We first meet Charlie Gilhooley in I'll Love You When You're More Like Me when he decides to come out of the closet and publicly announce his sexual preference. He chooses to bury himself forever in a small town where no gay lifestyle is possible: We were all used to Charlie in Seaville. He wasn't a macho gay like some of the ones who came out to Seaville on weekends and in summer. You could tell what Charlie was by looking at him, and if you heard him talking behind you in a restaurant, you could tell what Charlie was. Charlie never asked for anything but to be left alone with his embalming fluids and his funeral processions.

I think most of us in Seaville had the kind of affection for Charlie any small town has for one of its characters. He was our resident gay...