Payback
for Carol

It may have been eighth grade, but more likely seventh.

Phys ed class in the gym, something I usually enjoyed.

But this day there were girls on one side of the gym

and we boys were on the other, and the sport was

dancing.

 

I felt cheated, compromised.

As a boy who was never all that macho to begin with,

I would have made a classic homophobe if I’d known

what it meant or that it was an option,

but I thought I could make some kind of statement

by refusing to have anything to do with girls.

At eleven or twelve, where do we get our ideas?

 

Our phys ed teacher was a guy named Bill Cronin

who had been known as Bull when he played fullback

at Boston College. My father the coach knew him;

they were friends.

 

When we boys were instructed to walk to the center

of the gym and pair off with girls, I refused to go—

I, Bookworm, Brainiac, the goody-goody;

this the moment I chose to become the rebel,

this my first ever hot-button issue.

 

Bill the Bull Cronin wrapped his meaty left hand

around my skinny right bicep and attempted

to march me to the center of the floor.

I resisted with all the furious authority of my 89 pounds.

I actually said, sotto voce, “Take your hands off me, Cronin.”

 

Wonder of wonders, he did.

I thought, “I am in deep shit,” although, now I think of it,

in those days I would not have said shit in even my internal dialogues.

 

Nothing ever came of it. I got my way;

I didn’t have to learn to dance.

The incident was never mentioned,

and I was never punished.

 

Until today; some—what? 50-odd years later.

You and I are playing Scrabble; the TV is

set to music from the Americana station,

“Poor Man’s Paradise,” by the subdudes.

While I puzzle over my next move you get up

to turn on the teakettle and within two steps,

without even being conscious that you’re doing it,

you in all your amazing grace are

dancing,

and I wish to God I could be

dancing with you.