The Green Revolution

by Ralph McInerny

  “In what way?” Roger asked.

  “The university now has a perfect excuse to discontinue football.”

  “I don’t think it will come to that.”

  “Lipschutz thinks all the administration needs is prodding. His weapon, as he calls it, is all this chatter about our being a great research university. Who can take us seriously when the name Notre Dame is synonymous with football? I am quoting him.”

  “The University of Chicago once had a team. A very good team.”

  “That is his precedent! Doesn’t the administration like to refer to Chicago as a peer institution?” Guido paused. “Bah.” He scrubbed the air before him as if it were a blackboard “I did not come here to talk about football.”

  * * *

  The advent of Roger Knight a few years before had been, Guido now realized, one of the brightest points in his own career at Notre Dame. He had had many compatible colleagues, and there were others with whom he had been able to discuss his chief interests, but none had approached the profound affinity he felt with the enormous Huneker Professor of Catholic Studies. On their first meeting, Roger had told Guido all about Baron Corvo.

  “He died in Venice.”

  “See Venice and die.”

  “Is that an Italian expression?”

  “A Venetian expression.” Guido likened it to the self-congratulating plaque on the entrance gate of Amalfi.

  Roger’s brother, Philip, was the antithesis of the corpulent font of lore and wisdom. Like Piero, he was depressed by the current football season. For Philip, Guido’s main claim to fame was that his son was a member of a crew that televised football games, Notre Dame’s among them.

  “What does your son make of our season?”

  “He thinks the coach will be fired.”

  It was clear that Phil’s discontent did not extend to that. Even Roger was surprised at Guido’s reaction to Lipschutz’s planned agitation.

  “I’m told that there have been rumors like that in the past.”

  Guido remarked on his own initial surprise at the prominence of athletics on American campuses. “In Italy, the teams are municipal or regional.”

  Roger feared that Phil might make a wounding comment on taking Italy as precedent. “You’re thinking of professional sports, Professor.”

  Professional? Perhaps college players were not paid, but Piero had mentioned the salary of the Notre Dame coach. Guido had been shocked. When Phil left them, Guido whispered what Piero had told him.

  “I think it’s even more now. And there are other compensations as well.”

  “But that is obscene, Roger.”

  “You might very well think so.”

  Guido did think so. He found his sentiments moving closer to those of the soon to be crusading Lipschutz.

  6

  At the Old Bastards table in the University Club, a building scheduled to be demolished by fiat of the administration, the fortunes, or misfortunes, of the football team seemed a clear case of divine retribution.

  Horvath said, “Maybe they’ll tear down the stadium next.”

  “The way things are going, the fans may do just that.”

  Armitage Shanks regarded his tablemates with customary hauteur. Deep in his heart, he found it demeaning to be having his last lunches with such companions as these. The recipient of several Fulbrights over the decades, each time Shanks had returned to campus from those years abroad he saw it with a colder eye. For all that, the club was his refuge, as it was for the other emeriti huddled over their food, keeping a grip on their glasses, anxious to have eating behind them and the prospect of several more uninterrupted drinks ahead.

  “I had not thought death had undone so many.” Shanks almost sang the line.

  “What the hell does that mean?” Potts wanted to know.

  “Which word puzzles you?”

  “You puzzle me, Shanks.”

  “I was merely quoting Eliot.”

  “Ness?”

  “No, Loch.”

  The pretense of illiteracy was a senile defense. He recognized it in himself.

  “We’ll lose to Navy,” Horvath said in somber tones. “Navy!”

  “You’re going to the game?”

  “I was in the marines.”

  “Do they have a team?”

  “Ask the Japs.”

  He looked furtively over his shoulder. Even at this table, a haven against the madness of the day, political correctness worked its stifling effects.

  “Southern Cal will kill us.”

  “We’re already dead,” Bingham said. He added quickly, “I meant the team.”

  “I had not thought football had undone so many.”

  “This season will undo Weis.”

  “Don’t bet on it.”

