Inclination (5 page)

“So, Anthony, do
you have a special girl you’d like to buy a candy heart for today? Hmmm?”

Dad and I, as is
our tradition, are making our annual February pilgrimage to Gucci’s Chocolate
House, which is located on busy Route 1 in Saugus, about half an hour from
home. The Del
Vecchio
women will never eat convenience
store candy bars on Valentine’s Day, and that’s why the Del
Vecchio
men make the trek every year at this time to a
real
Italian chocolate house—and that spells homemade
c.a.n.d.y
. Our girls are worth it, and to sweeten the deal,
Dad and I always treat ourselves to our mutual favorite, dark chocolate maple
creams in a crisp white bag, to eat on the ride home. By the half-pound. A
barrel-chested guy, my dad always tries to resist, but never can manage to keep
his hand out of that bag.

I shrug and then
nod, picking up on what he’s asking me.
Do
you have a
girlfriend, Anthony?
So
I say, “I have
five
special girls to
buy chocolate for.”

“Are you
referring to five stunning Italian girls?”

“Who else?”

“And would their
names happen to be Gina, Maria, Teresa, Francesca, and Lucia?”

“How’d you ever
guess, Dad?” I wink over at him and he winks back, but it isn’t with his usual
carefree grin. My father’s the “jolly” sort, in more ways than his Santa
Clause-like build. He’s open and honest and earnest—his highest goal is to be a
good father and husband, and keep everybody happy. He does a decent job of it,
too.

There’s a brief
moment of silence before he says anything else. “Mom and I noticed that you
didn’t go to the Valentine’s Day dance last night.”

“Nope.” I don’t
want to be abrupt with my father, but I don’t want to talk about that either.
“Not really in the mood for music. Too much studying to get done, I guess.” I
send him a sheepish smile because it is all I can muster.

But Dad met my
mother in high school, and I know he believes that you can find your soul mate
as a teenager. “All work and no play makes Tony a dull boy.” I try to laugh but
fail. After another short silence, Dad’s hand finds its way to my knee, and he
says, “You know, son, if something is troubling you, you can come to your mom
and me with it.”

I gulp back a
gasp. I am absolutely transparent.

“We are here for
you—no matter what.”

I’d certainly
have like to believe that, but Dad has absolutely no idea what he’s talking
about. “Uh…thanks.” The phrase comes out sounding like a question.

“You’ve been sort
of…how do I want to put this? Let’s see…” I can tell that he knows exactly how
he wants to “put this” but is trying to find a way to say it so as not to be
in-my-face. “You’ve been sort of
withdrawn
lately.”

“Withdrawn?” I
know exactly what he’s talking about but still I play dumb. There’s no way in
heck that I’m going to spill my problem to him. I’d probably spontaneously
combust with embarrassment.

“You know, you
come home after school and go straight to your room. And you stay there ‘til
dinner, and as soon as the dishes are done you zoom back downstairs.”

That’s how it has
been since that day in the cafeteria when my friends discussed, without so much
as a grimace, the novel idea of Kool-Aid-force-feeding mass murder of gay
people. “I’ve been studying for the SATs.” My excuse sounds lame probably
because it is lame. We are family people.

“Well, the girls
are missing you. They’re used to watching that oldies television station with
you after school.”

“I gave up
watching TV for Lent, you know that, Dad. No
Highway to Heaven
or
The Lucy
Show
until after Easter. Sorry.” We’re a classic television-loving family.
In fact, we’ve seen every last episode of
The
Brady Bunch
.

“Well, we all
miss your presence. Make an effort, if you can, Tony, to spend a tiny bit more
time upstairs…because Mom and I miss seeing your face, too.”

“Sure, Dad. I’ll
try.”

At this
uncomfortable pause in the conversation, I lean forward and turn on the car
radio. I close my eyes to listen to Carrie Underwood’s strong voice asking
Jesus to take the wheel because life is too hard to deal with on her own.

As soon as I
finish saying my Penance, I launch myself from the pew and make for the heavy
doors in the rear of the church. I’m
probably the only kid who actually goes to confession for doing what I’ve done,
although I’m fairly certain I’m not the only one doing it. And I’ll admit that
I have extreme difficulty even
thinking
the word for what I did, let alone
saying
it out loud to a man as pure as a priest, so I will say this—it involves
“spilling my own seed.” Enough said. (Blushing fiercely.)

I’m certain that
my voice trembled when I said my Act of Contrition, and I’m also fairly certain
that Father Joseph recognized my voice in that small, dark box. Even when I
disguised it to make it sound deeper—I think my priest knew the voice was that
of perverted little Anthony Duck-Young Del
Vecchio
.

“O my God, I am
heartily sorry for having offended you and I detest all my sins, because of
your just punishment. But most of all because I have offended you, my God, who
are all good and deserving of all my love.…”

Yup. I
am
heartily sorry for it, too. This
seed-spilling thing is another example of a sexual sin I can’t seem to get a
handle on. Or maybe I have too much of a
“handle” on it.
Ugh, bad pun…
It’s
just that sometimes at night, my fingers and their little fingertip-brains seem
to have an agenda all their own, and I lose control.
And I like it…
until after it’s over and I realize I’ve sinned
against the One I love so much.
And
when it hits me, as if for the first time, that I now need to confess my sin to
stop it from blackening my soul, I experience what you might call
sincere regret.

