Obscenities were no longer restricted to angry outbursts. They were implanted in the very fabric of social communication. Conversations in the hallway during passing and in the classroom before and after the bell were laced with that verb-turned-­adjective “fucking,” used for emphasis in both positive and negative descriptions. “Shit” was reserved for anything difficult or distasteful, as in “This book is shit”; “Don’t hand me that shit”; “That’s a crock of shit.” “Suck” remained a verb and was generally applied to all things oppressive: school, homework, teachers and niggers all “sucked.” “Prick” and “cunt,” of course, were the favored ascriptions for anyone objectionable. Although there were few occasions when any of these words were said to my face, there was a lack of compunction in most of the students insofar as letting me overhear them. If I confronted a student about his/her language, the stock response was disbelief or amusement or “I didn’t say it to you.” Once, a snappy girl told me I shouldn’t be listening in. This is not to say I had no rewards in the classroom or that every day was a misery. However, the general tone of the school, fostered by Rand’s permissiveness, began to take its toll on my energy and patience.

And so did Frank and Regina.

By the time Regina finished the seventh grade, she had gone through puberty and reached the height of five foot eleven. She acquired a lovely shape, which she proceeded to undermine by slouching with her shoulders curled and her pelvis thrust forward. And because her face was plain and undistinguished, she took to make-up with a vengeance. She would not step out of the house unless her face was rainbowed in iridescent color. For two years running, the arguments went on between her and Frank about her appearance. I bowed out entirely after the day she turned to me and said: “Don’t tell me how I should look. You’ve always been pretty.” When I assured her she would be quite attractive if she cleaned up her face and her posture, she looked as if she were tolerating a consummate liar. Then, under her breath, she growled, “I don’t know why I had to look like him.”

And so began the rearrangement of relationships among the three of us. All those years of Regina’s keeping her distance from me, of Frank’s indulging her and actually reveling in her every whim, of my own abdication due to frustration and fatigue—all those years seemed to evaporate in the face of the reversals that came. Gradually, boys entered Regina’s circle of friends. They gathered in our recreation room for dancing and Ping-Pong, and Frank would go down to see if they were having a good time. Regina complained bitterly about “being spied on” and told me she wouldn’t mind my coming down to meet her friends but to keep Frank away.

“What’s the difference who comes down?”

“He’s out of it,” she said. “He wants to know everybody’s name.”