On Sunday morning, by prior arrangement Jason Todd and Nate Hagan turned up at the Caldwell house on Belgravia Court a little before nine, and rang the bell for Apartment 1 at the side door. Damon was preparing breakfast for all four of them, and Bryce had just set the table, so it was he who pressed the little intercom button and asked, “Who’s there?”
“Jason and Nate,” one voice replied.
“No, that should be Nate and Jason,” another voice corrected.
Bryce laughed and pressed the button to release the door. He went to the door to the apartment, and opened it, waiting for their guests to climb the stairs to the hall. Although it was late compared to his usual rising time when he went to the gym, he did not want to cause a noise on a Sunday morning. When everyone was inside, the visitors admired the apartment and greeted Damon.
Nate admired Damon’s plaque from Pompeii. “Beware the dog,” he translated. “Which of you is the dog?”
“Well, since I’m the owner of that sign, I guess that means Bryce is the dog,” Damon joked.
“Arf,” Bryce played along.
“You can admire the apartment later. Come to breakfast before everything gets cold,” Damon admonished.
They sat down to scrambled eggs and bacon, with toast and jelly, good coffee, and orange juice. The comestibles vanished as if by magic.
“That,” Nate declared, “is the best breakfast I’ve had since leaving home. Thanks guys.”
“It was all Damon,” Bryce owned up. “I have been banished from the kitchen as hopeless.”
“That’s because you are hopeless in the kitchen,” Damon responded.
“Do I detect a source of conflict?” Jason teased.
“Not conflict. Just an embarrassing experience,” Bryce admitted. “But you don’t really want to hear about that. Let me show you around,” he quickly changed the subject.
Damon chuckled.
Bryce led the visitors around the apartment. He had even made the bed in anticipation of their arrival. It was the study which especially attracted the attention of the other two, though. That, and Bryce’s CD collection of Mozart, which gave Jason something to talk about. Damon appeared and reminded Bryce that cleaning up after meals was his responsibility. While Bryce departed to the kitchen, Damon then showed his visitors his copy of Caravaggio’s Saint John the Baptist followed by Michelangelo’s David. He also showed off his WCHS ticket autographed by Carson Kressley, which gave them enough to talk about until it was time to leave for church. Nate, the art history major, was clearly envious of the experiences Damon and Bryce had enjoyed during the summer, and Jason envied the contact with Kressley.
As anticipated, in the church parking lot they encountered the Sandoval contingent. Introductions were made all round. Terry, the 14 year old sister of Mike and Kyle, just stared at Nate’s blue hair.
“See something interesting?” he asked.
“That is so cool,” Terry gushed as her mother laughed, alleviating any doubts Nate might have about his reception by these people.
They entered the church, and Bryce was relieved to note that the temporary organist, Miss Quincy, was back. The organ and the choir had recovered from last Sunday’s ailments. The organist was playing a Bach fugue, which Jason immediately recognized. Nate was looking around. “This is a lot more like my parish at home than the Newman chapel is,” he said to Bryce in an undertone, as they genuflected and entered a pew. There were so many of them this morning that the Sandoval group took up an entire pew, while the four guys got settled in the pew behind them.
At the ‘Kyrie,’ the choir led the congregation in the traditional Gregorian chant of the Greek words, followed closely by the Latin ‘Gloria.’ This also seemed to please Jason, with Nate being a bit confused. He later explained that he had never experienced the traditional chants, growing up in the post-Vatican II Church. But he did have Latin in high school, and followed along in the Missalette. Jason joined in the singing with spirit, and showed off a fine tenor voice. While not a Catholic, he had the music history to appreciate what was offered. At the sermon, Father Fenwick mounted the ambo. He began by saying, “I guess some of you are confused at me being the preacher this Sunday. When I decided to preach on the Feast of the Assumption, I upset the rotation, and both deacons have been getting after me ever since, so we are trying to get back on schedule. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa,” he said as he beat his breast. The congregation laughed. He went on to draw lessons from the readings for that Sunday, always with a positive note, and with a gloss of humor. At communion time, Bryce noted that Nate asked for a blessing rather than receiving, like Damon and Jason. He later explained that it had been a while since his last confession, and he wanted to see how things turned out before receiving again.
