36

years older. His hair was almost all gone. His eyes
had lost their lustre. He wasn’t hugely fat but bulk
was on the way. It seemed incredible that this aging
man could once have been what he described “the
darling of Park Avenue.”

“Yes, I was blond, curly hair, blue eyes, even
teeth, a good build. Just the kind of equipment they
like. And they represented just the world I wanted to
know about. I was sick of the Bronx, sick of my
poor family. I hated my father, a broken down
musician. My mother just bored me. She was only a
housewife. I despised my brother for getting married
and having a flock of children.

“I realize now I was in love with him, that all my
emotions stemmed from jealousy. I knew I was
homosexual almost from my first sex experience
which, like everyone else’s, was with the boy next
door. I tried the same thing with my brother, just
playing around. He was two years older than I and
would have none of it. I cried so hard and so long
that he finally went through with it.

“For a while everything was fine between us. He’d
come into my bed, hold me in his arms and let me
kiss him. I was always the aggressor. I sensed that
he wasn’t really enjoying himself, that he’d never
love me the way I felt about him. But the sex part