Miss Jan Erickson, school psychologist, had arrived at an empty classroom a few minutes early to review the referring teacher's report on Philip Nolan.
Time, the Social Studies teacher wrote, might be running out for the gifted Philip Nolan. Although his high IQ and intellectual sophistication made him prime college material, he refused to apply himself. To continue his academic career the sixteen-year old boy needed help and he needed that help immediately. Philip, the teacher believed, had unresolved conflicts that sapped his energy. If he couldn't solve the conflicts he must at least learn to accept them. The report ended by saying if any psychologist could "get through" to this student, it would be Jan Erickson.
Jan Erickson was used to such praise. Although she had no training in psychology beyond a Masters Degree, and that earned at a California State College of no particular repute, her fifteen years as psychologist for the Foothill City School District had been a notable success. Her reputation quickly spread, and other school districts soon began dispatching psychologists to study her methods. Although these visiting psychologists were invariably impressed, few claimed they had learned anything from observing the tall freckled woman who always dressed in brightly colored skirts and blouses, and wore a colorful assortment of Indian silver and turquoise jewelry on her fingers, wrists, and neck. As one noted: "She has no real methodology, so her success must be attributed to her pleasant demeanor and accepting personality. There is no denying her marvelous rapport with the children."
Jan Erickson had just finished reading the referral teacher's notes when Philip Nolan entered the classroom. An extremely tall and well-muscled boy, he wore tennis shoes, Levi's, white T-shirt, a black leather jacket with silver buttons and silver zipper, and around his neck a silver chain and pendant that vaguely reminded Jan Erickson of a fraternity symbol.
But what riveted her attention were his eyes. Arched over by thick black eyebrows, they were set wide apart, and colored a curious protean gray, which never seemed twice the same. As he took a chair across the table from her, she thought she saw his eyes change from dark to light gray, and then, astonishingly, take on a turquoise luster.
His eyes so fascinated Jan Erickson she had to forcibly keep from staring at them. Strangely rattled, the 45-year old psychologist gathered herself together and began asking those preparatory questions designed to make a student feel at ease. Inquiries about health, siblings, and parental occupations.
Philip Nolan's monosyllabic answers exhibited such hostility and boredom, Jan Erickson decided to drive straight to the heart of the matter. "Philip, why does school bore you?"
She watched in fascination as the boy's eyes momentarily changed to a clear azure, before flickering back to their gray. Then she saw a smile began playing around his mouth.
"I never said school bored me."
"Your records say it for you."
"Perhaps the records lie."
She opened the file folder containing his academic record. She scanned the pages a few moments, then looked up at the boy self-consciously slouched in the chair across from her.
"You've been in the Foothill County school system for nearly 12 years," she said in her soft voice. "I'd call that a pretty long lie. Don't you feel you may be wasting your time in school?"
"For twelve long years I've had that feeling," Philip mumbled.
"Then why haven't you done something about it?"
The boy's brow knit in thought.
"What I need," he said, his voice laden with portentous significance, "is someone to share my life. No man can make it alone. And no woman either, Miss Erickson."
Jan Erickson patiently waited for Philip to acknowledge his sarcastic remark ridiculous and insulting. He did neither. Knowing it best not to respond to his adolescent humor, she cleared her throat. "On this, our first meeting, you are required to take a Personal Preference Test. Hopefully, it will indicate where your abilities lie. You can fill the test out here and turn it in to the office downstairs. We will meet again next week at this same day and time and discuss the results."
She handed Philip the test. As she busied herself to leave, he politely rose from his chair. When she stood up, he towered over her. She couldn't help but feel dwarfed by his size. Looking up at him she said goodbye, and feeling those eyes on her back, she left the classroom.
That next Monday, Jan Erickson and Philip Nolan reviewed the test results. She had thought his preference would center on a creative or intellectual pursuit, or, with that large muscular body, perhaps an outdoor vocation. Surprisingly, his interests pointed toward business administration.
The test results did not surprise Philip Nolan.
"The fact is," he said, "I have long dreamed of getting a Masters in Business Administration, and not from a State College either."
She ignored the wisecrack and asked why business interested him.
"I really couldn't say," he told her.
"Could it be the satisfaction of seeing a large organization run smoothly?" she asked pleasantly.
"No."
"Then maybe starting a business from scratch, and you being the man who sets the whole thing up?"
Placing two fingers together, Philip pressed them against his lips. "No. I don't think that's it."
Jan Erickson leaned forward. "Don't you at least have some idea as to why administrative work interests you?"
"Sure, it's the forms. I find them intriguing,"
His gray eyes seemed to dance in his strong handsome face.
"So you are interested in forms," she said, leaning back in her chair. He had deliberately slanted his test answers to play a joke on her.
