Inclination

by Mia Kerick

  Lazarus tilts his head, stares at me in bewilderment, as if what I just said has absolutely no meaning at all, and says, “Whatever.”

  Whatever?

  He wants me to (try to) beat on these guys for insulting my masculinity, but he isn’t even slightly offended by the use of the word fag. Really? It’s my turn to tilt my head, him at in confusion, and echo his sentiment.

  “Whatever, Laz.”

  Not A Closet Cowboy

  For all of his swagger and coolness, after spending a couple afternoons with David Gandy at the town library, I have to admit that he’s a genuinely nice person. And from the way he avoids talking about all things personal in nature, it’s easy for me to tell that he’s been hurt, maybe ridiculed or isolated or bullied, by others in the past. I figure that it hasn’t been easy for him to be the lone out gay kid at school—so his evasiveness doesn’t shock me too much. But when he lowers the walls he’s built around himself, just enough to let me stick one foot inside, I learn that he’s smart and funny and intuitive, even if he is a bit sarcastic.

  He also knows a lot about the rodeo, which I’ll admit surprises me.

  After several hours of work on the power point project, we step outside onto the library’s front step to take a five-minute break from all of the whispering we’ve been doing. I ask him, with a sly wink, thinking I’m being as cool as he is, “So tell me, Gandy, are you a closet cowboy or something?”

  I know my mistake as soon as it escapes my lips. If looks could kill, I’d be so dead. The way he’s staring at me, his eyes all squinted up and shadowed, lets me know I stuck my foot in it, and deep.

  “Shoot, man—I didn’t mean anything by that! I was only joking about the cowboy thing… and then the closet thing…well, it’s just an expression and…” I’m sinking deeper into it. Soon I’ll be knee-deep.

  Guess I’ll shut up now.

  Without blinking, David replies in a steady voice, “I’m not a closet anything.”

  “Uh…no, of course not. And that’s okay because—”

  “I’m so glad your homophobia knows some limits.”

  I sigh. “I’m really sorry, David.”

  He turns away from me and stares out at the traffic on Main Street, and then he speaks again, but so quietly I have to strain to hear him. “Del Vecchio, you’re in Our Way, the youth group at Saint Mark’s.” This is the first remark he’s made to me that has nothing to do with pissed-off bulls and their death-wishing riders. It’s as if my stupid “closet” comment somehow broke the ice between us.

  “Yeah. I’m the treasurer this year. Hoping to be vice president next year.”

  “Great.” He doesn’t sound particularly enthused. “Martine still the adult in charge?”

  I nod. “Yeah, she’s very dedicated to the youth group.” He looks over at me and tilts his head, but I can’t exactly label his expression, even though I want to. But soon David’s eyes are pulled back to the traffic. “I remember that you used to be in Our Way, too. Freshman year, and maybe for a few months in the fall of sophomore year. Am I right?”

  “Yup. You’re right on the money, dude.” I can’t see his face at all now, but I can see the frosty breaths that come out of his mouth each time he replies to me.

  “Why did you leave us?” And then there is quiet. In fact, it’s a long enough period of silence that I reconsider my question. “Never mind, Gandy. That’s none of my business. Shoot, I’m really putting my foot in it with you today, huh?”

  David turns around. He does it slowly, and when I see his face, I can’t miss that his intense eyes seem to be dull. “I had to leave. Not my choice.”

  He offers nothing else in the way of an explanation, and I badly want him to tell me the rest of the story. For some strange reason, it’s like I care. “What happened?”

  “Alls I’m gonna say is, my family switched churches. And now I help run the youth group there…and it works better for me.”

  “Where do you go to Mass now?”

  “We don’t go to Mass. We go to Sunday Service at Journeys Worship Center.”

  I make a sort of strangled, OMG-David-Gandy-isn’t-a-practicing-Catholic-anymore sound in acknowledgement of his words.

  He glares at me and asks, “Wanna know the name of the youth group I run up there, at Journeys?”

  I nod mutely.

  “His Way. Pastor Sutton let me change its name from The Journeys Youth Group to His Way.”

