The Jolly Farmers:

He had heard it all before. Shifting uncomfortably on the hard wooden pew, he recalled the other occasions he had come under the scathing attack of Father Sullivan. Now he had to sit through it again, enduring the slurs and accusations that he could acknowledge in his heart but never respond to publicly. Tom’s mother nudged him gently; she had noticed his restlessness but attributed it to the unusual length of the sermon. He attempted to sit still because he did not want her to suspect. He turned his attention to the red glow of the stained glass window against the stucco walls of the sparsely decorated Roman Catholic church that looked like every other one built in the 1950s. At least, he thought, it would be better if he could sit through the diatribe in a more attractive setting. “Every day the immorality of this land increases. The bookstores are filled with pornography, our movies contain only filth,” the good father proclaimed in his heavy Irish brogue. Tom thought he would sound more natural if he had a Southern accent. His message seemed more akin to that of Jimmy Swaggart’s—why should not his way of speaking. “Sex, drugs, and alcohol are the themes of our television shows. Old men shown lusting after scantily clad girls is the constant fare.” Tom remembered the rumors when he had attended the parish elementary school about Father Chauncey, the previous rector, chasing after some of the schoolgirls and getting a thrashing from one of the fathers. Tom was also fairly certain that Sullivan himself was a hypocrite. “Homosexuals are openly carrying on their disgusting lifestyle. They now march in so-called pride parades. How can they be proud of such debased conduct?” Tom knew that it could not be long before he got to his favorite topic. “They call themselves gays, but they are the scourge of God and won’t be gay when they burn in the fires of hell, I can tell you that.” It was more than Tom could stand. After Mass he walked into the warm June morning with his parents. The great trees of Brookline were now heavy-laden. It seemed just a short time before they had been bare and the streets covered with slush. The school year was almost over, and Tom looked forward to summer break. He longed for the prospect of freedom that lay before him. He hoped that the new job and the new location would free him from the oppressiveness of his life thus far. He loved his parents dearly, but he also was eager to get away from them even though it would only be for a few months. As he rode home in his parents’ Dodge, the light filtered through the leaves of the great trees created a dappled effect on the windshield and on Tom’s face as he peered longingly out of the side window. Tom’s father had been a mail carrier for almost forty years and was set to retire in a few months. For the two years preceding, Mike and Clara had been examining different retirement prospects. They had thought about Arizona because of the dryness, but like California, it was too far away from what they regarded as familiar. His father finally decided to retire and, at Christmas, announced they had finally settled on Florida to get away from winter. They urged Tom to join them; for one thing, they knew their Tommy could probably get a good teaching position there. “Your mother has a cousin who lives down there. Probably could find you a job,” Mike assured his son. “Lives in Orlando. We should look for places near there, don’t you think, Clara?” He honestly tried to consult his wife even though he never expected contradiction, except perhaps occasionally a subtle dissent. At first, Tom thought the decision to move was ill-advised. His mother was forty-two when he was born and his father forty-seven. His father was now seventy and not in robust health. Tom knew his mother was not capable of caring for her husband if he became ill. For that reason he had at first pleaded with his parents to remain in Boston. He had done some research and found the Florida health system lacking. It was with good reason that Florida was called God’s waiting room. For that reason he urged his parents to reconsider their decision, but they were adamant. “That’s what old people do—they retire and move to Florida.” Then she would show him a full-page ad in Look showing happy retired couples playing croquet shaded by palm trees. In fact, Tom never much thought about not going with his parents. He briefly considered remaining in Boston; then he felt the pangs of familial obligation. After all, he was their only child. That in fact had been one of the great tragedies in the family. Not that they did not love Tommy, but they felt strongly that their brood should have been much larger. His parents had had difficulty having children, and his mother had suffered a series of miscarriages before Tom appeared. Clara’s hysterectomy ended all hopes of having more children. Tom therefore felt a great deal of obligation to his parents. To think that they would move away without him was never really seriously considered by any of them. Moreover, Tom wanted to get out of Boston. He found the place stifling, although the constrain of living in a home with his parents was primarily responsible for his distress. He felt that he could not really live his life as he wanted under his parents’ solicitous gaze, even though many Bostonian homosexuals seemed to live happy and free lives there. He never really considered getting an apartment of his own. Living with his parents proved just too convenient.