Foley-Mashburn Saga #13
Boyhood's End
Story © 2003 Brew Maxwell
brew_drinker23@yahoo.com

        
Chapter 01
        
(Justin's Perspective)
        "What are you doing?" Kyle asked me.
        We had been on the damn airplane out of Atlanta for over four hours, and I wanted a cigarette so bad I could scream. The thing is, I sometimes go for a whole day, even two, without smoking, so it wasn't that. I think it was the idea that I couldn't smoke if I wanted to that made the craving so bad. The next time I take a long flight like that, I'm buying me some of that nicotine gum.
        "I'm jerking off, Kyle. What does it look like I'm doing?" I said.
        "Back off, Bubba. Don't jump on me. I know you got a pencil dick, but what you're holding is a real pencil," he said.
        "Sorry, Bubba. I'm just a little bit on edge right now," I said. "What I'm doing is trying to design the piece of the AIDS Quilt for Trey, and every fucking thing I draw sucks."
        "You need a little physical release, don't you?" he said.
        "No, I don't need a little physical release, thank you very much. What I need is a cigarette, and I can't have one," I said.
        "Hey, mister," Kyle said to a male flight attendant who happened to be passing. That guy was so "gay," he might as well have had it tattooed on his forehead.
        "Yes?" the guy asked.
        "My brother's having a nicotine fit. Can you hook him up with some gum or something?" Kyle asked.
        The guy smiled this sweet little mocking smile, and I wanted to punch his lights out.
        "As a matter of fact, I can," he said.
        He dug in his pocket and handed me this gray wad of shit wrapped up in a plastic case.
        "I'm a smoker, so I understand," he said. "Do you know how to use it?"
        "What is it?" I asked.
        "It's nicotine gum. It should relieve the craving," he said. "Just bite into it and hold it next to your gum. You'll be fine."
        "Thanks," I said.
        Kyle handed him a ten spot.
        "Buy more for the next trip," Kyle said.
        "Oh, it's free," the guy, whose nametag said "Reggie," said. "I don't buy it. The airline does."
        "Buy yourself a drink, then, on us," Kyle said. "He's trying to draw, and it's making him crazy not to be able to smoke. Maybe he'll get his drawing done now."
        "Oh, what are you drawing, if you don't mind my asking?" the guy said.
        "I'm trying to draw a panel for the AIDS Quilt," I said. "Do you know what that is?"
        "You're kidding, right?" he said.
        "No, I'm not kidding. One of our brothers died of AIDS in January, and they have this gigantic quilt that remembers the ones who died of it. We saw part of the quilt in San Francisco in March. I'm going to learn how to sew and make it for him," I said.
        "Was your brother gay?" Reggie asked.
        "Yeah, he was gay. So what? He was only thirty-two years old, and he died," I said. "Maybe by making this little piece of it, I can keep other boys from getting AIDS. It could have been me just as easy."
        "So are you, um . . . ?"
        "Hell, no," I said. "If I was an artist, I could probably do this better."
        "I think he meant, 'Are you gay,' asshole, and, yes, he is. And so am I, and so are these two," Kyle said, pointing to Tim and Brian. "We're two couples here."
        A look of surprise registered for a second on Reggie's face, but then it was gone.
        "May I look at your sketches?" he asked.
        "Sure. Maybe you got some ideas. I'm fresh out. But you know what? This gum is working, I think. Thanks, man," I said.
        Reggie studied my drawings.
        "I think I would combine these two pieces," he said, pointing to stuff on two different drawings. "Was 'Trey' his real name? Most of the time, that's a nickname for somebody who's 'the third.'"
        "I don't really know," I said.
        "I thought you said he was your brother," Reggie said.
        "He was, but not a blood brother. It's too complicated. His partner works for his daddy and for one of our big brothers. They got evicted, so they came to live with us for Trey to die," I said.
        "You're right. It's too complicated. Do you mind if I show these to one of the other flight attendants? He's an excellent artist, and I know he'll want to see them," Reggie said. "Meanwhile, what are you guys drinking?"
        "I don't know. We had a drink of some kind of whiskey a little while ago," I said. "Do you know, Kyle?"
        "No, I didn't pay attention to what was on the bottle," Kyle said.
        "It was Jack Daniel's," Brian said.
        "Okay. Let me take these. I'll be back in a second," he said.
        "Sure, go ahead," I said.
        Off he went.
        "How'd you know what we were drinking? You craving whiskey, all of a sudden?" I asked Brian, knowing he wasn't. Teasing him.
        "Yes. I'm craving whiskey and cigarettes and weed and women," Brian said.
        That cracked everybody up, including somebody we didn't know who was on our row. I leaned over and gave him a little peck on the lips. I just couldn't resist because he was so cute. Reggie was back just then with two bags, four cups of ice, and four Sprites.
        "Put the extras in your carry-ons," he said. "You won't have a problem with customs."
        Each bag was chocked full of little miniature bottles of Jack Daniel's whiskey.
        "Thanks, man," I said. "But you didn't have to do this, you know."
        "You're welcome, and I felt as though I did," he said. "By the way, I'm Reggie Davis."
        "Really? I'm Justin Davis. I must be your cousin. This is Brian Mathews, my boyfriend, Kyle Goodson, and Tim Murphy, Kyle's boyfriend," I said, and we all shook hands.
        "Where are you guys going?" he asked.
        "All over the damn place," Kyle said.
        "One place I really like, which may or may not appeal to you guys, is Cap D'Agde, in southeastern France. It may be a little extreme for your taste," he said.
        "I never heard of it," Kyle said.
        It was for damn sure I had never heard of it.
        "I'm not surprised," Reggie said. "It's a nudist town. You'll see people nude all over the place there. They have a nice beach, too."
        "What do you mean?" Kyle asked. Hell, I knew he'd be interested in something like that.
        "Well, nudity is the norm there, or at least it's as accepted as wearing clothes is," Reggie said.
        "For real?" Kyle asked.
        "Yeah. It's a resort, and it's not very big, but they get a lot of visitors in the summer, and, as I said, nudity is accepted everywhere," Reggie said.
        "Even like in church?" Kyle asked.
        "Well, probably not, but I've never been to church there," Reggie said. "There's a high percentage of gays and lesbians there, too, especially among the tourists. Well, I need to get going. Nice chatting with you guys."
        "Wait a minute," Kyle said. "Would you mind writing down the name of that place? I'll never remember it, if you don't."
        "I'll be happy to. In fact, we might even have a brochure or two around here somewhere," Reggie said. "It's on the Riviera, which is a 'must see,' anyway. But the town really has a rich history, and you can actually go to museums and concerts and things like that, too. And not everybody is nude, by any means. But a lot are."
        "Cool," Kyle said. "Thanks for the heads-up, man."
        "Surely you're not planning for us to go there," Tim said.
        "Well, not on this trip, but we might want to check it out on some other trip. If we all want to, that is," Kyle said. "I'll research it on the Internet when we get home."
        I was feeling so much more relaxed because of that gum.
        "Do you want another drink?" I asked Kyle.
        "Are you having one?" he asked.
        "Well, since it looks like I'm not going to go to sleep anytime soon, I reckon I will have one," I said.
        "If you have one, I will, too," Kyle said.
        It was pitch black midnight outside the plane. We had been in the air a long time, but it was just about eight o'clock at night by our time at home. I had tried to sleep when it got dark outside, but sleep just wouldn't come.
        "We're going to have some major jet lag," Kyle said.
        "What does that mean?" I asked.
        "Well, it's going to be tomorrow morning their time when we get there," he said. "It's going to be rough the first day or so, till we get used to it. It'll be the time we usually go to bed by the time we check into our hotel. We'll probably want to get a good nap for a few hours, at least."
        Our first stop was going to be Rome, Italy, and that is a big Catholic town, as I remembered reading about it. I'm a Catholic now, though, and I was ready for that.
        Reggie came back in about two hours or so, followed by another flight attendant who looked just as queer as Reggie did.
        "Guys, this is Brent. Brent this is Justin, and I'm sorry, but I don't remember the rest of your names," Reggie said.
        We told Brent our names, and we all shook hands with him.
        "Justin, designing a panel for the Quilt is a labor of love for me. I've done eighteen of them so far, nineteen, counting yours. Yes, I'm gay, and I've lost several very close friends to AIDS. Look at these two designs to see if you like either one," Brent said.
        He had two designs, and they were both done up in colored pencil. I mean, he hadn't had time to color them in all the way, but he showed the colors he intended. I thought they were both terrific.
        "Whoa!" I said to Brent. "Both of these are great, man. What do y'all think?" I asked my brothers.
        "This one is of Trey's back with the sandals. He's got sand in his shoes, Justin. This is pure Emerald Beach, Jus. I like this one the best," Kyle said.
        "Yeah, but it's his back. Where's he going?" I asked.
        "He's going home to God, dumbass. Don't you see the light in the distance?" Kyle asked. "Ain't that supposed to represent God?"
        "Yes, that is supposed to represent going home to God. I'm sorry, but I couldn't do his face because I don't know what he looked like," Brett said. "Maybe you can scan a photograph onto white cotton cloth and sew it on at the bottom."
        "I like that idea. Do you know how to do that?" I asked Kyle.
        "No, but I bet Jeff does," Kyle said. "He'll figure it out, if he doesn't."
        "Okay, all of this is embroidery, quilted. Do you know how to do this?" Brent asked.
        "Brent, I don't even know how to thread a needle, but I can learn. I'm going to do this thing," I said.
        "We're all going to learn, Brent, but this is the one and only one I hope we ever have to make," Kyle said.
        "God bless you, and I hope you're right," Brent said. Then he turned and walked away.
        "He's not being rude, guys. His partner of six years is dying of AIDS right now," Reggie said. "His partner was infected with HIV when he was fourteen years old. The medicines worked at first, but they haven't been effective since he developed AIDS. Brent was very moved when I asked him to work on these drawings. His boy isn't going to make it, and he knows that."
        "Shit," I said. "Fourteen. Jesus Christ!"
        "Fourteen is not too young to be infected, Justin," Reggie said. "Young boys think they can have unprotected sex because they're young and it won't happen to them. But it can, and it does."
        I looked at Brian, and he gave me a smile and a thumbs up. We will never have unprotected sex. Ever. I don't care how many fucking HIV tests I pass.
        "I reckon I'm going to have to learn some sewing to make this, but I'm going to do it," I said.
