“I can not understand my own behavior. I fail to carry out
the things I want to do, and I find myself doing the very
things I hate. Instead of doing the good things I want
to do, I carry out the sinful things I do not want to do.”
- The Letter of Paul to the Romans, Chapter 7, Verses 15-20

What the hell did I do last night? I won’t be able to function today. How in the world did I get home? So many questions. What time is it?

My head aches as I try to lift it off the pillow. It’s better to just leave it be. I stare at the pile of clothes in the center of my room. I don’t even want to touch them. They’re disgusting. I’m disgusting. Where is my watch?

There’s a knock on my door. I bolt up, panicked. Since there are no locks on our doors, I’m afraid whoever is knocking might just open up. The sight of me lying naked on my comforter—I obviously didn’t have the strength to get under the covers—and of the smell of cigarette smoke emanating from the pile of clothes, would not bode well for me.

As I run nakedly towards the door, I notice that I’m wearing a cock ring. It’s one of those metal ones, not the leather kind with the snaps. I vaguely remember trying to get it off when I undressed last night, but it was too difficult in the state I was in.

“Yeah?” I grunt.

“Are you coming with us to Mass?” asks the voice on the other side of the closed door.

It’s Bryan, one of the other young Brothers in temporary vows.

“What time is it, Bryan?”

“10:30. If you’re coming, you better hurry up.”

“I’ll be right down.”

There’s no time to shower. I splash my face with water (we all have sinks in our small rooms, but have to share a common bathroom down the hall) and douse myself in Obsession. Mike, the director of our community, reprimanded me once when he saw the bottle of cologne in my room. Not only was it in violation of my vow of poverty, he said, but it also showed support for Calvin Klein and his overtly sexual advertising. I told him it was a gift from one of my religion students. Mike had been my religion teacher when I was a student in high school, and he was one of the main reasons I decided to join the order in the first place.

I now stink of smoke and Obsession. I quickly run some Tenax through my hair. I cannot find any clean underwear, so I jump into a pair of black 501’s and shift my package to the right, cock ring and all. I then pull a white tank top over my head and grab my cassock on the way out the door. I’ll put my Roman collar, cross and cords on in the car.

Mike is already in the car with the motor running, along with Steve and Bryan, the other young Brothers in temporary vows along with me. It’s obvious to everyone that I’m hung-over. Everyone seems embarrassed by this, but we’ll still be on time for Mass, so I don’t think it’s such a big deal.

No one speaks in the car on the way to church. Is it because of my hung-over appearance, or because we all have little to say to each other? Four people thrown into a house together don’t necessarily create a healthy living environment. Forget the premise of that new MTV reality show. If they want to see real dysfunction, they should set up cameras in a religious community. I suppose, in many ways, we’re a lot like most families. A glance at the car next to us on the Van Wyck Expressway - with dad driving silently and teenage son in the passenger seat wearing headphones - confirms this supposition for me.

At the beginning of the church service, we pray, “I confess to Almighty God, and to you my brothers and sisters, that I have sinned through my own faults. In my thoughts, and in my words. In what I have done, and what I have failed to do.”

As I pray these words, I revisit the images of last night in my head. As I drift away from the confines of the church, my mind goes to a place where no one speaks. A look conveys all that needs to be said.

I threw-up in front of the Christopher Street video store once after one night of heavy drinking at Uncle Charlie’s with my best friend Tim, but I had never been inside it. Although they did sell videos, the store was mostly known for its video booths in the basement.

Even though I could no longer count the men I had been with on ten fingers (once my gauge for promiscuity), I still considered places like the video store to be the ultimate in sleaze and perversion.

“Wanna go in?” Tim asked one night as we walked to the car after four rounds of beers at the Monster.

“I don’t really need to see a bunch of old trolls playing with themselves?” I replied through my nice beer buzz.

“It’s not like that. I’ve been in there. Three times, in fact.”

As Tim recounted to me what went on in there, I was horrified that my best friend had been in such a place once, let alone three times.

Tim and I met when we were both freshmen at Mount Saint Vincent’s. All my friends from elementary school had decided to attend either public school or St. Joseph’s Prep, because it was co-ed. “Only, faggots go to the Mount,” an eighth-grade classmate told me when I announced where I was going to high school. “Don’t drop the soap in the shower after P.E. That’s why the school is called the Mount,” he added.

Tim’s tall lanky build, pale white skin, burst of red hair, and flashy sense of style drew my attention since the first day of high school, as our entire freshmen class sat in the bleachers of the gym for orientation. Sure, Tim followed the school’s dress code, but he made it his own. All of us were required to wear a jacket, collared dress shirt, tie, dress slacks and shoes, but Tim’s attire looked more Chess King than Brooks Brothers. While most of us wore khaki pants, Tim wore shiny Z. Cavaricci slacks. He wore the collar of his blazer up and scrunched the jacket’s sleeves up to his elbows. Even his choice of footwear stood out: amidst a sea of penny loafers perched atop the bleacher seats that day were Tim’s pair of Crayons—light canvas shoes with clear plastic heals. What impressed me most was the confidence Tim exuded that day—strutting around seemingly oblivious to the stares he was getting from students and faculty alike. Only later would I learn that Tim was far from oblivious. He, in fact, went out of his way to be different. To a meek conformist like me who desperately wanted to fit in, I was in awe of this cool disco version of Richie Cunningham.

