The Rebellion of Yale Marratt (13 page)

 

 

"So what if we lose?" Yale asked sullenly. "You can give me an increase
or I'll work overtime on a play I'm writing." He hoped the remark about
the play would stir some interest from Doctor Tangle.

 

 

Doctor Tangle showed no interest, however. He turned to Pat. "I've been
meaning to come down and talk with you. Been so busy with graduations
and cleaning up odds and ends I haven't been able to get to it." He
looked up and noticed the bartender was following their conversation.
He motioned them toward a table near the window. "You never know who is
listening. This will only take a minute, Pat, but I have found some
interesting interrelationships in your employee problem. Has anything
new developed at the plant?"

 

 

Pat shook his head. "You know everything I know. The rumors of a sit-down
strike are kicking around. Believe me, they can't afford a strike. Not
the way employment is. Cohen was re-appointed Union Steward. We begin
another series of bargaining conferences next week. It's a damned waste
of time. I've told them not a cent more in wages. Under the Wagner Law
I've got to meet with them. They can go to hell. This damned Cohen with
his soft, sweet-talking manner. . . . He can shit in his hat."

 

 

Doctor Tangle's jaw tightened. He wished that Pat would learn to use
better language. "You remember, I wondered about Jack Leonard . . . our
professor of sociology."

 

 

"You wondered about him, hell," Pat sneered. "I told you he was a pinko.
Yale spouts his stuff to me every time I try to teach him sound economics."

 

 

"He's not a communist," Yale said, remembering Leonard and his vibrant
enthusiasm in discussing economic theory. "He's just a liberal thinker."

 

 

"Bull shit," Pat said.

 

 

"Your father is right," Doctor Tangle agreed. "Last January when
we were talking about him at your house I decided to do a little
deeper research into his background. His record seemed clear enough,
University of Chicago in nineteen twenty-five. Masters degree in nineteen
twenty-seven. Then teaching at a small Maine College nineteen thirty to
nineteen thirty-six. Then Midhaven College until this year. Nothing in the
book against him anywhere except the missing years nineteen twenty-eight
and nineteen twenty-nine. I won't tell you all the details or how we
checked that back, but our friend Leonard was a correspondent for the
Daily Worker during those two years and is a member of the Communist
Party. Now here is something interesting!" Doctor Tangle accented
the words. "He and our friend Cohen spend at least one night a week
together at Cohen's house in Helltown. My guess is that Leonard is the
brains behind your union problem. I also find that Leonard and one of
our senior students at Midhaven who is coming back to do graduate work
for his Divinity Degree, a chap named Mat Chilling, are close friends. I
don't know whether there is any connection, but Chilling has been working
summers at Latham Shipyards to pay his tuition. He seems very popular
at the yards. Maybe, too popular! It would be a shame if he is mixed
up in it. I've more or less considered him a protege -- an ideal man,
temperamentally suited for missionary work."

 

 

"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 extricated 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.