Bryce, Chapter 44 - Uneasy Days

 

 

 

On Tuesday morning, Bryce awoke in Damon’s bed at his normal time, a few minutes after six o’clock, despite not having remembered to set the alarm.  Besides, the alarm was in the other room.  He detached himself from Damon with some difficulty and much regret, threw on his gym clothes, and set off for his first workout in a week.

 

Even before Curtis appeared, Bryce felt his slackness as his muscles protested.  “Hey, we thought you had given up on this nonsense,” they screamed.  Bryce drove himself on.  Curtis arrived more or less on schedule.

 

“Missed you yesterday,” he said.

 

“I had a really bad time on Sunday and Monday,” Bryce confided to his friend.

 

“Uh, family not as open to having a rampant queer among them as you expected,” Curtis joked.

 

“Don’t,” Bryce asked.  “Too close to the truth.”

 

“Sorry.”  Curtis looked immediately repentant.

 

“Okay,” Bryce agreed, knowing Curtis was a friend.  “How was your break?”

 

“Great!  Maddy went home to my place, and she and my mom spent half the time planning a wedding which would rival that of Princess Diana,” Curtis reported.  “Of course, we can’t afford half that, but why deprive them of their fun?”

 

“Good.  I’m glad for you,” Bryce replied.  But the lack of his usual enthusiasm was obvious.

 

“You’re not having problems with Damon, are you?” Curtis asked, concern in his voice.

 

“No.  Damon’s fine.  Better than ever,” Bryce assured him.  “It’s back home.  But I really don’t want to talk about that.”

 

“Well, as long as you and Damon are fine, that’s what’s important,” Curtis said.

 

“Yeah.  That’s right,” Bryce marveled.  It was as simple as that.

 

“We’re counting on you for the wedding,” Curtis continued on his own topic.

 

“Me?”

 

“Yeah.  Remember, I told you we wanted you in the wedding.  You are now officially listed as one of my groomsmen, or ushers, or whatever.  You know, the guys in the monkey suits.”

 

“Sigh, I guess this means I’ll have to support you for president of the fraternity as well,” Bryce kidded.

 

“Damn straight,” Curtis confirmed.

 

Damon must have been glad that Bryce was more or less back to normal, as he groused and complained as much as usual when he was awakened.

 

Before the Milton class Maddy confirmed Curtis’ assessment of their Thanksgiving break, repeating the request that Bryce be a groomsman in June.  This he readily agreed to.  Mike also had some news for him, along with some gossip.  First, he reported on the Sandovals’ experiences with the soup kitchen, adding that his mother was considering volunteering on a regular basis.  He also told Bryce that the two boys had watched the family vehicle, and had been paid, at Isobel’s insistence.  “Don’t let those two little sharpies con you into paying double,” he warned.  Then Mike reported that he had heard several comments from someone he knew in the GLBT Club about the way they ‘disrupted’ the meeting back a month ago.  There had been a good deal of dissension within the ranks, leading to speculation that Josh Young might not be elected as the next president.  That was the gossip portion of his news.

 

After class, Bryce made his way to Dumesnil Hall and the offices of Dr. Anjot.  He found the professor in, as he hoped.  In a round about and not terribly articulate manner, he apologized for missing class the previous day, and asked about the possibility of getting notes.  Their conversation was all in French, of course.

 

Dr. Anjot studied his student.  “Usually when a student misses, he or she gets notes from another student.  You don’t seem to get along with any of the others in the class.”

 

“C’est vrai,” Bryce admitted.  “I don’t know why that is.  I don’t think it’s anything I did, at least not intentionally.”

 

“You’ve been very faithful.  I think this is the first class you’ve missed.”

 

“Yes, sir.”

 

“Problems?”

 

“Yes, sir.  Of a personal nature,” Bryce replied.

 

Dr. Anjot studied him again for a minute, then turned to his computer.  In a minute, he was downloading pages of material.  “Here,” he said, handing the pages to Bryce, “these are my notes for that class.  We began our consideration of Jean-Jacques Rousseau.”

 

“Thank you, Dr. Anjot.  I don’t intend to miss again,” Bryce promised.

