Sticks and Stones - Lynn Hall (smarten punctuation)

by Lynn Hall

  “But you just can’t warm up to the guy.”

  “You hit the nail right on the thumb, old buddy.”

  Ward twisted around and awkwardly played a series of scales. “It doesn’t really matter, though, does it? Whether you like him or not, as long as she does.”

  “That’s just what I was thinking.”

  “After all, another few months and you’ll be out of school; you’ll be away to college, living your own life. In a way it’s kind of nice that she’ll have someone, isn’t it? I like your mother.”

  “Thanks. So do I. Yes, I guess I’m really glad about the whole thing. It’s just a kind of funny idea to get used to.”

  “Tom.”

  “What?”

  Ward hesitated as though he were embarrassed. “Something I’d like to get on the record, just in case the occasion ever comes up, but don’t take it the wrong way or anything.”

  “I won’t. What?”

  “Well, as you know by now, I’m kind of a funny guy. A loner. As a rule, I don’t like a lot of people around all the time. But on the other hand, well, everybody needs somebody, and if you should ever feel that you want to move out on your own, there’s always room for you at Sweet Ridge. I mean permanently. If, you know, if things should ever work out that way.”

  Tom was surprised and moved by the offer, knowing how Ward treasured his privacy. With forced lightness he said, “Me and my baby grand?”

  “You betcha. Hey, play ‘None But the Lonely Heart,’ will you? I have a feeling the old folks would just as soon do without our company for a while.”

  Just before Christmas vacation Tom was called into Mr. McNamar’s office. He had always been the sort of student to whom a call to the principal’s office brought no uneasiness. It meant a conference about some Student Council project, or perhaps someone had called the school inquiring about a student to play for a Women’s Club style show or to tutor a younger child in piano.

  The office girl delivered this summons during Tom’s one free period, right after lunch. He didn’t mind going, but he was reluctant to leave what he was doing, making a list of possible Christmas presents for Ward, his mother, and both his previous and future fathers. Charlotte and the men would be easy, but he wanted to do something special for Ward.

  As he followed the office girl through the locker-lined halls, he tried to bring his mind away from the problem of presents and focus it on Mr. McNamar. The only reason he could think of for the summons was to talk about state music finals. Mr. Knapp had mentioned that since four Great River students would be going on to the finals in February, the school would probably have a send-off assembly at which they would all have to play.

  But when Tom was led into Mr. McNamar’s inner office and the door pointedly shut behind him, he knew it was something more serious than a music assembly. The principal’s horselike face was completely without its usual good humor.

  “Sit down, Tom.”

  Tom sat.

  Mr. McNamar lay back in his chair and stared down at the pencil he was running back and forth through his fingertips. His hair was a kinky auburn frame for a face that was much too long and thin, but it was an intelligent face, and thoughtful, deeply etched with problem-lines.

  “This isn’t going to be pleasant for either one of us, Tom, so I’m going to get right to the point. I’m afraid I can’t let you go to the state music finals. I know you worked hard and you won the right to go, and I know it means a lot to you. I’m sorry.”

  Tom was stunned.

  Mr. McNamar’s words rolled on over his head. “… a very unpleasant situation for everyone involved. I’ve had complaints.”

  “Complaints?” Tom was still confused, unable to follow what was being said. “What do you mean, complaints? That there was something wrong with my win at regionals, you mean?”

  Mr. McNamar sighed a long and weary sigh. “Tom, I’ve had complaints from the parents of the other boys who’ll be making the trip. I don’t know any way to say this except just to say it. They don’t want their sons making a two-day out-of-town trip with a young man who is homosexual.” The office rang with silence, and in the silence, that last incredible word echoed and echoed.

  “What? What did you say?”

  Mr. McNamar recited his statement again.

  Tom fought the wild laughter that rose to choke him. “This is some kind of crazy mistake, Mr. McNamar. I don’t know where they’d ever get a stupid, ridiculous idea like that, because it isn’t true. It just isn’t true.” The very fact that he was sitting here defending himself against such a charge was almost beyond belief, and yet even as he denied it, Tom began to understand.

