When I write to my parents about going to college, I don’t hear from them for three weeks. Then the letter, when it comes, is full of abuse. It asks, essentially, if I was going to be a normal kid, why didn’t I go to Tucson with them, like I should have. Then it goes on about how my poor mother has suffered, because of my inconsiderate behavior and concludes with saying that I don’t deserve support from them and I’m not going to get it. That is pretty weird, because I told them about the scholarship and that everything was being paid for.

Except for my folks, the only one who isn’t happy about my going to college is Walter. You don’t need to go to college to make good money, he insists, and to a sissy school like Smith. He shakes his head, incredulous. “Besides, I had plans for you. Hopes.”

That would never work, I explain to him. I don’t care for S&M. But he contends that I do and always have, that I didn’t give him enough of a chance. If I’d stayed with it a little longer, I’d have come to enjoy the repetition. It’s even better when you know what is going to happen next, he claims.

David is mad at me, too. He didn’t like it that someone gave me a car. And, of course, he had to know why and all about it. “If you’d told me you wanted a car, I’d have gotten my father to give you one,” he told me. I know, when I tell him that I didn’t want a car and that Jack just gave me one, that isn’t even the point. The point is, he doesn’t want me to see other guys.

“You have Emily,” I remind him. He is leaving at the end of next week to spend the summer with Emily and her parents in Europe. It’s his graduation present from his parents, his mother’s idea. Mr. Nash/Will/Dad wanted him to take a summer internship at the insurance company.

“That’s different. I’ve tried to fix you up with girls,” David continues.

“You know I’m not interested in that.”

“Why ruin your life? You don’t have to spend all your time with them. Get married, make a kid or two, and then do what else you want. I care about what happens to you, you know.”

“I know, but do you think that its fair to a woman to be treated like that? How do you think your mother would feel, if she knew about your father?”

“It would be worse, if it were another woman, wouldn’t it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Exactly, so listen to your big brother,” he says, giving me a punch on the arm.

After David leaves town, I don’t see very much of Mr. Nash/Will/Dad either. For one thing, I don’t have an excuse to be hanging around at their house, and Mrs. Nash has taken to going out on the boat with him on weekends or wanting him to escort her someplace. One Wednesday, when we were about to leave his office for a pleasant afternoon, he spotted her coming off the elevator and asked me to take a rain check. She didn’t seem upset to see me there, though. She said that it was too bad that I had to rush off, because it would have been nice for us all to have had lunch together.

Anyway, I have weekends with Jack in Magnolia, except for this weekend, because Mrs. Cooper has asked me to go to New York with her. We’re going to see a show and stay overnight with a professor, who was her advisor at Columbia. We’re going by bus, because she doesn’t like to drive her car in the city.

As a result, it takes nearly all day to get there. No sooner do we arrive at her professor’s apartment, but we have to leave for dinner. We go to a Greek restaurant, which is nice for me, because I know what everything is, by way of Demitri and Mary. She cooks Greek food about half the time and Italian the rest, since her family is Italian. They want the kids to be familiar with both cultures.

Mrs. Cooper and Professor McLaughlin order martinis. They seem amused when I order Ouzo, neat. So I explain how I come to know about Greek food. Then they ask me to suggest what they might like. I do, but only Prof. McLaughlin takes my suggestions. Mrs. Cooper has shish kabob.

They ask me what I’m going to choose for a major. Prof. McLaughlin thinks that my academic career is remarkable, so far. I tell them that I don’t know, but that my friends have suggested accounting or pre-law (Jack, who says he’ll get me a job with his company), management (Will and David), English (Alan), electrical engineering (Walter), history (Mary, because she loves history), architecture (Demitri), art history (Murray), and biology (Roland).

“English would be a good choice,” Prof. McLaughlin says.

“Are you an English professor?” I ask.

“Good guess,” he answers, smiling.

“Yeah, they all want me to do what they do or would have liked to have done. I’m going to wait a while to choose. I don’t know what I’d like yet.”

“Except for the word, ‘yeah,’ you could be an English major.”

“What?”

“’Yeah,’ is slang, not a proper word.”

“Does that mean one can never use it?”

“No. It can be used when portraying an uneducated person’s speech, quoting it in a novel, for example. Otherwise, an educated person should never say, ‘yeah.’”

