Inclination

by Mia Kerick

  I don’t want to complain about it to Mom, but I’m extremely sore, especially where Rinaldo kicked me. The facial injuries are irritating and annoying—the split lip stings when I tried to bite and chew, so I’m basically on a soft food diet—plus the black eye makes me look like I was hit head-on by a Mac truck. I keep taking Advil every six hours, and I still ice the bruise on my side, as the ice numbs it, to an extent.

  And all day, Mom hovers over me so attentively that I’m relieved when she finally decides to go with the girls to do their afterschool activities. And despite the pain, I’m overjoyed when it’s time to greet David at my front door after school. I need to spend a couple of hours being a regular guy and not “my poor injured son”.

  I open the door, and bright blue eyes flicker over my face. “Dude—you look like shit.” That’s exactly how he greets me, and I’m suddenly incredibly aware of my black eye and sliced lip. He hands me the disheveled stack of homework assignments he’s carrying and then reaches out boldly to touch my unmarred cheek. “Gotta say, it pisses me off big time.”

  The skin on my arms and chest breaks out in a rash of goose bumps in reaction to the feeling of David’s fingertips on my face. His fingers linger there for a few seconds before his hand falls to his side. Suddenly, I feel like a needy guy who I don’t recognize, because I want to beg him not to stop touching me. But I eventually clear my throat, and say, “Well, I’m not too thrilled by the decorations on my face, either. But it is what it is, right?” No sense dwelling on what happened in the church parking lot last night.

  “Rinaldo Vera wasn’t in school today, you know.”

  “He probably had to nurse his right fist back to health.” It’s a weak attempt at a joke on my part. “His fist can’t be in very good shape after my face had its way with it.”

  “Not funny. And this isn’t a joking matter. It’s kinda like a gay-bashing, or a hate crime, IMO.” His blue eyes are as bright and intense as I’ve ever seen them. “You gonna press charges?”

  I study the Black Dog welcome mat on the landing that Dad got Mom for Christmas last year, and slowly shake my head. “Nah. But Dad’s insisting we go to Father Joseph and talk it out with him. We have a meeting set up with Rinaldo’s family and my family for the Tuesday after Easter.”

  David raises his eyebrow. “Father Joe…he’s a cool guy. He was like the only one at St. Mark’s who tried to get our family to stick around when I came out.”

  “He did?” That surprises me. I figured that our parish priest would have been on board with Mrs. Martine’s agenda, since it seems to reinforce the official position of the church. “No kidding. That’s news to me.”

  “I think having a meeting with Father Joe is a real good move. Um…can I come in?”

  The familiar heated-cheeks feeling gets my attention, and I step aside to allow David through the front door. “Sorry, I forgot my manners. Mom would be seriously disappointed.” I offer him a lopsided grin that causes my lip to sting.

  “Where’s your mom, anyway?”

  “She’s doing afterschool stuff with the girls—dance and art and music lessons. They keep her busy.” I don’t mention that I had to basically bribe her to leave me.

  “Maybe I’ll get to meet them later on.”

  It sounds like he’s planning on sticking around for a while, and I’m glad. “Come on, let’s go downstairs. I can show you my room—but be ready, both of us will barely fit in there at the same time, it’s small—and we can study in the family room beside my bedroom. It’s kind of like my space down there, at least it is in the colder months. The girls think it’s too cold and damp in the basement. They hardly visit me in the winter.”

  “Cold and damp works for me.” He smirks.

  David follows me down the stairs and into my bedroom. He glances around with inquisitive eyes. “Kites?”

  I blush again, but I’m fairly confident he won’t notice it beneath my bruises. “We decorated this room when I was in seventh grade. I, uh…I guess I was into kites back then.”

  “I like it. I like the way the sky looks—sorta cheerful, and hopeful.”

  “I figure that now I need to paint a big rainbow across the ceiling, you know, since I’ve come out.”