After Mass, they all went to the Olive Garden, where the hostess was pleased to provide an even larger table than usual. The discussion was lively, focusing on Kathy, who was expected to deliver in less than two weeks. With new faces at the table, they did not dwell on the family problems of Kathy or David. Jason was voluble in his appreciation of the musical offerings at St. Boniface, and asked about the search for a new organist. There was some discussion of the unfortunate experience last week. Then they talked of the soup kitchen, and both Jason and Nate agreed to volunteer later that afternoon.
When they had finished their dinner, they broke up, with the Sandovals going back to their home and the four boys returning to the Caldwell house, but they would be together again at the soup kitchen.
After getting settled in the common room and with everyone served a drink, Bryce asked, “So, how did you guys like St. Boniface?”
“As I said at dinner, I loved the music,” Jason immediately contributed.
“And as I said right after we entered, that was a lot more like what I was used to at home than the Newman chapel was. I was kind of turned off by what I saw as a lack of respect and … well, I guess reverence … when I tried going to Newman,” Nate added.
“I had the same experience last year when I tried it,” Bryce said. “I told my mom, and she told me to look around. In a town the size of Clifton, there are bound to be options. Then, I asked Father Miller at Newman, and he recommended St. Boniface. I’ve been pretty satisfied there.”
“How did you get him to recommend someplace other than Newman?” Nate asked.
“I just told him I didn’t like the way things were done there,” Bryce said with a sly grin.
“You have balls. What did he say to that?” Nate pressed.
“He was very understanding, actually. He said he had to play to the crowd, and try to hold kids to the Church by giving them as much of what they wanted as he could within the guidelines laid down by the diocese. He was a real help to me last fall. I saw him once each week practically all semester. I really think you might profit from that, too, Nate,” Bryce advised.
“Maybe. But I’m not sure I’m ready for that just yet. You did say you would talk to me sometime today,” Nate responded.
“And I will,” Bryce said, looking at his watch. “We have a little time now, but if I don’t call home before we leave for the soup kitchen my mother will have a cow. If we get into something and need more time, we can resume after the soup kitchen. Do you want to include Jason and Damon at this point?”
Nate looked at his boyfriend with a question.
Jason responded, “I think at the outset it might be better if the two of you talked in private. Then we’ll see. After all, this is about being Catholic, and neither Damon nor I are.”
“Okay, let’s go into the study. Damon can entertain Jason while we talk,” Bryce proposed.
Seated in the recliner chairs before the fireplace, which was empty this time of year, and with their drinks refreshed, Bryce started the conversation. “Why not begin by telling me something about yourself, Nate?”
“Okay. Despite this,” he said, pointing to his hair, “I come from a very traditional background. My family were among the Catholics who came over from Maryland in the 1780s and settled in the area south of Bardstown. Originally, my people came from County Tyrone in Ireland. My dad works the farm that my ancestors patented when they first arrived, so it’s been in the family over two hundred years. We’ve also been members of St. Anselm parish since it was founded in 1788. Being Catholic is part of who we are. It’s always been a part of our identity, and I guess that’s why I’m reluctant to give it up, despite the problems with being gay.”
“What about schools? Did you have a Catholic schooling?” Bryce asked.
“Oh, yeah. That was a big thing. The community was clearly divided into those who went to the Catholic school and those who went to the public school. It was us and them. Not that we were enemies, you understand, but more like a rival team. When I graduated from eighth grade, there was no Catholic high school in our community, so my folks sent me to Bardstown, to Bethlehem High. That’s when I lived with my grandparents. My granddad worked for Heaven Hill, you know, the distillery. In late 1996 they had a huge fire, which pretty much destroyed the distillery in Bardstown, and after that the distilling operation moved to Louisville, but the aging and bottling is still done in Bardstown. At that time, Granddad was about to retire, so he went ahead and did, so when I moved in he had plenty of time to spend with me. That was during the summer before my freshman year at Bethlehem, in 2005. My cousin Jesse did the same thing, and lived with Granddad for four years, except during the summers, but he graduated just before I started. So, to answer your question, I got a Catholic education through high school,” Nate wound up.
