Inclination (13 page)

My mom takes
charge of setting up the appointment with Father Joseph. According to her, she
spoke briefly with him this morning about what has been going on with the Del
Vecchio
family—my departure from Our Way and the reasons
for it, our family’s absence from St. Mark’s, the intervention that was staged
by the Our Way youth group with Mrs. Martine’s approval, and the physical
assault by
Rinaldo
. She tells me that Father Joseph
had sounded baffled and was upset about each of the incidents. Since it’s Holy
Week next week, Father Joseph suggested that we hold off on the meeting with
Rinaldo
and his parents until after Easter. Mom is
uncomfortable with the long wait, but she still agreed. She did, however,
insist on taking all kinds of photos of my injuries, so that, if necessary, she
can show Father Joseph the intensity of the beating I suffered at
Rinaldo’s
hands. The photo session is, in a word,
humiliating. But the meeting is set for the Tuesday evening after Easter, and I
hope that means we can all put it out of our minds for a while.

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-sex 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.”