  “I quit betting when I got married,” Bingham said.

  “You can’t lose all the time.”

  Across the room at the curiously named Algonquin table, half a dozen former assistant coaches of one sport or another were in animated conversation. Debbie, the hostess, came to them directly from that table.

  “What are they talking about?”

  “Weis. What else? Before I sit down, does anyone want anything?” Without waiting, she pulled out a chair and sat.

  “What do they think?”

  “He’s a dead duck. They’ve been comparing the salaries they got with what he gets.”

  “Divine retribution.”

  “Oh, they all like Devine.”

  “Debbie,” Armitage Shanks murmured, leaning toward her. “When will we run away and live in sin together?”

  “You’re incapable of running.”

  “And of sin, my dear.”

  “Ha.”

  “I refer to … Well, never mind.”

  “I never do.”

  “When will the destruction of this place begin?”

  “They keep changing the date. After the football season anyway.”

  “What will you do, Debbie?”

  “Maybe retire.”

  “You’re too young to retire.”

  “I’m too old to be thrown out of here on my ear, too. Do you realize how long I’ve worked here?”

  “Forever?”

  “Almost.”

  “Will you get severance pay?”

  “That sounds like recompense for an amputation,” Shanks said.

  The attitude of the Old Bastards toward the imminent destruction of the club was mixed. On the one hand, the edict from on high confirmed their sense that they had lived into a strange irrational time. On the other hand, the club, this table, meeting here for lunch, anchored their days, giving a semblance of schedule to their waning years.

  “I remember when this place opened.”

  “It was designed by Montana.”

  “The 49er?”

  “He played here first, you idiot.”

  “I didn’t know he was an architect.”

  “What will happen to the beer steins?”

  In glass cases forming a great wall separating the dining area from the rest of the club was housed a collection of beer steins. The donor had made it a stipulation of his gift that the club should house the steins. The donor was dead, but the Gore grandchildren had protested in vain against this building being torn down on the whim of an administrator.

  “They should sue.”

  “For breach of promise?”

  “For taking money under false pretenses. If Gore wanted to give a temporary building, it could have been a tent.”

  “We’ll have to find another place to meet for lunch.”

  “All good things come to an end.”

  “So do all bad things. Anyone know of a place?”

  “They’d love to have you at McDonald’s,” Debbie said, pushing back her chair.

  “Is that where you’re going to work?”

  On her feet now, she took a playful swing at Armitage Shanks. “Your place or mine, Romeo?”

  Shanks sighed. “O la vie est triste,
trop triste, incurablement triste, n’est-ce pas?”

  “You got me.”

  “Would that I had, my dear.”

  This swing was less playful.

  “Another round?”

  “Splendid idea.”

  Those facing in the right direction had the pleasure of observing Debbie’s rhythmic walk as she left them.

  7

  Some are born journalists, some become journalists, others have journalism thrust upon them. Thus it was that Bartholomew Hanlon considered his election to the editorship of Advocata Nostra, one of several alternative student papers that offered relief from the Observer whose pages were filled with wire service stories, a good sports section, and editorials that seem to have been mailed in from elsewhere. He was in his senior year and had loaded up on courses he had not had room for in previous years, but his love was the classics, particularly Latin. That love was fed by a deeper love for the Latin liturgy. With others, he cajoled priests into offering the traditional Latin Mass in one of the hall chapels. They had formed a small schola cantorum to accompany the Mass with Gregorian chant. Bartholomew carried in his briefcase the appropriate volume of the Liturgia Horarum and read the office of the day. It seemed a way of testing if he had a vocation.

  “Everyone has a vocation,” Baxter said, lifting most of his chins.

  “Then the race will die out.”

  “’Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished. No, I don’t mean that. No more apocalyptic phrases. Hope springs eternal.”

  “Spe salvi facti sumus.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The title of the new encyclical.”

  “Another? I haven’t caught up on John Paul II yet.”

  “There’s your vocation.”

