Being James Dean

Richard Isay wrote in Being Homosexual

minister named James DeWeerd, a man who had never been married, who often spent his free time cooking or reading or listening to classical music, and who regularly sought out the company of teenage boys

His face changed as it lost some of its quality that had caused more than one friend of the Winslows to remark that Jimmy looked “too pretty” to be a boy

They breach the attachments of family, friendship, love, and community. They shatter the construction of the self that is formed and sustained in relation to others. They undermine the belief systems that give meaning to human experience. They violate the victim’s faith in a natural or divine order and cast the victim into a state of existential crisis

Traumatic events call into question basic human relationships

How’s your dinner?’ And Jimmy said, ‘Fine.’ And Marcus said, ‘Well, how’s your meat?’ And Jimmy said, ‘Fine.’ Then Marcus said, ‘Well, it should be, because it’s Billy.’ Billy was Jimmy’s pet billy goat he took care of on the farm. Jimmy was into 4-H and all that. When Marcus said this to him, Jimmy freaked and he ran away that night and he was gone for a week.”

Winton Dean married Mildred Wilson. Winton had gotten the girl pregnant and, this being the era that it was, he had no choice but to marry her. That did not mean he had to want the baby; all

There is something disturbing about the process that turns a person into legend, for it allows the person to be sealed off from the reality of the details of his life