Shock to the system

12

I saw no single men seated either at the bar or in the dining room of Would You Like to Take a Wok. But a male-female couple at a rear table seemed to be waiting for someone, and when they saw me peering quizzically, the man got up and came my way.

"Would you be looking for Gene Cebulka?"

"Yes, I'm Don Strachey."

"Glad to meet you. I brought my wife along. I hope that's okay."

"Sure, that's up to you."

He was a well-scrubbed, ruddy-faced man in his late twenties in crisply laundered khakis and a pale pink polo shirt that matched the restaurant linen. He had a broad grin and a country-boy lope, and he could have passed for a soda-fountain boy on a Saturday Evening Post cover from 1952 had it not been for his ravaged head. Cebulka's honey-colored hair was thick in spots but in others it was missing altogether. This was a result not of disease, it soon became apparent, but of Cebulka's habit of absently tugging at clumps of his hair as he spoke. This seemingly pleasant young man with a look and demeanor as wholesome as any I'd run into in recent decades was, clump by clump, pulling his hair out by the roots.

"And this is my wife, Tracy," Cebulka said, smiling, as he twisted and tugged at his head. "Tracy, this is Mr.

Strachey."

"Don. Nice to meet you, Tracy."

She was freckled and pretty and slight under a mainsail of permed hair broad enough to launch a brigantine. She looked scared to death of me, but squeaked out, "Hi."

"Tracy thought if I was going to meet a good-looking man in a restaurant, she better come along and keep an eye on me," Cebulka joked, but Tracy just looked embarrassed. I probably did too.

Then it was my turn to put my foot in it. "So, how long have you honeymooners been married? Six months? Six weeks?"

"Eleven years," Tracy said sadly.

"Oh. So-you were already married then, Gene, when you went into Vernon Crockwell's program. I'd have guessed you were younger."

"I'm twenty-eight," he said, "and Tracy's twenty-seven."

"Ah."

"I just figured," Cebulka said brightly, "that I better get my ducks in a row before Tracy and I started a family. If you catch my meaning." He winked.

I was about to come up blank but was saved by the waiter, who arrived with red-tassled menus the size of the gates to Nanking. The three of us set about studying these and after a time summoned the waiter and placed our order for an assortment of multicolored edibles in cornstarch. Tracy Cebulka glanced at me nervously, and Gene smiled and twisted his hair.

When the waiter was gone, I said, "Gene, I guess your experience with Vernon Crockwell's program was a happy one. And it achieved the outcome you desired."

"That's true," he said, his fingers busy above. "I used to be turned on by men, but that was strictly no-win. I had a chance to be straightened out, so to speak, and I availed myself of the opportunity. Fortunately, Dr. Crockwell's way did the trick."

"Now Gene plays Softball with the guys," Tracy said.

This was followed by another silence. After a moment, I said, "It's hard to argue with success."

They both looked at me, Tracy unmoving, Gene twisting away at a recalcitrant clump.

"Although," I said, "Crockwell's therapy apparently doesn't do the trick for everybody. Paul Haig and Larry Bierly, for instance. Their departure from the group was a bitter one, I'm told."

"I saw on the news Larry was in a shooting," Cebulka said. "I hope he's going to pull through. That's a terrible tragedy after Paul passing away and all."

I said it looked as if Bierly was going to be okay.

"I'm glad," Cebulka said. "Larry's sincere in his beliefs. I guess he turned into a kind of gay libber, didn't he?"

"Kind of."

"I'm broad-minded. If that's what makes a person happy, I say, hey, go for it. But going with guys never made me happy. It just made me feel guilty as heck."

"Gene used to come home late at night from Albany and just sit out on the porch feeling like a total asshole," Tracy said. "Even if it was ten below."

"Now I never go to Albany at all anymore," Cebulka said. "I don't need to. I haven't set foot in the place for-it'll be seven months next Wednesday."

"He's turned into a real stay-at-home," Tracy said. "Which I happen to like."

"A real couch potato," Cebulka said with a laugh.

"Of course, it would be nice if he got off the couch once in a while too," Tracy said, her hopeful look fading.

"Especially like not falling asleep downstairs every single solitary night of the week."

"I'm hooked on Jay Leno," Cebulka said with a sheepish grin. "What can I tell you? Jay just cracks me up."

More silence. Then I said, "But tell me, Gene. Back when you were still in the group, I've gotten the impression that things didn't always go so smoothly for everybody. That there was a certain amount of tension and conflict."

"Well, naturally there was going to be," Cebulka said. "Here we were, dealing with a lot of heavy-duty stuff from our formative years. Deformative years, in our cases. Since homosexuals don't bond with their fathers normatively, they have to learn later on how to bond with other men in a normal way. That's what we were trying to do all the time, and it was no Sunday-school picnic, believe you me. It was hard work, and we were all working a double shift-getting rid of our old habits of trying to get into guys' pants and practicing at the same time how to be a buddy and a pal and-you know-getting in touch with our true guy-ness. People would blow off steam sometimes, which is understandable. Once the toothpaste is out of the tube, it can be a dickens of a time getting it back in."

