thirty-three, a husband, probably a father. The head of a household. Eric, who taught me how to kiss—slowly, with anticipation, with all the right pauses—in the backseat of Barbara’s Galaxie 500. Eric, who told me he loved me so fucking much a week before high school graduation, punching his fist into a wall until the skin broke, until I pulled him by the wrist into an embrace, promising him, You know I totally feel the same, asking him, How can I prove it to you (as he had to me, in blood)? Eric, who whispered, If we love each other we should try more stuff. Eric, whose swollen cock was in my mouth at the moment my father, home early from work for some unremembered, fateful reason, entered my bedroom to find me on my knees, in the midst of worship, surrender, proving it—the kind of moment, explosive and unequivocal, that separates everything into before and after.
It went like this: My father’s eyes sweeping from me on the floor, wiping my mouth, to Eric, yanking up his jeans, the clasp of his belt rattling as he turned his face away. My father shouting “What the hell are you doing?” though I could see he knew exactly what this was. I tried to throw it back at him: why did he push the door open, why didn’t he knock? “No way,” he bellowed. “No, no, no, no way,” negation repeated like a chant, disapproval and denial in equal measure. No way could this have happened, no way would it happen again, no way is my son this kind of boy. Eric was banned from our house—the official punishment—but worse than this was the scornful silence that descended like a sudden downpour.
“I love him,” I said.
“There’s no way you can,” said my father.
We didn’t talk it out; there was no way we could, or so it seemed to me.
I managed to see Eric a few more times that summer before I went to college and he to the Navy—furtive, tongue-tied encounters at the edge of group activities. Each locked gaze was more wrenching than the last, until we learned to avoid each other’s eyes, to fake indifference, as was needed, to get away from each other and the mess we’d created. At some point, Deirdre asked me, “How come you aren’t hanging out with Eric?” and what I told her was, “We were getting on each other’s nerves.”
My father never saw me the same again. Before, I’d been a problem child—one to boss around, bargain with, try to fix. After, I ceased to be a child at all. Just a problem—permanent, irreparable. Before, I’d thought it possible to fall in love with a boy. After, I lived with the knowledge that genuine love didn’t spark revulsion in others. My first month in college, I got myself a girlfriend.
“Jimmy?” Diane was waiting for an answer. “What about you?”
“Sorry—what?”
“Girlfriend? Someone special?”
I looked at Nana, who sat stiffly under Diane’s kneading hands. My relationship with Woody wasn’t a secret from her; still, it wasn’t something she probably cared to see dropped into the boiling vat of Diane’s gossip-stew. “Someone special,” I replied, and left it at that.
Ryan’s Funeral Home had apparently decided that mourning went down easier in pastel: mint-green cushions, rose-flocked wallpaper, a beige rug. The chairs, cream colored, had been lined up in a semicircle around the coffin, as if the deceased might rise up and recite to the crowd. Most of the guests hovered in the back, near the door, or in the hallway, conversing. The surprise was the music, all old, cool jazz, which my brother-in-law, Andy, had compiled from my father’s CD collection. “I forgot he liked this stuff,” I said to Andy as we stood side by side beneath a wall-mounted speaker amplifying a melancholy version of “My Funny Valentine.” Andy was an accountant. His suit was an accountant’s suit, his haircut an accountant’s haircut. Years ago, my friend Colleen had dubbed him Average Andy.
“It was all I ever heard him listen to. This is Chet Baker,” he said. In Andy’s voice I heard a hint of pride, as if my father’s connoisseurship had rubbed off on him.
“I think he only started listening to jazz after Mom died,” I offered.
“No, he told me he liked jazz when he was young.”
“Oh, right.” I dimly recalled my father tell of seeing Thelonious Monk play live, in San Francisco, where my father had lived for a handful of months at some point between high school and marrying my mother. We’d hardly ever spoken of his time there; what might have been something that bonded us to each other became just another point of contention. A lousy place to make a life, he’d said, writing off his entire SF experience, and by association, mine, as wasted time, a youthful lark. A dart of jealousy pricked my chest as I pictured Andy and my father together: Andy listening earnestly while Teddy’s baritone boomed out a point-by-point exegesis on early-sixties jazz.
The casket loomed up front, its glossy brown lid emphatically shut. According to Deirdre this was how my father wanted it, though I suspected it was her own choice. “Looking at a dead body is just creepy,” I heard her whisper to one of her friends as I drifted through the room, doing my best to keep conversations brief and superficial. As relatives and friends of the family, none of whom I’d seen since the barbecue for AJ’s birth, shuffled forward, one after another spoke to me in the apologetic language of grief. I’m sorry, I wish I knew what to say, I’m so sorry. My five-year withdrawal didn’t matter. All that mattered was that I was the son, so I got the sympathy.
At one point Deidre pulled me into the hallway, away from the crowd. “I’m a little freaked out,” she said through clenched teeth.
I patted her on the shoulder, tentative. “You’re doing great.”
“When I got here this morning, I got a look at Dad.”
“In the coffin? Is he embalmed?”
“Of course he’s embalmed. He’s all fixed up. You can look, after everyone leaves.”
“No, I don’t want to,” I said, absolutely clear on this.
She wagged her hands, frustrated. “Why I’m freaked out is, he’s not wearing his wedding ring.” She explained to me that he never took that band off his finger. Though maybe, in the end, in his bedroom, or in the hospital, it had been removed. Or fell off. Or was taken.
“It’s probably just misplaced,” I said. “Who would steal something like that?”
We were interrupted by a gust of frigid air from the door, whisking in Aunt Katie. She paraded to the viewing room in a full-length fur coat, her frosted hair swept up dramatically, her pumps sporting heels treacherously high for an icy winter night. An entourage fanned out behind her: her son, Tommy; his wife, Amy, cradling a baby; and their three other children, all under twelve. Deirdre and I watched as Katie took the aisle and marched straight to Nana, swallowing her up in furry hugs and air kisses. I let Deidre join them before I made my way toward their conversational pantomime.
“Aunt Katie.” I was unsure if I should lean in for an air kiss of my own.
She stood stiffly, eyeing me up and down. “I was just saying to your sister, ‘Where’s your brother? He better have shown up.’”
“Here I am,” I said, bowing my head deferentially.
“I said, ‘Don’t tell me Jimmy didn’t show.’”
“I showed.”
She raised her chin. “What’s that? You don’t shave there?”
“A little San Francisco style,” I said, rubbing the arty triangle of auburn hair—the soul patch—growing under my lower lip.
Nana said, “You look scruffy.”
“At least he got rid of the earrings,” Aunt Katie said. “Remember that? When he came home with the earrings?”
“Haven’t had earrings for years,” I said, my face burning up.
“And that tattoo, with the snakes.” She visibly shuddered.
“Aw, leave the guy alone, Ma.” From around her side, Tommy extended a beefy paw.
I