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 MISS FROST 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.
The other “poor Tom”—namely, Atkins—told me that Kittredge had pulled off both parts with a noble-seeming indifference, and that Grandpa Harry had luxuriously indulged in the sheer awfulness of Lear’s eldest daughter.
“How was Delacorte?” I asked Atkins.
“Delacorte gives me the creeps,” Atkins answered.
“I meant, how was he as Lear’s Fool, Tom.”
“Delacorte wasn’t bad, Bill,” Atkins admitted. “I just don’t know why he always looks like he needs to spit!”
“Because Delacorte does need to spit, Tom,” I told Atkins.
It was after Thanksgiving—hence the winter-sports teams had commenced their first practices—when I ran into Delacorte, who was on his way to wrestling practice. He had an oozing mat burn on one cheek and a deeply split lower lip; he was carrying the oft-seen paper cup. (I noted that Delacorte had just one cup, which I hoped was not a multipurpose cup—that is, for both rinsing and spitting.)
“How come you didn’t see the play?” Delacorte asked me. “Kittredge said you didn’t see it.”
“I’m sorry I missed it,” I told him. “I’ve had a lot of other stuff going on.”
“Yeah, I know,” Delacorte said. “Kittredge told me about it.” Delacorte took a sip of water from the paper cup; he rinsed his mouth, then spit the water into a dirty snowbank alongside the footpath.
“I heard you were a very good Lear’s Fool,” I told him.
“Really?” Delacorte asked; he sounded surprised. “Who told you that?”
“Everybody said so,” I lied.
“I tried to do all my scenes with the awareness that I was dying,” Delacorte said seriously. “I see each scene that Lear’s Fool is in as a kind of death-in-progress,” he added.
“That’s very interesting. I’m sorry I missed it,” I told him again.
“Oh, that’s all right—you probably would have done it better,” Delacorte told me; he took another sip of water, then spit the water in the snow. Before he hurried on his way to wrestling practice, Delacorte suddenly asked me: “Was she pretty? I mean the transsexual librarian.”
“Yes, very pretty,” I answered.
“I have a hard time imagining it,” Delacorte admitted worriedly; then he ran on.
Years later, when I knew that Delacorte was dying, I often thought of him playing Lear’s Fool as a death-in-progress. I really am sorry I missed it. Oh, Delacorte, how I misjudged you—you were more of a death-in-progress than I ever imagined!
It was Tom Atkins who told me, that December of 1960, how Kittredge was telling everyone I was “a sexual hero.”
“Kittredge said that to you, Tom?” I asked.
“He says it to everyone,” Atkins told me.
“Who knows what Kittredge really thinks?” I said to Atkins. (I was still suffering from the way Kittredge had delivered the disgusting word when I’d least expected it.)
That December, the wrestling team had no home matches—their earliest matches were away, at other schools—but Atkins had expressed his interest in seeing the home wrestling matches with me. I’d earlier resolved to see no more wrestling matches—in part because Elaine wasn’t around to see the matches with me, but also because I was bullshitting myself about trying to boycott Kittredge. Yet Atkins was interested in watching the wrestling, and his interest had rekindled mine.
Then, that Christmas of 1960, Elaine came home; the Favorite River dormitories had emptied for the Christmas break, and Elaine and I had the deserted campus largely to ourselves. I told Elaine absolutely everything about Miss Frost; my session with Dr. Harlow had provided me with sufficient storytelling practice, and I was eager to make up for those years when I’d been less than candid with my dear friend Elaine. She was a good listener, and not once did she try to make me feel guilty for not telling her about my various sexual infatuations sooner.
We were able to speak frankly about Kittredge, too, and I even told Elaine that I “had once had” a crush on her mother. (That Mrs. Hadley no longer attracted me in that way made it easier for me to tell Elaine about it.)
Elaine was such a good friend to me that she actually volunteered to be the go-between—that is, should I want to try to arrange a meeting with Miss Frost. I thought about such a meeting all the time, of course, but Miss Frost had so clearly indicated to me her unwavering intentions to say good-bye—her “till we meet again” had such a businesslike sound to it. I couldn’t imagine that Miss Frost had meant anything clandestine or suggestive about how we might manage to “meet again.”
I appreciated Elaine’s willingness to be the go-between, but I didn’t for a moment delude myself by imagining that Miss Frost would ever make herself available to me again. “You have to understand,” I said to Elaine. “I think Miss Frost is pretty serious about protecting me.”
“As first experiences go, Billy, I think you’ve had a pretty good one,” Elaine told me.
“Except for the interference of my whole fucking family!” I cried.
“That’s just weird,” Elaine said. “It can’t be Miss Frost they’re all so afraid of. Surely they didn’t believe that Miss Frost would ever hurt you.”
“What do you mean?” I asked her.
“There’s something about you they’re afraid of, Billy,” Elaine told me.
“That I’m a homosexual, or that I’m bisexual—is that what you mean?” I asked her. “Because I think they’ve already figured that out, or at least they suspect it.”
“They’re afraid of something you don’t know yet, Billy,” Elaine told me.
“I’m sick of everybody trying to protect me!” I shouted.