        "We'll take turns. We'll all learn how to do it," Kyle said.
        Suddenly, and I mean absolutely suddenly, it was dawn. We had crossed some magic line or something, but, all of a sudden, there was sunlight in the plane. The flight attendants came around, waking people up and serving breakfast. I still had a big drink of Jack Daniels and Sprite in front of me. I had barely touched it. And there was breakfast. Damn.
        "What do I do with this?" I asked Kyle.
        "I'd say drink it up. I got the same amount as you, and I'm drinking mine," he said.
        * * *
        We finally got to the airport in Rome, and it took us a good half hour to get off that plane. We each had a carryon bag, but they were small compared to the ones that some of those people had carried on. The Rome airport wasn't all that impressive, to me. It's called Leonardo Da Vinci Airport, and he's a famous artist who painted a picture of some girl named Lisa. I know that much from the art history class I took in college. Damn, it's still hard for me to imagine I have a college degree. I mean, it's only an AA, and not a BS, but I already have plenty BS. And so does Goodson.
        One of the things that sort of shocked me was there were soldiers in the airport carrying machine guns. I kind of wanted to go talk to one of them to see if he would let me look at it, but Kyle made us haul ass in that place. First stop, customs.
        "Keep your mouth shut in customs. Don't say nothing. They probably are going to want to look in your bags. It ain't personal, so nobody mouth off, okay?" Kyle said.
        "They might also want to do a body cavity search," Tim said.
        He and Kyle had both been to Europe before, so I figured they knew what the hell they were talking about.
        "What you mean, a body cavity?" I asked.
        "Where are your body cavities? Mouth and butt, right?" Kyle said.
        "Let's get back on the plane. I ain't letting no stranger look up my butt," I said. "I like spaghetti fine, but not that much. We can get it at home, too. Let's go."
        Kyle, Tim, and Brian started laughing.
        "Shit, y'all got me last, didn't you?" I said. "I hate you sons of bitches."
        "What's the matter, Bubba? You don't want nobody fooling with this thing?" Kyle asked, touching my butt.
        "Get your fucking hands off me, Kyle. Jesus Christ! I can't believe you," I said. I wasn't really pissed off, but it was a public place, and all.
        "Buddy, calm down. Nobody saw him do that but us, and, from what I've read, they wouldn't have thought anything of it, even if they had seen," Brian said.
        "I'm so damn stressed right now, I can't breathe," I said.
        "Calm down, Bubba. I'm sorry for teasing you and touching you," Kyle said.
        I knew he didn't mean any harm by all of that, but there I was, a dumb hick from Alabama, in Rome, fucking, Italy. I didn't know what to think.
        We got to the customs checkpoint, and that was about a non-event. I flashed my passport, and the guy stamped it and waved me through. They did that to all of us. There were a couple of ladies in those Islam robes, though, and they pulled them, and their families, off to the side.
        "Did you see that? How's that for racial profiling?" Tim asked.
        "I know," Brian said. "I never thought they really did that until I just saw it. That was outrageous."
        "Let's go get our grips and get the hell out of here. This place makes me nervous," Kyle said.
        The luggage came off the plane faster than the people did, and it was already on the thing by the time we got to it.
        "Is it okay to smoke in here?" I asked a guy who looked like a policeman or something.
        "Scusi?" he said.
        "What?" I asked.
        "Scusi?" he said again.
        "He don't speak English, dumbass. What do these signs around here say about smoking?" Kyle asked.
        "They all say no smoking, but all these people in here are smoking. That's why I asked him. And why didn't he understand me?" I said.
        "Young man, you may smoke if you wish," a lady standing next to me said. She was smoking, and she had an accent, too. "We Romans ignore the stupid signs. And educated people do speak English here. I take it you are from the United States? The South? Alabama, perhaps?"
        "Yes, ma'am, that's exactly where I'm from, but I live in Florida, now," I said. "And thank you."
        I stepped away and lit up a smoke. That would probably do me for a day or so, but, oh, that one was good.
        * * *
        I have always heard that Rome wasn't built in a day, and I could see why. There was a lot of very old shit there, and a lot of it was gigantic. We took a van in from the airport, and we had to ride around some in the city, dropping people off at different hotels. Ours was on the Via Veneto, which is the street where the American embassy is. Just down from our hotel, in fact. The embassy is beautiful, but you damn sure can't get close to it. They have a wall around it, and people had painted graffiti all over the wall. Some of it must have been in Italian, but I read some of it in English, too. It wasn't real pro-American, that's for sure.
        We decided not to take a nap right away. Instead we walked around some, just rubbernecking at the sights. It seemed like there was a church on every corner. We went into the Capuchin church that's on the Via Veneto, and I expected we'd get some cappuccino. But no. That was the creepiest thing I had ever seen in my life. The Capuchins are some kind of monks or something, and the whole basement of the church is decorated with the bones of dead monks. At first you couldn't tell what some of it was because the bones were arranged in fancy patterns on the walls and ceilings of the various rooms. When you got up close, though, there was no mistaking it.
        "This is the most bizarre thing I've ever seen," Kyle said. "Why you reckon they did this?"
        A man standing in the room with us heard him, and he said, "It was done as a way of reminding the friars of death. The Marquis de Sade visited here in the nineteenth century, and he loved it."
        That guy sort of chuckled, like that was supposed to mean something. We all sort of laughed a little bit to be polite because he must have thought he was being cute. I didn't have a clue as to what he was talking about, though.
        Our trip was going to be seventeen days altogether, which meant five days in Rome, five in Paris, and five in London. Plus, a day over and a day back. Some people like to go to as many countries as they can on a trip like that, but all the grown-ups we talked to who knew something about Europe said we'd be better off staying put in those three cities.
        Well, there was plenty to do in Rome, that's for sure. We did the bus tour thing, and that took us to all the ancient parts, like from the time of the Roman emperors. The Coliseum, the Forum, some temples, the Circus Maximus, and other things I don't really remember. We each had a guide book that gave us pictures of what it all looked like when it was still in good shape, but all in the world it looked like to me was a pile of rocks, especially the Forum. I didn't think it was all that great.
        "Somebody's got a damn good imagination, I think," Kyle said.
        "What you mean?" I asked.
        "Well, look at this picture. You see anything down there that looks like that? I don't," he said.
        "No. I was thinking the same thing," I said.
        "That's what archeologists do," Brian said. "They know how to figure out how stuff probably looked, emphasis on the probably."
        "Well, I guess," I said.
        They took us all over the place, and a bunch of times we had to get out of the bus and walk to where we were going because the streets are too narrow for the buses to go down. One of those was this gigantic fountain that was the biggest thing like that I had ever seen. They said it was the custom to throw money into it and make a wish. That was just a scam, though, and every time the policeman who was on duty there turned his head, some kid was in the water going after the money. I figured, 'What the hell,' though, and I threw a coin in. It didn't look like real money, anyway.
        "Did you make a wish?" Kyle asked me.
        "Yeah, I made a wish. Ain't that what you're supposed to do?" I said.
        "Yeah. What'd you wish for?" he asked me. I knew he was going to ask me that.
        "None of your business," I said.
        "Asshole," he said, and we laughed.
        "It won't come true, if he tells it," Tim said.
        "What I wished for was finding someplace to take a leak," Kyle said.
        One of the men in our tour group heard him, and he laughed his ass off.
        "Me, too, buddy," the guy said.
        The next place we went was like an outdoor restaurant for a snack, and Kyle and that man got their wishes.
        
(Brian's Perspective)
        I was so excited about being in Rome that I could barely keep still. Unlike Justin and Kyle, who considered what we were doing a vacation, I think Tim and I looked upon it as "travel," meaning an educational opportunity. I had done a lot of reading about the places we would be going, and I was prepared to get the most out of the experience. Tim had read a lot, too, so, between the two of us, we were able to tell Justin and Kyle what we were seeing and its historical significance.
        One place I had read about was the Spanish Steps. They were huge, really going up quite a high hill, and the Steps were close enough to our hotel that we could easily walk there. We went there at night to mingle with the hundreds of others, mostly young people like us, get something to eat, have a drink in one of the bars, and just feel "international." It was great! We went there two nights, and I think it must have sparked the romantic imaginations of all of us because both couples made love when we got back to the hotel. For Justin and me, it was some of the best, too.
        We went to a few museums. One was about the Etruscans, the people who were there before Rome became an organized empire. It was interesting, but all of the signs were only in Italian. I knew enough Spanish to make out some of it, though. A lot of the "museums" are really churches, and there are some enormous ones. I knew they weren't cathedrals, although that's what Kyle and Justin referred to them as every time. Several of them were basilicas, though, which just means it's an important church, not the church of the bishop, which the cathedral is.
        "It's nice and cool in here, ain't it?" Jus said when we went into the first one. "Where are the stained glass windows? It wouldn't be so damn dark if they had some of those."
        "Buddy, I think you find those in Gothic churches. None of these in Rome are Gothic. They're Romanesque, but it is dark, isn't it?" I said.
        Besides the main part of the church, there were chapels all around that were bigger than any church I had been in except St. Patrick's in New York. A lot of the important art was in those chapels, and they had light machines, for lack of a better term. You had to put coins in the machine, and bright lights would come on so you could see what was there.
        "This fellow Bernini was a busy boy, wasn't he?" Kyle said. "This is the fifth or sixth place we've been in that has had stuff by him."
        "Yeah. He was everything, too. A painter, a sculptor, an architect," Tim said. "See that one right there? That's St. Teresa in Ecstasy, and it says in the book that some people believe the face is modeled on the way his mistress looked when she had an orgasm. That's pretty cool, don't you think?"
        "I'm surprised they let that in a church," Kyle said. "What about his boyfriend? Is he in here somewhere? That's more what I can relate to."
        The thing about those churches is, they didn't have pews. They were just open. Some of them had folding chairs set up for Mass or whatnot, but they were clearly temporary.
        We had the number of Kevin's Uncle Ray, who is a Jesuit priest and a professor at a university in Rome. We had met him at Grandma and Grandpa's house at Christmas a couple of times, and he knows we're couples. He's gay, too, but, like Jerry and Vince, he keeps his vows.
        He spent the whole day with us one day, taking us all over the place. He made us call him Uncle Ray, and he was hilarious. He might be keeping his vows, but he wasn't above noticing and pointing out cute boys to us. We had a lot of fun with him.