  He put the emphasis on the word “his.” I stop and wonder why. And then it hits me—David moved from Our Way to His Way.

  “Come on, Del Vecchio, let’s get back inside before we freeze our butts off. I think the next thing we ought to do is search for a couple of stellar rodeo photos and we can arrange them chronologically. Let’s start with black and whites of Gene Autry and….” David rambles on about our rodeo power point, but he’s got me dwelling on much more than bull riding.

  A Choice

  Sitting in the church basement at five minutes before seven o’clock on the Thursday night of February vacation week, everything feels so freaking wrong. It isn’t as much the fact that it’s a Thursday, or that it’s seven at night, or that it’s winter vacation week, but what feels so strange is the sheer emptiness of this place that’s usually teeming with life. (Teeming is a vocabulary word I’ve never before had occasion to use, but now that I’ve used it, I pretty much own it.) I sit there in the silent void, waiting for Mrs. Martine to come down the stairs that lead from the crying room.

  After yet another night of disturbed sleep, marked by nightmares about forced poison Kool-Aid drinking, I decided it was time to bite the bullet on Tuesday afternoon, and I called the rectory to make an appointment with Mrs. Martine. It’s probably going to kill me to do it, but I’m planning to confide “The Problem”. Before I placed the call, I reminded myself that the woman is a youth group leader and she’s probably quite experienced in dealing with youth “in crisis”. Like me. I’m holding out hope that she’ll able to guide me in terms of understanding what God wants me to do and helping me do it.

  Mrs. Martine is not exactly what I’d call “a warm and fuzzy people person”, but then neither am I. She’s what I’d describe as efficient and capable and qualified. As a retired high school math teacher, she knows her way around teenagers, and she has high expectations of what we can accomplish, even as young people. I’ll put it this way, where I never have to suppress an urge to hug her, I often have occasion to compliment her on her matter-of-fact effectiveness.

  “Anthony, it is nice to see you. Thank you for being punctual.” She descends the narrow stairway, her low heels clicking in time to carefully measured steps, looking every bit the schoolteacher. Tonight her hair is fastened in a neat gray bun perched on the top of her head, but her round face, as always, appears more stern than seems fitting for a youth group leader, and she’s wearing a plain beige pantsuit, and as predicted, sensible shoes. Like always, she carries her tote bag with knitting needles sticking out of the corner. I suddenly wish I’d thought to bring her a shiny red apple, which seems fitting. Mrs. Martine approaches the table where I sit, and she eases into the seat opposite mine. “Elbows, please.”

  I immediately remove my elbows from the table where they’ve been holding up my head. “Um…sorry. Nice to see you, too, Mrs. Martine.” This isn’t going to be easy. “Thank you for coming here to talk to me.”

  She allows a what-choice-did-I-really-have sort of sigh and then says, “Well, since this is not a social visit, I don’t see any point in dancing around each other here. Let’s get straight to the point. You wanted to speak to me. Well, here I am, son. So speak.”

  Mrs. Martine has a knack of putting aside the pleasantries and focusing on business at hand. Why would tonight be any different? “Um…that sounds like a good idea.” I push my black hair off my face even though I wish I could let it stay as it was, hanging over my eyes.

  Mrs. Martine folds her arms across her chest and I hear the sound of a foot tappi
ng on the tile floor. “Whenever you are ready, Anthony.”

  I experience a sudden urge to run from the room screaming, “I changed my mind!” but I manage to subdue it. I’m here for a purpose, possibly a soul-saving one. Staring at the table, I start to talk. “I-I have a problem, and I thought…that m-maybe…you could help me with it.”

  When I look up at her, she’s still staring at me, expectant. Impatient.

  “Um…here it is, Mrs. uh… Mrs. Martine.” I swallow down my nausea, throw caution to the wind, which is supremely hard for me to do, and spill my most closely guarded secret to this adult I’ve been told I can trust. “I…uh…Mrs. Martine, I think that… I think I might be g-gay.”

