by Mark Rader
“Yes,” Luca said. “That’s why I’m asking.”
Paul thought for a while before he answered; he wanted his answer to be true. The first most interesting thing he’d learned, he said, was that there weren’t really just four Gospels. There had been about a dozen, but only four had made the cut.
“Really?” Luca said.
“Yes. Not many people know that. Some of them are quite beautiful, actually.”
“Why don’t they tell people that? It seems kind of important.”
“It’s more than most people want to know, I think,” Paul said. “There’s probably a fear that it could challenge people’s faith.”
Luca nodded. “Yes. That makes sense. And what’s the second thing?”
“Well,” Paul said, leaning back in his chair, “I think it was that…Jesus was really a human being. I mean, I knew that in theory, but never really thought of him that way. He was the angelic blond guy with blue eyes in the pictures my mom had around the house. This supernatural person. But the more you dig into the history, the more you understand he was a man too, a Jewish man from a certain place and time. Who most definitely didn’t have blond hair and blue eyes.”
“No,” Luca said. “Probably not.” He smiled, his mouth half full. “Too bad for him.”
Paul smiled back and his neck flushed with heat.
“Did you like finding out these new things?” Luca asked.
“Well,” Paul said, and then stopped. The truth was the sleuth in him had enjoyed getting to the bottom of it all—but the process had left him a little disoriented. More curious and more skeptical both. “I guess I think more about the source material now. Why they were written and to whom, and what they tell us. How’s that for an answer?”
“I think that answer is very good,” said Luca. “It would be bad if you lost your faith, being a priest and everything.”
“Yes, it would.”
“You know what’s funny,” Luca said, “when I was a boy, after my father left us, I would sometimes think what it would be like if Jesus was my new dad. How he’d say nice things to my mother, make her less sad. How he’d come to school and I’d say, ‘Hi, Papa Jesus!’ and he’d tell the kids to stop picking on me. Very silly, I know. But that’s what I’d think of in church. Jesus telling Oscar Berlucci to leave me alone.”
Paul laughed and liked imagining this. Never would he have dared imagine, as a boy, Jesus as his father, actually walking beside him like an uncle or friend. He’d been taught that Jesus was with us, yes, but that presence had more to do with his example, the constant light of love he gave off, the warmth of which you would feel only if you got near enough. Jesus’s presence required his absence. But Luca’s boyhood daydream was a nice new convergence. Beautiful Luca speaking of matters of the soul. Worlds blending together. He wanted to lean forward and give the man a kiss.
“You had quite an imagination,” he said instead.
“It’s my very best quality,” said Luca, smiling.
When they walked out to the street, it was dark and they were a little drunk: they’d gotten another half carafe instead of coffee after the waiter whisked away their plates. Now they walked past another restaurant, where a band was playing jazz. A well-dressed mess of people watched the music develop, fanning themselves with programs. Some sort of private ceremony. A wedding reception.
“What should we do now?” Luca asked.
“I don’t know. What do you feel like?”
“Are you tired?”
“A little.” He was simply telling the truth. The sun had sapped him. The idea of a rest was appealing.
“Then maybe we should go back to the hotel.”
Thinking only of a little nap, he said okay.
They’d left the fan running so the room would be aired out when they returned, and there it was, the one moving thing.
“It’s almost a little too cool now,” Luca said. “Mind if I?” motioning to the fan.
“No, go ahead,” said Paul.
Luca clicked on the lamp on the little table and reached up to turn off the ceiling fan, which also turned off the overhead light. Smoothly, he spread himself out on his bed, put his hands behind his head. He exhaled like a man who’d worked hard all day.
Paul sat on the other bed, kicked off his sandals, breathed, lay back as well. The change in temperature was already noticeable. Humidity opening like a flower. “Do you think the people here call themselves Sperlongians or Sperlongites?” he asked.
“Hmm?” said Luca. Paul’s attempt at this idea in Italian had been poor.
