The Fancy Dancer

do it openly?’
    “My bishop knows I’m doing some gay counseling,” he said. “Homosexuals give him the willies, so he thinks I’m doing the Lord’s work. He doesn’t know I organized the chapter, and I hope to God he doesn’t know I’m gay.”
    I sat there flabbergasted to hear him say it out loud.
    “We’ve come a long way, baby,” said Doric softly, and took a swallow of his Four Roses.
    “Do you, uh, do you ...” I couldn’t hold the question back.
    ‘Yes, I have a lover,” he said quietiy.
    We stared at each other.
    Doric smiled a little wryly. “Don’t get the idea that all Dignity chaplains have lovers. Some of us are straight. Some of us are gay, but feel called to celibacy anyway. To each his own ...”
    “Mine is on his way down here. Would it be okay if he stayed with me here? We’ve never been able to stay together.”
    “Yeah, it’s all right, I’m sure.”
    “Well, he’s going to call your number, so you can tell him where to come. What’s the plan?”
    Doric shrugged again.
    “Whatever you want it to be,” he said. “We don’t put on any pressure. You can talk to everybody in the chapter if you want. You can come to a meeting and join in a rap session. You can talk only to me, or to another gay priest if you’d rather. We’re having a special affair tonight—you can come if you want. How much do you know about Dignity, anyway?”
    “Not much. I was afraid to put myself on the mailing list. About all I know is what was in Vidal’s newspapers. That you guys think you’re children of God, same as everybody else, and that you are trying to dialogue with the Church.”
    “That just about says it,” said Doric drily. “As long as the Church stands pat on abortion and a few other things, it’s a cinch She won’t change on homosexuals either. But we can try to soften the attitudes, for now, and make some kind of place for ourselves at the edge. It’s going to take a long time. The churches will probably be the last places left in America where we’re persecuted, if legislatures go on passing gay rights laws like they are ...”
    Doric drained the last of his whiskey and stood up. “You look awful tired,” he said. “Why don’t you fall over for a little while? I’ll go back to the office and do a few things and wait for your friend to call. Then I’ll come back here.”
    The guest room was such a placid sunny little room that it seemed unreal. The furniture was blond modem, and the double bed was covered with a red satin quilted spread. Doric pulled the spread off while I wearily opened my bag. This is funny, I thought to myself, Doric tucking me into bed after all these years.
    “How about something to make you sleep?” said Doric. “I don’t use them anymore, but I keep the prescription going for other people.”
    He held out a prescription bottle of the small blue Valiums. I took one and swallowed it.
    Doric clapped me on the shoulder. “Try to relax. See you later.”
    I took off everything but my underwear, slid into the clean fresh bed and lay there staring at the ceiling. For the first time I was among people who were working to defend the things I felt and suffered through—but I felt more alone than ever.
    Doric had changed so much since the seminary years. He had always been quiet, but it had been the quiet of a deep glacier lake. Now it was more like the charged silence of a functioning nuclear reactor. He had always been more of the intellect than I was—his mind would go off on daring tangents while I would sit openmouthed and listen to him talk. Considering the sharp theological precision he loved, he must have suffered a lot at finding himself gay.
    Maybe even more than I had.
    The dull golden haze of the Valium crept over me. « « «
    Someone shook me awake. I shoved myself up on my elbow, shaking my head dopily.
    Vidal was sitting on the edge of the bed, still wearing his dusty leather jacket. His face was sunburned, except where his goggles had been, and he smelled of gasoline and wind.
    He bent down and kissed me. I held him hard, and we shared a moment so warm that it was hard to remember we’d had so many fights.
    “Doric sent you a cup of coffee,” he said. “I’m going to jump in the shower. Do you want to go to the Mass? Doric says you don’t have to talk to anybody if you don’t want to, just watch.”
    “Mass?” I said blankly.
    “It’s some kind of special mass,” he said. ‘"They do dancing with it.”
    I had