  Baxter should be editor, Hanlon thought, but Baxter, an associate editor, had made the mistake of campaigning for the job. Thus Hanlon, who hadn’t been at the meeting, had been voted in on the basis of the thwarted hopes of another. No matter. Baxter continued to be a constant presence in the editorial offices, and he had a sassy style that made for compelling reading. He said so himself. It was Baxter who had written up the Weeping Willow Society. Now they were following up on the question of Catholics on the faculty. And how better than by interviewing professors?

  “Do we call them first?”

  Baxter gave a jowly shake of his head. “No, no. We surprise them in their lairs. Like reporters on the street stopping passersby. Or is it passerbys?”

  Off Bartholomew had gone to Decio, the office building that accommodated most of the Arts and Letters faculty. He had decided to start with Rimini, a frequent contributor of angry letters to the Observer. His principal target was critics of what was happening on campus who appealed to a supposedly saner and better time. Rimini knew better. It was hell in those days. He had been here. Believe me, he urged, things are infinitely better now.

  Rimini was bald with large staring eyes. Crouched over his desk, he looked at Walsh over the tops of his glasses.

  “Professor Rimini?”

  Rimini tucked in his chin. His name was prominently displayed beside his open door.

  “I’m from Advocata Nostra.”

  “What is that?”

  “A student newspaper.”

  “The student newspaper is the Observer.”

  “There are several alternative student papers now.” He smiled. “In the interests of diversity.”

  “What do you call yours?”

  “Advocata Nostra. Our Advocate.”

  “You in the law school?”

  “I’m a senior.”

  “What do you call your paper again?”

  “Advocata Nostra.”

  “Where’s that from?”

  “The Salve Regina.”

  “Geez.”

  “It’s the last thing sung over the grave of a member of the Congregation.”

  Rimini sat back and gave his chair a push. He pointed to another chair. “Just put those things on the floor.” In profile, the huge hearing aid that seemed to plug up his ear was visible. “You’ve been there for the singing?”

  “Several times.”

  “I’ll go to the funeral of the last of them.” Having said this, though, his lips spread in a smile, displaying huge very white teeth.

  “You’ve been here a long time.”

  “My junior colleagues take my pulse every morning. One actually held a mirror to my mouth. They’re dying to hire my replacement.”

  “When do you retire?”

  “Never!”

  His office did not seem a place anyone would want to cling to tenaciously: a little box of a room, a wall of books, the desk a built-in affair, a computer, a strange concrete ceiling that looked like an egg carton. At least the window gave on a pretty slice of campus.

  “So what’s on your mind? Football?”

  “Would you like to say something about that?”

  “Not for publication.”

  “Actually, I’d like to ask you about the concern expressed by the administration about the percentage of Catholics on the faculty.”

  Rimini threw back his head and laughed joylessly.

  “Anything for publication?”

  “Look, put away your notebook. Let me give you some background. I’ve been here since just after the glacier went through. I’ve heard that kind of crap from the beginning. It’s all PR, aimed at a certain kind of alumnus or alumna—geez, what a word—graduates, and at donors, too.”

  “You don’t think the concern is genuine?”

  “Of course not. Look, this place is still in the grip of the Irish drive for upward mobility. We want to be loved. At least they do. The administration. Look at the places they call our peer institutions. You think anyone at Stanford regards Notre Dame as a peer institution? It’s peering, all right, peering through the window of the candy store. It’s pitiable, calling this place a Catholic research university. Excellence.” He sputtered the word.

  “But you say that things are better here now.” Bartholomew had brought along a sheaf of Rimini’s letters to the Observer.

  “Things are better. Because of the departmental hiring committees. We’ve been selecting good candidates for years. Do you think they really cared over there that few of them are Catholic?”

  “There’s a group of alumni who predict that the percentage of Catholics on the faculty will continue to drop.”

  “Of course it will.”

  “That doesn’t bother you?”

  Rimini rubbed his bald head. “Look, I was here when nearly everyone was Catholic.”

