A Pleasure to Have in Class

Everyone knows gay boys make the best students. But for my first crush on a teacher, I seized the opportunity to take things further.

His pile of books thrilled me.

“Everybody take one,” the teacher said as we all shuffled through the door. “And don’t bother to put your name in it. You’ll be returning them tomorrow—when you’re done.”

It was the first day of junior year, and we’d heard about Mr. Brunaccio. His AP English was supposed to be challenging, quirky, and full of special projects, all specifically designed to make the magic of literature come alive. During the summer, though, I tried not to get my hopes up. Who needed another disappointment after Forensics class, with its inherent promise of dissection and fieldwork, turned out to be science word searches and quiet time?

“And don’t forget Benjamin Franklin’s 2nd virtue,” he smiled. “…Silence!”

I found myself noticing every detail—his stiff black polo with khaki pants, his furious chalkboard writing, his thick hair bobbing with every purposeful, yet frenzied movement.

“You’re loving this, aren’t you?” a long-time classmate whispered.

I froze in fear. Then I turned to see what she meant: the other students freaking out that they had to read The Crucible in one night. I slowly peeked back around at the sweat beading on Mr. Brunaccio’s forehead, the studious glasses perched on his Roman nose, his thin mouth, his chest hair poking, tantalizingly, out.

Yes, I thought as my blood rushed south. I love this.

---

I was always an English lover. When I was eight, I was already reading Shakespeare and, after I was done with the main tragedies, moved on to the Greeks. For one book report in 4th grade, I’d made a video of Antigone, dressing my family up in togas and acting out the major scenes. Then in 5th grade, I was up to writing my own plays, political satires with animals in the style of Orwell. Directing Andrew Yan to ride Gregory DeDominick, playing a fascist horse, remains a favorite memory.

But somewhere along the way that all stopped. Years of living in the closet, my parents’ animosity toward each other boiling over every hot dog and hamburger we ate, and barely making it through a Brawny commercial without racing to my sock drawer for relief, all aided in creating an adolescent zombie. Although I impulsively came out in an AOL chat to some friends freshman year, they were zoned for a whole other high school, making me feel more isolated than ever in mine, the “tough,” “urban” school every “nice family,” as my parents so ironically put it, feared.

“Don’t be a dealer,” my sister warned, after just graduating from there, herself. “But if you are, don’t be a dealer who doesn’t smoke. That’s not cool.”

Wise words, but sadly, it was mostly talk. No one tried to recruit me for their business, and the only smoke I was blowing was trying to look busy while sitting alone during lunch, finding new ways to hate myself. Sometimes I stared into the toilet bowl after peeing and prayed that one day I’d be bold enough to actually want something.

Until Mr. Brunaccio changed all of that—within weeks.

“Mr. Narkunski, your argument against saying ‘under God’ in the Pledge of Allegiance—go!”

It was Friday and our class was divided so that half the desks faced the others. Once a week was Debate Day, and I was compelled to open my mouth, in daylight hours.

“Well, it’s utter crap,” I said, “it was only introduced by Eisenhower in the ’50s, God doesn’t exist, and by the way, America sucks, so why are we being forced to pledge our allegiance in the first place?”

“Commie!” Mr. Brunaccio reported enthusiastically. He wrote a red “C” on a piece of paper. We were also doing The Scarlet Letter, so I supposed this was mine. My breath quickened as he took a piece of tape to pin the letter to my chest. I was wearing a thin, checkered button-down, meaning there was a rub, a little give in the material to make the moment linger long after he moved on. I felt anointed.

Soon enough, other special tokens of attention were bestowed upon me. My assignments were being photocopied and distributed to the other kids. My scores on state tests closely monitored, even bet on by him against other teachers. Then there was Cranial Crunch, the cable access show that pit high school teams against each other in a trivia battle for Staten Island supremacy. Mr. Brunaccio was the head coach—I rushed to the library for try-outs.

Immediately, I noticed the set-up. Kids who remained from last year were stationed on the left; newbies looking for a vacant spot, on the right.

“Mr. Narkunski, come take a seat,” Mr. Brunaccio said as I entered, pointing to the veterans on the left. I was confused and opened my mouth to correct him, except he was ready for me and quickly repeated: “Take a seat.”

I did, with a tentative glide.

