Oil (filmed as There Will Be Blood) (44 page)

VII

Gregor Nikolaieff was back from his trip to Alaska, with more troubles for the conscience of a young idealist. Gregor was gaunt and hollow-eyed, like Paul returned from Siberia. Poor unsuspecting foreign youth—he had shipped on what the sailors call "the hell fleet of the Pacific," and had found himself trapped in a desolate bay, walled in by mountains on one side and ocean on the other, housed in barracks whose floors were wet by the tides, sleeping in vermin-ridden bunks, and eating food like that fed to the inmates of county jails. No way of escape, save on ships that would not take you! While Bunny had been romping in the Pacific with Vee and the seals, Gregor had been near to drowning himself in the same ocean. Also Rachel Menzies had come home, with more troubles; there was a strike of the clothing workers! Quite unforeseen and spontaneous—hundreds of workers, driven beyond endurance by petty oppressions, had walked out in the middle of a job; the movement had spread all over this Angel City, paradise of the "open shop." The workers were crowding into the union offices and signing up, and a regular mass-struggle was under way. But Papa Menzies, one of the intellectuals among the strikers, a man of force and insight— Papa Mehzies was sitting at home, with his frantic Hebrew wife clinging to his coat-tails and wailing that if he went out and took part in the strike, the police would get him and ship him off to Poland to be shot, and never to see his family again! As a result of this strike, Rachel was not going to be able to come to college. Bunny, elegant young gentleman of leisure, who had never known what it was to need money in his life, could not understand this, and had to be told in plain words that Rachel's family had been making sacrifices to get her an education, and all these plans were knocked out. Then of course Bunny wanted to get Dad to help; what was the use of having a rich father, if you couldn't serve your friends in a pinch? But Rachel answered no, they had always been independent, and she would not think of such a thing; she would have to skip a term in the university. "But then you won't be in my class!" exclaimed Bunny—realizing suddenly how much he needed an antitoxin for the dullness of Southern Pacific culture! "It's very kind of you, Mr. Ross," she answered, sedately. "But perhaps you will come to the meetings of the Socialist local." "But see here, really, I can get the money without the least trouble; and you don't have to consider it a gift, you can pay it back when you want to. Won't it be easier to earn money if you have a college degree?" Rachel admitted that; she had meant to get a position as a social worker—she had come to this university because there were special courses which would make such a career possible. Bunny pleaded, why not take Dad's money, with no strings to it whatever, and pay him back ten or twenty dollars a month out of her future salary. But Rachel was stubborn—some strange impulse born of her "class-consciousness." He felt so keenly about it that without saying anything to her, he got into his car and drove to the home of the Menzies family. He had the address in his notebook, and it did not occur to him that she or her family might be embarrassed to have him see the way they lived—in a wretched slum district, crowded into a little three-room house on the back of a lot, without a shred of a green thing in sight. It was a rented place, Papa Menzies having put his money into Socialism, instead of into real estate and shrubbery. Bunny found him in a crowded front room, with furniture and books, and a job of sewing, and the remains of a meal of bread and herring, and the proofs of an article which he was getting ready for a strike bulletin, and a fat old Jewish lady rushing about in a panic, trying to put things away from the sight of this alarmingly fashionable visitor. None of that bothered the old man; he was used to confusion, and all wrapped up in the strike. He told Bunny about it, and read his article, a bitter statement of the grievances of the clothing workers. And then Bunny got down to the question of Rachel and her education, insisting that Chaim Menzies should persuade his daughter not to give up her career. Mrs. Menzies sat, staring with her large dark eyes, trying to understand; and suddenly she broke into a torrent of excited Yiddish, of which it was just as well that Bunny could not make out a word. For Mamma Menzies placed no trust in this handsome young goy, and put the worst possible construction upon his visit; he was trying to lure their daughter into sin, and maybe he had already done so—who could tell what sort of life she was living, with all these atheist and Socialist ideas in her head, and going to a college run by a lot of Krists! Papa Menzies bade her sternly to hold her tongue, which according to the Hebrew law she was supposed to do; but apparently she took her Hebrew law with as many allowances as the Krists took their's. In the middle of her torrents of Yiddish, Chaim thanked Bunny for his kindness, and explained that what was worrying Rachel was the hard time the family would have during the strike. If Bunny would help the family, then it would be easy for Rachel to help herself. So they shook hands, and Bunny went home to report to Dad that he had acquired the responsibility of supporting half a dozen Jewish clothing workers!

