Homo Novus

By Gerard Cabrera

Piety, compassion, lust, love… Feelings all the more potent when you are a Catholic priest confined to your hospital bed by an AIDS diagnosis, being comforted by the seminarian you sexually abused as an adolescent. It's Holy Week 1987. The priest is Fr. Linus Fitzgerald, the young seminarian is Orlando Rosario. Both are shocked and shaken as they reflect on their desires and dreams, secrets and sins, hopes and faith, and the paths that brought them together. In Homo Novus, Gerard Cabrera illuminates with deep empathy and stark emotional honesty the journey these two men take separately and together — a journey that began with a violation of trust and leads them to places – sacred and profane — that they never imagined.

 

Praise for Gerard Cabrera and Homo Novus

"Gerard Cabrera's eloquent and challenging novel Homo Novus takes a hot issue and gives it a complex and nuanced exploration that will encourage even greater discussion." -Charles Busch, Actor/Playwright, author of The Tale of the Allergist's Wife and The Divine Sister

 

"Sex, grace, power, and commitment drive this powerful narrative to its shattering conclusion of personal transfigurations and fearful redemptions. In Homo Novus, Gerard Cabrera's lucid and startling prose pierces the heart, making us rethink our deeply held beliefs about faith, love, courage, and betrayal. The journeys that Orlando and Linus take-with one another, away from one another, and to new understandings – are specific to their lives, and always frighteningly relevant to ours. Homo Novus is a masterful, powerful work-the perfect balancing of the profane and sacred that strikes at the heart of what it is to be human." -Michael Bronski, Lambda Literary Award-winning author of  A Queer History of the United States

 

"Cabrera's Homo Novus  wrestles with the desire of forbidden love. As the AIDS crisis begins to surface, the characters in this novel find themselves entangled within the undistinguished extremities of a religious vocation, vacillating between secrets and their own identities. In lyrical and often heartbreaking prose, Cabrera weaves a story that illuminates the unanswered questions surrounding morality, faith, lust and love, and what it means to forgive in the face of loss." -Mario Alberto Zambrano, Dancer, Choreographer, and Author of the Acclaimed Novel Lotería

 

"[Homo Novus] A potent, pensive and poignant novel in which gay priests delve into themselves as they navigate lust, love, theology, and the human condition. Filled with strong imagery, and dialogue as biting as a bitch-slap, follow along as their pasts destroy their present lives and threaten their futures, in a time where the specter of AIDS draws the last card. Cabrera creates sexy, complex characters who lure you into the inner recesses of their psyches and libidos so that you end up incriminated through your own voyeurism. But don't shut your eyes because you're in for a wild ride with these men of the cloth who disrobe way more than just their bodies." -Charles Rice González, author of Chulito

 

"Capturing the patriarchal seduction of religion, this novel is an essential contribution to our queer Latinx literary tradition." -Emanuel Xavier, Author of Christ Like, and Selected Poems of Emanuel Xavier

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rattling Good Yarns Press
• Release date: Aug 30, 2022
• ISBN: 9781955826235

Book preview

PART I

Tanta hipocresía

Si tu cuerpo después de muerto

Pertenece a la tumba fría

~Traditional Puerto Rican plena

1

Linus Fitzgerald listened to his wristwatch. It wasn’t a ticking sound exactly, and he’d never noticed it before, but the second hand struck with a faint vibrato as if a tiny man trapped beneath the glass were trying to escape. Against the silence of the room, his watch kept time for the beeping monitors, the drip of liquid through a tube, and the whisper of the oxygen pump.

When he tried to open his eyes, he saw the machines wink and pop at him, obscene and cheerful beside his bed. The colored lights tracking his heart and breath made him think of Christmas, candlelight, carnival. Then, Linus was beneath the baldacchino in St. Peter’s, which transformed into a discotheque where Orlando had dragged him. His bed railings shone like silver posts, and his twisted blanket was a thick plush rope separating the ordinary from the VIP. High up, the ceiling revolved in a domed kaleidoscope of green, red, and white starry points, crazed and diffused like confetti in an unseen current. Excited, Linus danced danced danced and felt himself perspire. He felt the music in his bloodstream—ti-ting-ting! Could someone please tell him the name of the hymn? It didn’t matter. He danced and forgot everything. He watched Orlando gyrate and lift a brown vial to his nose. They jumped up and down with arms raised, waiting for manna to drop. Crystal beads of perspiration fell from Orlando’s armpits, rolling past the ringed leather harness he had insisted on wearing, down to the wide band of his jockstrap, which rode high above a pair of Celtics uniform shorts, decorated with shamrocks and green piping down the seam, split at his thigh, exposing the bottom strap that curved to disappear into that dark, dark space. Linus swayed in and out for hours it seemed, between disco and distress, familiar faces jumbled with celebrities he thought had been dead for years…

