Harvard Yard (Peter Fallon)

by William Martin

  And that, thought Will Wedge, was Harvard 1968.

  Students who had come to study met students who took Soc. Rel. 148. Students who wore coats and ties to the Union because it was an “immutable law” met students who wore jeans and military fatigues. Students taught that Thomas Jefferson was the greatest of political philosophers met students who had actually memorized passages from Mao’s Little Red Book. Students who had never tasted beer met students who could tell the difference between Thai stick and Acapulco gold just by smelling the smoke. Students who went to football games for the football met students who went because the halftime show ended when the band played the Mickey Mouse Club March to spoof the college, the game, the government, and just about any tradition in sight.

  And students who had been the shining lights of their public high schools, kids who had lived at home until they went to Cambridge, met students who had lived for years at New England prep schools, where they often developed a sense of social importance and intellectual superiority all out of proportion to any accomplishment or acquired skill, except the ability to study little and late and still pull a B.

  Will Wedge had gone to Andover. So his first reaction when he met his freshman roommate had been to ask himself what had he done to warrant a public school wonk from Cleveland.

  On a Sunday in late September, Will had moved into Thayer 22, then he had gone to dinner with his parents at the Wursthaus, said good-bye to them in the Square, and returned to find a small bust of Shakespeare looking at him from the windowsill.

  Sitting beside it, flipping through the course catalog, had been Charlie Price. He had thick glasses, a new mustache, and a nervous laugh. His first words: “It’s a fourteen-hour bus ride from Cleveland. I’m starving.”

  Most of his prep school friends had requested specific roommates or been put with other preppies, so, if their fathers didn’t know each other, at least they were professional men. But Will’s parents had suggested that a roommate from a different background could be broadening. Will had not been happy to find that Charlie’s father worked at a tire plant.

  But Charlie was a Shakespeare-loving, Groucho-quoting math whiz who impressed Will’s friends by doing handstands on the arm of a ratty sofa. So Will had decided to cut some slack for the kid from Cleveland, even if the only club he aspired to was the chess club.

  ii

  Ned loved the Wedge Woody. It reminded him of better times.

  Whenever he backed it out of the garage on an autumn Saturday, he would think of his parents before their divorce, packing the car with food and beer and bottles of booze, loading the blankets and banners and two old raccoon coats, gathering up the two little boys, and heading down Route 1 to Cambridge.

  And whenever Ned smelled the old leather upholstery, he would remember his father, sitting motionless behind the wheel on the first football Saturday after the divorce, sitting there as the sun warmed the car and heated the interior, his hands wrapped tight around the wheel, his chin on his chest, and the tears streaming down his cheeks.

  Victor Wedge had devoted himself to Harvard after his divorce, like a man who marries his mistress once the wife has left. The food and drink grew more elaborate at the Wedge Woody, the old-boy laughter louder at the Harvard Club, and the Wedge Charitable Trust supported the new wife in style. And none of it could ever do anything to erase the truth: that Barbara Abbott Wedge had left Victor and disappeared with her easel and her paints in the desert Southwest, never to be heard from again.

  So, thought Ned on that bright Saturday in November of 1968, maybe times hadn’t been better back then . . . just different.

  But some traditions persisted. The car was packed with food and beer and bottles of booze, lap blankets were folded up, a ratty old raccoon coat was flopped in the backseat like a dead bear. And Harriet was hurrying out now, wearing wool slacks and tweed jacket, looking as good as the day he first laid eyes on her.

  “The Yale game in your twenty-fifth reunion year,” she said. “And it’s one of the biggest in history.”

  “Two undefeated teams. Let’s go.”

  “Just do me one favor. Don’t drink too much.”

  There was an alumni spread in the field house that afternoon, but most everyone in the Class of ’44 stopped at the famous Wedge Woody for a drink.

  Will came with a girl he had met at a Wellesley mixer, the prettiest girl he had ever seen, at least that week, a tall, dark-haired freshman from California named Alana Juteau. He also brought half a dozen friends who had been hearing all semester about the Wedge tailgate parties, including Charlie Price.