Tim and I were both students in Mr. Pike’s freshman history class, but months went by before we acknowledged one another. I was too shy, and Tim seemed too aloof. Tim didn’t speak to me until the week Donna Summer appeared on the cover of Newsweek. Our history class received the magazine every Tuesday as a way to cover current events. That week, though, Mr. Pike had other plans. Pike was one of the young, cool teachers, who wore corduroys and Frye boots. He had a Bruce Springsteen poster on the wall behind his desk

“Gentlemen,” Mr. Pike said, “today I will not be distributing Newsweek. As you can see”—he held up the cover—“the editors have made a rare err in judgment. You guys don’t mind if I drop these in the circular file, do you?” He processed to drop all twenty-five issues in the wastepaper basket near his desk. The students—caught up in the whole ‘Disco Sucks’ craze—burst into applause, but Tim stood up silently and walked up to Mr. Pike’s desk.

“I would like a copy, Mr. Pike,” Tim said, as he reached into the wastebasket. “I think it’s quite an accomplishment, considering disco is so new and all. Besides, when was the last time an African American woman was on the cover?”

“Take as many as you want, Leary,” Pike said, and then he added condescendingly, “Does anybody else want a copy?”

Only one hand was raised. Surprisingly, it was mine. Tim and I have been best friends ever since.

“Come on, let’s go in,” Tim implored outside the Christopher Street video store. “It’ll be a riot. I know you’re a Brother, but you don’t have to do anything, just watch. But, whatever you do, don’t make me laugh. They’re hardcore in there.”

Tim has always been able to persuade me to take risks. He took me into my first gay bar, Uncle Charlie’s in the Village, when I was seventeen years old (the legal drinking age in New York was eighteen at the time, so we didn’t look out of place). Two years later, we snorted coke off of his Barney’s credit card in the bathroom of the Roxy. He later was a part of my first threesome experience with some guy we met at the Spike. There was one risk, however, that Tim was unsuccessful in persuading me to take, and that was leaving religious life. Taking me into the video store that night required little effort on his part.

Tim guided me towards the back of the store to a stairwell that led down to the basement. I was practically stepping on heels of his Doc Martens. Downstairs, it was pitch dark. I held onto the belt loops on the back of Tim’s Guess jeans. In many ways, I felt like I was entering the haunted house at an amusement park. There was an equal degree of fear and excitement.

Finally, in the distance, I could see a TV screen shining in the darkness. As we got closer to it, I began to hear the moans of groans of some old porno movie from the early seventies.

When my eyes began to adjust, I saw that the basement contained twenty booths, much like bathroom stalls, ten on each side of the room. A Middle-Eastern looking guy stood behind a counter underneath the TV screen. Tim gave him twenty dollars, and he handed us two rolls of quarters. No words were spoken. Tim gave me my roll, and off he went with his to one of the unoccupied stalls.

I nervously entered another booth on the other side of the room. Once inside, I saw that the two side-panels on each side of the stall contained slots for coins. By placing a quarter into the slot, the panel would retract, revealing a Plexiglas window into the adjacent booth. I slid my first quarter into the slot on the left-hand side of the booth, and watched the panel disappear.

On the other side of the glass was a guy about my age, looking like a typical Chelsea clone: long sideburns, tribal tattoo around his bicep, cut-off jean shorts, combat boots. His shorts were around his ankles, and he was playing with himself. He motioned for me to do the same. We both stood on either sides of the window watching each other, but rarely making eye contact. As soon as he began to pull his t-shirt over his head, the wall began to retract. The window would only remain in view for one minute per quarter. I reached for my next quarter, but decided this time to sample the goods on the other side of the booth.

As the other wall went up, a muscular guy in his thirties with a shiny bald head and black goatee appeared. He was completely naked, his clothing shucked to the other side of his booth. He dropped to his knees, and motioned me to press my body against the window. He brought his face up against the glass and simulated licking my body. As he was doing this, the wall on the other side of the booth retracted again, and my tattooed buddy reappeared. I now had two admirers vying for my attention.

All three of us frantically began pumping as we waited for our quarters to run out. I closed my eyes and a third window appeared to open in my mind. Behind the glass stood Fidel. He motioned for me to step closer to the glass. As I approached, he began mouthing in slow motion the words, “Whatever you do, have fun,” and I wondered if I’m allowed. I then remembered that I still had homework to do.

At the moment, I shot my load…and the walls fell down.

 

© 2007 Salvatore Sapienza - Contributor's Bio

Read an Interview with Salvatore Sapienza by Sean Meriwether