“Oh,” I comment, claming up.

They don’t seem to notice and get on with catching up on each other’s news. Bob and Helen, that is how they address each other, seem to be quite good friends, even close. I wonder if they are sleeping together, though he is much older than she. Prof. McLaughlin must be nearly sixty, given his white hair and wrinkles. But he is youthful in other ways. Jaunty, you might say and he would say for sure.

Mrs. Cooper pays for dinner, explaining that the Professor is treating us to the theater. I tell her that I brought money, but she says that this is my graduation present. “Absolutely,” Prof. McLaughlin puts in, “we’ll hear no more about it. It’s a pleasure to reward a young scholar, who has surpassed all expectations.” So I say thank you and off we go to see A Chorus Line.

Our seats are in the second row, right in the center. Mrs. Cooper sits between me and her professor. The play, itself, is a revelation to me. Characters are talking openly about being gay. The music and the songs are great. I am absorbed by the performance, but not so much that I don’t notice Prof. McLaughlin and Mrs. Cooper occasionally whispering to each other. I didn’t think that it was proper to talk during the show.

When we get back to the apartment, it becomes clear that Mrs. Cooper is to sleep on the bed that pulls out from the couch. Prof. McLaughlin apologizes for having so small an apartment. He says that he hopes that I wont be uncomfortable sharing his bed in the one bedroom. I would like to say that, if they want to be together, I would never tell anyone; but it would be too embarrassing. Maybe, after I’m asleep, he’ll go into the other room.

“Would you like to borrow some pajamas?” Prof. McLaughlin asks me, “I noticed that you traveled very light.”

I am not sure what to answer. I had thought to sleep in my briefs, but perhaps Prof. McLaughlin wouldn’t like that. I decide to accept his offer and change into them, while he is in the bathroom. A few minutes later he returns already in his pajamas. He snaps off the light and gets into bed beside me.

“How did you like the musical?” he inquires.

“It was wonderful. I wish I could study that in college.”

“You can. You can major in theater,” he informs me.

“Wow, I had no idea.”

“There are probably other possibilities that haven’t occurred to you, as yet.”

“You’re right, so I’d better see what there is before making up my mind.”

“Didn’t that college of yours send you a list?”

“I think so, but I didn’t pay too much attention to it.”

“Perhaps you should. You could ask Helen to explain those you aren’t familiar with or even look them up in the dictionary.” I had the feeling that Prof. McLaughlin was expressing disapproval of me, so I didn’t respond. After a while he asked me if I was sleepy.

“I’m afraid not,” I said, regretting that I might be holding him up.

But when he said, “Why don’t I give you a nice back rub to help you relax,” I knew that it was me he wanted to have in bed, after all. Ten minutes later, I’m naked. “Don’t worry, Bobby,” he says, “Helen wont tell anyone.”

“You mean, she knows?” I ask, flabbergasted.

“She presumes; correctly, as it happens.”

“How do you know that?”

“Helen brings me a young man every once in a while, someone she thinks is gay and could use a little encouragement. She’s something of a free-thinker.”

“Why did you lend me pajamas, if you were only going to take them off me?”

“I think that pajamas are very sexy. These are so light that you can feel the body right through them, loose fitting, so there was no obstacle to overcome when I wanted to touch your skin. I had the pleasure of unbuttoning them, without the endless bother of pulling off underwear. And, if Helen had been wrong and you weren’t interested, then it would be easier to put it out of my mind, if you weren’t nearly or entirely naked and so close.” After this lecture, he fumbles around in the night stand for something.

“What are you doing, now?”

“Searching for a condom.”

“What on earth for?”

“Recently, quite a few gay men in New York and San Francisco have been getting terribly ill, even dying. Most people think that this new disease is sexually transmitted. If so, a condom should prevent it, if by misfortune either one of us has already been infected. Living here, as I do, it would more likely be me.”

Professor McLaughlin continues, “Do you have a lot of sexual partners back home? You can tell me the truth, I don’t consider virgins to be specially desirable.”

“Several.”

“Well, you’d better spread the word and encourage them to protect themselves. They’re not going to put it on the television, you know.”

After a pause, he says, “If this has upset you, we don’t need to go ahead.”

