In the late 1950's, fourteen year old Philip Noland is a gay but sexually inexperienced freshman at St. Sebastian’s, a Catholic high school for boys. Alone and emotionally isolated, with the exception of two friends named O’Riley and Carlin, there are no familiar guideposts for Philip to follow, just an excess of rules and regulations that make no sense to him.<br><br>A late bloomer, Philip learns to masturbate effectively and fall in love for the first time, but his greatest challenge isn’t the regimented behavior at St. Sebastian’s -- it's surviving a bully named Molinara who has set his sights on Philip.<br><br>Can Philip navigate the minefields of St. Sebastian's and emerge victorious?

Boys Will Be Boys

When he’d finished, O’Riley zipped up his pants, rolled off the bed, and went over to the record player. “How about South Pacific next?”


At St. Sebastian’s I tried my best to conform. I became a model rule follower. I was early and never late to homeroom in the morning. I completed my assignments the night before and made sure I obeyed the priests in class. My motto in this Humpty-Dumpty world became: Don’t stand out, blend in. We were constantly reminded by our teachers, and the tenets of our religion, that we were unimportant individually in the grand scheme of things. We were insignificant specks on the planet, and we were only here on earth to glorify God—bow head here—and for a greater good that never seemed to materialize for anyone until they were dead and finally slipped into Heaven, after light years of atonement in Purgatory.


Chapter 6