        "Have you been to the Vatican yet?" he asked.
        "No, sir, we're going there day after tomorrow," Kyle said.
        "Well, you'll want to start with the Vatican Museum, and my advice is to get there well before it opens at eight o'clock. In fact, I'd get there at seven. The line will be very long, and it'll be hot standing in line at this time of year. There are bakeries and shops across the street from the entrance so you can get breakfast right there," he said.
        "Thanks for the heads-up, Padre," Kyle said.
        I could tell he really, really liked us, and he got tickled whenever one of us showed that kind of affection for him. He was absolutely delightful, and he speaks Italian like a native. That really helped, especially in the shops he took us to.
        "What's on the schedule for tomorrow?" he asked.
        "We're going to Florence," Kyle said. "Come and go with us."
        I could tell he was mulling that idea over.
        "Let me make a call," he said.
        He pulled out his cell phone and made his call. It seemed like half the people on the streets of Rome at any given moment were on the telephone, and their cell phone industry must be enormous.
        "Okay. It's all clear, and, if you'll have me, I can go with you to the Vatican the next day, too," he said. "When are you leaving for your next destination?"
        "We catch a fast train to Paris the night of the Vatican visit," I said. "It's the Eurostar."
        "Excellent choice, boys. It's about a fifteen-hour trip, but they often make better time than that. Did you book berths?" he asked.
        "Yes, sir," Kyle said. "It leaves at six o'clock, and we should be able to sleep most of the way there. That's what it says, anyway."
        "Oh, yeah. They're very comfortable. And it won't really get dark until around nine o'clock, so you'll be able to see some of the countryside through Tuscany and all," he said. "I don't know whose idea that was, but it's a excellent one."
        * * *
        The trip to Florence was pretty cool. It took a couple of hours on a tour bus, and Uncle Ray kept us entertained with stories of his travels. Evidently, he's some kind of international expert on the Bible, and he has attended conferences and seminars all over the place. He actually did Biblical archeology work in Israel for a couple of years, and he can read the scriptures in the original languages.
        "How many languages do you know?" Justin asked him.
        "Well, let's count them up. English, of course, Italian, Spanish, French, German, Hebrew, but ancient Hebrew. I can hold my own in modern Hebrew, too. Biblical Greek. A little bit of Aramaic, too. I guess that's about all. Oh, and Latin, of course."
        "Oh, of course," Tim said, and Uncle Ray laughed. He was so cute.
        "You said you can hold your own in modern Hebrew. You can't hold it in the other languages?" Justin asked in that deadpan way of his.
        Uncle Ray got it immediately, and he burst out laughing.
        "You're a cutie," he said, and Justin beamed.
        Michelangelo was the big art star in Florence, just as Bernini was in Rome. We went to the Michelangelo museum as the first stop on the bus tour, and we saw his work. The most impressive thing, of course, was the David.
        "Look at the hands on that sucker. They're huge, but the dick ain't that big, is it?" Justin said.
        It was an English-speaking tour, so I had to shush him a little. Uncle Ray was so enchanted with Justin and Kyle that he laughed at everything either of them said, and he did nothing to discourage them. I could tell he liked Tim and me, too, but those two are so funny and so -- I don't know, macho, I guess, without being obnoxious -- that people can't help liking them.
        "This sculpture was intended to be outdoors, and people would be able to look at it from windows in buildings above it, but from the back. That's why the hands are so big. They were designed to look like they were in proportion with the rest of the piece from up above," Uncle Ray said. "People would see the penis from the front and from the ground. It would have looked fine from that perspective. By the way, let's find out when and where the bus is going to leave tonight. We can go off on our own, and I can really show you the city. They'll spend a couple of hours or more in gift shops and a leather factory that gives the tour company a percentage of everything they sell to the tourists. You're not interested in that, are you?"
        "Hell, no," Kyle said.
        "I didn't think so. I'm not, either," Uncle Ray said.
        So that's what we did. We saw Florence under the supervision and interpretation of Uncle Ray. He took us to all sorts of out-of-the-way places, and he explained the history of all of it, too. He told us all about the Renaissance, the Medici's, Savonarola and his reign of terror, Leonardo da Vinci, and a whole lot more. Tim and I were soaking it in, and Justin and Kyle were caught in the spell of Uncle Ray, who is obviously a master teacher.
        "Uncle Ray, yesterday and today have been un-fu. . . unbelievable," Kyle said.
        "You were going to say un-fucking-believable, weren't you?" Ray said.
        "Yes, sir," Kyle said, slightly embarrassed.
        "Son, I'm a university professor. Who goes to universities? Young people. I hear that several times a day, every day," he said. "In several languages, in fact."
        "I know, but you're a priest," Kyle said.
        "That don't hold you back around Jerry and Vince," Justin said.
        "Are Jerry and Vince priests?" Ray asked.
        "Yes, sir. They're friends of ours," Kyle said.
        "Kyle, you won't offend me. I appreciate the respect you showed me just now, but if something slips out, don't be embarrassed. I wouldn't scream that out in St. Peter's tomorrow, say, but please don't be embarrassed," Ray said.
        "Okay. The man on the plane gave us about a hundred little bottles of Jack Daniel's. Why don't you come up and have a drink with us?" Kyle said. "You will take a drink, won't you?"
        He checked his watch.
        "Yeah. It's not too late," he said. It was about 8:30.
        "We'll get some room service, too," Kyle said. "Come on. Let's go."
        
(Tim's Perspective)
        Going to Rome with the love of my life and my two brothers was a dream come true for me. And then having Uncle Ray as a personal tour guide just made it that much better. I had been to Ireland and England once before on a trip with my dad, and to Germany, Switzerland, and Austria on another trip with my scout troop when I lived in California, but I had never been to Italy before. I had had a fantastic time on both those other trips, but I had been younger. From what I remember, though, those places are nothing like Rome.
        We spent our last day in Rome in the Vatican, and it was, to quote my boyfriend, un-fucking-believable. My God! The size of it!
        Ray met us at the Vatican Museum entrance the next morning, and he was right. There was already a substantial crowd when we got there at seven.
        "We were going to walk here," Kyle said. "I'm glad we didn't, though. The concierge at the hotel told us we needed a cab, and he was right."
        "Oh, absolutely," Uncle Ray said. "It's way too far from the Via Veneto. I mean, I walk that far often, but it would have taken you two hours. Are you boys hungry? We can leave a couple in line and the others can go across the street over there and get breakfast. I'm famished."
        "Do we eat over there?" Kyle asked.
        "No. We'll bring it back over here and eat in line," Ray said. And that's what we did.
        The thing that impressed me immediately once we were in the museum was the stairs. There were two gigantic spiral staircases, one up and one down. Each step was about ten feet across, and they were made out of marble. I had never seen anything like that before. The museum itself is enormous, but almost everything in it has a religious theme. One of the nice things, though, was that all the signs were in several languages, including English. We didn't know what a lot of the religious objects were, but Uncle Ray explained them.
        "Uncle Ray's incredible, ain't he?" Kyle said. "He's given me a new motto."
        I laughed.
        "Justin, we've got a new motto coming up," I said.
        "Let me hear it," Jus said. All five of us gathered up to hear the new motto.
        "Here's the motto: If you're a group of gay boys visiting Rome, find you a gay Jesuit priest, who has lived there for years and who is your grandpa's best friend, to be your tour guide."
        "Yeah," Justin said, with a thoughtful look on his face. "That one works, Kyle. That's going to be my motto for the rest of my life." Then, after a pause, "You dumb fuck."
        A lot of what Justin says isn't all that funny, if you were to see it written down, but the way he says it is so hilarious. We all laughed hard, including Kyle and Uncle Ray.
        The museum tour included the Sistine Chapel, and, I have to say, I was pretty under whelmed. It's just a big, bare room with plain wooden benches around the walls. I know that's where the pope is elected, so it's important for that reason, but the big draw, supposedly, is the frescos on the walls and ceiling that Michelangelo created. The thing you usually see in books -- God creating Adam by touching his finger -- is really quite small, and you have to look at a lot of stuff to even find it. I thought it would be on the back wall behind this tiny little altar they have in there. It isn't. It's in the center of the ceiling, and it's not all that big, at all.
        "We studied this place in art history," Jus said. "Frankly, I think it's a little bit gay."
        Uncle Ray howled with laughter, right there in the church. Of course, it was anything but quiet, with the number of people who were in there.
        When we finished in there, we went out into some kind of garden or quadrangle or something. Justin smoked a cigarette, and then we went into a gift shop that was run by nuns. I bought a few things in there and paid the young nun who waited on me. She didn't give me a receipt, but I didn't think anything of it. As I was leaving the shop, a big, older nun jumped me and accused me of stealing the stuff.
        At first she spoke to me in Italian. Then in what I think was German. Then in English.
        "Where is the receipt?" she demanded.
        Shit, the stuff was in a bag from the store. I didn't have a receipt.
        Then the young one, who had sold me the stuff, came up with a receipt in her hand. She spoke to the older one in German, and then the older one smiled at me.
        "Sorry," she said.
        "I thought she was fixing to eat you up, Bubba," Justin said.
        "I know. I did, too. I thought she was going to have me arrested for shoplifting," I said.
        * * *
        "Boys, we're going to do something that very few people know about," Uncle Ray said. "We're going to approach St. Peter's Square the way Bernini intended people to approach it. Follow me."
        He led us through some back streets that are off the Vatican property and into Rome proper. Then he marched us up a street that has the Tiber River on one side. That river is little more than what we would consider a drainage ditch. At the end of the street, all of a sudden, we saw the square and St. Peter's Basilica in all their glory.
        "Bernini wanted the pilgrims who came to Rome to walk down that street and to be startled at the magnificence of what they suddenly beheld," Ray said. "It's pretty effective, isn't it? Most visitors come into the square from the museum exit on the side over there, so they miss out on the experience."
        "I got to tell you, this is un -- you-know-what -- believable," Justin said, again in deadpan. Again, he delighted Uncle Ray.
        The church itself was like nothing I could have even imagined. I had seen video of it on TV and all, but that didn't begin to capture the size or majesty of that place. Whether you're a Catholic or an atheist, a Muslim or a Hindu, seeing that place is going to take your breath away. After we walked around for a long time, we went down to the crypt, where St. Peter's tomb is and where a whole bunch of the other popes are buried. We stopped at the tomb of Pope John XXIII, and Ray explained to us who he was. He's the reason, Ray said, that we now have Mass in English, instead of in Latin, and why a million other things changed in the Church.
