just observations.

"It probably wasn't caused by demonic forces desperate to keep his holy ass out of this haunted yet exquisitely decorated den of iniquity," Justin said. "Accidents happen."

"Yeah. Even to saints," Obie said. "They had to tape up a polyethylene drop cloth in her window.”

“Well, polyethylene. That'll keep keep out secular humanism,” I said.

"It'll keep out the bugs, too," Cage said, focused on 'de Blob 2'.

"What are you eating there, Justin?" Obie asked.

"Two slices of processed cheese food with a slice of bologna in between. It's his idea of low carb, protein rich lunch," I explained.

Cage was torn between ignoring the conversation (he had an inbred fear of ever being rude) and losing his battle against Inkies. "Bologna's good," he said.

"So, Father Tam’s next available night is the 13th, next Sunday. I told him I'd check with y'all.”

I was thinking The 13th, the 13th, what do I have that day? February 13th is ....

"February 13th." I said. "The next day is the 14th."

"Wow, really?" Justin said through a mouthful of bologna.

"The 14th is Valentine's Day," Cage said.

"And you’re having friends over, I remembered," Obie said. "But, look, I will set up the party for y'all and clean up the entire aftermath. You won't have to lift a finger.”

I laughed. "To be young again. I remember when parties had aftermaths. At this point I am a middle aged computer geek, Justin is a furniture monger. We both have one foot in middle age and the other on a banana peel, so there doesn't tend to be much aftermath to our parties.”

"I hate it when you say that," Justin complained. "I am Austin's top rated, at least in my own mind, Interior Designer," Justin said.

"Well excuse me for trying to avoid the great gay cliche," I said. "I always have thought of you as a Premier Urban Designer."

This was actually a joke I stole from Cage, who snickered.

"What, Mr. LeJeune?" Justin snapped. "You doubt my abilities to make mere fucking living spaces into magical spaces for living?"

Cage never looked up. "Not at all, man. I think you're probably the best Primier Urban Designer ..." He could finish his sentence without laughing.

A snickering noise came out of Obie's nose. He got it. "What about .... Developer Of Ottomans, Furniture, Urban Sectionals?" I had to spell it out in my head but then I sniggered too.

Justin eyed us. "I wouldn't place an ottoman or sectional in a goddam pig sty. I have no idea what you three stooges are tittering at but I'm pretty sure it's beneath my dignity. What fucking ever." He scowled. "And I am not middle aged.”

"I'm middle age and you're older than me," I said.

"When the lights go out after the party, you act pretty damn young, beau coeur**," he said. He didn't take his eyes off his game.

"Oh you kid," I said. I gave Obie a thumbs up.  "Sunday night's good for me."

Obie gave Justin his most beatific gaze and cleared his throat.

“Yeah, Sunday's fine," Justin said. "It might be small and cozy, but our VD event is a tradition. Our friends expect it and your attendance is mandatory, preferably without your priest.”

I disagreed. "There is no tradition. We have a few friends over to sip beverages, eat red velvet cake. There is no 'event'."

"The hell there isn't. Three years in a row," Justin said. "That counts as tradition. And I beg your fucking pardon but we don't merely sip beverages. We sip my Secret Ingredient Cinnamon Spritzers which are legendary.”

I put my hand on the top of my head for emphasis: "It’s true, Obie. They are awesome. Legendary is not an overstatement."

Without looking up Cage said, "They are slap-yo-mama good."

Justin shifted in his chair. "Well ... thank you. Yes they are. They're my contribution to civilization. I'm glad I could leave the world having given something back." Sincere compliments freaked him out and demure on him was like a nun's habit on Lindsay Lohan. “I could probably figure out a way to make some without liquor." In the year we lived with him we learned that Obie didn’t drink alcohol, and were biding our time to find out why.

"That'd be great," he said simply. “Sunday service ends at 5:30, and he should be here by 7:00. You'll be there Cage?"

"Naw. Can't. Working till nine on the 13th," he said, engrossed.

Justin crossed then recrossed his legs, oozing nonchalance. “So you don’t drink, but your priest does?”

“Yes,” he said in a maddeningly unnuanced tone. “Or at least he'd have one of your cinnamon shots.”

“Spritzers,” Justin corrected. “And yes ... a tipsy priest would add an entirely different dimension to the evening. But advise him that the secret ingredient is not Blue fucking Nun.”

“He’ll be glad to hear that. So what is the secret ingredient, if I might ask?”

“You might not.” Justin said.

Taking my life in my hands, I said “A trace, like half a molar mass, of cayenne pepper.”

That yanked Cage away from his game. "Aw no..." he said. "Why'd you tell him?"

Justin stared at me for a second, then exploded. “How did you know that? Goddam it all to hell! How did you know?” I deliberately didn't look at Cage but Justin tramped to the sofa to face him. "You! I bet you were weaned on it and could sniff it out in a gumbo three fucking parishes away, couldn't you?"

Cage closed my laptop and said, “Yeah, I told him. Sorry poteau***."

"I guess, what? He tortured it out of you?"

When Cage is trying not to laugh no power on earth can keep him from smirking, which he was doing now. "Yeah! I was helpless under his power. He stripped me and tied me up and used his levier**** to crack me open like a safe."

"No, no, no, no!" Justin whooped. "TMI, please. Nobody wants to hear the details of your fucking ... fucking."

"I do," said Obie. Cage's eyes squinted shut when he laughed.

"It'll never leave this circle," I said. "Your secret ingredient is safe. Hoards of muscled, hairy werewolves couldn't drag it out of us.”

He pointed two fingers as if he were hexing us. “All three of you dickwads will go to your graves with that information, do you hear me?”

I crossed my heart with one finger and Obie did the zipping-the-lip thing. Justin chuffed off to his room.

"He's so funny," Cage said. "Premier Urban Designer. You better let him in on the joke, beebee, before he puts that on his business cards."


______________________________
*This is a Cajun expression, pronounced just like it looks, that means something like "oh my gosh" or "wow." After three years in Austin he still used Cajunisms, but not like before when no Texan knew what the hell he was ever talking about; at least now more than 3/4ths of his sentences are in English. And some of these terms might look crazy, but when they come from him they're obscenely charming.

**One of his pet names for me that involve the word coeur or 'heart'. Beau coeur means 'beautiful heart'.

*** 'Pal' or 'buddy'. He says it's literally "drink water."

**** Yes, you guessed right: 'lever'. I won't expound on the implications.

How Father Tam ... pt 4: What Didn't Happen

How Father Tam Ruined Ash Wednesday for Everybody

Part 4: What Didn't Happen

But Father Tam didn’t make it on the 13th because somebody beat him up bad. As in unconscious in the hospital with tubes and stints stuck in him ‘bad’.

That night I had been asleep for hours when Justin banged once on my door and flipped on the light. He stood next to the bed looking down at me and speaking but the part of my brain that processes his raspy denasal voice was still asleep.

“Hey, now.” I croaked and squinted. “Suppose I was entertaining?”

“You never fail to be entertaining, but listen to me. Obie’s not here.”

“Seriously.” I looked at the clock: 2:37am. “What if I’d been fixing to hop onto Cage, or Diesel Washington, or making a reverse Oreo?” Diesel Washington was my most recent favorite porn god. I actually had been dreaming about Cage when he burst in.

“Dammit to hell Carl, listen to me. Obie didn’t come home and he didn't call.” He pulled the pillow out from under my head.

“So?”

“So something is wrong. He always calls me if he's out past midnight.”

“He does? Why?"

"Because I asked him to. So he doesn't startle us when he comes in."

"Startle you? You could sleep with a gaggle of angry geese in your room."

"Oh goddam it, never mind. Something is wrong.  He never stays out this late, ever.."

"Not true. Remember that time he and wasshisname almost got arrested for trying to steal the G off The Red Angus Diner? Or when his motorcycle broke down somewhere desolate in Williamson County?"

“That’s my goddam point. Twice, maybe 3 times in a year. And he always calls or texts me when he's not coming home. Something's off. I need to call him.”

