"So what can you do about it? I can't fire Cohen without proof. Communism doesn't seem to worry our present government much."
Doctor Tangle stood up. "Let's get out on the fairways. I knew you would want to know, Pat. I'm calling Leonard in tomorrow. He's through. I don't have to put up with him. I'll just do it easily -- no reference to his past -- we don't want any publicity. These Reds know how to twist things to get sympathy. I'll just tell him that we are cutting overhead; that I have a younger man in mind. Keep your channels open -- you'll find some excuse to get rid of Cohen. I'll give Mat Chilling a thorough going over." Doctor Tangle grimaced sadly as if disbelieving the lack of ethical behavior in the world in general.
As they walked toward the tee-off, Yale pondered the conversation. He had no particular feeling for Professor Leonard, although he liked the drive and the insistent, searching mind of the man. Yale had read the Communist Manifesto , and a good deal of Karl Marx. While he was interested and if questioned would probably have agreed that the workers should share in their productivity: he was on the other hand sufficiently indoctrinated by Pat to rebel against any system which denied individual freedom. Yale knew that mentally he could never adjust himself to an ideal based on group cooperation above all else. During the past few weeks he had been reading Carlyle. Carlyle's notion of history as the movement and direction of leaders guiding the destinies under them appealed to him. Especially so because he envisioned himself as the leader for his time. Certainly not one of the masses. Yale grinned as he recognized the egotism of his own thinking.
While his father teed-up, his thoughts wandered to Mat Chilling. He had talked with him briefly and unaccountably last fall after a class in Philosophy. Professor Zwicker had permitted Mat, who was a senior at Midhaven, to take over the class. The discussion centered on Immortality, and the manifestations of this belief in all the major religious thinking. Mat's deep voice, his careful enunciation, coupled with his more than six foot four inch height and a magnetic expression in his eyes, exerted a tremendous cohesive effect on the class. Through the hour discussion Yale felt almost hypnotized as he listened. He wondered how a person only a few years older than he was had acquired such confidence; plus a platform manner that seemed to embrace, and engulf his listeners.
After class, drawn in a way he found strange to himself, he singled out Mat Chilling and walked with him across the campus. Mat's manner was friendly. He mentioned, after Yale had introduced himself, that he had often admired the Marratt factory.
"Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?" Yale had asked and without waiting for an answer had plunged on. "Have you ever thought about dying?"
Mat didn't answer for a moment. He flipped the pages of a Bible he was carrying, and then smiled slowly.
"Yes, I've thought about dying, Yale. I've thought about it a lot. You can't help thinking about something that is so foreign to you, and yet so inevitable. You build up rationalizations about it -- yet no answer seems satisfactory."
"I'm not afraid of dying," Yale explained, feeling that Mat didn't clearly understand him. "It isn't that. I don't know what it is. It's the confusion and lack of purpose in things that makes me dejected. Where is the world going? I suppose every generation asks the same thing. But it seems that it must be more pronounced now. We are a generation running around with its head cut off, guided by its entrails. Germany is over-running Europe. The Russians are testing themselves in Spain. The British are wavering between their European commitments and peace. We're involved in hundreds of screwy deals. Anyone with half an eye can see war in the offing. What's behind it all? Where does my life and death fit into the picture? I feel the tide of events closing in on me, and I hate and fear it. Ever since I was a kid I have thought as I pleased, done as I pleased. Now my individualism . . . my free will seems to be at stake. People seem to be selling their freedom for a hand-out. Even if we never fight a war, we have become a nation of leaners. Our government is moving closer and closer to a kind of fascism that frightens me. I don't seem to have a place in the sun. Where's the anchor I can tie myself to?"
Mat whistled. Yale had spoken breathlessly, groping for the idea that he wanted to put across. "You obviously don't want me to answer you in terms of Christian theology, do you?" he asked, grinning.
