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.”
“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'.
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.
"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'.
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