  David turns swiftly to study my face, his long dark hair swishing around his shoulders as he moves. “Paint a rainbow, man, but only if you like rainbows.”

  I think I know what he means. I don’t have to be stuck inside a stereotypical rainbow-colored, glittery gay box if I don’t want to. I can be plain old gay Anthony Duck-Young Del Vecchio. “Good point.”

  “I thought maybe we could talk about celibacy today. But I know it’s a deep topic, and you’ve been through a ton of heavy shit lately.”

  “I’m still up for it. The discussion you and I had earlier this week has been giving me strength, and it’s helping me believe that eventually things might turn out okay.”

  David smiled. “Let’s go sit on the couch out in the family room, and I’ll read to you, ‘kay?”

  “Sounds like a plan.” I haven’t been read to since I was a kid. An image of Mommy Far, Mommy Near enters my brain.

  Once we are settled on the coach, he says, “Celibacy, ya see, is a gift from God that some people are given—but you can’t and shouldn’t force people to be celibate. That’s not what God wants.”

  “I don’t think I have the gift of celibacy—not at all, David. It’s like, I grew up in a close family, and I want to have what my mom and dad have together.” It’s hard to believe I’m being this open with David. “I want to be with—you know, like be close with—someone I can love, but I don’t want to be that way with a girl. I don’t even think I could if I tried.” I stop and think for a second, and decide I’ll level with him. “See, this one time I tried to…well, I tried to make out with a girl, you know?” I’m not one to kiss and tell, but maybe without naming names I can kiss and explain. “This went down back when I was trying not to be gay, but, it was like I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t make out with her. All that night did was freak me out, and hurt and confuse the girl.”

  “That’s probably the most you’ve ever said to me all at once. Thanks for confiding in me, man.” David looks up from the new outline he’s making and studies my face for a minute. “Did you check out those stapled packets I gave you—one of ‘em was all scripture quotes about celibacy?”

  “Yeah, I checked them out.”

  “Well, then you read that in 1 Corinthians 7, Paul says, ‘I wish that all of you were as I am. But each of you has your own gift from God; one has this gift, another has that.’ To live life single, as the Apostle Paul did, God would have needed to give you the gift of celibacy.”

  “I remember reading that.”

  “And in Genesis 2:18, God looked at what he’d created and He said one thing was not how he wanted it. ‘It is not good for the man to be alone.’ ”

  I’ve been nodding at David so much that I’m starting to feel like a bobble head doll. I hope he hasn’t come to the same conclusion.

  “And that’s why He made a helper for Adam. Not just a sex partner but a life partner. To God, it was more about the relationship between the people than the sex of the people.”

  “But in the Old Testament procreation was very important and—”

  David interrupts me to continue making his point. “So, if God says it is not good for people to be alone, and if you’re a person who hasn’t been given the gift of celibacy, the only correct way to live is as a married person. It’s just logical, even if you’re gay.”

  “You make it sound simple, but it’s complicated, David.”

  “Yeah, it is complicated, I guess. But it makes perfect sense when you take the time to wade through it—at least it does to me.”

  Again, I nod, and I spit out a silent, “Please God, let David be correct about all of this”. Trying not to smile as goofily as I want to, for fear it will split my lip wide open, I smirk and say, “You make an excellent argument for same-se
x marriage.”

  “I think so.” He pulls the cherry red outline he’s making onto the Bible on his lap and fills it in with details about where I can find all of the pertinent passages in the Bible. “And that, Tony, was Celibacy 101 taught to you by your very own Professor Gandy.” After the moment of levity, he lowers his voice and says, “Of course, you understand that of the all sexual stuff should only happen within the bonds of marriage?”

  “Yeah, of course.” Our gazes lock and we stay frozen like that for what should feel like too long too long, but somehow doesn’t. I’ve never felt this connected to anybody outside of my immediate family.