"No! I've been raised wrong for that kind of an answer. My family is typical. Ethically and morally they are Christians, I guess, but religion as such doesn't mean a damn thing to them. Both Pat and Liz go to church because it's the thing to do. Pat's business is his religion. Do and act his byword. Strangely enough he has another side that doesn't fit his personality at all. If you ever saw him playing some of Mozart's piano stuff, you'd see the finest example of complete concentration that I know of. He gets himself lost in some kind of a mysterious religion. Liz, my mother, on the other hand is whacky. She plays bridge like a fiend, can tell you the complete love life of the movie stars, and give you a play by play description of all the soap operas. Yet she goes to church regularly and is active on all the church committees. They are both as incompatible with themselves as I am. But all that still doesn't answer my question."
Mat shook his head. Yale seemed to have an ability to run wild with words. He would forget temporarily where he was going, and then pounce back on the fleeting idea. Mat found it amusing.
"Probably the trouble with you is that you have no faith outside yourself," Mat replied. "Maybe you are looking for something to hang your hat on. When you find that your current enthusiasm turns out to be rubber hook, you and your hat are on the floor again. Even if you do find the answer you're looking for, it won't be a part of you unless you change your tactics. It will still be something outside." Mat waved his hand. "Something you can't rely on. When you're in love -- love becomes a religion; a dangerous religion, because it's based on your expectations of another person's behavior. Human love brings with it a fear of death. Does Cynthia Carnell live up to your requirements?"
Yale winced. "That's unfair."
Mat laughed. "Seriously, I can answer you this way. I am afraid of dying. I'm still wavering on the Christian theory of immortality. I say this to you personally and not for repetition. I think Christianity is negative. It puts too much emphasis on a personal after life. Perhaps a theory of continuous existence is more digestible. But your problem doesn't seem to me to be philosophical. You're a materialist. Your fear of death is that it will put an end to the I called Yale Marratt, and all he enjoys. You're too damned introspective, Yale. Look outward. Eventually you may be able to laugh at yourself and all the foibles of the unpredictable Yale Marratt. After all, you've studied psychology under Bertrand for two years now. You must have asked yourself what is your real self. What is the self of you that will die . . . ?"
"Yale -- for Christ's sake! -- We've all driven off. It's your turn. What are you doing day-dreaming again?"
Yale blushed. He had been conscious enough of his surroundings to know that Bert Walsh had made his usual excellent drive. In fact all three of them were about evenly placed a good distance out on the fairway. As he plunged his tee into the soft earth, he could feel the hot sun beating on his back. Trickles of perspiration ran from under his arms down the inside of his loose jersey.
Even before he swung, he had a premonition that the drive was not going to be successful. The concentrated glance of Pat, Doctor Tangle and Bert Walsh unnerved him. The ball soared out about two hundred yards, and then hooked off inexplicably into a grove of trees.
"Brother," Pat groaned. "We're going to need a handicap. I hope your caddy has his eye on it."
"Golf is a game you've got to stay with," Bert Walsh remarked patronizingly. "Whenever I let up for a few months my score goes to hell." Yale said nothing. He walked part way out the fairway with them until he noticed his caddy gesticulating toward a clump of pine trees.
"I will rejoin you gentlemen on the tee," Yale said sourly. "Count all your strokes, and don't cheat," Doctor Tangle advised.
Yale finally e
xtricated himself from his position behind a pine tree. He made a few more clumsy shots before he got on to the green. The others had completed the hole, and were waiting at the next tee-off. He made a good putt, and joined them.
"No hurry," Doctor Tangle said, mopping his red face. "There's a foursome ahead of us. Quite a crowd out today. Wouldn't believe it with this heat. How did you do?"
"Took me seven," Yale said. He watched Doctor Tangle mark it on the score card.
"Your father and I made it in four. Bert got a three. The Marratts are behind one dollar."
Pat and Bert were sitting in wooden reclining chairs in back of the tee waiting for a group of four players ahead of them.