VIII

Bunny was back at Southern Pacific. It was the line of least resistance; a nice, clean occupation, honorific and easy on the nerves. One who was good-looking and wealthy, and knew how to charm the professors, could get by with almost no work at all, and have abundant time to read Bolshevik propaganda, and watch strikes happen; also to sport about town with a moving picture star, to drive and dine and dance with her, and escort her to week-end parties of the Hollywood elite. He might even have found time to visit the studio and watch her at work on her new picture; but she would not let him do this. She was too much in love with him, she could not concentrate with him looking on. Moreover, she said, her work was horrid, all pictures were horrid; Bunny wouldn't like what she was doing. It was just a way she earned her living, and she had to do what other people told her; it was without any relation to life, and Bunny, who was serious and educated, would think it childish, or worse. She liked him to be serious, he was a dear and all that, and one of the few men who really could tell her something about the world; he must go on being like that, and not pay any attention to her pictures. It struck Bunny as a little mysterious; she protested too much. And before long he discovered the reason—in some of the gossip about the screen world which filled pages upon pages of the newspapers. Vee Tracy was working on a picture about Russia! She was to be a beautiful princess of the old regime, caught in the storm of the revolution, falling into the hands of the Bolsheviks, and making one of her famous "get-aways" with the aid of a handsome young American secret service man! Vee had been working on this picture for the past six months; and right in the middle of it, she had gone and got herself a "parlor Bolshevik" for a lover, and now was afraid to let him know what she was doing! Poor Bunny, he was making such earnest and devoted efforts to ride on two horses at once! And the horses kept getting farther and farther apart, until he was all but split in the middle! Here was this strike of the clothing workers, breaking in upon the peace of America's premier "open shop" city. It was the climax of a series of disorders—first a walkout of the street railwaymen, and then of the carpenters; it was evident that the program of the reds, "boring from within," was having a terrifying success, and the thing had to be stopped, once for all. The city council passed an anti-picketing ordinance, which forbade anyone to even make an ugly face in front of a place where there was a strike. Since not all the clothing workers had faces of natural beauty, there was much infringement of this law, and very soon the papers were full of accounts of riots, valiantly put down by the police. A part of Bunny's curriculum at the university consisted of having Rachel Menzies describe to him and the rest of the "red bunch" how girls who were doing nothing but walking up and down the street in pairs, were being seized by the police and having their arms twisted out of joint. Then one morning Rachel did not show up in class; next day came a note for Bunny telling him that Jacob Menzies had been clubbed almost insensible on the picket-line. Jacob was the "right wing" brother, the pale, stoop-shouldered one who had been earning his education by pressing students' pants; and Bunny had so far departed from the safe rule of dodging other people's troubles that he felt it his duty to drive over to the Menzies' home, and have his feelings harrowed by the sight of Jacob Menzies in bed, pale as the sheets, and with a Hindoo turban wound about his head. There was Mama Menzies, with tears streaming down her cheeks, wailing over and over one Yiddish word that Bunny could understand—"Oi! Oi! Oi!" Chaim Menzies, the father, was nowhere to be seen, because he had torn his coat-tails loose from his wife's fingers, and was over at strike headquarters, doing his duty. The next afternoon, coming out from his classes, Bunny saw on a newsstand the familiar green color of the "Evening Booster," and his eye was caught—as it was meant to be caught—by flaring headlines:

POLICE RAID RED CENTER

So Bunny purchased a paper—as it was meant that he should do—and read how that morning a squad from police headquarters had invaded the rooms of the clothing workers' union, and taken off nearly a truck-load of documents which were expected to prove that the disturbance in the city's industry was being directed and financed by the red revolutionists of Moscow. The officials of the union were under arrest, one of those apprehended being Chaim Menzies, "self-confessed socialistic agitator."

