by Lynn Hall
“Stop it,” Ward snapped.
Tom froze.
“God,” Ward said. “This is it. I’m going to kill the whole thing, but I can’t keep quiet any longer. Now just shut up and listen till I get through, will you?”
Tom nodded, staring.
“When we first met each other, I told you I’d gotten a medical discharge from the service because of asthma. I didn’t. I was discharged because of a ‘homosexual involvement’ with another guy in my barracks. It wasn’t as bad as it sounds. It wasn’t anything I ever expected to do; it just happened. I won’t go into all the details, but I can’t stand it any longer, trying to keep it from you. I do have these—tendencies. I want you to understand how things are with me because frankly you’re the most important person in my life and I’d hate it if we couldn’t go on being friends.
“So. I’ve gone out with girls, and I’ve even made love to a couple. But by now I’ve learned that what I need is real love, not just sex, and it’s hard for me to find what I need with girls. They try to own me. They want me to be thinking of them every minute of every day, when maybe my mind is full of a new book idea or something like that. Maybe someday I’ll meet a woman who understands my needs, and if she’ll have me, we’ll get married. But in the meantime … Tom, I believe very firmly that any genuine love is a good and necessary thing, whether it comes from a man, woman, child, pet, or whatever. I believe every individual should try to find the kind of love that fills his needs, no matter what society says.
“No, don’t interrupt. I’m not finished yet. You’re wondering about you and me, so I’ll tell you as honestly as I can. Because I’m a writer, and because I’m the kind of person I am, I don’t like having a lot of people around me, but at the same time I am human and I do need someone who’s— close. I’m not talking about anything physical now. I just mean someone who cares about the little daily details of my life, and someone whose life I can care about in return. You could call it a kind of love if you wanted to, but I want to make one thing clear right now. I’d never in the world endanger whatever friendship you might feel for me by making any kind of, you know, physical advance or anything like that, that would be unwelcome. I have my pride, and I can understand your feelings about the whole thing.
“So, I’ll just say it once, and then we’ll forget about it. Yes, in the purest form of the word, I love you. It’s been very good for me to have somebody I can feel this way about. But, by God, I never wanted you to be hurt by it.”
Tom was too stunned to move. As he stared at Ward, the familiar face of his only friend seemed to change into something unfamiliar, unreal. Ward’s voice was at its usual medium pitch; his features were strong, his movements masculine; and yet he contained the same rot that Tom had felt growing within himself all these weeks. It was there, mocking him from within the one person who had been his refuge and his friend. He felt his stomach begin to churn.
Ward was still talking. “… knew as soon as you started having trouble at school that I was the one causing it. Guilt by association. So at least now you know where the talk probably got its start. Damn. I should have told you about it right from the start so you wouldn’t have kept coming out here and making it worse for yourself. But I was so darn lonesome. It got so I could hardly wait for evening to come so I’d have somebody to talk to. Well, now you know the whole thing, and I wouldn’t blame you a bit if you want to just stop coming out here altogether. I hope like hell you won’t. But I wouldn’t blame you. Damn, I could kill all those people.”
“I thought you were going to quit swearing,” Tom said. He needed to say something, but he just couldn’t make his mind take hold of the situation.
“I was. But at a time like this, ‘summer ditch’ just isn’t sufficient.” Ward was looking closely at Tom’s face.
As clearly as though it had been put into words, Tom could feel Ward’s need to hear him say, “It’s okay. I understand and it doesn’t bother me. We’re still friends.” But all Tom could think of was the unutterable embarrassment that overwhelmed him and made him long to be away from here. He felt betrayed. He felt quite literally that he had lost his last friend. There were no more sanctuaries.
He stood up. “Listen, I’ve got to get home. I’ve got to think. This whole thing has kind of—”
“I know.”
They stood at arm’s length, evading each other’s eyes, both feeling suddenly as though they were leaning toward each other, reaching toward a touch of reassurance. The current of need was strong between them, but neither moved.
