Mary Elizabeth Burgess

Boy Wonders Mary Elizabeth Burgess

He shouldn't even have been born. His mother's water broke when she was only eight months along. Yet the doctor delivered a healthy boy one month later by forceps. When he babbled in his crib or coach, the neighbor lady said he made sense to her. "I declare I swear he's talking in tongues" Marietta dismissed this, saying to her husband "Just Iris getting into the elderberry wine again" Isaiah meets new neighbor Tommy Wiu to whom he'd given his ice cream cone when Tommy dropped his at the previous summer's ice cream festival. "Thank you" Tommy says, "only I prefer chocolate" When the boys explore Smoky Valley cave, little Tommy gets stuck and Izzie summons help. No one explored the cave again, nor did anyone ever know of the sexual encounter the curious boys shared there. Izzie determines he'll be a priest while Tommy decides to become an obstetrician. When he and his wife Suk give birth to twins, Izzie intends to fly to California to baptize them. However he is struck down while speaking at a huge demonstration on the mall in D. C. where he has organized clerics and others to join him in supporting homosexuality, a cause his priest has asked him to organize and lead. At his memorial service, though Tommy knows his friend has died a martyr, he urges authorities not to consign martyrdom to Isaiah. A plaque near the Lincoln Memorial commemorates Izzie's sacrifice, but does not use the word "martyr"