Stories

Although modern day “Naptown” is very different from Indianapolis in 1972, it's still in the Bible Belt and gay teens face challenges even today. Let me explain what I faced that led me deeply into the closet. (Revised June 18, 2010)

Aaron and Brian are two high school students who fall madly in love. Their love grows and they slowly experience everything until one fateful night when an accident leaves one of them unscathed and the other with a disability. Forced to deal with feelings of guilt and inadequacy, and even thoughts of suicide, they persevere as they face new sexual frustrations and struggle with life's challenges.

Legacy deals with the aftermath of the assassination of the first openly gay president of the United States. Was he killed because he was gay, or was it something far more sinister? Although based on the Naptown Tales series, Legacy stands on its own. Legacy takes place approximately 33 years in the future, however, many of the chapters will contain flashbacks to the intervening years. There are a number of twists and turns, and the ending will almost certainly be a surprise.

Larry was the son of a famous opera singer and a well-known conductor, but his passion in life was to be a medical scientist. However, when the pandemic waylaid his plans to go to the Bronx High School of Science, instead he applied to LaGuardia, New York's premier public high school of the arts. Just as an intermezzo is a short musical bridge, Intermezzo brings together characters from other stories in the New York Stories series while filling in some gaps. Told from the point of view of Larry's girlfriend, Robin, he learns that sometimes the shortest path to one's goals isn't the straightest one.

Seth Moore grew up on New York’s Lower East side, the son of a New York State assemblyman. He loved his dad and admired his dedication, but then his dad was arrested on federal charges of corruption. It couldn’t be! When the Feds moved against his boyfriend’s family and seized their restaurants, their only means of support, something had to be done. Would Seth’s dad cop a plea to insider trading and go prison for a crime he didn’t commit, all for the sake of his son and the boy he loved?

What do Bar Mitzvahs and food carts have in common? Nothing… unless you’re talking about a precocious young teen with a Jewish boyfriend and a best friend who's half black Cajun and half Asian, and who’s a gifted teenage chef. With a double Bar Mitzvah on the Fourth of July weekend, why not make it a pool party? Oy Vey!

Sam couldn't explain why he spent so much time on his long journey, reliving life through dream novels as a teenage boy on Earth, a planet humans had long ago abandoned. Not that anyone even knew where it was anymore. Now, humans were, methodically searching the galaxy for planets suitable for terraforming, spending hundreds of years building interconnecting black strings and then sending colony ships of embryos in stasis. Sam was the only adult crew member on his ship, one of an armada that comes under attack. As the sole survivor, he must figure out what to do when faced with almost certain oblivion.

When Josh and his family moved to the Lower East Side of Manhattan, he knew he'd be helping his dad to renovate their new apartment. It hadn't been touched since the building opened in the mid-1950s and it needed a ton of work. Even so, it cost as much as they got for their old matchbook house in Brooklyn - close to a million dollars - and the only way they could afford it was to gut it and renovate it themselves. Josh was no stranger to handiwork, having helped rebuild after Hurricane Sandy, when he was just seven and could barely hold a drill. Little did they know that this time they'd face a hurricane and a global pandemic.

When my wife died, I decided to move back to Indiana, to spend more time with my grandson. Noticing that Cliff seemed despondent, I decided that a fall hike in Clifty Falls State Park was just what he needed. Suspecting that he was gay, it turned out he was, but his affect was related to something else entirely. We learned a lot about each other and the path we took turned out to be metaphorical as well.

Jake and Ken are getting married, and then they're taking their sons, Roger and Kyle, on a ten-week European vacation. Francis (Freck), Kyle's boyfriend, will be going with them, but he has a history that includes drugs and a suicide attempt when he was only eleven. On top of that, Freck, a freckle-faced redhead who was raised Catholic, now has a Jewish boyfriend and has come to realize that he's one-quarter Jewish. Naturally, he's curious about what it all means. But what will happen when his life hits a minor bump in the road?