He finally drove away, but he came back another night. I was coming home from a high school dance and he was parked outside my parents’ house. I approached him again and he asked if my parents were home. He wanted to talk to them.
“I’m going to tell them what a slut you are. How you ruined my life because you are such a whore.”
Just then my brother Dan came home from his own night out. He saw me talking to this stranger in a car and asked what was going on. I pulled him aside and told him that this guy was crazy. That he thought I was having an affair with his boyfriend. His boyfriend of all things. I told my brother that I wanted him to leave. Dan was a few inches taller than I was and broad. He played rugby and looked tough. He walked up to the driver’s side window and threatened this guy. He said if he didn’t leave our house he would kick his ass. The boyfriend drove away. I thanked my brother; I didn’t even try to explain anything, and he asked no questions. I was grateful and humiliated. I had gotten myself into a situation that I couldn’t get out of, and I didn’t want my family to be involved in my mistake. I was going to end it with this man. The sixteen-year-old would have to break up with the forty-year-old.
But he wouldn’t let me do it. Weeks later, his boyfriend finally came to his senses and left him. Now the forty-year-old said he blamed me for everything. He said I had come on to him and that I had destroyed his relationship and left him with nothing. I couldn’t leave him now, I couldn’t leave him alone after what I had done to him. Then he told me he loved me. That he was IN love with me and that he wanted to be with me. That I owed it to him to at least try. He cried. I was disgusted by him, but I also felt terrible. What had I done to this man? Did I really destroy him? Did I really make him fall in love with me? I didn’t know what to do, I didn’t know what to say. So I said nothing. I did nothing.
I continued to have sex with this man but tried to avoid him as much as possible. I tried to make excuses about why I couldn’t see him, but he would eventually wear me down and I would agree to spend time with him. I started to allow myself to like the sex. I tried to relax and to explore with him. I decided that I would do everything with him so that I had all my firsts out of the way before I left for college. I felt like I was already damaged goods, I was already dirty, so what did it matter?
Months went by like this. A year. Finally, I was a senior in high school. I could see there was a perfect escape hatch on its way. My departure for college, for New York, meant escaping so many things now. It was starting to feel desperate, my escape. I needed it badly. A brief reprieve came in the form of the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts, a highly competitive college scholarship program. Kids my age from all over the country—young actors, singers, dancers, musicians—were flown to Miami, Florida, to audition for scholarships. I was chosen as one of them from a VHS-taped audition I had sent in months earlier. I was thrilled. It was so validating and so encouraging. I was picked because I was a good enough actor to compete with kids from the most prestigious performing arts high schools in the country. It was exactly the boost I needed before moving to New York in the fall.
That’s where I met Craig, a beautiful, beautiful dancer, who was exactly my age and from Chicago. The minute I saw him, I thought I was in love with him. Even though I knew that this relationship might only last the week, that Craig would go back to Chicago and I would go back to Omaha, I tried to luxuriate in every minute with him. I realized that I could have something romantic that felt right, that felt good and pure and not shameful or like an obligation. And he would also be moving to New York in the fall, so…who knew what could happen? Craig and I had one night together while the chaperones were distracted, or just generous. We had sex and I felt the closest thing I had felt to love in my life. It was all I had ever wanted, all that was missing. I tried not to think about my sullied past and focused on what my future could look like.
Earlier in the week, I had found myself in a circle of young people talking about what young people like to talk about: who was a virgin and who was not and who was gay and who was not. Not a conversation I was typically having in Omaha. I had opened up to this group of young strangers and told them about my “relationship” with the now forty-two-year-old. No one was as shocked as I had hoped or feared they would be. Some had similar stories. I felt relief and also sadness that we shared that experience.
