The Rebellion of Yale Marratt (25 page)

 

 

"It certainly is hot," Mat said. "Have you seen Joe Pepperelli?"

 

 

"Yeah, Reverend, he's down in the forward bulkhead." Mat felt his way
gingerly across the deck. Down a steel ladder and into the hull, he inched
his way slowly forward. The shadow of a man was sihouetted in the flare of
a welder's torch just a few yards ahead of him. The air in the bulkhead was
oppressive and lifeless.

 

 

"Pepperelli? Joe?"

 

 

The man turned and lowered his goggles. His face was grimy, his eyes
rimmed with smudge.

 

 

"Yeah, Mat, what you want? Look, some son of a bitch weld this whole
damn thing wrong I can raise hell with him, for sure."

 

 

"Joe, I got to go -- I feel pretty rotten. I think the heat has got me."

 

 

"Sure, Mat. I fix it so you get your time. I punch you out at six.
Can you get by the gate?" Pepperelli asked.

 

 

"I know the guard, I think. I'm not going through that rigamarole of
reporting sick."

 

 

"Okay. Mat, see you tonight, maybe?"

 

 

Mat nodded. He took another look at the seam; the weld was uneven
and bumpy.

 

 

"What a mess! They certainly got a bunch of amateurs working here."

 

 

Mat walked across the yard. He jumped out of the way of men carrying
valves and pipes and ducked under a crane swinging steel plates through
the air. The chatter of riveters and the fumes from gasoline engines
seemed to intensify the heat of the day. He felt so nauseated that he
thought he might be sick before he got out of the yard. At the corner
of the plate shop, he sat down in the shade of the building. He leaned
against the wall for support. The pace of the past two years had really
worn him out. Trying to earn a degree while he slaved on these damned
ships, trying to mix religion and shipbuilding, had been almost an
impossibility. Plodding between work and books, and back to work again,
for the past two years he had just been existing. There had been no
social life. He had made no attempt to have a date with a girl since
his sophomore year, nearly five years ago.

 

 

He tried to remember the girl. He had taken her to one of the Midhaven
College dances -- Marjorie something or other. Had she been blonde or
brunette? He shook his head; all he could remember were her breasts,
they bobbled so nicely.

 

 

He stood up, feeling better. If I get out of the sun for a while, I'll
be all right, he thought. The guard at the gate was new. Mat did not
recognize him. "You guys think you can walk out of this place like you
owned it." He looked at Mat suspiciously. "I'll have to report you for
leaving early today."

 

 

"I don't give a damn what you do," Mat snapped. "Just open that gate
and let me out of here."

 

 

Across the street from Latham Shipyard the sign on Marty's Taproom caught
his eye, and he decided that he would have a bottle of beer. Sitting in
the barroom, he looked at the varnished, wainscotted walls and at the
plaster chipping off the ceiling. It was an unsavory place, reeking
with the odor of stale beer. What a place for a future minister to be
caught in, he thought. Well, why not? A minister has to live too, doesn't
he? Maybe he didn't have the right stuff for a minister. Mat knew that
he was much too individualistic to adjust to a narrow Christian outlook
like Dr. Tangle's. At the thought of the Reverend, President of Midhaven
College, Mat ordered another bottle of beer. The cold liquid griped his
stomach. He doubled over with pain.

 

 

"What's the matter, bud?" Marty patted him on the shoulder. "Wanta puke?
Just go ahead out back. Make you feel better."

 

 

Impatiently, Mat shook off his solicitude. "The sun's got me -- let me
alone." When the pain subsided, Mat staggered out of the barroom. The
screen door banged against his unsteady feet.

 

 

Past rows of parking lots, and endless automobiles, left almost anywhere
as their owners ran to punch in before the deadline, Mat walked, stretching
his long legs in an unsteady pace. Ahead of him the road seemed like a
rippling ribbon, waving in the wind. "I'm drunk," he thought. He laughed
crazily.

