Full Circle. Michael Thomas Ford

of philosophy and law for a journey through the heavens. They want what they call history to be comprised of things that can be measured, about which they can write theses and dissertations, about which there is proof.

      But history is not really about such things. It’s about the inner workings of the human heart and mind that steer individuals in new directions, resulting in action and reaction. Wars are not really about armies and guns and strategies so much as they are about the motivations and fears of the people who wage them. The rise and fall of civilizations, while of course affected by natural disaster, plague, and other tangibles, are ultimately brought about by the greed and honor, the dreams and neuroses, of the populace. Who really knows how many cities were razed because some ancient warlord, rebuffed by a pretty girl when he was 15, sought a direction for his shame and cloaked it in the glory of territorial expansion. Or how many symphonies were written when a composer, frustrated at a rival’s accolades, was spurred to compose what he later claimed was an ode to joy instead of the teeth-gnashing expression of irritation at the fickleness of success it truly was.

      What holds true for generals, kings, and countries holds true for ordinary boys. That morning of November 23, 1963, was the first major turning point in my personal history, not because of any event that could be documented, photographed, or studied, but because I realized, for the first time, that something dangerous lived inside of me. I couldn’t, of course, give it a name. I only knew that it frightened me with its power, and so I chose to pretend that it didn’t exist. After half an hour, during which I thought doggedly about the tragedy of Kennedy’s death and not about the mess in my pants, Jack woke up and went off to the bathroom. I quickly got out of bed, changed my pajamas, and went downstairs to the kitchen. When Jack joined me a few minutes later, I was deeply involved in a bowl of Rice Krispies. Jack, thinking it a morning like any other (excepting the president’s death) poured himself a bowlful and, in imitation of the cereal’s Chinese cartoon character spokesperson, So-Hi, said, “Prease pass the mirk!”

      He laughed. I couldn’t look at him. I pushed the milk toward him and stared into my bowl. Oblivious, Jack splashed milk onto his cereal and began crunching. “What do you want to do today?”

      I shrugged. What I wanted was for him to go home so that I could be alone with the boy I’d become sometime during the night. I wanted to not have him sitting across from me, to not hear his voice, to not think about how badly I’d wanted to put my arm around him. I resented him for not seeing how much my perception of myself had been altered by his touch, although if he had noticed, and asked what was wrong, my heart would have stopped. Instead, I told myself that I resented him for his continued cheerfulness in the face of my growing misery.

      I was rescued from further humiliation by my mother, who entered the kitchen and informed Jack that as soon as he was done with breakfast, his mother wanted him to come home and help her clean out the garage. Jack rolled his eyes and sighed, as if the entire weeklong break had just been co-opted. I prayed he wouldn’t ask me if I wanted to help.

      He didn’t, and when he left not long after, I retreated to my bed, where I pulled the sheets up and tried to distract myself by helping Frank and Joe Hardy unravel The Viking Symbol Mystery. Solving it long before the brave but maybe-not-as-clever-as-they-thought Hardys, I closed the book and looked under the bed for the Fantastic Four comic I’d secreted there a day or so earlier after defying my mother and using my allowance to buy it. When I did, I discovered that Jack had left behind a T-shirt, dropped the night before while getting ready for bed and forgotten in his haste to get home.

      I picked the shirt up and held it to my face. The smell of Jack filled my nose, a mix of sweat, Ajax laundry soap, and his father’s Bay Rum aftershave, which he’d recently begun applying from time to time. Shucking off my pajama top, I slipped the shirt over my head and let it fall around me. Then I pulled the sheet and blanket over my head and closed my eyes. I imagined Jack beside me, our legs touching. I slid my hand across the mattress in search of him, half expecting to feel him there. Instead, my fingers met cool, empty sheets, and suddenly I was crying.

      Once started, I couldn’t stop. I cried out of frustration and fear, out of anger and the deepest sadness I’d ever felt. My chest heaved as sobs poured from my mouth. The sheets seemed to trap all of the grief inside, my tears and unhappiness mingling with the scent of Ajax and aftershave until all the air had been used up and I was sure I couldn’t breathe. Still I stayed there, hoping I might drown and be free of the new emotions I couldn’t define but which filled my heart near to bursting.

      Preoccupied with misery, I didn’t hear my mother come into my room, and when the sheets were suddenly pulled back and I saw her looking down, I saw there an angry god demanding explanation. I cried harder, and covered my face with my arm. My mother sat on the edge of the bed and stroked my hair.

      “We’re all upset,” she said. “This is a sad time for everyone.”

      I heard her words and didn’t understand. How could she know what had happened to me? I wondered, especially when I didn’t really know myself. Being my mother, had she sensed some change in me, some horrible defect that had somehow gone unnoticed all these years?

      “Imagine how little John John must feel,” she continued.

      Then I remembered. The president. She was talking about Kennedy, not about me. She thought my sorrow was for a man I didn’t even know. True, I was sad about that. But did she really believe my feelings were so strong as to result in uncontrolled weeping? For a moment, I was irritated that she would think me so sensitive. Then relief flooded me. She didn’t, as I’d feared, sense something more alarming in me. I sniffled again, softly.

      “Besides, they’ve caught that murderer Oswald, and I’m sure everything will be all right. Your father says Vice President Johnson is a good man. Not as good as Kennedy, but a good man.”

      She patted my arm. I wasn’t sure if she was trying to reassure me or herself. Politics had never interested her, but I knew she’d loved John Kennedy, with his movie-star face and Boston accent. She’d seen him, as had most of America, as a symbol of hope after the frigid foreign policies of Eisenhower. Now, with his death, everything was once more uncertain. I feared she might start hoarding sugar again.

      “It will be all right,” she said, standing up. “Try not to worry so much. Thanksgiving is coming up.”

      She smiled and left, glancing at the comic book lying crumpled beneath my arm but saying nothing. She shut the door, and I breathed a sigh of relief. She had been witness to history but was completely unaware of it. What she thought she’d seen—a boy caught up in the emotion of loss and patriotic devotion—was nothing of the sort. Like so many before and after her, she saw one thing in place of another, and the real history was obscured by a more plausible scenario.

      I don’t tell my students this story. It would mean nothing to them, lacking as it does intrigue, heroic figures, and a casualty count. A 13-year-old boy crying in his bed and being comforted by his well-intentioned mother, moving as it may be, does not make for vivid history. But it is history nonetheless, particularly as it changed the entire course of my relationship with Jack and, ultimately, my life.

      Like the richest history, this unfolding of events did not occur all at once. The impact of that awakening of my desire would take many years to be fully realized. In fact, for some time I would do everything in my power to stop it from happening. My first attempt was simple. I tried to ignore it. I told myself that the feelings I’d had for Jack were momentary, caused by my dreams and by the treacherous machinations of my changing body. At 13, I had been acquainted for some time with the possibilities for self-pleasure. I was also, of course, sure that I was the only boy in Pennsylvania, if not the world, who indulged in such behavior. Alfred Kinsey’s shocking news that 92% of all American men did so regularly had been delivered fifteen years before, but somehow its arrival in suburban Philadelphia had been greatly delayed.

      It would, in fact, be another year before myself, Jack, and the rest of the eighth-grade boys were gathered in the gymnasium one rainy Wednesday when outdoor activity was impossible and informed by Coach Stellinger that we were becoming men. He told us that our penises might become engorged with blood from time to time, and that it was nothing to