One of these young people, another dancer, hadn’t said anything, but he’d taken in this information about me. That night, my first and last night with Craig, we separated to pack our bags but agreed to meet up in an hour to be together again. In that hour, that dancer told Craig about my relationship with the older man in Omaha. He told him I was dating a forty-two-year-old. Craig was upset; he felt I had lied to him and I guess I had. Or at least avoided the truth. I tried to explain that I didn’t love this man, that it was all a mistake, that I was trapped. But it was too late. Craig didn’t forgive me, and he left, hurt and sad. I was furious at myself and my situation. The stench of this regrettable relationship had followed me all the way from home.
When I got back to Omaha, I vowed to end things with the forty-year-old once and for all. But again, there were tears and yelling and begging and pleading and threats and shouting, and again I did nothing. I still had a few months before I left home for New York. I would just have to be patient.
My head was a mess at this point. I felt confused, scared, lost. It was about this time that my mother asked me if something was going on between me and this older man. We were in the laundry room, folding something, socks maybe? I had a moment of relief, but also a moment of doubt. Was I being caught or freed? And then I almost said it. I almost said, “Yes, and I need it to stop. I need your help. Please.” But instead I looked her in the eye and said, “No.” She asked again and again I said, “No.” And that was all. The moment passed. The window closed.
There was an adult outside of my family who saw what was happening and tried to help. One. Her name was Pam Carter, and she was my first serious acting teacher as a kid. (She taught “Scenes from Crimes of the Heart: Ages 9 to 14.”) She had heard that something might be happening between me and this man, and she confronted us both. Her only mistake was that she confronted us together. I didn’t feel like I could cling to her the way I wanted to. I couldn’t say, “YES! Thank you!” Instead he did all the talking and was very defensive and very slippery, and somehow we got away from Pam. She talked to us both a couple more times, but it was always the same routine, always the same ending. Let me also add here that there was a big part of me that really believed I had chosen this. That I was in control as much as I was out of control. That I didn’t need to be rescued (even though I wanted to be). I just wanted to leave Omaha and leave that man, the whole experience, behind me.
When I arrived in New York that August, I did just that. It was the beginning of me running from things I didn’t want to acknowledge. I would become very good at that race as the weeks went on. It worked, I mostly forgot him. I mostly moved on.
Until he showed up at my dorm that night. All of the thoughts I had shoved down, that I thought I had left behind, were now in my doorway. My new location, my new clothes—none of it could protect me from what was standing in front of me. I didn’t know what to do. I was afraid to make a scene. I wish now I would have. Instead, I folded. I let him stay. He slept in my dorm room twin bed while I slept on the floor. I refused to touch him. My poor roommate must have been so confused about what this man was doing in our room. I lay on the floor that night, nervous, but seething with anger that he had invaded my new life. That wasn’t the way it was supposed to work. I was supposed to leave and he was supposed to stay and that was that. I had to stand up for myself this time.
The next morning, my roommate left early for class. I woke the man up and I asked him to leave. He said he had nowhere to go. I told him I didn’t care, that I never wanted to see or talk to him again. That whatever thi
s was, was over. There were no tears this time. No shouting. No threats. He didn’t try to touch me or kiss me. He just looked sad and maybe a little scared. I’d like to think he could see how much he had hurt me, how much he had taken from me, how strong I was trying to be and how angry I was. He finally left. It was over.
I have never seen him again, though every time I go home to visit my family I am scared I will see him. It’s been twenty years and I am still scared that I will run into him. It seems silly to admit, but it’s true. I hear he has children now. I just don’t know what I would even say to him. Actually, that’s not true. I do know. I would ask him, “Why? Why did you do that? Why didn’t you let me go?” I wonder what he would say.
If you happen to be reading this as an adult and have a story like mine in your past, let me say, I’m sorry for our shared experience. If you are reading this as a younger person who’s in a similar situation right now, I want to tell you something: No matter how messy the situation seems, how overwhelming it might feel, you can always stop something that you don’t want to continue. It’s your body and your life and if something feels wrong, it probably is. There are people out there who can help you, there are allies nearby who will support you. You are not trapped. There is always an exit. I wish I’d known that then.
