Final Analysis (2 page)

S
usan sat quietly in the passenger seat as her mother parked the car in front of the yellow clapboard house on the corner of Ashby Avenue in downtown Berkeley, California. She and her mom were right on time for her first session with Frank Felix Polk, the Alameda County psychologist that school officials had ordered her to see.

For several months in the fall of 1972, Susan Mae Bolling had been playing hooky from Clayton Valley High School in neighboring Contra Costa County. At fifteen, the willowy brunette did not fit the profile of a truant. Recently, she had been called to the principal’s office, not to be admonished, but to be congratulated for her score on the standardized IQ test.

The principal was so excited he could barely contain himself. It was almost embarrassing how he gushed over the ninth grader with the “genius” IQ. News that the quiet freshman with the long, curly hair and hazel eyes was the school’s top scorer spread quickly through the student body, and Susan soon found herself a celebrity of sorts. Being the center of attention was not something she was comfortable with; she was awkward, reserved, and even a bit withdrawn. Being hailed as “gifted,” however, made her feel powerful. Suddenly, she was recognized as a person with superior qualities, and everyone at school was making a fuss over her. She felt extraordinary, even a bit conceited.

Susan decided she no longer needed to study. Why waste time when she was a genius? Instead of homework, she spent her after-school hours doing what she really enjoyed—reading, looking up words in the dictionary, doing crafts, and watching Dialing for Dollars, a fast-paced television game show.

Then she simply stopped going to school.

It was not something she planned. It just sort of happened. It all began the day of her ninth grade math test. She had not studied and could not bear the thought of tarnishing her genius reputation—so she just skipped school that day.

Things snowballed from there. At first, she attended classes intermittently, but soon she was falling behind. Being a genius wasn’t enough if she didn’t attend classes.

Then it happened. She received an “F” on a math test.

Realizing she was in trouble, Susan went to her teacher. He was kind and attentive, immediately offering her extra help. Their impromptu session was helpful, and the teacher told her to come back. But Susan didn’t follow through. All of a sudden, everything seemed too hard.

The walk to school was too long, especially on the days that the neighborhood bully and his buddies were on the street. At the time, Susan was living with her mother and older brother, David, in a two-bedroom apartment in Concord, an area of the East Bay about forty-five minutes outside San Francisco. She didn’t feel safe in their blue-collar neighborhood, where gunshots were not uncommon, and there’d been several murders in the hills behind her house. The little girl who lived next door had been struck in the head by a stray bullet and needed surgery to have it removed. Susan had babysat for the child several times and was horrified when her father came by to share the news. It made her nervous to pass the older boy and his friends, and she didn’t like the way they looked at her.

Even at school, she didn’t feel safe. During her first week at Clayton, a girl jumped her, and then several others joined in, shoving her repeatedly, until a teacher intervened. Susan was convinced the attack was racially motivated, and that the girls at the mostly black and Hispanic high school were jealous that some boys had taken a liking to her. She was
trim and attractive in a natural sort of way, with porcelain skin, hazel eyes, and long curly hair the color of dark chocolate. Staying home with her books and visiting the imaginary world of David Copperfield was infinitely preferable to the anxiety of traveling to school and the realization that she was falling behind in class.

It wasn’t that Susan didn’t want to go to school; she loved to learn.

She just couldn’t muster the courage to leave the house anymore. When she did, she felt physically ill, as if she would faint from heart palpitations and shortness of breath. She wanted the feeling to stop.

For more than a month, Susan intercepted letters from the high school attendance office, inquiring about her excessive absences. When her mother finally learned that she had been skipping school, she didn’t ask why. Helen Bolling simply followed the recommendation of the school guidance counselor to have her daughter evaluated by Frank “Felix” Polk, a licensed clinical psychologist who specialized in the treatment of adolescents and families.

Susan’s stomach was aflutter as she trailed her mother up the steps of Dr. Polk’s clapboard house. His office was to the left of a small waiting area; the double doors were ajar, but there was no one inside and no receptionist to greet them. After waiting for some time, Susan and her mother returned to the car. The psychologist was apologetic when Mrs. Bolling phoned to question his absence, and another appointment was scheduled.

On the second visit, Susan was just as uncomfortable, but as it turned out, she was off the hook again. Polk, who went by the name “Felix,” seemed more amused than sorry that he’d double-booked for their new time slot and asked Mrs. Bolling to reschedule once more. Susan didn’t really have much choice; because of her truancy, the school required that she be evaluated by this doctor.

Her mother didn’t even park the car on their third visit to the Berkeley office. She double-parked on Ashby Avenue until she was sure the therapist was available. A million thoughts ran through Susan’s mind as she climbed the steps of the yellow house for a third time. What if the psychologist is really handsome, she worried. She would not be able to speak to him. She would be too shy to open up.

Dr. Polk requested to speak privately with Mrs. Bolling before meeting with the teen. Susan waited anxiously in the small reception area as her mother disappeared behind the office’s heavy double doors. It was a long fifteen minutes before her mother summoned her to join the conversation.

