Who’s Yer Daddy?: Gay Writers Celebrate Their Mentors and Forerunners

Thirteen Ways of Looking at My Father

284 K. M. Soehn­ lein 1 Six feet tall, 190 ­ pounds, brown hair that had been blond when he was a boy, ­ glasses with a ­ strong pre­ scrip­ tion, a mus­ tache for as long as I can re­ mem­ ber, a ­ strong phy­ sique from years spent run­ ning, in­ ev­ i­ ta­ bly­ thicker now ­ around the mid­ dle—I look at him and see how I’m going to age. 2 I’m named after my ­ father: a first name often mis­ spelled; a mid­ dle name with a com­ ical ring (Man­ fred); a fam­ ily name every­ one mis­ pro­ nounces. My birth cer­ tif­i­ cate in­ cludes the Roman nu­ meral II. Being “the sec­ ond” im­ plies a rep­ e­ ti­ tion of the first, the new ver­ sion, the next in line: a bond, and a chal­ lenge. 3 After a se­ mes­ ter away at col­ lege, I came home and de­ clared my­ self an athe­ ist. In our house, the Cath­ o­ lic ­ Church was cen­ tral, not Thir­ teen Ways of Look­ ing at My ­ Father Thirteen Ways of Looking at My Father 285 dog­ mat­ i­ cally but as a means to a cir­ cle of ­ friends: en­ coun­ ter ­ groups and ­ prayer meet­ ings, ­ church dec­ o­ rat­ ing com­ mit­ tees and cof­ fee so­ cials. We at­ tended mass every Sat­ ur­ day eve­ ning—“folk mass” with acous­ tic gui­ tars and har­ mon­ iz­ ing, ­ fresh-faced sing­ ers. For most of my teen­ age years I went to a ­ once-a-week ­ Prayer Meet­ ing, where in­ spi­ ra­ tional “talks” were fol­ lowed by all of us hold­ ing hands in a cir­ cle, the room lit by a sin­ gle can­ dle, our per­ sonal, con­ fes­ sional ­ prayers ­ spoken aloud, often ­ through tears. I gave sev­ eral of these talks my­ self, in­ clud­ ing one ti­ tled “Is Life Fair?” dur­ ing which I ­ played ­ ABBA’s “The Win­ ner Takes It All.” When I an­ nounced to my ­ father I would no ­ longer go to mass, it was dogma and hy­ poc­ risy I ­ blamed. He’d urged me my whole life to think for my­ self, I said, but we let the ­ Church do our think­ ing for us. My ­ father in this con­ ver­ sa­ tion went ­ through ­ stages, like a dying pa­ tient. Anger gave over to an at­ tempt to bar­ gain, and then some­ thing like de­ pres­ sion set in. “We ­ thought you were going to be a ­ priest,” he said. Ac­ cep­ tance took ­ longer, ­ though even­ tu­ ally, he took the path of least re­ sis­ tance and gave in. This con­ ver­ sa­ tion was a pre­ am­ ble to the one about sex­ u­ al­ ity that would fol­ low a year later—my com­ ing out—with its own ­ stages of grief. 4 The first per­ son I ever told of my at­ trac­ tion to men was a ­ priest. At a teen re­ treat, dur­ ing a can­ dlelit mass in a gym­ na­ sium, we went to con­ fes­ sion, face to face in fold­ ing ­ chairs set up ­ around the room. “Bless me,­ Father, for I have ­ sinned, I have vi­ o­ lated my sex­ u­ al­ ity,” I told ­ Father Greg, a young ­ priest from a neigh­ bor­ ing par­ ish. “Acts or ­ thoughts?” he asked, and when I said, “Mostly ­ thoughts,” he ­ gently ­ pushed on. “Thoughts about sex? About girls?” There was a tiny pause and then he added in a very neu­ tral voice, “About guys?” The re­ lief I felt—that he’d said this be­ fore I had to—­ opened the flood­ gates. “It’s more than ­ thoughts,” I said, ex­ plain­ ing how I’d “done stuff ” with girls ­ though my real sin was mas­ tur­ bat­ ing while think­ ing about guys. “A lot,” I added, feel­ ing ­ braver now. He as­ sured me that­ thoughts were okay, nat­ u­ ral. “Most men do it,” he said. “Teen­ ag­ ers,­ adults. Even ­ priests.” K. M. Soehnlein 286 In that mo­ ment I ­ sensed his con­ flict ­ between hav­ ing to toe an of­ fi­ cial line and not fully be­ liev­ ing it, be­ cause he, like me, ex­ isted in the...