Between Boyfriends. Michael Salvatore

would have made me the star of an Ida Lupino movie, but I decided to simply answer the question.

      “I’m not suggesting anything. If you can live with yourself, I guess I can too.”

      “So you won’t tell your mother about last night?”

      “No, I won’t,” I replied.

      “Wonderful!” Lenny squealed. “I knew I could count on a brother. Maybe I can show you my generous side sometime.”

      Lenny accented his statement by placing his clammy palm on top of my hand. I flinched at this outrageous act of chutzpah right in the middle of the Secaucus Diner and blanched when I realized my mother and her cohorts thought this man was respectable. So I did what any respectable Italian mama’s boy would do: I defended my mother the only way I knew how.

      “You listen to me, you old Jew fag. I will keep your secret because I do not want my mother to know what a creep you are. Just because you chose to live in a closet your whole life does not make it all right for you to go to bars and pay for sex when you should be in your own bed watching Jay Leno. You should be reminding young gay men that they don’t have to wind up like you, and that they can choose to be proud of who they are—not teaching them it’s okay to take money from strangers for sex. And if I see you at the auditions for the Christmas Show I will take that moment to tell the entire Salvatore DeNuccio Tenants Group just what you do on your Friday nights. And it goes without saying that you will not be playing Santa! I may not be able to stop you from degrading yourself and the men you buy, but I can stop you from degrading my mother and her friends. You aren’t worthy of their friendship.”

      My anger surprised me more than it did Lenny. The night before, when he’d been a nameless, faceless old man shelling out money to help Sebastian buy a new accessory, he’d been a punch line. Now, as I watched him scurry out of the diner, he was a joke. And I was truly frightened that in a few more decades I would become that same joke. When my mother and Audrey returned from the bathroom, I explained that Lenny had forgotten he had to run some errands. Audrey thought it probably had to do with all the volunteer work that he did and I nodded in agreement. If my mother suspected anything had taken place between her son and her friend she didn’t mention it. But the way she hugged me good-bye told me that she knew there was something wrong.

      When I exited the Port Authority bus terminal later that day, I wasn’t ready to go home so I started walking downtown. It was good to feel the familiar New York concrete under my feet and the cool air brushing my face. I was tired and I needed to wake up. It was time to face up to certain truths.

      I was at a crossroads: I wasn’t young and I wasn’t old. Thus far, I had lived an interesting but mostly emotionally unfulfilling life. I could continue to live that type of life very easily as many others have, but my heart kept reminding me that I wanted something more than just spending my nights at Marys bar and my mornings getting out of some Mary’s bed. I said the words out loud: “I want a boyfriend.” I wanted what my mother had for most of her adult life—a partner, someone to share life and bad jokes with, someone to fuss over and argue with. Seeing how Lenny Abramawitz spent his evenings had made the feeling stronger. The thought of being a lonely, single senior citizen frightened me. As I turned the corner onto 23rd Street, I bumped into a stranger who wasn’t really a stranger at all.

      “Oh my God, it’s you!” I cried.

      For the second time in less than twenty-four hours I found myself staring into the most beautiful face I had ever seen. And once again that face was smiling back at me.

      “Hi, I’m Brian, from last night.”

      I took a deep breath and finally found the courage to speak. “Hi, I’m Steven. From right now.”