Seeing Mr. B more, after school at those meetings, totally widened my perception of him, of men in general. I saw him on the phone dealing with contractors as he flipped houses on the side, de-stressing his wife who found out she’s pregnant with their third kid. Constantly busy, constantly active. And that’s when I started to think, This is what I like.

I’d never let myself wonder about the qualities I looked for in a man before. But now, I had an idea. His qualities are what excited me. A hustler. An egghead. Not to mention someone who saw me and challenged me.

“Make a business,” was one class project he announced, based on his most sacred text, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, about financial literacy. I beelined to the Costco candy aisle.

“Go a week without electricity,” came another, based on his ultimate idol, Benjamin Franklin. I took it an extra step and went a week without books, too.

In the report for that, I wrote about trudging through the snow, lost without use of my cell phone, and using the glowing Macy’s star of the mall as a beacon. I happened to be there after school when he was reading it (I always “happened” to be there) and saw him chuckle and choke. I made him happy, I decided. I made him laugh and smile and shine.

I said I was available for babysitting.

---

It wasn’t typical, I knew. Mr. B didn’t usually recruit males or even current students, but luckily, I was friendly with a senior girl who was a last-minute replacement.

“Think about it,” I told her upon finding out she was hired. “It’ll be way easier if I help. And he has two kids. We can each be responsible for one.”

“Who gets the one with the diaper?” my friend asked.

“You,” I said. “But you can take more of the money.” She nodded, understanding that wasn’t the compensation I was after.

When we showed up at his door on Furrey Avenue (the too-perfect name), I beat my hand against my leg to feel something other than my heart in my chest. Also as maybe a sign of masculinity to myself—after all, I was completely ready to replace these kids’ mother. Then the door opened, and I saw them.

Evvie was five and very much the princess with a perfect, heart-shaped face. Frankie was in his Terrible Twos phase, crying without his pacifier in his mouth. Frankie was the one I identified with. But I barely stepped in before being stopped.

“You can’t be a babysitter,” Evvie said, squinting at me. “You’re not even a girl.”

Great, prejudiced beyond her years, I thought. I was afraid of this. Kids could always smell the gay on me, that I somehow didn’t belong.

“Your dad isn’t a girl, and he takes care of you,” I said, pushing through the awkwardness.

“That’s different,” she said. I laughed, failing to come up with a retort, then looked to my co-sitter for help.

“Michael’s nice! We’re all going to have fun!” she explained.

Evvie paused, mentally tabulating her verdict. “I want apple juice,” she said.

I was never an active or particularly responsible adolescent. I hadn’t been a camp counselor and didn’t even remember having many babysitters myself, except Mr. Belvedere and Charles in Charge. So, while I was growing exponentially under Mr. B’s influence, satisfying the whims of two children I was desperate to please proved difficult.

They had an hour of TV time, but the boy wanted The Wiggles and the girl wanted SpongeBob. One wanted to play dress-up, the other wanted to streak. They drew on each other, wailed, spilled, jumped on each other, and had surprisingly fraught conversations on fake phones. Then at bedtime, there was no lying still, as they bounded back and forth between their rooms, waking whoever had just fallen asleep.

I made it through the first couple of sits fine. I loved being in Mr. B’s inner sanctum, sneaking into his and his wife’s bedroom, imagining us there, him bringing me morning coffee and thanking him with a blowjob before he hopped off to teach unruly kids all day.

“Indecent,” he’d say with a smile as I went down. “Remember Benjamin Franklin’s 12th Virtue of chastity!”

“Fuck Benjamin Franklin,” I’d say, naughtily.

But this was all in danger one night, when Mr. Brunaccio and his wife were going to come home very late, and the kids were still up. I was going to look bad, and I couldn’t let that happen.

“You need to go to sleep first because Frankie will copy you,” I reasoned with Evvie. “And then when you wake up tomorrow, your parents will magically be here!”

“No!” she screamed. She started to kick.

I got scary, like I learned from my dad. “You will stop,” I said, and found myself blocking her legs, finally even pinning them to the bed as she thrashed and whined. I didn’t understand what was happening. I wanted to be the cool mom, now suddenly I was Mommie Dearest.

Eventually I gave up as she continued her tantrum. I fled the room, what I should’ve done from the beginning, shut the door, and awaited my fate. She was going to tell Mr. Brunaccio what I did, and I’d be exiled from his home and life forever.