As I walk down
the sidewalk that leads me from the front of the church to the parking lot, I
glance back guiltily, to make sure that Father Joseph hasn’t come out of the
building to catch a glimpse of the church member who can’t seem to keep his
hands out of his own pants, which I do every time I leave the church after I go
to confession. And on these many Saturdays that I come here, completely obsessed
with my need to receive the sacrament of Penance, Father Joseph never follows
me outside to gape at me in horror.

“Give thanks to the Lord for he is good.”
That’s what Father Joseph said as we concluded things in the confessional.

“For his mercy
endures forever,” was my response.

I’m kind of
counting on that fact.

Glow bowling. I’m
not sure exactly who thought it would be a good idea for people to roll
excessively heavy balls down narrow lanes in the pitch dark, with neon strobe
lights flashing all around them and a disco ball sparkling overhead, but my
best friend
Laz
can’t get enough of it. It seems to
feed something wild inside of him that he isn’t feeding with alcohol, drugs,
and pre-marital sex.

At least every
other week, I pick him up on a Tuesday or Thursday night, drive him to the
Wheaton Family Bowl—he can be counted on to wear a zebra-striped fabric that
will render the best effect under the black lights—and we then change into
smelly rental shoes I abhor (SAT-no further explanation needed), wait for the
lights to go down and the disco ball to rise, and then we bowl. The music is
always
from the 80’s and way too loud,
but these details, in
Laz’s
eyes, are also mandatory.
Halfway through our game,
Laz
predictably whines,
“I’m starving”, so we typically stop for a dinner of hot dogs, small bags of
Fritos, and root beer at the snack bar, and then we return our attention to the
business at hand. Rolling balls in the noisy neon darkness.

And without fail,
every single time we go glow bowling,
Laz
gets a
finger pinched between two bowling balls. And I mean
every single time
. In testimony to that fact, he always sports
several blackened fingernails. It’s nice to know that no matter how much the
world changes around us, certain things will always remain the same.

That’s what I
love about glow bowling. But there’s an aspect of this sport, if you can
categorize it that way, I detest.

Not only does
glow bowling attract the likes of my best friend
Laz
,
and his faithful sidekick, me, but it draws a certain group of teenage boys
from the upscale town of
Grantam
. Wonders never
cease, but it seems that people from all walks of life are attracted to this
captivating sport. (Yes, my tongue is firmly planted inside my cheek.) In any
case, this group of extremely preppy, bitingly caustic, and athletically built
young men apparently holds something against me.

Maybe it’s
because I’m Asian, and they’re not. Maybe because I’m small and thin and…and
pretty, and …well, maybe they hold those things against me. Maybe it’s because
they know how easy it is to rile up Lazarus by harassing
me.
Whatever their motivation I’m exactly certain, but by the time
Laz
and I are eating our hotdogs, they’re consistently
making rude comments to me about how comfortable I looked with “a wiener in my
mouth” and soon they’re accusing me of loving bowling only because of the “big
balls I get to handle”. Calling me a “chink-fag” or a “gook-fairy” is never far
behind.

Now these guys
aren’t at Wheaton Family Bowl every single time we go, but they’re there enough
to cause me anxiety at the mere mention of the word “bowling” or at the scent
of a hot dog, for that matter.

Tonight on our
way home, after we nearly got kicked out of Wheaton Family Bowl because
Laz
,
again,
was
the first to throw a punch, he asks me, “How do you put up with it? Those dudes
diss
you and you just take it.”

He seems
frustrated with me. I ask myself if
Laz
has taken a
good look at me lately? I’m 5’6” and 120 pounds, as they say, soaking wet. I’m
not exactly big enough to throw my weight around. But he knows, and I know,
that my size isn’t the only thing that prevents me from taking a swing.

“Turn the other
cheek,
Laz
.” I speak in a low monotone. No sense in
getting all worked-up.

“Sometimes that
doesn’t seem…like…
good
enough.”

It’s hard to
explain to a person as impulsive as
Laz
, but I’m not
a fighter. “I could always run like heck with my hot dog in my hand…or eat a
burger
instead. That’d throw them off
their game!” I laugh at my own joke, but
Laz
doesn’t
join in.

“How can you joke
about this, man? They’re threatening you…and insulting your manliness.”

“I
do
hate it when they use the term
fag
. But it’s not like everybody at
school doesn’t throw that word around during sports and at lunch and…basically
whenever they want.”

“Well,
fag
just means loser, dude.”

“Um…no, Lazarus.
The word refers to a gay man. And it shouldn’t be tossed around the way it is.
That term shouldn’t be used at all.” I have no idea where I’m dredging up the
courage to express my feelings about the common use of the word
fag
, but there it is.

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
.”

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.