Tuesday The Rabbi Saw Red (15 page)

“So he can yell at me? We can’t talk for five minutes before he starts yelling.”

“What does he yell about?” asked the rabbi curiously.

“Oh, almost anything, but mostly – until now, at least – about marks. ‘Shape up.’ he’s always saying. Why don’t I shape up, or sometimes. ‘Shape up or ship out.’ He was in the naval reserve for a while, that’s where he got it. When I was in high school here, it wasn’t so bad. I was one of the smart kids, and besides the other kids’ fathers did the same thing. But at Harvard. I was up against all the other smart kids, and I wasn’t living at home where he could keep tabs on me every night – C or even B-minus wasn’t good enough for him. It had to be A’s, and for a while. I tried, but the competition was tough and I thought, the hell with it.”

“So you slacked off completely.”

“Sure, why not? I was working so hard and got a B-minus, but it wasn’t good enough for him. So I thought it won’t be any worse if I have a little fun and get a C or even a C-minus.”

“But you felt guilty about it.”

The young man considered. “All right. I suppose I did – at first. I don’t now.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure. I’ll tell you something. Rabbi. My father didn’t care if I learned anything or not, he was just interested in my getting good marks so I could get into a good law school and get good marks there, even if I never learned any law, so I could get into a big law firm.”

“I suppose he’s trying to fit you for the world as he sees it.”

“So what’s wrong with trying to change it?” demanded Selzer.

“Well, you might change it for the worse.” the rabbi observed wryly. “But in any case, by your own admission, whatever your father is doing, whether he’s going about it the right way or not, he’s doing it for you.”

“Rabbi.” said Abner solemnly, “this is going to shock you, but the fact is I don’t care very much for my father. I don’t respect him and –”

But it was Abner who was shocked when the rabbi interrupted to say; “Oh, that’s perfectly normal.”

“It is?”

“I would say so, that’s why it’s one of the ten commandments. ‘Honor thy father and mother.’ If it were perfectly natural, it wouldn’t require a specific commandment, would it?”

“All right, so why should I accept help from somebody I don’t respect?”

“Because it’s childish and peevish to refuse help when you are in need.” said the rabbi. “You’re going to have a lawyer whether you want one or not. If you don’t use your own, the court will appoint one for you, he may be better than Mr. Goodman, but it’s not likely, and he’s certain to be less experienced. Common sense would suggest that you get the best you can.”

Judge Visconte’s head nodded slightly as he read the complaint. When he put the paper aside, his head continued to nod, for he was an old man, well over seventy, with snow-white hair surrounding a high, slanting forehead. His handsome Italian face with its long Roman nose looked benign and grandfatherly.

He turned to Bradford Ames. “The Commonwealth has a recommendation on bail?”

“The Commonwealth has a recommendation. Your Honor.” said Ames. “It is the Commonwealth’s opinion that since a man was killed as a direct result of the explosion of a bomb, this is a case of felony murder and hence that bail should be denied.”

The judge nodded vigorously in apparent agreement, then he inclined his head and nodded at a somewhat different angle, which the clerk interpreted as a sign that His Honor wanted to confer with him, he leaned over the judge’s desk and they whispered together. It looked as though it was all over.

Paul Goodman rose beside the attorney’s table. “May I be heard, Your Honor?”

The judge nodded graciously.

“To save the time of the Honorable Court, I am speaking not only for myself but for my three colleagues who are each representing one of these young defendants. It seems to me. Your Honor, that the recommendation of the Commonwealth is punitive rather than designed to insure the appearance of the defendants at their trial, these young people are not professional criminals; they have clean records, they are enrolled in college; if they are prevented from attending classes they will be unable to pass their courses. To hold them in jail pending their trial is to punish them before they have been proven guilty.”

The judge nodded benevolently. “It’s always punitive, isn’t it?” he said gently. “A workman loses his wages; a businessman sometimes has to close down his business or office, and in every case, the family suffers.”

“If I may: Your Honor.” said Goodman. “Isn’t that all the more reason not to hold these young people unnecessarily, since the danger of their not appearing for the trial is slight?”

