Conference tnpubs::tnpubs_vod

18.0. "Boston Globe Article" by TNPUBS::FORTEN (Love, Thy will be done...) Thu Jun 11 1992 15:21

   taken without permission
The Boston Sunday Globe: May 31, 1992
MetroRegion pg. 25
Mike Barnicle

                       Lasting images of his best boy
                       ==============================

    Because he could not sleep, he went down to the basement and began fumbling
through boxes stacked neatly on the dry cement floor by the bulkhead.  They
contained at least a million memories, but his search was more selective because
he was looking specifically for one, a home movie that captured a Little League
game played in - when was it?- 1964, maybe.
    He found the reel, set up the camera, threaded the film through the machine 
and sat while images flickered off a small silver screen.  In the movie, his 
son, then 9, walked toward home plate, wearing a nervous smile and a baggy 
uniform.  Next, a shaky hand shifted focus from the boy's back to a father's 
face: proud, praying for the slightest of miracles, a foul tip, a walk, 
anything to avoid the child being embarrassed.
    "My boy," the father whispered, "my beautiful boy."

    The father: 62 years old, divorced, a retired cop.  Lives alone, has for 
most of a decade.  Before going off the job, he spent 25 years working nights.  
Never ducked a tough call.  Never brought the worst of it home.  He and his 
wife had three children, two girls and this kid, their youngest, who stood now, 
bat in hand, his akward motion coming alive on film.
  
    The son: They doted on the boy.  Spoiled him to the extent they could.  
Father and son did everything together.  Naturally, the string loosened with 
each birthday.  Quickly, the boy became a young man with his own life to live.

    Eleven years ago, on an evening the father will never forget, the son took 
him to dinner, told him something had been bothering him, said honesty had 
always meant something to him, to the two of them actually.

    "I knew it", the father was saying the other day.  "I guess I had known it 
for a while.  I just never wanted to admit it or accept it.  I never wanted to 
hear him say it, but it was something he had to do and I'm glad he did.
    "We were sitting there and I think we both felt funny.  Finally, he said to
me, 'Dad, you know I'm gay, don't you?'  I told him I sort of figured he maybe
was but I didn't care.  I mean, he's my boy, right?"

    The announcement changed the father more than it did the son.  For years,
he had clung to the language and culture of the guard room where men stood at 
roll call before hitting the street.
    "You know how it is," he said, 'We grabbed these two fags' or 'We pinched
a couple a queers.'  Stuff like that.  It never bothered me, but after this 
happened it hurt me to hear it.
    "It's funny, but for a while I felt like I was dead, that part of me died.
I felt sorry for myself, I kept wondering, 'Was it something I did?  Was it my
fault?'  Then...one day I woke up and said, 'Hey.  He's your only son.  He's a
good boy.  You love him.  Nothing's wrong.  He's a good boy.'"

    Five years ago, his ex-wife died.  Three years later, the son told the 
father he had AIDS.  In December, he was continually weak, in and out of the
hospital, looking for a bed in a hospice where he would be cared for.  At 
Christmas, the father went to the son's apartment and told him he was coming
home.  That he would take care of him.  He did.

    Over the next few weeks and months, the father bathed the son, diapered
him, tried to ease the pain of dying.  Slowly, the boy, now 37, slipped 
physically and mentally.  Fever took him in and out of coherence.  Medication
did only so much.
    "I think we talked more in the last two months than we did in the last 18
years," the father said.  "My son became my friend and I felt closer to him than
I ever did before.  I was lucky.  I was able to tell him how much I loved him...
and how much he meant to me.  I was able to to be with him and kiss him goodbye
before he died."

    A few days ago, the young man was buried in a private service.  Both sisters
and a handful of friends stood by the grave.  A priest offered prayers.  It was
a splendid morning.  That night, restless with grief, the father went down to
the cellar looking for an old home movie.  There, in the quite of memory, he
wept as he watched his only son, standing proudly in a Little League uniform,
get a base hit.
    "My boy," he whispered, "My beautiful boy."