 

 

He was beyond the sprawling Latham Yards now. Scraggly trees and brush
sheltered the Mamaputock River from his view. He crashed through the
undergrowth, anxious, with an unreasonable desire, to wet his face in
the water. It was hot water, but it was water. He was on fire. What a
fool he had been to drink that beer.

 

 

The small patch of woods smelled dry and dead. Sudenly he felt cold.
He shivered. Perspiration trickled unpleasantly down his back. He rubbed
his fingers. They felt shriveled and limp. "I'm going to have a stroke,"
he thought.

 

 

"What am I doing here, anyhow?" The smell of his own sweat nauseated
him. He clung to a tree. What was this odor he smelled? It swelled
up against his brain. Pepperelli, that was it! Good old Pepperelli
. . . stinking in that bulkhead . . . stinking with sweat, flavored with
garlic he had eaten for breakfast.

 

 

God! The thought hit him bluntly. He felt cold with fright. The guard
would turn his name in for leaving early. Pepperelli was punching him
out at six. When the payroll department put the two facts together,
there would be hell to pay. He'd go back. He'd . . .

 

 

"Hello!"

 

 

Dimly Mat was aware that the owner of the voice was a girl. A colored
girl, with warm brown eyes.

 

 

"Hello," he answered miserably. He could feel himself about to vomit.
"I'm sick, awfully sick; I think I've had too much sun. . . ."

 

 

When he opened his eyes again, Mat realized that he must have fainted.
The girl was sitting beside him, smiling down at his face. Her teeth were
white and her eyes tender.

 

 

"Do you feel any better?"

 

 

"Yeah, much, much better."

 

 

Mat felt a wet cloth on his face. The girl had evidently tried to cool
his forehead and wrists. He noticed that his belt was undone.

 

 

She saw him looking at his pants. "You are supposed to undo anything
that constricts the flow of blood when a person has a sunstroke."

 

 

"You are right," Mat said. "You've been very nice -- who are you?"

 

 

"Honey Johnson -- I've seen you before . . . fishing off the Helltown
Bridge. I live in Helltown."

 

 

Mat looked at her carefully. She was slim and boyish in appearance.
Her lips were full and expressive. She returned his stare.

 

 

"What are you looking at?"

 

 

"You are a very pretty girl," Mat said. He realized it sounded foolish.

 

 

"You mean I'm pretty for a colored girl," she answered.

 

 

"I didn't mean that, but it's probably true. We all tend to judge other
races by the standards we like in our own."

 

 

She didn't answer.

 

 

"Do you mind if I take a swim?"

 

 

She laughed. "So I can see how pretty your white body is?"

 

 

Mat stood up. "As a matter of fact, my body is not pretty, but rather
hairy." He took off his pants, and walked into the river with his
underwear on. The water was hot, but it made him feel better. The mud
oozed between his toes. He enjoyed the cool squishing of it. Finally,
he came cut of the water and sat down in the shade of a tree.

 

 

"I wish you'd get dressed; someone might see you and think it funny."

 

 

"You don't know how funny it is," Mat said, looking at his bony knees.
He wondered what Dr. Tangle would say if he could see him. "Do you know
I haven't been swimming in nearly three years? I've been so busy reading
about God and contemplating theological matters that I haven't had time
to sit down and enjoy His work."

 

 

She looked at him curiously. "You must go to Midhaven College?"

 

 

Mat nodded. "I graduate from Divinity School tomorrow. How did you guess?"

 

 

"There's a lot of queers like you there."

 

 

"Who said so?"

 

 

"Pa. My father. I told him I wanted to go there, but he said I could learn
a lot more just reading by myself. Besides, I guess they have no room for
Negroes."

 

 

"That's right," Mat nodded. "They have no room for Negroes. Some of our
dear white children might get blemished with the contact." He wondered
who determined the policy. Obviously no overt statement had ever been
made. As a matter of fact, until the past two or three years, when an
influx of Negroes into the Helltown area had occurred, there had been
no need for a stated policy or a hidden one. It was unlikely that any
of the Negroes living in Helltown could afford even the moderate tuition
at Midhaven College.

 

 

"What does your father do?"