  “Well, I guess it’s time to study real subjects now, bud. Our A’s aren’t gonna earn themselves.” He winks at me again, fakes that he has something in his eye, and then laughs really loud. But when I bend down to get my Calculus textbook, I hear a gasp, accompanied by, “Shit, man!”

  Popping back up, I check out David’s face—it’s now unsmiling, not winking, and he’s definitely not gazing at me with what I’d like to think of as affection. “What?” I ask, unable to hide my defensiveness.

  “You didn’t tell me.” David looks over toward the stairs and frowns.

  I’m in the dark as to why he’s suddenly changed his tune. And usually I’m not the kind of person to plead for reasons—I’m one to wait and see how things play out—but I can’t help it. I repeat, “What?”

  “Vera kicked you. When you bent over your shirt went up and I saw a fuckin’ boot print on your side. Where else did he kick you?” He rubs his nose fiercely, and I can tell he’s upset. “Lemme see it.”

  Okay, I’m a pretty small guy, and I know it. Not as much skinny, as I’m compact. But even if I was buff, I wouldn’t be the one to go running around the tennis courts shirtless, or to wear a Speedo to the beach to show myself off. Thing is, my friend just asked me to show him where Rinaldo kicked me, and I feel almost obligated. David has seriously been there for me. So I lift my white polo up and wait for his reaction. “See…he only kicked me once.”

  When David’s eyes meet mine they are wider than I’ve ever seen them. “You are….”

  I wait for him to finish what he was saying, but instead he lifts his hand to cover his mouth. “I know it’s awful looking,” I say, dropping the hem of my shirt and folding my hands on my lap. “You don’t need to tell me.”

  His hand starts to fall from his mouth, but halfway down to his lap, it changes direction, and, instead, he reaches for my hand. “You’re beautiful.”

  And when he says that, something explodes inside my head, and if I’m going to be honest, inside my heart, too. I’m stunned by the feelings—the pleasure and desire—his words have stirred up in me. But I can’t think of anything less-than-stupid to say, and so I sit there, squeezing his hand between mine.

  David clears his throat a few times. I’m not sure if he needs to recover his composure to the extent that I do, as he’s better at masking stuff like this. “Um…Rinaldo really…he, uh… marked your skin, dude… and it must hurt, like a lot.” He definitely sounds a little bit off his game. David gently tugs his hand from between mine and reaches for the bruise on my side. Pushing away my shirt, he traces it with his fingertips. “Wish it was me, not you.”

  It’s my turn to gasp. “No, David! I’m glad it’s not you and….” The sensation of his fingertips, low on my side, nearly sends me over the edge. I’m reeling again, but this time it’s with intense physical feelings I’ve never experienced before. At least, not when I wasn’t alone, which makes it almost surreal. “I…uh… don’t know if it’s okay to feel the way I do right now.”

  “It is.” In no hurry whatsoever, David finally withdraws his hand, leaving me breathing embarrassingly heavily. “We know what’s okay to feel in our hearts cuz God gave us that little voice called our conscience. And feeling attracted to each other because, you know, cuz we care, is kinda beautiful. Like in a cool sense.”

  All I can do is stare at him until I finally lean down again, pull my textbook from my backpack, and force myself to study.

  “What happened to your face?”

  I’m the sort of guy who likes to keep a low profile…you know, to fly really low under the radar. But it’s impossible to fly under the radar when you look like you’ve gone a couple of rounds with Mike Tyson.

  Monday at school is basically torture. Thanks to my black eye and split lip, I’m stared at, pointed at, and whispered about. In addition to the unwanted attention, I will confess to also having a feeling of vulnerability. Physical vulnerability. I don’t have to be afraid of Rinaldo because he hasn’t been in school all week, but I can’t shake the notion that if word gets out that I’m the new gay kid on the block, there might be other kids who feel like Rinaldo does—that homosexuals ought to drink poison Kool-Aid, or be rounded up in the village square and shot, or maybe beaten to the point that they can’t see straight. I’d wanted to stay home again today, but I’d already missed too many AP classes than was healthy for my grades. I had no choice but to go to school.