  “Oh, my God,” he said, covering his face with one hand. “That’s what’s been going on around here all year.” He dropped his hand and looked squarely into Mr. McNamar’s eyes.

  “Mr. McNamar, I’ll swear on a stack of Bibles there isn’t any truth in it at all. I don’t know how a story like that could ever have gotten started, but you can’t let it keep me from going to the finals. Can you?”

  Mr. McNamar hunched forward over his desk and jabbed his pencil point savagely into the green blotter that covered most of the desk top. “I don’t know why I ever thought I wanted to be a high school principal,” he muttered. “Look, Tom, maybe it’s true; maybe it isn’t. The trouble with a thing like this is that it can’t very well be proved. Or disproved. You may be straight as a string, or you may have gotten yourself involved in a situation that’s just a temporary thing, and believe me, it’s not as unusual as you might think.

  “On the other hand, it’s been my experience that where there is this much talk there’s usually at least some element of truth in it. I’ve been aware of your situation since the start of the school year, but I was hoping if I just sort of kept the lid on things, it wouldn’t have to come out in the open. I wish we could afford a school psychologist or counselor, but since we can’t, I’m afraid it’s up to me to handle these things as I see fit.”

  “But, Mr. McNamar, it isn’t true.” Tom’s voice crackled with anguish.

  The principal turned away from Tom and began swinging the end of the Venetian blind cord. “Tom, the trouble is this isn’t something that can be proved or disproved. If these parents hadn’t stirred up the hornet’s nest, so to speak, I’d have had no objections to your making the trip. But under the circumstances I’d strongly advise that you forget about going.” He held up a hand to cut off Tom’s angry reply.

  “Look at it from my standpoint, Tom. If you go and anything unpleasant happens, I’m responsible, and everyone, including you, is hurt. Even if you go and nothing happens, I’ll still have alienated the parents, and probably increased their hostility toward you. But if you just quietly bow out, all that happens is that you’ll have missed the trip. Under the circumstances, don’t you think that’s the lesser of the evils?”

  But Tom was no longer listening to the man’s logic. So many things were coming back to him in the light of this ludicrous revelation—Mrs. Schleffe snatching her little boy away from him; the stifled explosion in journalism as he sang “Reuben, Reuben, I been thinking, What a queer world this would be …”; and, oh God, “Naylor, you just keep your hands off the other boys.”

  So this is it, he thought. They all think I’m queer.

  He wanted to shout down Mr. McNamar’s endless logic with a truth no one was interested in.

  He became aware that Mr. McNamar was waiting for him to say something. In a voice so hard it sounded like a stranger’s, Tom said, “In other words then, you’re forbidding me to go to the finals, even though I worked my tail off earning the right to go, and it doesn’t matter to you that I haven’t done anything. You’re not interested in the truth at all, just so there isn’t some sort of scandal that’ll make you look bad.”

  Mr. McNamar looked away again, uncomfortably. “I’m thinking about the best interests of everyone concerned. And you have to understand my position. The school board pays my salary, an
d the board is made up of parents. Public opinion—”

  Tom was fighting tears of rage. “I don’t give a damn about public opinion, or the school board. It’s unfair. To me! You keep talking about the best interests of everyone. Well, doesn’t that include me? What about my best interests? I was planning to make a career of concert piano, for which I’ll need to get into the best school I can, for which I was counting on winning this competition. It’s not easy to get into the kind of music department I’m going to need.”

  Neither he nor Mr. McNamar was aware that his tone was a dangerous one to use with a principal.

  “You’ll get the education you need, I’m sure. Mr. Knapp tells me you have a lot of talent.”

  Tom glanced up bitterly. “What does Mr. Knapp think about this?”

  For the first time a veil of authority came between them. “I don’t think that’s really your concern, but he will abide by my decision.”

  Tom stood up abruptly, too filled with frustrated anger to remain seated. In a hard, clear voice he said, “Just tell me one thing, Mr. McNamar. Do you think I’m—homosexual?”

