SUBJECT: HOYT, WOODROW
W.
MEMO TO FILE
RE: SESSION #4
Subject appeared as scheduled for today's session. I was startled by his appearance when he entered the room. He is usually immaculately dressed and groomed, but his clothes and hair were disheveled, and he sported several days' growth of beard. He was cooperative as we opened the session with casual questions about the past week. However, he appeared tired and distracted, and despite his occasional forced attempts at breezy affability, it was clear that he wanted to be anywhere else but my office. After the breakthrough of our last session regarding his family, I was eager to pick up the thread of our previous conversation.
DR. CARTER: So, how's your brother? Is he doing all right? Anything changed since last week?
HOYT: Yeah, he's okay. Same old knucklehead.
DR. CARTER: I don't know how you managed it. Helping to raise a brother who was, what, only a year younger?
HOYT: (with a wry smile) Fourteen months.
DR. CARTER: It must have been hard.
HOYT: You gotta do what you gotta do.
DR. CARTER: Still, it hardly seems fair.
HOYT: Who said life was supposed to be fair? We did all right.
DR. CARTER: Indeed. The way you describe things, it sounds as if you had an idyllic childhood. Kewaunee sounds like a great place to grow up.
HOYT: A regular Mayberry RFD.
DR. CARTER: Appropriate, since your father was the town sheriff.
HOYT: I guess that would make me Opie, right?
DR. CARTER: Tell me more about your father. What was he like?
HOYT: Strong. Brave. Very brave. I never saw him afraid. He was strict. A real disciplinarian. Very Mid-Western, you know? Athletic. He played minor league baseball one summer before he met my mom. He was kind of larger than life to me and Cal. Like Gary Cooper, John Wayne, and Steve McQueen all rolled into one.
DR. CARTER: That's a hard standard to live up to.
(NOTE: Subject visibly stiffens, and the façade of affability is quickly and immediately dropped.)
HOYT; Live up to? I'm not trying to live up to him. What, just because he was a cop, I became a cop, too, to try and prove something? I'm not trying to live up to my father.
DR. CARTER: That's not what I said, Woody. I meant that's a hard standard for anyone to live up to. Including your father.
(NOTE: He doesn't speak for a moment. His eyes flit around the room: at the floor, the lamp, anywhere but on me. When he speaks again, it is with great weariness.)
HOYT: Look. Doc. You've been straight with me, and I'm sure you're a good doctor, but I really just don't see what my dad has to do with anything.
DR. CARTER: You don't think very highly of this, do you? Psychology.
HOYT: Not really. No offense.
DR. CARTER: None taken.
HOYT: People need to just get over themselves, you know? Stop whining. So you had a few rough breaks. Man up. Get over it.
DR. CARTER: Your mother died when you were four. Your father was gunned down before you graduated from high school, leaving you to look after a troubled brother with a substance abuse problem. Then, last year you were shot with an armor-piercing bullet and were centimeters away from death. I think you have everyone's permission to say that you've had more than a few rough breaks.
HOYT: You know what's wrong with society today? It's people whining. People blaming their problems on the fact that their mommy potty-trained them too soon. What's wrong with being happy?
DR. CARTER: Nothing. If you're happy.
(NOTE: Subject seems shocked by this statement. His mouth drops, but no words follow. He finally drops his head, and sits with his elbows on his knees, his gaze cast downward. I proceed cautiously.)
DR. CARTER: No one's forcing you to be here, Woody. If you want to know the truth, I don't think you're ready to go back on active duty. But it's up to you. You can get up right now and never look back. If you don't want to be here, there's really nothing I can do for you. You need to decide how important your badge is to you. Choices. It's all about choices.
(NOTE: There is a brief silence while he contemplates this. He responds in a small, almost childlike tone.)
HOYT: You really think I've got problems?
DR. CARTER: I've never met anyone who didn't have at least a few.
HOYT: You think it's got something to do with when I was a kid?
DR. CARTER: It seems like a good enough place to start.
HOYT: What do you want to know?
DR. CARTER: I'm interested in something you said at our last session. You mentioned that you thought Cal was your father's favorite. Why is that?
HOYT: I don't know. Isn't the youngest always the dad's favorite?
DR. CARTER: Not necessarily.
HOYT: Well…I guess they had a lot in common. They always looked a lot alike. Cal's always been good at sports. My dad used to coach his little league team. They played in a father-son basketball league. Stuff like that.
DR. CARTER: And you weren't as athletic?
