The Headmaster's Dilemma

by Louis Auchincloss

  He now took out of his briefcase to reread a piece that Bossy Caldwell had submitted some months before to the school magazine and which Michael, using the veto power of the headmaster over all contributions, had refused to approve, on the grounds that it might seriously upset some of the more religiously devout of the parent body and cause them to fear that their loved ones were being sadly misled at Averhill. Caldwell, under questioning, had been rather impertinently casual about this censorship, and Michael had pulled the piece from his files to reexamine it and gain some further insight into the boy’s character. It purported to be a sermon by a staunch right-winger priest and started as follows:

  My subject this morning is taken from the fourth chapter of the book of Ezekiel where it is related that the Lord God issued this command to the prophet: that he should go to the rebellious children of Israel and endure the iniquity of the House of Judah for forty days and eat their bread as barley cakes and bake it with dung that cometh out of man in their sight. But when Ezekiel protested that he had never eaten abominable flesh, the Lord in his mercy mitigated the rigor of his command by substituting the dung of cows for that of man. Blessed be the name of the Lord!

  Michael had originally been amused by this piece and had rather regretted having to ban it. He hoped that the boy’s teenage malevolent joy in smashing the idols in the Christian temple would be tempered in time in such a way as to turn him into a more moderate and thus more effective critic of the establishment. He hated the idea of throwing out of the school any student whose faults he deemed it his duty to correct. Where was the fame in graduating boys and girls who were already stars? Couldn’t anyone do that?

  But Caldwell was a prefect of the school—that was the rub. If he were forgiven this episode wouldn’t critics have some justification in saying that Michael was turning the school into a reformatory? This even brought him to think back on his days as a journalist with something like nostalgia. What bliss to be able simply to report and not to have to punish! Was he too soft for the task he had undertaken?

  Bossy Caldwell was waiting in his office when Michael came down from his classroom. Like a juvenile defendant clad by a jury-conscious lawyer, he was wearing a newly pressed black suit and a sober blue tie. His rather craggy features and stocky build seemed unaccustomed to his conservative apparel, and Michael thought he could detect the ghost of a sneer under the blandly attentive face that confronted him. It would be at least interesting to see how he would defend himself.

  Michael silently took the seat behind his desk and motioned to Caldwell to take the chair opposite. A silence ensued.

  “Well, Caldwell?”

  “Well, what, sir?”

  “I’m waiting to hear you explain what you were doing in Elihu Castor’s cubicle last night.”

  Caldwell suddenly demonstrated an actual eagerness to get to the point. “I’ve had some hours to think this over, and when you’re in a real jam, I guess the best ploy is to be utterly frank. You have the reputation, sir, of being a fair and impartial judge, a man one can really talk to, and I’m going to put all my cards on the table.”

  There was a note of near impertinence in this effort to reduce the gulf between them to that of man to man, but Michael chose to ignore it.

  “By all means do so.”

  “If I may take the liberty, sir, I’d like to observe that you are believed to take a wider and more realistic view of these matters than many other New England heads.”

  “What matters?”

  “Well, sir, it’s well known that you attended a boarding school in England. You must have observed what sometimes goes on between unsupervised boys.”

  “We’re going to leave out of this discussion, Caldwell, any things that I may or may not have observed in the United Kingdom or elsewhere.” Michael’s tone was stern. “We are going to confine it to you.”

  “Very well, sir. Excuse me, sir. But in my own defense, I’m going to have to tell you what I have observed going on in my dormitory at night.”

  “That’s all right. Go ahead.”

  “As a prefect in my dormitory I had to take account of the plain fact that there was a certain amount of intervisiting in the cubicles after lights. And it wasn’t to play tiddlywinks, either.”

  “Never mind what it wasn’t, Caldwell. I’m perfectly aware of what it was. There’s no place for humor in this discussion. It was your clear duty as prefect to put a stop to any visiting at all. How did you implement that duty?”

  “I would warn any culprit I apprehended that if he was caught again, I would report him to Mr. Smithers.”

