The Rebellion of Yale Marratt (17 page)

 

 

Inside the club, Barbara disappeared into the ladies' lounge. Yale
knew that she would join the younger group, the just-married, or about
to be married twenty-year-olds who came to the club to bask in a new
found feeling of maturity. There were about thirty of them who were
"regulars." They travelled together, driving around the countryside in
new convertibles, spending money freely at roadhouses; emulating and
exceeding their parents in sophistication. Most of them had attended
the better eastern colleges. They exuded a feeling of confidence and
superiority that both troubled and irritated Yale. He knew them all,
but it was a distant friendship. In their company he was embarrassed and
ill-at-ease. They seemed to have a superficial but positive knowledge of
everything from sex to politics. While he was certain that he knew more
and at least thought more deeply than most of them, these fellows like
Jim Latham could make him feel like a country bumpkin. They had acquired
polish, perfect enunciation with Boston accents, and a patronizing manner
that gave authority to all their speech. They could say "Well, fella,
or well, old man . . . it's not really so vital, you know" . . . dousing
Yale's enthusiasm and then carry on discussions of fraternity or sorority
problems in a way that showed that here was
really
something vital
and important.

 

 

Yale noticed a group of them congregated on the porch that flanked
one complete side of the club. They were sitting at tables, the girls
drinking Tom Collinses, the fellows mostly drinking Scotch or bourbon. He
wondered why he had come. It was a choice of evils --to join them, or
seek out Pat and Liz. Pat and Liz would be sitting at their table edging
the dance floor. Dinner was over, and the tables would be cleared for
drinking. Between dances, as the liquor took effect, some of the club
members would move permanently into the bar. It was closer to the source
of supply. It solved the problem of having to dance. It also provided a
fleeting rendezvous with other men's wives. Any analysis of the female
members of the club would have revealed that the less attractive ladies
and the women past sixty usually spent the evening sitting at tables
by themselves, happily discussing the vagaries of the younger matrons
who were testing their sexual attractions on the men at the bar. Many
of the men, even those past sixty, bought the younger ladies drinks and
cautiously tested their "availability."

 

 

The evening had not yet arrived at this point. Pat and Liz were still
at their table. Yale recognized the Middletons sitting with them as
well as Doctor and Mrs. Henry Castle. He walked up to the table, and
said, "Hi." He tried to be casual and imitate the easy manner of Jim
Latham. "Sorry about your car. Here's your keys." He dropped them on
the table in front of Pat.

 

 

Pat, who had just taken a swallow of bourbon, put down his glass and
looked at Yale frigidly. "I'm glad you came, Yale. Liz has been begging
me not to fight you, so I'm not going to. But don't think I'm pleased
. . . I'm not." He turned away, continuing his conversation with Doctor
Castle.

 

 

The orchestra started playing. "Dance with me, Yale," Liz said, trying
to break the tension. "Yale's a good dancer," she said proudly to Marie
Middleton, as they glided away.

 

 

"Yale, I just don't understand you," Liz said, enjoying the easy way
Yale moved her around the floor.

 

 

"You don't, why not?" Yale looked into his mother's large blue eyes.

 

 

"You just seem to go around looking for trouble. It was a terrible thing
to shame Pat like that in front of Doctor Tangle and Bert Walsh. It just
wasn't necessary, and then to take his car. I've spent most of the evening
trying to calm him down. He was ready to sell your car. Let you walk or
ask permission when you needed a car to use his or mine."

 

 

Yale grinned. "Code of Hammurabi," he said.

 

 

"What do you mean?"

 

 

"Oh, nothing, it's an old fashioned idea of justice. Eye for an eye
. . . tooth for a tooth."

 

 

Liz squeezed Yale closer to her. "I don't know why you are so remote,
dear. Pat loves you. I love you. He wants you to respect him. He has
worked hard to come this far in the world. You don't know what it is to
be poor, Yale. Your father and I lived for years on nothing."

 

 

"What's being poor got to do with it? If Pat were a garbage man, I suppose
he would be killing himself because I wasn't going to some university
majoring in Garbage Collecting."