“What kind of Catholic education?” Bryce asked. “What I have in mind is this. I had a pretty traditional education, with study of the catechism and the Bible, especially the New Testament. But I talked to a guy last year – he’s not here any more, he graduated – who said his Catholic schools taught mostly feel good stuff, like love your neighbor, be kind to the poor, and don’t discriminate against blacks. He’s not practicing any longer, just sort of drifted away because the people he associated with didn’t go to any church either. Another guy who’s still here has the same story, except he’s more bitter about it. When you run into a problem, that feel good stuff won’t see you through. Nothing wrong with it, but by itself it won’t give you what you need to stick it out.”
Nate replied, “I kind of know what you mean. In my case, it kind of depended on the teacher. There was a set curriculum in high school, but not all the teachers stuck to it. After all, the SAT test or the ACT don’t ask you about the commandments or the sacraments, so some of them kind of used the religion class as a time to talk about social projects. One time we all went to the mountains to help rebuild someone’s cabin. But I was in three out of four years with teachers who actually taught the curriculum, so I think I had a decent grounding.”
“Good. That gives us some place to start when we have more time. Besides the Catholic background, anything else about you that you want to tell me?” Bryce asked.
Nate grinned. “Well, you know I’m gay.”
“Yeah, I kind of figured that, if you’re Jason’s boyfriend. When did you realize it? How did your family react?”
Nate thought for a moment about how to reply. “I guess I was fifteen before I admitted to myself that I was gay. I had the impulses way before that, you know. Interest in other boys. Lack of the same interest in girls that the other guys had. It was in my freshman year in high school that we got a computer in Granddad’s house. I spent hours playing around with it, seeing what there was out there in the big new world. I was beginning to get an inkling of how I was wired, so I looked up some sites. Some were awfully clinical, and I didn’t get much from them, and then, there were the porn sites. That turned me on. And that’s when I realized that it was the male body, not the female, that I was attracted to.
“And that’s what got me in trouble. I spent too much time on the computer, and I got careless. One day when I got home from school, right near the end of my freshman year, Granddad was waiting for me at the computer. He clicked on one of my favorite sites, and asked me to explain. I had neglected to delete. I cried. Hell, I blubbered like a two year old. But Granddad was kind. He did not really understand my attraction to other boys, but he made it clear that he loved me, and would work through this with me. We visited a lot of sites on the web, but not the porn as much as I had been doing. He also talked to the priest at the cathedral.”
“The cathedral?” Bryce interrupted. “Sorry, that surprised me.”
“Bardstown was the original diocese west of the Appalachians. 1809. The bishop moved to Louisville in 1841, but St. Joseph’s is still called the cathedral, or technically the proto-cathedral,” Nate explained.
“Sorry for the interruption. You were telling me about coming out to your family,” Bryce apologized.
“Yeah, well, Granddad taught himself about what it means to be gay. We talked a lot. Once he had me feeling more comfortable with it, we told Grandma. Seems she kind of knew all along anyway. Then, with the end of the school year, it was time for me to go back to my parents’ place and help out on the farm for the summer. Granddad and Grandma went with me, and we told my folks. Dad was real upset at first, but Granddad told him what he had picked up from the web, and from the priest at St. Joseph, and from Dr. Wilson, the family physician. It took a while, but eventually they accepted me. But Dad told me not to tell any of the other boys, because they wouldn’t understand, and it would cause trouble.”
“Sounds like you had a better time than a lot of guys,” Bryce concluded.
“Yeah. From what Jason tells me, there’s no way he can ever be accepted by his dad, and that’s really sad. I guess I’m pretty lucky,” Nate agreed.
“A kind of irrelevant question, but I’m curious. Are you Nathan or Nathaniel?” Bryce asked.
“Neither,” Nate grinned. “I’m Ignatius. Named for my Granddad, and, as he tells everyone who will listen, that’s for Ignatius of Antioch, not Ignatius of Loyola.”