  Mr. McNamar met Tom’s gaze, but only for an instant. “Well now, boys your age often go through temporary phases that aren’t really too serious. And in any case, it needn’t be the end of the world. We’re living in an enlightened age and there’s no reason why you can’t lead a creative, productive life no matter—”

  Tom jerked open the office door and moved blindly past the secretary. Out of the building he loped, toward the car. In a shower of gravel he left the parking lot and spun toward the road to Sweet Ridge.

  14

  As he drove, Tom opened the car window and let the cold air revive him. Gradually small facts of the present made their way into his awareness through the haze of shock. It was two o’clock. He should be going into English right now. His books were still on his desk in study hall where he had left them. It was too early to go to Sweet Ridge; Ward would still be writing.

  And yet there was nothing he could do except to turn onto the Sny Magill road, wind down into the Sny valley, cross the bridge, start the upward climb, and, with an overwhelming sense of shelter, ease onto the track that led to Sweet Ridge.

  Since the night of his birthday dinner, Tom had had an almost proprietary feeling about the little stone schoolhouse. He seldom knocked anymore, and he didn’t knock now. Ward was hunched around his typewriter, staring down at the paper in it with eyes that were focused on another existence. Tom stood for what seemed several minutes before Ward became aware of him and looked up.

  “I’m sorry to bother you while you’re working.”

  Ward moved then, and the movement helped to break the spell and bring him back to himself. At first his voice had a faraway quality, but after a few minutes it sounded normal again.

  “Hey. What are you doing here?” He looked around the room, forgetting for a moment that he had no clocks at Sweet Ridge. “It’s early, isn’t it? Something wrong?”

  “You could say that.” Tom came into the room and made a motion to take off his coat, then realized he didn’t have it on. He went to the oil burner in the middle of the room and opened his arms to it. “Go ahead and finish what you were doing. I don’t want to interrupt.”

  Ward took his coffee cup to the kitchen for a refill and brought one back for Tom. “Don’t be silly. Here, take this. What are you doing running around without a jacket, for God’s sake? Now sit down and tell old Dad what’s up.”

  “I’ll tell you what’s up. Did you know I was queer? I just found out about it. I was just informed of it by our illustrious principal.” Tom was staring hard into the woods beyond the window, so he didn’t see the progression of reactions on Ward’s face: compassion, dread, a deep kind of sadness. But no surprise.

  “Tell me,” Ward said quietly.

  Tom tasted the coffee, burned his tongue, set the cup on the floor, and then moved it to a more secure nest in the carpet nap.

  “He called me into his office just now, and told me I can’t go to state music finals.” He paused, because his throat began to swell and it was difficult to talk.

  Tom’s pain was reflected clearly in Ward’s face. “They’re not going to let you play in the finals? Oh, Tom. What’s it all about?”

  “What it’s all about is the fact that”—he took a ragged breath—“that I am a known homosexual around school, and Mr. McNamar has been getting complaints from the parents of the other kids who’ll be going to Des Moines for finals. They don’t want their little boys contaminated by Tom Naylor. I might touch them or something.”

  “God, Tom.”

  “I know it.” Their eyes met, and for an instant Tom was surprised by the depth of the pain in Ward’s face. “Hey, it’s not that bad,” he said with a small laugh.

  “Yes, it is. Those bastards. They can’t do this to you. I’d like to kill them all. It’s so damned unfair.”

  Suddenly their roles were reversed, and Tom was comforting Ward. “It’s not that big a deal, buddy. It’s not worth falling on a spear over it. Six more months and I’ll be out of school and it’ll all be forgotten. This thing isn’t going to follow me to college, and I can live without winning their asinine music contest. But God! I hate to waste that Chopin medley. I worked so hard on it, and I was just getting it down perfectly. This whole thing is so damned unfair! Excuse me a minute.”

  He went to the outhouse, and when he came back, his emotions were in firmer control.