Somehow, though, she stayed put. When I peeked in later, she’d fallen asleep under the cross on her wall. The next day, no repercussions came. Instead, they asked us back, again and again, all through the summer. I got closer to the kids, even playing Peter Pan with them, turning on lamps to catch our shadows.

Then Mr. Brunaccio’s wife gave birth. They named him Michael.

---

Cranial Crunch season came. The year before was a disaster, since we didn’t make it past the first round. Not unexpected from our lousy high school, but now I was a senior and team captain. I wanted to go harder this year, have more meetings, really make them count.

“Just like Jeopardy, it’s all about that buzzer finger,” I said, explaining my strategy.

But because his new baby was born, Mr. B said he didn’t have as much time to coach and that the librarian would take over. He explained he’d just come occasionally, but would still definitely attend the taped matches to cheer us on. Plus, I was needed less often as a babysitter now, during his wife’s maternity leave.

I felt disappointed but handled it as best as I could. At least it wasn’t a new feeling. I had the same one whenever I’d see him get chili at the nearby Wendy’s on free periods with other teachers, when unworthy students were picked for classroom tasks, when the year before I did a skit from Of Mice and Men and didn’t get nearly as much praise as my scene partner who he exclaimed “could be a real actress!”

Then there was the time a cheerleader mischievously reached over and flicked a pen off my desk. I retaliated by flipping her entire desk over—with her in it. The class erupted in hoots, screams, and guffaws, but not Mr. Brunaccio.

“See me after class,” he’d said.

Everyone shuffled out when the bell rang; I stood by with shallow breath and buzzing mind. He finally looked up, curling his pointer finger for me to approach him. I came over, nervous as he got closer and more menacing, until his mouth upturned.

“…You have a crush on her, don’t you?” he whispered.

“What!” I said, eyes wide.

“It’s OK, I understand crushes,” he continued. “Sometimes they make us foggy. But you must keep yourself sober. Remember Benjamin Franklin’s 9th Virtue: moderation.”

At first, I was relieved. He’d had no idea I was gay, even though it wasn’t a total secret. That also meant he hadn’t been laughing at me behind my back, and that I wasn’t being painfully obvious with my crush like I sometimes thought, even when I got a gavel to be like his famous “Puritan judge” character for Halloween or when I defended gay marriage during Debate Day, looking over at him with stinging eyes, wondering where he landed. At the same time, it was sad confirmation: he was totally in the dark, and nothing would ever be reciprocated.

This happened so early on, though, it clearly didn’t interfere with my overall pining. Also, despite my wife-replacement fantasies, I knew that my feelings, when I really focused on them, hardly rested on being returned anyway. It was just a burning, inexplicable desire. And even if it wasn’t realistic to be fulfilled, the idea of it was still powerful enough and had enough positive effects for me to chase after, organize my entire consciousness around.

I’d stopped writing cry-for-help LiveJournals about “insipid” sweet sixteens. I made more friends than ever, including a gay one with a crush on me. I started acting in school shows, even getting a rave review from little Evvie for my scene-stealing performance in Grease. And the pinnacle: we became undefeated champions of Cranial Crunch, beating Staten Island Tech, the “smart” school that had once rejected us all.

Mr. B tore the cheering Benjamin Franklin puppet off of his hand and hugged me at the final taping. I smelled his musk, tucking my face deeper into his polo. But I didn’t care if it was obvious anymore, because this time I didn’t feel anointed. I knew I was.

---

They called me in for an emergency sit, this time solo. It would be quick, since it was late and the kids were already asleep. I just had to be in the house, “just in case.”

I’d never been there when it was so quiet. I padded around the playroom in my socks, gazed eerily at what he called “his toys,” an entire case of Dungeons & Dragons figurines. I wondered if it was a hard game and made a mental note to look into it—maybe that’s how we could continue seeing each other after graduation. We’d commune over our nerdy interests and bond even more as we role played together. But for now, I pulled up a cushion and started reading his copy of Anthem by Ayn Rand, for a hopeful future debate on Objectivism.

That’s when I noticed a glow. I saw it out of the corner of my eye: his computer.

I knew it wasn’t right to go through people’s things. I wasn’t even that interested in snooping. I wasn’t going to find gay porn in his browsing history: I knew how he felt about his wife and Angelina Jolie. Still, there was one specific item I was curious about, that had been gnawing at me.

