The Road Taken (15 page)

Chapter Seventeen

It had been a long time since the family had the traditional Sunday dinners Hugh and Rose remembered from their childhoods, although Celia did come over once or twice a week on an ordinary evening to have dinner with Rose and Ben and Ginger. Hugh was there often too, and Joan, but both Joan and Hugh usually left soon after they had eaten, Hugh taking the opportunity to walk Celia home and thus hasten her departure. He had grown to dread Celia’s appearances. If her life was as full as she claimed it was, he often thought, then her sole purpose in coming over was to make his miserable.

Now that Celia knew she had been right about Hugh’s sexual preference she was, in her later years, determined to change it. No matter that this was a ridiculous concept, in Hugh’s opinion. She was undeterred, and a nag. Her gentleman friend had a nephew who was an aversion therapist. This was the new technique, for the “mentally ill,” or “pathological” men who were attracted to members of their own sex. Celia, and most of the rest of society, was convinced that what Hugh had was a sickness, and that he had a choice to get well.

“My friend’s nephew is named Dr. Norton Kidd,” Celia announced, when she first brought it up. “He is considered very good. I don’t know the details of this therapy, they’re much too embarrassing for me, but he will make you dislike the life you’re leading, Hugh, and then you can be normal.”

“Uncle Hugh is normal,” Ginger said.

“Help Joan clear the table, Ginger,” Rose said.

With the girls out of earshot, Celia went on. “What you’re doing, Hugh, is disgusting and you know it.”

“Now, Celia,” Ben said. “Hugh is a grown man, and we shouldn’t be discussing his private life.”

“Indeed? It’s hardly private. Just look at him. Wouldn’t you like to be straight, Hugh? I’m sure your sister Rose would like that.”

“Would you like that, Rose?” Hugh asked, more to needle his stepmother than to get an answer.

“I don’t know . . . I . . .” She
would
like it. Well, he should have known. Everybody would like it, except Ginger, who didn’t know any better yet. “Hugh, there are so many amazing things being developed these days in the field of health,” Rose murmured, embarrassed.

“My health is just fine, thank you,” Hugh said.

“It is not,” Celia said. “You cannot possibly be happy living the life you do. Wouldn’t you like to have a nice wife before it’s too late?”

“
A wife?
” Hugh cried.

“Do you remember Mr. Bennett, who lived downstairs in my building with his sister?” Celia said. “Well, he went to a psychiatrist for many years, unbeknownst to me, and he just got engaged to a lovely woman. I can tell you now that I always had my doubts about his masculinity. But not anymore. He’s beaten his curse. We’re lucky to be living in modern times.”

“Excuse me,” Ben said, putting down his empty coffee cup. “I must watch the evening news.” He went into the living room, where they had their television set, a big console model, which had somehow become the heart of the room.

“You’ve made Ben uncomfortable,” Rose said mildly.

“Oh, that’s ridiculous,” Celia said. “Just let me give you this doctor’s number, Hugh.” She put a little card next to his dessert plate. Pointedly, he did not touch it.

Now, every time he walked Celia home, Hugh braced himself for the onslaught of her effort to win. She always had another success story to tell him about, and he was sure they were apocryphal. Granted, she was going out with the uncle of this aversion therapist, but her examples were endless: The miserable man who had been contemplating suicide, now the happy husband of a widow who had two daughters. The school teacher who had been about to lose his job. The married bisexual man whose marriage had been saved, whose children were no longer disgraced.The manly leading man in a Broadway show, whose career had been in jeopardy because of his scandalous private life.

“Oh, introduce me to him,” Hugh said.

“He’s normal now,” Celia snapped. “He wouldn’t want you.”

Hugh wondered if she were getting senile. Old people, it was said, became repetitious, forgetful. They would bring up a subject over and over, like a cat chasing a ball of string. When he looked back it was clear that Celia had never liked him, never, from as far back in his childhood as he could remember. Now she wanted to obliterate him and what he was, and turn him into someone she would no longer be ashamed of. Would he like that, he wondered, to be able to fit in, to make his family so relieved? Was he ashamed of himself? After he dropped her off he would ask himself these questions, and sometimes, to quiet the voice in his head, he would go downtown to a bar.