 

“I hope you resolve whatever your personal problems might be,” the professor said.

 

I do need to snap out of it, Bryce told himself.  I can’t keep going from laughter to despair and back again.  Damn it!  Why did Chip have to be such an asshole?  He walked over to the University Center, where he found Damon and DuBois.

 

“I need some time alone,” he told Damon.  “I’ll see you before PE.”

 

“You’re going off with my rival, aren’t you,” Damon pretended to pout.

 

DuBois looked alarmed at that.

 

“Yeah,” Bryce admitted with a grin, “but don’t worry.  The love I feel for you, and the love I feel for Jesus are two very different things.”  He leaned over and kissed Damon, despite being in a crowded room.  He did not feel like dissimulating any longer.

 

Bryce arrived at St. Boniface about a quarter before noon.  As he divested himself of his jacket, toboggan cap, and gloves, he was approached by the old priest he had encounter the previous time he attended the noon Mass.

 

“Have you ever served Mass?” Father Kelley asked.

 

“Yes, Father, but it’s been a while,” Bryce replied.

 

“I need a server.  My usual one called a little while ago.  He’s down with the ‘flu.”

 

“I’ll give it a try, though I might need a little coaching,” Bryce agreed.

 

In the sacristy, as Bryce selected surplice and cassock, the priest asked, “You back because you have another problem?”

 

Bryce was amazed.  “I’m surprised you remember me.  But, yeah, I’m kind of restless, you know.  Problems at home,” he confided.

 

“Trust God,” the priest advised once again.  “Remember what St. Augustine wrote in his Confessions.  Inquietus est cor meus, Domine, donec in te requio.  Do you understand that?”

 

“Yes, Father.  ‘My heart is restless, O Lord, until it rests in thee.’  I think I’ve run across that before.”

 

“It’s one of his most quoted texts, and good advice,” the priest said.

 

During Mass, as Bryce carried out his functions without difficulty, everything coming back to him, he was able to ponder that advice.  By the time communion arrived, he was ready for another conversation with Jesus.  As he had to assist in the distribution to the others in the congregation, he simply told Jesus to wait until after Mass.  When Mass was concluded, and he was divesting himself of his borrowed regalia, Father Kelley again spoke of his situation.

 

“Have you decided anything?”

 

“Not yet.  I was busy out there, so I had to ask Jesus to wait,” Bryce replied.

 

The priest looked at him.  “Good,” he finally said.  “Thank you for serving.”

 

“It was good for me.  Thanks for asking,” Bryce responded.

 

When he had finished in the sacristy, Bryce came back out and knelt in one of the pews.  I’m sorry for forgetting about you the other day.  And here I am asking again.  It’s true.  My heart is restless, Lord.  I don’t want to quarrel with my family, but I can’t accept the way they treated Damon.  He is so forgiving.  I love him so, Lord.  Please, please, help us get through this.  Then, catching sight of a depiction of the Agony in the Garden, he added, Not my will, but thine be done.  Having made his request, Bryce settled back, tried to clear his mind of clutter, and waited for an answer.

 

He sat for some time, and was beginning to think Jesus was not going to answer him.  Then, almost absentmindedly, he picked up an old pre-Vatican II missal, which happened to be lying in the pew, left behind by one of the worshipers.  It was opened to the beginning of the Mass, what was then known as the prayers at the foot of the altar, based on Psalm 42.  He read:

 

I will go unto the altar of God;

 

to God, who gives joy to my youth.

 

Judge me, O God, and distinguish my cause

 

From that of unholy people.

 

From unjust and deceitful men, deliver me.

 

For you, O God, are my strength.

 

Why have you forsaken me?

 

And why do I go about in sorrow

 

while the enemy afflicts me?

 

O, send forth your light and your truth;

 

they have led me and brought me

 

to your holy mount and to your tabernacle.

 

And I will go unto the altar of God;

 

to God, who gives joy to my youth.

 

I will praise you upon the harp, O God, my God.

 

Why are you sorrowful, O my soul,

 

and why do you trouble me?

 

Hope in God, for I will yet praise him,

 

who is the salvation of my countenance, and my God.