All the administrators in the school talked about Mr. B’s college recommendation letters, how they were the best—so thoughtful, thorough, and personal. But the school kept them blind, sending straight to the admissions offices. Naturally, I obsessed over what he’d written about me. Was I, possibly, the greatest student he ever had? Was he in awe of my wit, my spark, my being? See something special in me I couldn’t fathom? Whatever it was, I needed to know.

So, I went in. It was easy—no complicated password—I just found the desktop folder with all the letters, and scrolled to “Narkunski, M.” I bit the end of my tongue, opened it up, and read:

“Dear Sir or Madam, Mr. Catherine Chung is an excellent student.”

My vision blurred. Huh?

I kept going. “Mr. Catherine Chung works hard.” “Mr. Michael Chung is a dedicated worker.” I saw generalizations everywhere, redundancies abounded, and it constantly said my name was Catherine Chung, sometimes mixed with my own, in different configurations.

I looked again at the file, then clicked some others, immediately noticing the template he used, how he simply changed names, and fine, a couple extremely minor details for each student—although theirs were all correct. It also hit me: it’d been just past the time my apps were due. This must be what the schools received.

I panicked. This was bad. Kind of funny, but bad. What could I do? I stared for a long time in the silent glow, until I finally X’d out the box, and tried to forget what I saw.

---

A couple months later, my college acceptances came. I got into NYU, my top choice, with a half-ride, so my parents were even able to swing it. After much begging, it was decided I could dorm there, too, finally be away from them, the thing I cared about most. I was happy. My near-future was secure. Luckily, the recommendation letter didn’t even seem to matter.

Yet, I found myself utterly fixated on it. I couldn’t help it. I always knew my crush was one-sided. It shouldn’t have been a shock, just a pang like all the other disappointments. Still, I worked so hard and was such a good student—could I not even get an academic love letter from Mr. B, or at least something a little more careful, thoughtful, or unique, involving a modicum of proper attention compared to how much I lavished on him?

Unfortunately, I had my answer, and from then on, I could no longer ignore any of his flaws—they became huge. When he didn’t make time to help my friend (also a star student) with her valedictorian speech, when he barely talked to us at the prom he chaperoned, even when he swapped his signature polos out for a closet full of way too on-the-nose wool vests, I was infuriated. Plus, everyone’s right, I thought. He really does look like Milhouse.

Of course, I had to keep up appearances. I took pictures with him at graduation, asked him to write in my yearbook, this time with much lower expectations (they were met). And even though my disillusionment began to depress and threatened to zombify me all over again, I tried telling myself it was healthier this way. I was no longer acting like Peter Pan, or like Evvie and Frankie, chasing impossible shadows. Baby Michael wasn’t named after me, I now accepted, and all I could do was go to college, get serious, and leave the hormones and desperation behind.

But I suppose the muscle memory of my crush lingered, because even though I was still angry, I returned to his class early the next year during Christmas break, to visit.

It was eerie walking into the brightly lit, low-ceilinged room with my friend after experiencing the packed lecture halls and chaotic throng of NYU. It felt like a film set, always smaller and faker than it appears on screen. I also felt the panic and risk of further humiliation if he was busy or cold to us. The second Mr. Brunaccio saw us, though, he smiled brightly, swiftly grabbed two desks to face to the rest of the room, and a Q&A for the kids about college life began.

I didn’t like it. This was how I got suckered into thinking I was special in the first place—a special seat, a special task—not to mention he was probably just looking for a teaching break. But as his students eagerly shot up their hands, and I found myself confidently lobbing my nuggets of wisdom (“You never stay friends the ones you make at orientation!” “There’s professors you take that you never even meet!”), I saw that I was making them laugh and smile and shine. And that’s when I started thinking that, maybe, I hadn’t been so duped after all.

Sure, I’d silently weep for each incredible blowjob I’d never give him, and I was still mourning the absence of those mental boners I imagined between us, so vital to my confidence. But if I took Mr. Brunaccio’s advice on crushes—got rid of my fogginess, stayed sober—I could also see that I'd never be anywhere close to my current position if it wasn’t for him. I was finally fully out now (marked officially on Facebook). And I even felt ahead of the game, because at least I knew the truth, as sad as it was. That no matter how much I desired, no matter how much I wanted, there was simply a limit on what a gay boy could hope for…

But then the desks divided in my mind, and I was able to debate the other side. That at least now, there was such a thing as hope.