“No. A good fuck helps me get to sleep.”

“Me, too,” Professor McLaughlin replies, enthusiastically.

Early in the morning, Mrs. Cooper and I began our lengthy return trip. She never said a word about anything that took place in New York. Instead, she spoke about her own college days at Douglas and how she felt when she first arrived.

As I listened to her, I realized that I wasn’t sure why I wanted to go to college. I am looking forward to a change of scene and meeting new people, but is that a reason to go to school? I could just go back to New York City. Bob McLaughlin said that I could stay with him, until I got my own place, and that he would be able to get me a restaurant job right away, and later, maybe, a job in the theater. This college business was everybody’s idea but mine.

*****

On Tuesday, I ask Roland what he thinks about my going to live in the City, rather than going to Smith. I had promised him a ride in the country in my blue and rust Chevy sedan. It has a nearly brand new engine in it, though. That it can go fast as the devil is wasted on me, since I am a slow driver. It has this deep, throaty sound; although there is nothing wrong with the muffler.

We drive up to central New Hampshire. Roland says that it is natural to have the jitters about going to college. I tell him I don’t think that is my problem. Then he says that, if I go to New York, I will have to work so much that I might not have time for anything else. This is a good argument. I am used to having a lot of free time and college must be different from high school, where there is so much you have to cram into your head that the teachers have little time or interest in the development of your own ideas.

A little after one, we park on a country road. Roland has brought a picnic lunch. We walk through some fields and come to a brook with trees lining both banks. Roland asks me to sit there by the brook and says that he will circle around and then return walking up the bank. He wants me to pretend that we haven’t met before. “And pretend that you’re twelve and have never done anything,” he adds, “but want to.”

“Don’t you like me the way I am?” I challenge him.

“This will be good practice for your future career as an actor,” he replies.

I hadn’t considered becoming an actor. I had thought about lights or moving the sets around or make-up. I think Roland is regressing. I hope he doesn’t get himself in trouble again. But I learn something from the experience.

In order to act like a twelve year old, I try to remember what I was like then, that not being so far away after all. It is harder for me to remember myself as I was when I hung out at the florist ship. As our impromptu (a new word from last week) play progresses, oddly enough, I seem to experience something like the feelings that I had about the time when I first met Walter. I had forgotten, and now I realize, that I missed them.

It was risky, doing it outside in the daylight with only the tall grass of the field to hide us, but we got away with it, thank God. Roland is so conventional in every other way. Alan would never dream of doing anything like this.

*****

I spend the last week of July in Amherst with him. To Alan’s credit, he does not ask about the car and he accepts, without complaint, that I will be living in a dorm in the Fall. We make a tour of the Smith campus. Now I know where the bookstore is, and the library, the dormitory areas, the academic areas and the administration building.

We also visit the other four colleges; Amherst College, U. Mass., Hampshire College, and Mount Holyoke. We walk all around Northampton, so I will be acquainted with the town. Northampton has a lot more to offer than Amherst in the way of movie theaters, eating places, and stores of all kinds. The College is at one end of the center, while U. Mass. is a mile and a half from the Amherst business district.

A couple of evening we go to the movies, once to an art theater, and one night we go to a coffee house, where they have live music, jazz or folk or blue grass or some variety I’ve never heard of before. It is the latter we hear the night we are there. They serve liquors, desserts and light food too.

Most nights, Alan cooks dinner for us at home. His cooking is very plain. He makes something he calls hamburger cake, which is really a meat loaf without a loaf pan, simply mounded up on a cookie sheet. With this, there are oven fried potatoes, corn-on-the-cob, and salad. He doesn’t use any garlic, herbs or spices, except black pepper and salt.

Corn-on-the-cob must be his favorite food, because we have it each night. He makes London Broil, scrambled Hamburger and fried ham steaks. Every meal includes frozen vegetables and salad with bottled Italian dressing; super market ice cream for dessert. I offer to cook one night and prepare sautéed Supremes of chicken, rice and onions cooked in chicken broth, and fresh green beans with mushrooms. Mrs. Nash serves those things and they are so simple, I could figure out how to make the dishes just by tasting them.

