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it? Only this is so very much worse. I mean, it just ruins people
for--for getting married and having kids and having a normal, healthy
sex life--and for just plain being happy and well-adjusted. The thing
is--well, think of the influence teachers have." She smiled sadly.
"Oh,
Liza, think of yourself, think of how influenced you were by them!
You
always liked Ms. Stevenson especially; you almost idolize her ..." I
swear it was all I could do not to shake her.
"I do not idolize her!" I shouted
"I like them both--the way most other kids in this school do. I
didn't
even know they were--I mean, I didn't ..." I sputtered for a few
seconds
more, thinking it might still be risky to say outright that they were
gay.
Instead I said, "Sally, I'd have been gay anyway, can't you
understand
that. I was gay before I knew anything about them." Then I heard
myself
saying, "I was probably always gay--you know I never liked boys that
way
..."
"Gay," Sally said softly. "Oh, Liza, what a sad word! What a
terribly sad word. Ms. Baxter said that to me and she's right. Even
with
drugs and liquor and other problems like that, most of the words are
more honestly negative--stoned, drunk out of one's mind ..."
I think it was at that point that I did take hold of Sally's arm--not
to
shake her, but just to shut her up. I remember trying to keep my
voice
from breaking. "It's not a problem," I said. "It's not negative.
Don't you
know that it's love you're talking about? You're talking about how I
feel about another human being and how she feels about me, not about
some kind of disease you have to save us from." Sally shook her head.
"No, Liza. It isn't love, it's immature, like a crush, or a sort of
mental problem, or---or maybe you're just scared of boys. I was too,
sort of, before I knew Walt." She smiled, almost shyly. "I really
was,
Liza, even if that sounds funny. But he's--he's so understanding
and--and, well, maybe you'll meet a guy like him someday and--and--
oh,
Liza, don't you want to be ready for that when it happens? A shrink
could help you, Liza, I'm sure--why, they said at the hearing that
..."
I stared at her. "Were you at the hearing?"
"Why, yes," she said, looking surprised. "At Ms. Stevenson's and Ms.
Widmer's. I thought you knew--I came in just as you and your parents
were
leaving. I was going to speak at your part, too, but then they
thought
I shouldn't, since I'm in your class and we've been friends and all,
and
I agreed. But Mrs. Poindextcr wanted me to talk about what kind of
influence Ms. Stevenson and Ms. Widmer had on the students, on you,
especially."
"And you said?"
"Well, I had to tell the truth, didn't I? I told them that you
idolize
them, because it's true, Liza. I don't care what you say, you
certainly
idolize Ms. Stevenson. And I said that maybe you thought that
anything
they did was fine and that you sort of--well, want to be like them
and
all ..."
"Oh, God," I said.
It's snowing, Annie, Liza wrote--but the echo of Sally's words and of
her own stalled thoughts interrupted: Running through my head--
running
through my head--Running through my head ... was ... what? She wrote
again, groping: The snow here on
the campus is so white, so pure. Once when I was little--did I ever
tell
you this?--I saw a magazine picture of a terrible black and twisted
shape, a little like an old-fashioned steam radiator, but with a head
on
it and stubby feet with claws. Someone, maybe my mother, said
jokingly,
"See, that's what you look like inside when you're bad." I never
forgot
it. And that's what I've felt like inside since last spring. Running
through my head--running through my head now is ... Annie, if I'd
been at
their part of the hearing, I could have told the truth. I probably
could
have saved them--well, maybe saved them--if I'd been there. And even
at my
own hearing I might have been able to help them;
I could have said--I wanted to say--that they'd had no influence,
that I'd
have been gay anyway ...
Liza put on her jacket; she went outside and
stood on the deserted riverbank, watching the snow fall lazily into
the
Charles. If I hadn't been gay, she thought as her mind cleared; if
nothing had happened in that house, in that bedroom ... "But dammit," [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]