With his friends in the bar Hugh always felt comforted, but lately the questions had not gone away. He knew how many of his gay friends would have preferred not to be what they were. It was just too difficult. Fairyland was their fantasy world. He was lucky that his family, except for Celia, accepted him as he was. Many of his friends’ families did not, and certainly the world did not, except for the small corner of it they had made their safe haven.

He supposed, if he really had to dig into the most vulnerable part of himself, that he was still unhappy being what he was. They called it self-loathing. Was he self-loathing? Was he guilty? How could he not be, when he still had to hide? Was it this guilt that had made it impossible all these years for him to find a lasting relationship with a man, when it was a man he wanted to have?

He could not imagine wanting to have sex with a woman instead of a man. But if he did, if such a thing could be trained into you by an aversion therapist, would he be more manly as well? Not the sissy they were all used to? Would his mannerisms change, his voice drop? What about all those women’s clothes? He supposed he could give them to his new girlfriend. The thought made him laugh.

But as soon as he started thinking this way about changing, Hugh realized he thought it might be possible.

“Rose,” he asked her one day, “tell me the truth. Do you want me to try this crazy thing?”

“Oh, Hugh, I just don’t want you to be alone.”

“But I’m not alone. I have my family.”

“Have you . . . forgive me for asking . . . ever been in love?”

“Of course.”

“But it didn’t last?”

“Sometimes it was unrequited. A few times it was mutual, for a while. But that’s me, who I am, not what I am.”

“I have a hard time believing that,” Rose said. “You’re such a kind and loving person. You’re not so old, you’re still in your forties. I know you’ve told me that in the gay world that’s old, but it’s not in the straight world. A man your age could easily find a nice wife.”

“Who likes antiques.”

“But all women like antiques,” Rose said. “You could marry a decorator, you could go into business together.”

“I meant I’m the antique,” Hugh said.

“Oh, Hugh.”

So it was that one afternoon after work he found himself sitting in the waiting room of Dr. Norton Kidd, on the upper West Side, staring at a tank full of tropical fish and some photographs of exotic places, taken by this same Dr. Kidd, on his travels, according to the signature on the photos. I guess I’m going to finance another trip for the good doctor, Hugh thought, and sighed.

There were two doors in front of him because the office was shared by two doctors. A man came out of one of the offices, a patient apparently, looking upset and unwell. He gave Hugh a hostile glance that said
temptress,
and headed for the street. Hugh sighed again. One day that will be me, he thought. After a short while Dr. Kidd poked his head out of the same doorway, very much resembling, with his eyeglasses and pointy nose, a cuckoo in a cuckoo clock, and beckoned Hugh in.

“Mr. Smith,” he said. “Please sit down.”

There was a large desk, with a chair behind it and a chair in front of it, and on the other side of the room there was an apparatus next to an armchair which faced a movie screen. Behind the chair was a slide projector. The apparatus looked harmless enough at the moment, but there were wires attached to it that caused Hugh some concern.

“I’ll explain all that in a moment,” the doctor said. He nodded at Hugh and began to write. “Now, how long have you been a homosexual?”

“I don’t know,” Hugh said. “Always, I suppose.”

“And your first experience?”

“What?”

“When was it, did you like it, who initiated it, and so forth. I want to know your story.”

Hugh shrugged. “I was in love several times before I had an ‘experience,’ as you call it. I was not in love with him, but it was very exciting. The seduction, if you will, was mutual, I guess.”

“So, when you were in love, you wanted a man who didn’t want you?”

“They were straight.”

“Aha.” More writing. “And now you are here because you want to be straight too.”

“I could try.”

The doctor narrowed his eyes and peered at him. “Are you wearing
makeup?
”

“Just a little powder,” Hugh said lightly. “I wanted to look my best. I didn’t think you would be able to tell.”

“You are a difficult case, but I’ve had worse.”

“Oh?”

“You don’t have to be effeminate. That’s an affectation. I’m sure you didn’t flounce around as a child.”

“Maybe I did.”

“Tell me, Mr. Smith, what is your principal reason for wanting to be cured?”

“I don’t know.”

“But you do want to be normal?”

“Yes, I do. Yes.”

“You want to shift your erotic impulses away from men and toward women.”

“But how would that be possible?” Hugh said.