He blinked slowly in the dim light. The room was large, and he was in the farthest corner. All the other beds were empty, stripped bare and arranged in parallel rows. The only doorway was at the other end of the room and was guarded by a red-lit exit sign. Crucifixes hung over every bed, each ivory corpus pinned triumphantly to honey-colored wood. He stretched his neck and looked up at a foreshortened Christ, peering down at him through His toes.

It came to him that he was in the old tuberculosis ward at Mercy Hospital. The capped gaslight sconces had given him the clue he needed. More of a white elephant these days, it was opened up for historical society tours, so why was he here? It depressed him, but then he supposed he should be pleased with the accommodations. Maybe all the other beds were taken? Perhaps the bishop had arranged it for his privacy; Jean was always very considerate to him. It certainly had its charm, as big as a ballroom, with large arched windows facing each other like old-fashioned dance partners.

The Mercy was one of the first Catholic hospitals in the country, founded by the valiant Irish and Italian nuns for immigrants. Today of course new people came from foreign places like Vietnam or Mexico, but back then Springfield boomed. His grandmother used to tell him stories. The Paramount showed first-run feature films, and at intermission there would be a concert on the giant Wurlitzer. Was it Steiger’s Department Store or Forbes & Wallace that served high tea? Of course, this was all before the factories and mills went out of business. Yes, the Mercy had been grand once, and the ward had been built for a disease with drama and romance. He thought of Mimi in La Bohème or Greta Garbo in Camille—when death, even blue-collar death, could be played out on a grand scale.

Linus felt comforted thinking about opera and movies—but suddenly annoyed. Who would play him? He shifted his body to face the wall, which brought on a cough. His ribs hurt. How every part of him hurt! He took in another pained breath, tried to suppress another cough, but gave up, rolling back to his original position, eyes watering. Lie still, he thought. Maybe if he breathed through his nose it would help? Parched as the desert. Wasn’t anybody going to check in on him? Had they forgotten he was here?

He looked toward the exit sign. He heard noises, squeaking wheels, and voices from behind the door connecting his room to the busy hospital—as if he were tucked inside the sacristy preparing to say Mass, listening to the creak of pews as parishioners announced their arrival with foot shuffling and murmurs echoing in the nave. It was the busy part of spring, Holy Week, and he had so much to do! But his reverie was interrupted by the noise, and the ward door banged shut.

Fiat lux.

The lights flickered on and the fluorescent tubes began to hum overhead. No, he wasn’t forgotten, thank God. He made out a form coming toward him. He heard a pair of shoes, fabric and plastic rubbing together in measured intervals, getting louder, and then the zip of metal rings against curtain rods.

Good morning, said a voice. Linus focused his eyes on the nurse in uniform. The woman’s voice registered as kind, but she wore a clear plastic visor, beneath which a sea-green cloth mask hid most of her face. She was Black, which surprised him. He took in her costume, unable to make sense of it.

How did we do last night? Did we rest? she wanted to know, sounding tired.

Yes, whispered Linus. He felt woozy. Yes, thank you. He thought she was staring at him far longer than necessary. Had they seen each other before?

Let me take your vitals, she said, and took his wrist. Her plastic gown crackled when she moved her arms. How could she read his pulse wearing those gloves? They looked like the kind used for washing pots and pans. Then, as if reading his mind, the nurse took her stethoscope and pressed it against his skin instead.

She wrote on a clipboard and then said in a singsong, Open wi-ide, as if he were a child. Linus complied and opened his mouth for the thermometer. He held it underneath his tongue, occasionally clicking it with his teeth. He liked the sound.

Who are you? he tried to ask. Her visor was unnerving him.

