The Fancy Dancer

the dime tinkled down into the guts of the work of art, I dialed the number with a shaky finger.
    After two rings, the phone at the other end was picked up. A man’s deep voice said, “Hello, Father Doric speaking.”
    It didn’t sound like the voice I remembered at all. Maybe this was another Doric Wilton.
    “Uh, hello,” I said in a smothered voice. For a minute I couldn’t go on. “Hello, I’m the priest that wrote Dignity from Cottonwood, Montana. They said they would tell you about me.”
    “You wrote under the name Stump, didn’t you?”
    “I just landed at Stapleton,” I said. “What do I do next?”
    “What arrangements did you make for a place to
    stay?”
    “I didn’t make any,” I said. “I was kind of, uh, confused. And anyway my pastor couldn’t give me much money for the trip.”
    “Okay,” he said. “We can put you up. Hop in a taxi and go to 1568 East Martin Avenue. It’s not far off the Denver U. Campus. I’ll meet you there.”
    The address was a stucco private house with an arcaded porch. The big blue spruces around it made it look sheltered and safe. A Camaro was parked in front. I paid the taxi driver and walked shakily up the concrete walk to the door. Before I could ring, the door opened.
    A tall dark slender young man stood there, wearing slacks and a red shirt. It was Doric, all right.
    “Doric,” I said. I thought I was going to collapse at his feet.
    His eyes searched my face.
    He hadn’t changed much—I would have recognized him on the street anywhere. But a lot of the electric young quality was gene now, leaving a sternness that had been hidden before. Some landslide in his life had cut away the whole green mountainside of him, baring the layers of granite and chilled lava. Doric had always had something of the Jesuit in him, though I doubt that the Jesuits would have tolerated his independence of thought.
    ‘Tom, for God’s sake,” he said. “Is it really you?”
    Inside,*I was introduced to the man who owned the house. He was Professor Joseph Hurlihe, a middle-aged professor who was just leaving to teach a summer-school class at Denver University. They sat me down on the couch and gave me a glass of whiskey. They seemed to be used to shattered priests arriving, as if they were conducting an underground railroad for escaped slaves or prisoners of war.
    Then Doric and I were alone.
    I sat numbly, the warmth of the whiskey spreading from my stomach to my arms and legs, but not having much effect. Doric sat leaning forward in an armchair, his elbows on his knees, his fingers twisted together in an odd way.
    To break the silence, I asked, “Who’s Professor Hurlihe?”
    “He teaches social sciences here at Denver U.,” said Doric. “He’s a deacon at a church in my diocese. He’s straight, but he’s involved with Dignity because he believes in it.”
    We fell silent again. His eyes were still searching me.
    “How did you know about Dignity?” he asked.
    “I read about it in the Advocate. There was a list of the chapters, so I finagled my way down here to the conference ...”
    My voice kept fading out, like a mayday from a hght plane lost over the mountains.
    “So you read the Advocate,” said Doric, smiling. “How do you manage that?”
    “My lover has a subscription,” I said, managing to look him in the eye.
    Doric nodded slowly, and made his knuckles crack. I kept studying his face, remembering all our earnest conversations in the seminary, our long walks together, praying together—the whole rapt and precious closeness that Father Matt had shattered, saying it was dangerous.
    He was the same age as me, as Vidal, but he looked far older than either of us. His close-cut black hair actually sported a few silver hairs at the temples. He had always had an ascetic look, but now you got the feeling he had recently finished a long fast and was trying unsuccessfully to put on a few pounds. He had that distinguished bookish look of a priest who might have studied at the North American college in Rome, might have been chosen as a papal diplomat. Instead, here he was in Denver counseling faggots.
    “How did you get involved with Dignity?” I asked.
    He shrugged a little, as if trying to shake off the weight of memory too.
    “Oh, I was doing some on-campus counseling,” he said, “and a couple of the gay student activists who are Catholics came to me for help. That was how I found out about Dignity. I helped organize the chapter here.”
    “You