        "Boys, the reason Pope John was able to cause all those changes is he called into session the Second Vatican Council. It was in the early Sixties, and Ed Foley and I were in high school. Our religion teachers weren't very astute theologically, except for the one we had our senior year. He made us read about the Council, and we discussed the implications of the Church in the Modern World, changes in the Mass, and a great many other things. It's because of what he taught us that I wanted to become a religious and a priest. Today, this man buried here is a beatified saint, and my high school religion teacher, Brother Antoine, is probably all but forgotten."
        Tears were rolling down his face, but I could tell they were happy tears, not sad ones.
        
Chapter 02
        
(Kyle's Perspective)
        All that stuff in Rome was pretty impressive, but I got bored with it after a while. I mean, how many churches can you go into and not have them all look the same? I knew Tim and Brian were getting hard-ons every time we saw a Raphael or a Michelangelo or a Leonardo or a Bernini, but that shit got old to me.
        Uncle Ray was fabulous. He knew everything, and he told us stuff about the secret lives of the popes I never knew. Hell, I didn't even know the name of the pope. That's how educated I was about that stuff. Now I know it's Pope John Paul II, but I didn't know that before. They say the name of the "Holy Father" at Mass, but I didn't realize the Holy Father is the same one as the pope.
        The train ride from Rome to Paris was okay. Good, even. That was the first train I had ever been on except those train-like things in airports, and that was a very good experience.
        Paris is a beautiful city, and we had a good time there. Tim and Brian wanted to go to the Louvre Museum, so we did.
        "What is this bullshit?" Justin asked me in private.
        "Bullshit? It's a museum. One of the most famous ones in the world. What's wrong with you?" I asked.
        "You think this is fun?" he asked.
        "No, of course not," I said. "But I think our boys think it's fun. So you just need to shut the fuck up about it, okay?"
        "Okay," he said, and he did.
        Paris was fabulous, wonderful, unbelievable, etc. But then we went to London. Guess what? Every damn one of them speaks English. Every damn sign is in English. Everything is in the fucking English language. Everything. Every street sign. Every menu. Every graffiti on the stall in the men's room. We could understand every damn bit of it, and that was like coming home.
        We did a lot of the tourist shit in London. I mean, we went to the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace (yawn), Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park (yawn), and Piccadilly Circus (yawn). "Circus" means "circle," and all it is, is a traffic circle. It's a big one, and there's a huge monument to Lord Shaftsbury in the middle of it. The statue is of Eros, though, the Roman god of sex and love, which I think is totally right-on for Shaftsbury. Bury that shaft, Baby. Oh! Yeah! hehe.
        It's a pretty international place because it's pretty much all tourists. Not many locals, if any. But that's one of the places you have to go. We went to Westminster Abbey (another big church), St. Paul's Cathedral (another big church), the Tower of London (a big castle), Windsor Castle (another big castle and big church), and a bunch of other stuff.
        "Of the four big cities we've been to in Europe, this is the one for me," Justin said.
        "Oh, yeah? Why's that?" I asked.
        "It's so cool," he said.
        "Is it 'cause you speak the language?" I asked. I was hung up on that fact.
        "I know they're supposed to be talking English, Kyle, but I can only understand about half of it. I can understand everything in written, but I can't understand everything they say in spoken. I think I could learn this language faster than Italian or French, though," he said.
        "Justin, this is England. Eng-land. Eng-lish. There's a relationship. Get it?" I said.
        "Don't make fun of me, Kyle, 'cause I'll kick your fucking teeth out," he said. "I know it's fucking English, you asshole. But do you understand everything they say?"
        "I didn't understand everything you said when you first came home with us," Kyle said. "And you were just one state apart."
        "Okay, I guess. But I really like this place. More than I did Rome or Florence or Paris. And I really do think you might be right about the language," Justin said.
        I felt at home in London, and it didn't seem all that foreign to me. We went to a couple of plays, and we couldn't have done that in Paris. We didn't even look into it, in fact. But there were a million plays in London, and the tickets didn't cost as much as they do at home.
        We did a lot of stuff in London, but we also took day trips. One day we went to Warwick Castle and Stratford-Upon-Avon, Shakespeare's birthplace. Another day we went to Canterbury and Dover. Seeing the castle in Dover was awesome. Warwick Castle has been modernized, and people lived in it until 1978, or something like that, but the one in Dover is pure medieval. One of the coolest things was all the swords on the walls and ceilings that are arranged in patterns to look like art work. It reminded me of that bone church in Rome.
        * * *
        "So, what did you like the best of everything we did and every place we went?" Tim asked on the plane on the way home.
        "I dunno," I said. "Maybe Warwick Castle. Dover Castle. One of them, anyway. That was pretty damn cool, I thought. They could have left out the wax figures at Warwick, though, and just let you see the place. I was trying to imagine what it must have been like in those places during a siege. I should have lived back in those days."
        "Yeah, but you probably wouldn't have been in no castle," Justin said. "That was just for the dukes and the earls and the princes and such."
        "What makes you think I wouldn't have been a duke or an earl or a prince?" I said.
        "Yeah, with your luck, you probably would have been. I'd have been one of the servants or peasants or something. I can just see you as Lord Kyle. 'Get that big strapping one up here. I want to fuck his ass.' So up I'd go. Would you have fucked me, Kyle?" Justin asked.
        "I don't want to talk about that. That's stupid. What was your favorite thing?" I asked, changing the subject.
        "I don't know. It was all good," Justin said. "Maybe the plays. I don't know. You changed the subject, didn't you? You didn't want to say whether you'd have fucked me or not."
        "Justin, I'm not going to answer that. This whole conversation makes no sense, and you know it," I said.
        He laughed that "got you last" kind of laugh.
        "Shit, you prick. Okay, you got me last. So what?" I said.
        "So nothing," he said. "What was your favorite, Little Buddy?"
        "My favorite thing was St. Peter's in Rome," Brian said. "I would love to be there when the Pope says Mass."
        "It would probably be long as hell," Justin said, "but I guess it would be cool. One of the things I really liked in Rome was those soldiers we saw."
        "The ones in the airport?" Brian asked.
        "Yeah, they were cool with their Uzi's, but I meant the ones in the Vatican. The Swift Guards. I was in the men's room when one of them came in to take a leak. He and I had a smoke together, and he was just as nice as he could be. He spoke pretty good English, too," Justin said.
        "Swiss Guards, not the Swift Guards, dumbass," I said.
        "Swiss? That doesn't make sense," Justin said.
        "They're from Switzerland. They're all Swiss," Brian said.
        "For real? Swiss or Swift, that boy was mighty cute. And like I said, he was totally nice. He said he's been to America. Florida, even, to Disney World. He's married and has a little boy. He said he didn't have his wallet on him, so he couldn't show me a picture of him, but I could tell he was a proud papa," Justin said.
        "Those are the kinds of things I like best about traveling," Kyle said. "Meeting random people like that. You'll never see that guy again in your life, probably, but you'll always remember talking to him."
        "His brother's one, too, and his brother's gay," Jus said.
        "How long did you talk to this guy?" Brian asked.
        "Long enough for him to smoke two of my cigarettes. That's how long. He can't carry 'em in his outfit, so he said he has to bum 'em off tourists. That's how the whole thing got started. He asked me if I was married, and I said, 'No, but I got a life partner.' 'Is she here?' he asked me. 'It's a he, not a she,' I said. That's when he told me about his li'l brother," Jus said. "It was the most natural conversation in the world."
        "I think Americans are more hung up about homosexuality than Europeans are," Tim said. "I saw young gay couples holding hands everywhere we went. Of course, it might just be because we were in big cities."
        "What was your favorite, Babe?" I asked Tim.
        "I guess the Louvre. I had read a lot about it. But you know what? I also read that twenty-five percent of the most famous works of art in Europe are in Rome. That's incredible, don't you think?" Tim said.
        "Yeah, but there's a lot of money there," I said.
        We had already been in the air four hours, but we had a good four more to go to get to Atlanta. We made it a lot faster going than coming because of the tailwind on the way over. They came around offering drinks before dinner, and me and Justin got us one. After we ate, I went to sleep. I asked for two dinners, and they made me pay for the second one. That was all right, though. My little belly was full, I had a stiff drink under my belt, and I was off to la-la land for the rest of the trip to Atlanta.
        "Wake up," Justin was saying, almost shouting, and nudging me in the calf with his foot. "We're in Atlanta."
        "What?" I said.
        "Goddamn it, Kyle. We can't take you anywhere. Look at this thing," Jus said, slapping at my erection.
        "Cut it out. That hurts. I gotta pee," I said.
        "Well, wait till it goes down, for God's sake. It's going to be a while, anyway, before we can get out of here. Aren't you ashamed of yourself?" he asked.
        "No, I'm not ashamed of myself. Don't you get hard when you sleep?" I asked.
        "I know. I'm just teasing you, Bubba, but don't think it went unnoticed. A couple of those male flight attendants were up and down this aisle constantly, looking at you," he said.
        "Well, I can't help that. Did you sleep?" I asked.
        "About an hour," he said. "Brian and Tim went sound asleep, too. Just like you."
        "That's why they serve turkey on these flights. Turkey makes you sleep," Brian said. "That's a fact. I'm not making that up."
        "It's also cheap," I said.
        The flight home to Emerald Beach from Atlanta took an hour, as it always does. We got home mid-morning, and they were all at the house when we got there. They seemed really glad to see us, and I was happy to be home. No matter how good a trip is, and that had been a good one for sure, it's good to get home.
        * * *
        We got home on a Thursday, and we pretty much lolled around that whole weekend. People don't realize that a trip like that one takes a lot out of you, never mind the jet lag. We're active boys at home, but we had pretty much been on the go non-stop for seventeen days, and we needed to rest up. And we needed to rest because on Monday every one of us had to report to Goodson Enterprises for our summer jobs.
        
(Todd's Perspective)
        Going home to Houston was culture shock for me. I mean, it was to the same house, and all, but the atmosphere was so much different than I remembered. My dad wasn't there, so it was peaceful for a change. I didn't care if I ever saw him again, and that made me feel guilty as hell. You're supposed to love your father, and I didn't. I didn't hate him, exactly, like I wanted to do something bad to him. I just didn't want him in my life.