  “Are you?”

  Rimini’s eyes narrowed, then again the great false smile. “I don’t make a career of it.”

  “You’re in economics.”

  “For my sins.” Rimini’s eyes widened. “Now where did that come from? As the twig is bent.”

  “How many in the economics department are Catholic?”

  “Who cares? What has being Catholic got to do with economics?”

  “Nothing?”

  “Not if you want the department to rank high.”

  “In one of your letters you say some pretty witty things about this obsession with rankings.”

  “You want consistency, go talk to a philosopher. Besides, I was talking of football. The coaches are out recruiting kids who rank high on the basis of some national scale. Those rankings are about as reliable as rankings of colleges and universities by U.S. News & World Report. Who made them the bureau of standards?”

  “If I understand you, you’re saying that the percentage of Catholics on the faculty is irrelevant.”

  “That’s what I’m saying.”

  “How about the student body?”

  “Talk to Admissions.”

  Well, as he said, if you want consistency, talk to a philosopher. Bartholomew switched topics and asked Rimini what he thought of the debacle of Notre Dame football.

  “Weis is the first Catholic coach since Holtz. I think Holtz was Catholic
. There’s something for you to pursue. Catholicism and football. What difference does it make whether or not the coach is Catholic? You could make a case that we have done as well, even better, with non-Catholic coaches.”

  “Interesting.”

  “Or the football team. Is the administration concerned with the number of Catholics on the football team? Or Caucasians, for that matter? Don’t quote me on that,” he said hastily. He meant the remark about Caucasians. “For that matter, how many of the Fighting Irish are Irish?”

  Rimini was enjoying himself.

  “Look,” he said. “The administration is pleased with the high percentage of Catholics in the student body. At least among the undergraduates. So how about the percentage in the group of students who bring in real money?”

  “The football team.”

  “Exactly. It’s become a money cow. Millions. Millions! Look at what they’re paying Mr. Ineptitude.”

  “What do you think of Professor Lipschutz’s suggestion that the time has come to abandon football?”

  “He’s crazy. But it’s an interesting idea.”

  “You go to the games?”

  Rimini sat upright. “I played football. Under Ara. Way under. I got in as often as Rudy.”

  “You don’t mind if I mention that?”

  “Why should I? I didn’t play without a helmet, no matter what my enemies say.”

  “Enemies?”

  “Let’s not go into that.”

  * * *

  What fun Baxter would have with such an interview. But what Bartholomew took back with him to the editorial offices was Rimini’s suggestion that the administration’s concern about Catholic representation should be applied to football, too, to the coaching staff, to the players. Baxter was delighted with Bartholomew’s description of his interview with Rimini.

  “I think we should pursue that.”

  “What?”

  “How many of the Fighting Irish are Catholics.”

  “Or Irish?”

  “That, too.”

  And Bartholomew Hanlon went smiling off to Roger Knight’s class.

  8

  Roger had read Mark Van Doren’s Liberal Education in a serviceman’s paperback edition during his abbreviated hitch in the navy. He was perhaps the only seaman with a Ph.D., not that he mentioned this to anyone. The boot camp at San Diego had been grueling, and Roger managed to keep off the weight that he had shed in order to pass the physical. The academic life seeming to be closed to him, he indulged his romantic fancies. He had enlisted on a whim, having just devoured the Hornblower novels, the lure of the sea having him in its grip. All he saw of the sea was San Diego Bay, which was full of gray naval vessels very unlike the one on which Hornblower had sailed. Roger had never been on shipboard either. After boot camp, he awaited assignment, in vain. Finally, his daily presence in the base library having been noticed, he was assigned as assistant to the librarian, a caustic lady, Miss Riggle, who might have inspired the phrase, common at the time, “She’d be safe in the navy.” Miss Riggle had regarded Roger as an intrusion on her domain, but when she saw that all he wanted to do was while away the day reading, she grudgingly accepted him. Among the many books he read during the months remaining to him in his country’s service was that of Van Doren.