HOYT: That's putting it gently. I was sort of a chubby kid, and I had kind of a stammer. The kids always called me "Woody Woodpecker." I hated baseball and basketball. I did fence, though. That's not really what my dad had in mind for me. One day I saw "The Three Musketeers" on TV, and I knew that's what I wanted to do – fencing. It looked so hard. You had to be strong and fit, but it was so graceful, too. I told my dad I wanted to take fencing lessons.
DR. CARTER: What did he say?
HOYT: Well, he said he thought fencing was for fairies, but he let me sign up for lessons anyway. Fencing gave me confidence, and I got in great shape. Even when I got in high school and I lost the baby fat and stopped stammering, everybody still of thought of me as "Woody Woodpecker." Yeah, I was a real success with the ladies.
DR. CARTER: So, you didn't date much?
HOYT: I didn't date any. Not until senior year.
DR. CARTER: What was her name? Is that when you lost your virginity?
HOYT: Man! You really cut to the chase, don't you? Okay… her name was Suzie Reeves. Senior year. I'd been chasing her all fall. Finally, I got up the nerve to ask her to the Homecoming dance, and she said yes. I picked her up at her house, and you should have seen my hands shaking when I pinned the corsage on. I was driving my dad's old pick-up that night, and we parked on the way home from the dance. Man, was I nervous. I spread out a blanket in the back, and afterwards, we just lay there looking up at the stars. I gave her my class ring when I dropped her off. She put it on a chain and swore she'd wear it all year, but she dumped me a couple of weeks later for a football player. Typical female, huh?
(NOTE: Subject has related this story with warm nostalgia. It is, of course, an utter fabrication, a depiction of the ideal American high school love story complete with Homecoming dance, class ring, and bittersweet heartbreak.)
DR. CARTER: Is that how it really happened, Woody?
HOYT: …No.
DR. CARTER: What did happen?
(NOTE: Subect does not speak for a long moment. I can see the emotion playing on his face. When he speaks, it is with great difficulty. He seems weighted down with sadness.)
HOYT: When my dad died, I got a job after class working in the school office. Photocopying for the teachers, sorting mail. Things like that. There was a teacher, Mrs. Hill, Christine Hill, who used to come in and ask me to carry stuff to her car for her. She was young. Pretty. No more than thirty. All the guys had a crush on her. I liked her. She was nice to me. She treated me like a normal human being. Not the sheriff's kid. Not the fat kid with the stammer. I overheard things in the office from other teachers. Her husband had moved out on her. He was being a real bastard. I felt so sorry for her. She knew I needed money, and she asked me to come to her house and do some odd jobs for her. I started spending more and more time there. Sometimes I'd mow the lawn or do some work around the house. Other times, we'd just sit there at the kitchen table and talk and she'd make me something to eat. She seemed so sad and lonely. Like she had no one else to talk to. I knew she was going through a hard time. One day she started crying, just burst into tears there at the kitchen table, and – I don't know what I was thinking – but I just reached over and kissed her. I don't know why. She was just so – alone. We went into the living room. I don't know how we ended up there. I didn't know what I was doing. I was scared as hell, but I couldn't stop. We had sex there. That was my first time. Afterwards, we both felt terrible. She didn't say anything. She just grabbed her clothes and ran up the steps into the shower. I got dressed and got out of there as fast as I could.
DR. CARTER: What happened after that? Did you see her again?
HOYT: Yeah. At first we said we wouldn't. She was a teacher. I was too young. She could get fired or worse. But then, I don't know. We started up again. I'd go to her place after school. Sometimes we'd have sex, sometimes we'd just talk. Then I'd go home and make dinner for Cal, help him with his homework.
DR. CARTER: How did you feel about your relationship with Christine?
HOYT: I knew it was wrong. It's every teenage boy's dream to make it with his hot teacher, right? It didn't feel that way to me. I heard some of the guys in the locker room talking about her. What they'd like to do to her. God, it made me sick.
DR. CARTER: What did you do?
HOYT: Nothing. What could I do? I wanted to defend her. I wanted to pound the shit out of them, but I couldn't. Everybody at school was worried about who they were going to take to the prom, and here I was sleeping with one of the teachers. I'd go to school, and to everyone I was still the big fat loser who couldn't get a girl. I'd pass her in the halls, and it just felt so…awful.
DR. CARTER: But you didn't stop it.
HOYT: No. I couldn't do that.
DR. CARTER: Why not?
HOYT: I don't know. She needed me. I was in love with her. I thought I was.
DR. CARTER: How did it end?
