In One Person

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.
    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