“I don’t know anything about Ignatius of Antioch. You’ll have to enlighten me,” Bryce grinned back. “Damon and I visited Loyola this past summer, but I’ve never been to Antioch.”
“Neither have I, but I did get inspired to read some of his writings in the high school library. He’s got some interesting things to say. He was a bishop who lived in the late first and early second century. He was a disciple of the Apostle St. John, and was martyred in 108 A.D.” Nate told Bryce.
“Now, about that blue hair …” Bryce began.
Nate threw his hands up over his head, as though protecting his hair from an attack, but he was grinning, letting Bryce know he was not seriously concerned.
Bryce laughed. “Is the blue hair some kind of protest?” he asked.
“No, not really. Protest against drabness, maybe. It’s just me. My hair is naturally a light blond or I would most likely not be able to color it this way. It started one day just before the beginning of my senior year in high school. I was out at the farm, and had finished my chores. I was lying on my back in the grass, and looking at the beautiful blue sky, with the warm sun beating down on me. I got to thinking that it would be great if that could continue all year, rather than it getting cold and grey as the seasons change. Then I remembered a piece of cloth my mom had dyed which was just about the same color as the sky. I don’t know what she wanted it for. Something for my new niece, I think. Things just kind of fell together in my diseased brain. So, when I went inside, I looked up the listing for that color on the package of dye, and a couple of days later, when I was back in town, I went into one of the hair stylist places and asked them if they could make my hair that color. Man, did they ever have a ball over that. When Granddad saw it, he just laughed. The folks at school wanted me to get rid of it, but they couldn’t find anything in the school rules against blue hair. So, here I am, blue hair and all. I kind of like it, and I think Jason does, too.”
“Well, for what it’s worth, so do I. Of course, I have no idea what you’d look like as a blond, but you look great as … what? … a bluie?” Bryce chuckled.
“No, please! Just blue, no bluies,” Nate laughed in return. “And please note, this is sky blue, as in a great summer day with a warm sun, not blue as in depressed.”
“Oh, I got that right away. There’s nothing depressing about that bright blue you have on the top floor, and besides, you never came across as a sad sack. And, I’m glad to see, Jason is not one either these days. When I first knew him last year, he was almost invisible, kind of avoiding being noticed because he was still very much in the closet. I think you’ve been good for him,” Bryce declared.
“Thanks. We seemed to hit it off from the beginning when we met in class over the summer. And you’re right. He was a lot more withdrawn then, and, I think, angry about something,” Nate considered.
“About me, in part, at least. Did he tell you about the Sigma Alpha Tau court of honor?” Bryce cautiously asked.
“Yeah, eventually. You were involved in that, I believe,” Nate stated.
“Only in a minor capacity, but yeah, I was there,” Bryce replied.
“Someday, I’d like your take on that,” Nate requested. “Jason seems to be less concerned about it now, or we wouldn’t have gone to the party on Friday, but for a while it obviously bothered him.”
“Sure. But now we need to work on you. Let’s begin with where you stand with the Church, if you’re ready for this,” Bryce suggested.
“Well, you noticed that I did not receive at Mass this morning. I don’t feel right doing that until I know more clearly just where I do stand. I don’t want to abandon my heritage, but the bishops seem to be pushing me out,” Nate said with some asperity.
“I know what you mean. But I’m glad you want to stick it out. As I told more than one person, I want to work for change from within, not walk away from what is still one of the most influential institutions on earth, and one in which I still have faith,” Bryce agreed.
At that point, there was a knock on the door. “Yeah?” Bryce called.
“Your mom is on the phone. She thinks you’ve been swallowed by alligators or something, since you didn’t call her,” Damon called back.
“Oh, shit! Time got away from me. Sorry, Nate, but I’ve got to talk to Mom,” Bryce explained.
Nate laughed. “Go ahead. We can continue later.”