Now I was awake enough to be irritated. “So pick up your stupid phone and call him. It's not rocket surgery. Do you really want my permission?” And yes, I said rocket surgery on purpose.

“No. Well. But . . . do you think I should? Is it too intrusively parental or something? I’m not a fucking mother hen with her brood.”

“Then you’re doing a good imitation of one,” I said. I got up and gave him my phone. “Here, Galena. Call your little lost squab.”

He turned his back to me while he dialed. “Apparently somebody was having pleasant dreams.”

“Oh.” He meant the tent that was the front of my boxers. “Cage did that.” I popped my wood through the fly and put my hands on my hips. Shocking him would be revenge for waking me up. “There. Is that better?”

He looked and then turned away again unscandalized. “Keep your widow maker away from me. I have no desire to end up like Cage.”

“Like Cage? What’s wrong with Cage?” I roared at the back of his head. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Please,” he said, walking away. “After a night with you, the poor guy whistles in the wind like a beer bottle.” I wedged my hard on under my boxers’ waistband, pulled my tee shirt over it and followed him to the kitchen to defend Cage's honor and continence.

“He does not whistle. Liar. His sphincter is so tight that … that … the carbon in his poop turns to diamonds when it passes through it. When he flushes it’s like a hundred carets going down the toilet.” Justin snorted. “A hundred carATS, not carROTS, you harlequin. You don’t know my sex life. He is versatile. He can catch and pitch like a pro.” He snorted again. “Listen, Colonel Mustard, Cage is an awesome top and no part of his anatomy ever whistles except sometimes his mouth. I mean lips. But he does that on purpose." I stopped when I was awake enough to know I was babbling.

Justin leaned against the overhanging breakfast bar with my phone to his ear, cool as Bugs Bunny regarding an Elmer Fudd tantrum. “Seriously? ‘Colonel Mustard’?”

“Shut up.”

I didn’t think Obie would pick up but he did. “Obie?” Justin said. “No, it’s me. I know it's stupid but Carl wanted me to call because he was worried about you.” Then I watched his face morph gradually from stunned to afraid to angry and determined.

“Father ... ? Fuck. Oh fucking God. Okay, okay.”

To me: “Somebody beat up Father Tam in Karitz Park. Obie’s with him at St. Sebastian’s.”

Back to Obie: “Oh hell no. Hell no. We’re leaving now…. Yes, we are. This is not up for fucking discussion, Obadiah. We are going over there now.”

“How hurt is he?” My eyes were filling up fast.

“He's hurt enough to be unconscious in a hospital. That's all Obie said. Somebody apparently tried to kill him. Put some clothes on, we’re going."

To Obie: “We’ll be there in ten minutes.”

I zipped to my room and to pull on some shorts and get my car keys. Because of either grogginess or adrenaline or a slapstick mix of both, I dropped my keys twice before I convinced my fingers to grab and keep them. I ran back -- but he just stood there, looking at my phone in his hand.

“What’s the hold up?” I asked. “Let’s move.”

“No,” he said. His fear and anger was now a confused sadness. “Obie’s coming home. Father Tam will be all right but he’s knocked out on sedatives, and his family is there wondering who the Hispanic guy is.” He handed me my phone and went to his shabby recliner. “You know, the hospital called Obie because his name and number were in Father Tam’s wallet. He had Obie listed first as who to call in an emergency.”

"Yes. That's good, right?"

“No, it's not, because that son-of-a-bitch gave Obie his power of attorney." He sank into his chair and pushed back like he wanted to disappear in its dusty blue upholstery.

“Ah,” I said. I knew where he was going with this.

“You know what that means in gay terms, right?” I hated to hear the thick sadness in his voice.

“It could mean a lot of things,” I said, trying to be upbeat. But he gave such a pitying look, I conceded his point. “But yeah. It means they’re in love.”

Something inside the recliner creaked like gears grinding as he pitched backwards and the footstool part popped out. “In love with a cock sucking Catholic priest,” he said. “What could he possibly be thinking?”

“I know, who knows. But thinking isn't always up at the top of the list for a man in love. Mr. Heart and Mr. Dick gang up and ambush Mr. Brain. Poor Obie. Poor Father Tam.”

He grabbed the arms of his chair. “Poor Father Tam? Are you fucking kidding? He was beaten up in Karitz Park, Carl. There is only one reason anybody would be in Karitz Park in the middle of the night and it is NOT to hear confessions.”

That was true. Many men have knelt there in the dark, but they weren’t praying, at least not in the ecclesiastical sense. Five years ago it was Austin’s premier nighttime anonymous sex venue.

On a pole at the entrance of Karitz Park, there's a bronze plaque with a bas relief picture of Helmut Walther Karitz and the words he used in 1805 to dedicate this land to the City of Austin: “Let this be a public recreation area where all citizens may come and enjoy what nature has given.”

That was the going joke among Karitz Park habitués; they were nothing more than citizens desiring to “come and enjoy what nature has given.” I popped in a few times in the early 1990s but being so close to the university, it tended to fill up with two kinds of men: young, skittish college guys from the nearby student housing (what Cage calls “boy-curious”), and the men who pursue them exclusively. I prefer them older and furrier so I got bored pretty fast. Still, I have a few good memories of one or two forty-somethings with facial hair and no-holds-barred attitudes. It was an adventure to have sex in a dangerously public place, the smell of the night air, the stars wheeling romantically overhead, my ass exposed to mosquitoes as big as your hand. Fun times. It’s just wasn’t something I’d make into a staple of my sex life.

Later drugs moved in. Dealers and thugs scared off the university boys and the cops really cracked down. Last I heard the only men who still cruised for sex in the ligustrum of Karitz Park were extremely volatile types, pale with jonesing, who’d blow you or let you fuck them for 25 dollars, then freak out in the middle of it and bite you or something. My friend Robin, a pillar of the late-night-anonymous-sex community, persevered until the very end. When one night the guy he was 'entertaining' used his long pinkie fingernail to scoop a white substance into the pee hole of his penis, Robin flew out of there and never went back.

It overloaded us with emotion to think that this man that Obie admired and loved would be lurking there at night, looking for sex or drugs, unfaithful to his community at large and unfaithful to Obie specifically. Justin's sadness was as usual temporary and his ire was back full tilt.

“What that Tartuffe sonofabitch has done to Obie,” he fumed. “I swear to you that if he ever comes into this house, I will personally with my own hands and dull scissors, make sure that celibacy is never an option for him again.”

“When Obie comes home he needs to be our focus, not Father Tam's actions. As hurt as he is right now, Obie probably doesn't want to hear us dissing Father Tam,” I said. I felt tears coming fast and talking was a way to keep them to a minimum. “It might not be as bad as we’re thinking, you know? Maybe he and Father Tam had an open relationship.”

“Obie? Our Obie? Or the one who doesn’t hand out communion wafers at mass and teach ‘How To Become Catholic’ classes?”

“As soon as I heard myself say it, I knew it was stupid. Okay, so let's make a game plan using what we know for sure. Like I know for sure that he’s in a lot of pain, like down to the bones of his soul, and he’ll try to copy and paste his Obiescent tranquility over it. So we won't push him. We follow his lead. We'll listen if he wants to talk and if he doesn’t, we give him space but not advice. No preaching, no righteous indignation, no talk about castrating Father Tam slowly and painfully, all right? Remember, we're his brothers now so we're giving him four gentle, sympathetic ears and all the brotherly love he wants.”

“Right, that’s good. But give me some hints, for fuck’s sake. You read him more often than I do, which is never. He always looks the same to me, like he’s at one with the goddam universe, like you could point a cannon and he’d just smile at it.”

“All right, I'll do my best,” I said. “But pay attention and follow my cues for once, ok?”

Justin squeezed his eyes shut and put his head back. “I don’t understand this fucked up need some men have to have anonymous sex in public places.”

“I totally understand it. It’s a quick dip into something that is pure instinct. The danger of getting busted amps it up, and then there’s the exhibitionist part too.” He shot me a look, so I added, “Or so I’ve read.”

