Oil (filmed as There Will Be Blood) (50 page)

CHAPTER XVI THE KILLING 1

Bunny passed his examinations, and was duly established as a "grave old senior" in Southern Pacific University. And then he hunted up his friends—and such a load of troubles as fell onto his shoulders! Literally everybody had troubles! Rachel and Jacob Menzies had come back from their summer's fruit-picking, to find their two younger brothers, the "left wingers," in the county jail! The police had raided a Communist meeting and arrested all the speakers, and the organizers, and the literature sellers, and all who had red badges in their buttonholes. They had raided the Communist headquarters—determined, so the newspapers announced, to root every Moscow agent out of the city. They had sorted the prisoners, and fined a few, and were holding the rest, including the Menzies boys, under that convenient universal charge, "suspicion of criminal syndicalism." These foolish boys had made their own trouble, said Rachel; but still it was an outrage to arrest people for their beliefs; and it was tormenting to think of your own flesh and blood shut up in those horrible cages. Bunny asked the bail—it was two thousand dollars per brother. He began explaining his troubles with his father, and his own impotence; and Rachel said of course, she understood, they couldn't expect him to bail out the whole radical movement. And yet that did not entirely restore his peace of mind. Then Harry Seager, whose business college was on the rocks. The boycott had wrecked it, and Harry was trying to sell the debris. He was going to buy him a walnut ranch; it would be harder to boycott walnuts, you couldn't tell the "red" ones from the "white"! And then Dan Irving, whose labor college was in almost as bad a way. The orgy of arrests had frightened the old line labor leaders completely off. The college was still going, but it was in debt, and the head of it hadn't had any salary for several months. Bunny wrote a check for two hundred dollars, and went away debating the question that never would be settled—to what extent had he a right to plunder his father for the benefit of his father's enemies? From Dan Irving he learned that Paul had got out of jail, and was in Angel City, together with Ruth. It was a dirty deal the oil workers had got, said Dan; the operators had made one last use of the oil board, to trick the men into a complete surrender. They had promised the oil board there would be no discrimination against union men, but they had never had the least intention of keeping this promise. They had kept all the strike-breakers at work, and taken back just enough of the strikers to make up their needs. All the active union fellows were begging jobs, and the oil industry was a slave-yard of the "open shop."

II

Bunny went at once to call on Paul and Ruth at the address which Dan Irving gave him. It was a mean and dingy lodging-house, in a part of the city given up to Mexicans and Chinese. An old woman sent him up to the second floor, and told him which door to knock on, but he got no response. He came back later, and found that Ruth had just got in. They were crowded into one little room, with a gas plate and a sink in an unventilated alcove, and another alcove with a curtain before it, and a cot on which Paul slept. Ruth was ashamed to have Bunny see them in such a place, but explained that it wouldn't be long, just till Paul got a job; he was out looking for one now. She herself had got work in a department store, and as soon as they could get ahead, she was going to study trained nursing. She looked pale and worn, but smiled bravely; she didn't really mind anything, so long as Paul was out of jail. Bunny wanted to know all the news, and plied Ruth with questions. Just what had Paul done to get arrested? The first time, Ruth said, the sheriff had raided the Rascum cabin, with a lot of rough, hateful men, who had torn everything to pieces and carried off all of Paul's books and papers—they had them still. They had done the same thing to all the other fellows that used to come to the cabin—they were going to prove them "reds," but what evidence they had or claimed to have was a secret the sheriff or the district attorney or whoever it was was keeping to himself. They had had a lot of spies on the bunch—one fellow was known to be a spy, and two others had disappeared, and would no doubt turn up as witnesses—but who could tell what they would testify? All the other boys were still locked up in those horrible tanks, so dark and dirty, and nothing to do all day or night. The trial was set for next February, and apparently they were to stay there meantime. Paul was free, thanks to Bunny's ten thousand dollars; Ruth could never express her thanks— Never mind about that, Bunny said—what about the second arrest? And Ruth told how Judge Delano had issued an injunction forbidding anyone to interfere with Excelsior Pete in the course of its business, the production and marketing of oil. That meant that you mustn't advocate or encourage the strike; and of course Paul had done that, so the judge had sent him to jail—that was all. Judges were getting so they did that all the time, and what were union men going to do? It had been a fearful ordeal for Paul, he was not very well, and of course he was terribly bitter. He would never go back to Paradise again, it wasn't the same place at all. Ruth smiled a wan smile, "They've cut down all those lovely trees that we planted, Bunny. They needed the room for tanks." Bunny hauled out his check-book, and sought to salve his conscience by making a present to his friends. But Ruth said no, she was sure Paul wouldn't let him do that. They were going to get along all right. Paul was a good carpenter, and sooner or later he would find some boss that didn't mind his having been in jail. Bunny argued, but Ruth was obdurate; even though she were to take the check, Paul would send it back. Bunny did not wait till Paul came home; he made some excuse, and went away. He just did not have the nerve to sit there, in his fashionable clothes which Vee had selected for him in New York, and with his new sport car waiting downstairs, and see Paul come in, half sick, discouraged from seeking work in vain, and with all the black memories of injustice and betrayal in his soul. Bunny could make excuses, of course. Paul did not know that he had been spending the summer at play with the world's darling, Paul would believe that he had gone away on his father's account. But nothing could change the fact that it was on money wrung from Paradise workers that Bunny was living in luxury; nothing could change the fact that it had been to increase the amount of this money, to intensify the exploitation of the workers, that Paul had spent three months in jail, and the other fellows were to spend nearly a year in jail. So long as that was the truth, there was nothing Bunny could do but just run away from Paul!