Jan Erickson stared back at Philip Nolan until he looked away. Then, the slight rise in her voice making her anger all the more pointed, she said: "I hope this is amusing you, Philip, because it's certainly not amusing me."
A silence ensued; one the psychologist knew she must not break. The boy was testing her, playing with her as she guessed he had played with everyone else in his young life. To win this battle of wills didn't necessarily mean she could help him; to lose made it all but impossible.
Neither of them said anything for a good ten minutes. She sat radiating a calm she didn't really feel; he sat smirking and glancing about the classroom. Soon he began to fidget, crossing and re-crossing his long legs, and twisting in his chair. Finally, he broke the silence. "I've never been interested in business. Just kidding."
The change was not immediate, but as the sessions wore on Philip's sarcasm slowly began to fade. Each week found him responding more and more to the lady psychologist who utilized what she called "creative listening". Her empathy unmistakable, it seemed she hung on the student's every word. By their tenth session, Philip Nolan was telling Jan Erickson what she imagined he had never shared with anyone. He talked at length of books he'd read, movies he'd seen, and exotic places he would someday like to visit. Often his demeanor became animated, and at times, when discussing something he thought truly interesting, she guessed his enthusiasm might have surprised him as much as it did her. His unusual eyes flashed and his huge body rocked with a fervency she found remarkable.
Everything about the boy fascinated her. He seemed to be two people. At times he would string together mature and complicated thoughts so quickly she couldn't follow him. At other times he acted like a confused and willful child. Never had she counseled a student with more erudition, nor one who seemed so confused by emotions of even the simplest kind. For one thing, she was amazed he never mentioned girls. Such a good-looking sensitive boy could have just about any girl at the school, and yet he seemed as indifferent to girls as he did to athletics. Half man and half boy, he was a complicated and intricate puzzle, one who had stood aloof from life and now found himself at a crossroads. Reaching him at such a young age would make a difference. Jan Erickson was convinced it might make all the difference.
Although Philip now talked freely about most things, he had difficulty discussing the truly personal. To draw him out the psychologist began asking about his family and friends. Those were the times he became tense, agitated, and abstract. Those were the times she accused him of "erecting walls".
Once, when they were discussing Joseph Conrad's, "Lord Jim", Philip mentioned that Conrad understood young people. "He understands their dreams and their desire to escape the average. He knows how they want to be different."
"Do they want to be different by being superior?" Jan Erickson asked.
"That's one way."
"And how is one superior, Philip?"
"By thinking superior thoughts and doing superior things, of course."
"Are good grades in school a way of showing superiority?"
"Not really."
"Is being a leader in student activities a way of being superior?"
"You can't do much in school."
"Philip," Jan Erickson said in her soft voice, "don't you think people should try and make the most out of whatever situation they find themselves in, particularly situations they have no control over?"
"My experience would say yes."
"And wouldn't that be a superior thing to do?"
Philip smiled at her.
"Very good," he said. "Very good and very obvious."
"I'm sorry to be so obvious that you must build your walls," she answered, returning the smile.
As the meetings wore on Jan Erickson became progressively harder on him, imploring he participate more at school.
"Who knows," she said, "you might even come to like your classmates."
"I'm different from them."
"Have you ever taken the time to find out what interests they have? Do you tell them how you really feel about things? For example, do you let them know how interested you are in literature? If you did you might discover they feel the same as you."
"I talk to them," he said stubbornly.
"But do you talk to them as equals?"
"Do they pay you well for all this listening you have to do?" he asked back. He was smiling, but his voice had assumed a cold hard tone.
"You really can't accept my interest in you as a person, can you, Philip?"
"I could accept it," he snapped.
"When you can truly accept it," Jan Erickson told him, "we will have accomplished something."
At their last meeting before the beginning of Christmas vacation, Jan Erickson was startled to hear Philip say his computer sales manager father had accepted a corporate job transfer out of state. In one month he and his family would be moving.
The news dismayed the psychologist. She believed him on the verge of a breakthrough, and now with the advent of Christmas vacation and his family's move, this would be their last session. Although Jan Erickson believed in the intrinsic value of every human soul, she couldn't kid herself, Philip was something special. It wasn't just his potential. He was alone and needed her. Now he might never see her again. It was wrong. It was terribly wrong!
Jan Erickson looked into eyes that she swore had taken on an azure tint, and said: "I find that unfortunate. We were making good progress."
"Parting is such sweet sorrow," he said.
She knew he was hiding his feelings. He had to be.
"Don't you think we've made progress, Philip?"
She watched him stiffen slightly, as he always did when asked to reveal something personal, and then she heard him say quietly: "In some ways we have."
"We still have that one month."
He shot her a questioning glance.