There, shush now, she said, her hand smelling like rubbing alcohol, and removed the thermometer. Her eyes calculated. She returned the thermometer to a tray that rested on the small bedside table and made another note on the clipboard.

My name’s Kara, she said with a smile when she was done. Remember me? You came in last night, and your temp’s still too high.

She took Linus’s blood pressure next.

Give me your arm, not that one. Wait dear. I’ll come around to the other side. She took the reading. Good. The velcro tore harshly when she removed the cuff.

Kara, he repeated.

Yes.

Then Linus remembered: Carol Pluta. It had happened at the rectory last night. He had been walking into the front hallway, and Orlando was getting their suitcases from the car. Next thing he knew, he was falling, and Sister Carol was shouting something in Polish, and the sharp scent of paste-waxed floorboards had hit him. One of them must have called an ambulance.

Is it Wednesday already? he asked.

Mm-hmm, Kara answered, fiddling with his tubes.

Looking back, he should not have been surprised at all. Hungover, running a temperature and queasy, Linus had ignored as best he could the sick feeling and the garbled bilingual announcements; instead he had watched Orlando crane his neck to marvel at the majestic Connecticut River as they descended in the dusk from their turbulent flight. The snows were almost gone, and the river was high. When the Eastern Airlines jet touched down at Bradley, the natives in coach applauded. Orlando had applauded too. Linus shook his head; they were as grateful and amazed as children at a magic show.

The two of them had spent ten days in Puerto Rico—half at a retreat high in the mountains, half down on the beach in San Juan. Five days of prayer, reflection and penitence under the direction of a soft-spoken old priest had drained him, and then there was all that Spanish: the heavy accents and heavy food were relentless—rice and beans and pork, fried plantains, fried fish, and all those roots with strange names like yuca and malanga.

Manga-banga.

Pardon? the nurse asked.

Sorry? Linus answered confused, before realizing he had said the nonsense syllables out loud. Orlando had called him a racist because he had dared to comment on the food, but Linus was hurt: How can you say that about me just because I don’t like the cuisine? And you’re not Black, so why should you be offended? Orlando had glared and fumed away. Surely it had to be the food?

Oh, oh, Linus groaned. Nurse, I think I have to use—

But before the words came out, he shat a torrent underneath himself. The heat of it against his skin surprised him, moving instantly to his face, burning.

I’m so sorry, he said, not wanting to look at her.

Oh my, oh dear, said Kara. She shook her head. The odor was terrible. Let’s see what we can do about this, she added, more kindly.

Yes, please, he answered. If you can, yes.

Back in a sec. She left the ward.

He tried not to move. Heart of Jesus meek and mild. Only two days ago he had been trying to rest and relax while Orlando had been who knows where doing who knows what with Eric, on the prowl, as they had put it, both playfully clawing at the air. He supposed Orlando deserved some lenience, the last year had been so difficult, but he was so easily led astray by Eric, who had managed to screw up his own life and was hell-bent on dragging Orlando down with him. No, Linus hadn’t reined Orlando in enough. He could see that now. Orlando had gotten ahead of himself on this trip, but Linus could tell he already regretted it. The signs were already there of a penitent soul. Oh they had fought, tempers exploded, nothing new, but docile as a lamb was Orlando, all the way home. He carried the luggage and opened the doors. Some turbulence, that was all. Things would settle down, and all the terrible accusations Orlando had made would stay put on that little island. As for himself, yes, it was Lent. He had prayed and reflected, and tried to communicate better, and he had behaved, except for the last night, that is. He had committed sin after sin, but he had been provoked and not in control of his drink. Thank God Eric had possessed the decency to not show his face at the airport for goodbyes. No. He wasn’t going to think about his last night’s disgrace. That, too, could stay behind.

Kara squeaked in again, mumbling sotto voce to a brawny orderly pushing a wheelchair. His clogs tapped alongside her on the old tiled floor. The pair sounded like a song that couldn’t stay in sync with itself.

Here we are, Kara said. The cavalry has arrived. I’m here with Bobby.

The hairy-faced orderly nodded and asked, Can you sit up?

Linus tried.

Good, good, he said. Now swing your legs over and put your arms on mine, and I’ll lift you. The orderly’s eyes, highlighted by his own mask, were a rich hazel color.

Linus did as he was told.