III

Money! Money! Money! It was pouring in upon Dad and Verne. Never had oil prices been so high, never had the flow at Paradise been so rapid. Millions and millions—and they were scheming to make it tens of millions. It was a game, marvelous, irresistible; everybody was playing it—and why could not Bunny be interested? Why did he have to go sneaking around in the dressing-rooms and behind the grand-stands, finding out dirty and disreputable facts about the players of this game and their methods? It seemed as if the fates had it in for Bunny. Just as sure as he made some pitiful effort to be like his father and his father's friends, some new development would come along and knock him down! Here he had gone to a university, a solemnly respectable university, trying to improve his mind and make a gentleman of himself; he had turned over his young and eager mind to the most orthodox and regular authorities—and surely they would know how to make him good and honest and happy, surely they would teach him wisdom, dignity, and honor! Such things were being taught to all students in this great institution, which had begun as a Methodist Sunday-school, and still had more courses on the religion of Jesus Christ than on any other subject whatever! Oh, surely yes! The university had grown great on the money of Pete O'Reilly, the oil king; and Pete O'Reilly's son was a graduate, and the two of them, "Old Pete" and "Young Pete," were the gods of the campus. When they came to commencement, the faculty bowed down before them, and in all the stories which the university's publicity man sent to the newspapers, the names of Pete O'Reilly, father and son, never failed to be featured. The son was the most active of the alumni, and their god; when they had banquets, he was toasted and nattered and cheered; he was the patron saint of all the teams, the bounteous friend of all athletes. And of course, if you know anything about American universities, you know that this is what counts in the molding of the students' minds; this is the thing they do for themselves, and into which they put their hearts. At first it seemed all right. You knew that S. P. U. was a glorious college, and had splendid teams, and won vic tories that resounded up and down the coast. And presently there was a stadium, and a vast business of athletics, that resulted in infinite applause and free advertising for your alma mater. Of this you were proud, the whole student body was made one by it—the thing called "college spirit." Bunny, a track-runner, had had his share of cheering; and here was a "game" he could play with all his heart! But now he was a senior, and on the inside of things, just as with the oil game, and with strikes, and with political campaigns. And what did he find? Why, simply that all the football and track and other athletic glory that had come to Southern Pacific had been stolen, and "Young Pete" O'Reilly was the thief! The oil king's son had put up a fund of fifty thousand dollars every year, for the purpose of turning the game of college athletics into a swindle! The fund was administered by a secret committee of alumni and students, and used for the purpose of going out into the market and buying athletes, to come and enroll themselves under false pretenses and win victories for S. P. U. Husky young truck-drivers and lumbermen and ranch-hands and longshoremen, who could not speak correct English, but could batter down "interference" and crash through to a goal! And the pious Methodists who constituted the faculty were conniving at the procedure, to the extent of permitting these young huskies to pass farcical examinations—well knowing that any professor who presumed to flunk a promising quarterback would soon be looking for some other university to presume in. Was not "Young Pete" showing what he thought of professors, by paying a football coach three times the salary of the best? And of course these hired athletes were hired to win, and did not bother about the rules of the game; they slugged and fouled, and the rival teams paid them back, and there was a nasty mess, with charges and countercharges, bribery and intimidation—all the atmosphere of a criminal trial. Along with secret professionalism, came its accompaniments of the underworld, bootleggers and bookmakers and prostitutes. Study was a joke to hired gladiators, and quickly became a joke to students who associated with them. The one purpose was to win games, and the reward was two hundred thousand dollars in gate receipts; and when it came to distributing this prize, there were just as many kinds of graft as if it had been a county government: students putting in bills for this and that, students looking for easy jobs, students and alumni building up a machine, and paying themselves and their henchmen with contracts and favors. Such was the result of an oil king's resolve to manufacture culture wholesale, by executive order!

