Harvard Yard (70 page)

Ned looked around and said, “This is one of the few rooms in America where people might recognize an undersecretary of treasury and care what he thinks.”

“Just lower your voice,” said Harriet.

Ned whispered, “Look at Galbraith over there. He looks down on me like I was some kind of pariah, now that I work for Lyndon Johnson instead of JFK.”

“He’s six-seven, for God’s sake,” said Harriet. “He looks down on everyone. We’re concerned about out our son, not the opinions of Harvard professors about you.”

Ned grunted and took a sip of his scotch.

“If it matters,” George joked, “this Harvard professor thinks you’re a good father to come up from Washington because your son has been ‘admonished’ by the faculty.”

“A full faculty meeting, was it?” asked Ned. “All the bright lights and great men, all hearing my son’s name uttered in infamy?”

“Few students were discussed individually,” said George. “Seventy-four were put on probation. Franklin and a hundred and seventy more received a slap on the wrist.”

On the far side of the room, a man stood suddenly, as if gripped by an overwhelming emotion, dropped his journal on the table, and came over to the Wedges. He was short, slightly built, and wore glasses with frames of tortoiseshell and brass. He also grew his white hair to his collar and favored western-style string ties in the land of regimental stripes: George Wald, professor of biology.

“Excuse me, Professor Drake,” he said. “But I wanted you to know that your eloquence in support of those students was appreciated at the faculty meeting.”

“Thank you.”

Then Wald turned his gaze to the Wedges. “Your son seems to have been raised to think for himself. I congratulate you both for that.”

“Thank you,” said Harriet. “We’re proud of him.”

Then Wald narrowed his focus on Ned. “Next time you see LBJ, tell him he needs his eyes checked. He can’t see the forest for the trees.” And with a curt nod, Wald was gone.

Ned’s lips were still pulled into the smile of a man accepting a compliment about his son, but the rest of his expression had collapsed. “That old son of a bitch.”

“Your administration has just been insulted by a Nobel laureate,” said George, “cited for his work in the physiology of vision.”

“So,” cracked Harriet, “he used the right metaphor.”

“‘Can’t see the forest for the trees,’” said Ned. “Ha-ha. Is he with the SDS, too?”

“No. But he’s concerned,” said George. “How many more boys have to die?”

“They don’t have to die. Just serve. Like you and I did.”

George said, “I served by marrying Harvard brilliance and government money to bring the world to the brink of nuclear disaster. Now I do what I can to pull us back.”

“You won a war, George,” said Ned. “You saved lives. Maybe mine. And you’ve been taking government grants ever since.”

“Governments can be dangerous, though,” said George.

“Is that why someone at Los Alamos gave our secrets to the Russians?”

“There were spies there. Klaus Fuchs, the German . . . perhaps others. They decided the world would be a better place with a balance of power.”

“‘Useful idiots’ is what Lenin called them,” said Ned.

George laughed bitterly and took a sip of bourbon. “The Russians knew what we were doing all along, and all that security cost me a girl I still think about.”

Ned looked at his watch, tapped his foot, finished his drink. “Where is that boy?”

But Harriet was looking at George. “Did you ever try to contact her?”

“I wrote to her a few times. But she’d moved on. All for the best, considering that the House Un-American Activities Committee got after her father in the fifties.”

“Yeah,” said Ned. “That would have played hell with your government grants.”

“Touché,” said George.

“Hello, everyone,” said Franklin.

It surprised none of them that dinner did not go well.

Ned had three scotches in him by the time they sat in the dining room. This made him quicker than usual to anger, more certain than usual of his opinions.

Franklin wore a veneer of contrition that his father quickly stripped to a layer of defiance beneath.

Harriet smoked eight cigarettes and had a case of motherly fidgets, as Ned called them—verbal fidgets as she kept jumping about, looking for conversational topics that would defer the inevitable argument, tabletop fidgets as she played with the silverware, her cigarette lighter, and the food on her plate.

George just watched and hoped to play the mediator.

At one point, Harriet turned the conversation to George’s hobby, rare books. This led to some speculation about an old family treasure—“a small gift of majestic proportion.” George said he was working on a few theories.

Ned said he couldn’t care less, because he and his brother would have to be dead twenty-one years before his sons could access the safe-deposit boxes that Victor had left them. Then Ned turned on Franklin. “My father believed that all the Wedges are in this together. So . . . when one Wedge engages in troublemaking, he’s not just hurting himself. He’s hurting the whole family.”