They both looked at me. Cebulka had a tight grip on a knot of hair and was working it loose.

I said, "Gene, when you heard about Paul Haig's suicide, did it surprise you?"

"No," he said without hesitation. "I was sad to hear it, but it didn't really surprise me."

"Why not?"

"Because I think what Paul really wanted in life was the love of a good woman. And when he quit Dr. Crockwell's treatment program, he probably figured he was dipped, as far as a woman."

"Do you have a particular woman in mind?"

"What? You mean besides Tracy?"

"I mean for Paul."

"Oh, I don't know who it would be. That would be up to Paul. But Larry was-I think he could keep being a homosexual and it wouldn't bother him. He sure was one tough nut to crack for Dr. Crockwell. Poor ol' Crocky. But I think Paul could have been saved if Larry hadn't led him down the garden path. Paul didn't have the willpower to resist temptation, though, and I guess he was so ashamed, he could no longer go on living. And I can relate to that.

Paul has my deepest sympathy. Without Dr. Crockwell's help and Tracy's supportiveness, there but for the grace of God go I, possibly."

Tracy placed her hand on Cebulka's free one and gave it a squeeze.

I said, "Some people think that Paul's suicide wasn't any such thing, but that he was murdered."

"Whoa."

"And that someone in the group or connected to the group in some way is the killer."

"Holyjehelka!"

"Ever hear of a Steven St. James?"

"No. Who's that?"

"I'm not sure yet. Gene, did anyone in the group ever threaten anyone else in the group or show signs of becoming violent?"

He screwed up his face. Tracy was big-eyed. Cebulka said, "When you called me up earlier, and you said you wanted to talk about Paul's suicide and Dr. Crockwell's program, I figured you were with Dr. Crockwell's insurance company or what have you, maybe some type of malpractice lawsuit, and I could put in a good word for the doc happy to help him out after all the help he gave me. But now you're telling me somebody thinks somebody murdered Paul? Where in the world did a crazy idea like that get started?"

The waiter approached and set plates of two egg rolls each in front of Gene and Tracy and a bowl of hot-and-sour soup in front of me. When he was gone, I said, "There is some circumstantial evidence pointing to Dr. Crockwell's involvement-in Larry Bierly's shooting and maybe even Paul Haig's death. It's possible he'll be charged."

Cebulka stared at me and momentarily ceased his labors above. Tracy said, "But Dr. Crockwell has done so much good for people. How can they do this to him?"

"Who else in the group might have wanted to hurt Paul?" I asked. "Or shoot Larry Bierly? It's not clear yet, but the two events might be connected."

Tracy perked up. "Tell him," she said, "about-what's-their-names? Those two guys."

Cebulka was twisting away again with one hand, attempting with the other to cut a hunk off the end of an egg roll, which appeared to have been manufactured from a shingle-like material.

"You mean Dean and Roland?" Gene said.

"Yeah."

He abandoned the egg roll. Tracy ignored hers. I sipped at my smooth soup.

Cebulka said, "There were two guys in the group named Roland Stover and Dean Moody. They were always pretty down on gays-very negative, if you know what I mean. Gays are sinners, et cetera. They always talked like that in the group. Then when the group ended last December, I thought, one good thing is, I'll never have to listen to their hot air again. But then, lo and behold, I ran into them-about a month ago, I think. Over at Pizza Hut. Tracy was even with me. I introduced her to those two bozos. Jeez."

I said, "They were together?"

"Yeah, their table was right near our booth. Dean had salad bar and Roland was eating off of it too, and I'll bet Dean went back three times if he went back once. I think it says right on a sign, no sharing. The waitress saw it too, but she never let on."

"And you spoke to them?"

"For a minute."

"What did they have to say?"

Cebulka shook his head, a complicated maneuver. "Roland said, did I hear about Paul Haig? And I said yes, wasn't that too bad. And then do you know what Roland said?"

"No."

"He said, 'Paul had it coming.' "

"That's all?"

"No. He said, 'He who lieth with another man shall be put to death.' And then Dean said, 'Larry should die too,' and something about if American civilization is going to survive, it has to purge itself of people like that."

I said, "But this condemnation didn't include you-or themselves, of course."

"No, why should it? We all had our certificates by that time."

"You were certified heterosexual?"

Cebulka nodded vigorously, and a good-sized clump of hair came out in his hand. We all looked at it.

After a moment Tracy said, "Gene has a scalp condition." Cebulka shrugged. "I guess it runs in the family. I have an uncle with the same condition." end user