been hypersensitive to the opinions of other people, was more than concerned; she was obsessed. When her New York friends made comments, she angrily stopped them—no one except his mother was allowed to criticize her son—but their remarks wounded nonetheless. Her problem with Truman was never far from her mind, and she made certain that it was never far from his mind either. She nagged him, bullied him, and belittled him.
When nothing she said or did helped, she took him to two different psychiatrists in hopes of finding a cure, a drug or therapy that would turn him into a real boy. One psychiatrist suggested that she not worry, promising her that the traits she disliked would disappear as he grew older. Whatever it was the other said to her, it annoyed her so much that she refused to tell even Joe what it was, leading him to suspect that the psychiatrist had blamed no one but her for Truman’s odd behavior. She gave up on psychiatry after that, but she did not give up her search for a remedy. “She was always very worried about him,” Joe said. “She wanted him to be an ordinary fellow, straight in every way. But Truman was reluctant to be an ordinary fellow. He had to be himself.”
The Capotes did not remain in Brooklyn very long. When Truman returned from his Alabama vacation in the fall of 1933, they had already moved to an apartment on Riverside Drive in Manhattan, and at the end of September he began fourth grade at the Trinity School, one of New York’s oldest and best private schools for boys.
Trinity, then a High Episcopal school, held morning prayers four days a week, required the boys to kneel for the litany on Friday, and celebrated Communion on holy days. It was a hard-marking institution whose primary goal was to send its students to Ivy League colleges. Although he was the butt of a few jokes, Truman was for the most part accepted, regarded by many of his classmates as the class mascot. He refused to join in team sports—which, fortunately for him, Trinity did not require—but when he was on his own, he was a surprisingly good athlete, an excellent swimmer and an accomplished figure skater who spent much of the winter practicing at the Gay Blades, a skating rink on the West Side. He enjoyed school theatricals, and not long after he arrived, he took the part of a blond-braided Little Eva in
Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
The first year he was at Trinity his grades averaged 83, which was considered good; but his average dropped to 78 in the fifth grade, then went down still further, to 73, which was considered only fair, in the sixth grade. The reason for the decline was clear to both his teachers and the school’s administrators: he was a very disturbed child. “I always felt sorry for Truman,” said one of them. “I had the feeling that he was somewhat of an unwanted child. There were problems at home, and his mother would call to talk about his temper tantrums, which I gather were not uncommon. She was completely at a loss to know what to do. The year he entered I witnessed one such incident myself. He was lying on his back in the hallway, kicking his feet like a child of two. He was obviously on the verge of hysteria.” Like many disturbed children, he was a sleepwalker; on more than one occasion he suddenly woke up to find himself in pajamas in the lobby of his apartment building.
The people Nina called at Trinity were not very helpful, or, indeed, very sympathetic, and one of them, a teacher now long dead, probably compounded his problems. The teacher would sometimes walk him home, Truman said, stopping on the way at a movie theater, the Olympia, on upper Broadway. They would sit in the privacy of the back row, and while the teacher fondled him, Truman would masturbate the teacher. What effect that tawdry little scene had on a boy like Truman is impossible to say, but it was, at the very least, a sorry initiation into the mysteries of sex.
Nina did not know about those trips to the movies, but it
When nothing she said or did helped, she took him to two different psychiatrists in hopes of finding a cure, a drug or therapy that would turn him into a real boy. One psychiatrist suggested that she not worry, promising her that the traits she disliked would disappear as he grew older. Whatever it was the other said to her, it annoyed her so much that she refused to tell even Joe what it was, leading him to suspect that the psychiatrist had blamed no one but her for Truman’s odd behavior. She gave up on psychiatry after that, but she did not give up her search for a remedy. “She was always very worried about him,” Joe said. “She wanted him to be an ordinary fellow, straight in every way. But Truman was reluctant to be an ordinary fellow. He had to be himself.”
The Capotes did not remain in Brooklyn very long. When Truman returned from his Alabama vacation in the fall of 1933, they had already moved to an apartment on Riverside Drive in Manhattan, and at the end of September he began fourth grade at the Trinity School, one of New York’s oldest and best private schools for boys.
Trinity, then a High Episcopal school, held morning prayers four days a week, required the boys to kneel for the litany on Friday, and celebrated Communion on holy days. It was a hard-marking institution whose primary goal was to send its students to Ivy League colleges. Although he was the butt of a few jokes, Truman was for the most part accepted, regarded by many of his classmates as the class mascot. He refused to join in team sports—which, fortunately for him, Trinity did not require—but when he was on his own, he was a surprisingly good athlete, an excellent swimmer and an accomplished figure skater who spent much of the winter practicing at the Gay Blades, a skating rink on the West Side. He enjoyed school theatricals, and not long after he arrived, he took the part of a blond-braided Little Eva in
Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
The first year he was at Trinity his grades averaged 83, which was considered good; but his average dropped to 78 in the fifth grade, then went down still further, to 73, which was considered only fair, in the sixth grade. The reason for the decline was clear to both his teachers and the school’s administrators: he was a very disturbed child. “I always felt sorry for Truman,” said one of them. “I had the feeling that he was somewhat of an unwanted child. There were problems at home, and his mother would call to talk about his temper tantrums, which I gather were not uncommon. She was completely at a loss to know what to do. The year he entered I witnessed one such incident myself. He was lying on his back in the hallway, kicking his feet like a child of two. He was obviously on the verge of hysteria.” Like many disturbed children, he was a sleepwalker; on more than one occasion he suddenly woke up to find himself in pajamas in the lobby of his apartment building.
The people Nina called at Trinity were not very helpful, or, indeed, very sympathetic, and one of them, a teacher now long dead, probably compounded his problems. The teacher would sometimes walk him home, Truman said, stopping on the way at a movie theater, the Olympia, on upper Broadway. They would sit in the privacy of the back row, and while the teacher fondled him, Truman would masturbate the teacher. What effect that tawdry little scene had on a boy like Truman is impossible to say, but it was, at the very least, a sorry initiation into the mysteries of sex.
Nina did not know about those trips to the movies, but it
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