“What do you think the people who live here are called?” he tried again.
“I think they’re called rich.”
Paul laughed and turned his head to look at his friend. “I think I’m a little sunburned on my shoulders,” he said. It was strange—this saying exactly what was running through his head, no filter.
“Oh, really?” Luca said. He sat up.
Paul didn’t move. “It’s not that bad. Just pink.”
“Let me see.”
Paul unbuttoned the top button of his shirt and tugged at the collar to reveal a shoulder.
Luca’s mouth cringed a bit. “Well. You should maybe put something on that. If we had some aloe here we could do that. Cold water, at least.”
It was a good thought. “Actually,” Paul said, “maybe I’ll take a cold shower. Brush my teeth and get ready for bed while I’m at it.”
“Okay,” Luca said. “We’ll get a good night’s sleep.”
Paul took his towel, grabbed his little Dopp kit, and walked down the hall to the bathroom. There was a sink with a toilet’s oval mouth and a big speckled circular mirror. A shower with a mildewed white curtain and a rusting wide spout. The air was thick and smelled sharply of soap—someone else must have just left. He locked the door with the little eyehook, stripped, and showered. Afterward, he was brushing his teeth, towel tied around his waist, when there was a knock at the door.
“Someone in here,” he said in his clearest, manliest voice.
“No, it’s me,” Luca said. “Can I come in?”
Paul opened the door. Luca, shirtless, was holding his own toothbrush and toothpaste. He quickly locked the door behind him.
“May I?” he said, motioning to the sink.
Paul was still brushing, and not knowing what else to do, he kept at it. Luca wetted his brush, started in, and as they brushed they caught eyes in the mirror. Paul spat in the sink. Luca too.
“You really did get some sun,” Luca said. “You might want to cover up tomorrow.”
“You’re probably right.”
They were talking to each other’s reflections.
“I wish I could help,” Luca said.
“Help?” Paul said.
“Help make you feel better.”
“It’s not so bad,” Paul said. But as he said this, Luca traced a hand down his back, sidled up behind him. Wrapped his arms around him, fingertips brushing the top of his towel. Chin level with his shoulder. Embarrassingly, without underwear and pants to hold it back, Paul got excited. He was glad the mirror was high up enough they didn’t have to look at it.
“I’ve wanted to touch you all day,” said Luca.
Paul’s lungs and mouth suddenly didn’t work. Proof that this was happening was right there, in the mirror, and yet it didn’t feel real. Was he trembling or shivering from the cold water?
Luca pressed one hand tight, rubbed the other softly over his stomach.
“I—”
“Can I?”
Paul kept his eyes on Luca’s in the mirror, so as to not see anything else. The hand he could not see drifted lower, touched the elevated towel. Then loosened it—and it dropped to the floor.
“Luca,” Paul said, as a warning.
But Luca touched him, reaching forward a bit. Soft fingertips. For a little while, he let it happen, heart lurching, looking at the growing pink in Luca’s cheeks and neck. Until he glanced down at himself�
��at what was happening—and said, “Wait. Stop.” Then whispered, “Stop. Stop!”
“What?”
“I can’t.” He couldn’t look below or in front, so he cast his eyes to the corner of the sink.
Luca had stopped moving his hand but hadn’t removed it. Paul snatched his wrist and flung his arm aside.
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“You didn’t even ask me,”
Paul said. Luca looked at him, glassy-eyed.
“I did ask. You didn’t answer. I thought that meant it was okay.”
“I’m answering now.” He felt angry, but it was a murky anger. “I want my towel back on. Give it back.”
“Okay,” Luca said. “Calm down.” Face unchanged, half erect in his swim trunks, he crouched and handed it over. “Here.”
Then he undid the lock and left.
As if threatened, even though he was in a locked room, Paul quickly put on his underwear, pants, and shirt. He leaned against the sink and suddenly his stomach churned. On the toilet, he felt dizzy, and when he was done voiding himself, he walked down the hall and into the room. Everything was as it had been, except for Luca, who wasn’t there.