  And about fifteen minutes before game time, with the laughter loud, the drinks flowing, the hamburgers sizzling, the excitement of the biggest game in years hanging in the air, Franklin showed up, wearing fatigue jacket, denim shirt, and jeans. He brought a dark-haired girl who wore a fatigue jacket and jeans, too, and half a dozen friends of his own.

  Harriet greeted them like the perfect hostess and pointed them toward the food.

  “Even the SDS likes hamburgers,” Will whispered to Alana.

  “Look at them,” Ned whispered to Harriet, “hair down to the shoulders, all dressed like they were ready for a military campaign. Boys and girls both. What frauds. And isn’t the girl Jewish?”

  Harriet held a plate of shrimp under his nose. “Put one of these in your mouth before you put your foot in it. And smile, because here comes Franklin.”

  “Hi, Mom.” Franklin introduced his girlfriend, “Cheryl G. Lappen, from Radcliffe. I called her Sherry.”

  Ned put out his hand and gave her the Wedge grin and greeting. “Welcome to the Wedge Woody. My father bought it in ’thirty-four. We’ve been bringing it to games ever since.”

  “Wow,” said the girl. “That’s like a tradition . . . or something.”

  This remark, to which Ned and Harriet answered with polite nods, brought giggles from Franklin’s friends, who were taking to the food as if they hadn’t eaten in weeks.

  Alana whispered to Will, “What’s so funny?”

  “Nothing. They’re just stoned. The munchies at midday.”

  “Fuckin’ A,” said a skinny guy with reddish hair and a pimple on his chin and a mouthful of potato chips. “Doesn’t anybody around here know what a woody is?”

  More snickers from the newcomers.

  “And who might you be?” asked Ned. Anyone who heard the tone of his voice knew that the mood of the day was about to turn.

  Franklin stepped in. “This is my friend, Jim Keegan.”

  Harriet said, “Well, Jim, it’s nice to meet you.” She shook his hand, and then tried to make some typical Harvard conversation. “What house are you in?”

  Keegan grinned. “The House of the Rising Sun.”

  “Rising sun?” snapped Ned. “Where the hell is that?”

  “In New Orl-e-unssss.”

  This brought another round of explosive laughter.

  Will noticed people putting their drinks down, checking their tickets, finishing their hamburgers, and moving off. He did not know if Franklin’s next remark was intended to distract from Keegan or make things worse:

  “So tell me, Dad, what do you think of ROTC?”

  And everyone within earshot held their breath.

  “I think it’s excellent. If you look around at some of our guests”—Ned stopped a moment, as if surprised that so many people had drifted away—“they remember that at our commencement in ’forty-four, there was a sea of officers’ hats in Tercentenary Theater. Only nineteen students received regular degrees.”

  “The last good war,” said Sherry Lappen. “That’s what my father calls it.”

  And Prof. G. took some of the heat onto himself. “Remember what Ben Franklin said about wars.”

  “Yeah,” said Keegan. “‘Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war!’”

  “Hey,” said Charlie Price to Will. “He just quoted Shakespeare. Very cool.”

  “Yeah,” whispered Will, “for the loc
al supplier. He’s like a mascot for the Worker-Student Alliance.”

  Ned looked at Keegan. “Ben Franklin said, ‘There’s no such thing as a good war or a bad peace.’ I happen to agree.”

  Franklin said, “Does that mean you won’t mind if we drive ROTC off campus?”

  “Have a shrimp.” Harriet put the plate under Ned’s nose.

  “Better yet”—Keegan put a Budweiser in front of Ned—“have a beer.”

  Ned aimed a finger at Franklin. “I don’t know who your wiseass friend is, but remind him that you were admonished last year over Dow Chemical. You have no right to be forcing a legitimate group like ROTC off campus, just because you and your radical friends don’t like them.”

  “But what if the majority of students don’t like them?” asked Sherry.

  “Mob rule,” snapped Ned.

  And now Prof. G. tried again. He said, “You know, folks, the band is playing.”

