The shower turned off. Chad opened the bathroom door. Steam flooded out, and he appeared in the doorway with a towel around his waist. His bare, white skin glistened. “Do you like Chinese food?” he asked.
“Yes, of course. Why?”
“There’s a great Chinese place on the corner of Ninth Avenue. Are you hungry?”
“That sounds like a good idea.”
“Great,” he said, smiling, “let me finish getting dressed and we’ll go.”
Before he closed the bathroom door, I asked, “By the way, do you like coffee?”
“With Chinese food?”
“No, of course not. It’s just a question.”
“Sure. Who doesn’t drink coffee?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know, but whoever they are, I don’t trust them.”
Chad returned to the bathroom and got dressed. He may not have liked popcorn but two out of three wasn’t bad.
THE FOLLOWING WEEK, I focused on the upcoming event at Barnes & Noble. Chad and I exchanged a few texts, but he never mentioned whether he was coming. Unwilling to ask him again, I decided that his appearance at the book signing would be a litmus test.
That night Eric and I agreed to meet at the bookstore on Eighty-second Street and Broadway. When I got out of the cab, I saw a poster with my book and my picture in the window. Instantly, I thought back to the night of my book party and remembered how I sabotaged that evening by thinking of Bill. I told myself that wasn’t going to happen again. “Tonight is all about you,” I whispered to myself, staring into the storefront window. Then I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the glass. I saw a little boy with a backpack wearing a green Boy Scout uniform and a red beret.
Rushing into the store, I found an employee, who directed me upstairs to the reading area and told me to look for Phil. On the second floor, I noticed chairs had been assembled and there was a lectern with a microphone. Surprisingly, there were several people already waiting. In the back there was a small room. Inside, I found Eric talking to Phil, playing the part of my agent and manager.
“There you are,” said Eric, standing up to greet me. He was wearing a dark suit. His blond highlights spiked up from his forehead.
“Were you at the salon earlier?” I asked.
“What are you talking about?” said Eric. “Are you referring to my hair? This is natural.” Then he redirected my attention and continued, “Phil, this is Dr. Frank Spinelli, our speaker this evening.”
Phil was a short, balding man wearing chinos and a striped blue-and-white shirt. “We’ll begin just after seven o’clock. I’ll make the introduction, and then you’re on. Are you nervous?”
“Oh, don’t worry about this one,” injected Eric. “He’s probably been in rehearsals for weeks. Am I right?”
I nodded.
“Great,” said Phil. “Let me go check on things. I’ll be right back.”
When we were alone, Eric put his arm around my shoulder. “How are you?” he asked.
“Nervous.”
“It’s okay to be nervous,” he whispered. “But you got nothing to be nervous about. Everyone is here to support you, especially me.”
I felt my heart racing as I tried to assure myself that Eric was right. I was still haunted by the memory of Bill at my book party and could think of nothing else at that moment. Eric sensed there was something more than nerves bothering me. He grabbed my shoulders and spun me around to face him. “Hey,” he said. “What’s really bothering you?” He was staring into my eyes, searching for something. I hadn’t told Eric that I’d discovered Bill’s book, because I’d been so preoccupied with preparing for this night. Now didn’t seem like the right time to tell him.
“I’m just feeling emotional today,” I said. “I’ll be fine once it begins. Go out there and tell me there are at least twenty people.”
“Okay, I’ll be right back.”
I stood there, alone in that small room, looking around at the stacks of books. Then I remembered Bill’s bedroom and a bookcase behind his bed where he hid his pornographic magazines. When Eric returned he was smiling. “It’s a packed house. I’m not kidding.”
“We’re ready to begin, Dr. Frank,” interrupted Phil.
I nodded and followed after him. Eric looked me in the eyes one last time and gave me an assured nod. Then he left to take his seat. Phil instructed me to wait for his cue before I stepped onto the stage. From where I was standing I couldn’t see the audience, but I felt their presence. Once I heard Phil’s voice echo throughout the store, I panicked, thinking about everyone in Barnes & Noble listening to me.