  “But Mr. Smithers tells me you never reported anyone. Do you mean to imply that there were no repeats among the boys you so warned?”

  “No, sir. I have to confess that when it came to actually reporting a boy, the soft side of my nature got the better of me. I couldn’t bear to be responsible for some poor kid maybe being kicked out of school for doing something his natural urges impelled him to do.”

  Michael noted the attempted shift of the argument to a case of civil rights. “Which brings us then, Caldwell, to a consideration of your own ‘natural urges.’ Was it one of these that induced you to enter Castor’s cubicle?”

  “No, sir, not in entering it, anyway. To explain what happened after I had entered it requires further explanation.”

  “Let us hear it.”

  “The Castor boy was the victim of what the girls call a crush on me. A better term for boys would be ‘the hots.’ He would follow me into the showers and stare at my you-know-what. He was always making up excuses for consulting me about dormitory regulations or laundry or whatnot. Anything to get himself into my attention. Of course, I saw what his trouble was, and I felt sorry for the kid and tried to be as nice to him as I could, but he bored me. And then one night he actually came into my cubicle after lights and started sobbing and told me he couldn’t get back to sleep, that he’d had the most terrifying nightmare, that he was worried sick about his mother who was having a test for cancer, and would I please, please, come and sit with him a moment until he got hold of himself.”

  “Which you did?”

  “Which I did, sir. The kid was in a state. I thought it wouldn’t hurt if I put him back to bed and even gave him a hug to help put him to sleep.”

  “And was it necessary for you to be naked while administering this consolation?”

  “I never use pajamas, sir. I was bareass when Castor came in. Excuse the term, sir. It slipped out.”

  Michael was not sure it had just slipped out, but he ignored this. “And did you hug the boy?” Caldwell nodded. “And do you maintain that nothing else happened after that?”

  “No, sir, I don’t,” he replied stoutly. “Castor went kind of crazy when I bent down over his bed to embrace him. He threw his arms around my neck. He reached down to grab my balls. He tried to kiss them. I’m sorry, sir, but I’ve got to be explicit. There’s too much at stake for me in this. You have to see it as it was. I was aroused, yes. What man wouldn’t be? I’m only human. I fucked the hell out of the kid. And did he love it!”

  Michael stared down at the blotter on his desk for a long moment. If it wasn’t the whole truth, Caldwell at least was an able actor.

  “You’ve been frank with me, Caldwell. At least I hope you have. And I’ll be frank with you. I do not regard consensual sexual acts between boys in the same lurid light that some teachers do. But I agree it is better for the young to abstain until they reach an age when they may have a more mature recognition of their basic sexual orientation, and for this reason nightly visitation in the dorms is strictly forbidden. Your taking advantage of a younger boy may be somewhat mitigated by his aggressive behavior, but you had no business being in his cubicle at all. If he really needed help, you should have gone to Mr. Smithers, and he could have taken the boy to the infirmary.”

  “Oh, I plead guilty to that, sir!” Caldwell affirmed, almost with enthusiasm, as if snatching at a lesser penalty. “It was a g
ross violation of my duty as a prefect, and if you kick me out of your school, I can hardly complain!”

  Was this the smartest ploy of all? Michael sighed as he dismissed the culprit, telling him that his case would be duly considered. What he didn’t quite like was the boy’s insinuation that, after all, he and the headmaster were of the same breed of sophisticated men of the world who understood the imperative call of nature in such matters, for all their having to give lip service to the hypocritical priests of a supposedly Christian society. Had his school reforms given rise to the suspicions in boys like Caldwell that he had no morals at all?

  Very different was his interview with Elihu Castor. The boy was pale and visibly shaken. He listened, intently staring at his interlocutor while Michael delivered this gentle lecture.