“Don’t you mean proof-read? In your finally authoritative book published by Rechy and Sons Press? You know, it’s a fucking miracle that you aren’t oozing diseases.”

“Diseases aren’t a necessary part of the scene. You can have safe al fresco sex just like in your bedroom with the doors locked and the curtains drawn. Back then I had a wad of condoms on me 24/7. It was a fragile, more hormone driven time.”

“Oh sweet lord above. You mean there was a time when you were more hormone driven than now?”

You’ll notice that I ignore him with he gets rhetorical about my sex life. What he calls slutty, I call gregarious. “Cruise park sex,” I said, “is basic male sexual politics taken to its logical end. It’s drummed into us since birth, that ‘real men’ go after what they want no matter what. They sneak it into our brains, that sex is not really about love and sharing and intimacy like the rest of the world thinks …or at least pretends to think.”

“Oh, God, sexual politics. Here we go,” he said.

“It’s about getting something from another person. You’re told that sex is all about what you want, your orgasm, Foxtrot Tango Whiskey, screw social convention and splatter sperm its face if you can get away with it.”

“You are so full of shit. Nobody is taught that sex is only about conquering and social convention bukake.”

“In so many words, no. It’s never put that way because to say it would be to give away a secret, i.e. this secret: that selfish, macho-man point of view implies that all male sexual acts are really just masturbation. You’re just using another person’s mouth or butthole or vagina instead of your hand. Cruise park sex offers the perfect venue for that: you don't know your partner's name and if it's dark enough, you don't even see each other's faces. And when you follow the syllogism through from 'real men take what they want' to its logical end, that's where you end up.”

"You end up fucking a faceless masturbation toy in some bushes in a park?"

"Yes, more or less metaphorically."

"And you're all right with depersonalizing another human being until they're just a fucking orifice?"

"I never said I'm all right with it. I said I understood it. It's just a fact of the world. As long as some men believe that it's their right to depersonalize their partners, and others are all right with being depersonalized, it'll keep on happening."

“Who the hell are you? What cold cynic is skulking under that cuddly bear costume? That’s your goddam Catholic brainwashing. Aquinas and Augustine were nothing but frustrated, dirty minded douchebags who were warped with sexual frustration and that’s why they built your church on terror for the uncomplicated act of fucking.”

“That's what I'm saying. Anonymous sex is how some men try to uncomplicate it, to pare it down from the frou frou of making love to plain old fucking."

"Men that debased and self indulgent are the minority. Most of us don't have a problem dealing with lust, at least not to that extreme."

"Maybe not. But it's still a struggle between nurture and nature with the odds stacked in nature’s favor. That’s why it doesn’t make sense to ask what two men in love are thinking. It’s reaction versus response, probability versus actuality, intellect versus testosterone, heads versus tails.”

“So are you yammering to keep from thinking about Obie and weeping like a cold glass in a warm room?”

“Yes. Did you know that the Abe Lincoln heads-side of a penny is a bazillionth of a microgram heavier than the Lincoln Memorial tails-side?”

“I do now.”

“So when you flip a penny, you’re supposed to have a 50/50 chance of getting heads or tails, but it will come up tails more often than heads because it’s skewed from the beginning.”

“So the fuck what? You get tails 50.00000000001 times more. That’s statistically insignificant. Can we focus on ... ”

“Maybe, but it isn’t real-life insignificant. When you’re talking about a drive as strong and basically mindless as sex, that wee, half an iota is all it takes to tip the scales. You can pretend it’s all even-steven and that we’re all tamed and domesticated, but in the long run the head,” I tapped my temple, “loses to the tail.” I pointed my thumbs at my crotch.

“Please stop,” he said. “Your waxing philosophical about The Gay Male and Fast Food Sex is absolutely fucking scintillating but Obie will be here any minute. None of that helps right now. We're supposed to be thinking about how we're going to deal with this. The man he thinks he loves -- a priest for fuck’s sake -- is caught lurking through the brambles in Karitz Park. That’s our focus."

I took a deep breath. "You're right. Sorry. You know how I get."

"Remember: I’m the tactless yet lovable one and you’re the affable, nurturing crybaby. You’re supposed to do all that emotional edification business so now is not the time for a thesis on clandestine public sex.” His voice was getting a little shrill.

I took a deep breath and prepared myself for what had to happen next. “Stand up,” I barked. He was startled enough to do it, but he was suspicious. I went over and put my arms around him and held on. I held on through (1) the surprised recoil, (2) the very loud threats and epithets; (3) the twisting and fighting; (4) the appeals to my rationality (5) fists pounding on every available part of me. I held on until he knew I wasn’t letting go and he relaxed and rested his chin on my shoulder. That lasted for less than a second, but it did the job.

He fell back into his recliner and I sat on the sofa. We turned the TV on and watched in silence, waiting for Obie. After a few minutes he said softly, “You know, this is never going to be public knowledge. It stays here, in this apartment.”

I was genuinely hurt. “Have you ever known me to gossip? I would never tell Obie’s business.”

“I was talking about that hug,” he said.

In five minutes or less he was snoring. I turned the volume on the TV down to listen for the grumble of Obie’s old blue Harley. I heard it coming down the street and turning into the condo parking lot, and it got closer, but stopped too far away. Quietly I opened the front door and went out to wait for him.

In a few minutes he appeared pushing Old Blue. Backlit by an amberish mercury light, he set the kickstand and took off his helmet then shook his head to free his hair. In that weird mix of light and dark, drops of sweat flew and glinted silver. He walked toward me rubbing the back of his neck with one hand and holding his helmet in other.

“I know you didn’t run out of gas,” I said when he was still a yard away.

He stopped. The parking lot lights were behind him, so his face was dark and I felt afraid. Something weird about me:  I panic when people's faces are obscured from my view.

“Right, I didn't,” he said. “But Old Blue gets loud when he has a sore muffler and I don't want to wake people up.” He took another step, close enough to enter the cone of yellow from our door light. I relaxed. It was the usual almost smiling mouth and tranquil eyes of Obie’s face. But I scanned it quickly and there it was in the distance between his black eyebrows to his lashes, a different set to his lower lip, and a new droop to his eyelids: grief.

Another two white-silver drops fell onto his shirt and then I understood they were not sweat. I had a choice; I could do the easy thing – pat him on the shoulder and usher him inside, maybe crack a joke – or the hard thing: hold him close and in all likelihood douse him.

In two steps of his long legs he was a few inches away. He put down his helmet then straightened up to look at me. Easy way or heartbreaking way; I didn't get to decide because both his arms were around me squeezing and he leaned forward at the waist so that his cheek was on mine. I pushed toward him and clutched him, one hand on the small of his back and the other around his shoulder blades, like we were slow dancing.

His crying was a series of muted hiccups that shook his chest. His tears were on my face and mine were on his tee shirt. My arms were sore from holding onto Justin flailing a few minutes ago, but even when they started to ache I wanted to stay there with him. Finally he loosened his hold on me and stepped back. I immediately felt awkward and self conscious, but he wasn’t. He held my gaze and I felt safe. How fair is it that some men are handsome even with their noses running?

“Pleurnichard*,” he said with a terrible accent, like 'ploony shard'.

To admit this to Justin would crash the devil’s advocate app we keep running, but I’ll tell you what I was thinking while Obie and I were crying together: that if you added up all the orgasms in all the cruise parks in the world, all the glory holes of New York City, all the elaborate back room orgy places in Los Angeles, all the anonymous-quickie outlets in North America, then multiplied it by a million, it couldn’t touch this. No human interaction is more seared with joy and packed with meaning than two friends who are also brothers, the politics of sex erased from the agenda board, holding onto each other with no other goals than love and healing.

I wiped my nose with my hand. Don’t judge me. It was either that or let snot drip onto my shirt and how much would that have ruined the moment? “Let’s go in,” I said.

Justin’s hug aversion was 50% claustrophobia, 40% confusion over the meaning of non-sexual bodily contact, and only 10% the WASPy stick up his ass. Embracing people was enclosing, entrapping, and he claimed that the only reason he was a top was because he was claustrophobic.