Sitting on the bed, Paul felt his blank mind racing and, under that vague commotion, an urge to pray. A need to center himself. But the world he was in now was screaming its own truths too loudly to go there. I wanted to touch you all day. This was Luca telling the truth. Luca taking a risk and paying for it. Only because Paul didn’t know how to accept it, though he’d wanted it very much.
Yes, Luca had offered without being asked. Because that was what Luca had had to do to make it happen.
Though really Paul shouldn’t have let him.
Except…
Except, except…
For a while, he stood at the window. The blazing whitewashed wall was now a dim butter color in the lamplight. Where would he go if he were Luca? One of the bars, for a drink, maybe, except he didn’t have enough money for that. They’d talked about the need to skimp so they’d have enough to eat tomorrow. So no, not there. The beach.
He imagined Luca walking toward the water, as he had during the afternoon, but now in darkness. As he walked farther and farther out, Paul thought of the Luca he’d only heard about—the vulnerable kid beaten in the park by the cops, the outcast son, the reluctant lover. Remembering, he feared he’d hurt him more than he realized. He worried that in a moment of weakness Luca might do something stupid.
Crazy, silly thoughts.
But once they latched themselves on to him, he couldn’t shake them. He stood. And then, as if not in control of himself anymore at all, he slipped on his sandals, found the key, and went out, without a clue of what he’d say when he found him. In the nearby bars and restaurants, no sign. He kept walking. And then, away from the lights, he was at the entrance to the beach. To the left, a couple huddled under a blanket. Nearer the hotel, folded umbrellas piled like cordwood. And sitting on the shore to the right, his friend looking up at the sky.
At about fifty yards, Luca noticed him but quickly turned back to the water. When he was close, Paul said, “I had a feeling you’d be here.”
Luca said nothing.
“I’m sorry about before,” Paul said.
“Don’t be,” said Luca. “I mean, it’s not like I should have been surprised.”
It wasn’t right, him standing while Luca sat, as if they were teacher and student, parent and child. So Paul lowered himself to the sand and sat, legs out, shoulders bunched at his ears. The water was both in the distance and slightly shifting close by.
“I’m just not used to that,” Paul said, his words sounding stupid. “I don’t have your experience.”
“Yes, I know,” Luca said brusquely. “I’m a whore. I get it.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
Luca looked at the sand. “What do you mean exactly?”
“I mean what I said. I have no experience. Not any.”
Luca squinted, let the sentence stand. “Well, obviously not.”
“It’s not like you didn’t know that. You know my situation.”
“Yeah, well, don’t pretend like you’re so innocent. You knew this could happen just as well as I did.”
Paul had no answer. This was true. Luca sized him up until something in him softened, then, snipping off their fight, tipped back his head. Paul looked up there too. The stars were in their full glory.
“Clear sky tonight,” said Luca.
“It is.”
“You see the two little stars under the handle of the Big Dipper? Those two little specks?”
“I think so.”
“When my nonna died, my mother told me that Nonna was that little star, the first one on the left. She said that when you died and you went to heaven, God put another star in the sky for the people left behind to know you’re there.”
“Did she come up with that herself?”
“I don’t know. Probably so.”
“It’s a nice idea,” Paul said. “Romantic.”
“I know. I always liked it. I’d look for the star, like it was a game. Try to find Nonna quick as I could. And of course when Nonno died a few years later, my mother pointed out the little one nearest it and said that that was Nonno next to Nonna now. If two people loved each other very much and their love was true, they would get to be together like that forever. That was what she told me.”
“This doesn’t sound like the woman you told me about.”
“She was different back then.”