"Come here," Pat said to Yale. "You haven't seen Jim Latham in a couple of years." Yale walked over and shook hands. He had an impression of a lean tanned face and pearly white teeth beneath a crew-cut.
"Glad to see you," Jim said. "Your father tells me you may apply to Harvard Business School. I'm thinking of it myself. Now that's a switch. Think of what the sports writers could do with that. Yale goes to Harvard." Jim waved his apologies. "Got to tee off. See you back at the club."
Yale watched him drive and then as Jim Latham walked down the fairway, he turned angrily to Pat. "Look, you've got to understand something. I'm not going to Harvard Business School! Even if they would accept me. I am not going! I haven't made up my mind what I'm going to do when I graduate. But that's a year away. Maybe I'll join the Army. Maybe I'll get married." He watched with interest Pat's reaction.
"Listen, my little cocky friend, you'll do what I want you to do. You're not of age yet, and if you think I'm going to let you marry that Jewish girl friend of yours, you are sadly mistaken." Pat turned to Doctor Tangle who was listening to the conversation with a half smile on his face. "Amos, I am counting on you to set the ball rolling. Since Yale's marks are now excellent there should be no trouble. Now, you can prove to me that Midhaven College rates well enough to have a student accepted at Harvard."
"Midhaven College rates well enough, you can be sure of that. There may be other considerations. . . ."
Yale interrupted him. "Just because you and my father are friends doesn't mean that you can decide my future." Yale tried to hold back tears of anger. "You're not running my life anymore, Pat. If you keep it up I'll quit Midhaven and never graduate." He picked up his golf bag. "I'm sick of this needling," he shouted. "You take care of your love life and I'll take care of mine." He snarled the last words and strode furiously across the fairway toward the clubhouse.
He heard Bert Walsh say, "Let him go, Pat. Remember, he's just nineteen. That girl is his first love. . . ."
To hell with you, Bert Walsh, Yale thought. You wise, brown-nosing Master in Business Administration. Pat Marratt will try to own you too before he's through, and he'll succeed because you're after the almighty dollars. Pat will buy you with them! But not me . . . not me.
He realized suddenly that he was cornered. His own car was in the garage at home. Liz might have come out to the club in her car by this time. If he ran into her there would be endless explanations. The key to Pat's Packard was probably in Pat's business suit at the club. It would serve him right to finish playing and find his car gone. Yale grinned as he imagined Pat's consternation. Walking quietly up to the pro-shop, he deposited his clubs with Dick Cannon. "Has my mother been around?"
"Not yet," Dick said, looking at him curiously. "Thought you were playing the course with your old man?"
"Got to go on an emergency errand for him," Yale said. He hurried away. The keys were in Pat's suit coat. Yale changed his clothes quickly and ran out to the parking lot.
It was crazy, he thought, a kid trick to take Pat's car. There would be hell to pay later, but he couldn't stand the embarrassment of seeing Doctor Tangle, and having Bert Walsh try to commiserate with him. What an operator Walsh was, buttering Pat on the one hand and trying to be an understanding older brother to Yale. It was sickening.
Yale turned on the ignition, ground the gears into third. He pushed firmly on the gas pedal before the car got into full momentum.
The motor snorted, coughed and then the car jumped forward going forty miles an hour, along the narrow road leading from the club. He drove into Midhaven at a reckless speed -- not knowing where he was going. Over and over in his mind he reviewed the quarrel and he cursed himself for simply not ignoring Pat as he usually did. If he worked on Liz he would have no trouble. She would cool Pat down. One thing was sure, he was not going to Harvard Business School. Just the thought of being separated from Cynthia for two years after their graduation and a feeling of loneliness and utter dejection swept over him. "Oh, Cindar, Cindar . . . Love me because I need you. . . ."