"During vacation periods," she said, "insurance problems prohibit us from meeting at school. However, I have met with students at my house before. We can have at least four meetings there before your move. Would you find that objectionable?"
"I don't think so."
"Then let us decide on when."
They scheduled a meeting at Jan Erickson's house that next Wednesday at noon.
The school psychologist lived alone in a small house of Spanish Colonial design. Surrounding the house were thick adobe walls built so high you could barely see the red tile roof from the street. The interior of the house radiated elegance and warmth. Indian throw rugs of brown and beige covered the floors, and dark heavy wooden beams crossed the cathedral ceilings. In one way or another each room bore witness to her annual summer travels. A myriad of ceramic and wood artifacts purchased in Latin and South America crowded tables and shelves, and brightly colored tapestries and Indian blankets from the American Southwest hung from the stucco walls. Despite the many artifacts, the ambience was not cluttered or stifling. The good taste of the decorating, along with the cathedral ceilings, imbued a sense of expanse and freedom to the place. Jan Erickson believed her home epitomized what she stood for, and she often found herself wishing she could counsel all her students there.
She thought Philip appeared nervous that day. Perhaps no longer having the buffer of the school between them had unsettled him. He sat ramrod stiff on her Santa Fe style living room sofa, his back not nearly touching the cushioned bamboo backrest, his hands thrust into his ubiquitous leather jacket, his feet close together, the knees of his long legs sticking up in the air. There was something endearing in his discomfort, something that reminded her what a very young man he was.
"Lean back and let the sofa support you," she told him in her soothing voice. "Here we have no time schedule to worry about. No bells will be ringing or buzzers sounding. For a moment let us just relax and listen to the quiet."
Jan Erickson closed her eyes. After they sat in silence for a few minutes, she began speaking to Philip Nolan in a way different than before.
"Our lives, Philip, are like the ripples a stone makes when thrown into a pond. Each ripple represents an area of responsibility, and we must work our way out to the farthest ripple by going through each of the preceding ones. The most difficult ripple to get through is the first because that is ourselves. Before we can get through that first ripple we must become what we are, and that requires an effort quite different from most. If we try too hard our effort becomes distorted, and so we must try indirectly, and that is a difficult thing to do."
She opened her eyes and smiled warmly at the young man sitting awkwardly on the sofa across from her chair.
"Philip, I want you to do something for me. I want you to take that pillow next to you and place it against the backrest. Then I want you to lean back, shut your eyes, and completely relax. I want you to let every nerve and fiber simply be."
She watched as Philip attempted what she had always found so easy. From the first his body language betrayed tenseness, his arms and legs seemingly moving in cross-purposes from one another.
"You're fighting it," she told him. "Simply let it go. Let all the anxiety and all the tenseness leave your body. Let it all go and let yourself be."
But the more Philip tried the stiffer and more uncomfortable he became. He slid the pillow down his back, and then he pushed the pillow up to his head. He crossed and uncrossed his long legs. He twisted and turned his torso. Once she thought he might even be holding his breath. Finally, grabbing his knees with his hands, he pulled himself forward on the sofa.
"I just can't," he muttered in dejection.
"It takes time and practice," Jan Erickson told him. "To just be is a difficult thing to accomplish, and absolutely necessary if we are to move on to the next level of being and awareness."
She then closed her eyes and leaned her head back on the armchair backrest. A period of what she called "creative silence" followed. Philip had always acted as if he found these silences annoying, and following what had just occurred, today was no exception. After five minutes he began to fidget and squirm. Finally he asked: "Is it okay for me to be here? With the school, I mean."
Jan Erickson opened her eyes. "As a matter of fact the school doesn't know you're here. It may be against some regulation or other. Does that bother you?"
"I don't care about regulations."
"But you do care what people think."
"I don't care what anybody thinks!"
She saw his face had begun to redden.
"Philip, I only prod you so you can come to accept some things about yourself. You care very much what other people think and you hide that care behind a sophisticated façade. Surely you know you do this."
He rose from the sofa.
"I think I should leave," he said, his voice bristling with distaste. "You and your listen to the quiet and levels of being and awareness. There's no point to that. That's not psychology. That's philosophy."
Jan Erickson stood up next to him. They were no more than a few feet apart.
"Do you mean there's no point to your life?" she asked. "Is that what you mean?"
His face now a flaming red, Philip averted her eyes.
"Look at me, Philip."
Suddenly Jan Erickson found herself gazing up at eyes that shown a cold winter blue. So sharp and piercing was his stare that a faint cry escaped her lips.
His thick eyebrows arched in surprise, Philip took a quick step backward, his legs pressing against the sofa.
"I'm sorry," she exclaimed breathlessly. "It's your eyes. The colors! They're incredible!"
Philip bowed his head in embarrassment.