 

Bryce closed his eyes once more, and he found peace, or at least, the promise of peace, in trusting the Lord.  He realized that someone more just than those who caused him anguish would decide in the long run.  He knew not how or when, but somehow, sometime, it would all work out.

 

Inspired with new confidence, Bryce thanked his friend Jesus, and worshiped his God, who was the same friend Jesus.  Sort of.  He exited the church, and returned to campus with time to spare before his karate class, so he grabbed something from a vending machine.  It tasted like cardboard, so he discarded it right away, and hurried off to the gym.

 

There, he found Damon and Caroline consulting.  “Plotting against me, are you?” he joked as he approached.

 

“Of course.  What else do we have to talk about but you, you egotist,” Damon replied.

 

“Actually,” Caroline said, more prosaically, “we were talking about the musical put on by the School of Music.  I told you before I was playing in the orchestra for 1776, but, of course, you’ve forgotten that.”

 

“No, as a matter of fact, I haven’t,” Bryce replied.  “I just haven’t done anything about it as yet.”

 

“Well, it’s about time.  The performances are this coming weekend and the following one:” Caroline said, “Friday and Saturday evenings and Sunday matinee.”

 

“Hummm.  Sunday matinees are out.  That would clash with our work at the soup kitchen,” Bryce figured.  “And I certainly remember Curtis telling me about the end-of-semester party at SAT on the Friday between the last class and final exams.  That’ll be the second weekend.  So let’s plan on this coming weekend.  What’s it to be, Damon?  Friday or Saturday?”

 

Before Damon could respond, Caroline declared, “Oh, you’ve got to come on opening night.”

 

“Okay with you?” Bryce asked Damon, who nodded approval.  “All right.  I’ll get tickets for Friday evening,” he assured Caroline.

 

Once again, Caroline was extremely demanding in the karate class, and once again Bryce was sweating profusely by the time it was over.  As he stood panting, Ms. Cheng, the instructor, complimented him.

 

“I have been observing your progress, Mr. Winslow.  You’re greatly improved since you began.”  With a smile she added, “I see you’re signed up for a second session next semester.”

 

“Yes, ma’am,” Bryce said, blushing some as he did.  “Maybe it’s just stubbornness, but once I begin something, I like to finish it, and I know I need additional instruction before I can consider this finished.”

 

“Oh, good,” Caroline said.  “I’m signed up for next semester, too.”

 

“I think the partnership between the two of you had been fruitful,” Ms. Cheng said, as she departed.

 

Bryce groaned.  “I guess that means you’ll be torturing me next semester, too.”

 

“It’s for your own good,” Caroline complacently stated.

 

“By the way,” Bryce panted, “my sister said to thank you for the Bourbon balls.  She enjoyed them immensely.”

 

“If you behave yourself, there’ll be more where those came from,” Caroline promised, as they exited the gym.

 

Damon joined them, so as Caroline went off to another rehearsal, the two men made their way back to the dorm to shower and change.  Despite all temptation, Bryce decided against immediate sex with Damon, and in favor of going by and getting the 1776 tickets.  Now that he had promised to attend on a specific date, and opening night at that, he would never hear the end of it from Caroline if he failed to appear.  Consequently, he and Damon made their way across campus to the Stephen Collins Foster Memorial Auditorium.  Approaching the ticket office, which was really part of the offices of the Department of Opera and Musical Theatre in the School of Music, he and Damon perused a seating plan of the auditorium, and consulted their previous experiences, to select seats from which they could see the stage well.  They were convinced that the acoustics were such that they could hear well from just about anywhere in the house.  With Caroline in the orchestra, it did not occur to either of them to be concerned about dates.  They would, in effect, be each other’s date for the event.  As he did so often, Bryce insisted on paying for both of them.

 

As they walked back, Damon raised the issue of Bryce always paying.  He protested that he could pay for himself, at least some of the time.  Bryce responded, “Look, Boyfriend, it’s only right that I pay.  I’m not trying to show off, really.  I didn’t earn any of what I have.  I got it simply by being born into a wealthy family.  So, you’re not depriving me of something I obtained by the sweat of my brow.  Look at it this way: God has been good to me, and so it’s my responsibility to use what he has given me to benefit others.  You’re my ‘significant other,’ so it’s actually my responsibility to benefit you.”

