In One Person (41 page)

At Favorite River Academy, when you were caught committing an act of carnal folly, you were interrogated by Dr. Harlow; Kittredge, who (I presumed) had a wealth of experience with carnal acts, was an expert at dealing with Dr. Harlow.

I listened intently to Kittredge’s advice; I hung (as they say) on his every word. It was painful to hear, at times, because Kittredge insisted on spelling out for me the details of his sexual misadventure with Elaine. “Forgive the specific example, Nymph, but just so you know how Harlow operates,” Kittredge would say, before launching into his short-term hearing loss—the result of how
loud
Elaine Hadley’s orgasms were.

“What Harlow wants to hear from you is how
sorry
you are, Nymph. He’s expecting you to
repent
. What you give him, instead, is nonstop titillation. Harlow will try to make you feel
guilty,
” Kittredge told me. “Don’t buy into that shit, Nymph—just pretend you’re reciting a pornographic novel.”

“I see,” I said. “No remorse, right?”

“No remorse, Nymph—that’s exactly right. Mind you,” Kittredge said, in that eerily changed voice—the one I was afraid of. “Mind you, Nymph—I think what you’ve done is
disgusting
. But I applaud you for having the courage to do it, and you absolutely have a
right
to do it!”

Then, as suddenly as he’d swept me into his arms on the dormitory stairs, he was gone—he was disappearing down the third-floor hall, with those admiring boys in the doorways all watching him run. It had been classic Kittredge. You could be careful, but you could never be careful enough with him; only Kittredge knew where the conversation would end. I often had the feeling with him that he knew the end of our conversation before he started.

It was then that the door to our faculty apartment opened; both Richard Abbott and my mother were standing there, as if they’d been standing on the other side of the door for quite a while.

“We heard voices, Bill,” Richard said.

“I heard Kittredge’s voice—I would know his voice anywhere,” my mother said.

I looked all around me in the suddenly deserted hall.

“Then you must be hearing things,” I told my mom.

“I heard Kittredge’s voice, too, Bill—he sounded rather
passionate,
” Richard said.

“You should both get your ears checked—have your hearing tested or something,” I told them. I walked past them into the living room of our apartment.

“I know you’re seeing Dr. Harlow tomorrow, Bill,” Richard said. “Perhaps we should talk about that.”

“I know everything I’m going to say to Dr. Harlow, Richard—in fact, the details are pretty fresh,” I told him.

“You should be careful what you say to Dr. Harlow, Billy!” my mother exclaimed.

“What do I have to be careful about?” I asked her. “I don’t have anything to hide—not anymore.”

“Just take it easy, Bill—” Richard started to say, but I wouldn’t let him finish.

“They didn’t kick out Kittredge for having sex, did they?” I asked Richard. “Are you afraid they’re going to kick me out for
not
having sex?” I asked my mother.

“Don’t be silly—” my mom started to say.

“Then what
are
you afraid of?” I asked her. “One day I’m going to have all the sex I want—the way I want it. Are you afraid of
that
?”

She didn’t answer me, but I could see that she
was
afraid of my having all the sex I wanted, the way I wanted it. This time, Richard didn’t jump into the conversation; he didn’t try to help her out. As I went to my bedroom and closed the door, I was thinking that Richard Abbott probably knew something I
didn’t
know.

I lay down on my bed and tried to imagine everything that I might not know. It must have been something my mother had kept from me, I thought, and maybe Richard had disapproved of her not telling me. That would explain why Richard hadn’t rushed in to help my mom out of whatever mess she’d made for herself. (Richard hadn’t even managed to say his usual “Take it easy, Bill” bullshit!)

Later, as I was trying to fall asleep, I was thinking that, if I ever had children, I would tell them everything. But the
everything
word only led me to remember the details of my sexual experience with Miss Frost. Those details, which I would impart—in as titillating (even in as
pornographic
) a fashion as I could manage—to Dr. Harlow in the morning, led me next to imagine the sex that I
hadn’t
had with Miss Frost. Naturally, with all there was to imagine, I was awake rather late into the night.

K
ITTREDGE HAD PREPARED ME SO
well for my meeting with Dr. Harlow that the meeting itself was anticlimactic. I simply told the truth; I left no detail out. I even included the part about my not knowing, at first, if I’d had what most people call sex with Miss Frost—if there’d been any penetration. The
penetration
word seized Dr. Harlow’s attention to such a degree that he stopped writing on his pad of lined paper; he flat out asked me.

“Well,
was
there any penetration?” the doctor said impatiently.

“In due time,” I told him. “You can’t rush that part of the story.”

“I want to know
exactly
what happened, Bill!” Dr. Harlow exclaimed.

“Oh, you
will
!” I cried excitedly. “The not-knowing is part of the story.”

“I don’t
care
about the not-knowing part!” Dr. Harlow declared, pointing his pencil at me. But I was not about to be rushed. The longer I talked, the more the bald-headed owl-fucker had to listen.

At Favorite River Academy, we called the faculty and staff we intensely disliked “bald-headed owl-fuckers.” The origin of this is obscure. If the Favorite River yearbook was called
The Owl,
I’m guessing that this
hinted at an owl’s presumed wisdom—as expressed in the questionable claim “wise as an owl,” or the equally unprovable “wise old owl.” (Our stupid sports teams were called the Bald Eagles, which was additionally confusing—eagles were not owls.)

“The ‘bald-headed’ reference may indicate the physical appearance of a circumcised penis,” Mr. Hadley had said once—when all the Hadleys were having dinner with Richard and my mom and me.

“What on earth makes you think so?” Mrs. Hadley asked her husband. I remember that Elaine and I were riveted by this conversation—my mother’s obvious discomfort with the
penis
word being part of our enthrallment.