So when we walked in and he saw our wet faces, he cringed at first but then surged ahead with stoutheartedness in his eyes. I stood behind Obie and watched. I admit feeling a little bit proud; the hug I forced on him earlier primed him for this. It was totally worth dislocating both shoulders.

He patted Obie’s wide upper back, signaling it was over. “You want me to make a cup of spearmint tea?” Justin asked.

“I’ll make it,” he said. He pulled a red bandana out of his back pocket and rubbed it across his nose. “I need to do something familiar and grounding.” We followed him to the kitchen and sat at the table.

“I am so sorry you’re having to go through all this,” I said.

“Me?” Obie asked. “I’m not the one who's going through anything. No that’s not right. Of course I’m in pain too. But that’s like a hangnail compared to what Joseph is dealing with.” He slowly turned a knob on the stove until blue and yellow flames wiggled under kettle.

An ESP moment with Justin. His eyes said to me Joseph.

“We realize you’re in love with him,” I said. “We didn’t know it before. I didn't even suspect.”

“Y’all probably knew before me.” Obie said. “I mean, like, I knew but … tonight made me face some stuff.  It forced me to put those soupy vague feelings into coherent thought. It’s been a rough night. I have so many emotions storming through me right now, buffeting me in like, twenty different directions.” His face was as calm as a Byzantine Christ's.

“My fucking God, of course it’s been rough,” Justin said. “Nobody should have to endure something like this. What your priest did is unthinkable, completely out of my comprehension.”

“If you knew him, you’d understand. He didn’t think twice.” Obie stopped and turned toward us. “Y’all know what happened? How did you know?”

“We don’t know the details, but we have a good idea.” Justin said with equal parts kindness and sorrow.

Obie put the teabag into a mug as gently as laying a sleeping baby down in its bed. “You do?” he asked, but without inflection.

“We’re here to listen if you want to talk, no judgments,” I said.

“I know it’s hard. I’ve been there more times than I’d admit. You give your whole fucking heart to a man and he cheats and lies," Justin said.

There was a pause while Obie leaned against the counter looking down. It was a silence filling fast with the feel of something that I didn’t understand, and as long as his face was focused down on his boots, out of sight, I was lost. When he raised his head again I knew something was wrong; the arcs of the corners of his mouth were different, his neck had a slight forward thrust, his forehead had different furrows, and the tilt of his head was a degree off vertical.

“Justin, wait,” I said. He ignored me.

“Betrayal has to be one of the most persistently painful human conditions and one that isn’t … what? Stop kicking me, Carl.”

“Justin, shut up,” I said.

Obie stared at us and smiled a frostbiting smile. The Byzantine Christ vanished and this emoticon took its place: >:) So, I thought, this is what Odie looks like when he’s mad.

“No and yes,” he said.

“What?” Justin asked, still clueless.

I sputtered, “I … we …”

“No, y’all don’t have any idea of what happened to Joseph tonight, so keep your judgments to yourself. And yes, now that you mention it I am feeling betrayed at the moment. But NOT by Joseph. You have no reason to make ignorant assumptions about a man you don’t even know. FUCK this.” Almost everything he said only a fraction of a decibel louder than his normal speaking voice. The words NOT and FUCK, though, filled up the room like gun shots.

“I’m going to sleep now,” he said and was gone.

Justin was stunned. I was ashamed. A pressure in my chest reminded me that I hadn’t taken a breath in a few seconds.

“Who’d have known Obie had such lung power?” I said, just to break the spell.

“What just happened?”

“We’re idiots. We are idiotic foolish idiots who deserve to be described in redundant terms,” I said.

“What just happened?”

“Father Tam didn’t get beat up for cruising in the park.”

“Then what happened to him?”

The kettle whistle blew like a piccolo’s high E flat. I turned it off. “I don’t know what happened. Maybe Obie’ll tell us. But we made some awful assumptions and we owe him a giant, whopping, groveling apology.”

I knew I wouldn't sleep tonight so I got a glass of water and an Ambien. I offered him one but he shook his head. He looked up at me for another ESP moment. His face: We fucked up but we’ll make it right. Mine: Of course we will, but we’re still assholes. Now go to bed.

*Cry baby

How Fr. Tam ... part 5: What Happened

How Father Tam Ruined Ash Wednesday for Everybody

part 5: What Happened

I willed my body to lie still in my bed but I couldn’t stop my mind from fidgeting. I closed my eyes and tried not to think that even with zolpidim tartrate to help me I’d never sleep tonight. I might as well get up and … then it was 10:30am and my room was full of morning light. Aromas woke me up: coffee and bacon. At first all I knew was that I ached with guilt about something. After blinking at my ceiling fan a second I remembered; I needed to make serious amends to Obie but the risk was high. If he was still mad at me and still upset about Father Tam, my clumsy attempts could cause him even more pain. I hoped it was a good sign that he was like every Saturday, in the kitchen making breakfast.

According to the mirror over my desk I looked a little less unkempt and insane than Rasputin. I was tempted to brush my hair into a faux hawk to add some kind of semi-ironic ass kissing aspect to the apology, but thought yuck, too much. I tugged the wrinkles out of my tee shirt and took a breath, visualizing myself inhaling peace and diplomacy from the universe. I opened my bedroom door. Then I closed it again. I went back and put on some shorts. Even the sincerest apology can be compromised by grape juice stained boxers.

Justin was already up, at the table, and Obie stirred scrambled eggs at the stove.

I cleared my throat. “Mornin’ glories,” I said and went for the coffee pot.

“Good morning,” Obie said with no audible anger, no audible anything. I had not looked at him yet, but there was something arch about Justin’s expression.

“Look who dressed for breakfast,” he said.

“These are my official ‘I was an ass and I’m really sorry’ shorts.”

I looked at Obie and all my trepidation dissolved. A child's yellow crayon smiley face would have been more threatening. “Oh they are? Then take them off please,” he said. “You don’t need them.”

"Don't fucking encourage him, Obie," Justin moaned.

“No, my assumptions were ... ” I said and reached for a mug next to the coffee pot and grabbed one I hadn't seen before. It was white, with the letter ‘I’ over a red heart and the words ‘my brother’ beneath. I automatically looked up at Justin who had an identical mug raised in a toast.

He squinted, wrinkled his forehead melodramatically, and pouted, a face that meant This is what you look like right now. I looked back to Obie who, I'm fairly sure, smiled. “A present,” he said. “I got them for your birthdays but July is too far off. Then I thought screw it. Today is more appropriate.”

“Aw, man,” I said. If my bottom lip trembled it would give Justin way too much pleasure, so I held it still with my fingers. “Thank you. This is … aw, man.” My tears piled up and made his face blurry. “I’m so very sorry about Father Tam, for making the worst assumptions, and for being a major jerk,” I bleated.

“If he’s a major jerk, then I’m at least a lieutenant general jerk,” Justin said. “Our groundless conclusions were out of line.”

“Not groundless.” Obie scraped eggs into a serving bowl. “Wrong, but conclusions anybody would draw. It’s Karitz Park, at night, so do the math. Like, if somebody told me the Dalai Lama got beat up in Karitz Park, it would at least cross my mind."

"The Dalai Lama? Seriously, never," Justin said. "That satin robe would get ruined, snagged on heroin needles and bougainvillea."

I looked at my mug and its big red heart. “I’m sorry anyway. And the mug is really sweet and … thank you.”

“Give him a goddam tissue, Obie,” Justin said. “He’s crying. What a surprise.”

“So?” I said. “I’m lachrymose and proud of it. It only means that I’m caring and I connect to people on authentic levels.”

“Yeah, yeah. Heart of gold under the fur of brown and all that. We know.”

“You’re welcome,” Obie said. “Go ahead and see if it works.”

“If it works?” I asked.

“See if it holds coffee. Then get the plate of bacon and come sit down because I want to tell you what happened to Joseph.”

To get the full effect of the story you have to imagine Obie telling it calmly and how clear his emotion came through anyway. The peacefulness in his face and the steadiness of his voice magnified his alarm and sadness times ten.