 

 

"Yale, your tongue is too quick. You have a chip on your shoulder all
the time, lately. Why?"

 

 

"Why doesn't Pat let me alone?" Yale asked angrily.

 

 

"I suppose he feels that you should benefit from his experience,"
Liz said. "You'll find out someday that the only thing respected in
this world is money. If you don't have it you can be the best educated
person in the world, and be nothing. Look at Tom Stephanelli." Liz was
referring to a wealthy Italian contractor who lived in Midhaven. "He
went through the sixth grade. He can scarcely speak English, yet he's
made several million in the past few years. Right in the middle of this
depression. Pat and Alfred Latham are inviting him to become a member
of this club. Shows you what money can do."

 

 

"Oh, shit," Yale said. Liz looked at him horrified.

 

 

"I don't care," Yale continued unabashed. "That's the way I feel about
this club, and your friends. I could be happy if Pat would stop driving
me. If the two of you could stay out of my love-life. That alone would
be a help. It's funny. Pat lets you go without interference."

 

 

"What do you mean?" Liz demanded.

 

 

"Frank Middleton," Yale said. He was pleased to see Liz blush. He had
hit home.

 

 

"Take me back to the table, Yale," Liz said coldly. "For your information
Frank Middleton is a gentlemen. He wouldn't take girls to an overnight
cabin and play strip poker. How cheap and common can you be?"

 

 

Yale thanked Liz for the dance. He exchanged greetings with Doctor
Castle and his wife and went in search of Barbara. She was talking with
a boy Yale didn't recognize. He heard his name being called. Beatrice
Middleton was waving at him. She was at a table with Jim Latham and two
other couples. Yale was introduced and sat down next to Beatrice.

 

 

"Where do you keep yourself, Yale?" Beatrice asked. "Here it is July.
This is the first time you've been out to the club."

 

 

Yale ordered a rye and ginger ale from the waiter. He remembered he
hadn't eaten. "Oh, I've been around. Working man, you know."

 

 

"Do you work at the Marratt plant?" Jim asked.

 

 

Yale nodded. "I'm in the advertising department."

 

 

"My pater feels that this summer-vacation-working-in-business is a joke,"
Jim said. "Play around while you can, he says. I jolly well agree. A fellow
lives only once. Next summer, three of us are going to Europe. Bill Swanson,
Ken Burke, and myself. Tell your old man, Yale, and come along with us.
It's going to be a gay old time." Jim finished his Manhattan.

 

 

God, Yale thought, what a crummy bastard.

 

 

Jim was sitting casually tipped on his chair, balancing it on two legs.
Yale felt an urge to poke it out from under him. He'd like to see the
silly ass go splattering on the floor. Instead he drank his highball
in two swallows and ordered another. The drinks tasted sickish going
down but in a few minutes he felt a warm glow spread through him.
Jim was talking to one of the other fellows, Bob some-thing-or-other.
Yale listened to him expound the merits of a European "jaunt" before
one settled down to the "old grind."

 

 

"Do you hear from Cynthia?" Beatrice asked. Her question reminded Yale
that he was pretty irked with Beatrice. The absolute dumb dodo. How
could she have told her mother about the overnight cabin? Every time this
summer he had encountered Frank Middleton at the plant Frank had looked
at him curiously. Yale had felt guilty. Now he felt like going up to him
and saying, "No one wronged your daughter. Her virtue is still intact."

 

 

Yale took another swallow of his third drink. Suddenly he felt a strange
power.

 

 

"Did you hear me?" Beatrice said, leaning her face closer to him.
"It's so noisy. I was asking if you heard from Cynthia."

 

 

Yale leaned toward her. "I want to whisper something in your ear,"
he said flirtatiously.

 

 

Beatrice, delighted, turned her ear toward his mouth.

 

 

"You absolute, God-awful, stupid bitch," he whispered, still smiling.
"You don't know a fart from a breath of perfume. You don't know your
ass from a hole in the ground. From now on I'm telling everyone I know
that you wear falsies. You're knock-kneed and you have halitosis . . ."
Yale had a lot more to say but Beatrice screamed. She tugged at
Jim Latham's arm.

