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.
"That may indeed be Miss Frost's motive, Billy," Elaine said. "I'm not so sure about what's motivating your whole fucking family, as you say."
MY CRUDE COUSIN GERRY came home from college that same Christmas break. In Gerry's case, I use the crude word affectionately. Please don't dismiss Gerry as a stridently angry lesbian who hated her parents and all heterosexuals; she had always loathed boys, but I'd foolishly imagined that she might like me a little bit, because I knew she would have heard about my scandalous relationship with Miss Frost. Yet, at least for a few more years, Gerry wouldn't like gay or bisexual boys any better than she liked straight ones.
Nowadays, I hear my friends say that our society tends to be more accepting of gay and bi women than we are of gay and bi men. In our family's case, there was little apparent reaction to Gerry being a lesbian, at least compared to almost everyone having a cow about my relationship with Miss Frost--not to mention my mom's horror at how I was "turning out," sexually. Yes, I know, it's true that many people treat lesbians and bi women differently than they treat gay and bi men, but Gerry wasn't accepted by our family as much as she was simply ignored by them.
Uncle Bob loved Gerry, but Bob was a coward; he loved his daughter, in part, because she was more courageous than he was. I think Gerry deliberately misbehaved, and not only to build a barrier around herself; I think she was aggressive and "crude" because this forced our family to notice her.
I had always liked Gerry, but I kept my fondness for her a secret. I wish I'd told her that I liked her--I mean, sooner than I did.
We would become better friends when we were older; nowadays, we're quite close. I'm truly fond of Gerry--okay, in an odd way--but Gerry was not very likable when she was a young woman. All I'm saying is that Gerry purposely made herself unlikable. Elaine detested her, and would never like her--not even a little.
That Christmas, Elaine and I were up to our usual but separate pursuits in the yearbook room of the academy library. The library was open over the Christmas break--except for Christmas Day. Many of the faculty liked to work there, and Christmastime was when a lot of prospective students and their parents visited Favorite River Academy. My summer job, for the past three years, had been as a tour guide; I showed prospective students and their parents my awful school. I got a part-time job as a tour guide over the Christmas break, too; the boys among the faculty brats frequently did this. Uncle Bob, the admissions man, was our overly permissive boss.
Elaine and I were in the yearbook room when my cousin Gerry found us. "I hear you're queer," Gerry said to me, ignoring Elaine.
"I guess so," I said, "but I'm attracted to some women, too."
"I don't want to know," Gerry told me. "No one's sticking anything up my ass, or anywhere else."
"You never know till you try it," Elaine said. "You might like it, Gerry."
"I see you're not pregnant," Gerry said to her, "unless you're already pregnant again, Elaine, and you're not yet showing."
"You got a girlfriend?" Elaine asked her.
"She could beat the shit out of you, Elaine," Gerry said. "You, too--probably," Gerry told me.
I could be forgiving of Gerry, knowing that Muriel was her mother; that couldn't have been easy, especially for a lesbian. I was less inclined to forgive Gerry for how harsh she was with her father, because I had always liked Uncle Bob. But Elaine felt no forgiveness for Gerry at all. There must have been some history between them; maybe Gerry had hit on her, or when Elaine had been pregnant with Kittredge's child, it's entirely possible that Gerry had said or written something cruel to her.