I’ve rearranged this bouquet, rewound it in green tissue paper. Then I bind it all with one argyle shoestring tied in a bow, looking jaunty, semi-butch. I wear brown suede bucks and my good old blue-and-white seersucker suit. I’m riding Boston’s Lechmere subway line out toward Brookline. I’m hand-delivering flowers to the first man I can say I truly love.

I am a boy, and I am a healthy boy, twenty-two, and I do not look the way unimaginative people believe a queer one must dress or sit.

I have shoulders now, and a real jaw, and can appear somewhat lifeguard-worthy. I have grown up to be a complete and manly man, I could be Dan R——’s own son. His Beloved First Mate on The Fellow Ship. A member of the Six Footers Club, I sometimes manage the look of old money, though I myself lack any.

Today is April and our subway car has climbed free of its tiled tunnel and now spills along the center of the street. The driver has (illegally, with glee) opened all the doors to let spring breezes in.

Seated across from me, three white-haired pretty ladies are mid-conversation, visiting, well-kept. They look like girls who sat down to play bridge one day in 1920 and, after many laughs and a legion of rubbers, rose with difficulty, shocked to stand up old. But—even so, all during aging by accident—they’ve basically had a lovely game. Even their dresses—chosen at separate homes—show complimentary pastels. You feel their lives’ essential agreement. Now I see they are smiling back here at me.

I have been deep in my own young man’s vernal sexual and romantic thoughts, I’ve been staring down at jonquils and one ratty peony, busy sniffing French lilacs. I’m gazing so hard at three dollars’ worth of flowers, rapt with such inhaling joy, it must look as if I’m going to drop my pants and—here and now—fuck these blossoms good.

Wondering what the ladies want, I grin back, mild. I love my grandmother and the artistic aunt who once compared our pathetic swishy hometown Boys (so unlike strapping moi) to pert “fun” cuckoo clocks. If possible, I plan to like these Boston ladies—beaming, placid, entitled.

Nudged by the others, one powdered one nearest me leans off her seat’s rattan, points to blooms, and smiles, “For your girlfriend.”

She does not ask, but tells.

I know I am only required to nod. Even a shrug, a grin, will do quite nicely, thanks. The one thing they’d like more? Overt baritone confessing. “Yes, ma’am—fer my Melanie. We’re to wed come June, ma’am. She teaches third grade and she’s as good as she is beautiful. She’s taken such super care of my mother, who’s an invalid with one shriveled leg but a great disposition, and Ma already loves Mellie like a daughter. Melanie put herself through school by making the best darn marmalade, ever. Think she’ll like these posies?”

I understand what these nice ladies want.