It took Bryce a good fifteen minutes to convince his mother that he was not speaking to her from his sick bed or something equally dire. When he was finally able to tell her why he had neglected to call at the proper time, she was, however, very complimentary, but she still admonished him to be more thoughtful in the future. She also reminded Bryce that he and Damon needed to visit Chicago soon. Damon’s nephew needed an explanation of his post cards.
“Not next weekend, but maybe the one after,” Bryce promised. “Next weekend is part of rush week, and another home football game.”
“You were never so interested in football before,” Martha pointed out.
“It’s not the football. It’s the fraternity,” Bryce tried to explain. In the end, he gave up, and promised to take Damon to Chicago the weekend after next.
Damon had spoken to Martha before interrupting Bryce and Nate, so when Bryce wound up, they began to prepare to depart for the soup kitchen.
“Did you get terribly bored while I was talking to your boyfriend?” Bryce joshingly asked Jason.
“No, but I’m not sure I want to be left with Damon again,” Jason replied.
“Oh, why is that?”
“We played a couple of video games on this great TV screen you have, but the SOB beat me every time,” Jason complained.
“Damon, for shame! As a good host, you should have let him win at least one game,” Bryce admonished his partner, tongue firmly in cheek.
“I considered it, but the twerp was so cocky when we first started I just could not resist taking him down a couple of notches,” Damon grinned.
“Well,” Jason mumbled, “I won when I played against other guys.”
Bryce laughed. “Damon has been practicing.”
Also laughing, Nate hard-heartedly added, “Serves you right.”
The four guys departed in Bryce’s Mustang. On the way, Damon told Jason and Nate about the boys. DeShawn and Malcolm were surprised to find the back seat already inhabited, but they squeezed in, and were soon at the soup kitchen. Deacon Jeffers was pleased at finding two new volunteers. He remembered Nate’s blue hair, as it had been he who gave Nate his blessing at communion time that morning.
“You’re kind of unforgettable,” the Deacon commented.
“Good thing I have decided against a life of crime,” Nate joked.
“Indeed,” Jeffers agreed.
The Sandovals, or most of them, also appeared, and they got busy preparing the evening meal for the poor and homeless who waited outside the main door. In good weather, that was not a problem, and there were a few benches scattered about for those who needed a place to sit. Thanks to Bryce, in bad weather the “guests” were invited inside. At five o’clock, the doors were opened, and the line of diners formed, stretching nearly half a block down the street. For the next two hours, the guys worked with others to keep the food coming. After six, when things thinned out a bit, they took turns dropping out of the serving line and having something themselves. When Nate was eating, DeShawn was also having his supper, and gave the older guy the third degree about his hair. Jason also made the better acquaintance of Mike during his time to eat. By seven o’clock, the line had ended, and only a few stragglers remained at the tables. Deacon Jeffers told the volunteers they could leave whenever they were ready.
On the way back, DeShawn declared that he was going to get his hair dyed as well. “I’ve been saving up my money, so I can afford it,” he declared.
“You think long and hard about whether this is what you want to blow your savings on,” Bryce admonished him.
“Like I told you before,” Nate warned, “my hair is naturally blond. I don’t know what it would look like starting with your black hair. If you decide to follow through, you need to talk to somebody at one of those salons who knows about such things before having it done.”
“And you should talk to your mom about it, too,” Damon advised.
DeShawn made a face at him.
After dropping off the boys, Bryce asked, “What do you want to do now? Are you ready for more talk, Nate?”
“I’m not sure. I definitely want more talk, but maybe not right now. What do you guys usually do after working at the soup kitchen?” Nate asked.
Damon jumped in. “My dissolute partner almost always insists on a stop at Pat’s. I think he’s trying to turn me into an alcoholic.”
That was kind of an inside joke between Damon and Bryce.
“You guys not have any trouble getting served?” Jason asked.
“We’ve been going there for some time. We’ve never been a problem, so they don’t ask too many questions. Besides, the bartender doesn’t like Lomax and Campbell any more than we do,” Bryce commented.
“Let’s start there, then, and see what develops,” Nate suggested. “I’m not chickening out, but I need to let things percolate a bit, I think.”
“Fine. Whenever you’re ready, let me know, and we’ll find a time,” Bryce promised.