The Virgin of Upper Broadway

Jeffrey Dellacroce did not consider himself one of the Chosen People. His mother was born Jewish, his father Roman Catholic, but when the pair united they cut ties with their families, or perhaps it was more accurate to say that the families cut ties with them. Jeffrey was raised with no extended family to speak of and no religion; his parents even scoffed at Ethical Culture. Yet it was his mother who told him to go to synagogue. Or rather, announced that he was going, one night when the two of them sat in her living room eating pizza—the same living room Jeffrey had grown up in, and now returned to, faithfully, for dinner every Thursday.

"You're past thirty," his mother said. "You need to think about settling down. Who are you gonna marry? Some girl you meet in a bar."

"I wouldn't know what to do in a synagogue," Jeffrey said. "I don't know the language, or the prayers. I don't even know who founded the state of Israel."

"David Ben Gurion," his mother said. "Or was it Chaim Weitzman? In any case, according to the religion, you're Jewish. All that counts is the mother."

"What about me?" Jeffrey asked. "Don't I count? I don't want to be Jewish, and if I don't want to be then I'm not."

"I did some research for you," she said, waving a magazine article at him. "Friday night services, 86th and Broadway." She paused. "Do you want to end up like your father?"

When Jeffrey was eight, his father, whose stage name was Michael Dellacourt, went off to Alabama to play Bassanio in The Merchant of Venice and fell in love with the actress playing Portia. This surprised no one; Jeffrey's father was forever falling in love with someone he'd met on the road. There would be tearful phone calls home, and later, pleas for forgiveness. Eventually he returned to his wife and son and rent-stabilized apartment, penitent for a few weeks before leaving to do another show. But after Merchant, he didn't come home. No forwarding address, no money sent, no phone calls.

Jeffrey had never tried to find his father, knew that any kind of contact with him would only upset his mother, who'd see it as a betrayal. His mother had strong ideas about everything from the correct way to hold your fork to how to solve New York's homeless problem, and was not interested in life's grey areas. Jeffrey imagined that his father had chosen her for just this reason; she was a woman who'd lay down the law, a woman with high standards who might demand something of him. Jeffrey understood this feeling, knew what it was to want a woman for whom he could become admirable.

In truth, the harder Jeffrey tried to not be like his father, the more like him he seemed to become. The lying started when he hit puberty. One day in seventh grade he told his mother he was sick to his stomach just so he could stay home alone and masturbate all day long. From then on, he allowed himself such days at regular intervals. In high school, he quickly figured out how to use the words "I love you," how to compliment hairstyles and eyes to get what he wanted, and then, how to plead confusion and crisis, saying he wasn't worthy, and flee. The girls hated him, and told their girlfriends, yet the girlfriends went out with him anyway. He looked like his father, too, had his jet black hair, square jaw and large, mahogany-colored eyes that were, at times, filled with longing.

In an attempt to simplify his life, Jeffrey had recently tried sleeping with only married women—they fell into his arms, were sexually voracious, demanded no lies, and he always had an exit. But if there were children involved, as there usually were, his conscience began to nag him. He'd been spoon-fed guilt from the moment his father left—certainly he knew...