        "You miss Emerald Beach, don't you, Son?" my mom asked a couple of days after I was back in Houston.
        "Yes, ma'am, I do. I miss the place. I miss Kevin and Rick. I miss my brothers," I said, and I burst into tears.
        "It was a good experience, wasn't it?" she asked.
        "Mom, it was the best. I'm a different person than I was when I went there. Letting me go there was the best thing you could have ever done for me," I said. "I now know what it can be like to be a gay boy. And a gay man. I'm always going to be gay, Mom. You know that, don't you?" I said.
        "Yes, Todd. I know that, and I accept that. I hope and pray you're being safe," she said.
        "You mean safe sex?" I asked.
        "Yes. That's exactly what I mean," she said.
        "Mom, I will be when the time comes, but I haven't had sex. I've never even kissed a boy. Or a girl, either, for that matter," I said.
        "I naturally assumed that in that environment . . . "
        "But, see, it isn't like that there, Mom. There were eight boys in the house, and three of us were virgins. There was no pressure on me to have sex. The older guys -- Kevin and Rick, Kyle and Tim, and Justin and Brian -- are all couples who are deeply in love. Denny has a boyfriend, and I think he has sex with him, but Murray, Pete, and I weren't having sex at all," I said. "Murray started dating this really, really nice guy about a month ago, so they'll probably get into sex soon, but I know he hasn't yet," I said.
        She kissed me on the forehead.
        "I'm proud of you, Son," she said.
        "For not having sex?" I asked.
        "No. For being honest with me," she said.
        "I do want to be honest with you, Mom. And here's something else I want to be honest about. I don't want to go back to Spencer Academy. I want to go to public school," I said.
        "Why? We can afford Spencer, and it's much smaller, and probably much better, than the local public high school," she said.
        "Mom, I don't have any friends at Spencer, and you and I both know why. I really don't want to go there," I said. "I want to go to a co-ed school."
        "Your father is going to have to agree, you know?" she said.
        No, I didn't know that. I thought she had custody of us.
        "Why?" I asked.
        "We have joint custody of you and your sisters. This is an important decision, and he has to be involved," she said.
        "Shit, Mom. I can't believe that," I said.
        All of a sudden I realized what I had said, and she hadn't flinched. That's a habit I picked up in the all-boy environment of Emerald Beach, and it's definitely a habit I need to break.
        "Well, believe it. It's true," she said.
        "How can he have the right to run my life, Mom? He hates me and I hate . . . "
        "Don't say that, Todd. Don't tell me you hate your father," she said.
        "Well, I do. He won't accept the fact that I'm gay, and he gave me nothing but grief about that for the last six months I lived here with him. Before that, he never took an interest in me, never talked to me except to get on to me for not being the best. I was an Eagle Scout at fourteen, Mom. Do you know how rare that is? And I had just turned fourteen. I was a star baseball player for Beachside High School in Emerald Beach. I've gotten all A's so far in high school. I don't know what else I can do to please him," I said.
        I dissolved into tears. She put her arm around me, and she wept as well.
        "He wants you to spend this weekend with him," she said.
        "No! Mom, I can't do that. I won't," I said.
        "But he's your father," she said.
        "I know he is, but he's not my dad. There's a difference, don't you think?" I asked.
        She took a heavy sigh.
        "Yes. There is a difference. And I know that. Those men in Emerald Beach are your dads, aren't they?" she asked.
        "Yes, ma'am. I love them. I honestly do," I said.
        "Todd, your father has absolutely no interest in your sisters. He never has, but he is interested in you. Please spend the weekend with him. For me. It'll make things so much easier," she said.
        "I'll do it for you, but not for him," I said.
        "Thank you. You're my man now, Todd. And you just proved that to me," she said.
        * * *
        He picked me up on Friday afternoon. I was definitely not looking forward to that weekend, but I knew I had it to do.
        He came into the house, kissed my mom on the cheek, and my two little sisters, too. He shook hands with me, and then he hugged me. So far, so good, but also so out of character.
        "Have you had dinner yet?" he asked, when I got into the car.
        "No, sir," I said.
        "How about pizza? I could use some pizza," he said.
        "Yeah, that's good," I said.
        We went to the pizza place, and we ordered a large with extra meat. We got salads from the salad bar while we waited, and we both started eating when we sat down.
        "So. Tell me about Florida. Did you see your grandmother at all?" he asked.
        "Yes, sir. I saw her several times, and she's doing well. I don't really think she likes the nursing home, but that's the best place for her," I said. "Her roommate is a really nice lady."
        "I know she is. We've met her," he said. "Her grandson was with you in Emerald Beach, wasn't he?" he said.
        It surprised the hell out of me that he knew that.
        When we got to his place, he showed me around the apartment. It was sort of nice, with three bedrooms and three bathrooms. The furniture was either brand new or stuff we used to have in our house before we got new furniture.
        Once we were in the living room, I picked up the remote for the TV to turn it on.
        "Todd, before you watch TV, there's something I want to talk to you about. And I want to get it over with right away," he said. "I've done a lot of thinking over the last five or six months, Son, and I want to apologize for the way I behaved toward you. You have every right to be angry with me, but I hope you'll put that behind you so we can be friends."
        "Dad, I . . . " but that was as far as I could go.
        "Todd, I never really doubted that you're gay. Fourteen-year-old boys don't say that about themselves unless it's true, and I know that. I desperately wanted it to be a phase because I desperately wanted what I experienced at that age to be a phase in my life. I now know it wasn't, Son," he said.
        I was stunned. I heard what he said, but I wasn't sure what it meant.
        "Uh, Dad? Did you just come out to me?" I asked.
        "Yes, Todd. I did," he said.
        "Does Mom know?" I asked. I was suddenly very nervous, and I felt protective of her.
        "Not officially, but I'm sure she's suspected it for years," he said. "I wanted you to be the first in the family to know officially, but she and I are going out to dinner Sunday night. I'll tell her then. This is an enormous relief to me, Son. An enormous relief."
        "Are you . . . " I said.
        "Am I dating someone? Yes, and if you feel up to it, I'd like you to meet him this weekend," he said. "He's a dermatologist. As I'm sure you know, a lot of my referrals come from dermatologists, especially in cases of skin cancer. I've known him for a few years professionally, and I've known he's gay. He lost his partner in an automobile accident about eight months ago. He was devastated by the loss, and, somehow, we gravitated toward each other. He's about two years younger than I am, and we've been seeing each other since I left home. I never cheated on your mother. I promise you that. Of course I wanted to several times, but I didn't."
        "So, you didn't leave Mom for him? Is that what you're saying?" I asked.
        "That's right. I left your mother because our relationship was totally empty, totally a facade," he said. "I care about your mother a great deal, and she and I will always be close friends, but there's no physical attraction to her for me."
        "Wow!" I said.
        "Are you shocked?" he asked.
        I thought before I answered him.
        "Surprised, I guess. Not that you're gay, or bi, or whatever, but that you wanted to talk to me about it," I said.
        "Don't you think it would have been hypocritical of me not to?" he asked.
        "I guess. I don't know, Dad," I said. "Are you happy?"
        "Very happy, Son. Except for the time right after you were born, I've never been happier," he said.
        "Me, but not the girls?" I asked.
        "I love your sisters, and I'll always take care of them, but they were both accidents. Your mother and I made love so rarely that we were out of practice using contraception. You don't want the details, Son," he said.
        I smiled for the first time since he picked me up.
        "You're right," I said, and he laughed.
        * * *
        The weekend I had dreaded turned out to be amazing. We talked and talked and talked, and it was like two artichokes peeling back the protective outer leaves to expose their hearts. I feel as though I got to know my dad that weekend, and it turned out he's a hell of a good guy. He's extremely proud of my achievements, in scouts, in school, and on the diamond. Several times it crossed my mind to ask him why he hadn't said those things to me before, but I figured he had had his reasons at the time.
        His boyfriend, David, is great, too, and I saw the same warm vibes of love between them that I've seen between Kevin and Rick. I know what two men in love look like, and they definitely are. David took us out to eat Saturday night at the country club he belongs to, and he spent the night at the apartment in my dad's room with him.
        We skipped church Sunday morning, and I thought about all those Sunday mornings in the den in Emerald Beach. I went out into the living room in just my briefs, as I'm used to doing, and, to my surprise, Dad and David came out the same way. Both of them are good-looking guys, and Dad is in much better shape than I remembered. Not that I had ever seen him in just his underwear, of course, but I had seen him in a bathing suit a bunch of times. It was a very relaxed and casual morning.
        At some point in our talking, I brought up the business about going to public school. I laid out my reasons, and, much to my surprise, Dad said he wouldn't oppose it if my mother didn't object. Whoa! That was a relief.
        We went out to eat lunch, and then we walked around a mall for a few hours Sunday afternoon. We went back to the apartment long enough for me to get my clothes, and then Dad took me home. David either stayed at the apartment or went to his own house, I don't know which. I knew Mom was supposed to go out to dinner with Dad, and it was late enough for that.
        "David's a great guy, Dad. You're in love with him, aren't you?" I said, while he was driving me home.
        He smiled shyly.
        "It's a little early for that kind of talk, I think," he said.
        "Dad, I know what love between two guys looks like. I've lived in the middle of it for the last five months," I said.
        "Are we that obvious?" he asked.
        "Not out in public, but at home you are," I said.
        "I guess a gay man can tell when two other gay men are a couple," he said.
        I chuckled.
        "What about yourself? Did you meet anyone in Florida?"
        "No, sir. I met a lot of gay guys, that's for sure, but I didn't have a boyfriend or anything. I'm still a virgin, and I've never even kissed anyone," I said.
        "You have time, Son. Maybe you'll meet a friend, now that you're back," he said.
        "I'm not really in a rush, but I know it will happen, eventually," I said.
        "Todd, I know I told you how proud I am of you, but it's way beyond pride. I'm in awe. You're a real man, aren't you?" he said.
        "Well, probably not," I said. "I probably still have some growing up to do."
        "Don't we all?" he said.
        
(Pete's Perspective)
        School is out, and that's fine with me. Those boys take that school stuff seriously. I was kind of like a fish out of water, so to speak, because I had been out of school for so long. It wasn't that bad, but I felt a little self-conscious being two years older, or more, than everybody in my classes. I mean, I have to shave every day, and a few of the boys in my swimming class don't even have pubic hair yet. I talked about fitting in with my counselor before the school year was over. Her name is Mrs. Ayers.