It didn't go down as late at night as Justin and I thought. It was still light, right at sunset and Father Tam was driving along the park on Pequod Boulevard. He passed a man walking along the curb, and coming toward him also on the edge of the grass at the curb, a young woman was jogging. After he passed her he looked into his rear view mirror and saw the man grab her and yank her to the ground. He stopped his car and looked back. The man was pulling her toward the dry bed of Onion Creek.

The concrete curb there between the street and the park is about a foot tall. Father Tam apparently gunned his car over it, tore out across the grass and barreled through Karitz Park toward the creek. He could see the woman trying to aim a small spray canister at the man’s face, but he pulled it out of her hand the flung it into the grass. The man got one of her arms and a leg, pulling her to an outcropping on the bank. Father Tam said he punched her in the face at least twice but she kept fighting. When his car came up to the outcropping he turned on his headlights and leaned on the horn -- to signal for help or to disconcert the guy, I don’t know. Between Father Tam’s horn and the woman’s fighting he dropped her and ran. Father Tam got out of his car and ran over to the woman who was still flailing. She landed a few good punches, but he kept saying “You’re okay,” and she finally stopped. She was crying and then she screamed “No, don’t!” and when he turned around, the attacker slammed a rock onto Father Tam’s head.

After that the man tried to hit him again in the head, but Father Tam blocked him with his arms, which fractured his ulna. The good thing was how the rock was too heavy for the attacker to handle easily because it slipped out of his hands. Father Tam rolled over and curled his body around the rock so the man couldn’t use it against him. He kicked in Father Tam’s nose and some of his ribs. The woman found her pepper spray and got him in the eyes so he finally ran off. She called 911 and they brought him to St. Sebastians and that’s when they notified Obie at his job. Old Blue rocketed him over but he sat in the waiting room for 4 hours, begging them to let him see him. Immediate family only they said and nobody wanted to bend the rule for him. But as I mentioned before, Obie’s powers of persuasion are powerful. He got in by 9:00, when Fr. Tam was still conscious but loopy on sedatives. His nurse said the broken parts of him weren’t as serious as the concussion, but used the phrase guardedly optimistic.

Father Tam kept drifting off telling the story, but Obie pieced it together pretty well. He held his hand while he slept and somebody in scrubs came in asking if Obie wanted to take a phone call. It was the woman jogger who Father Tam rescued, calling to ask how he was. Her name was Lisa something, Obie remembered. She asked if he was Father Tam’s son.

“I said that Joseph was a Catholic priest and didn’t have sons.” Obie explained. “Then she cried some more and asked if I was a friend.”

And that you understand, is the question that makes gay lovers and spouses across the globe squirm. Because, yes, you are a friend at the very least, but immensely more. So saying yes is a lie of omission and -- especially in one of these awful emergencies where you need your family most -- it is ultimately a denial of your love. How often to you hear a heterosexual introduce his wife as only his friend? I knew Obie wouldn't answer with just a ‘yes'.

“What did you say?” I asked.

The dramatic pause I expected never came. “I said I was somebody who loved him very much. She promised to visit him today as soon as possible to thank him and bring him flowers for saving her and, oh man, is Joseph going to hate that. I know what he’s going to say.”

Justin said, "That he didn't do anything heroic because he was only doing what any Joe Citizen would."

“No, not that,” Obie said. “He’s too humble to be self-effacing. He’s going to say something like he didn’t save her, that he only helped her save herself.”

“Think that’s true?” I asked.

“No,” he said plainly. Then tears began gushing from his eyes, though his face was still and self contained. It was as disconcerting and awesome as watching flood-tide of rain pour from a cloudless perfect blue sky. Of course my tear ducts immediately joined in the fun.

“Then,” he continued in the same voice, “about one in the morning his parents arrived. They drove in from Houston. They saw me holding Joseph’s hand with my head on the bed next to him.”

“Did that bother them?” I asked.

“Oh yeah, they were very bothered. Even though I was the one who called them.” His shoulders moved a little higher and he almost imperceptively leaned forward in his chair. “They know who I am. Joseph told them about me, about us some time ago. They told me to leave and not come back.”

Fat tears gushed down his cheeks and dripped onto his shirt. Justin and I sat there, no idea what to say. He and Obie hadn’t touched their breakfasts and mine was gone though I couldn’t remember eating it.

“And that’s what happened,” Obie said and swiped his napkin across his face. “But I’m going back today as soon as Joseph calls me. I understand their fears. They’re old world conservative Koreans and Joseph is their only child. He brought them a lot of honor when he became a priest and if he leaves the priesthood or worse, causes a scandal…”

“Dishonor,” Justin said.

“Yeah. Boatloads of it. And honestly, I’m probably just as afraid of those things too.”

“That he would quit being a priest for you?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “I don’t flatter myself that he would leave the priesthood for me. But he would leave it for love if he thought that’s what God was calling him to.”

I could tell Justin was editing something in his mind so that it would come out just right. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but people don’t usually believe God calls priests away from the church so that they can be in gay relationships do they?”

I knew the answer to this one. “Yes, but people used to not believe that the sun was the center of the solar system. And most Catholics – if you gave them a shot of sodium thiopental to force them to tell the truth, they’d admit that they don’t really believe half the stuff the church teaches. Like transubstantiation. I mean, they say they believe it. They believe they believe it. But if you watch them when their guard is down it’s clear that they don’t.”

“So then. Bottom line, Obie; do you really think you can convince his parents to accept you?” Justin asked.

“I don’t care about convincing them,” Obie said. “Or whether or not they accept me. They just need to understand something, that I left Joseph’s hospital room out of respect for them last night, even though it was, like, ripping up my insides. But nothing they can do is going to take me out of his life.” Tears rolled down his face as he calmly reached for a tortilla.

I looked at Justin to say something but the rage in his face stopped me. His eyes were glittery wet. I reached over to squeeze his shoulder but he stood up trying to look as regal as possible. “I need to go get rid of some of this coffee," he said, clearing his throat. But he stopped just short of the bathroom door and turned around to face me. "Yes, Mr. I Read People As Well As Books. I’m not like you, with my heart and dick always out in the open for people to see. But that doesn’t mean I’m completely …”

“Lachrymose intolerant?” I offered. He rubbed at his eye with his finger.

“I won’t even dignify that with a groan,” he said and marched into the bathroom with his harrumph face.

When he was out of earshot I said with awe to Obie, "Mark your calendar. That is a rare event."

Obie put some bacon and eggs between his tortilla and folded it in half. "I wish I wasn't part of the reason he's crying," he said.

"No, no. Don't be sorry, man," I said. "That was one of the most honest unrehearsed things I have ever seen from him. I hope he gets to experience lots more of those. Except without the crushing personal tragedy."

“I feel bad that I blew my top last night,” he said and kept right on talking before I could protest: “Because I know how lucky I am to have you both. Thank you for being patient with me.”

I opened my mouth but again he didn’t let me speak. “And don’t make a dirty joke about ‘blowing my top’ just to dilute the gooey sincerity of the moment.” The boy knew me. “Michael was right about you.”

That came out of nowhere. “Right about what? What did he tell you?” Michael often coached me, both during and after our relationship, against using flipness to avoid being vulnerable with people. I thought that’s where this was going. I was wrong.

“He said you were decent,” he said. “And that truly decent people aren’t as common as you’d think.”

“I get ‘indecent’ a lot, but never ‘decent’.” I swear, it was past my lips before I could stop it. “My God. It’s like a flipness toggle switch I can’t control.”

He smiled at me even though nothing visibly changed in his face. “Most of the gay people I know are afraid of their sexuality more or less. And they can only deal with it through shame. Getting to the point when you don’t buy into that … I think I’m still learning that lesson. It’s one of the things I admire about you, that you’re not afraid of your sexuality and you’re never ashamed. You’re not pushy about who you are but you’re not apologetic about it either. You probably don’t realize what a moral victory that is. You rise above the bullshit society drowns gay people in and you have some real joy about who you are. That’s not indecent.” A pause while he mulled this over. “Or if it is, then you’re the most decent indecent person I know.”