  “I’m ready,” said Will.

  Franklin looked his brother up and down. “There you are, Dad. He’s ready. Ready to go to the game and sing ‘Ten Thousand Men of Harvard.’ Give him the raccoon coat. He’ll look good in it. He’ll look good in a uniform, too, because Nixon isn’t going to end this war, either. Fight fiercely, Harvard!” Then Franklin grabbed a plate of shrimp and stalked off, followed by all his friends.

  Most people agreed that it was the greatest game ever played in Harvard Stadium. Harvard scored sixteen points in the last forty-two seconds for a tie, but the headline in the Crimson was, HARVARD BEATS YALE, 29-29.

  Ned Wedge did not enjoy it, and neither did Harriet.

  iii

  It was one of the worst winters in memory. The snowbanks in the Yard were chest-high by February. So maybe it was cabin fever that made Harvard seem like a loony bin in those months. Or maybe it was spring fever. Because as the snow melted and the sky brightened in March, things seemed to get worse.

  Neither the students who wanted simply to study nor the radicals who seemed never to study were able to keep up with all the leaflets and position papers, the Crimson editorials, the demonstrations, the outside agitators interrupting classes, or the arguments between an administration that claimed to support rational discussion and a student opposition that said there was nothing left to talk about.

  Something, it was plain, had to give.

  Or as Charlie Price said after reading Julius Caesar, “If you have tears, prepare to shed them now.”

  At about 11:30 at night on the Tuesday after spring break, Will was in his room. He was reading about the New Deal, History 169. He was sleepy, not absorbing much, simply underlining words, thinking about Alana Juteau . . . and then he heard loud voices that woke him like a slap.

  He went to the window and stuck his head out.

  University Hall was next door, and a crowd of people had gathered in front of John Harvard’s statue. They were chanting, “Rotcy must go! Rotcy must go!”

  In a moment, the dorm was alive with the rumble of slamming doors and pounding feet. And someone was shouting, “This is it. The SDS is going to do it.”

  Will Wedge stepped out of his room and into the stream of students that carried him out into the cold spring night.

  Franklin Wedge was on the University Hall steps, right beside benevolent John Harvard, leading the crowd in the chant: “Rotcy must go! Rotcy must go!” while a few nervous university police blocked the doors.

  Was this going to be it? The building takeover that so many had feared since fall?

  Earlier, three hundred members of the SDS had gathered in Lowell Lecture Hall because the university was dragging its heels on implementing a faculty resolution to strip ROTC of credit and space at Harvard. SDS also wanted to stop university expansion in Cambridge neighborhoods.

  A straw vote went against a building seizure, so did a “final” vote, and final “final” vote, which they called a “binding” vote.

  Then the ones who wanted to take the building had marched out to the beat of their own chants and nailed their demands to the door of the president’s house. Then they had come into the Yard. But the night must have been too cold, or the cover of dark too uninspiring, because after the first burst of noise, they just milled about, chanting and handing out leaflets.

  A loony bin.

  No one in Thayer Hall went to sleep early that night . . . not that they ever did. In one room, the Beatles were singing “Fool on the Hill.” In another, the Chambers Brothers were singing “Time.” And in one particularly retrograde room, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins was screaming the famous screamer “I Put a Spell on You.”

  But on every floor, the usual bridge games, study breaks, and bull sessions had been replaced by one conversation, one topic: Would the WSA faction of the SDS take a building in the morning, and would the administration call the cops if they did? Will told a group of friends that he believed in one thing above all: the ability of rational people to solve their problems rationally.

  But when he came back to his own room, he found Franklin standing there with Sherry Lappen and two of his other WSA friends, Jerry Royster and Theo Boss, who had a particularly unfortunate last name for a member of the Worker-Student Alliance.

  Franklin said to Will, “We need your help.”

  Charlie, who had not cut his hair since arriving at Harvard, said, “I told them they could use the room.”

  “What?” said Will.

  “We may need a command post,” said Franklin, looking around at the phone, the first-floor windows, the doors.

