"I hope you haven't run up a ton of credit card debt again. Or worse, dealt with loan sharks. Because I'm not bailing you out."

That wasn't news. He hadn't bailed me out the first time, either. I wasn't about to tell him that I hadn't owned a credit card in two years and the only sharks I knew were at the Long Beach Aquarium. When you don't have anything nice to say, keep quiet. I kept quiet.

"Which brings me to the question of how you can afford the computer? Did one of your gay friends give it to you as a present in return for services rendered?"

The conversation, which had started out as being merely very unpleasant, was getting ugly. Sometimes I wish I had never let that deception get going. It began as a misunderstanding that I didn't bother to correct, since it ended my father's hounding me to come into the business, get married and have children. But it caused more problems than it solved. Now if I told him I wasn't gay he wouldn't believe me. I continued playing the strong, silent type, while boiling inside.

"Why?" he asked, his voice trembling. "Why did you get this way? Was it my fault?"

To my astonishment, my father suddenly burst into tears. He put his head down almost to his lap, placed his face in his hands and sobbed. In all my life I had never seen him cry, not even at my mother's funeral. This was worse than having him browbeat me. I didn't know what to do.

He stopped crying as suddenly as he had started, pulled a maroon silk handkerchief that matched his tie out of his lapel pocket and wiped his eyes with it. He took several deep breaths. Then he said, "I need your help."

Hearing this was almost as surprising as seeing him cry; I couldn't remember when he had ever asked for my help. And I couldn't recover that rapidly from the roller coaster ride down caused by his crying without risking serious effects from g-forces.

He looked at me, composed again, all signs of tears removed from his handsome face.