his got neurotic eyes

D.F.

by.. Ruth M. Friedman

"But I'm not ABOUT to undermine the propriety of the old school, Dad. All I said was ...

"No!" Swanson held up the protest like a shield. "Who do you keep company with that you use words like this in your mother's house! What

"Nonsense!" Ken sprang from his chair at the same time pushing his hands into his hip pockets. "We're living in a modern world, Dad, in a... "Aren't you letting the word get away from you, Kendall? Using it as an excuse to strip decency bare?"

"If decency is decency, it cannot be stripped bare! And on the contrary we're learning how not to grovel in our thoughts; how not to sneak behind the phony morals we call prudery. We're learning

"Where in hell are you learning all this . . . who teaches you?"

"Look! Dad!" Each word was divisible; a plea and a command. Ken began to pace. "That's what psych is, a ground in which we've yet to explore and discover. Homosexuality is just another ..

"I say don't use that... that PHRASE in my house!"

"That's what I mean," Ken said, "you get on this discussion kick, then you stop me when we've hardly started. You've asked me what my thesis was to be and I told you. If you really want me to be a doctor you'll just have to let me go about it in my own way."

"All right, Kendall, all right." Swanson put his match to a cigar and puffed rapidly as though he feared the boy would leave the room before he'd had it lit. When he had the cigar going Swanson watched the burning tip for a moment, biding his time.

He grated his throat and cleared his nose; an obscenely impressive gesture characteristic of him. It was a potential spitting out or a thing preparatory to it; a pronounced masculinity among the boys.

"Kendall, it's not only our father-son relationship. We've been friends and I'm sincerely interested in what you do and your progress."

"Yeh, Dad, then let's not put it on your lawyer-client basis." He approached his Dad, put his hand on the round, obese shoulder that had begun to sag in the last few months. "There's more to it than meets the eye." Ken began to pace slowly once more, like thought circling an idea, searching for the right word.

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