Tom broke the stance. He pulled on his jacket as he was going out the door. “See you.”
“Sure. See you.”
Long after the Volkswagen was gone from the clearing, Ward stood in the doorway of the little stone schoolhouse. His face was impassive, but deep in his eyes was a great sadness.
18
In the days that followed, Tom’s isolation became a monstrous thing. He didn’t go near the piano now, and he avoided looking at it as much as possible. He explained to Charlotte that he wouldn’t be competing in the state music finals because he had gotten so far behind in his practicing during his illness. When she looked at him doubtfully, he added that he had also fallen behind in his schoolwork and the principal had suggested that it might be better if he didn’t make the trip.
Because Great River High School used no system of report cards and held parent-teacher conferences only once a semester, Charlotte had no idea how far behind in his work Tom really was, but she accepted his explanation about the music contest, and let the matter drop. Her attention was so focused on her coming marriage that on the few occasions when she noticed that Tom wasn’t looking just right, she assumed it was nothing more than the lingering after-effects of the flu. Tom encouraged the assumption.
Once or twice, desperate for someone to talk to, Tom thought about telling her everything, but he could never quite bring himself to take the risk. He thought, If she looked at me the way I looked at Ward when he was telling me about himself, I’d die.
At school, he moved from class to class, from day to day, in a cocoon of self-imposed silence. Even the casual exchanges between him and his locker-mate, the people in the halls and in the seats near his, came to an end. He tried to do the work, but his cocoon came between him and the teachers, so that he could watch their lips move, hear the words they said, and yet have no grasp of their meaning. Time and again he failed to do his homework because he honestly had no recollection of the assignment being given. And with the passing of the days, it became less and less important to him whether he ever got back into touch with what the rest of them were doing. Alongside the terrible fact that he was rotting away, the tragedies of Shakespeare and the axioms of algebra were irrelevant. Laughable. Totally unreal.
And now there was no Ward anymore. When things got to the point where he could no longer stand them, he could not get into the car and drive over to Sweet Ridge and talk it all out with Ward. He couldn’t pour off his overflowing bitterness and confusion and have Ward assuage him with understanding, a little logic, or a little joke. He could no longer regain his perspective by varnishing the cupboard doors at Sweet Ridge, or helping Ward wrestle with car chains, or losing himself in abstract arguments.
Now that he knew about Ward, he knew there would never be any hope of restoring himself in the eyes of Buck Creek and Great River as long as he continued to be Ward Alexander’s friend. It was obvious that the only thing to do was to cease going out to Sweet Ridge and to hope that eventually the whole thing would blow over.
In the meantime, now that he no longer saw Ward, he found himself thinking about him constantly. He wondered about the incident that had led to Ward’s discharge. He wondered how Ward felt about himself—whether he had gone through this self-hating time and had gotten over it, whether he really minded being the way he was, whether Ward suffered the same misery of loneliness that followed him constantly these days.
With a terrifying ache, To
m missed Ward. He dreamed about Ward almost every night, and in the evenings after supper it was all he could do to keep from going to Sweet Ridge.
“This is crazy,” he told himself through clenched jaws. “This is sick. I wouldn’t miss my own mother a tenth as much as I miss him. God. This isn’t just a friendship. What am I going to do? I can’t stand it.”
When the semester break was two weeks away, Tom wrote a letter to his father. He explained that since his mother was wanting to get married again and he felt he was in their way, he would like to come back to Wheaton to finish out his senior year. He hoped it wouldn’t be too much of an inconvenience for his father and his new wife, but since it would just be for a few months…
He mailed the letter and immediately felt the beginning of relief.