 

Damon laughed.  “I’m sure there’s some twisted logic in there somewhere, but if you really feel that strongly about it, I’ll try to accept your gifts without too much complaining.”

 

“I realize sometimes it is harder to receive than to give,” Bryce said, kissing Damon.

 

“You know, sometime I think you might actually understand, at least a little,” Damon conceded with a grin.

 

There was still enough time before the evening meal, so Bryce followed up by taking Damon out to the mall, and buying him a good pair of boots for the snowy weather ahead.  Damon grinned, accepted, and kissed his boyfriend.

 

In their last session as mentor and pledge, Keith went over everything with Bryce that evening, assuring him that all was in order for the initiation the following week.  With only a week of classes to go before the end, the men decided to put in some time that evening preparing, but they also found time later to spend a few hours at Pat’s with their friends.  As Damon assured Bryce, being relaxed would assist learning.

 

On Wednesday, Bryce delved into the world of Jean-Jacques Rousseau in his French class.  He had carefully studied the notes given him by Professor Anjot.  He learned that Rousseau (1712-1778) was born in Calvinist Geneva, the son of a watchmaker.  His mother died when he was young, and his father was an irresponsible parent.  Jean-Jacques worked at several occupations, receiving a spotty education, before running away to Italy at age 16.  By age 19 he was the lover (in his mind Bryce used the phrase ‘toy boy’ - Damon would have said ‘gigolo’) of Madame de Warens, who supported him for the next ten years.  He became associated with Diderot in Paris, and worked at several occupations - servant, tutor, copyist, secretary, music teacher, clerk.  He wrote a couple of operas and some poetry, as well as articles for L’Encyclopédie.  He was not terribly successful at anything until in 1749 he submitted an essay in a contest on the question: ‘Has the Progress of the Sciences and the Arts Contributed to Corrupt or Purify Morals?’  His was the only entry which took the negative side, and he did not win the competition, but it was the beginning of something tremendously important.  His entry, Discours sur les sciences et les artes, and a companion piece four years later, Discours sur l’origine de l’inégalité, essentially created the Romantic fixation with the primitive.

 

In these essays, Rousseau condemned organized society as artificial and hypocritical, waxing eloquent in praise of what he called ‘natural man,’ what later generations would call ‘the noble savage.’  He began with the assumption, based on absolutely nothing except wishful thinking, that humans in a hypothetical ‘state of nature’ are naturally good, cooperating with each other, enjoying absolute freedom, and sharing everything in common.  Bryce was reminded while reading this description of ‘natural man’ of a story he had read last year in his AP social studies class about a so-called stone age tribe in the Philippines called the Tasaday, who turned out to be real primitives, but not the living examples of Rousseau’s natural men first trumpeted.  They were, in reality, no different than many other primitive tribes around the globe.  Where there is no evidence, true believers manufacture some.

 

Rousseau’s ‘state of nature’ was a kind of Garden of Eden.  He wrote: The more we reflect on this state, the more convinced we shall be, that it was the least subject to revolutions, the best for man, and that nothing could have drawn him out of it but some fatal accident.  Into this Garden of Eden, like that in Genesis, a serpent crept.  The ‘fatal accident’ of which Rousseau wrote, the serpent in his Garden of Eden,  was the discovery of private property.  In rousing terms, he describes this fall from grace.  The first man who, after enclosing a piece of ground, took it into his head to say “this is mine,” and found people simple enough to believe him, was the true founder of civil society.  How many crimes, how many wars, how many murders, how many misfortunes and horrors, would that man have saved the human species, who, pulling up the stakes or filling up the ditches would have cried to his fellows: “Be sure not to listen to this imposter; you are lost, if you forget that the fruits of the earth belong equally to us all, and the earth itself to nobody!”

 

According to Rousseau, then, inequality and conflict reign in modern (his own) society simply because some people have more than others.  It was property owners, seeking to protect their ill-gotten gains, who created organized society.  Private property was essentially theft from the community.  Thus, with powerful prose, but without an iota of evidence, Rousseau launched the ‘back to nature’ movement, a major factor in Romantic thinking for the next century and more, and laid the foundation for the writings of Karl Marx a century later.