Great. Now, do you think you can stand up and hold on to me?

Yes, I can, Linus answered, eager to do it. He tried to ignore his own odor and stood, holding himself steady while Nurse Kara undid the back of the gown and wiped his backside with something soft and baby-smelling. Mortifying. For a few moments, he stood clinging to the orderly. He felt like a doll. His nurse positioned the wheelchair, locked it with her foot, and together with the orderly, they lowered him, removed his johnny, and tucked a blanket over his nakedness.

Very good, Kara said, exhaling.

Linus watched while they quickly stripped the bed, their faces turning from the stained sheets.

Looks like it got through to the mattress, Bobby, Kara noted.

I’ll just swap it out with this one, he answered, pointing to another bed.

All right, and put the vinyl pad on it, would you sweetie?

They spoke the whole time as if Linus were not there, and when finished, rediscovered him long enough to help him into a fresh gown and move him back onto clean sheets.

There, Bobby said, raising his voice. Better?

He wasn’t deaf, Linus thought, but said, Oh yes. God bless you, thank you both. He felt indebted against his will, remembering the benefactor who had donated the new communion rail. It was antique marble from a Portuguese monastery. Quite beautiful, and a classy touch in the otherwise generic sanctuary. The gift had been unexpected, yet also belittling in the way charity could feel from people who weren’t quite sure why they were being so generous. The overweight businessman had appeared frustrated by his inability to strike the right balance between noblesse oblige and Christian altruism. It had resulted, Linus noticed, in a familiar effect: he felt resentful. But he knew not to show it.

He asked Nurse Kara for water.

We’ll fix you right up in a sec, she answered over her shoulder. Linus watched her ball up the dirty gown, put it into a light blue garbage bag, then wash her hands and put on a fresh pair of gloves.

When will someone come and tell me what is happening?

Pardon?

Linus waited until she had come back to his beside. It hurt to talk. When may I see my doctor?

Oh, the doctor will be here in a little while, she said, handing him the drink.

Linus took a sip from the child-sized cup. His stubble made a scratching sound on the cup’s paper lip. He needed a shave. Kara conferred again with the orderly, who nodded, and both said goodbye to Linus. Linus gave them a wave and could not remember their names but noticed how the green scrubs clung to the man’s thighs as he dragged the soiled mattress and laundry bag toward the hallway. He fussed with his blanket and adjusted an IV bag, and even though he wasn’t swallowing the clear fluid, an easy coolness seeped into him, cool as Kara’s voice and the color of her uniform, and as cool as the metal bed rails when he pressed the back of his free hand against it. He stared at the needle taped to his sore hand, and a thought came to him like a spike in his temperature: His hands belong to God. The things he’d done with his hands. He’d baptized babies, anointed the sick, opened and shut the door covering the confessional’s grille. And more: after repeating Christ’s words, his consecrated hands had changed bread into the Body of Christ and wine into His Blood. How many times? Countless times. He closed his eyes. He didn’t want the nurse to see what else he saw: him holding other rare things that thrilled him with the unsaid. Was it delight in unity or was it abjection that filled the distance between his hands and the sacrament, the distance between two faces: that something, whatever it was, which threatened to fulfill or destroy all things?

There was someone standing a little distance away. Where had they put his glasses? No. It was his overcoat hanging on a clothes hook like a boneless phantom. How many hours had passed in this deranged twilight? He had lost track. Tini-e-blas, he pronounced. Tick-tock. Noche, dia. Gracias. El Santo Padre Juan Pablo Segundo. De nada. Orlando told him if he practiced, his mouth would grow accustomed to the different shapes and sounds, and he would become more fluent. The truth was, despite their lack of sophistication and loud manners, Puerto Ricans were exceptionally hospitable. He should tell Orlando. And he shouldn’t forget to say how he enjoyed the musicality of Spanish, the dips and turns and inflections. And he should tell him other things, perhaps try and explain… Where was he? Oh yes, the hospital. He tried to guess the hour, but the room gave him little clue. The darkness was broken by beams of light from beyond the windows, squeezing through the gaps in the heavy drapes. One of the beams ran up alongside the floor and climbed the wall, wavering. He gave up and looked at the glowing hands of his Timex, forming and reforming the hours. More time had gone by. People back and forth. The vinyl mattress pad made a noise every time he moved. They were treating him like a bed-wetter. The machines recorded and measured him and fed him medicines through tubes. In and out they came again, after traveling through his body.