        "How's it going, Pete?" she asked me one day. I had an appointment to look at my schedule for next year.
        "I don't know. At home it's going great for the first time in my life, but school isn't really my thing, you know?" I said.
        She studied a folder full of stuff she had in front of her. I figured it was about me.
        "Hmmm," she said. "Were you out of school for a couple of years?"
        "Yes, ma'am. Two and a half years, really. These last few weeks are the first time I've been to high school. I feel really dumb being here, you know?" I said.
        "Well, you mustn't," she said. "We'll help you get through."
        "Yes, ma'am," I said. I figured that was my fate. I couldn't do anything about it.
        Kevin and Rick put me to work as soon as school was over, and I'm glad of that. They give me money every month, but I want to save up to buy a car. I mean, Denny, Murray, and I have a really nice car to use, but it doesn't belong to me. I want my own car.
        I'm a pool boy. What is that? It's kind of a waiter/salesman/maintenance man sort of thing. The pay is $10 an hour, and I didn't know if that's good, bad, or indifferent. I figure Rick and Kevin make a lot more than that, but I really don't know.
        "How you liking being a pool boy?" Kyle asked me one day, just after they got back from Europe.
        "It's okay," I said.
        "You scoping out the boys?" he asked.
        "Yeah, pretty much," I said. "Am I making a good wage, Kyle?"
        "How much are you making? Ten?" he asked.
        "Yeah. Is that good, or can I do better somewhere else?" I asked.
        "I make $4.75 an hour as a bellhop. But, of course, I also get tips. You probably get some tips, too, don't you?" he asked.
        "A few. You only make $4.75? I hope your tips are better than mine," I said.
        "They are," he said. "You know how this thing works, don't you?"
        "Not really," I said.
        "Well, they start you at some low-level job, like pool boy or beach boy. You do that for a summer or two, and then maybe you become a bellhop. Then you work up to desk clerk. Then, when you graduate from college, you move into sales. Those are salary jobs, which means you don't get paid by the hour. Then, if you're good at that, they move you up. You know this is a family thing, right? That you can have a job with this company your whole life, if you want one? And if you don't screw up too bad?" he asked.
        "I figured there was some kind of family connection through Kevin and Rick, but I don't know what it is," I said.
        "Just trust me, Bubba. This company takes care of family, that's for sure," he said.
        "Are you family?" I asked.
        "Yeah, and so are you," he said.
        "What if I never go to college?" I asked.
        "Pete, you can, man. If Justin can do it, anybody can," Kyle said.
        "I don't know, Kyle," I said.
        "Justin, tell this boy he can go to college, please," Kyle said.
        "Yeah. You can go. It's all right with me," Justin said. He hadn't really been listening to what Kyle and I had been talking about.
        "Justin, encourage the man, okay? Don't be a dumb fuck on me now," Kyle said.
        "Encourage him to do what?" Justin asked.
        "Davis, step over here," Kyle said.
        "No. I ain't stepping over nowhere with you. I don't want you touching me, Kyle," Justin said.
        "Bubba, I'm being serious now, okay? Please," Kyle said. Kyle used a very different tone of voice than he usually uses with Justin, and Justin knew he wasn't teasing.
        "Okay," Justin said.
        They stepped over to where I couldn't hear what they were saying, but I knew it was about me.
        They came back.
        "Pete, Kyle and I tease each other a lot, as you know. But what he's telling you is the truth, man. You need to hang in there, get a college degree. I'm doing it, and I'm the last one on God's green earth who should be able to," Justin said.
        "But I never went to high school before," I said.
        "Shit, I never went the first day," Justin said. "I went to adult school and passed my GED test. I just graduated from Emerald Coast. You were there. You saw it. Pretty soon I'm going to be going to the University of New Orleans. Let me tell you something. Your brothers in this house will help you, man. They got me through, and they'll get you through, too."
        * * *
        As nice as they all are to me, I still feel like the odd man out. The older guys are all partnered up, Denny has a real cute little boyfriend, and even Murray is dating. Murray's guy is just pure sweetness, and I envy them all. They never talk about having sex with their boyfriends, but I feel pretty sure they are.
        I know they make out because I've seen them. The car for the three younger guys is the Celica, and, as fine as that car is, it really only seats four people. Denny and Murray are best friends, and they and their boyfriends often go out on double dates. Brian has a nice Mazda that seats five, and a lot of times they borrow Brian's car so I can go with them. Usually what we do is go to a movie or skating or go-carts or Goofy Golf or something like that. We get something to eat at Burger King or Subway or someplace, and then we go down to the beach. Sometimes all five of us stay together to walk around and talk. Other times the two couples go off in different directions to be alone. I figure that's when they make out or have sex or do whatever they do. I'm by myself, and almost every time I jerk off right there on the open beach.
        I want a boyfriend. More than I want a boyfriend, though, I want sex. Isn't that what every sixteen-year-old boy wants? I mean, that's all I think about. I don't consider myself a bad person for wanting it, either. They tell these stories about this guy named Sean, who was gone before I got here. Evidently, he had sex five or six times a day, with a different guy every time. I never hear Kevin or Rick badmouth Sean for doing that, but the boys damn sure do. I sure don't want that kind of reputation, but I want sex. I want to see what it's like. I want to kiss a boy and hold him in my arms. I know what they say about horny teenagers, but I am one.
        I endured it until after the big guys came home from Europe, but then I had to talk to somebody. I chose Kyle and Justin. Tim and Brian are wonderful guys, and I really like them, but I don't think they have nearly the street smarts that Kyle and Justin have. I know I could have talked to Kevin and Rick about it, too, but they're grown-ups. They're my parents. I waited until Kyle and Justin were in the clubhouse by themselves, and then I approached them.
        "Hey, Pete. You want to play?" Kyle asked. They were shooting pool.
        "Naw, but can we talk?" I asked.
        They looked at each other with serious expressions on their faces. They knew I wanted to talk serious.
        "Sure, Bubba," Justin said. "Let's sit down. Kyle, you know what I want more than anything in the world right now?"
        Kyle got kind of an exasperated look on his face.
        "No," he said.
        "A coke float. I been thinking about one of those all day. Is there any ice cream out here?" Justin asked.
        "Oh, that would absolutely hit the spot, Bubba. You want one, Pete?" Kyle asked.
        "Yeah, but I really do need to talk to you all," I said.
        "We know, and we want to talk to you, too. But we'll talk a lot better on a contented stomach. Y'all come make 'em," Kyle said.
        We made coke floats in the kitchen in plastic glasses that could have passed for small barrels, and we settled down in the clubhouse.
        "What's on your mind, Bubba?" Kyle asked.
        "Don't make fun of me, okay?" I said.
        "No way," Justin said.
        I wasn't sure if he meant, No way would they make fun of me, or, No way would they NOT make fun of me. I decided to go ahead anyway.
        "What's on my mind is sex," I said.
        I expected a wisecrack or a tease, but they didn't say anything.
        "Go on," Justin said.
        I explained to them about wanting a boyfriend and about wanting to experience what it's like to have sex, and all the rest of the stuff I had been thinking about, especially about Sean.
        "You ain't no Sean, Pete," Justin said. "That boy was disturbed, and you don't seem to be. What you're telling us is, you got the natural urge to have sex. That's all. If you didn't have that urge, we'd be worried to death about you. No shame in that, Bubba."
        That already made me feel better.
        "How do I make it happen?" I asked.
        "Hmmm. It's not really that complicated," Justin said. "If it was school time, I'd say look for a boy at school. But it's not. Who's your partner? Your work partner?"
        "Blake Crawford from next door," I said.
        "Aw, forget about him. He's straight, and, if he ain't, he and Riley are boyfriends," Justin said. "But I really think he's straight."
        "What I would do is find a tourist," Kyle said. "Somebody who's staying at the hotel. He needs to be around your age, maybe a little younger or just a little bit older, but stay away from the old guys. Check 'em out. Find one you like and flirt with him. Talk to him. The thing to watch for is guys who are checking you out. If you see one, go talk to him. Ask him where he's from, where he goes to school, what grade he's in. That kind of stuff. Ask him out. You like to skate, don't you?"
        "Yeah," I said.
        "Ask him to go skating. He'll probably say he has to go out to eat with his family. Tell him y'all can go out after that. If y'all are skating, you can touch him. I don't mean in a sexual way. Just your hands on his shoulders from behind, on his hips, bumping him on the shoulder with your shoulder. That kind of shit," Kyle said. "If he don't object or say anything, take it to the next level. Not there in the skating rink, of course, but later on. Go for a walk on the beach. Sit him down. If it seems like he might want to, kiss him. Gentle and soft a couple of times. If he doesn't punch your lights out, you're probably home free."
        Justin laughed.
        "Pete, by that point, you'll know," Justin said. "If you get that far, that boy's not going to punch your lights out. Do you know about kissing with tongue?"
        "Yeah, sort of. I've never done it, though," I said.
        "I think it must be a natural instinct or something," Justin said. "That's where you want to get to. It might be the third date, instead of the first. More than likely, he's going to be here for a week. That seems to be what most of them do. Take it slow."
        "Yeah. Take it slow. Don't scare the boy off," Kyle said. "Course, you might get one that's done it all before, and he might take over before you even have a chance to. With one like that, y'all might both come on that first date. But here's the thing you got to remember above all else. Be safe. If you just jerk each other off, that's safe. But if anybody sticks a dick into anybody else, mouth or butt, it's got to be covered with a condom. No exception to that rule. You're going to be having random sex, if you're lucky, and that's got to be protected."
        "Or, you might spend a week making out with a guy and neither one of you comes," Justin said. "You'll know, though. Probably."
        "How do I make that happen?" I asked.
        "Well, when y'all are kissing, y'all are both going to get hard. Reach down and start rubbing his dick through his shorts," Justin said. "If he don't want that, he'll tell you. But he'll want it. Guide his hand to your dick, if you have to. Unzip him and take it out. Y'all, talking about this has made me hard as a fucking rock."
        We all laughed.
        "Deal with it, Davis. It ain't the first time. Our li'l brother needs advice, and we're giving it to him. This is our job," Kyle said.
        "I wasn't complaining. I was just stating a fact," Justin said.
