Every Sunday Jason Fetz comes over for Sunday tea. He always gets in around three o’clock. About ten minutes before he arrives I put the kettle on. It is not the doorbell, but the rolling water and whistle of the kettles spout that acknowledges his arrival. I pour us both a cup of tea.
Jason Fetz tells me about every sordid detail of his week. He spins a yarn about the male brothels on Mondays, and smoking crack in a dumpster on 24th and Sigel on Wednesday. I quietly sip my tea and listen intently regardless of how much my body wants to cower and expel these ghastly visions. He tells me about the time he “got his dick wet” by giving a north philly prostitute a dime bag, and the time he shaved his pubic area so he’d have enough hair to glue to his face for a poker tournament (Jason Fetz loved mustaches, but couldn’t grow one to save his life).
All of his stories he tells me in private, he tells me them with excitement and shame. I am his priest. I take his confession. By the end of the second pot of tea, his face is red with tears. His disgrace shines like a lantern. He cries and I listen.

I wish Jason Fetz would stop coming over on Sundays.