“But the charge is murder. Counselor.”

“I recognize that it has been the prevailing practice in the Commonwealth to deny bail to prisoners charged with murder. But my understanding is that the rationale –”

“Did you say rationale?”

“Yes. Your Honor. I was saying that the rationale behind denying bail in such cases is that money becomes secondary when a man’s life is at stake. However, since the Supreme Court of the United States has held the death penalty to be cruel and unusual punishment, that fear no longer obtains.”

“On the other hand,” the judge interposed, “these young people – and I have had a lot of experience with them; oh yes – are apt to be rather cavalier about money. If I were to set bail, even very high bail, which their parents might arrange to meet, there is a strong possibility – and I speak from experience – that they may fail to appear, having no regard for the loss which their parents would thus incur. No, Counselor, I think I’ll go along with the Commonwealth recommendation and order them held without bail.”

When the rabbi arrived for class Monday morning, he found the flag on the administration building of Windemere College at half staff, all classes had been cancelled, and many of the students and faculty had already left, a memorial service was scheduled for Professor Hendryx in the chapel at noon, and those who remained behind were milling about on the Marble.

The rabbi was undecided whether to return home or attend the service when Professor Place, whom he knew slightly, invited him to have a cup of coffee.

It was the first time the rabbi had been in the faculty cafeteria and he looked about him with interest. It was a small room with two large tables, both of which were half occupied; the rabbi noticed that older members of the faculty sat at one and younger members at the other. Professor Place went over to a large coffee urn and poured a cup for the rabbi.

“Ten cents a cup.” He dropped a quarter into a slotted carton. “The honor system. No. I’ve just paid for yours, and a little over,” he said, as the rabbi reached for some change. “Sometimes you forget. Our coffee committee reports that pennies, buttons, even unsigned I.O.U.‘s appear from time to time, just as I suppose they do in your collection plate after a service.”

“We don’t pass a collection plate. Our regulations forbid carrying money on the Sabbath.” said the rabbi.

“Very commendable. Our method of collecting at each service smacks altogether too much of a business transaction, a quid pro quo of sorts with the Deity.” He led him to a table. “Let me introduce you to some of your fellow faculty members. Professor Holmes. Professor Dillon, and Miss Barton. Or is it Professor Barton or Dr. Barton. Mary?”

“Dr. Barton at midyears,” she said happily; “and probably Professor Barton shortly after. Dean Millie says. But right now it’s still officially Miss Barton.” She had a good-natured, homely face.

“You shared Hendryx’s office, didn’t you?” asked Professor Holmes. His narrow face was accentuated by a long nose and pointed chin.

“Yes.” said the rabbi, “although I didn’t use it much.”

“Your trouble was that you didn’t come in at enough rank.” said Mary Barton. “What are you listed as? Lecturer? Instructor? If you had played hard to get, they would have hired you as associate at least and given you decent office space. Of course, if you had held out long enough, and they wanted you badly enough the way they did Professor Malkowitz, you could have come in as a full professor and then you would have got a private office with a secretary, a professor. Rabbi, is just an instructor who can strike a better bargain.”

“Mary, as you can see, is cynical about professorships,” Professor Holmes said.

“Well, I’d say she has reason to be.” commented Professor Dillon, a cheery, round-faced man with a walrus moustache. “She’s been teaching here for how long. Mary? Fifteen years?”

“Sixteen.”

“For sixteen years; and because she didn’t have her doctorate, she’s been kept an instructor, that, and because she’s a woman – in what used to be a woman’s school, mind you, and is still more than sixty percent women.”

“Ah, the champion of Women’s Liberation.” murmured Professor Holmes.

“Well, it’s true, isn’t it?” demanded Dillon.

“Of course it’s true.” said Holmes, “but you know the reason as well as I do. Mary chose to invest her energies in teaching rather than research and publication, and these days it just doesn’t pay off. You see, Mary, you made the natural mistake of assuming that college was a place where students come to learn and the faculty teaches. It’s been years since that was true, as soon as the administration discovered there was more endowment money, even more student applications, when someone on the faculty made a discovery that hit the headlines, the old order was dead and you were one with dinosaurus rex “

“But she’s getting her doctorate.” Professor Place pointed out.