        "Pete, have you got some idea of what to do now? How to approach the situation?" Kyle asked.
        "Yeah. A lot better than I did," I said. "What if he wants to do more than that?"
        "You only ever do what you feel totally comfortable doing, okay? Promise us that," Kyle said. "And promise us you'll always use protection."
        "I promise," I said.
        "That's why I said find one your age or around your age. No older guys, okay? No babies, either, but you know that," Kyle said. "At least a little pubic hair is a must."
        "Good luck," Justin said. "I want another float. That one was damn good."
        "Me, too. Let's go make 'em," Kyle said. "You want another one?"
        "No, thanks," I said. I was so full from that one that I was about to bust. "Thanks for talking to me, guys. I really appreciate it."
        "No problem, Bubba. Let us know how you do," Kyle said, and they went off to make more coke floats.
        * * *
        That conversation took place in the afternoon of the Saturday after they came back from Europe, and Monday morning I started implementing their ideas. By that afternoon I had a date with a fifteen-year-old boy from just outside Atlanta. Just as they had said, he had to have dinner with his family that night, but I picked him up about ten minutes after he called me on my cell to say they were back at the hotel.
        We went skating and had a great time. We got something to eat, and then we went out onto the beach proper. Within ten minutes I had my tongue in his mouth, and he had his in mine. That boy had done that before. In twenty minutes, he was on top of me, rubbing his naked dick against my naked dick, naked chest to naked chest. We both shot big loads pretty quick, but, in a little while, we did it all again.
        Kyle and Justin button-holed me Tuesday morning.
        "How was the date?" Justin asked.
        "It went good. And we came good," I said, grinning.
        "For real?" Kyle asked.
        "Yeah. You were right, Kyle. Last night wasn't the first time for him," I said.
        "All right, Bubba. I reckon there are no more virgins in this house," Kyle said.
        I didn't "get lucky" like that every night, but it happened five or six more times during the first part of the summer. Sometimes Kyle lent us his big-ass Land Cruiser, and Denny, Murray, and I triple dated. Before long, I had even given and received oral sex a few times, and I no longer had to wonder what it was like. I knew. And I was faithful to my promise about using protection.
        Dating different guys every night was fun, but I made up my mind that what I really want is a boyfriend. I want somebody who's my friend, first of all, but who wants to have sex, too. I didn't know if I'd find somebody like that, though.
        Then I met Mario. He's nineteen, and he works as a bellhop at the same hotel I work at. Mario takes a smoke break in the morning and in the afternoon, and he usually walks out to the pool to smoke. His break only lasts about fifteen minutes, but that was long enough for us to strike up conversations.
        Mario's from Mexico, and his skin is a rich, golden brown. He isn't as dark as dark-skinned African Americans are, and he really doesn't have African-American facial features, either. He told me he's a Latino. Even though I'm growing, I'm still pretty short, around five feet, six inches, and Mario is the same size as me. I noticed that Mario liked to look around as we were talking.
        "What are you looking at?" I asked him one day.
        We had been talking twice a day for a couple of weeks by then, so I felt like I knew him well enough to ask a question like that.
        "Just checking out the scenery," he said.
        He really doesn't have a strong Spanish accent, but you can tell he isn't a native, just by the way he talks.
        "I think you're looking at the guys," I said.
        I was all set to make a joke out of that, if he seemed offended. He didn't, though.
        "Well, you know, it takes all kinds," he said. "What about yourself? Do you check out the boys?"
        I shrugged. "Like you said, it takes all kinds," I said.
        "I guess so. Are you dating anybody?" he asked.
        "I've been dating some this summer," I said. "Nobody in particular, though. Tourists, mostly. I meet them out here."
        "Would you ever like to get together for a movie or something?" he asked.
        "Sure," I said. "That would be fun."
        We did get together for movies several times. After a movie, we'd get something to eat and just talk.
        "Pete, we haven't yet said the G word," he said one night.
        "What G word?" I asked. I was getting a little nervous.
        "'Gay.' Pete, I'm gay, and I think you are, too," he said. "And I would like to kiss you and hold you. I want us to be boyfriends."
        I'm sure my smile must have almost blinded him. We were in Wendy's sitting in a booth across from each other. I got bold and took his hands into mine.
        "I'm ready," I said, and he smiled in return.
        
Chapter 03
        
(Kevin's Perspective)
        The last few weeks of the second semester were unbelievably hectic on North Lagoon Drive. I mean, we had four guys graduating, two from Emerald Coast Community College and two from Beachside High School; a prom that the four older boys were involved with; two valedictions to compose and rehearse; graduation parties that Kyle and Tim attended; a couple of parties that Justin and Brian went to, as well; and the year-end bar-b-que and keg party for Kyle's fraternity.
        We had a big party for Kyle and Justin when they graduated, and another big party for Tim and Brian. My relatives came from New Orleans for both graduations, and, while we put them up at Kyle's condo, they added to the commotion -- and the merriment.
        As usual, little Rob was the center of attention, and he gets cuter and cuter every time we see him. He's pulling up and taking a few steps before he falls on his ass, and that is so cute. Trixie and Krewe are crazy about that baby. When he falls down trying to walk, they try to nudge him up with their noses. Kyle must have taken five hundred pictures of the baby and the dogs, and it wouldn't surprise me one bit if he gets another book out of the three of them together. And Rob seems to know that those are his dogs, too. The pictures are really going to be unbelievably cute.
        When the boys went to Dune Island for the last camping trip when all of them would be together, the house seemed like a tomb. Ordinarily, my relatives would have stayed for the weekend, but they had commitments at home they had to get back for on the Friday the guys went camping.
        "My God. This is creepy," Rick said when everyone had cleared out.
        "I know. Has it ever been like this?" I asked. "This quiet, I mean?"
        "I'm sure it has been, but I can't remember when," he said. "We ought to go on a trip ourselves."
        "Do you really want to?" I asked.
        I would have gone anywhere he wanted to go, but, frankly, I was looking forward to just being at home with him and enjoying some peace and quiet.
        "Hell, no, I don't want to go anywhere," he said. "The only place I want to go is into that bedroom with you."
        "I was just thinking. We can cuddle nude on the sofa in the den all we want to," I said.
        "Great idea," he said. "Come here."
        He took me into his arms and kissed me passionately. That was another thing we hadn't been able to do out in the open for a long time. He started undressing me, and I started working on his clothes, too. We were in the den, and it was ten o'clock in the morning.
        Our lovemaking was spontaneous and uninhibited. Rick topped me on the floor in front of the fireplace, and twenty minutes later I topped him on the sofa. Feeling him inside me gave me a sense of security and completeness that's difficult to describe, and being in him made me know that he surrendered his whole being to me, to us. Later, that evening, we would luxuriate in each other's flesh, but that morning we communicated passion and depth and commitment in ways that were beyond spoken language.
        We drifted off to sleep in each other's arms, neither of us with a care in the world but each other. We slept for about an hour, and we woke up around noon. The first sound I heard was a deep rumble coming from my lover's stomach.
        "I think I'm hungry," he said.
        I giggled, and he did, too.
        "Do you want to go get some lunch?" I asked.
        "Yeah. And let's go to Gulf World and Zoo World this afternoon. You want to?" he asked.
        "That's a great idea. We've never done that, have we?" I said. "Craig went that time with Kyle and Philip and Ryan, and he loved it. Gulf World, anyway. Let's do that, Babe. Do you want to call somebody to see if they want to go?"
        "Nope. I want you all to myself today," he said.
        We were pretty cummy after our tryst, so we each took a shower and put on fresh shorts and tee shirts. We ate at one of the touristy restaurants that we never go to otherwise, and we lingered over lunch for more than an hour. We both had lobster salad, made with those shovel-nosed lobsters like Kyle and Philip catch.
        Then we went to Gulf World. It's really quite impressive, and Rick and I laughed like little kids at the antics of the trained dolphins in their show. The place is beautifully landscaped, and we strolled around taking in the sights. We saw a young male couple holding hands, so I took Rick's hand in mine. We got a few stares, and I'm sure more than one set of parents took the opportunity to explain to their children that we're going to hell and why we're going there. We didn't keep that up for very long, though, because we both found walking around holding hands to be physically awkward, but we made our statement. Our wrists just don't bend and twist the way they need to for that to be comfortable.
        It took longer to see Gulf World than we had thought it would, so we decided to postpone Zoo World until later in the weekend. As we were leaving, two men in their mid-fifties came up to us.
        "We saw you guys holding hands," one of them said.
        "Yeah? So?" Rick said.
        I could tell he was prepared to be defensive, but it was pretty clear to me those two guys are on our team.
        "So, thank you," the second one said. "Thank you for your courage. You did us proud."
        "Oh. I'm sorry I bowed up just now," Rick said. "I didn't know what was coming."
        "That's perfectly understandable. Where are you all from?" the first one said.
        "Here. We live here," Rick said.
        "Really?"
        "Yeah. We've just been through a hellacious month of graduations and such, and all of our kids are on a camping trip. We just decided to do some tourist things today," Rick said.
        "Kids? How many? What ages?" the first guy asked.
        "Eight kids. Foster kids, not our biological kids," Rick said. "How old are they, Kevin?"
        "Two nineteen, one eighteen, one seventeen, three sixteen, and one fourteen," I said. "All boys, and all gay."
        "Oh, my God! That's incredible. If you don't have plans, why don't you let us buy you dinner? We'd love to hear about your family," the second guy said. "I'm Ryan, by the way, and this is Ricky. What do you say?"
        They seemed so nice and so eager to get to know us.
        "What do you think, Babe?" I asked Rick.
        "I think we're about to make some new friends," Rick said.
        * * *
        We had dinner with Ryan and Ricky. They wanted to go to The Captain's Table, which really is one of the fifty best restaurants in North America, and the wait in line proves that. We had been there a few times with Kyle and the other boys, but Kyle knows a secret password that's reserved for Beach Rats so we had gotten a table in less than ten minutes with him along. We don't know it, though.
        We waited about an hour for a table, but it was far from unpleasant. They have a beautiful patio that overlooks Grand Lagoon, and we watched the fishing boats come in and unload while we had drinks.
