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or pay for the daily nurse/companion.
    Then he segues into a peroration about his business, and here I really tune out. I remember the great drama that erupted when Brian graduated Fordham, deciding not to go after the glittering prizes of Wall Street, opting instead to throw in his lot with Jerry Curran. It was the only time I ever recall my father faltering in his worship of Brian, who had to woo the old man shamelessly to convince him Curran Construction would make him rich. Which it did, but more than anything else it let him stay on his own turf, so he and Jerry could strut and raise hell, till life and high school were one and the same.
    "I don't know, maybe we got too big too fast," observes my brother with a labored sigh.
    So things aren't perfect at Curran Construction. Since I haven't been following what he's said, I haven't a clue what's wrong. Last I heard they were pouring an interstate and building twin towers in Hartford. Brian stares at the blue-red coals in the fireplace, lost in a troubled reverie. This alone is startling enough. In the twenty-five years I knew him before the breach, I never saw him stop to think. He was always in motion, always grinning, as wave after wave of cheering greeted his every turn.
    "The stress must be pretty intense," I remark, lame as a radio shrink. "Sounds like you need a break."
    "Yeah, I need somethin'." The brooding is still in his voice, but I can hear him shutting down. It's not that he won't discuss it any further with me. He doesn't want any more commerce with his feelings. This is a peculiar phenomenon of straight males—the shutdown valve—which I used to think was the exclusive province of the Irish. Now I know it crosses all cultures, instinctive as the need to carry weapons. Brian turns back to me with a smile, as if he's never felt anything at all, and reaches over and slaps my knee. This is his idea of a kiss.
    "You still a good Catholic?"
    He laughs easily. "Sure, I guess so. We go to Mass on Sunday. Don't ask me when I made my last confession."
    There's a Bing Crosby twinkle in his eye. I feel the old urge to flash my dick in church. "According to them I'm evil, you know. That's the latest doctrine, from God's mouth to the Pope's ear. Intrinsic evil.'" I spit this last phrase out like it's poison.
    Brian writhes slightly on the chair arm. He wedges his hands between his thighs, clamping his knees together. "That doesn't mean gay people," he retorts. "That's just about... acts."
    A regular moral theologian, my brother."Oh, fabulous. You can be gay, but you can't have a dick. Pardon me while I piss out my asshole."
    "Tommy, you know what the church is about. They think sex is for making babies." He grimaces and rolls his eyes, as if to bond us against the folly and the hypocrisy. "Nobody takes that seriously. Including half the priests."
    "Excuse me," I hiss back at him, scrambling out of the afghan. "Maybe you guys get to wink at the priest while you fuck your brains out." He doesn't like my language, not one bit. "But they're still beating up queers in Chester, because Her Holiness says it's cool."
    "Hey, ease up. It's not my doctrine."
    "And sixty percent of the priests are fags anyway!" I'm wild. I have no idea where that statistic came from. It's like I've been waiting for a little doctrinal debate for years. "They hate us for being out. They liked it the old way, where you get to be special friends with the altar boys, and maybe you cop a feel off little Jimmy Murphy after Mass—'"
    "For someone who doesn't believe, you sure do get yourself worked up."
    "Don't give me that smug shit." I can feel his coldness, the backing off, though he doesn't move from the arm of the chair. "I bet you get all kinds of points for coming to visit a dead man. Corporal act of mercy—you should get a big fuckin' discount in purgatory."
    I'm pacing in front of him, panting with fury, and he sits there and takes it. But there's no satisfaction. I feel impotent and