HOYT: This went on for a few months. One day at school, she seemed real worried. I pulled her aside and asked her what was wrong, and she told me she thought she might be pregnant. God, I felt like the floor had opened up underneath me. There we were, standing in the empty gym, and one of the teachers is telling me she thinks she's pregnant.
DR. CARTER: How did you react?
HOYT: I…didn't handle it all that well.
DR. CARTER: You were upset.
HOYT: No, I didn't get upset exactly. Shit. I…Jesus. I. I told her she should push for the divorce. I told her I'd marry her as soon as I turned eighteen. Christ.
DR. CARTER: What did she say?
HOYT: She laughed. Not in a mean way, but she actually laughed. She said she thought I was sweet, and she was grateful for all I had done for her, but she couldn't marry me. That was it. She walked out of the gym. I didn't see her for a few days. She avoided me at school. One day she called in sick, and I was worried. I went over to her house after school, and when I got there, I saw another car in the driveway. I knew right away who it was. She was there with her husband. She told me that she'd been seeing him for a couple of weeks and they were going to try and work it out. Then she told me to leave and never tell anyone about us and never try and contact her again.
DR. CARTER: What about the baby?
HOYT: There was no baby. False alarm. Jesus, what an idiot. I don't know what I was thinking.
DR. CARTER: You were only seventeen. She was probably closer to thirty. Did you really want to marry her?
HOYT: I don't know. I thought I loved her. I thought she was pregnant with my baby.
DR. CARTER: And that's what gentlemen do.
HOYT: I take responsibility for my actions.
DR. CARTER: You think proposing to a thirty year old married woman was the most responsible thing you could have done?
HOYT: Yes, I do.
DR. CARTER: You were the victim here, Woody. You were underage. She was your teacher.
HOYT: Hey, it takes two, doc. I'm not going to blame her. I don't run away from my mistakes. I face up to them. She was alone. Her husband had skipped out on her, and she needed someone.
DR. CARTER: And Woody Hoyt was the only man who could fill the bill.
HOYT: She thought she was pregnant, and it was my baby.
DR. CARTER: She told you she'd been seeing her husband for a few weeks. If she were truly pregnant, it could have been his baby, too.
HOYT: No. That's not it. It's not true. She wouldn't have done that.
DR. CARTER: Did you ever see her again?
HOYT: No. She didn't come back to school after Christmas break. I heard she and her husband had patched it up, and she'd taken a new job in Milwaukee.
DR. CARTER: How did your relationship with her affect the rest of your senior year?
HOYT: I remember getting razzed by this guy. A real jerk. He'd been picking on me since we were six. He was giving me a hard time in the locker room one time. Asking me if I was still a virgin. I remember wishing I still was.
(NOTE: We then go into some detail regarding subject's pursuant romantic relationships. He states that he after his affair with the teacher, he was hesitant to enter into another relationship until late in his senior year when he briefly dated another student who stood him up on prom night. He later discovered her in bed with his brother. He informs me that he dated "casually" in college. The relationships were invariably physical, but he states the he didn't feel that he was in love with any of them. My impression is that he was and is confused and disappointed by this. He stated more than once that he was not interested in "meaningless sex." Subject also recounted his relationship with a young woman, Annie, to whom he was engaged. He says that he broke off the engagement because her father felt he was "not good enough" for his daughter and would not give his approval for the marriage.)
DR. CARTER: Was that really it?
HOYT: Yeah, so?
DR. CARTER: We're not living in the 18th century. You didn't need her father's permission.
HOYT: I didn't want to live with that kind of disapproval for the rest of my life.
(NOTE: There is a lull in the conversation, and I turn the questioning back to Christine Hill.)
DR. CARTER: What is your attitude towards Christine now?
HOYT: I don't have one.
DR. CARTER: She was your first love. Your first sexual relationship. You never think about her?
HOYT: No. Not if I can help it.
(NOTE: Another brief silence. When he speaks, he seems genuinely bewildered.)
HOYT: I've never told anyone about her before. Why did I tell you about her?
DR. CARTER: Maybe because it's time.
XXXX
DOCTOR'S NOTE: We ended the session early, as subject seemed drained. I feel that we have made real progress today, particularly in the area of his past romantic relationships with women. My earlier thoughts have been borne out by today's admissions. Subject is drawn to women who need him, who seemingly need rescue, and he is bitter and angry when his carefully constructed romantic idyll is shattered. However, he hides his feelings of resentment beneath another constructed reality: the persona of the hero, the All-American, happy-go-lucky type. I feel strongly that the root of this problem lies in his relationship with his father and the death of both of his parents. I will pursue this at our next appointment.
Signed: J. Carter, Psy.D.