  Ward was pacing around the room, slapping the bedpost, punching the back of the chair. “I’d just like to knock their empty heads together, doing this to you. Listen, would they let you go to the finals if you went by yourself and stayed at some other hotel? I’d be glad to drive you down.”

  “No. Thanks anyway, but that’d be too embarrassing, tagging along after the rest of them and not being able to be with the group. Besides, if this is the way they feel about it, I know what they can do with their damned contest. I don’t want any part of it.”

  Ward stopped pacing and sat down. “Tom, we’re overlooking the source of the whole mess. Do you have any idea how this thing got started around about you?”

  Tom shook his head and tried his coffee again. It was cool enough to drink now. “I don’t know how it could have got started. I’m not queer, never have been and never plan to be.” He laughed a small unconvincing laugh. “In fact, I’ve never even given that whole deal much thought. I was one of those naive kids who thought a fairy was a little thing like Tinkerbell who flew around in a bunch of stardust.”

  Ward cleared his throat and began examining the skin around his thumbnail. “Does it bother you a whole lot—I mean, the idea that people are thinking you’re homosexual? Is it revolting to you?”

  Tom snorted. “Well, let’s face it, it’s not exactly the kind of thing you want beside your name in the yearbook. Sure it bothers me. Why wouldn’t it? There are probably some very nice people who’re that way, but I’m sure as hell not one of them, and I don’t like people going around saying I am.”

  “Yes, well, I can’t blame you.”

  Something in Ward’s voice made Tom feel, suddenly, that there was a distance between them.

  “I’m sorry I barged in while you were working.”

  “No. That’s okay. I’m glad you did. You had a problem, and I’m pleased you came here with it.”

  “I’d better go, though, so you can get back to work. Have you got a jacket I can wear home? I’ll bring it back tomorrow night.”

  “Sure. Here, how’s this? A little short in the sleeves, but it’ll keep you warm. You’ve got enough problems without catching cold. Are you going to say anything about this to your mother?”

  “Whew.” Tom covered his face with one hand. “I hadn’t even thought about that. I’ll have to think up something to tell her about not going to the finals. But I’m sure not going to say anything to her about—that other. She’d die.”

  They stood for a moment at the door.
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  Ward’s voice was soft with concern. “It’s going to be rough now, going back to school, huh?”

  Tom nodded. “A little, I guess.”

  Ward’s arm dropped around Tom’s shoulders in their easy old gesture of togetherness, but almost immediately self-consciousness spoiled the moment, and Ward dropped his arm.

  “I’ll see you,” Tom said. “Thanks for the tea and sympathy.”

  “Coffee and sympathy. Any time. Come out tomorrow night and let me know how it went. Hey. I’ll get a couple of steaks, okay?”

  “Sure. See you.”

  Charlotte was gone when Tom got home, and the house was blessedly empty, since the shop was closed for the winter. Tom shut himself in his room and flopped across the bed. He felt strung out, as though he had just cut himself with a razor blade and was waiting for the pain and bleeding to begin.

  He lay there, staring up at the rising slope of the ceiling. It was a large, oddly shaped room, covering all of the living room and kitchen. On the front and back ends the ceiling began sloping in just a few feet above the floor, and crowded down almost at floor level were two rows of small windows. They faced the river in front and the bluff in back, but to enjoy the view it was necessary to sit on the floor and peer out under the eaves.

  After a few minutes of lying motionless, he got up and went to sit on the floor by the river windows. I like the river better in winter than in summer, he thought.

  Just enough snow had fallen last week to cover the ground and dead grass, and to lie like cake frosting along tree branches. The river was a tranquil expanse of blues and grays and whites, accented by the scratchy blacks of the trees on the islands. The Wisconsin bluffs were indiscernible in the haze of the winter twilight.

  I really love it here, he thought. How can it— they—whoever—how can they think that about me? How did it ever get started? Do I look—different? Do I act funny, walk funny? My voice isn’t high. Oh, God. Can they see something I can’t see? He lowered his head and ground it against the bony hardness of his knees.