“You see, Martha, the ‘owl-fucker’ part is indicative of the homo-hating culture of an all-boys’ school,” Mr. Hadley continued, in his history-teacher way. “The boys call those of us they most detest ‘bald-headed owl-fuckers’ because they are presuming that the very
worst
of us are homosexual men who diddle—or dream of diddling—young boys.”

Elaine and I howled; we thought this was so
funny
. We’d never imagined that the expression “bald-headed owl-fucker” actually meant
anything
!

But my mother suddenly spoke up. “It’s just one of those vulgar things the boys say, because they’re
always
saying vulgar things—it’s how they
think,
” my mom said, bitterly.

“But it originally
meant
something, Mary,” Mr. Hadley had insisted. “It surely originated for a
reason,
” the history teacher had intoned.

In my deliberate and detailed recounting to Dr. Harlow of my sexual experience with Miss Frost, I very much enjoyed remembering Mr. Hadley’s historical speculations concerning what a bald-headed owl-fucker actually was. Dr. Harlow clearly was one, and—as I prolonged my discovery that Miss Frost and I had had an
intercrural
sexual experience—I admit that I borrowed a few of James Baldwin’s well-chosen words. “There was
no
penetration,” I told Dr. Harlow, in due time, “therefore no ‘stink of love,’ but I so
wanted
there to be!”

“Stink of love!” Dr. Harlow repeated; I could see he was writing this down, and that he suddenly didn’t look well.

“I may never have a better orgasm,” I told Dr. Harlow, “but I still want to do
everything
—all those things Miss Frost was protecting me from, I mean. She made me want to do all those things—in fact, I can’t wait to do them!”

“Those
homosexual
things, Bill?” Dr. Harlow asked me. Through his thinning, lusterless hair, I could see him sweating.

“Yes, of
course
‘homosexual things’—but also other things, to both men
and
women!” I said eagerly.

“
Both,
Bill?” Dr. Harlow asked.

“Why not?” I said to the bald-headed owl-fucker. “I was attracted to Miss Frost when I believed she was a woman. When I realized she was a man, I was no
less
attracted to her.”

“And are there other people, of
both
sexes—at this school, and in this town—who
also
attract you, Bill?” Dr. Harlow asked.

“Sure. Why not?” I said again. Dr. Harlow had stopped writing; perhaps the task of the opus ahead of him seemed unending.

“Students, Bill?” the bald-headed owl-fucker asked.

“Sure,” I said. I closed my eyes for dramatic effect, but this had more of an effect on me than I’d anticipated. I suddenly saw myself in Kittredge’s powerful embrace; he had me in the arm-bar, but of course there was more to it than that.

“Faculty wives?” Dr. Harlow suggested, less than spontaneously.

I needed only to think of Mrs. Hadley’s homely face, superimposed again and again on those training-bra models in my mother’s mail-order catalogs.

“Why not?” I asked, a third time. “
One
faculty wife, anyway,” I added.

“Just
one
?” Dr. Harlow asked, but I could tell that the bald-headed owl-fucker wanted to ask me
which
one.

At that instant, it occurred to me how Kittredge would have answered Dr. Harlow’s insinuating question. First of all, I looked bored—as if I had much more to say, but just couldn’t be bothered.

My acting career was almost over. (I didn’t know this at the time, when I was the center of attention in Dr. Harlow’s office, but I had only one, extremely minor, role remaining.) Yet I was able to summon my best imitation of Kittredge’s shrug and Grandpa Harry’s evasions.

“Ah, well . . .” I started to say; then I stopped talking. Instead of speaking, I mastered that insouciant shrug—the one Kittredge had inherited from his mother, the one Elaine had learned from Mrs. Kittredge.

“I see, Bill,” Dr. Harlow said.

“I doubt that you do,” I told him. I saw the old homo-hater stiffen.

“You doubt that I do!” the doctor cried indignantly. Dr. Harlow was furiously writing down what I’d told him.

“Trust me on this one, Dr. Harlow,” I said, remembering every word that Miss Frost had spoken to me. “Once you start repeating what people say to you, it’s a hard habit to break.”

That was my meeting with Dr. Harlow, who sent a curt note to my mother and Richard Abbott, describing me as “a poor prospect for rehabilitation”; Dr. Harlow didn’t elaborate on his evaluation, except to say that, in his professional estimation, my sexual problems were “more a matter of attitude than action.”

All I said to my mother was that, in
my
professional estimation, the talk with Dr. Harlow had been a great success.

Poor, well-meaning Richard Abbott attempted to have a friendly tête-à-tête with me about the meeting. “What do you think Dr. Harlow meant by your
attitude,
Bill?” dear Richard asked me.

“Ah, well . . .” I said to Richard, pausing only long enough to meaningfully shrug. “I suppose a visible lack of remorse lies at the heart of it.”

“A visible lack of remorse,” Richard repeated.

“Trust me on this one, Richard,” I began, confident that I had Miss Frost’s domineering intonation exactly right. “Once you start repeating what people say to you, it’s a hard habit to break.”

I
SAW
M
ISS
F
ROST
only two more times; on both occasions, I was completely unprepared—I’d not been expecting to see her.

The sequence of events that led to my graduation from Favorite River Academy, and my departure from First Sister, Vermont, unfolded fairly quickly.

King Lear
was performed by the Drama Club before our Thanksgiving vacation. For a period of time, not longer than a week or two, Richard Abbott joined my mother in giving me the “silent treatment”; I’d clearly hurt Richard’s feelings by not seeing the fall Shakespeare play. I’m sure I would have enjoyed Grandpa Harry’s performance in the Goneril role—more than I would have liked seeing Kittredge in the dual roles of Edgar and Poor Tom.