PART I
ST. STEPHEN, THE FIRST CHRISTIAN MARTYR
Patron Saint of Stonemasons 1994ā96
As they were stoning Stephen, he called out, āLord Jesus, receive my spirit.ā Then he fell to his knees and cried out in a loud voice, āLord, do not hold this sin against themā; and when he said this, he fell asleep.
āActs of the Apostles 7:59ā60
AUDITION
Stuck between my parents, I knelt in a pew with my two sisters and brother. I hadnāt been to Mass since transferring to the University of Northern Iowa in the fall. On an earlier campus visit, Mom and I had walked by the red brick building without realizing it was a Catholic church. It looked like a cross between a bank and a Pizza Hut. Now, students packed the nave. Some were dressed up. Others wore the usual college grunge. I stared at the neck of the guy in front of me, trying not to nick his collar with my folded hands. My parents made the sign of the cross and sat back into the pew. I crossed myself to appear as if Iād been praying and followed suit.
They were in town for Theatre UNIās spring run of Shawās Saint Joan. I had the role of Brother Martin Ladvenu, Joan of Arcās Franciscan confessor. He had the honor of holding the cross before her eyes as her own Church incinerated her. Hoping to be the next Al Pacino, Iād followed my directorās instructions for āmethod acting.ā Heād shown me a clip from the documentary Faces of Death, in which a Vietnam War protestor burned himself to death. Iād scoured the library for accounts of Joanās trial and execution. The only thing I hadnāt done was interview a priest about his life. No need. Everything Iād researched convinced me priests were hypocrites.
A young woman smiled from the wooden lectern that matched the pewās wheat stain. āWelcome to St. Stephen the Witness Catholic Student Center. No matter where youāre from, weāre glad youāre here.ā My dad nudged me. Below black wavy hair, brown eyes, and silver glasses resting on his self-proclaimed āItalian schnoz,ā he offered a satisfied grin. I smiled back. Whatever.
āPlease rise and welcome one another, especially anyone who is new,ā the woman said. I shrunk into the rigid pew. Someone was bound to reveal I was new.
My parents knew I was frustrated with the Church. For years, our discussions about religion had ended with Dadās irritated surrender and Momās silence. They didnāt know Iād quit Catholicism. Iād tried the Lutheran, Methodist, and fundamentalist Christian churches. God was the same patriarchal bastard everywhere.
Dad tapped my shoulder. I stood and hunched to offer him a partial hug and tap on the back. He kissed me on the cheek. Italians. Now everyone would think we were gay.
āI love you,ā he said.
I didnāt believe him. Throughout my childhood, heād worked sixteen-hour days at our familyās Italian restaurant. āThe businessā and the āgood family nameā came first. Now, he had his newfound sales career. He loved work, not me. I turned to Mom, but he grasped my shoulders. He forced me to meet his gaze. āI mean it, Tommy. I love you.ā
āI love you too,ā I lied.
The priest preached forever. I made use of the wasted time by silently running through my lines. At Communion, I did as Dad had taught: I stepped out of the pew into the aisle and extended my open palm, letting Mom and my sisters go first. I took the host by hand but skipped the flu-magnet chalice. After singing every verse of not one but two songs during Communion, the congregation sat waiting for the mustached priest to stand. I checked my watch. We were seventy-two minutes into the Mass. At home, the entire liturgy took forty-five minutes. But we werenāt done. The priest stood and meandered about the aisles rattling off upcoming events at the student center. When he mentioned the choir, Mom, who was an elementary school music teacher, smiled at me. Interested parties were to sign up in the lobby on something the priest called āthe ugly orange piece of furniture.ā Everyone laughed. I felt like Iād been transported into The Bells of St. Maryās.
My dad whispered, āHe seems cool.ā
I wanted to say, Iām sure the little boys heās screwing think so. I nodded.
āHave you met him?ā Mom added. I kept nodding.