IV

Bunny went to see the young lawyer whom the oil workers' union had engaged to defend the eight "political prisoners." The union had since become practically extinct, and the young lawyer had been wondering where he was going to get his pay. When Bunny came to question him, it was a great relief—for surely this young oil prince would put up something for the defense of his friends! Or could it be that he was sent as an emissary from the other side, to feel out the situation? Young Mr. Harrington talked freely about the case. The thing which the state was doing to these eight men was without precedent in our law, and if it could stand, it meant the end of American justice. Every prisoner was supposed to know the charges against him, the specific acts he was alleged to have committed. But in all these "criminal syndicalism" cases, the state simply alleged violation of the law in its vague general terms, and that was all. How could you prepare a defense in such a case? What witnesses would you summon—when you didn't know the time, or the place, or the particular things a man was alleged to have done, or said, or written, or published? You were taken into court blindfolded, bound and gagged. Yet, so completely were the courts terrorized by the business crowd, no judge would order the district attorney to make a detailed statement of the charges! Bunny went away, and in his desperation played a dirty trick on Vernon Roscoe—he went to see Annabelle Ames. Annabelle was kind and gentle, and he would wring her soul, and see if in that way he could not get under the hide of the old petroleum pachyderm! He told her about these boys, what they looked like, what they believed, what they were suffering in the jail. Annabelle listened, and the tears came into her eyes, and she said it was horrible that men could be so cruel. What could she do? Bunny told her that the strike was over, the spring lamb had been slaughtered and eaten, and Verne ought to be willing to cry quits. It would be of no use for him to plead that he couldn't do anything, that the law must take its course; that was all rubbish, because the district attorney had the right to ask for dismissal of the cases, and he would surely do it if Verne said the word. Well, Bunny got under the hide of the old petroleum pachyderm! The way Bunny heard about it, Dad came in in a terrible state, Verne had jumped on him, Verne was mad as the very devil, Bunny sneaking into his home and plotting against his domestic peace! He wanted it understood, by Jees, if Dad couldn't control his son, Verne would. Bunny wanted to know what Verne meant to do, spank him? Or have him locked up with the others? Bunny had made up his mind, and stood his ground—he had a perfect right to talk to Annabelle, she was a grown woman, and there was no way Verne could stop him. He was going to do more talking before he got through—he was sorry enough to make his father unhappy, but here was the fact, if that case ever came to trial, he, Bunny Ross, was going to take the stand as a witness for the eight defendants, and not merely a character witness, but one with first-hand knowledge of the facts; he had sat in the Rascum cabin night after night, and heard them discuss the problems of the strike, and their own attitude to it, and he could testify that every man of them had agreed on workers' solidarity as the way to victory, and acts of violence as a trap the operators would try to lure them into. If there was no other way to get money for the defense of these boys, Bunny would sell the car that Dad had given him—"I suppose Verne won't have any right to keep me from walking to the university!" Poor Dad, he couldn't stand talk like that from his darling son; he began to give way, and revealed that he and Verne had discussed the possibility of a compromise with the rebels. Would they agree to get out of the state, or at least to keep their hands off the oil industry? And Bunny said, by God, if Vernon Roscoe wanted to make any such proposition, he could be his own messenger boy! Bunny knew what Paul's answer would be—Paul had a right to try to organize oil workers, and he would never quit while he lived. Bunny was sure the whole eight would respond with a unanimous shout, they would rot in jail the rest of their lives before they would make such a bargain! Then, having said that very magnificently, the young idealist who was gradually and painfully evolving into a man of the world, went on to point out that as a matter of fact none of the eight would have much chance to bother Verne. His efficient blacklist system would see to it that they didn't get work in the oil fields; and any organizing they could do would be of a pitiful sort. On the other hand, Verne must realize that if he persisted in trying to railroad these fellows to jail, there was going to be a long trial, and a lot of publicity of a kind the operators might find troublesome. The testimony would have to be "framed"; and Bunny would do everything in his power to expose it, and to see that the public got the facts. What if it should occur to the defendants' lawyer to subpoena Mr. Vernon Roscoe and- ask what he knew about the planting of spies on the Paradise workers? "Oh, son!" cried Dad. "You wouldn't do a dirty thing like that!" Bunny answered, "Of course I wouldn't. I said the lawyer might do