when I was a boy, I confided in Angelina, the girl next door. I told her all my dreams: how I wanted to be an engineer or an architect. I wanted to design houses, ships, airplanes, rockets. I complained that St. Julio’s School for Island Boys had no scientist or math teachers. I had no male role models or education in these areas. When I complained, my teachers suggested I give up any ideas of having a career. Men don’t have careers, my teachers said. Women do. It’s so unfair, Angelina agreed. You should be able to study whatever you wish. Why can’t you become an architect? A true idealist, she said when she grew up, she’d start a coeducational school where boys and girls were treated equally. Where sexism was not allowed. Tossing back her long hair, sucking on a cigarette, she added that even the size of my wings (or lack thereof) didn’t matter to her. Of course, that was before she met a man with extra-large wings and never spoke to me again.

I felt like an utter failure as a young man when Angelina left me. I suddenly knew everything about me was wrong—my blemished skin, my close-set eyes, my small wings. No matter how often I shaved, I always grew an afternoon shadow. No matter how often I worked out, I was never be as thin and muscular as the air- brushed models in fashion catalogs. And no matter what I wore or said, I never looked or sounded all right. No wonder Angelina didn’t notice me anymore. My father comforted me as best he could. You’re better off without her, he said. Besides, she’s not your type. You know all she ever wanted was to get into your pants. Maybe that’s what being a young man is all about, I thought. Keeping the trophy between my legs untouched. But all I really wanted was to be the kind of guy my father called damaged goods.