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13 I PLEADED WITH Bo TO COME LIVE WITH ME, BUT HE REMAINED TENTATIVE as ever and in Key West. If my real estate investment business had not required so much of my attention, I would have moved there. My father and I worked together every weekday at the office, and we never discussed my friends, my nights, my weekends, my deepening determination to make my relationship with Bo a permanent one. My mother and I communicated even less. What closeness we'd had in childhood was gone, and, so far as I was concerned, it would remain that way as long as she insisted on believing that some day I would get married. My inner life continued along the same path. For the most part I functioned well and maintained an aptitude for optimism. This was my mind's way of protecting me from itself. I did not have clear memory of the seizures of pain and despair. After the trip to the Virgin Islands I forgot the night in the boat with Bo. I forgot all such moments in my life. Some thoughts are like voices, and every night before I fell asleep I heard, Something is very wrong. What? I asked. No answer came. The phone call from Kenny Ashwood's father would change that. It came just a month after Bo and I returned from the Virgin Islands. The process of conferring with Dr. Hahn and coming to the decision of castration took another two months. But Hahn finally informed Mother that he had contacted a urologist in another city who'd agreed to perform the "elective bilateral orchiectomy." Two weeks later, on a gray morning, Mother and Dad quietly left town and headed for the Catholic hospital where Dad would check in and undergo the surgery. Mother told me that they waited and waited in Dad's room, far past the appointed time. It was, she said, nearly noon before the doctor entered the room. A nun followed him. Both appeared uneasy. They introduced themselves. Copyrighted Material 85 "I understand why you have come here, Mister de Milly," the doctor said. "The procedure you have requested is rather simple and quick. I've performed it hundreds of times. But I have a problem with your case. You have no pathology, right? No cancer, no growths or tumors?" "No," my father said. "You want this procedure to correct a behavior problem, a sexual problem you have?" "Yes." "This is what I understand," the doctor said. "The problem is that this procedure conflicts with my ethical beliefs." The doctor looked at the nun, who nodded. "I have to tell you that I can't do it. I think you should reconsider. Sister Mary Robert will be happy to counsel with you about this. I asked her to come with me to talk to you." "But," my mother said, "I thought all this had been arranged." "I know," the doctor said. "This hospital made a mistake in admitting you. We just can't do it. I'm sorry." Mother says that Dad returned a pleasant nod. She declined the offer to speak with the nun. It would take Hahn several more weeks to locate another out-of-town doctor who would consent to do the procedure. This time Mother and Dad drove to a small town in another state, where Dad checked into a community hospital. There, he was castrated. Five years passed before I could even begin to make sense of this act. In that time another therapist had encouraged me to communicate with Dad. This psychologist urged me to face Dad and talk through the whole tragedy of our lives. With some surprise I found not only that Dad remembered the experience vividly but that he wanted me to know exactly what happened. Perhaps he embellished, perhaps he invented when the truth was too plain or when I would have expected more thought, more introspection, even remorse. For whatever reasons he had in mind, Dad sat before me in the sunlit living room of his house and described his experience. He and Mother took their freshly waxed sedan on a several-hour journey to a Southern farming community, to see Dr. Cooper. Early in the morning Dad checked in at the local hospital. He and Mother completed the requisite forms. Then he was sent on a cot into the operating room. He remembered lying on his back, his body flat against the cold operating table. Pallid...

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