One way in, one way out, two ways, two roads: Two roads diverged in a yellow wood. How did it go? In one of his many assignments—and had they ever known where to station him?—Linus had used Robert Frost’s poem during his talks to eighth-graders in vocation clubs throughout the diocese. For the girls, Emily Dickinson’s I’m nobody! Who are you? Are you nobody, too? Then, And I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference. Take up your cross and follow me, Jesus said. It was an excellent way to illustrate free will, humility, and obedience. He would end by explaining how through the grace of the Holy Spirit by the gift of discernment—that’s like wisdom—granted to us all in different measure, but one which can grow, like a plant in your garden, which is your soul, which belongs to God, ultimately, may you boys and girls come to know your vocation, which is an expression of your nature. God calls. Teacher, fireman, nurse, doctor. And what about a religious vocation? God will let you know.

His ideas ran one into another like his speeches, he knew, because the whole recruitment business unsettled him every time, but it was a good effect, especially for boys at this age, who loved to be mystified, who loved to know what made things tick. What makes the Church tick? Someone had asked him this question once. It was at a charity fundraiser at The Student Prince. There had been an open bar, and there had been imbibing. Linus had shrugged at the stupid question. Then the jackass of a reporter who was covering the event had pushed him to the limit. "What makes you tick, Father? he asked. Linus answered, sobering up even this intrusive reprobate: I am a priest, a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek."

Oh, he knew very well. The seed may be planted miraculously, but the priesthood is a cultivated garden. Called to ministry, selected from their families, young boys flourished through intense watering and feeding, forced to bloom not on their own timetable, but on the Church’s. Ripe and sweet sometimes, but sometimes sour, or with hidden, stinging thorns.

First came the simple vocations, the rare quiet ones impervious to meddling. These souls would follow their natures no matter the obstacle. These men found the Kingdom in their toil. Next, there were the all-star boys, the perfect-A student, without blemish or scar. And naturally, there were the dreamers and adventurers, the daredevils, the crusaders and missionaries, who were called by love and zeal and romance and ambition.

But there were more, too. Parents offered their children to the Church as a sort of flesh-tithe, a high form of thanksgiving for a miracle, or a life spared from disease, a promise made for a secret favor granted, or a gesture of pure faith. And for less noble reasons: the one mouth too many to feed, the oops baby, the too-sensitive, the living Polaroid of the one-night stand or the unhappy marriage; the once-golden child was now a problem to be dealt with. Sometimes, the memory of what mothers were promised as young girls—love, companionship, full participation in the great world—became so fused with the feverish love of God in their breasts, that it overwhelmed them. In their confusion these mothers appeared to beget sons in the image of the Progenitor himself by means of some form of holy adultery.

Of course, in time, to a particular type, one primed for its peculiarities, the priesthood would be revealed as a way to suppress desires, and, God willing, maybe to atone for them, while at the same time earning earthly praise and reward in service to Holy Mother Church. Jesus had entrusted his own mother to his favorite, John, but he gave the Church to Peter. Who could understand why? John was young and innocent. Was that it? Peter was hardened by his three betrayals. Was that it?

Whatever God’s reasons for the division of labor in his plan for salvation, Orlando Rosario had come into his life by surprise, and in such an unremarkable way: Orlando had appeared on a typed list of boys. At the time, the diocese thought it a good idea to check in on the early vocations. So on First Fridays, Linus would drive across and up on the Turnpike to the Belle Fontaine seminary for Adoration. After lunch in the orange-and-gold-painted refectory, where he said grace from the head table over fish sticks and baked beans, he would meet with the boys on the list, encourage them, talk about the priesthood, and tutor them a bit. Linus had noticed Orlando. He was a below-average student, as he read the boy’s records, and in fact maybe a bit dim-witted, but never a total failure. This was by God’s grace most certainly, and the boy’s strenuous efforts. But what of his inky hair and eyes and wisp of a mustache? He asked himself: What was it about Puerto Rican boys that drove him mad? What unselfconscious beauty! They had taken over parts of the city practically overnight, with their foreign language and customs and strange blend of maturity and immaturity.