But I have a good time with Alan, talking and walking around, seeing the sights. He makes love to me every night. The thing is, he seems to want me more than anyone else and not some of the time, only. Then too, Alan doesn’t ask me to change myself or pretend anything. Unfortunately, I don’t want him all of the time. I’m still too young to settle down. But I’m not sorry that it’s Alan I’ll be seeing more of in the next four years.

When I am ready to leave, Alan tells me that he is going to look for an apartment in Northampton. He quickly adds, that he accepts that I’ll not be living with him, but he would like to be closer so that it will be easy for me to come to see him, when I want to. I kiss him goodbye and tell him that’s a good idea and that I’m looking forward to our having more time together.

*****

There’s a little summer left, though. When David returns from Europe on August 17th, he spends every night at my apartment even after seeing Emily, on the few evenings he spends with her. David tells me that, by the end of their trip, he and Emily were not getting along very well and they decided that, when they returned, they would see each other less frequently.

Nearly every afternoon we go to his parents’ house and have dinner there. Neither of them says a word about where David goes after that. On his third day back, a gift from David’s grandfather arrives at his house. It is a brand new, white Corvette convertible.

Naturally, we have to go cruising around. But it is my car we take for the shopping spree David has with his father’s credit cards. You can’t fit much into the back of a corvette and David needs everything for college. He insists on outfitting me in the same style. Beside clothes, he buys sheets and blankets, towels, two tiny refrigerators, two huge fans, two expensive typewriters, and much more. I ask him how he is going to get all his things to Williams and he informs me that he will have them shipped.

Of course, he is taking some things from his room, the stereo, for example. We are there one evening, sorting out what he will want, when I get a chance to see his high school diploma. At first I only notice that he has two middle names. This seems unusual to me, but there it is, “DAVID WILLARD DeHASS NASH.” Then I remember that it is the DeHass scholarship that I received from Smith College. Quite a coincidence.

“Which grandfather gave you the Corvette?” I ask David.

“Oh, Grandfather DeHass. My father’s family doesn’t have any money,” he answered. I put David’s diploma back on the top of his bureau. “That’s why they gave me that middle name. So my grandfather would remember that I am a DeHass. The Willard comes from my father, that’s his middle name, too.”

David continued sorting out the sporting equipment that he would need. “Next summer, Bobby, I’m going to have to teach you how to play tennis, golf, sailing and squash.”

“I don’t know about that,” I replied.

“There are things you have to learn. These are the sports of gentlemen, the games of the men who run things.”

“What makes you think that I’m going to run things?”

“Well, maybe you’re not, but I am; and, if you’re going to be with me, you have to fit in.” He was still rummaging in his closet, as he said this.

“Are you proposing?” I asked him, kidding.

He rushes out, grabs me and we topple onto the bed. “What if I am?” he asks.

“You’re nuts.”

“I’m serious.”

“You’re never serious. You’ll meet some girl at a college dance and get married, you know you will.”

“What’s that got to do with us?”

“Everything. I don’t fit into that kind of world. I’m not of your class.”

“You’re not trying.”

“You’re right.”

“I’m not giving up. My father leaned how to do it. So can you.”

At that point, I let it go. Soon we would be apart and seldom see each other. David will get caught up in studies and sports and other people. He’ll forget about me. Meanwhile, it is fun to be a part of his whirlwind.

The next day, David has a date to see Emily for the last time before leaving. They are going to have dinner together at the yacht club and then go for a drive. It is time for me to start saying good bye to everyone. As soon as David is out of the door. I call Roland.

He asks me to be sure to send him my new address and phone number. Otherwise, all he can talk about is this kid he met a couple of days ago at a video game parlor. “I hope you’re not jealous?” he asks me. I assure him that I’m not. I am afraid of his getting arrested, because he doesn’t tell me how old this kid is. I hope he and his new friend will be happy, but safely so.

Then I stop at Walter’s on my way to Demitri and Mary’s, where I’ve been invited to eat. Walter is full of good cheer. Everything is going well for him. He gives me a friendly slap on the butt on my way out. I expect that he will eventually meet someone more compatible than I was able to be for him.