7
As he drove his anger abated. Without being conscious of direction he found that he was driving toward Helltown. Helltown is actually part of Midhaven and under the jurisdiction of the city governing body. Fifty years earlier it had been a peninsular shaped island jutting into the Atlantic Ocean. An enterprising citizen of earlier times had suggested joining it to the mainland with a bridge and Helltown came into being. As its name suggested it was a place where no respecting citizen of Midhaven would live. If cities could have skeletons in their closets, Helltown was the skeleton in Midhaven's. Periodically, irate citizens had proposed a general clean-up of the section -- or a redevelopment plan. A current idea in City Hall was that some Works Progress Administration money might be suborned to this purpose. The very Republicans who cursed the W.P.A. and its concepts were highly in favor of this; perhaps feeling that the inhabitants of the area might somehow raise themselves by their bootstraps. Had the peninsula remained untouched until later years it might have become a popular real estate development. Surrounded by water and beaches, it was somewhat rocky on all sides. A more prescient real estate promoter might have foreseen the possibility for ranch house living at the edge of the ocean. But cities, being all things to all men, must provide for their poor. And Helltown with its tawdry shacks and run down beach cottages, many without inside toilets and running water, at least gave a roof over the heads of some five thousand Negroes, Jews, Catholics and Protestants who provided Midhaven with its submarginal untrained labor requirements.
Driving across the Helltown bridge Yale noticed the usual group of hopeful fishermen leaning against the railing anxiously watching their drop lines for a nibble. Standing a little distance away from the rest was the lean figure of Mat Chilling. He was idly looking at the water swirling beneath the bridge. Yale stopped his car and yelled "Hi." Turning, Mat looked at Yale, puzzled for a moment, then his face broke into a smile.
"I guess I was daydreaming. I haven't seen you for so long I didn't recognize you."
Yale got out of his car. "Don't tell me you are fishing, too? You'll never get anything from here except maybe a flounder."
"Some people have to fish to eat," Mat said. He looked down at his line. Yale watched him, uncomfortably noticing that Mat's clothes seemed very old. His trousers were almost three inches above his shoes. They were the same trousers he had worn last March when he took over the class in religion for a day. Probably the only trousers he owned.
Mat sensed his discomfort. "I like flounder. Not to mention that fish is supposed to be good for you. Even though you have all the money, you can't always buy fish fresh from the sea. Besides, fishing is a comfortable act. It doesn't interfere with meditation."
"What do you mediate about? God?" Yale asked. He wondered just how one accomplished such an intangible state.
Mat laughed. "Do I look so holy? As a matter of fact, I was wondering if perhaps the ministry was the best thing for me. You know what my real name is? Cotton Mather Chilling. See, like you, I have had a certain amount of pre-conditioning! Your father probably hopes you'll be a businessman. Before he died my father was a minister, and such is man's nature he figured by naming me properly I might become the Evangelical leader of the century. Unfortunately, at the present moment I do not be
lieve in salvation by atoning for Christ but lean more to salvation as a hymn to living."
"I've read a few of Cotton Mather's sermons. I think he was more interested in sex than Christ," Yale said. "Frustrated libido."
"Oh, that's perfect!" Mat said, a smirk on his face. "You are now a true college student. For the remainder of your educated life you will deftly attribute all actions to Freudian complexes, I suppose."
Yale smarted under the attack. "Listen, I read Freud when I was in Buxton Academy. I've also read a good bit of Jung and Adler. I can think in terms other than Freud but, I repeat, I can't remember at the moment whether it was Cotton or Increase Mather, but in one of their essays they refer to Gynecandrical dancing. You won't find the word in any dictionary that I know of but it is obvious what was worrying him. If you worry as much about sex as the Mathers did in their sermons, it is obvious to me without benefit of Freud that you wished you had it yourself. Ergo: Frustrated libido."
"You astound me," Mat said. "I've never bothered to read anything by either of the Mathers. So you win! . . . temporarily at least, until I rectify my oversight. What does your father think of your erudite knowledge of religion?"
The Rebellion of Yale Marratt Page 10