        It turned out that Ryan and Ricky -- whose real given name is Ricky, and not Richard -- live in the Durham-Chapel Hill area of North Carolina. Ryan is a professor of sociology at Duke University, and Ricky is a professor of social work at UNC in Chapel Hill. They are both fifty-six years old, and they have been together thirty years. They had each been married in their early twenties. Ryan has a gay son who had problems with drugs and alcohol as a younger man but who is now in a stable relationship of eight years' duration, clean and sober. Ricky has two grown daughters and four grandchildren. He was estranged from the girls for a number of years, but, since the death of his ex-wife, they've been a family.
        "Tell us about your boys," Ryan said.
        That question was all it took for us to launch into the story of the Foley-Mashburn clan. We got about halfway through that when our table was ready, so we continued it in the dining room.
        "Gentlemen, what I've just heard may be unique," Ryan said.
        "You want us to do a study, don't you?" Ricky said.
        "Let's explore this," Ryan said.
        He put it all in the context of the recent Lawrence v. Texas Supreme Court case that struck down sodomy laws. He pointed out that the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals is, even now, considering a lawsuit to strike down the Florida law that forbids adoption by gay people. He said it's the harshest law of its kind in the country, and legal people are cautiously optimistic that the Florida law will be stricken, in light of the Lawrence decision.
        "The body of evidence strongly supports the fitness of gay couples to raise children, and you boys are proving it over and over every day. The American Pediatric Society, the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, and every social-work organization that I know of have all come out in favor of gay adoption. I realize you haven't adopted these boys . . . "
        "Yet," Rick said.
        "Yet, but I think there is extremely fertile ground for scientific study here, guys. As far as I know, there has been no study specifically of a gay couple who have served as foster parents to gay adolescent boys," Ryan said. "Adolescent boys are probably the most neglected segment of the foster-care population in scientific research, and gay adolescent boys are, without question, THE most neglected. Most of them never even make it into foster homes. They end up on the street or in jail or dead."
        "What all would be involved?" I asked.
        "Well, interviews, of course. Case histories. Behavioral indices. Psychological profiles. Academic histories. Maybe even some medical history. A lot," Ryan said. "I can see a number of individual studies coming out of this, plus a book summarizing all of it."
        "Iono," Rick said. He and I looked at each other and grinned.
        "What?" Ryan asked.
        "That's the way some of the boys talk, Ryan. We call it the Emerald Beach Grumble, and, for not being a native, Rick does it extremely well," I said. "I'm sorry. It's kind of an inside joke. I assume that in a study like this, confidentiality is preserved and protected."
        "Oh, absolutely. How many boys and young men have lived in your home?" Ryan asked.
        "Gosh. I don't think we've ever counted them up. Probably fifteen. Maybe more," I said.
        "Oh, my God, Kevin," Ryan said. "That's perfect. Two or three, and it wouldn't have much impact. But fifteen! My God! That's a gold mine."
        "It might be more than that. Let's figure it out, Babe. The eight we have now. Seth, Paddy, Alex, Jeff, Chuck. Who else? Ken Balch, although he was an adult. Chris Uhle, although he isn't gay. David Uhle, for a short time. Ron Grisham. Andy Callaway and Trey Hudson. Trey came to our house to die of AIDS, so you can't really include him. And there are a lot of boys who have spent a lot of time in our house without actually living there. Babe, I'm thinking of Philip and Ryan. They came to us the night Philip's dad caught them together, remember?" I said
        "I counted twenty names just now," Ryan said.
        "Of course, there was Sean. He's dead now, too. But he was with us for a good five months or more, and, ironically, he's probably had the biggest impact on us of any of them. Negative impact," I said. "He was beaten to death in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in a gay-related killing."
        "Guys, we have a treasure trove of data here. Let's swap cards right now. I want you all to think about this, and I want you to talk to the boys about it, too. This is a chance to make a real, lasting contribution to social science, and I'd hate for you to pass it up," Ryan said. "And I can get a grant like that [he snapped his fingers] to support it. This is incredibly powerful stuff, Kevin and Rick. Incredibly powerful. And to think it all came about because you guys held hands in front of a stingray pool. God! I'm giddy over this."
        * * *
        That was a nice evening, and it gave me food for thought for several days. Cherie had hinted months -- maybe even a couple of years -- before that our family is unique and probably needs to be studied scientifically, but I hadn't thought of it even once in the time since she had said that. Now, all of a sudden, because Rick and I held hands at Gulf World, two social scientists, from very major universities, are interested in conducting a study of us and the boys. The next morning I got Cherie on the phone.
        "Hey, Bubba. What's up? You can't get enough of me, can you?" she said.
        "No, I can't, but this is a business call," I said.
        "Is somebody in trouble?" she asked, all concerned.
        "No. It's nothing like that," I said.
        "Kevin, I've never told you this before, but when the doctor inserted into me that syringe containing your semen, all I could think of was your penis entering me. Taking me," she said.
        "Have I called at a bad time? Are you on an acid trip or something?" I asked.
        She laughed so loud, I thought she was going to burst my eardrum.
        "You just will not let me get you last, will you?" she said, once she had stopped laughing.
        "Not today, Sis," I said.
        "I'm sorry, Bubba. What's going on?" she asked.
        I told her about meeting Ryan and Ricky the night before and what they proposed.
        "Kevin, here's the thing. You and Rick and your boys are in a unique position to contribute to the scientific knowledge regarding gay parenting. Some people would disagree with me because of the privacy issues and the time that will be involved for you guys, but my position is this. You can help them discover knowledge that nobody else can, and I think you have the moral obligation to make that knowledge known," she said.
        "Whoa! Moral obligation?" I said.
        "Yes, Bubba. Moral obligation. You don't really have a choice, Kevin. I know you guys have just been trying to live out your lives as ordinary people out of the limelight. But see, that's the beauty of it. You're just regular, ordinary people. You're not an experiment. You and Rick have built your family one kid at a time, and it's been unbelievably successful. You've taken them as they've come. It's time to share what you guys have learned, and what the boys have learned, so that, maybe, the world can be a better place for other gay boys like yours. And maybe for other foster families, too, gay and straight," she said.
        "If Rick and I decide to do this, will you come here and stand by us?" I asked.
        "You don't need a lawyer for that, Kevin," she said. "When is it going to happen?"
        "I don't know 'when.' I don't even know 'if,' yet. The kids are all on Dune Island. Even the dogs. We have to talk to them about it to see if they're willing," I said.
        "Kevin, they'll be willing, and you know it. I'll come as your sister-in-law, if you want me to, but you don't need a lawyer for scientific research," she said.
        "Okay," I said, "but Rob has to come with you on every trip."
        "He will. He definitely will," she said. "That's what this is all about, isn't it? Getting Rob there?"
        I just laughed.
        * * *
        The boys came home late Sunday afternoon, too late, in fact, for us to go to Mass that weekend. They all had pretty good tans before they went to the island, but their tans were much darker and deeper when they returned.
        Sunday night was bittersweet, at best. Todd was leaving the next day to go home to Houston, and nobody was in a good mood about that.
        "Perk up, Kyle," Justin said.
        We were in the den, supposedly watching TV, but nobody was saying much of anything, or paying much attention to the TV.
        "Leave me the fuck alone, Justin," Kyle said, somewhat annoyed.
        "Here comes the little man, Kyle," Justin said, "walking" the first two fingers of his right hand down his leg and getting ready to cross over to Kyle's. Justin was getting ready to tickle him.
        "If you touch me, Davis, I'm going to break those fingers. Just know that," Kyle said.
        Justin pulled back his hand.
        "Kyle, he ain't dying. We're going to see him again," Justin said. "I know you love Todd. We all do. But he's going to a good place, man. Don't be so down."
        "I'm going to be as down as I want to be, Justin. You don't know him the way I do," Kyle said.
        "Maybe not, Kyle, but I know he's a good boy. And I know he's an asset to this family," Justin said.
        "Don't fight about me, guys," Todd said.
        "We're not fighting about you. But, Todd, a boy I love very much is leaving here tomorrow, and he might not ever come back. I'm sorry, but I can't be happy about that," Kyle said.
        It was dead quiet in the room, except for the TV. Kyle hit the power button on the TV remote. And then he started to sing in that pure, clear voice of his.

                “Blame it all on my roots
                I showed up in boots
                And ruined your black tie affair
                The last one to know
                The last one to show
                I was the last one
                You thought you'd see there
                And I saw the surprise
                And the fear in his eyes
                When I took his glass of champagne
                And I toasted you
                Said, honey, we may be through
                But you'll never hear me complain”
        
        That's when most of us joined in.

        
                “Cause I've got friends in low places
                Where the whiskey drowns
                And the beer chases my blues away
                And I'll be okay
                I'm not big on social graces
                Think I'll slip on down to the oasis
                Oh, I've got friends in low places “

        By the time Kyle got through the first verse and we got through the chorus, Brian had the CD on the player on repeat, and everybody was singing. If our family has an anthem, it is surely that song. And it always makes us smile and perk up. That song is so popular that everybody knows the words, even though it's quite old, and that line, "and I'll be okay," means so much to us.
        We played it several times, and, of course, we were all up dancing. While it was true we were losing our brother, Todd, the next morning, we would always have Todd in our hearts. Compared to Justin and Kyle, he is a young kid, but he's their brother. I know they will never forget him.
        We played lots more Garth Brooks that night, and other bands, too, and we danced and we danced and we danced. We celebrated Todd within our family, without a fancy party or an elaborate meal. We celebrated a boy that we all love and that we will all miss, but we knew things were going to be good for him. And, if they aren't, he can always come back. In a sense, Todd is really what foster care is all about. He needed care for a short time, and he is returning to his family as a whole person, better off for the experience.
        It's impossible for me not to contrast Todd with Sean. I mean, they came from similar, if not identical, backgrounds. They both came from affluence, as I did, and they both had parents who are very career focused, as I have. The difference between them is character, I suppose. Maybe Todd has it but Sean didn't. Maybe Sean had character, too, but his other problems interfered with it. I don't know.
        At any rate, Todd is a great kid, and we were losing him.
        We ate ice cream that night, and Todd got a banana sticking up between the two globes of ice cream covered in coconut. His bowl was rimmed in red Maraschino cherries, too, and he loved it. That was a very emotional moment for all of us.
        Monday morning at the airport was terrible. Thank God his plane was on time. It was bad enough having breakfast with him for the last time in that tiny restaurant in the airport. We pulled tables together, much to the annoyance of other patrons, but I didn't give a shit. None of us did.