You couldn’t believe how many puns, jokes, and wild-goose tangents twirled through my mind. All right, all right, all right! Stop accusing me! I admit it: I can’t take sincere compliments any better than Justin can. I forced myself to look right at him and didn’t open my mouth until I was sure of what would come out: “Thanks.”

“I liked you the first time I met you, when you touched my hair.” He took two slices of bacon from the serving plate and ate them together in three big crunches.

Now it was time to veer the conversation away from this geekazoid direction. “I liked you too but I imagine everybody you meet likes you.”

“Not even. It seems like, some people like me when they first meet me, but like me less when they find out I’m not whatever they expected me to be.”

“Expected you to be what?”

“Oh anything,” he said. “A ferocious top or a subservient bottom or a drugged out party boy. One guy came on to me while I was in a laundromat and when he saw a rainbow flag tee shirt in my hamper he said ‘Oh, you’re gay?’ and lit out of there like his pants were on fire. Other people don’t like me at first then later, they do. Or not. Sometimes even though you’d like to like a person it never happens. Other times it just takes some time and work.”

I felt mischievous. “So how long before you liked Justin?”

"His heart is good," Obie said. "I admit I didn't see that at first. I was actually kinda scared of him, but I watched how you interacted with him and learned how to see him from a better angle. Then once I did, I loved him too." He took off half the tortilla in one bite. He chewed food the same way he did everything else, deliberately and with calm hardiness. “You ever think how rare it is that love looks anything like what you expect it to look like?"

I heard Justin flush – like that would fool anybody -- so I took his food and heated it in the microwave. “No,” I said. “But it sounds right. And if you find love that looks exactly like what you were expecting, it's usually something sneaky that's only pretending to be love.”

"Wow,” he said. Without fully swallowing what he already had in his mouth, he stuffed in the last half of the tortilla and said, “Justin’s not here so I'll say it: that is the fucking truth."

At that second Justin reappeared, his eyes dry. “You better watch your fucking mouth, boy. We don’t allow cussing in this goddam house.” I put his breakfast down in front of him. He poked at the eggs skeptically with his fork. “There better not be any fur in here,” he said.

“Thanks for breakfast, man,” I said. I brought my plate to the sink. “I need to call Cage.”

“Tell him what happened to Joseph,” Obie said.

I stopped in mid-stride. "Is it okay to tell him ... about everything?"

"Of course," he said calmly. "He's your spouse. No secrets and no blame."

“Soooo...” I heard Justin say as I left the room. “You were afraid of me?”

“Eavesdropper,” Obie said. “Eat your eggs and fur.”

I called Cage and told him what happened, or tried to. He kept interrupting me asking, “They’re together together?” Like me, he left the church a long time ago, but he still retained some dogged Catholic sensibilities and right now they were burning. He was horrified first that anybody would harm a priest and second, that a priest and Obie were lovers. Then I told him about my lurid assumption that Father Tam had been bashed while cruising in Kartiz Park, and Obie’s reaction.

He understood immediately. “Well acourse he was upset about the Father. I know he didn’t mean to holler at you, tee bougre*, ” he said. “You know The Peep** loves you. I just can’t believe he’s having sex with a priest. How weird must that be?”

“Nobody ever said they were having sex,” I said.

“But if they’re lovers … “

“It means that they love each other. We don’t have the right to speculate about their sex life anyway because it’s nosy and not polite. Besides, I learned many years ago not to make any assumptions about love between gay men. When you do, you always end up looking stupid.”

Again he was astounded. “How could anybody be lovers with Obie and not wanna get him naked*** and turn him thirty-five ways to Sunday?”

“Nobody with working hormones,” I said. “But even if Father Tam wants to have sex, doesn’t mean he does have sex. Maybe there’s other stuff he wants more.”

Cage let that sink in a minute then made a sound that meant Never happen.

He brought me my go-to comfort food, kettle corn. We sat on my bed and watched DVD’d recordings of the Batman cartoon that Dietrich Bater voiced. Let the online dating services put that one on their questionnaires: you know it’s everlasting love when A) he looks deep into your eyes and you melt, B) the earth shakes and the angels sing, C) your souls unite in a white hot flame, or D) you laugh at the same cartoons. The answer is D.

Knocking on my door and Obie’s voice on the other side: “Carl?”

He came in and Cage jumped up to hug him. “Mon peep,” he said. “That’s terrible what happened. I hope they catch the sonofabitch and string him up.” I put the DVD on pause and Batman froze with a close up on his scowly half-circle eyes.

“Me too, Frawn-Swass.” This was Obie’s rendition of the name François. Deliberately mispronounced horribly to tease Cage or not? The world may never know. “It’s good to see you,” he said.

Cage’s hazel eyes narrows to slits. “You know … when they catch this lunatic, you get me a lock of his hair. I’ll send it to my tante**** Clothilde in New Orleans and his balls will fall off on the next new moon.”

A ripple scooted across that vast ocean of tranquility behind Obie’s eyes and I can’t even tell you how I saw it. “Thanks. But if I get close enough to him to get a piece of hair I won’t need voodoo to take his balls off.” That was probably the darkest most negative thing I ever heard him say, and it made me shudder.

The ripple of darkness went as quick as it came. He said, “But I wanted to tell you, Joseph is okay. There’s no permanent damage, thank God. A broken arm that’ll need a cast, minor head trauma, and some broken ribs that’ll have to heal on their own. I’m going to see him in a half hour. His parents are threatening to leave and he’s trying to get them to stay. He wants us all to talk about … things.”

“I can go with you,” I offered. “For moral support.  Not to get all up in your business, but I could be there in the waiting room or whatever.”

“Me too,” Cage said. “Anything you need Peep.”

“That wouldn’t be a bad idea,” he said. “If you drove, I’d have to come back with you. I wouldn’t be tempted to stay there all night sleeping in a chair somewhere. You’re not feeling pressured to do this, are you?”

“Pressured? I eat pressure tacos for breakfast and stress sandwiches at lunch.” I said.

“You eat Spam sandwiches on white bread with mayo, beau coeur.” Cage said.

“It’s simple yet classic cuisine,” I said. “You both know me; if I felt like you were pressuring me into doing something, I wouldn’t do it.”

“Yeah, I know. Just wanting reassurance," Obie said.  "I don’t know how confrontational it’s going to get in there so it’ll be nice to know y’all are within hugging distance."

"And if they make misères,***** I'll stand over them and growl," Cage said.  Did I mention that he is 6'3"?

“So about a half hour?” Obie asked.

“Okay. That’ll give me time to shower.”

“Thank you. Your supporting me through all this is amazing and I love y’all.”

Cage grinned and said “Back atcha, Peeps.”

“God I hate hate hate hospitals,” I said as soon as he left. I pulled off my shirt and shorts and took a towel from the closet. “All those people with their faces are either overloaded on suffering or blank from medication. But this is to support Obie, right? My discomfort is worth it for him, right?”

“Mon dieu, you are so sexy when you get all naked and altruistic,” Cage said and lip locked me. He pushed me backwards into my bed and started unbuttoning his jeans.

“Cage,” I said. “Baby. No. I need to shower. It’s … I love you but … no time … we don’t have ….”

[Ten minutes later.]

“Consider that a lick and promise,” he said when we were done. “A quickie version of what we’re gonna do later.”

He had kettle corn in his hair. I held on to him for a few more minutes and kissed sweat off his neck and breathed in his smell. Then I felt like I could do anything, even face a hospital full of mad, scared Korean priests’ parents.

________________________

*'Tee' is the Cajun shortened version of petit, small. Bougre comes from the same root word as the word 'bugger' (yes, the way the British use it) but in Cajun French means man, pal, friend. I love that.

