He opened with a large and expansive greeting.

“JOHN! How NICE to see ya! Come INNNN! My, dear, I’d never know you were a priest. You don’t look like a priest! You look like a truck driver! Do you lift weights! I can tell,” he said, after scanning my biceps and pecks under my T-shirt.

“Come in.”

He was a five foot nine inch man short and stocky, with big framed black glasses. He had gray hair turning white in some places. He had a van dyke beard. He waddled just a bit as he moved me quickly down to his office, past a hallway with boxes piled high on one side.

Excuse these boxes, he said. I’ve got TONS of stuff I’ve collected that I’m getting ready to sell. You know you can make some money on collectables. I collect all KINDS of things.

We arrived in a front room office, tastefully filled with antiques of all sorts. I remember a liquor cart to the side with crystal containers of amber and clear liquid. I imagined bourbon and scotch and gin. They had little engraved medals chained around their necks.

The phone rang.

“Excuse me,” he said, “Hello, this is David ,” he rattled off. "Yes, Yes. That’s right.
No, Did you like him? Yes, yes."

David then took out a card and started writing on it. "Good! Now call him back and say. . . ." He then went on for a minute or two and concluded. “Listen, dear. I’ve got to go. I’ve got someone in my office now. But call me when you see Richard. I think you’ll really like him. He’s an engineer. Very butch. Not too hairy. Just your type.
Good-bye, now.”

David now looked at me. “Tell me you’re not a priest. You really don’t look like clergy! All of the ones I’ve met are so nelly. You could put a dress on some of them and they’d just swish around. But you dear, you definitely wouldn’t look good in serious drag.”

I laughed, liking this guy. I liked that he was Jewish. I liked that he was completely outside of my world. I liked that he knew what he was doing. I liked that HE was taking charge.

We spent the next two hours with my answering a series of questions, intimate, but reasonable. His focus was on things that bring people together. He repeated that he was old fashioned and believed in romance.

This was a job that evolved, he explained, from his former life in Los Angeles as a casting director, matching actors to character roles and as a fashion designer, also fitting fabrics and clothes to those roles.

“But dear, I’m the shoeless cobbler. I’ve still not been able to find the right romantic match for myself.” He sighed. “Oh, well, let’s get back to you and my service.”

He then explained his special procedure, after taking my picture and setting up a file on me.

He explained that I would never see a photograph of a person. Only he would have a photo. He would describe the person and that person’s interests.

“I try to emphasize shared interests and compatibility, rather than just good looks. People always try to superficially choose from just looks. If I shared pictures, then everyone would pick the good-looking ones. Never the plain ones. Then I wouldn’t be able to match the plain ones.”

“I match ‘in kind’," he said. “If you’re good-looking, you’ll get someone good-looking. If you’re a dog, you’ll get a dog.”

He also pointed out that none of his clients were unemployed or retired. They all wanted a relationship.

He pulled out three file boxes of 3” x 5” cards, marked separately, and then gave me names and description of five people to get me started. He told me only how old they were, and a few other pieces of information, along with their phone number. What I was supposed to do was to call that person and to say, “David gave me your phone number.” That would signal the other person immediately as to what this was about.

You would then set up a time to get together for coffee somewhere. We were NOT to have your first meeting in a bar or gay venue. That was not to be the first association. If matters moved into a sexual interchange and experience, then we would report that as well, but that wasn’t to be the reason or the expectation in the first encounter. This was meant to be an encounter in order to sense whether the right “chemistry” was present in terms of compatibility.

As I got to know him better I learned more.

“I have a special place here for those who lie to me and are alcoholics. I file them in the “hell” category section, and then I just have them all meet each other.”

As he snickered, I roared in laughter.

“I’m a dictator,” he continued. “I put people where they belong.

Everybody wants the cutest man in town, but I always say, ‘you can always get a piece of ass but not necessarily peace of mind.”

He had other pat phrases and aphorisms that he’d rattle off like I would a rosary:

“ Always be selective with whom you’re erective!” and “You don’t match two exclusive anal passives.”

“Peace of mind is better than a piece of ass.”

“Diamonds are also a boy’s best friend.”

He was irreverent and said things that were direct and hostile toward religion, like, describing an agnostic as opposed to atheists, “If you sit on the fence, you get a picket up your ass.”

“You know how to tell when the Pope is lying? When he moves his lips.”

“It’s all superstition. I don’t believe in a deity.”

“I’m Jewish. Was even raised orthodox.”

He then went on to explain his success stories, all colorful and varied and just what I hoped someday would be mine.

We then took care of finances

The phone rang again, and David answered. His face turned angry, and he quickly picked up an aerosol police alarm, the kind that screeches and can fit in a purse and he shrill blasted it into the receiver.

“Your voice sounds like you’re a woman,” David yelled into the mouthpiece and shrill -blasted the receiver again, slamming it down.

He snarled at me, irritated

“Teenage prankster,” he said. “Probably from a parochial school. That’ll take care of him. It works every time! Blows their ears off! HE won’t call back again!

He chuckled mischievously. “Well, then, John, you’re set.”

He reminded me of the procedure. “Within a week of your date, call me. You don’t have to tell the other person that you’re interested unless you are. You both will call ME after you meet and I will tell each of you what the other REALLY thought about your meeting. If it doesn’t work out, fine. Go on to the next number. No hurt feelings here. It’s all compatibility. There are many fish in the sea, John. I’ve been around a long time.”

He shifted in his seat for emphasis.

We concluded and he showed me back to the door, opened it and gave me his closing advice.

“Now, be sure, dear to go Dutch. No one pays for the other on the first date, in case you don’t have a return match. We’re going to be just fine, dear. They’d never believe you were a priest. But it could be a turn on! ‘Forbidden fruit! Ha! Lot’s of fish, dear. Lots of fish.”

I returned to my car as the late afternoon fog rolled around me, cooling me. For the first time in years, I finally no longer felt alone.

 

 

John Leira is a native San Franciscan, and was a Jesuit priest in Northern California for 22 years, leaving in 1987. He lives with Jerry, his life partner of nearly 20 years, in the City and for the past three years has been working on a full-length memoir. He has been taking personal essay and memoir writing classes for the past two years at the Writing Salon.

 

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