it. Wouldn't you, if you were in his place?" And Dad, very uncomfortable, said to let the matter ride, and he would see what he could do with Verne. One outcome of these negotiations, Dad appealed to Vee Tracy: couldn't she possibly do more to keep Bunny out of the hands of these awful reds? Why, he wasn't thinking about a thing else! Vee said she would try, and she did, and it was a further strain upon their love and affection. For Bunny was beginning to know what he wanted now, and he didn't want to be kept from it. Vee was hard at work on "The Princess of Patchouli." It was a silly story, she would freely admit; yet her whole being was concentrated upon making it real and vivid. If you asked her why, the answer would be, it was her profession; which meant that she was getting four thousand a week, with the possibility of increasing it to five thousand a week if she "made good." But what did she want with five thousand a week? To buy more applause and attention, as a means of getting more thousands for more weeks? It was a vicious circle—exactly like Dad's oil wells. The wobblies had a song about it in their jungles: "We go to work to get the cash to buy the food to get the strength to go to work to get the cash to buy the food to get the strength to go to work—" and so on, as long as your breath held out. Vee wanted to talk about the picture and the problems that arose day by day, and the various personalities and their jealousies and vanities, their loves and hates. Bunny, who loved her, would pretend to be interested, because it would hurt her if he wasn't. And it was the same with the Hollywood parties; once they had been new and startling, but now they all seemed alike. Everybody was making a new picture, but it would always be like the old pictures. Nobody did anything original, but everybody followed fashions; the public's taste ran to society pictures, and nobody would look at a war picture—but presently the public would want war pictures, and after that costume pictures, and then sea pictures, and then back to society pictures. Vee's friends changed their bootleggers, but it was always the same stuff they drank. Also they changed their lovers; a certain man slept with a certain woman, and then presently it was a different woman—but the more it changed, the more it was the same thing. Bunny and Vee loved each other, just as passionately as ever. At least, they told themselves it was as ever, but all the while the subtle chemistry of change was at work. Men and women are not bodies only, and cannot be satisfied with delights of the body only. Men and women are minds, and have to have harmony of ideas. Can they be bored with each other's ideas, and still be just as much in love? Men and women are characters, and these characters lead to actions—and what if they lead to different actions? What if the man wants to read a book, while the woman wants to go to a dance? Vee had been so considerate in the matter of her adoring "Applesauce," so careful lest Bunny should be jealous; and now Bunny made the irritating discovery that it was his turn to be careful! Vee had two enemies among women—and Bunny persisted in keeping them as his intimates. That Socialist girl at the university— of course he had to see her there, but did he have to make dates to go to Socialist meetings with her? Vee was ready to believe that he wasn't in love with a common little sweatshop Jewess; but what if Vee wanted to be taken to a "world premiere" on the evening of the Socialist lecture? And then—that Ruth Watkins! Of course Bunny wouldn't be in love with an ignorant country girl, without any education; but all the same, she was setting her snares for him, and Vee had seen enough of men to know that a woman can always get what she wants, if she keeps after it. Bunny kept going to that lodging-house room, and plotting and scheming with Paul to worry his father, and make trouble with Verne and Annabelle, so that pretty soon they wouldn't welcome Bunny any more at the Monastery, which was practically Vee's country club, and where you met the most important people. It wasn't just the social life, it was the business connections, that meant everything in the career of an actress. In the screen world promotion goes by favor, and Vee simply couldn't afford to give up her intimacy with Verne and Annabelle. She tried to convey this tactfully to Bunny, but when he failed to heed it, she had to keep insisting, until it began to sound like nagging. Bunny remembered her playful remark to her Applesauce, "It's as bad as if we were married!" Dad and Verne had a lot of negotiating to do with Pete O'Reilly, concerning the new leases they were putting through, and Dad was invited to spend a week end at this famous man's country place. Bunny was included in the invitation, and Dad said he ought to come; Dad was always nourishing the hope that something in this "great" world that so impressed him would impress his fastidious son. Besides, he added with a grin, the O'Reillys had a marriageable daughter. Bunny had already met "Young Pete" at the university in connection with athletic events. Bunny had been singled out for attention, because he also was a scion of oil; some day he and "Young Pete" would be running the government of the United States, as their two fathers were running it now. "Young Pete" was a perfectly