When I get to the little house on Fuller Street, I am overwhelmed by the excitement of the kids, who I haven’t seen for quite a while. Demitri is very quiet at the table, but Mary is cheerful in a peculiarly private way. I suspect that she is glad that I am going away, that she could only continue to accept my relationship with Demitri as long as she could share it. When Demitri finds his next kid, I wonder if he will keep it a secret from Mary.

After I leave them, I drive to Magnolia. When I arrive at Jack’s; although he is expecting me; there is someone else there, a beautiful boy about my age. He looks like the sort of “golden youth” that I see in the summer, home from prep school. But he isn’t staying, and leaves before I find out anything about why he was there. I don’t ask, though I would like to know, and Jack doesn’t tell me. I don’t want to seem to be curious.

In any case he has plenty of energy left for me. I hope that he isn’t dealing drugs. There has never been any sign of it. I haven’t seen him use anything and he has not offered any to me, not even poppers or marijuana. It’s just that I can’t figure out a reason for the kid to have been there, if it wasn’t sex or drugs. Of course, it might be sex, just not today, unless Jack is even more potent than I can imagine.

*****

David makes the predictable fuss when I get back to my apartment, but it doesn’t last long, I guess he’s starting to get the point that I don’t belong to him. We decide to go to Crane’s Beach for our last day at home, and bake in the sun until late afternoon.

After dinner that evening, David helps me to pack my car for the trip. I have so much stuff now, that it is hard to cram everything into the trunk and the back seat. Tomorrow, we will pack up David’s car at his parents’ home and drive, caravan style, until I turn south and he continues west to Williams.

In the morning, Murray sees us off. He gives me this huge forty pound dictionary. “…to help me with my studies,” he says. He asks me to write to him at least once a week and tells me that he’ll keep my apartment ready for whenever I can come to visit. I tell him that, if someone else needs to use it, it would be OK. There are tears in his eyes, as he hugs me. Murray is the sweetest guy. Then he shakes hands with David and we depart. This whole week has been a time for leaving one place and then another.

David’s parents are waiting for us when we arrive. Mr. Nash shakes hands with me and then David. David kisses his mother on the cheek and then talks to his father. Mrs. Nash offers me her hand. “Thank you for everything you’ve done for me,” I tell her, taking her hand in mine and giving her, what I intend as, a serious and knowing look.

Her smile alters briefly before returning to its usual benign state. “I think that you are going to do very well at Smith,” she says, in a tone of voice that I interpret as expressing a somewhat grudging respect. “We should have a nice long talk sometime, just the two of us; perhaps, after you’ve gotten settled in.”

I gulp, psychologically if not physically. I hope that I haven’t put my foot in it, when I should have played dumb. Luckily, David intervenes. He is in a hurry to get going. I wonder if Mr. Nash/Will/Dad will now befriend some college freshman in the Boston area.

I follow David’s Corvette out route 114. Good Bye home town. We pass through Salem to Peabody to 128, which curves around to the south and route 2 west, then the long haul to 202 south, where we stop for lunch at the Colonial House Restaurant in New Salem.

This expensive and elegant place was David’s choice. “I’ve never taken you out for a really nice lunch before,” he says, in explanation. “We should celebrate this day. The future for us is going to be so different from the past.”

I’m not so sure that it is, but I don’t say so. Anyway, the lunch is fine and there is much to look forward to. While we are waiting for the coffee, David hands me an envelope. “What’s this?” I ask him.

“It’s from Dad, he didn’t want to give it to you in front of Mother.” Inside there is fifty dollars. “That’s your allowance. He’s going to send you a check each week. “’A college man needs enough money to live in the proper style,’ his words,” David says.

Out in the parking lot, this is our parting moment. I wait to see him leave, before getting into my car. “I’ll call you tonight, if our phones are in,” David promises. He grins and waves and turns right, to get back to route 2 and nearly a two hour trip to his campus. I turn left and will be at Smith in forty-five minutes.

Now I’ve left everyone and am alone at last. I’ve turned my back on a life with Walter or Mary and Demitri or Mr. Nash/Will/Dad or Jack or Roland. I could have gone to New York. I could have stayed in Murray’s basement and made new friends. I bet Mrs. Nash suggested to Mrs. Jenkins that I should take the college entrance examinations. I wonder what college will really be like.

But I wont be alone for long. When I arrive on campus, I’m supposed to call Alan, so that he can come over and help be move in.