Chapter 18 Summary

While the seniors are in San Francisco, John Cecil is fired for being a homosexual. Coach Popper starts the rumor when Bobby Logan tells the coach that Mr. Cecil is driving him to trig class every day that summer so he can't work out with the coach in the gym every day. Coach Popper is furious, and it comes to him in a flash that Cecil is gay. He shares this opinion with some men at the filling station, and soon Cecil is before the school board and summarily sacked. Bobby Logan isn't even questioned because his father doesn't want him to know what homosexuality is yet, and if it happened to him his father doesn't want him to realize it. Mr. Cecil's wife leaves him and takes his daughters.

Ruth notices that her husband seems unusually jovial when he gets home that...