** Cage's nickname for Obie, from pipenade which as far as I can tell means omelet. I have no idea why.

*** Pronounced 'nekkid'.

**** 'Aunt,' but you probably knew that.

*****  Pronounced mee-zaaz.  'Misery,' yes, but more in the Cajun culture, like 'trouble' or 'heartache'.

How Fr Tam, part 6: With One Eye Squinted

How Father Tam Ruined Ash Wednesday for Everybody

part 6: One Eye Squinted


After the anguished zoned out faces of the people, that sanitized-to-death odor is what I hate most about hospitals. Nothing conducive to life is supposed to smell that clean. Obie, Father Tam and Father Tam's parents talked in his room while Cage and I sat across the hall in a small waiting area with a tall schefflera and a fish tank full of guppies that Cage labeled 'minners'*. The hospital smell wasn’t so bad there and the air conditioner hummed a warble of about 90 oscillations per second, very relaxing. Cage played Angry Birds on his cell phone and I was using my IPad to re-read Habit of Being because it’s a book you can open up to anywhere, start reading and find something amazing. I stalled out on a line O’Conner had written about her terminal lupus: “I can with one eye squinted take it all as a blessing.” Every time I tried to read beyond it, my eyes would come back to it. I was wondering why when Obie walked by with Father Tam’s parents, very well dressed and older than I imagined.

“Joseph got a little too agitated. They just gave him something to relax him. We’re going to continue our talk in the chapel,” Obie said, leaning slightly on the word talk. “I’ll be back.”

I looked at Cage. “Gave him something to relax him?”

“Well, yeah. Confronting them with their relationship is a bad idea right now. They all should pump the brakes till the Father is better.”

A few minutes later a woman’s voice loudly echoed down the hall and there was no mistaking that she was terrified and furious with an at-the-end-of-your-rope outrage.

I got up but Cage touched my arm. “Hold on, mon coeur. Give him some space.” That lasted about 30 seconds, and then I couldn’t stand it so we followed the shrieking to the chapel. Everybody at the nurse's desk stopped working and looked. When we opened the chapel door I realized how soundproof it was; her screams were a lot louder inside than outside: a lot. They were also less garbled, so the language I thought was Korean I now heard as English: “You make him the woman! You make him the woman!” Her voice was hoarse from shouting.

It wasn't a big room, just a few square feet bigger than an average living room and her very floral perfume filled it. On the wall every few feet soft light glowed from lamps hidden in a short wainscoting, so it was comfortably dim. Obie sat in the front pew and Father Tam’s mother faced him, under a statue of Jesus coming off the cross, with his arms wide open and nail wounds healed to pinkish. I think they call those Risen Christs as compared to I suppose the more common gorier Crucified Christs. Father Tam’s father was off to one side looking panicked.

Father Tam’s mother noticed us. She pointed a trembling finger at Obie while she cried to us: “This man is evil, a homosexual! A devil! He made my son sin. Do you know he is the gay?”

Cage grabbed my shoulder as I stepped forward but I pulled out of his grip. “Yes, I do. I know that. And I know that he is one of the best human beings you will ever meet. He loves your son.”

It dawned on her that we too were "the gay" and waves of disgust disfigured her mouth and eyes. “No! Not love! Don’t tell me ‘love’. It’s sick! It’s sin! He made my son sin.”

A hospital security guard with a beaded weave opened the chapel door and poked her head in. “Y’all all right in here? Anybody need anything?”

“We’re fine, officer. Just a little emotional,” Father Tam’s father said with a shaky smile.

Father Tam’s mother called out to her. “No, we’re not fine! These are evil perverts and homosexuals! They have no rights here in God’s house. Make them go out!”

The guard took one step in and pulled the door closed behind her. She said, “Ma’am, I am sorry you are upset but you need to lower your voice. Anybody wants to come here can, and it don’t matter who as long as they not disruptive. Sounds to me like you the one has a problem, you the one being loud, you the one needs to leave.”

“We’re all right, thank you,” Obie said. The guard leaned in to Cage and me and said, “I’m Thea. If y’all need anything, I’m across the hall at the desk.”

“Shh. Shhhhhh. We don’t want to make noise in God’s house, in a hospital,” Father Tam’s father said to Father Tam’s mother. “Let’s go now.” He spoke to her gently in Korean and walked her past Obie, toward us and the door.

When she came close I saw that the disgust in her face was defeat and despair now. I wanted to say something compassionate, but nothing I could think of matched what I was feeling. So I went with “God bless you.”

She stopped and looked at me with eyes full of brokeness. Then I heard a loud smack and at the same time felt my head jerk to the left. The right side of my face was numb and when I gasped her perfume pushed its way down my throat. Cage and Obie were there in a blink standing between us. In his growliest voice Cage told her that she needed to leave.

“No!” she said, but the fight had gone out of her. “You the perverts who need to leave. Why you want to come to God’s house? There is no place for you.” Then she said looking straight at Obie, almost a plea: “You all die with AIDS somewhere else and go back to hell where you belong. Leave my son alone.  God call him.  You leave him alone.”

I was fine till I sat down and they began hovering over me with worried looks. Cage cursed at her and then apologized (to God or us, I don’t know) about cursing in a chapel. Father Tam's father hurried out with his weeping wife.  The physical numbness on my cheek turned slowly into a sting and the emotional numbness went in tandem. It started feeling real: I had just met up with all the might of a mad, tough, mother who thought her child was being hurt. Then the adrenaline rush hit and my hands shook.

“I’m all right,” I said.

“Thank God you are. Thank God,” Obie said with anguish underpinning his voice. I couldn't look at him for more than a few seconds; his deep sustaining tranquility was shattered and his face registered so many emotions that it was dizzying to me, like looking at a spinning kaleidoscope image that changes so fast it's a blur. “I’m sorry Carl. I’m so sorry you’re involved in all this mess. I started this whole thing. All I wanted was for y’all to meet Joseph. You... Like the emotional drama wasn’t enough, now you were physically hurt .... I’m sorry, Carl. You so didn’t deserve… God, I’m so angry I can’t speak.”

“Shut up,” I said lovingly. “One, I’m a big boy, I make my own decisions. Two, you didn't force Father Tam’s mom to bitchslap me. And I’m a big boy, I make my own decisions.”

Cage actually looked alarmed. “Lay down a minute and let me go find you both a pop** to sip.”

“It's okay, boyo. I really am fine,” I said. Obie stepped back and held out his arms wide. We went to him and after a minute they squeezed me so hard I had to say “I really really love you guys but I can’t breathe.”

“Sorry,” Obie said. “I’m just …”

“It’s okay,” I said and rubbed my cheek. “There are worse ways to die.”

“Look,” Cage said. He pointed to a spinet the corner. He sat down at it and played a quiet chord. “Sit down and close your eyes for a little minute, cher***. Relax and breathe deep because I'm sorry but this is gonna be corny.”

He played "Inch Worm." From about the age of 12 I had sleep terrors and woke up smothering, feeling like electricity was jolting through me. If I was at my grandmother's house, she always heard me yelling and came in to sing for me. Apparently the closest thing to a lullabye that she knew was "Inch Worm." Of course it was corny when Grandma did it and it was corny now, but ridiculously sweet too. Obie sat next to me with closed eyes but I watched Cage concentrating with all his might on what he was doing and whispering “oops” every time he hit a clunker. I could hear Obie taking deep, measured breaths in time with the song: One and one are two. Two and two are four. The door opened and Thea the guard stood waiting. When he was finished she said “Aw, that’s pretty. Y'all all okay?”  Cage started to tell her what happened, but I interrupted him.

"The lady was upset about something, that's all," I said.

Thea sighed.  "Yep," she said.  "Here inna hospital you get people at they worst.  They sick.  They upset.  They nerves are all frazzled. Thank y'all for keeping the peace and not making a ruckus with her."

Obie wanted a few more minutes to say goodbye so we said we'd meet him down in the cafeteria. As Obie went in to Father Tam's room I tried to get a look, but all I got was a quick view of his arm in a cast and the top of his head. I really wanted to see his face. Obie bent forward and stroked his black hair then the door shut. We went down to the cafeteria for coffee which was nasty but if you loaded it up with all the non dairy creamer it could absorb, you could swallow it.

“They musta really upset the Father. Damn but he has some moche**** parents.”

“Mr. Tam seemed nice,” I said. “Since he didn’t assault me, I mean.”

“Eh, coullion***** ,” he said. “Lemme ask you. Is it bad I don’t feel sorry for her?”

