Confirmation

         In the black and white photo, stamped Jan 4 1951, my father is 13, dressed in an all-white suit, with white shoes; he obediently faces the adult behind the camera; in his right hand, he holds a thin book, which presumably explains his now expanded responsibilities as a Christian. This day he is the picture of his Bohemian-American parents’ pride: this is the day of his Catholic confirmation in Beacon, NY, sixty miles north of the City. The all-white clothing, cherubic face, and neatly-parted hair belie the fact that he is already having sex in the men’s room of the Beacon - Newburgh ferry.

         When I recently asked them to describe him, both of Dad’s cis brothers, now in their late 70s, recollect him as a “ghost” in their childhood. He was a few years older, and associated with other friends, in other houses. 

         I believe the thirteen year old dressed in confirmation white revered his parents but role-played their religion, which taught that he was on his way to Hell if he didn’t repent. He could repent, but how could he change? No amount of “Our Fathers” would prevent the recurrent desire which manifested in his groin. He knew as a teen that his “sins” were unpardonable and unconfessable, especially to a priest, who might believe it was his responsibility to tell Dad’s parents about their son’s “deviance,” which would, from Dad’s perspective, be worse than telling God. Much worse. Smarter to outwardly comply and secretly rebel.

          A year after my mother’s death, I found in a cabinet of her library the love letters Dad wrote to Mom when she was out in Reno, Nevada, awaiting an expedited divorce from her first marriage, which had lasted little more than a year. Dad had stayed back in Somerville, Massachusetts, to take care of her dogs. In the letters, he professes, sometimes twice daily, an absolute, inviolable love for her; she reciprocates: They are 22.

         Mom later said that her all-girls-Presbyterian-prep-school education had not opened her naive eyes, but why did he do it? Had he simply “fallen in love”? Did he actually believe that marrying Mom would effect the change that the ‘word of God’ had not? Or was marriage to Mom for him yet another ploy to maintain the cis facade to protect his pious parents from the perilous truth? 

         Across their fourteen-year marriage, there were sunny Virginia days in their daffodil garden or at the beach, followed by lively cocktail parties, but there were also arguments about bills going to collection agencies, while Dad purchased antiques to feed his Architectural Digest ‘delusions of grandeur.’ Although Mom said he would laugh during the act, he did manage to inseminate her twice and bring my sister and me into being. No doubt I’ve blocked out some of the memories of Dad’s anger, which, mixed with evening cocktails, could erupt volcanically. According to Mom, there were times when he got my attention by grabbing my long hair. I also don’t remember them talking about politics, but Dad loathed “tricky Dicky,” and loved Didion’s Play It As It Lays. Mom said he would stay in the bathroom for an hour devouring the New Yorker.

         The day Mom went to polish the silver and found beneath a platter an 8 x 10 envelope containing black and white photos of naked, shipyard men (sans faces)--my father’s physique identifiable amongst them due to a certain keloid on his right shin–she decided she’d had enough. His carrying on clandestine affairs while attempting to maintain the veneer of husband and provider was a double life she had not signed up for.  She’d married him because he was so much fun to be around–they could ‘yak’ for hours, and truly enjoyed each other’s company–but she would not tolerate chronic deceit. I remember one evening learning that they would be splitting after coming home from a Boy Scout meeting.

          After the divorce, his mother wrote a long letter to my mother saying she was devastated and asking what had happened. My Mother told me she didn’t have the heart to tell her the truth, so she obfuscated, said something more palatable, in her reply. 

         When he knew he was really sick in the early 80s, he took the train up the Hudson to Beacon to say goodbye to my grandparents. At the station, they were startled by his appearance, and he said “Yeah, I’ve got the Big C.” Back in his Manhattan railroad flat, he became bedridden, died without drug cocktails, with no help from Nancy and Ronald Reagan. I never saw it: Did the death certificate actually have what Dad died of on it? If I see my uncles again in person, I will ask them.

         Today, seventy-two years after Dad’s all-white confirmation, Pope Francis announced to an AP reporter “Being homosexual is not a crime.”  I’ve tried to parse the meaning of his words. This Pope’s proclamation is a confirmation of sorts, but does it mean that he grants “homosexuals” his blessing? Why does it remind me of the hedged speech of a Federal Reserve chair? In our “electronic age,” change at an ancient pace.

         Dad learned early that no priest or pope or president would “save” him. He would have to take his happiness into his own hands. His whole short life would be subterfuge. Except with his kids. My sister and I spent most of the year with Mom in “Old Virginny,” but when we visited him in Manhattan, he made a point of enlightening us. He took us to Christopher Street, to the Häagen-Dazs store, instead of the Stonewall Inn. He introduced us to the drug dealers he drove for, although to us, they were just hip Italian guys, one of whom, with the Bee Gees’ ‘Fever’ playing in the background, tried to make a move on my preteen sister. Dad even took me on a tour of a gay bath house one night. I didn’t partake. In the coffee shop the next morning, he said “Ain’t life a hoot?” 

         Dad lived his life on his terms, according to the words he believed in, even if it meant dying alone at 46. 

After an acutely brief career in retail advertising, Townsend Anton downsized from New York City to Boston to Minneapolis to Maine; he is in his 29th year teaching English in the Pine Tree State.