IX

So there was another job for Bunny. He didn't know quite how to set about it, and Dad was on the way to Paradise, and could not be consulted. Bunny went to see Dad's lawyer, Mr. Dolliver, a keen-witted, soft-spoken gentleman who had no sympathy with reds, but, like all lawyers, was prepared for any weird trouble his wealthy clients might bring along. He called up police headquarters and ascertained that the self-confessed socialistic agitator was to be arraigned the following day; bail would be set at that time, and it would be up to Bunny to have the cash on hand, or real estate to twice the amount. Bunny said he wanted to see the prisoner, and Mr. Dolliver said he knew the chief of police, and might be able to arrange it. He wrote a note, and Bunny went over to the dingy old building which had been erected to serve a city of fifty thousand, and was now serving one of a million. The chief proved to be a burly person in civilian clothing, smelling strongly of civilian whiskey; he requested Bunny to sit down, and summoned a couple of detectives, and began an obvious effort to find out all that Bunny knew about Chaim Menzies, and Bunny's ideas, and Chaim's ideas. And Bunny, who was growing up fast in an ugly world, gave a carefully phrased exposition of the difference between the right and left wings of the Socialist movement. Finding that he could not be trapped into indiscretions, and knowing that he was a millionaire's son, and could not be thrown into a cell, the chief gave him up, and told one of the detectives to take him in to see the prisoner. So Bunny got a glimpse of his city's jail. The old building was cracked, and had been condemned as a menace to life by half a dozen successive commissions; nevertheless, here it was, a monument to the greed of real estate speculators, who cared nothing about a city's good name, provided only its tax-rate were low. The mouldy old place stank, and if you looked carefully, you might see vermin crawling on the walls. The prisoners were confined in a number of "tanks," which were steel-barred cages holding thirty or forty men each, with no ray of daylight, and not enough artificial light to enable anyone to read. This city, so oddly named "Angel," appeared anxious to cultivate all possible vices in its victims, for it provided them no reading matter, and no exercise or recreation, but permitted them to have cards, dice and cigarettes—and the jailers secretly smuggled in whiskey and cocaine to such as had money for bribes. In one of these tanks sat Papa Menzies—on the floor, since there was no other place to sit. He appeared quite contented, having gathered round him the entire congregation of the cell, to hear about the struggle of the clothing workers, and how it was up to the toilers of the world to organize and abolish the capitalist system. When Bunny appeared, the old man jumped up and grabbed him by the hand; and Bunny said quickly, "Mr. Menzies, you should know that this gentleman with me is a detective." Papa Menzies grinned. "Sure, I got notting to hide. I been a member of de Socialist party for tventy years. I believe in de ballot box—dey vill find notting to de contrary, unless dey make it. I have been telling dese boys vat Socialism is, and I vill tell dis gentleman, if he vants to listen. I have been helping de cloding vork-ers stand togedder for decent conditions, and I am going on vid it de day I git out again." So that was that! And in the evening Bunny phoned to his father and told him the situation. Bunny had been accustomed to sign his father's name to checks of any size, and had been careful not to abuse the privilege; but now he was proposing to draw fifteen thousand dollars, because they would probably fix the bail very high, in the hope of keeping the old man in jail until the strike had been broken. There was no risk involved, Bunny declared, for Menzies was the soul of honor, and would not run away. Dad made a wry face over the telephone—but what could he do? His dearly beloved son was ablaze with indignation, and insisted that he knew all about it, there was no possibility whatever that this old clothing worker might be a secret agent of the Soviet government, deliberately planted in Angel City to destroy American institutions. How Bunny could know such things Dad couldn't imagine, but he had never known his boy to be so wrought up, and finally he said all right, but to have Mr. Dolliver send somebody to court with the money, so that Bunny would not get his name into the newspapers again.

X The matter was handled as Dad ordered; the lawyer's clerk went to court, and came back and reported that the prisoners had appeared, but Chaim Menzies had not been among them. His case had been taken over by the Federal authorities, because it had been discovered that he was born in Russian Poland, and it was proposed to cancel his naturalization papers and deport him. Chaim had been transferred to the county jail, another condemned structure, fully as dingy and filthy as the city jail. There was no longer anything you could do about it, because in these deportation cases the courts were refusing to intervene, holding them to be administrative matters. The Democratic attorney-general had failed in his effort to get the nomination for president by his campaign against the reds, but the machinery he had set going was still grinding out misery for guilty and innocent alike. So here was some real trouble for Bunny! Over at the Menzies home was Rachel, white-faced and pacing the floor, and Mamma Menzies wailing and tearing her clothing. It was impossible even to get word to poor Chaim—he was "incommunicado"; indeed, he might already have been put onto a train for the east. After that there would be no chance for him whatever—he would be dumped onto a steamer for Dantzig, and there turned over to the Polish "white terror." Bunny insisted that something must be tried, and so Mr. Dol-liver called in a couple of still more expensive lawyers—at Dad's expense—and they debated habeas corpuses and injunctions and other mystical formulas, and made out a lot of papers and tried this court and that, all in vain. Meantime, in response to frantic commands from his son, Dad broke the speed laws from Paradise; and when he arrived, there were Bunny and his Jewish girl-friend waiting on his front porch. They dragged him into his den and made him listen to a disquisition on the difference between the right and left wings of the Socialist movement, with a complete description of the activities of a literature agent of the Socialist party. In the middle of it Rachel burst into tears, and sank down upon the sofa; and Dad, who was really no more able to stand a woman weeping than was Bunny, went over and patted her on the shoulder, and said, "There, there, little girl, never mind! I'll get him out, even if I have to send a man to New York!" So Dad stepped out and sped away in his car. That was about lunch-time—and a little before three o'clock of that same day, who should emerge from a taxi-cab in front of the Menzies tenement but Chaim himself, dirty and unshaven, but smiling and serene, and ready to continue his labors for his "cloding vorkers"! He hadn't the least idea how it had happened; the keepers of the county jail had volunteered no information as they turned him loose, and Chaim had not stopped for questions. He never did know, and neither did his daughter, for what Dad told Bunny was strictly confidential, a bit of oil men's secret lore. "What did I do? I called in an old friend of ours, Ben Skutt." "Ben Skutt!" Bunny had not thought of their "lease hound" for years. "Yes, Ben is high up in this defense business now, and he did it for me." "What did you tell him?" "Tell him? I told him one grand." "One what?" "That's bootlegger's slang. I gave him five hundred dollars, and said, 'Ben, go and see the man that's got that old kike in jail and tell him to turn him loose, and then come back to me and I'll give you another five hundred!'" "My God!" said Bunny. And Dad took a couple of puffs at his big cigar. "Now you see why we oil men have to be in politics!"