 

 

"Oh," she gasped. "He insulted me. No one in my whole life has ever said
such dirty words to me." She started to cry loudly, attracting the
attention of several other tables. A group of people, young and old,
gathered around. Jim Latham stood up and grabbed Yale's shoulder.

 

 

"I say, fella . . . you can't do a thing like that."

 

 

Yale looked at him loathingly. "Keep your mitts off me," he snarled.
Almost reflexively he drove his fist into Jim's stomach. Jim doubled
over with pain. Yale remembered he had seen a James Cagney picture.
The follow-through was to plop them on the chin for a clear knockout.
He swung, missed Jim's chin and grazed him on the side of his nose which
started to bleed.

 

 

Jim did not go down. Too late, Yale remembered that Jim was on the
boxing team at Harvard. He tried to stave off Jim's rapid blows. Fists
hitting him one after another on the face and the body. He heard people
shouting. Somebody grabbed him as he went down. Before he passed out he
demanded to be let alone so that he could finish off Jim Latham.

 

 

When he was again completely conscious of his surroundings he realized
that he was in a car speeding along Route 6. His head ached dully. His
right ear stung, and he felt sick to his stomach.

 

 

"I volunteered to drive you home," Barbara said.

 

 

"What happened?" he mumbled.

 

 

"Well, you messed him up a bit," Barbara said cheerily. "But wait until
you see yourself."

 

 

"I can feel myself," Yale groaned. "Stop the car. I've got to puke."

 

 

"Little boys shouldn't drink," Barbara said, holding his head. "Be careful
of my dress. I'm going back as soon as I deposit you at home, Brother,"
she said as she finally led him up the stairs to his room. "You have done
it today. Insulting your father. Stealing his car. Insulting Liz. Saying
dirty words to little girls. Getting drunk. Starting a brawl with the
son of Pat's best friend. Disturbing the peace and dignity of Midhaven
Country Club." Yale tumbled on his bed. Barbara undressed him, leaving
him in his shorts. She patted his head. "If you think you've got trouble,
now. Wait until tomorrow! You'd better hang yourself. . . ."

 

 

 

 

 

 

9

 

 

On the Rosh Hoshanah card he had sent Cynthia, Yale had written,
"I love you. I can't wait to see you."

 

 

Driving toward New Jersey a few days later, it occurred to Yale that
Yom Kippur would begin at sundown. He looked at his watch. It was one
o'clock. He had already crossed the Pulaski skyway. According to the
little map Cynthia had sent he was about two hours from the turnoff to
the Carnell farms. He felt a little strange. He knew it would be awkward
to arrive a few hours before the most important day in ihe Jewish year.

 

 

Cynthia had written him from the girls' camp in Maine. "I know you'll
like Daddy and Aunt Adar. I have already told them that you will
come down to New Jersey to drive me -- and my huge pile of junk --
back to school. There's no help for it. I suppose Doctor Tangle, or
whoever arranges things like opening dates at college, didn't give it
a thought. Why should he? I guess there are only about twelve or so
Jews in the whole school (enough as you pointed out to establish the
lack of prejudice) -- anyhow, my darling, the way it works out school
starts the day after Yom Kippur. I know it doesn't mean much to you but
if we are to have the day we've waited for, for so long --( imagine a
whole wonderful day to ourselves. I will love you, love you to pieces,
sweetie . . .) it's going to mean that we have to leave for New York
on Yom Kippur. But not before afternoon . If I'm to please Daddy and
Aunt Adar, I will be fasting all day, but that will be easy after this
long fast for you. Oh, Yale darling, I blush when I write this . . . for
while I am not the most religious person in the world, it seems wicked
somehow to be planning to spend the night after Yom Kippur with you --
the day after the day of atonement -- when I should have atoned for
the wrongs committed against God. But you would try to convince me,
wouldn't you? I know you would . . . that God could never conceive of
our love as a wrong against Him."

 

 

Yale had kept the letter with nearly one hundred others that he had
received from Cynthia in the two long summers of separation since they
had known each other. No matter what happened this must be the last time
they were separated.