Dad might not have been the greatest father in the world in some ways, he thought, but I know he won’t let me down about this. I can stand anything for just a couple of weeks. When I get back in my old school, this whole nightmare will be over with, and then in the summer I can get some kind of a job traveling, with a construction crew or something like that, till college starts. I won’t ever have to come back to this narrow-minded place, except for short visits, and that won’t be too bad. I can keep from going out to Ward’s if I’m just here for short visits. And I can get through the next two weeks. I’ll really concentrate on semester tests, and then next semester back at Wheaton I won’t have any trouble keeping up with the work. It’s all going to turn out okay.
Ward must be feeling awful, knowing I’m staying away because of what he told me about himself. I’m really hurting him, and I don’t want to. But if I go out there again, I don’t know what would happen. I don’t trust myself anymore. My God. I need—something—someone—
“Would you agree with that, Tom?” Miss Hershaw said.
“Pardon?”
Her voice trembled with exasperation. “Tom, I don’t know what to do with you these days. What do I have to do to get your attention, climb on the desk and go into a soft-shoe routine with a rose in my teeth? I’ll repeat the question. What were three common reasons for the failure of many leading magazines during the sixties?”
Tom endured the pain-filled stillness until she said, “All right. Karen, what were they?”
After class Miss Hershaw called Tom to her desk. “I’m sorry I snapped at you,” she said, “but you know you had it coming, don’t you?”
Tom nodded. He felt foolish, like a very tall five-year-old taking a scolding.
“Tom, what’s the problem? You’re not a goof-off. You’re a bright guy, and yet you’ve been doing lousy work, not just in my class but in all your classes.”
He shot her a questioning look, and she went on.
“Your other teachers have mentioned it, yes. We’ve talked about you.”
Silently he said, I’ll just bet you have, you and everybody else. My student, the queer.
For an instant Miss Hershaw’s hand covered his wrist; then, with a pat, she released him.
“We all like you, Tom, and we hate to see you falling so far behind in your work. Now, if you’re having problems outside of school, and if it would do any good to talk them over with someone, I’d be glad to listen and try to help. I wish to goodness this school could afford some sort of counseling.”
Tom felt a surface kind of warming to her offer, but not for an instant was he tempted to confide in her. Instinctively he knew that no amount of talking to Miss Hershaw was going to help, and that even if she tried to listen with an open mind, ; her opinion of him would be irrevocably set by what she had already heard in the teacher’s lounge.
As politely as possible he said, “Thanks anyway, but I’m going to be late for my next class. Can I go now?”
On the last Friday in January, just before the week of semester tests, there was a letter for Tom from his father. He ignored Charlotte’s curious look as he took the envelope from her and went up to his room. Without sitting down or taking off his jacket, he ripped open the envelope.
It won’t be long now, he thought. Another week and I’ll be out of this place for good. He started reading.
Dear Son, I was glad to get your letter, and to hear that you are fine.
Your mother had told me about her coming marriage, of course, and I’m happy for her. I think, though, that you must be imagining things if you feel that you’re in her way. I’m sure that’s not the case, and since you only have a few more months till your graduation, it just wouldn’t make sense for you to change schools at this time. Why don’t you plan to come for a visit this summer? We’d love to have you.
Keep up the good work at the piano, and we’ll look forward to seeing you in the summer.
Love, Dad.
Tom crushed the letter into a tight ball. That’s it then, he thought, jamming the ball into his jacket pocket. There’s no escape.
After supper he left the house, telling Charlotte and Harv that he was going to a basketball game at school. When he got to the top of the hill and realized that he could think of nowhere to go on this cold black Friday night, no one to be with, he shrugged and drove to the school gym.
The preliminary junior high game had already started. As he made his way around the crowd at the makeshift refreshment stand in the hallway, he realized that this was the first time he had ever gone to a ball game here, or to any other nighttime school function for that matter. He felt out of place. He felt as though, right now, he was supposed to be at Sweet Ridge.
And yet there were people here, loud, happy people having a good time. He tried to open himself up to them, absorb them and become one of them, but the cocoon wouldn’t break.