Iād seen the priest once. My art history professor had taken my class into the newly erected St. Stephenās to view its āprize-winning minimalist design,ā lack of stained glass, and icons. Iād never seen icons in a church. At home, we had faded statues that shed paint chips the size of Communion wafers. Minutes into our visit, the short priest with glasses, puffy salt-and-pepper hair, and a mustache, had huffed across the chapel. āYou need to go,ā he said to my professor. āOur daily Mass is in twenty-five minutes.ā
Throughout the announcements, the congregation and my parents laughed at the priestās jokes. After ten minutes, he concluded by introducing a visiting choir director. Theyād met in the early seventies while studying music at Mount Saint Clare College in my hometown, Clinton, Iowa. Mom majored in music there in the late sixties. Iād gone to preschool there. Momās cousin, a Franciscan nun, had lived there. Nuns, priests, and parishioners had frequented our house. My parents would want to meet the priest and his friend. Theyād invite them to lunch. I wanted to choke myself to death on a missalette.
After the crowds dispersed, my parents cornered the priest in the back of the chapel and introduced themselves.
āRastrelli?ā his nasal baritone proclaimed. āI loved Rastrelliās Restaurant.ā He jabbed my arm, āYouāve been holding out on me, son.ā
I smiled through my guilt as they combed through shared acquaintances. Then it hit him: in 1974, a young Rastrelli mother with flowing blonde hair and a little girl had roamed the college showing off a newborn boy. He had held me in his arms.
His brown eyes scanned me. I silently pleaded, Donāt say, Where have you been all year?
He could have humiliated me, but he didnāt. He let my parents believe what they wanted: Father Scott Bell and I were buddies.
AN ACTOR PREPARES
From a futon across the smoky dorm room, some theatre and music majors cackled. They were drunk or high. I didnāt know the difference. Outside of sipping Dadās traditional Chianti at family dinners, Iād had maybe ten drinks my entire life. Iād never been buzzed. I was frightened of what Iād do, what others might discover.
Jonathan swigged Booneās Farm while holding court from his ratty armchair. The others shared cigarettes and bottles as he outed the music majors heād blown. I sipped Cherry Coke and watched the news, trying to appear uninterested.
On the TV, a boy with a Muppet-like voice spoke. āHeās adorable,ā I said.
āWho knew?ā Jonathan said. āTomās a pedophile.ā
A pain like nothing Iād felt before shot through my gut. āShut the fuck up,ā I yelled.
Jonathan jumped up. Booze splashed from his bottle. He had four inches and eighty pounds on me. He released a smoky laugh, āWhatever, pedophile.ā The others laughed.
I shoved him into a dresser and ran into the hallway. He pursued me shouting, āPedophile.ā I slid into my room and bolted the door. He pounded on the wood.
āShut up,ā I howled at the door.
āI fucking hate you, pedophile,ā he yelled and left.
The pain in my gut spread. My chest tightened, as if breathing might make my heart explode. I gasped for air and curled up on the cold linoleum.
The violence exploding from me made no sense. I needed my best friend and roommate Tobey. Heād understand. But he was on a drive with Jonathanās boyfriend, Kent. I knew what happened on drives with Tobey. Blow jobs. Just like the ones heād been giving me for the past two years.
* * *
Tobey and I played Sega in the basement of my house. Lying in our sleeping bags on maraschino red carpet, we chatted and took turns with the game. In two weeks, Iād leave for my first year of college; Tobey would remain for one more year of high school. With a short pudgy frame, he was my physical opposite. He had the face of a little boy and the tongue of an old letch. Weād conversed about everything from eternal life to what finger we used to wipe our asses. Of all my friends, I feared leaving him most.
He tossed his controller aside and ran his fingers through his feathered black hair, āWhy do Catholics believe Maryās hymen didnāt break during Jesusās birth?ā
āWe donāt believe that.ā
āYou do.ā His brown eyes flashed in the TVās light. āI read it in my dadās books.ā
He was a āPK,ā pastorās kid. His family belonged to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the largest and most progressive Lutheran denomination, unlike the conservative Missouri and Wisconsin synods stippled across Iowa. Until Tobey, Iād thought all Lutherans were diet-Catholics.