 

Considering all this, Bryce wondered at the power of literature.  A great writer, like Voltaire or Rousseau, could influence not only his own generation, but many years to come, along ways which were entirely unsuspected by earlier ages.  He didn’t know who first said it, but he agreed: the pen is indeed mightier than the sword.  He suspected that Rousseau’s entire career was fueled by his envy of those who were better off than he.  He also found it interesting that the older Voltaire was not impressed with Rousseau’s primitivism.  After reading his work on the origin of inequality, Voltaire wrote to Rousseau: No one has ever used so much intelligence to persuade us to be stupid.  After reading your book, one feels that one ought to walk on all fours: unfortunately, during the last sixty years I have lost the habit.

 

Did all this have any relevance to Bryce’s own situation?  It would appear that Rousseau and the Romantics were the mirror opposite of the Stoics.  The Stoics proclaimed that what was rational for humans was therefore natural, as they accepted Aristotle’s definition of humans as ‘rational animals.’  They were suspicious of the emotions as lowering humans to something less than human.  The Romantics turned this upside down, saying, in effect, that it was the emotions which were primary, and reason open to suspicion.  It was now ‘natural’ to be less rational, less developed, primitive.  Bryce considered that this left him feeling the same way he did during one phase of his discussions with Father Miller.  Since the Stoics caused so much trouble over sexual morality, he ought to like this conclusion, but it left him uneasy.  He tended to agree with Voltaire in this instance.  What was it about the Romantic position, Rousseau’s position, which caused unease?  He thought about that all day and into the next, and finally decided that the problem was, there was absolutely no evidence to support Rousseau’s basic thesis - or rather, his two basic theses, 1) that any such state of nature had ever existed in reality, and 2) that in such a state mankind was naturally good, without the flaws encountered in organized society.  It was another example of blaming society for individual problems.  Rousseau was blaming society for the fact that he had a lousy family background and had to work for a living.  It was another case of “the devil made me do it.”  As Bryce told Father Miller, he liked balance.  Truth seemed most often to lie between extremes, and Rousseau was just the other extreme from the Stoics.

 

Dr. Dickinson spent his hour on that Wednesday discussing the union of England and Scotland to form Great Britain.  Officially, this took place in 1707 by the Acts of Union passed by the separate English and Scottish parliaments.  The subservient Scottish government acted contrary to the general sentiment of the nation, as admitted by the leading Scottish proponents of union themselves.  As Robert Burns later wrote, “We were bought and sold for English gold.”  Leading figures in the Scottish government were involved in a disastrous financial scheme for establishing a colony in the area of Panama, and cooperated with the English government in hopes of a bailout.  As for the English, they were concerned about the succession problem.  The Act of Settlement of 1701, after all, applied only to England.  An act passed in Scotland in 1704 actually required a different succession than that in England.  For centuries, from early in the Middle Ages until the accession of King James VI of Scotland to the English throne in 1603, Scotland had been an enemy of England, most often allied with France.  To prevent that happening again, the English were willing to pay for the union.  One quick result was the Jacobite uprising of 1709, seeking to set upon the throne the son of the late King James II & VII.

 

Bryce pursued his education, making up for his absence on Monday, and preparing for final exams.  His term papers in his various classes received their final editing, and were turned in.  He assisted Damon along these lines as well, continuing his role as chief critic.  In private moments, he pondered his future, and how he could resolve the tensions within his family without betraying his integrity or his partner.  He had laid down conditions when he left Lincoln, and he stuck to them.  Without that, he decided, any settlement would be simply papering over the problems, not resolving them.  If his family could not accept him and Damon, he would be hurt, upset, distressed, but he would survive.  To sacrifice those conditions would diminish him such that he would not find life worth living.  E-mails and telephone messages continued to arrive several times each day.  It was obvious that his mother and his sister were hurting as well, but they had failed to defend him and Damon when they needed it on that fateful Sunday, so Bryce was not going to allow his natural proclivity towards accommodating them to alter his basic position.  He had to be accepted as a gay male, Damon had to be accepted as his partner, and Chip had to apologize to Damon for the slurs uttered on that Sunday.  Bryce did not think any of that unreasonable.