When I heard my name, I walked out to a room full of applause. Standing up at the microphone, I saw so many familiar faces: My parents were in the first row. Josephine was behind them, sitting next to Eric, and to my left were Gloria and my cousin Alex. Everyone was there except Chad. Then, I noticed all the seats taken by people I didn’t know, and that filled me with such an unexpected sense of pride that when I began to speak, the words came easily. There were no ghosts that night. I didn’t see Bill or remember myself as a little boy sitting on his bed. I felt no wave of shame staring at my father, only gratitude that he had worked so hard to get me to this point. And then before I knew it, I was done. It was over. Then came more applause, followed by questions. There were so many, and it felt rewarding to answer them. For the first time, I felt I had achieved some level of professional acknowledgment.
Just as I was about to leave the lectern, I heard someone ask one last question. I looked up and searched the audience. With his hand held up, my cousin Alex asked jokingly, “Who’s gonna play you in the movie?” The audience laughed, and Alex winked at me.
I smiled and said, “Mario Cantone, of course.”
Phil then stood up and offered some closing comments. I sat at the table by the lectern and greeted everyone who bought my book. The crowd gradually dispersed. Eric suggested we go out for drinks after I was done signing books. As he disappeared down the escalator, I saw Chad standing in the back of the room. He waved. My litmus test was positive.
CHAPTER 9
Airplane Jeopardy
STEPPING OUT OF THE BUILDING, Eric waved his arms frantically overhead. We both had been looking forward to this trip for some time. Once my book became available, my publisher confirmed the date for a reading in San Francisco. I suggested Eric accompany me, knowing his mother and stepfather lived there. “This will be perfect,” I told him. “I won’t have to travel alone, and we can visit your mom.”
“I don’t see why we have to ruin a perfectly good trip by involving my mother,” he muttered.
The driver helped Eric with his bags and opened the door for him.
“Oh, excuse me,” said Eric, poking his head in. “Am I allowed to sit back here with you or should I ride up front with the driver? Or better yet, would you like me to get in the trunk?”
“Shut up,” I laughed. “Do you have everything? Tickets, wallet, identification, cell phone?”
“Yes,” he groaned.
“I don’t think I like your tone.”
“Well, you’d better get used to it,” he said. “Because I’m not going to act like one of your groupies now that you’re a published authoress.”
Once we made it through the Holland Tunnel and I realized there was no traffic to hold us up, I thought it was time to tell Eric about Bill’s book. I pulled it out of my carry-on and handed it to him. “Speaking of books, look what I bought.”
He stared at it with an expression of wonderment and shock. “What’s that?” he asked, taking it from me. He studied the black-and-white picture of Bill and Nicholas standing side-by-side on the cover. Bill was in his police uniform. Nicholas wore a white button-up shirt under a winter jacket. They both smiled in that awkward way people do right before someone shouts, “Say cheese!”
“Who is this ugly man?” insisted Eric.
“That’s Bill, the man who molested me. He adopted a boy and wrote a book in 1983.”
> “What!” he barked. The driver looked back at us through the rearview mirror. “When did you get this? Or better yet, why would you buy this?”
“I had to,” I said. “Before my book party, I spoke with two patients who work with a priest who gave me altar boy instruction in grammar school. Since then, I can’t stop thinking about Bill. Then I went online and found out he not only adopted a boy, but he also wrote a book about it. Eric, I know you. If you were in my shoes, you would have done the same.”
“Did you read any of it?”
“I read a little bit, but I decided to save it for this trip.”
“Does he talk about molesting children?”
“Of course not, but I can tell from the first few pages it’s going to be one of those heroic-cop-saves-boy stories.”
Eric stared at me with the most curious expression. Then, suddenly, his demeanor shifted quickly to one of concern. “Frank, I know this man hurt you,” he said, taking my hand. “But honey, why do you want to put yourself through this?”
