Page 337 - Some Dance to Remember

Some Dance to Remember 307

aftershave, a jockstrap, and condoms. But Catholic boys never
receive such gifts.
Somehow I misunderstood all the signals from my child-
hood. The nuns hardly meant that I should never touch girls. The
priests saw my “holiness,” born of fear of hell, to be a calling to
their priesthood and I in terror followed.
Charley-Pop wanted me to be what I knew I could never be:
a jock like he was. So, instead, I became the perennial buddy of
jocks, the way I was a buddy to him. My mother meant for me
to be me. Instead I tried to be what she wanted me to be, that
is, what I thought she wanted me to be. I branched out from
my family to Misericordia, always being, instead of me, what I
thought the priests wanted me to be. A priest must be all things
to all men.
I’m a chameleon.
That’s why I’ve been good in bed on Castro and Folsom, and
especially with Kick. I’m so eager to please I’ll do anything to
pleasure anybody especially when they’ve got what I want. That’s
the bottom line: I’ll be anything anybody wants. I’ve traded self-
realization into self-abnegation.
That’s my mortal sin.
I should have listened to what my mother really said when
she told me, “Don’t become a priest for me. Do it for yourself and
for God if you think that’s what God wants you to be.” All she
wanted for me was the Ryan-ness of being Ryan. All she wanted
was for me to be me. She would never approve of me trying to
be not-me to please Kick or anyone else. She could have hung
out happily with Emerson at Concord. Jeez! Why do I always
understand everything intellectually but fail to understand it
emotionally?
She would never object to my loving Kick because he was the
same gender. “I know what goes on in the world,” she said. “I’m
not dumb. I don’t care. As long as no one forces anything on me
or on you.” She would have only one objection to Kick: that I
have given up another chance to be to my own self true in order
to keep Kick happy and coming back for more.
So what am I going to do about it? And when?
Don’t ask me. Ask my dick.

©Jack Fritscher, Ph.D., All Rights Reserved
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