 

A breakthrough of sorts came when Bryce checked his e-mail on Thursday after returning from his history study group.  For the first time, he received mail from his father.  The message said simply that Sterling would arrive in Clifton at 5:46 p.m. on Saturday to discuss the issues raised at the time of Bryce’s visit home.  He asked that his flight be met.  Bryce was not certain this was the settlement he demanded, but he could hardly leave his father stranded at the airport.  He called La Rincon Latina and made reservations for three for that evening.  He had no intention of compromising by the exclusion of Damon from any agreement.

 

Before Sterling arrived, however, several more contributions were made to Bryce’s education.  On Friday morning, discussion of Rousseau continued in the French class.  In the early 1760s, Rousseau reached the height of his popularity.  In 1761 he published his novel Julie, ou la nouvelle Héloïse, depicting the delights of pastoral life and the corrupting nature of the city, another popular Romantic theme.  In the following year came his greatest work, Émile, ou traité de l’éducation.  In this immensely popular work, he discussed in detail the rearing of the boy Émile, completely isolated from the corrupting influences of society, from birth to age twenty-one.  Also in 1762, Rousseau published his political work, Le Contrat social.  In it, he tackled the issue of what to do now that we no longer live in a state of nature.  It begins with the rousing statement, Man is born free, yet everywhere we see him in chains.  Rousseau developed the concept of the volonté général, or the general will of the people, which, he insisted, alone legitimized civic relationships, including specific laws and forms of government.  Theoretically, this was the unanimous consent of everyone in a particular society.  However, as a result of the corruption of individuals caused by society (property), gaining unanimous consent was unlikely, so, for practical purposes, the general will is identified with the will of the majority.  We are free in society by participating in the general will, and the general will is the will of the majority.  But, what about the minority?  According to Rousseau, the minority exists only because they are corrupt property owners.  If they were not corrupt, they would agree with the general will.  They are also unfree, the slaves of their corruption.  We cannot, of course, allow the corrupt to influence our institutions and laws.  Hence, whoever refuses to obey the general will shall be compelled to it by the whole body: this in fact only forces him to be free.  This was put another way at the beginning of the twentieth century, when Lenin called it “the dictatorship of the proletariat.”  The minority have no rights.  As a member of both a religious and sexual minority, Bryce naturally objected.  Thus is laid the foundations for twentieth century totalitarianism by the same writer who is also responsible, in his earlier writings, for nineteenth century individualism.  How odd are the ways of mankind.  How mighty the influence of the pen.  No army has had nearly the impact on Western civilization as the writings of Voltaire and Rousseau.

 

On Friday evening, Bryce and Damon were treated to the opening night of the School of Music’s production of the musical 1776.  The work was written as part of the commemoration of the two hundredth anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, although it was released before that date, having its first showing in 1969, when it received the Tony Award for Best Musical.  In preparation for this event, Bryce had done some additional reading about the Continental Congress and the adoption of the Declaration of Independence.  In consequence, while he enjoyed the production, he was also aware of many historical inaccuracies.  He was particularly disturbed by the adulatory depiction of Thomas Jefferson, for whom Bryce had little respect.  He later informed Damon that, whereas in the play Jefferson states that he is resolved to free his slaves, he never did, except for five individuals in his will fifty years later, individuals who were suspected to be his own children.  On the other hand, Edward Rutledge, depicted in the musical as the spokesman for the South’s ‘peculiar institution,’ and singer of a piece which Damon found very uncomfortable (“Molasses to Rum to Slaves”), in actual fact did free his slaves.  The historical inaccuracies were not enough to detract from the inspiring message, and the patriotic feelings engendered, although they could very well reinforce existing stereotypes.  The production was very well staged, with excellent performances turned in by the entire cast.  There were not any songs in the production, however, which stood out independently as popular pieces.  None would appear in the ‘Top Ten.’  One song did speak to Bryce, and the way he felt at this time.  It was called “Is Anybody There?  Does Anybody Care?”