We choose the truths that serve us best. This was the thought Paul nursed as he sat beside Luca in the wake of his story. You chose what to believe in and chose what not to believe in too. Even if you were religious, even if you were the most pious person in the world. And so Paul decided that he would be with Luca, just this once. The stars wouldn’t care, the world would keep on spinning, and he would at least know what it was like to love and be loved that way. As soon as it was over, he would start asking for forgiveness. For who knew how long. But if he was truly sorry, God would forgive him. He truly did believe that. And he was glad for that belief, thrilled suddenly that he believed in a God who forgave even the worst of sins, as long as the sinner’s repentance was pure. Lying, cheating, adultery, rape, murder. And what he was about to do…though how could that be a sin, when nobody would suffer? Yes, quite the contrary. Looking out over the water now, the long calm plain of it, his future penance pleased him: it would give purpose to the months and years ahead.
Finally, Luca said, “Well, shall we get back then?”
“Yes,” Paul said. “We should.”
As they both stood up and slapped away the sand from the seats of their shorts, his past grew infinitely quiet. Walking back, his heart beat heavily in his chest. The present was dense but delicate, and in the middle of it was a single note, a barely perceptible high G, growing slightly louder as they walked down the dark roads, entered the front of the hotel, climbed the stairs.
Luca unlocked the door. The light was still on. When the door was shut behind them, Paul grabbed Luca by the crook of his arm and held on.
“What are you doing?” Luca said.
“I changed my mind. I want to.”
Luca frowned at him, then danced his eyes around Paul’s, first dubiously, then seriously, and for a moment Paul feared he’d missed the moment, that he was going to be mocked.
“You’re sure?” Luca asked.
“Yes.”
“You’re not going to blame me later?”
“No.”
“Because I don’t want to be the bad guy.”
“No. I promise.”
Almost forty years later, Paul would sit in a rented apartment overlooking the piazza, his riveted sister across the room from him, the memory still impossibly vivid. The two of them suddenly against the wall. Mouths. The faint taste of toothpaste. Veering onto Luca’s bed. Quickly undressing, Luca struggling with the zipper in his haste. No
thinking, no doubting, a surge forward as if they might run out of time. Luca’s hand stroking him; his returning, clumsily then confidently, the favor. Luca lowering his head to him, putting him in his mouth. After his embarrassing, but not embarrassing, yelp and shudder, the reassuring kiss Luca had given his thigh. Luca then going to the sun lotion in his beach bag, covering himself with it, asking if this was okay, both of them knowing what he meant. The worry it wouldn’t fit, that he would fail; the gasp when Luca was inside him. The way his jaw had fallen open, the way he’d felt vulnerable and entirely safe simultaneously, the way Luca had shuddered against him. Stayed in place even when it was over.
Afterward, the room was a vortex of silence, with them at the center, on their backs on the bed. He was taller than Luca by five, six inches, but Luca had scooted up so as to curl his arm around Paul’s head, as though he were the tall one. Not touching anything, just curling around. His sweat smelled like soy sauce. They hadn’t even bothered turning off the lights.
“Are you okay?” Luca asked.
“I think so,” Paul said.
“Good. Me too.”
The next morning, Paul awoke to light through the slats of the blinds and, on the other side of the room, a blur that was Luca, straddling the room’s single chair, pointing his camera at him. Awake first again.
“Hey,” Luca said. “Look alive.” The shutter clicked.
“I want that photo so I can destroy it,” Paul said. A joke. Destroying it was the last thing he’d do. Hide it but not destroy it.
“Why?” said Luca. “You look nice.”
Last night’s dream, it seemed, had not quite ended. This time, when Luca came over and rubbed Paul’s shoulder, Paul initiated, and they did the opposite of what they’d done before, as if to confirm that it too was possible. He’d dreamed in the night of doing this again, and here he was, doing it, almost immediately. And so the first time became a second time: the same but completely different.
After showering separately, they left the hotel. Church bells rang out as they stood in line for coffee and a roll, and so strong was the joy of the morning, Paul felt protected from shame. In line he wished he could stop time completely so he could more deliberately savor the feeling, but then the man behind the counter was asking, “Yes? Yes? What do you want?”