For something to do with his hands he bought a bag of popcorn. Slowly, self-consciously, he walked along the foot of the bleachers at the edge of the court. There were plenty of empty places to sit, but he couldn’t decide on any one of them. No voice called down, “Hey, Naylor, up here.” No one looked at him and moved over to make room for him.
He walked the full length of the bleachers, then started back again. This time he saw Floyd Schleffe, sitting alone. Smiling, he climbed up and sat beside Floyd.
“Anybody sitting here?”
Floyd turned and looked at him. “No, I guess not.”
Tom held out his popcorn bag, but Floyd shook his head.
“Who’s ahead?” Tom asked.
“Us.” Floyd motioned with his head toward the scoreboard, but said no more.
Tom willed himself to sit there beside Floyd, to ignore the waves of unwelcome that emanated from Floyd’s dumpy form. He willed himself to watch with eagerness the players on the floor.
He thought, They touch each other and nobody yells “Queer.” Harmon doesn’t tell them to keep their hands off the other boys. Floyd can’t stand me. I can feel it from here. He doesn’t want me sitting next to him. I used to think he was such a pitiful slob because he flunked and tried so hard to be my friend. And now here I am eating my guts out because Floyd Schleffe doesn’t want to sit with me at a basketball game.
He got up and left.
19
“Did you have a good time at the game last night? Do you want an egg?”
“No, just coffee.” Tom sat down opposite Charlotte, but he avoided looking at her. His eyes found the frozen river beyond the window.
“You didn’t tell me if you had a good time at the game. You didn’t stay very long. Wasn’t it a good game?”
“Not especially.”
“Why didn’t you take a date, honey? What ever happened with that girl you were telling me about a long time ago, the one you liked so much?”
Tom shrugged.
Charlotte peered at him. “Are you all right? You look to me like you’ve lost a little weight. You’re not having problems, are you?”
“I’m okay. Worrying about semester tests is all.” Sure, I’m okay, he went on to himself. Just a little queer, Mother. Just a freak who can never have any kind of a normal life, but other than tha
t everything’s fine and dandy.
The only bad thing that might have happened but didn’t, these past weeks, was for Charlotte to have found out about him and Ward. Added to all his other pressures, Tom had lived in daily fear that he would come home from school to find that someone had said something to Charlotte, that she would be waiting for him with a white face and pain—or disgust—in her eyes. He even imagined that Harv would find out and break the engagement rather than bring a homosexual boy into his family. It was a definite possibility. It could happen.
“Aren’t you listening to me?” Charlotte demanded.
“Pardon?”
“I said, what’s on your schedule for today?” Her voice was tinged with impatience.
“Oh. Um, study, I guess. I have to write a five-thousand word theme for English as part of the semester grade.”
“What on?”
“It can be anything. I haven’t decided yet.” He didn’t add that everyone else in the class had been working on theirs for weeks. He excused himself and went up to his room.
Okay now, this is my last chance. He tried to be firm with himself. I have to sit right down here and decide what to write on, and get going on it. It’s going to take all weekend just to get the darn thing written and typed up, so I can’t waste any more time deciding on a subject. I’ll write about…
He tipped the desk chair back and looked out the low windows toward the river.
I know what I’ll do, he decided. I’ll go to the library. Maybe I’ll drive down to Dubuque. That’s a bigger library, and they’ll have all the reference stuff I’ll need. On the way down I’ll decide on a topic, and then when I get there, maybe I can find enough in the reference books so I can just copy most of it, change the wording around a little bit. Heck, I can be done by lunchtime.
The drive to Dubuque took an hour and a half because he kept getting stuck behind slow-moving sanding trucks and snowplows on the hilly, curving highway. Even so, when he reached the library, he had not been able to come up with a topic to write about. He climbed the black iron staircase in the reference department, intending to browse along every shelf on the balcony until an idea came to him. But the floor of the balcony was made of translucent glass blocks, and he became so absorbed in watching the distorted shapes of people moving below that he forgot what he was there for.