The sparsely furnished room was dim with only one window located high on the wall, almost to the ceiling. There was a small kitchenette in the rear of the space. Standing awkwardly near one of the dark leather chairs, Susan remained silent as the psychologist and her mother continued their discussion. She felt relieved at the sight of the fortyish and not so handsome doctor. He was not particularly tall, about 5
9
, 160 pounds, and his prominent nose, kinky brown hair, and thick lips were not what she had envisioned.

“No problem,” she mused to herself. She could never be attracted to such a person.

Her mother finally left the room. Feeling awkward and insecure, Susan glanced around, and then focused on the casually dressed professional. She didn’t like the way he was looking at her.

At fifteen, Susan realized that boys were eyeing her differently. They seemed interested in a way she had not experienced. Yet a flirtatious look from one of her male teenage friends was one thing, while a similar look from her new psychologist was quite another. He looked more than twice her age.

Susan stared blankly at the tanned, older man when he asked if she had anything she wanted to discuss. “I don’t feel like talking.”

“That’s okay,” the psychologist soothed. “I’ll talk for you.”

Felix Polk spoke in a slow, deliberate tone. His gravelly voice had a faint accent, almost like a lisp, that was more pronounced when he said certain words.

Susan sat, watching his movements and listening to him speak. There was something about this man that caught her interest. He seemed to know how to pay attention to a young person. Slowly, she began to feel at ease in his presence.

“What do you like to do at home?” he asked.

“I like to read,” Susan told him.

Her response seemed to intrigue the psychologist. Dr. Polk appeared genuinely impressed that Susan was currently reading Dostoevsky, Chekhov, and Tolstoy, and his interest appeared sincere. She felt flattered when this successful, professional man who was much older, and certainly wiser than she, gave her compliments. Suddenly, Susan felt important and smart. Dr. Polk was twenty-five years her senior, yet she felt the two had made a connection.

Their subsequent sessions were better. Talking about books was easy for Susan. Reading had always been a passion, a way to escape the drudgery of life, and the pain of her absent father, her working mother, and her frustrated, rageful older brother.

Just like her truancy, Susan kept her sessions with Dr. Polk a secret. The therapist had instructed her not to disclose their discussions, and she agreed. She liked the idea of knowing things that nobody else knew—not even her mother.

Already, Dr. Polk had told Susan that she was a lot like him. She was shy, withdrawn, and self-conscious. She wasn’t crazy, just quiet.

It was her mother who was “crazy” and a “bitch,” he announced.

Polk’s assessment had huge appeal to Susan. She had been protective of her mother and had defended her vehemently to her father. Her parents had divorced when she was five years old. But at fifteen, she began blaming her mother, Helen, for the way her life was going.

Susan was angry that they didn’t have more money and that she didn’t have better clothes. Their tiny apartment was furnished with items her mother purchased at Good Will, while her closet was full of old clothes and other items from a secondhand boutique. Susan wanted to live in a nicer house and go to a better school with people who were smarter, people who were more like her. Faulting her mother for her unhappiness, as Dr. Polk suggested, was a good tactic, and Susan latched on to the idea. Her new therapist would often speak aloud what she was thinking, as if he could read her mind.

Susan’s resentment of her mother ran deeper than that of a typical teenager toward a parent. Her feelings were heightened by her mother’s lack of understanding and her constant excuses for her brother’s erratic behavior. Helen Avanzato Bolling was a no-nonsense type. The fiery, tiny-boned
woman stood barely five feet tall. On her own since she was fourteen, she was extremely street savvy. She had supported herself for several years before marrying Theodore Dickson Bolling Jr., an undergraduate student at San Francisco State University in downtown San Francisco.

In February of 1956, not long after the couple married, Helen gave birth to a son, David. The following year, on November 25, 1957, Susan was born. At first, life was agreeable, and Helen stayed at home to raise the two children. But everything changed shortly after Susan’s father announced a desire to attend law school. When they married, Susan’s mother made herself a promise not to interfere with her husband’s aspirations. Faced with this decision, Helen didn’t stand in his way.

The choice was a costly one. Theodore Bolling was hardly ever home. His day job, followed by his studies at Southwestern University in downtown Los Angeles, ate up all of his time. His absence was difficult for Susan, who adored her father and his rare but sweet attention.

To soothe her children, Helen Bolling made promises. “Someday daddy will be out of school, and things will be different,” she assured them. “Then you’ll have a real daddy.”

But that time never came. As Helen soon learned, her husband had begun an affair that progressed rapidly. Upon completing his studies, Theodore Bolling asked for a divorce. On August 28, 1962, he was admitted to the State Bar of California, and his final departure came shortly thereafter.

Helen was devastated, but little Susan was inconsolable.

The divorce destroyed Susan and, according to her mother, the child “was left with an empty hole she could never seem to fill.” After the split, Helen quickly rented out the small house she’d won in the divorce settlement, relocating her children to a cheaper apartment in East Oakland. It was the first of several moves, each of which forced Susan and David to disconnect from their peers and start over.

Instead, Susan turned to books. “They are my friends,” she told her mother. When Susan did finally fall in with a group of girls in junior high school, Helen Bolling let it be known that she did not approve of one of the teens. Her criticism sparked additional friction between mother and daughter.