“First you have to stop desiring men.”

And then I’ll be nothing, Hugh thought. He could not imagine wanting to have sex with a woman. In all the talk of marriage at home he had never actually thought he would have sex with his poor deluded wife. “What’s your magic potion?”

“Come with me.” The doctor led him over to the armchair next to the apparatus. “Sit down, please.”

Hugh sat.

“Now, this projector will show you homoerotic pictures: naked men, men having sex together, and so forth. This wire will be placed around your penis. When you become aroused by the pictures of men you will receive an electric shock.”

“Where?” Hugh cried.

“On your genitals, but it’s a very low level. Don’t be alarmed. You will learn that this arousal is inappropriate. You will associate it with pain.”

“What if I’m a masochist?” Hugh said.

“Are you? Do you like pain?”

“No. Actually, I hate it.”

“Good. I can also expose you to a very bad odor upon arousal, if you’d prefer that. Ammonia, quite unpleasant. But I think for you, since you are not attracted to pain, the electric shock will do well.”

This man is crazy, Hugh thought.

“You will discover when we are working together,” the doctor went on, “that the hardest part of the therapy is emotional. You will have to struggle to rid yourself of your inappropriate desires, and you may be depressed and guilty over your conflicts, but that’s all to the good. I’m going to turn you into a real man. Now, go into the dressing room over there and put on a gown.”

“A gown?”

“A hospital gown. Take off your clothes. We can start today with the erotic pictures, so I can measure your degree of arousal, and then the next time we can start the shocks. Eventually you will find that you are less and less aroused, and then, finally, aversion, and success.”

“How do you know the pictures will have any affect on me at all?” Hugh said. “With you standing there, and a wire on me, I don’t think so.”

“You haven’t seen much pornography, have you?” Dr. Kidd said with a little smile.

“No, not really.”

“I have never seen them fail.” The smile was bigger, almost impish. “They are very erotic photographs.”

“And almost worth staying for,” Hugh said. “But I have to go now.”

He headed for the door.

“Wait! Why are you leaving? Come back!”

“I’m not the sick one here,” Hugh said.

He burst out of the office, slammed the door behind him, and stood for a moment in the waiting room—free, shaking, his heart pounding. Now that his consternation had dissipated he felt the anger flooding him, making him weak. How could anyone hate himself that much, to subject himself to such a thing? Did Celia know what they were going to do to him? She had said she didn’t, but he wouldn’t be surprised if she was simply too genteel—or too manipulative—to talk about it. How much she must hate him!

While Hugh stood there trying to regain his composure, another man came out of the other doctor’s office, apparently having finished his latest session. He looked miserable, of course. He also looked like a large and sexy teddy bear.

“Give it up,” Hugh told him. “These doctors are insane. It will never work. You’re a good-looking man. You’ll find somebody. You don’t need a wife.”

They headed for the elevator together.

“I
have
a wife,” the man said.

“No . . .” Hugh put his fingers over his mouth in surprise. “They made you get married.”

They entered the safety of the elevator, down and on their way to freedom. They were alone there for a few moments, in the silence of the confessional.

“Nobody made me,” the man said. “I loved her.”

“Oh, how sad,” Hugh said. “Were you very young?”

He nodded.

“Children?”

He shook his head. He still looked a little in shock, and who could blame him after what he’d just been through upstairs behind that door.

“That’s a blessing,” Hugh said, “although you may not think so now. I’m warning you, that place up there is like the Spanish Inquisition. You’ll confess, finally, but you’ll never get the true religion. Trust me, dearie, you’ll feel a lot better having a heart-to-heart with me than letting that charlatan put a hot wire around your dick.”

The man stifled a smile.

“I’m Hugh,” Hugh said, holding out his hand.

“I’m Teddy.” How appropriate, Hugh thought. He could see a glimpse of reddish brown chest hair in the V of Teddy’s partly open shirt and he wanted to rub his cheek on it. They shook hands, like two straight men. A line ran through Hugh’s head of his favorite song from his favorite show. “Some Enchanted Evening” from
South Pacific. “Some enchanted evening, you will see a stranger . . . across a crowded room, and somehow you’ll know . . .”
It’s happening again, he thought. And for him too, I can tell.