It’s Never the Priest You Want to Kiss
I would like to clarify that my predicament with the forty-year-old did not stem solely from my involvement in the community theater. I must also acknowledge the contributions of the Catholic Church and its complicated path toward manhood.
There are certain benchmarks in the Catholic Church that mark the passing of time as a kid: the Sacraments. Reconciliation, First Communion, and Confirmation are all a Holy Paper Trail tracking your journey to adulthood. At Our Lady of Lourdes, you made your Reconciliation in second grade and your First Communion in third grade, but it was Confirmation, in eighth grade, that everyone looked forward to. That’s when you became an adult in the church and you got to pick a symbolic name to represent your new position. (Not that anyone ever called you by this name or you would ever use it in any capacity.) I chose Saint Lawrence the Martyr. He was grilled alive on a spit. Very dramatic.
Beyond the Sacraments, there is also an additional rite of passage for Catholic boys that not everyone is invited to partake in. You have to be chosen. It is the time-honored and, in my mind, coveted tradition of becoming an altar boy. My brother Dan was one, so I was familiar with some of the routine and I had already imagined how exciting and, dare I say, glamorous the position could be. Coincidentally, I reached altar boy age just as I was also becoming interested in local theater. Weeks after my devastating Oliver! audition I was pulled aside at school by Sister Idalia, the nun in charge of training the altar boys, who asked me to join her little army. True, it was not as cool as playing a dirty Dickensian orphan, but it felt good to be picked for something. I was in! Catholic mass seemed to be sort of similar to theater. There were lights, music, singing, costumes, special effects, drama, a big magic show at the end, and then more singing to close it out. I just had to deal with Sister Idalia to get there.
Sister Idalia had been my first grade teacher, and she was a tricky lady. She looked like Mrs. Claus, but she acted more like Miss Hannigan, and I’m still scarred by some of my interactions with her. One time on the playground, I noticed a girl in my class standing all alone with her knockoff Cabbage Patch doll. She had brought it for show-and-tell, which obviously had not gone as planned. She hadn’t known that her doll was a knockoff, but she did now and the other girls were making fun of her for it. I felt bad for her, so to try and cheer her up, I took her off-brand doll, and I started doing hopscotch with it. It worked. She started laughing and I felt like I had done something good for another human.
Then Sister Idalia came over to me and said, “Andy, why are you playing like a girl? Boys don’t play hopscotch and they definitely DON’T play with dolls!” Then she laughed like the Wicked Witch of the West. God, I hated her for that. I wanted to scream at her, “You think I want to play hopscotch with this piece of shit doll? I’m just trying to make this girl feel better, you old bat!” But I didn’t say that to Sister Idalia. Instead I ran to the other side of the playground and left that sad little girl all alone with her sad little doll.
I hadn’t spent much time with Sister Idalia since then, but I thought she might treat me differently now that I was an “older” kid. She didn’t. She was still a nightmare. But she was less of one, because I was trying very hard to nail this altar boy gig. Also, at this point in my Catholic school career, I had figured out how to slip in my secret weapon: I had four great-aunts who were full-blown nuns. None of them lived in Omaha and two of them were dead, so I didn’t know them that well, but I had figured out how to drop that fun fact into religion classes and passing conversations with the nuns at my school. “My aunt has a habit just like yours!” I’d say, or “One of my aunts—WHO’S A NUN—taught me all about virgin births!”
Truth be told, the only insight that my Sister aunts offered me was how unfairly they were treated by the church and how depressing their lives could be. I had heard my grandmother talk about how some of her Sister sisters were given electroshock therapy in the late 1960s for depression when they went through menopause. Living in basic poverty, working tirelessly seven days a week, promising yourself to a man who never came…it didn’t seem like a lot of fun. I wasn’t really factoring all of this information into my feelings for Sister Idalia at this point, but I think it did make me a little more sensitive to her mood swings. And like I said, I was trying VERY hard to be good. I was a total kiss-ass and it was working.