  Harvard students lived better than most, a fact that few of them appreciated. Will and Charlie had a bedroom and a spacious living room with a fireplace, a wall of exposed brick, and three walls painted pea soup green and lined with strips of wood, so that they could tack up pictures and posters without putting holes in the plaster.

  Will had tacked a picture of John F. Kennedy above his desk. Charlie Price had put up a picture of Shakespeare in his second week. Then, about the time that his hair reached below his ears, Charlie had put up a poster of Che Guevara, the Castro lieutenant allegedly killed by the CIA in Bolivia. Che was now patron saint of the leftist students, who, as Will pointed out, would have been shot if they ever tried anything around Castro that approached what they had been doing at Harvard. The poster of Che—sometimes in black and white, sometimes in psychedelic colors that made even straight students think they were stoned—had become wallpaper in half the rooms at Harvard.

  Franklin looked at Che, then turned to his brother. “We need to know you’ll help.”

  “It’s just a contingency,” said Sherry Lappen.

  Franklin said, “If the administration cuts the phone lines to University Hall—”

  “You’re going to do it, aren’t you?” said Will. “Who the hell gave you the right?”

  Franklin grabbed his brother and led him into the bedroom. “Listen, I’m hoping we get something positive from the administration in the morning, but if we don’t—”

  Will shook his head. “Dad will kill you.”

  “Willie, I have to do this, or I’ll never be able to live with myself.”

  “Dad will kill me . . .”

  Franklin looked into his brother’s eyes. There was something fiercely ascetic about his gaze: wire-rimmed glasses that emphasized his hollowed cheeks, a scruffy beard that said he was too busy worrying about the world to shave. “I’ll ask you just one question. Give me a yes or no answer. Then ask yourself what you should do. ‘Is the war in Vietnam a just and moral war?’ Yes or no.”

  “No. But—” Before he could finish, Will heard a knock on the door and the voice of Jimmy Keegan.

  “I’m done here. You guys done?”

  Franklin said to his brother, “I’m counting on you.” Then he stepped into the living room. “Let’s go.”

  Sherry Lappen said, “Is your brother on board with this?”

  Franklin looked at Will, who said nothing.

  Charlie Price chimed in. “Count on
us if the shit hits the fan.”

  Keegan stepped closer to Will. “This member of the proletariat will be very pissed if someone should blow the whistle before tomorrow.”

  “You’re not the proletariat,” said Will. “You just sold marijuana on every floor in this dorm. You’re the biggest businessman around.”

  “A real capitalist pig”—Keegan grinned—“that’s me.”

  “Let’s go,” said Sherry Lappen.

  Franklin was the last one to leave. He took his brother’s hand and whispered, “This is right, Willie.”

  “Think hard before you do it,” said Will.

  “We’ll take one more vote.”

  Will walked three circuits of the Yard that night, head down, hands shoved into his pockets. Each time that he walked past the entrance to the University Police Department, in the basement of Grays Hall, he thought about going in and telling them what he knew.

  It should have been easy. Blow the whistle. Tell the cops that a faction of the SDS was planning to take over University Hall in the morning. But he couldn’t.

  Finally, on the third circuit of the Yard, he went out past ancient Harvard Hall and looked up at the cupola. One of his ancestors had watched the British go by from up there, then he had gone and gotten his gun and gotten into the fight.

  Maybe Will should do the same thing now. But who were the British? Who were the real enemies of freedom? And was the war in Vietnam a good war? Yes or no.

  So Will walked. He crossed the Square. He went past the ancient home of William Brattle, past the corner where the Wedge house had been, past the majestic old mansion where the ghosts of Longfellow and Washington communed, all the way to the Drake house, a Queen Anne Victorian with a wraparound porch and slate roof. It was two in the morning, but the lights were on. So Will climbed the steps and rang the bell.

  Prof. G. opened the door as though he was not in the least surprised to have a visitor so late. He wore a fine silk robe over his pajamas. A bottle of port was open on the table in the middle of the study, and a fire was dying.