Masked by the air conditionerās growl, our theological discussion deepened and then morphed into talk of sex. Tobey adjusted the bulge in his sleeping bag. I adjusted mine, making sure he noticed. Our voices quieted. āI think mineās small.ā āI bet it isnāt.ā āIāll show you mine, if you show me yours.ā āHow do you jack off?ā āLet me show you.ā āThat feels good.ā āHave you ever fanaticized about, you know, blow jobs?ā āIāll do it if you do it.ā
We flipped his Swiss Army knife to determine whoād go down first. The side with the cross-encrusted shield on it he designated as heads; the blank side, tails. The knife landed tails mere feet from where Iād touched my first penis, during kindergarten.
His name had been Jimmy. A girl at school had asked me to play āUnder the Covers,ā but Iād refused. A week later, I led Jimmy into the basement and played with him. My older sister, Jenny, caught us and tattled. Mom sat me down on the harvest green couch in the living room and explained that it was okay only for the doctor to touch me ādown there.ā Mom didnāt seem angry, but I heard something new in her soft voice: flatness, like disappointment or shame.
Tobey smelled of secondhand smoke, fabric softener, and a sweaty blanket. He tasted of salt and freedom. I didnāt think or hesitate. He fit in my mouth perfectly. It was the most natural thing Iād done. Until he came, triggering my gag reflex. I barfed into an empty Big Gulp cup. He tried to weasel out of reciprocating. I begged. He gave in. Pleasure and bliss eradicated my lifelong shame. As I was about to cum, he pulled away, leaving me to finish myself. I wiped off with some tissues and retreated to the bathroom to flush the evidence. When I returned, the basement was dark. I felt my way into my sleeping bag.
āWe canāt do that again,ā he said.
āI know.ā
My parents had taught me to save myself for marriage. Dad told me to pray every night for a good wife. Staring into the darkness, I made the sign of the cross.
* * *
Lying on the floor of my dorm room, I couldnāt move. Iād transferred to Northern Iowa to be with Tobey. Weād been blowing each other, but thereād been no kissing. He claimed to be straight. Iād waited, trusting that his bodily response proclaimed the unspoken, real presence of love in his heart, but the argument with Jonathan had exposed my illusions.
Tobey was screwing Jonathanās boyfriend. Heād probably given me AIDS. I lay there on our dusty floor, in the very spot where Tobey had topped me. When Iād tried to enter him, heād spazzed out. He didnāt want me inside of him. I was infected. Queer. Faggot. Sinner.
I pounded the linoleum. Why had God made me like this? Did God even care? God didnāt defend my family after my parents withdrew us from the Catholic school because the male teacher had harassed my sister. The parish shunned us and old schoolmates threw rocks through our windows. When Alzheimerās was deleting Grandma Rastrelliās memories and she called the house, sobbing because sheād found another copy of Grandpaās twenty-five-year-old obituary, God didnāt comfort her. I did. God didnāt answer my familyās prayers during the farm crisis that drained the restaurant of business. Dad declared bankruptcy a week before I graduated high school. God wasnāt there when Dadās siblings parted ways. The family that prayed together didnāt stay together.
Dad would cut me off if he knew about Tobey. Mom would mutely follow. I deserved it. Iād thought the boy on the news was cute. Was I destined to abuse children? According to the televangelists, thatās what gay men did. My family couldnāt know me. Tobey did, and he didnāt love me. I was a transfer student from a community college that was a glorified high school with ashtrays. I couldnāt even get a leading role at the University of Fucking Northern Iowa. Iād never make it on Broadway.
I searched the room. Everything reeked of Tobey: the movie posters we loved, the couch where we sucked, and his jar of Vaseline on the dresser. I dug through my toiletries. Tylenol? Too weak. I needed something serious. How many slices would a disposable razor take? Iād never contemplated suicide. It felt strangely exhilarating, powerful.
But I hated blood. And pain. As a kid, I feared shots. I hated that doctor, his oily mustache, rubber gloves, and nurse, who wiggled the needle.
What about the theatre? I could dive from the catwalk onto the main stage. But it was locked. Even in suicide, I was a failure.
I curled up on the floor again. Hours passed. I stared at the baseboards. Tobey didnāt return.
In the milk crates under the TV, I noticed my Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast videotapes. Iād watched them with my little sister and brother, Maria and Jeff. What would committing suicide teach them? That it was okay to give up, to be a failure? But I was a failure at being Catholic, at being straight. Still, they loved me. Could God? I hadnāt prayed in a ye...