  I close my eyes and wait for a scream or a gasp or a thud that indicates she’s fallen to the floor in a dead faint at my shocking, rainbow confession. All I get is silence. When I look back up Mrs. Martine is still studying me, but now she’s also shaking her head very slowly.

  But since she isn’t offering me any solutions to my monumental problem, I keep on talking. “I’ve tried to stop feeling this way, but it doesn’t work.”

  “And you would like to know what it is you should do?” Her voice is as cold and dry as a desert at night, which is nothing new.

  I, on the other hand, am sweating an ocean. I nod my dripping head.

  “Let me ask you a few questions, Anthony.” Mrs. Martine unfolds her arms and places them on her lap. “Tell me about your relationship with your mother.”

  “My mother?”

  She smirks.

  “She’s a good mom. Always there when we need her…and comes to most of my tennis matches…and is an awesome cook and….” I have no idea what the woman wants me to tell her.

  “Does she love you?”

  “You know her, Mrs. Martine—of course she does!”

  “Is she overpowering when she expresses her feelings of love?”

  My chin drops as it begins to dawn on me where she is going with this line of questioning.

  “Does she pay too much attention to you and spoil you and declare her love for you at inappropriate times and places?”

  I tilt my head. “Uh…excuse me, ma’am?”

  “Anthony, dear, often mothers who smother their sons turn their boys gay.”

  To be honest, I’m taken aback by the fact that Mrs. Martine seems to actually believe this is even possible. “No, Mom doesn’t smother me at all. Even if she wanted to, she’s too busy trying to keep up with all of the girls to do that.”

  “Then it must be your relationship with your father who has made you…this way.”

  I’m too stunned to respond.

  “He is distant, isn’t he? A workaholic?”

  I shake my head.

  “Admit it, Anthony. He is largely absent and has been since your adoption.”

  I think of our recent trip to Gucci’s candy and how Dad insisted we have lunch together on the way home, and when we were at The Leaning Tower of Pizza he confided in me his plans to get tickets to all of the Yankees/Red Sox home games for the two of us. Dad is not an absentee father. I shake my head again, with more feeling this time.

  Now Mrs. Martine appears genuinely perplexed. “Then it must be the effect of all those sisters. Maybe subconsciously you’ve made a choice that you want to be like them, one of your parents’ natural children.”

  “Natural children?” Mom has always told me that the girls are her biological children and I am her adoptive child, but I’m every bit as natural as they are. Then the other thing Mrs. Martine said hits me. “A choice? You think I chose to be this way?”

  To her credit, she doesn’t nod vigorously, but she does say, “What else could it be, Anthony? If your parents and family didn’t do this to you, then….”

  I have no answer, other than the inner knowledge that no one would choose this. Who in their right mind would choose to be a way that would get them nothing but ostracized and ridiculed and condemned?

  “If your parents didn’t make you this way, then you chose to be homosexual.”

  “Why on earth would I choose to be gay?” My voice contains more bitterness than it ever has before in the presence of an adult. “If I act on it, I’ll be condemned to hell!”

  At that point, she nods in vigorous agreement. “Well, Anthony, it is good that you came to me with this problem. I will work with you to help you correct it.”

  And just like that, I’m again ready to listen. If she knows how to solve my problem, then I need that information. “Thank you, ma’am.”

  “This is what you need to do….” She hesitates, engrossed in her own thoughts.

  “I’ll do whatever God wants me to do.” I don’t mean to say anything at all, but the words slip out.

  “You need to start dating a girl.”

  Again I gawk at her because I didn’t expect to hear this recommendation.

  “A nice girl, like Elizabeth O’Donnell, for example, could cure you, I’m sure of it.” She stands up, as if to signify that our conversation is over as she has found the proper solution to my minor dilemma. “You need to invite her to go to a movie with you this weekend.”

  “A movie?” I am strangely distracted by the sight of my arm, still-bruised from the pinching tactic.

  “Yes. You will take her out and show her a wonderful time, and I am certain that you will feel things for Elizabeth that you have never felt for a …a young man.”