  “Elihu, I want to start by telling you that there is nothing to be deeply ashamed about if you find yourself developing a strong affection for an older boy It is a perfectly natural thing, and I well remember when I was at Harrow in England feeling the greatest admiration for the captain of my house’s cricket team. The mutual admiration of a young warrior and an older one was applauded in classical times. But these affections can sometimes be carried too far and result in physical relationships. This is not a good idea, for the higher-minded among us feel that love should not be coupled with sexual acts until a man has attained his full maturity and has a better knowledge of what he really needs. Do you get what I mean, Elihu?”

  “You mean that Bossy Caldwell should have waited to see what he really needs?”

  “Yes, in a way.” Michael was a bit taken aback. “Both of you, for that matter. Caldwell is older, of course. He probably already is more attracted to girls than he is to boys like you.”

  “You mean he was attracted to me?”

  “Well, wasn’t he?”

  “He didn’t act that way.”

  “Is the idea so impossible?”

  Whatever the idea was, it suddenly seemed to intrigue the boy, for it actually appeared to distract him from the trouble he was in. Did he like to play with the concept that he, poor little thing that he was, had aroused something in the heart of the big brute of a prefect? A David subduing Goliath?

  “But he was always nasty to me,” he muttered in a sudden reversal of mood. “He even called me a fairy.”

  “He was probably ashamed of what he had done with you. Some men are like that. It’s a way of reasserting their masculinity by blaming their partner for what happened.”

  “But even Bossy could hardly blame me for that, sir.”

  “Why not? Didn’t you entice him into your cubicle?”

  “No! He came into my cubicle and grabbed me! He did it all! He pinned me down!”

  Michael became very grave at this. “You didn’t resist him?”

  “How could I? He’s too big and strong.”

  “You could have cried out. The dormitory master’s open door was only a few yards away.”

  “Bossy would have killed me! You don’t know him, sir!”

  Michael thought for a minute. The sheets on Elihu’s bed had been stained; David Smithers had had the housemaid’s report after chapel. Was it usual for the victim of an assault to achieve orgasm? Of course the sperm might have been Bossy’s alone. Would Elihu think of that? Michael became inquisitorial.

  “But you both reached a climax, didn’t you?”

  “Sir, he manipulated me!”

  Michael thought now that he knew what had happened. The boy had enjoyed himself and was in terror of being found out. Little did he care what damage he did to Bossy. The instant dislike that he felt for the whining and falsely accusing Elihu promoted a reluctant sympathy with the lustful but truthful Bossy. Maybe there was a way that this whole nasty business could be made to go away. He remembered the odious Mrs. Castor.

  “You know, Elihu, if you persist in accusing Caldwell, this whole thing will become public. You’re not anxious to have your mother brought into this, are you?”

  “Oh no, sir! Oh, not at all!”

  “Suppose we keep it just between ourselves and Mr. Smithers? I can promise you that Caldwell will never bother you again. He’s thoroughly sorry for what he did. Sex is a funny thing, Elihu, and it sometimes gets out of hand. If Caldwell did what he did to you entirely against your will, he is bound to be expelled from school. You don’t want that to happen, do you?”

  “No, sir. But it wouldn’t be my fault, would it?”

  “Not if you’re telling me the absolute truth, no. But are you, Elihu? We all know these things are capable of subtle gradations. There can be reluctance and resistance and acquiescence all mixed up together. I’ve watched lions mating in Kenya. The females sometimes bite and scratch the males before giving in.” Michael feared he might be going too far, but he had to get to the truth.

  “But if it wasn’t entirely against my will, mightn’t I be thrown out too?”

  Ah, there it was! That was the reason for the boy’s charge of rape. Michael breathed in relief. “Elihu,” he said seriously, “I give you my word as headmaster that whether you resisted or failed to resist you will not be subjected to any disciplinary action. You did not leave your cubicle except to appeal to the prefect about feeling ill, which is perfectly allowable. And when another boy improperly enters your cubicle and climbs into your bed, you are not held responsible for what follows. So no matter what your testimony about Caldwell amounts to, you are in the clear. And now I repeat, are you one hundred percent sure that you in no way cooperated with Caldwell in what happened that night? That it was, from start to finish, entirely against your will?”

