Dan Wakefield - Starting Over - A Novel

Potter felt at once he was involved in a form of ritual. Everyone had two drinks before dinner, which was fine except for the fact that it would have seemed a terrible gaffe if anyone had wanted one drink or three drinks. But everyone had two. The assembled company was carefully balanced, like a political ticket. There was the Senior Tutor and his wife, both of whom were economists; a lady anthropologist and a black assistant dean; a visiting Fellow at the Kennedy Center for Political Study, and an intense young woman biologist; a thirty-ish woman who was writing a study of The Women in Dostoievski on a grant from the Radcliffe Institute. And Potter. He was probably there for his phony film expertise, but he felt he represented the academic world’s outcasts and also-rans.

All he remembered from the dinner were Names.

They spoke intimately of Teddy and Henry and Ken, who everyone understood to mean Kennedy, Kissinger, and Galbraith. Not only was everyone on a first name basis with their distinguished contemporaries, but also with the distinguished dead. When the conversation—which ran like a seminar, with one subject discussed at a time—took up American Literature, someone shook his head pitiably over “Poor Red,” who turned out to be Sinclair Lewis. There was also initimate chit-chat about Scott and Zelda, “Dos” and Gene O’Neill and Bunny Wilson. Potter was tempted to make some casual mention of “Hank” Thoreau, but restrained himself.

Potter wanted to get out as soon as he could, before making some smart-ass remark he would later regret, and so he took up the invitation of the Kennedy Center man for a ride home. The man was Sid Persons, who was on leave from what Potter gathered was a high-powered consulting firm in Washington to take this year at Harvard.

“I don’t really buy the whole academic scene,” Persons said, “but it’s a nice change of pace.”

Potter agreed, and finding Persons an amiable sort, less pretentious when removed from the Harvard Dinner scene, Potter also agreed to have a nightcap at his place. Persons lived in an elegant modern high rise on Memorial Drive, his own one-bedroom apartment finely appointed in a masculine, comfortable club style, with big leather chairs, deep carpeting, and heavy velvet draperies. Persons himself was a big, handsome, club-member looking guy with distinguished greying hair and a sunlamp tan. He put on a record of some kind of string quartet, very soothing, and brought Potter a he-man sized Scotch and soda. Potter quickly, on request, filled in a little of his own background, saying he wasn’t really sure if he’d continue teaching or if he did for how long. His plans were all up in the air.

“Ever been married?” Persons asked.

“Once. Just split—less than a year ago.”

“Rough. It’s always rough.”

“You divorced?”

“No—never quite made it down the old aisle. Came pretty close a couple of times, but at the last minute—well maybe you could say I chickened out, or maybe you could say I was wise. At any rate I’ve never regretted staying single, playing the field. Now I’m a confirmed bachelor.”

“Well, it must be nice to know what you want. Know how you want to live.”

“You mean you’d do it again? The marriage bit?”

“I really don’t know. I just don’t have any policy about it. It seems to me like it’s hard either way.”

“Well, seems to me if a man’s tried it—what the hell. Once is enough. No sense being one of those jokers who just keeps trading in wives, going through the same thing over and over.”

“True.”

“The way things are now, people don’t have to try to fit themselves into the old grooves like they used to. Society’s opening up. And if you ask me, it’s a healthy development. Let people do what they want.”

“Hell yes.”

“Here, let me freshen that drink.”

“Oh—”

Potter was only about halfway through, but he took a big gulp and handed the glass to Persons. Whistling, Persons came back with a Scotch and soda mixed by martini proportions, the soda getting as short shrift as vermouth.

“Hey,” he said, “you dig Sinatra?”

“Sure.”

“Good. I know he’s out of fashion now, but I guess I’m hung up on him from the old days.”

Persons put on the Sinatra album of “Songs for Young Lovers.”

As always, The Voice made Potter feel mellow.

“I tell you,” Sid said, “I still like the old music, but I’m glad we’ve gotten rid of some of the old ideas, the hangups and prejudices.”

“Absolutely,” Potter said.

“Some people attack the Women’s Movement as being a bunch of lesbians, like it’s still some kind of crime. Jesus. If a woman wants to make it with a woman, why shouldn’t she? It’s a personal matter.”

“Of course it is.”

“Just the same as if—” Persons paused, as if trying to think of the right analogy, and said with a shrug, “as if, for instance, a man wants another man.”

When Persons brought Potter the second drink he had sat down on the couch with him; not close, but close enough so that now as he casually threw his arm up along the back of the couch his hand was resting directly behind Potter’s head. Potter didn’t move. He was aware of not moving. He was also aware, with sudden clarity and self-reproach that he had, as naively as a virgin schoolboy, got himself into what was almost a compromising position. The “almost” was exactly the distance between the back of his head and Sid Persons’ hand. He judged that to be about three and a half inches. He had only to tilt his head back that far to begin what would soon be turned into a passionate embrace by his genial, broad-minded host.

You moron , he thought, meaning not his host but himself.

“I don’t mean I go for the Gay Militants parading around in the streets with banners and picket signs,” Persons continued, “but if an adult male happens to find that—in addition, mind you, to enjoying women—he enjoys physical contact with another man, I see no reason why it’s the business of society to condemn him.”

“Of course not,” Potter said, shifting slightly so that he was farther from Persons’ hand, and facing him more directly. His main concern was to get out of the situation without either leading Persons on any further or embarrassing him. He wanted to convey the feeling that he had no opposition to homosexuality for those who found it pleasurable, that he did not look down on any man, Persons included, if he was a practicing homosexual, but , thank you, it was simply not his own thing.

His head now as clear as if he had drunk nothing more than a glass of milk, he politely, respectfully, sincerely, expressed his staunch support of the right of every man to pursue whatever sexual course attracted him but that, perhaps, due to his own middle-class upbringing or some possible lack of imagination on his part, he did not prefer homosexual encounters for himself, which made him no better than those who did, it was simply a circumstance of his own life and nature and personality.

Persons nodded, gravely, evidently with acceptance of Potter’s position, but when Potter rose to say he’d better get on home, he had to get up and teach in the morning, Persons suddenly came toward him, embraced him, put his head on Potter’s shoulder and said, his voice shaking, “ Please stay .”

“I can’t,” Potter said. “Please understand. I can’t do it. For godsake, man, I’m sorry, but there’s just no way. I’m sorry. No shit. I have to go.”

He wrenched himself away, not wanting to look back, and ran out into the carpeted hallway and down the stairs, into a cold, slow rain. A cab passed, but he wanted to walk.

He felt exposed and ludicrous, not because of what he had seen of Sid Persons but of what, through him, he had seen of himself. Persons had shown him something he had never looked at before. There had been something hauntingly, teasingly familiar about the whole situation; Persons mixing him the strong and stronger drinks, putting on the romantic music, leading into a personal discussion of sex, casually maneuvering himself into physical proximity on the couch, close but not too obviously close; the seduction pitch made, rebuffed, and then the pitiful plea to stay.