“Well, of course.” said Holmes. “She finally surrendered. You can fight just so long. Right. Mary?”

The rabbi had no way of knowing if they were teasing Miss Barton, and if she minded, he turned to Holmes and asked. “What about the students?”

“How’s that?”

“You said that before the order changed, the students came to study and the faculty taught. Now the faculty does research instead of teaching. What about the students who came here to learn. Did they also change?”

“Of course.” said Holmes. “They now come to get credits, to get degrees for better jobs. It’s like green stamps. You save up a bookful and get a degree, and nowadays you don’t even have to earn the credits. Bookstores, even the college bookstores, openly sell detailed outlines of all the major courses. On a quiz you get the same answers, even the same phrasing, from all your students.”

“They had those outlines when I was in college.” said Dillon.

“But using them was considered cheating.” Holmes objected. “And they were sold furtively under the counter. Now you can even buy a term paper for two dollars a page.”

“Three dollars.” said Place.

“Three dollars for an original.” Mary Barton corrected.

The rabbi looked from one to the other, wondering if they weren’t pulling his leg. “I’m sure there must be some students who study.”

Professor Place agreed. “Of course, maybe as many as half. But even their credits are tainted, the last two years. Rabbi, we had student strikes – in memory of the Kent State shootings. I believe, they came just before finals, so the students don’t take their exams, we permit them to make them up later, but none of them do. Instead they play it safe and take a pass mark in the course, which is one of the alternatives we offer. So a kind of Gresham’s Law applies and bogus credits drive out real ones. Nobody questions them. Nobody cares.”

“I care.” said Mary Barton.

“That’s right. Mary cares, because she’s young and foolish,” Place went on, looking fondly at her. “and we here care a little because we remember how it used to be, and word has come to me via the grapevine that you care. Rabbi.”

“Indeed?”

“One of my better students is taking your course.

According to him, you’re taking a very hard-nose line.” He looked at the rabbi quizzically.

“Just doing what I’m being paid for.”

Professor Holmes shook his head. “Not good enough, Rabbi, not if you lose your health over it. I would have thought your erstwhile roommate, whose memory we’ll be honoring at noon, would have set you straight. I didn’t know him too well, but it seemed to me he had the right attitude about the contemporary college scene, he’d been here only two or three years and he was made department head –

“Acting head.” Mary Barton amended.

“All right, acting head. But he would have been given the full appointment before long.”

“I wouldn’t bank on it,” she said. “The faculty rules call for the concurrence of the department.”

“Oh, and there was opposition to him?” asked Holmes.

“The older members of the department didn’t care one way or another,” she said. “I had nothing against him. But the younger men didn’t care for him at all, he was apt to be sarcastic with them. One of them. Roger Fine, almost came to blows with him.”

“Roger Fine?” Dillon looked to her for enlightenment, and then remembered. “Oh yes, the fellow that wrote that article in The Windrift.” He shrugged. “I shouldn’t think he’d count for much, he was only appointed for the year.”

“Don’t you believe it,” she said. “He had lots of friends among the younger men, not only in our department.”

Professor Place asked about his fight with Hendryx.

She colored and shot a quick glance at the rabbi. “Roger considered him – well, an anti-Semite. Once when they were alone in the English office they got to arguing pretty violently. I came in just then and I heard Roger say he’d ram his stick down his throat if he made another crack. My appearance cooled things off,” she added almost regretfully.

“How about it. Rabbi?” asked Holmes. “Was he given to making anti-Semitic remarks?”

“Not really, not to me,” said David Small.

“What I don’t understand.” said Dillon, “is how he even got to be acting head with Hallett and Miller both in the department.”

“I suspect Millie Hanbury liked him.” Mary Barton said. “He came from Barnard’s Crossing originally., you know, her hometown.”

“They grew up together?”

“I shouldn’t think so,” she said. “He was a good five or six years older than she is, and his folks moved away when he was about fourteen, he told me.”