Instinctively she reached out and covered his large right hand in her two hands. She hadn't meant this to happen, but perhaps now she could reach him.
"We can't stop," she whispered, slightly squeezing his hand, "not when we are so close."
He stood silently staring down at their hands.
"Philip," she said, "there's no limit to your potential, but you need to self-actualize. Then you can have professional success and eventually a wife and family. You can be different and at the same time be like everyone else. But first you must allow yourself to be what you truly are."
The psychologist's eyes, filled with something very fragile, watched Philip slowly raise his head. Now she gazed up at a face contorted with such defiance and contempt he looked like somebody else. She gasped, her hands falling away from his.
"A wife and family!" he snarled. "Self -actualize! Can't you figure it out? I'm gay! Gay! And there's nothing I can do about it! Nothing!"
His massive hands clenched tightly into fists, Philip turned to leave. His leg bumped the sofa-end table. A small statue toppled onto the rug. He started to lean over and pick up the statue, then changed his mind. Taking long strides, he strode toward the foyer. He flung open the front door.
"Goodbye," he snorted contemptuously, his back to her.
He passed through the doorway and swung the door shut behind him.
Jan Erickson heard footsteps on the patio tile. She heard the click and squeaky swing of the entrance gate, followed by the clang of the gate slamming shut. She heard rapid footsteps becoming faint on the sidewalk. She heard that he was gone.
She bent over and picked up the statue, a tiny white basilisk she had purchased in Guatemala nearly fifteen years ago. As she placed the statue back on the table, her hand shook so the statue fell over on its side. Fumbling, she placed the statue right side up.
That scream! What was that scream?
She began turning in a circle. The high, shrill, piercing scream kept getting louder and louder!
Of course! The teakettle!
Jan Erickson hurried into the kitchen. She snatched the teakettle from the burner. The scream changed to a whine and quickly stopped. She switched off the gas and placed the teakettle on another burner. She looked down at the two carrying trays on the sink. Each contained a red and white serviette, a cup and saucer, and a bowl filled with nuts and tiny candies. Rapidly at first, and then with deliberate slowness, she emptied one bowl into the half-empty package that read "Party Snacks", and then filled the package with the contents of the other bowl. After that she took the serviettes from their trays and tucked them slowly into a drawer, smoothing them down before shutting the drawer. Her actions becoming more and more deliberate, she carefully placed the bowls inside the portable dishwasher. Pulling open a cupboard, she hung the cups on hooks and returned the saucers to their stacks. Then she pulled open another cupboard and slid both trays inside.
Jan Erickson glanced around the kitchen. All traces of the visit were gone. Now what would she do? She returned to the living room. There she fluffed out the sofa backrest pillow. Straightening up, she stood next to the sofa, her arms hanging aimlessly at her sides.
"I must do something," she said aloud. "Anything."
She moved to the bookcase. Her eyes ran over the titles of the first three books on the top shelf. "Creative Visualization", "The Courage To Be", "The Art of Loving". Old friends unable to help. She knew she couldn't concentrate enough to read.
She turned toward the front door. A walk! Yes! She would take a walk!
She went out into the warm sunshine and crossed the patio to the gate. As she placed her hand on the gate latch she remembered how Philip had stared down at their hands. And then that expression of hatred! She hadn't imagined he might be gay! She had been a fool!
She opened the gate and stood between the thick adobe walls that separated her from the sidewalk. She sagged against the gate. She felt weak and disoriented. Perhaps she should go back inside the house. No! It would do her good to take a walk.
Straightening her shoulders, Jan Erickson began walking along the sidewalk. She must not think about Philip. She must think of something else. Anything else!
But he was locked into her mind. Why had she cried out like that? It was his eyes. Those cold blue eyes had bored into her very soul! They were so strong!
She shook her head back and forth. No! He was only a boy! His eyes could not be strong! They were strange! And it had all happened so fast! She must forget what happened and return to who she was. That person who had helped hundreds of students could not have vanished.
But why could she no longer feel that person? Why did she feel such a stranger to herself?
She began walking faster. The sun burned down hot on her face and neck. She stared up at the sky. Her eyes squeezed shut against the blazing white blur. She felt dizzy. She must concentrate on something!
Off in the distance a supermarket parking lot brimmed with the coming and going of busy shoppers. She told herself to focus on the people scurrying between the cars and the large rectangular building.
Each of those people is unique, she thought, and each deserves respect in their uniqueness.
Twice she repeated this as she walked along the sidewalk. Then she repeated it a third time, rhythmically, as if in a chant.
It was no use. The sight of Philip Nolan's face contorted in rage hung before her like a smothering effigy. She could never forget him. She could never be the same. But why?
Jan Erickson came to a halt.
"Why am I the way I am?" she panted aloud in the dry Southern California air. "Why? Why? Why?"