“Because if all the adults involved back then had done what they were supposed to, then maybe he wouldn’t have been able to adopt this boy.”
“Reading this book and getting yourself all worked up is not going to change any of that,” he said, tapping his finger against his skull. “Hello, Earth to Frank.”
I felt my ears burn. “You don’t think I know that?”
“Then why put yourself through this? Now, of all weekends!”
“Eric, they let this man go free, and he adopted a boy. I have been living with the repercussions of his abuse for nearly three-quarters of my life.” I paused to lower my voice. My ears were throbbing. “Bill took something from me that he had no right to. Are you trying to tell me that you wouldn’t read this book if you were in my position?”
Eric grew quiet. His eyes shifted from left to right, as though he was scanning my face for some hidden truth. Then he replied, “Yes, I would read it, but be very careful. Don’t jump feet first into something you don’t fully understand. You need a plan.”
I OPENED BILL’S MEMOIR as soon as the plane took off. Eric swallowed a sleeping pill and passed out with a Star magazine on his lap. After reading the first few chapters, I started to get angry. It was worse than I anticipated; it was a hagiography. Bill described his life in stages that ranged from dutiful son to heroic police officer, then dedicated father. Throughout adulthood he struggled to find a higher purpose. He wrote, “I think back on everything I ever learned in my religious instruction and everything I learned as a cop. Life is rarely a series of easy decisions. But I already know what I must do.” Although engaged twice, Bill never married, and he even considered joining the priesthood. It was his fateful encounter with a sixteen-year-old boy that finally satisfied the longing he needed to fulfill, however. “Cops develop a certain sense about children. You can tell a troubled good kid from a punk just by looking.”
Halfway through the memoir I realized I was no longer just reading it—I was studying it. Over the course of the next two hours, I converted his book into a resource, taking notes in the margins and writing names on the back cover. I dog-eared pages I considered incriminating and circled sections that coincided with events I remembered vividly. Reading Bill’s book was excruciating. With each page I heard his voice in my head, narrating his journey of self-righteousness.
In one passage, Bill described how Nicholas was considered for adoption by several people, one of them a “queer” man. Upon discovering this, Bill reassured the boy, “Don’t worry. I won’t let them get you.” As I read this, heat rolled up toward my head, and I felt tiny pins and needles in my groin. Crossing my legs, I kicked Eric and woke him from his near coma. He stared at me, bleary-eyed. “You’re still reading that book?” he asked, almost incoherent. “Are you sure you want to open this can of worms?”
I ignored him at first because I was intent on finishing the book before we arrived in San Francisco, but when he reached to pull it out of my hand, I snapped, “Why don’t you take another Xanax and leave me the fuck alone?”
“I don’t think I like your tone now,” he said. With an appalled, injured expression, he got up from his seat, stepped over me, and marched down the aisle.
I should have gone after him to apologize, but I didn’t. Instead, I opened the blind and stared out the window.
Throughout my life, I’ve suffered from loneliness and depression, but even during those dark periods, I sometimes wondered about Bill’s loneliness. I reasoned the isolation a pedophile must endure was the most profound of all. Except now it was obvious to me that Bill was unlike any other child molester I’d read about. With this book, he’d rewritten the past so that he would forever be remembered as an honorable cop who gave a wayward boy a home. He converted his secret into an inspiring story. Bill was a sociopath. At his core was a repressed, deep-rooted rage. He appeared charming on the outside, but inside he was hostile and domineering; he saw his victims as merely instruments for self-gratification.
I closed the blind and got up. At the back of the plane I saw Eric talking to a male flight attendant and sipping a Diet Coke. I gazed down at my seat and Bill’s book. Immediately, I felt the urge to urinate. Closing my eyes in dread, I walked hurriedly toward the back of the plane, past Eric, and into one of the available restrooms.
THE TURBULENCE MADE IT IMPOSSIBLE FOR ME TO FOCUS.