  I am especially thankful for Cameron Nartick and Lenny Frank, two guys I’ve gotten to know through David. Cam and Lenny are total brains like me, and are in almost all of my classes. And truthfully, I never considered hanging around with them before I was kicked out of Our Way. They are theater geeks and are into super heroes and Harry Potter and creating their own graphic novels. Things that my holier-than-everybody-else friends and I found unworthy of our attention. But Cam and Lenny are great guys, and over the past few weeks, I’ve realized I have a lot in common with them. On the weekend after Easter I’m going to go to a magic show with these two, David, and a couple girls, and I’ll admit, I’m not a huge fan of magic, but I like to try to figure out how the magic tricks are done. Last week, Lenny told me he’s on the same page as me on magic in general, and we bonded over his challenge that he’d be able to figure out the tricks quicker than I could.

  When I sit down beside Lenny in AP Calculus class, it’s hard to miss the way Elizabeth is staring across the room at me. It crosses my mind that she’s probably come up with another condemning Biblical scripture about homosexuality to quote, so I glance away from her. But E doesn’t let me off the hook. She gets up, strides across the room, and stands in front of the table I share with Lenny.

  “What happened to your face?”

  That’s blunt. I remind myself that I don’t owe her an explanation, and since I’m not planning to lie, I shrug.

  She squints her eyes and tilts her head to the side like she’s trying to figure me out. “Tell me, Anthony, what does the other guy look like?” The question sounds accusing.

  This time I don’t shrug because I know for a fact that the other guy looks a whole lot better than I do.

  “Okay, then don’t answer me. That’s fine. But there are rumors going around that a physically violent altercation happened between you and Rinaldo. And he hasn’t been in school since the Our Way intervention… and we’re all getting worried about him.”

  I’m not sure what she expects me to do or say, but I am sure her concern over Rinaldo is misplaced.

  “Are you aware of what happened to Rinaldo? Because, as his longtime friend, you owe it to him to let me know so I can help him and—”

  “Excuse me, Elizabeth, but class is about to start and since you have no clue what you’re talking about, I think it’s time you sit down.” Elizabeth and I both practically snap our necks turning to gawk at Lenny. Lenny’s the kind of guy who rarely looks up from his doodling, let alone speaks directly—and to a girl, at that. “You’re wasting your own time, as well as Anthony’s, and you’re making it difficult for me to see the problems on the white board.”

  Elizabeth isn’t happy with Lenny’s response, or my lack of one. “You aren’t the guy I thought you were, Anthony. I am truly disappointed in you.” She spins around so quickly I feel wind on my face, and then returns to her seat.

  “Sorry I acted like that, but she was really
annoying me. Isn’t ‘poor Rinaldo’ the guy who did that to you?” Lenny gestures to my face. “Why didn’t you tell her he started it?”

  Because people believe what they want to believe.

  One more time, I shrug.

  Be Still

  The very thought of Easter is capable of bringing tears to my eyes. I’m not being overly dramatic, either. Jesus made the ultimate sacrifice and died for me on Easter, and I want to be close to him.

  This is the first Holy Week I can remember that I haven’t attended Mass on Holy Thursday. It has long been a tradition for the Our Way youth group to meet in St. Mark’s basement before Mass on Holy Thursday, where we read Matthew 26:17-29 and John 13:1-15 aloud together, and then we would discuss the importance of Holy Thursday, itself. After that we always prayed. I’d thrived on the combination of scriptural reading and analysis, along with group prayer, too, as well as the sense of tradition. Both freshman and sophomore years, I’d wanted to remain in the basement, even when it was time for Mass to start. I wanted to keep analyzing Matthew and John’s words in that intimate candlelit setting. I’ll sum it up by saying that the Holy Thursday tradition at St. Mark’s worked for me.