  A long pause ensued. “No, sir, I’m not,” the boy at last confessed.

  “Thank you, Elihu. That will be all.”

  Michael hoped he had finally disposed of the matter when he relieved Caldwell of his prefectship, assigned him to another dormitory, and gave him thirty hours of weekend tasks, clearing snow off faculty driveways and washing their cars. To Elihu nothing was done.

  But he was surprised, when he described the case to Ione one night, that she did not wholly approve of his action.

  “Did you ask the Castor boy if he had told Caldwell of his mother’s cancer scare?”

  “No. It was an obvious bid for sympathy.”

  “But did the boy actually use it?”

  “I assumed so.”

  “That might have been the key. You should learn to be more suspicious, my dear. It would stand you in good stead if you ever found yourself in the position of a foundation head having to give away large sums of money.”

  “Now what in the world made you think of that?”

  “Something I’ve been waiting all day to tell you. I’ve a letter from the chairman of the Gladwin Foundation asking me if you were interested enough in their directorship to come down to New York for a preliminary interview.”

  He gave her a long hard stare. “Ione, what have you been up to?”

  “I simply told him at the wedding anniversary party that you were well qualified for the job. He was the one who brought the matter up. I didn’t commit you in any way. I didn’t even say you were interested.”

  “I’m not. But obviously you are. That’s what troubles me. Oh, my poor darling, are you so wretched at Averhill?”

  “No, no! I’m only thinking of you and your future. Really, I am! Won’t you go down, even for just an interview?”

  “I could not think of leaving the school at this juncture. Even for you, my dearest!”

  “Oh, I’d hate it if you did it only for me!” And to his dismay, she burst into tears. “Oh, we’ll stay in Averhill forever, of course. For ever and ever! And I’m going to be good about it, too. I mean that!”

  Michael did the only thing he could do: he made love to her. But he was beginning to wonder if he might be becoming a bit of a Bossy Caldwell. As Bossy Caldwell seemed already to suspect.

  6

  MICHAEL AFTERWARD always told himself that it might have worked. The thing that
wrecked it was something he could never have guessed and something to which the answer was never found. How did Bossy find out that Elihu had accused him of rape? Had he simply divined it from the fact that no disciplinary action was taken? Was he subtle enough to have gleaned the fact that no headmaster could afford the publicity that such an accusation would arouse? He was certainly very subtle.

  It later appeared that Caldwell had snarled at Elihu, “I’m going to get you for what you did, you little fairy sneak. You won’t know when or how until it happens, but you’ll know every minute of the day and night it’s surely coming! Oh, yes, we’ll get you!”

  “We,” poor Elihu wondered. Who were “we”? Perhaps the whole mighty sixth form, uniting to avenge one of their own? Would they “pump” him, as the terrible term was, for a revenge carried out while a sympathetic faculty turned its back? Mightn’t they even drown him by mistake?

  Elihu lived now in such panic that he could hardly concentrate on his studies. In his dormitory the boys didn’t know just what had happened on the night when Mr. Smithers had found Bossy Caldwell in his cubicle and sent him sharply back to his own, but the speculation was rife and lewd. What they did surmise from Bossy’s sly wink and shoulder shrug and malevolent glance at Elihu was that the latter had been guilty of some dishonorable “snitch” for which nemesis was waiting. In a matter of only a week Elihu was assigned to the infirmary with some kind of undiagnosed nervous disorder, and the next his dormmates knew was that he had been sent home for an indefinite period to effect a cure.

  Elihu’s panic dissolved behind the thick walls of the protecting Beaux Arts mansion on Seventieth Street, but he knew that his salvation depended on his never returning to Averhill, at least while Bossy was there. There was obviously only one way to assure himself of this, and at last he gathered the courage to tell his story to his anxious mother, who had had him under constant interrogation as to just what had occurred at school to upset him so. In his version of the episode, of course, Bossy appeared as a lustful ape and himself as the chaste and violated victim.