Airplane restrooms are small, awkward, and claustrophobic even for someone my size. Usually, I’d wait until everyone was asleep so I could pee in private, without the threat of being interrupted. I didn’t have that luxury this time. Frustrated, I began the ritual: I pulled my pants down to my ankles and hoisted my shirt above my chest. I stretched my arms out in front of me, held onto the wall, and braced myself as the airplane shuddered through the black sky. I looked at my reflection in the mirror.
Pathetic.
The last two episodes of urinary retention had been the worst I’d ever experienced. Recalling them only intensified the problem. I felt as if my bladder were being held up under a running faucet. I felt it expanding, growing heavy with fluid, as gravity pulled it down into my pelvis. My eyes focused on the wall, searching for a distraction to relax my urethra. A NO SMOKING sign caught my eye. I stared at it, took a deep Lamaze breath while chanting, “Olga Koniahin. Olga Koniahin.” When nothing happened, I began rubbing my nipples.
Male nipples develop along the milk line, which extends from the armpits to the groin. Manual stimulation of the nipples relaxes the urethra and facilitates urination. In some men, this can cause vigorous orgasms. In this instance, I simply wanted to pee.
After five minutes, I began to relax. One or two drops of urine had even leaked out by the time I heard the fasten-seat-belts chime and my urethra immediately clamped down.
“Damn it!” I shouted.
Over the years, I had come up with two rules to deal with an airplane crisis.
Rule number one: if the flight time was less than two hours, I went back to my seat, crossed my legs, and hoped there were no delays.
Rule number two: if the flight time was longer than two hours, I had to weather the storm and remain standing over the toilet until I finished urinating.
I looked at my watch to determine the time change from East to West Coasts, but in my panic, I couldn’t remember whether the West Coast was three hours ahead or behind New York. As the seconds ticked by, I heard the theme music from Jeopardy play in my head.
I’ll take paruresis for a hundred.
More than anything, I was concerned that passengers were congregating on the other side of that flimsy metal door. I began to picture them as they lined up one-by-one, their concern growing with each passing second. Inevitably, they’d begin to look around and then at one another, worried that something was very wrong. Their imaginary conversations played out in my head while I stared down at the empty metal bowl.
“I saw him go in there at least twenty minutes ago,” I pictured a heavyset woman i
n black leggings and a tight purple sweater saying.
“Really?” an older but much thinner woman, wearing low-rise jeans and a white T-shirt, would chime in. “Did you knock to see if he’s still in there?”
The overweight woman would stare back, insulted. “I think I would have noticed if he came out of the bathroom,” she’d say, pulling her sweater down over her hips.
While I ignored them (because I was chanting), they’d ask an older, female flight attendant with twenty years’ experience for help. In unison they’d explain the brewing situation to her. “I know exactly who you’re talking about,” she’d say, scratching the back of her bleached updo. “He was so engrossed in his book that he completely ignored me when I came around with the beverage selection.”
In reality, I was able to urinate that day, but only after repeating Olga’s name fifty or more times. It started to flow, slowly at first, but at least I was peeing. I breathed a heavy sigh of relief. Regardless of everything that happened in my life, the one thing I was unable to control was my urinary system. During that flight, I vowed to take back that part of my body. I’d been tortured for far too long—and all because of one man.
Then, there was an actual tap at the door.
“One minute,” I barked. Beads of sweat dripped from my forehead as I clenched my pelvic muscles to squeeze out the last remaining drops of urine. Along with it came a fart. Then I laughed out loud. The plane jolted through turbulent air. A thick braid of urine whipped up and down like a golden lasso. I laughed even harder. Once I finished, I pulled up my pants and flushed the hydraulic toilet. I opened the door and found several irate people waiting, just as I’d imagined. As I passed these passengers, I mouthed apologies. An angry older man brushed past me, entered the restroom, and slammed the door. I turned to an actual flight attendant and said, “I’m so sorry.”
Pee-Shy Page 7