The Lost Language of Cranes by David Leavitt Page A

show his parents Eliot, scion of Derek Moulthorp, and then how could they say he was throwing his life away? How could they argue he was making a mistake, damning himself to a life of eternal solitude? He wanted to stick Eliot in front of their distracted faces the way he used to stick finger paintings and cookie-dough Santa Clauses—only now they couldn't turn away from him, they couldn't absently say, "How nice." They would have to pay attention.
    "Eliot?" he said. "If I tell them, would you come with me to meet them? Would you come to dinner some time?"
    "Sure," Eliot said. He was falling asleep. "Sure." He shuffled a low times, settling. A half an hour later his breath was coming in even rhythmic waves. In only a few minutes the alarm clock would blare. Philip lay in bed, his shoulders rigid, waiting for it.
     
    When Philip remembered his adolescence, he remembered the hidden parts. Hiding had been so important, so essential a part of his life, that even now—grown-up, more or less, and living on his own—he still kept every book with the word "homosexual" in the title hidden, even in his own apartment. These days, when he thought of himself at twelve or thirteen, he did not think of school, his friend Gerard, board games and playground injustice and gold stars in workbooks. He did not envision himself sitting in a classroom, or with his parents at dinner, or in front of the television. Instead, he saw himself always and only lying on the bathroom floor and masturbating, the steam billowing from the shower, the wallpaper curling at the edges. He could remember nothing else, nothing but this forbidden activity, as if his memory was now capable of creating only a negative image, exposing only those things which were then in shadow. Philip's sexual awakening had not been uncommon: a chance collision of penis and thigh, the unexpected, intense terror of orgasm, the shock of the white liquid squirting onto his bedsheet. But what was different for him was that it never ended, this period when sex was only masturbation, it never developed into another stage. For his friend Gerard, there was talk of girls, and then there were girls, sex, talk of love. For Philip there was only this solipsistic stroking, by definition nameless. Of course he realized, from the magazines he glimpsed at the corner newsstand and later bought in profusion, that there were many other men in the world with similar visions in their heads. But he did not think to seek them out, to match himself to one of them, to make love to one of them, because sex for him had never had anything to do with anyone but himself, and certainly had nothing to do with his life, through which he now stumbled, no longer the pensive little boy who at six or seven had spent whole afternoons patiently constructing sand forts or drawing elaborate imaginary subway maps. In school, he laughed too loud and talked too much; his hair, when blown by the wind, stuck straight up; and he had a bad habit of scratching between his legs in public, which his parents were too embarrassed to mention, much less scold him for. Other boys routinely called him "faggot" or "fairy," though he hardly fit the stereotype of the sensitive, silent, "different" boy who knows how to sew, is friends with the teacher and subject to colds. Rather, Philip epitomized what happened when that quiet, unusual sort of boy tried to plow his way back into the exclusive and cruel society of children, becoming, as Philip did, a loudmouth, a clown, foolish in his zeal to be likable, gullible in his need to be wanted. At thirteen, when Philip was invited to a party and was standing with his best friend, the ever popular Gerard, before a feast of Doritos and Chee-tos and Barbequed Potato Chips, he farted so loudly that the whole party of children began to shriek with laughter, flung open the windows, and panted dramatically for air. And Philip, in shock, standing in the center of a crowd of children who ran from him in all