Once we learned all the choreography for the mass, we would rehearse it over and over again. Sister Idalia would play the priest, and we would take turns practicing the different altar boy positions. If you were on the right, your show was very different from the kid’s on the left. Each side had its own important jobs, but in my mind, the right side was more important. It did most of the vital chores when it came to the big magic trick at the end. You got to hand the hosts and wine over to the priest before he turned them into flesh and blood. I remember wondering if I was going to get to see them really transform since I would be standing so close. I would later be disappointed to see there was no physical change whatsoever. Although, I don’t know what I would have done if something had actually happened. Sure, the idea of eating flesh and drinking blood is fun in theory…but if push comes to shove, I think that’s a big “No, thank you.”
Sister Idalia was a stern taskmaster during rehearsals. She was like the Jerome Robbins of Our Lady of Lourdes Church. She would make us practice the mass until we were perfect. She knew every word by heart, and she took her role of playing the priest very seriously. Looking back now, I think it must have been hard for her to only get to run the show at altar boy practice. She was good at it. She was reverent and dramatic when she needed to be. She was thoughtful and graceful. I’ll bet she would have given a good homily, too. She was like the stage manager who dreamed of being the star but who would never be given the chance. It was another reason to feel sad for these ladies: They were never given the responsibilities they so clearly would have excelled at.
One of the final steps of altar boy practice was adding in the costume—I mean, the cassock. It was probably what I was most excited about. The cassocks were white and long, and they had a hood that hung dramatically off the back. Sister Idalia told us we were never, NEVER to put the hoods on. Now I realize that it was because we would have looked like members of the KKK, but I didn’t know what that was in the fourth grade, so I just assumed it was because of something mysteriously religious. The accessories for this outfit were a simple wooden cross and a sash that came in all sorts of colors corresponding with the different holy days. Red was my favorite; that was for feast days of martyrs. I think it appealed to me on two levels: I’ve always loved a martyr story—please
see above about Saint Lawrence the Martyr—and I love a classic pop of color. I was dramatic and stylish even as a fourth grader.
I remember putting it all on for the first time and looking in the mirror. I loved my Catholic mass costume. I felt so official and so important. It gave me an identity and a purpose, particularly since I would not be appearing at the Emmy Gifford Theater in the foreseeable future. This Catholic mass stage would have to do for now. Altar boy rehearsals only lasted a couple weeks, and then we were handed over to the priests to perform real mass for a packed church. We had a week of previews first though. We would serve—that’s what they call it—Monday through Friday at 6:45 a.m. mass, and then, if all went well, we would take on the Saturday show at 5:30 p.m.
Sister Idalia made it clear that the most important job of the altar boy was to support the needs of his priest. They all had slightly different styles, and we had to adjust to each one accordingly. We understood and observed each priest carefully, trying to figure out how we could be his perfect servant. (It wasn’t until many years, multiple therapists, and some serious journaling later, that I realized that Sister Idalia was responsible for two very different but very important, and occasionally self-destructive, drives that would shape my adult life: an ambitious need for a career in show business and the feeling that you have to serve older men who are in a position of power in your life. Thanks, Sister.)
While Sister Idalia had successfully briefed us on the different priests’ needs, what she hadn’t prepared us for were their different personalities. I quickly learned that Father Russ was kind and patient. Father Tom was rough and his hands shook. Father Rodney was cold and wouldn’t look you in the eye. Father Russ was my favorite because he was so nice, but I wanted to impress Father Tom the most. He was the most withholding, so naturally I needed him to like me and say it often. (I’m still unpacking that one with the help of Oprah’s Master Class.) Father Tom was also the most handsome. He was tall and fit and he had silver hair. Not gray. Silver. He usually looked sunburned. I now know that flush was from alcohol, but it still suited him. He was probably in his early fifties and he seemed so manly to me. So authoritative. My mother had a name for priests like Father Tom. She called them “Father What a Waste”s. They were too attractive to be priests, to be celibate. I grew up with this phrase as a useful way to categorize priests at school. If we got a new priest, my mother would ask, “Is he a Father What a Waste?” I got very good at deciding which ones were.
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