 

 

"My father is a minister," she said, proudly. "He reads a lot of books,
too. Most of the colored folks around here aren't very religious. Right
now he works at the Weathersham Hotel . . . in the kitchen. He is a good
cook, too." Honey spoke the words simply. She looked out across the river.
"I wish you'd get dressed." Mat pulled on his pants and shirt over his
damp underwear. He looked at the book that Honey had been reading. It was
a book of essays for freshmen college students. "Why are you reading that?"

 

 

"Because I like to know about things. This man sees things about nature
I could never have thought myself." She pointed to an essay by Emerson.
Mat was about to remark that Emerson was all words and had no sound
philosophical scheme. He held the words back, realizing that such a remark
was pointless. It shows my own lack of comprehension, he thought. This
girl was gaining something from Emerson. She was reading him because she
wanted to. It was a lot more than most of the Midhaven freshmen could
say. He would like to take this girl to the graduation dance tomorrow
night. Without weighing the idea, he asked her if she would go.

 

 

Honey stood up. Her dark hair whipped against her face. She looked at
him solicitously. "Do you really feel all right?"

 

 

"Fine," he said. He bent over and kissed her cheek quickly. "I really mean
it -- I would like to have you go," he mumbled into her surprised face.

 

 

"I've never been to a dance like that," she said wistfully. "But it's
really a rather silly idea. When you think it over a minute, I'm sure
you'll agree." She walked toward the road. "So long, Mister, I'll see
you sometime."

 

 

Mat walked back along the road leading to Latham. A long line of automobiles
had already turned in from Route 6 jamming the narrower road that led into
the shipyard. The new shift was arriving.

 

 

He walked by the slowly moving cars, noticing the occupants. All of them
looked tired and exasperated. One red-faced man kept opening the door of
his car, holding one hand on the wheel, and one foot on the running board,
while be peered anxiously over the roofs of the cars ahead of him. Six other
men were crowded into one car. They kept asking him what the trouble was.
"Leave the damn car here and let's walk," a belligerent voice yelled.
"Alfred Latham better get this road fixed. We need some parking place
around here if he expects to build these ships so damned fast."

 

 

Work, work, Mat thought. They all hate it . . . yet they are all in
a fever to get there and punch the clock. Gasoline fumes drifting low
on the humid air filled his nostrils. He felt a return of his nausea. He
kept thinking about Honey. What had possessed him to ask her to the dance?
. . . and then to kiss her cheek? He knew that if he ever walked through
the reception line, introducing Honey Johnson to the faculty, particularly
Dr. and Mrs. Tangle, he would be embroiled in trouble. Nothing would
actually happen. Doctor Tangle would be coldly cordial, but in the glint
of his eyes would be the certainty that the next morning Mat Chilling
would be called into his office and the lid would blow off. Alms and
prayers for the colored; that was a duty demanded by God. But to take
a Negro to the social event of the college year was something that your
future parishioners simply would not tolerate.

 

 

Yet, Mat knew that he wasn't being fully honest with himself. He felt
depressed. He knew that his motive in asking Honey to the dance was
not based on any sudden interest in the lot of Negroes in Helltown.
He simply had a childish urge to thumb his nose at Doctor Tangle.
To do it, he had considered involving a trusting, unsophisticated colored
girl. It worried him to find depths of his personality revealed in such
an unpleasant light. Was Mat Chilling going to be a real servant of God,
or a charlatan willing to sacrifice an innocent girl to a wild obsession?

 

 

Deep in his thoughts, Mat trudged wearily in the gutter of the road
toward the bus stop. An automobile edged close to him. He jumped away
and continued walking, oblivious.

 

 

"For the good Lord's sake! Mat Chilling! Do you want a lift into Midhaven,
or don't you?"

 

 

Startled, Mat turned. It was Peoples McGroaty, editor and owner of the
Midhaven Herald.

 

 

"I've been tooting this damned horn at you for the past five minutes,
but you continued to walk along thinking your heavenly thoughts."

 

 

"I'm afraid my thoughts weren't very spiritual, Peoples." Mat got into
the car.