  I try to ignore the way my face gets hot. “But I don’t know if Elizabeth even wants to go to a movie with me.”

  “Oh, she does, dear. Anyone with eyes in their head can see that she’s crazy about you.”

  Well, I don’t know if the lady is right that dating a girl will turn me straight, but she is right about Elizabeth’s interest in me. Even my parents have noticed Elizabeth’s frequent longing gazes in my direction at church. “Okay, Mrs. Martine. I’ll do it.”

  “Don’t look so miserable, Anthony. Elizabeth is a smart and attractive, not to mention, devout young lady. Dating her will change everything.” She heads for the stairs, and states, without glancing back, “You’ll see.”

  I sit there, basically dumbfounded.

  “Be sure to pull the door closed at the top of the stairs when you leave.”

  Sitting alone in the church basement, I will admit, I don’t know precisely how to feel. After about ten minutes, during which I firm up my resolve to carry out the plan, I head up the stairs. And I’m sure to carefully pull the door at the top of the stairs closed.

  Fitting In

  Mom did everything she could think of to help me fit in as I grew up—into our very Italian family, as well as into our mostly Caucasian town—and to inspire me to feel like I was special rather than different, as there aren’t many Asians living in Wedgewood. To be exact, there are the folks who own and run Taipei New England, the local Chinese food restaurant, and me.

  When I was four, she’d come to the Holy Trinity Tikes Preschool and laid out on the floor in the middle of our meeting circle the outfit I’d been wearing when they’d picked me up at Logan Airport on the day I’d “come home to America.” All of my little friends had studied the tiny clothes I’d worn, the bottle I’d held, and the blanket that had covered me. Then she read aloud to the class Mommy Far, Mommy Near by Carol Peacock, an adoption storybook she’d read to me many times on the living room couch at home. By the end of her visit, all of the preschool teachers had been crying, but the fifteen kids in the circle had simply seemed bewildered. I still remember at the conclusion of her overly long explanation and the story, my fellow student Kerry Curry raising her hand and asking Mom, “What is a-dop-shun?”

  In kindergarten, Mom had visited Wedgewood Elementary School on Gotcha Day, which was when we annually celebrated the anniversary of when my parents had taken me home from the airport. Each year we had a party, complete with gifts, balloons, and cake. That year it had been little Lazarus Sinclair—olive skin and dark hair, wide innocent-looking brown eyes—who’d
raised his hand and declared, “No fair. Anthony gots two birthday parties and I only gots one.”

  In grade school, I’d managed to express to my mother that when she came into school and made a big deal out of my adoption, it made me feel more different from everybody else, and not super special, as she’d hoped. So, Mom had changed tactics, and at home we’d started nearly a decade of intermittent “South Korean Home Projects” to explore “Anthony’s culture”. We made kimchi about ten times—I actually liked it but we couldn’t even force-feed it to my sisters—we colored, sewed, and glued South Korean flags, and we made and played traditional Korean board games like Yut-Nori. We learned the Korean alphabet and how to count to ten in Korean. I even went to a Korean Culture Camp one summer in elementary school and took Tae Kwon Doe lessons for three years of middle school.

  None of these activities had done too much in the direction of making me feel connected with my Korean heritage, but they had let me know how far my mother would go to make things right for me.

  And now, in my current effort to assimilate (I wrote this SAT-quality word on the palm of my hand with a red Sharpie on my way over to E’s house, so I could check its usage), I’m sitting in a movie theater beside Elizabeth O’Donnell, on my very first date. Just over an hour ago, I picked her up and said a very polite hello to her parents, who I already know well from church, and then we sat in silence in my car for nearly half of the distance to the movie theater. It’s strange that although we can discuss a wide array of topics at Our Way meetings, being together on a date felt totally different. During the duration of seemingly unending silence in my car, I continually cast glances at my date, and made an honest effort to appreciate her freshly brushed strawberry hair and the way she’d painted her nails pink, and I even made sure to sniff in the sweet scent of her perfume. But David’s hair had smelled much better, if I was going to be honest.