It was May 29, 1962, a date that Joseph Carcerano and Dennis DeMello will never forget. That was their first date, which was weeks in the making. It began when Dennis was 22 and saw Joe, 18, at The Pilgrim, a local Boston movie house. This was decades before it became an adult film theater, but at the time it was known as a place where gay men could meet each other in the “smoking lounge” below the lobby. Dennis had seen Joe there and was instantly taken by him, but Joe left quickly, and they didn’t get a chance to meet. Dennis went back every day for three weeks hoping to see this guy again. “The day he came back to the theater I knew it was him when I heard him walking down the stairs. Somehow I knew the sound of his steps. He saw me and walked right up to me.” The two men chatted for a bit and made plans to meet the next day for lunch, since they couldn’t go out for a drink because Joe was only 18.
The next day, Dennis waited for hours and finally called the number Joe had given him. Joe’s mother answered and said he wouldn’t be back for a long time, he was helping a friend work on his car. Dennis was devastated. Moments later his doorbell rang and Joe was standing on his steps. Their lunch date lasted long into the night. During their interview with Boston Spirit Magazine, Dennis says to Joe “I will never forget what you said that night.” It was getting close to 10 p.m. and Joe had to catch a bus home to get back before he got in trouble with his mother. Dennis continues, “He said to me, ‘I wish this night would never end.’” Now over half a century later Joe, 81, sitting next to Dennis, 84, in their Brighton home, rolls his eyes and says, “I was young and delirious.” Before they parted that night, they made a plan to have an official date the next day at a famous Boston restaurant and nightclub Blinstrub’s Village.
Over dinner, Dennis asked Joe if he would be his boyfriend. Joe replied, “I guess so.” And now 63 years later, the two are just as in love as they had been that night. Dennis couldn’t wait to introduce Joe to his best friend, Marilyn Cahill, who later told Dennis, “I give you guys a week, maybe a year tops; he’s young, he’s never been with another man and he’s going to want to run around.”
They saw each other every day and waited patiently till Joe turned 21 before he moved in with Dennis. Their families were very important to them, and they didn’t want to cause any problems by moving in together too soon.
Fifty years later, they were married at Cambridge City Hall by Mayor Denise Simmons. Marilyn was their witness, and she said at the reception, “Boy was I wrong about this one.” In fact, Dennis and Joe have never been apart this whole time except for once when Joe had a heart attack at work in 1997. Dennis said, “I had to have a friend come and stay with me while he was in the hospital, I couldn’t answer the phone, I was terrified it was going to be from the doctor saying, ‘I am sorry, he didn’t make it.’”
But Joe did make it and the two men have made quite a life together. Their home in Brighton is filled with Elvis memorabilia. Their walls are covered with autographed photos of the two men with everyone from Sara Jessica Parker and Joan Rivers to the cast of “Queer as Folk.” Peter Paige, who played the devastatingly handsome Emmett on “Queer as Folk,” autographed a poster and wrote, “You two are an inspiration.”
And they are. It is rare to see a marriage or any relationship last as long as theirs has. Dennis says whenever we go to P’town, people stop us and say, “You’re the guys who have been together forever.” When Mayor Marty Walsh wanted to host an event for all the Boston seniors who had been together for over 50 years, he really wanted to include LGBT couples, but his team had a very hard time finding LGBT couples who had been together that long—until they were introduced to Dennis and Joe. The men attended that event with another notable long-term lesbian couple, Sheri Barden and Lois Johnson.
Many people have asked about the secret to their success in staying together and in love for so long. Joe said, “We have always just cared so deeply for each other. I never thought we would get to grow old together, gay relationships just don’t last—we didn’t have any role models or people to tell us how to stay together. You just have to make an effort and work at it. We never fight.” Dennis smiles and says, “There is a secret, and I will tell you. Never go to bed mad at each other, you always have to kiss and make up.” And then he says quietly pretending Joe can’t hear him, “When one of us is wrong, pretend he is right, and everything will be OK.”
Despite all their Hollywood memorabilia and the photos of their lives, one of their cherished possessions is an old brick on a pedestal which they are excited to show off. “When we heard they were tearing down the old Pilgrim Theater where we met, we went down and it was already demolished, but a construction worker gave us a brick. It is part of our history! A brick is something solid, lasting and enduring, just like the life these two men have built together.
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