colorless business man, of the nationally advertised brand; but the father was the real thing—an old Irishman who had wandered over the deserts leading a burro loaded with a pick, a blanket, a sack of bacon and beans, and a skin full of water. This had continued up to middle age—he delighted to tell how, when he had come to Angel City to print a prospectus about his find, the printshop would not trust him for a thirteen-dollar job! Now, nobody could guess his millions; but he was plain as an old shoe, a likeable old fellow who wanted to sit in his shirt in hot weather, but was not allowed to. The boss of the family was Mrs. Pete, who had risen from a section foreman's daughter to this high station in Southern California society. She was large and decisive; when she went into a department store she did not fool with the clerks, but strode at once to the floor-walker and announced, "I am Mrs. Peter O'Reilly, and I wish to be waited on promptly." The functionary would hit the floor with his forehead, and tear three clerks loose from their duties and set them rushing about at the great lady's behest. Mrs. Peter it was who had summoned the architects and ordered the royal palace in a park, and set the high bronze fence all about, and the bronze gates; she it was who had caused the name of the owner of the estate to be graven on the gates. She had negotiated for the yacht of a fallen European monarch, and then torn it all out inside, and made it over to be fit for an Irish-American oil prospector—finished in Circassian walnut and blue satin, and with the owner's name in plain sight. Also there was a private car finished in Circassian walnut and blue satin, and with the owner's name on a brass plate. It was as fine as a haberdashery shop. Now Mrs. Peter had Dad and Bunny to practice "society" upon; to shake hands high up in the air, and remark the early cold weather and the snow upon the mountains. And then to introduce Patricia, and to watch while Patricia did the stunts which her director had taught her, and which gave Bunny an impulse to say "Camera!" Miss Patricia O'Reilly was tall like her mother, and had a tendency to grow stout too early, so she was taking reducing medicine, which was injuring her heart and making her pale and aristocratic. She had learned every motion and every formula so carefully that she was as interesting as a large French doll, and her mother beamed upon the young couple—a possible union between two great dynasties, and there would be a wedding in Holy Name Church, and fifty thousand people outside, and pictures on the front pages of all the newspapers. Bunny's thoughts went even further—the "yellows" would interview Vee Tracy, and she would be cold and haughty, and in secret she would weep, and then catch a glimpse of her face in the mirror, and the thought would come, "Hold it!" There were other guests, including Dr. Alonzo T. Cowper, D.D., Ph.D., LL.D., than whom it was not possible to imagine a human being radiating more cordiality. He was delighted that Bunny had passed his examinations successfully, and charmed to have been able to oblige his father, and again delighted that Dad was pleased with his son's progress. When they were alone, he ventured some playful remark about Bunny's red measles, and was much distressed to learn that the patient had not yet recovered; he took occasion to question the young man—was it really true that the reds were making such alarming progress in Angel City. Dr. Cowper wanted to talk about these shocking doctrines, in the same way that a small boy wants to read a naughty book! Bunny was not called in to the conference between Old Pete and his father, but on the way home Dad told him about it. They were having the devil's own time; buying a government was not so simple a matter as they had thought. Everybody had to have a "rake-off," all the way down the line; by golly, the very office boy that brought you a letter about the matter expected a ten-dollar bill! Bunny took the occasion to plead, why not get out of the thing, surely they had enough money! But Dad said they were in too deep, the thing had cost him personally nearly six hundred thousand dollars, and it was real money, and
it had hurt. No, they would go through with it, and when they had got the leases, it would be all hunky-dory. Two troubles had arisen. The naval reserve lands had been under the control of the navy department, and it had been necessary to get them shifted to the control of Secretary Crisby. There had been question whether this could be done by executive decree, or did it require an act of Congress. The officials had made a lot of delay, but of course it was just a hold-up; they wanted more money for this one and that. Old Pete had sent his son on to Washington to act as paymaster. The other difficulty was that some little oil company had got onto the Sunnyside tract—the one that Verne and Dad were to get—and had started drilling under an old lease. They would have to be ejected, and it must be done quietly, they must fix matters up with the newspapers somehow. Verne wanted Dad to go up there and look the ground over, and maybe he and Bunny might make a trip of it. Sunnyside was going to be the world's wonder of an oil field—it would beat Paradise many times over, and when they had got it safely tucked away, Dad would take a good long rest.