The next day I walked with Dave down the hall. As we came to the school psychologist's office, I opened the door and 'escorted' Dave into the room and into a seat.
"Dave, Frank...Frank, Dave." I shut the door and went back to class.
Later I asked Frank what had happened.
"Well," he said, "Dave sat there for two hours and stared at the floor. I couldn't get him to talk."
I wanted to say, 'Get him to talk?! What are you, an interrogator or psychologist?' Instead I listened to him tell me to keep up the good work. After the role as Dracula in the school play things seemed to get worse. One morning before school, I found him sitting on the floor outside my room. I sat down next to him. He talked about his sister, fiddling with his school ring, muttering.
"Stumpf?" there were tears in his blue eyes, "she's the only one I like in the family. What am I going to do?" He told me that he'd discovered his sister had been writing a 'pen-pal' in prison. She was only in eighth grade and had begun the correspondence in reply to a letter in the newspaper. Dave had intercepted some of the mail and found some lewd suggestions. "Have you talked to your parents about this?" I regretted the question as soon as it left my mouth.
Dave was in a rage. I talked, tried to comfort, apologized for the stupidity, told him not to worry, asked questions, tried to swim out of this verbal whirlpool. At last, Dave snorted, got up and walked away. I had to go into the hospital to have a damned pilonidal cyst removed for the second time.
I was there for about a week. Dave would call or drop by. He'd tell me how rotten Christmas was, how he hated holidays, how he'd decided to dump his girlfriend, promised not to kill himself. He'd leave. I'd call Frank and Jim. They'd tell me to keep talking. I felt lost.
There was a long silence as I wondered if I was supposed to say anything.