The Fisher Boy by Stephen Anable Read Free Book Online Page B

Andy was forced to acknowledge him. “Yes…sir, do you have a coming-out story?”
    “I’m talking about the greatest story ever told,” he answered, then, silently, he rose and began distributing his pamphlets, table by table, around the room. Judging by his walk, he was either drunk or sick. I hadn’t seen him at town hall; he could’ve been a Christian Soldier or just a lone crank.
    “Sir…please,” Andy said.
    “Where is the bouncer?” Brian whispered.
    Of course Tristan and Roger Morton were now nowhere in sight.
    The man sidled up to the two lesbians’ table. As he held out his pamphlet, one of them enunciated, “NO THANK YOU!” Stunned, he meekly tucked his remaining literature into his pocket and shuffled out of the restaurant.
    The audience cheered. The lesbian who’d spoken took a stylish bow.
    “She got the biggest hand of the evening,” Roberto muttered.
    “Onward and upward,” Andy said, struggling to re-establish momentum.
    “Hey, bring back that guy with the pamphlets!” one of Ian’s friends yelled. “He was the funniest thing in the show!”
    “Yes, you in the rear,” Andy was saying, grateful for an upraised hand. “Tell us your coming out story.”
    “It was back at school,” the voice began. Was it Ian’s posh North Shore drawl? It was so thickened by drink that I was unsure.
    “It was long ago and far away…”
    Everything inside me was shutting down.
    “…At the late, great St. Harold’s…”
    It was Ian in the murk, there was no doubt.
    “…It happened in chapel, a building ordinarily off-limits to animal lusts. We were both acolytes, myself and this fellow I’ll call ‘M.’ M was reasonably attractive, but a little too sensitive and desperate…”
    He was exhuming something awful, the worst part of our shared past, the thing that almost negated his saving my life.
    “This sounds pretty good,” Brian whispered and Sam nodded. The troupe was eager to use Ian’s story, except for Roberto, who knew we’d been classmates.
    “…This poor fellow had
parentage issues.
His father was a nautical person and his mother more or less followed the fleet…”
    Already, my colleagues were huddling, assigning roles. “I’ll be the sensitive loser,” Justin said. “You be the guy who rejects him,” Paul told me. All the while, Andy was talking, explaining how we could have fun with this material. That’s all it was for them, just material.
    “I’m sitting this one out,” I said.
    “It’s your turn,” two people told me.
    I could hear Ian laughing and saw Roger Morton, in his vest of tiny mirrors, like extra eyes, at the bar.
    “Let him go,” said Roberto, as I ripped aside the curtain, almost splitting the fragile fabric. With Ian’s laughter still bullying my ears, I felt my fury escalate at his “follow the fleet” remark, his disparaging my mother, and I saw him long ago, in the chapel crypt, among the racks of choir robes, his laughter shiny and as hard as the brass candle snuffer he’d been holding…
    The “Coming Out Story” skit was concluding. “…YOU MEAN YOU’RE THE BISHOP?!” Justin was shouting, then the audience cheered and the actors came bursting backstage.
    “That was professional,” Andy said to me.
    “Yeah, thanks for your support, Mark,” Brian added.
    “You’re calling the next skit,” Roberto reminded me.
    Somehow, I walked back onstage, parted the curtains and put myself into the lurid energy of the spotlight. “Okay, for this next skit, we need some occupations, the more bizarre the better,” I said.
    “Mortician,” someone said.
    “Porn star.” The perennial response.
    “Astronaut—female
,”
one of the two lesbians specified.
    Most of the other suggestions were just as good.
    I said, “This next skit is called ‘Day Job,’ and it’s about someone whose fantasy career wreaks havoc with their nine-to-five responsibilities, for instance, a manicurist who secretly longs to be a tree surgeon.”
    “Hey!”