Page:Jay Little - Maybe—Tomorrow.pdf/31

 Gaylord all together, coming from some unseen depths inside him.

Why was there no outlet for him? Why did he have to bury his desires so privately within him, instead of realizing them. Why did Blake impress him so much? Was it because he felt Blake represented areas of experience and knowledge that he himself did not possess? Was something he wanted? Joy was pretty, real pretty. Why was he thinking of Blake and not Joy? Boys at seventeen were all girl crazy. Why wasn't he? He could no more understand this feeling than he could the reason why he acted so oddly superior and aloof. He didn't want to be that way … God knew he didn't, yet his actions betrayed him. He couldn't make advances to boys. He couldn't give them an affectionate slap on the rump or kid them and he always seemed to freeze up at any tentative gestures of friendship they made in his direction. With them he was ill at ease and sensed they felt the same toward him. Girls weren't so bad. He had had dates. In fact, several girls had asked him for rides, or dances, even dates. But Gaylord knew he wasn't considered a good date. Even though he was tall, good-looking and drove a "divine car" (their expression), there was something missing. He just wasn't one of them.

The financial security that his father had achieved had made it possible for him to have almost anything he wanted, and one day when he had wished for a radio-victrola combination, a new expensive model had been delivered the next day.

"And buy all the damn records you want," his father had said. "I'm afraid you wouldn't like the ones I'd select. Charge them to me."

Clayton Le Claire had always been like that. From the very first, he had showered gifts on his son … guns, balls, catchers' mitts.

One day he had even brought home a pony with all the accessories, but it had only left the usual questioning expression on his son's young face.

"Oh, Clay," Carol Le Claire had said with disarming candor, "Gay doesn't care for those things, and anyway if he did, I'd be afraid for him to ride that pony … It might hurt him."

"But he's big enough to have a pony, Carol," Le Claire had answered. "It's so gentle a baby could ride him."

"Gaylord is just a baby, but he's not going to ride it."

"He's a boy, Carol. Let's raise him as one. But I can see he doesn't 21