“No, it’s not bad,” I said. “But I bet you feel sorry for her at least a little bit, right? She’s dealing with stuff way, way out of her comfort zone.”

“I don’t care. We all gotta do that once in a while. Fritch.****** If your life is so sweet that you never have to punch [sic] the envelope, you sure as hell shouldn’t have a fit when something happens. But ... I do feel a little bad because I don’t feel sorry. I think that should count.”

“It definitely counts, boyo.”

“You notice what seemed to aggravate her worst of all? That the Father was ‘the woman’ in their relationship.”

“Yeah. It makes you wonder what she imagines they do in bed.”

“That’s messed up. Does a straight couple’s mama go around thinking about what they do in bed? It’s two dudes anyway, there’s no woman. That’s kinda what makes it ‘gay’ huh?” He put air quotes around it.

“My dad thought the same way,” I said. “He couldn’t think of a couple any other way than male/female. So he assumed all gay male couples are a man and a kind of pseudo-woman something. Obviously that’s what was foremost in the mind of Father Tam’s mom – that Father Tam was being a woman in some way. Obie’s younger. It’s interesting that she didn’t assume he’s the woman.”

“Obie's tall. And probably heavier,” he said. “Maybe she thinks Peep forces him.”

“She probably can’t let herself think anything else because she assumes gayness is all lust. My dad’s unconsidered opinion was that if it’s two men or two women, that’s all it can be, never love. Like I was gay because I was too hyper-sexual to stick with one gender, that any hole will do because I was so eaten up by lust.”

“Yep, that’s how they think. Either that or we got demons in us,” Cage said. “One time in Lake Charles I worked with this super-religious lady. She once told me that because I didn’t act nelly, I could be straight if I just tried a little harder.” He laughed. “But then before too long she started going ‘God bless you’ when I would cough. Not just when I sneezed, but when I coughed too. Me, I take all the blessings I can get, so I didn’t think too much about it. Not till my bud told me she was blessing gay demons out of me.” He laughed again and shook his head with good natured disbelief. He stroked his close cropped beard twice but the third time the stroke became a pinch and pulled at a patch of hair. I noticed but I didn't say anything.

Obie called my name and motioned to us from the cafeteria entrance, waving us over like it was urgent and we didn't hesitate. Trotting to keep up with Cage’s long legs’ strides I scanned Obie's face, but his serenity was back and I was never so happy to be totally unable predict what we were hurrying about.

“The Father is okay?” Cage asked.

“He’s fine, but y’all need to see this.” When we got back to the elevator the UP button was already pushed. I asked, “Did you or Father Tam even get to discuss anything with his parents? Did you get to explain about ….” I didn’t know how to finish my question. “… your love for him?”

I saw it click for Obie. He realized I knew their relationship wasn’t sexual and he looked relieved. The elevator door opened and we filed in.

“I was tempted to," Obie said on the ride up. "It's not my place to discuss the specifics of her son’s sex life. Or non-sex life. If Joseph wants to tell her, fine. All I said was that I loved him and he loved me and I was sorry about their disapproval, but it wasn’t going to keep me away from Joseph. And we do other stuff that they probably wouldn't be happy about, like we kiss a lot. My God, that man can kiss…. And on those rare occasions when we can spend the night together, we sleep in each other’s arms. But sleep, no sex. We hold, we touch, just nothing below the belly button. But that’s still nobody’s business but ours.”

Cage squinted at Obie and his lower lip plumped out; that was his consternation face. “For real, Peep? You and the Father kiss and hug but don’t have sex?"

"We don't," Obie said simply.

"At all?"

"At all."

"Ever?”

"Never."

Cage scratched at his ear with an index finger. “Fil de putain*******. The Father must have some cast iron self control, that’s all I got to say.”

“That silver tongue, Frawn Swass," he said with a smile in his voice. "For now this is what’s right for us.”

Before I could work up the courage to ask what ‘for now’ meant, we were on the 5th floor and out of the elevator. At Father Tam’s room he pushed the door open and a nurse with beautiful red hair put up her hand and came toward us.

“Sorry,” she said. “Only three in the room at a time.” There were exactly that many people around his bed: a tall balding man in slacks, shirt, and tie; a pony-tailed woman with her back toward us; and a crying woman who was talking to Father Tam in a very animated way. Against the wall on the floor stood a silver and black vase 15 inches or taller with at least 24 white roses fanning out from it.

“Lisa,” I said. The girl with the pony tail turned at her name but the nurse shooed us back and shut door.

“Yes,” Obie said.

“Who?” asked Cage. He pulled a few hairs out of his beard, caught himself then shoved his hands into his jeans’ pockets.

“The jogger Joseph saved in Karitz Park. It turns out that her last name is Venn.” Blank stares from Cage and me. “Her father is Bill Venn.”

“Ex mayor of Austin Bill Venn?” I said. “I voted for him."

“Damn,” Cage said. “He came over to thank the Father and look at those roses. That spray is big as a peacock tail.”

The line of Obie’s mouth had (I think) a tenseness to it. ”Father Tam must be uncomfortable with all the attention," I said, fishing.

“Yes,” Obie said. “But that’s not all. They want to thank Joseph by giving him money and they asked permission to use the story in the media. With his name and picture and everything.”

Cage and I blurted at the same time:
[Me] “The media? TV or paper?”
[Him] “Money? How much money?”

“I don’t know,” Obie said.

“Can priests even take money?” Cage wondered. He tugged at his beard again, and this time didn’t he catch himself. I thought No, no.

“They can, but he won’t,” Obie said. “If he accepts anything, he’ll give it to the diocese. And he won't let them have his picture for the media at all.”

They filed out of the room. Mr. Venn nodded to us with red eyes, Mrs. Venn (one supposes) openly weeping, backed out of the room saying “God bless you, God bless you, God bless you,” then Lisa came out last. Her cheek had an ugly purple bruise but she was still startlingly beautiful.  She grabbed Obie’s hand.

“Toby! Thank him again for me,” she said. He didn’t correct her. “I’ll come back tomorrow to say hi when he won’t be so groggy. I’m not sure he understood what was going on. If he didn’t, tell him later, okay? Take good care of him.”

“Tell him what?” I asked.

“Tell him to please let my father do this for him. Dad needs to give him something, that’s just how he is,” she said and disappeared around the corner. Cage was still plucking at his beard so I took his hand gently and pulled it away from his face.

The red haired nurse came out and said Father Tam was asleep. Obie wanted to stay and we had to convince him that we wouldn’t go without him before he'd leave. The ride home was quiet and he was more tired than he thought; he lay down on the back seat and put one arm over his eyes.

Cage looked back at him and then grabbed my right hand and kissed it.

“What’s that for?”

“For you, beau coeur. You know I love you.” He sighed and turned his face to show a red and bare spot on the side of his chin.

“I know, boyo, and I love you too. This’ll pass. It always does.”

I knew both of us were despondent about what was coming but determined not to let the other see, which was hard because I was tearing up fast. Neither of us spoke for a long time until he said, “You know when I was little my mom and all my aunts wanted me to be a priest.”

I smiled at him lost in his memory. “Father Francis. You’d have made a good one.”

“Poo yie, no I wouldn’t. Looks like it’s not as easy as they made it sound in catechism,” he said, adorably pretending to be utterly serious.

____________________
* His approximation of the word "minnows."

**There is one small enclave in southwest Louisiana that uses the yankee-ish term 'pop', while the rest of the South uses the term 'Coke' to mean any carbonated drink. It leads to confusing conversations such as "You want a Coke?" "Yeah, a root beer."

*** Which means "dear" I'm sure you know. What you might not know is that it definitely does not, according to Cage, sound the same as the "Cher" of movies and song. To pronounce it correctly say the word "shack" but leave off the final 'ck' consonant.

**** Rhymes with "gosh": it means evil in a petty ignorant way.

***** An affectionate form of 'silly' or 'goofy'; think of the Cajun equivalent to the Black "You so crazy."

****** Crap; pronounced like it looks.

******* Literally, male offspring of a prostitute.