“I could tell you as much, Dad,” said Franklin, “when you go to Washington.”

“Dammit!” Ned slammed his hand on the table. “It’s not as easy as it used to be to get into this place. Just being a Wedge doesn’t always cut it.”

“It worked for me,” said Franklin.

“I want it to work for your brother, too,” said Ned. “But why should Harvard want another Wedge when the one who’s here has been
admonished?
”

Franklin did not answer. Instead, he turned to his mother and said, “I’ve been thinking of majoring in English.”

“That’s wonderful, dear.” Harriet put her hand on his arm.

George tried to play the mediator. “There’s a long tradition of rebellion at Harvard, Ned. Harvard likes the iconoclasts and troublemakers.”

“I don’t,” said Ned. “And that’s not what Will is, anyway. He’s a serious boy.”

“And I’m not?” Franklin stood and pulled off his necktie. “Will is serious about girls and prep school grades. I’m serious about . . . about serious things.”

And with that, Franklin Wedge stalked through the dining room, past the famous professors enjoying their
boeuf bourguignonne
and their wine, through the paneled foyer, past the concierge, who bid him a polite good night that brought no answer, through the vestibule, and into the autumn night.

Franklin was angry, and he was still hungry.

He looked at his watch: 6:50. Still time to get a meal in the Freshman Union, just across the courtyard from the Faculty Club. He jammed his necktie into his pocket and headed for a supper he might enjoy, a supper with friends.

The student handbook said, “One of the immutable laws of Harvard University is that gentlemen shall wear jackets and ties in dining halls at all times.” Franklin supposed that there must have been a time when such a law had been taken seriously. But this was 1967. No one who knew the lyrics to “Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” would be caught dead in a tie, if he could help it.

So the freshmen rebelled over ties. They went to the Union wearing T-shirt, jacket, jeans . . . and a tie. Or work shirt, Bermuda shorts, windbreaker . . . and a tie. Or, the best that he had seen, bathrobe, pajamas, tuxedo shirt . . . and
black
tie.

And every day, the Union doorkeeper, a beleaguered-looking guy with receding hair and a strong Boston accent, upheld the immutable law. No one knew his name, so they called him Windsor-Knot Wally. He wore a blue blazer, a white shirt, and a crimson tie, and he watched for violators.

A few hated him, but most knew he was just a guy doing a job. If you got into the food line and weren’t wearing a tie, he would produce a skinny black rayon rattail and, if you chose to put it on, you would be admitted to the wonders of mystery meat, chipped beef, and red bug juice, all consumed in a magnificent hall beneath a portrait of Theodore Roosevelt. Or you could give him an argument, and he would ask you for your bursar’s card. Then he would ask you to leave.

To Franklin, it was all silly and arbitrary. There were people dying in Vietnam, and at Harvard they were worried about neckties. After the debacle in the Faculty Club, he was in no mood for anything silly or arbitrary. So he wasn’t putting his tie back on.

He was almost disappointed when he did not see Wally minding the door. Dinner ran from 5:30 to 7:00, so there were just a few students trickling in, and there were loud voices in the kitchen, so Wally must have been off mediating some dispute.

Franklin showed his card, then grabbed a tray and headed for the row of serving ladies, behind their wall of stainless steel, creamed spinach, and Swedish meatballs.

“Excuse me, sir.” Winsdor-Knot Wally appeared from somewhere. He was looking angry and red-faced, but seemed to be doing his best to stay polite.

“What?” said Franklin.

Wally pulled a necktie from his pocket.

“What?” demanded Franklin fiercely, though he knew exactly
what.

Wally said in a very low voice, “I got other troubles in the kitchen tonight. I’m in no mood for any cheap shit. So put on the fuckin’ tie, or get out.”

“What did you say to me?” Franklin acted as insulted as he could.

And just then, there was a thunderous crash in the kitchen.

“Oh, Jesus,” said Wally.

The kitchen door banged open, and Franklin got a glimpse of a dozen plates, some shattered on the floor, others spinning on their edges before they wobbled over. Out came a young man, wiry, well built, with reddish hair that he wore to his shoulders. He saw Wally and said, “Fuck you, Uncle Jack. And fuck every fuckin’ cocksucker in this place.”

Wow,
thought Franklin.

“Walk out that door, Bingo, and you’re fired,” said Wally. “I can’t get you another job.”

“Fuck you. And don’t call me Bingo. My name’s Jimmy. And I ain’t washin’ dishes for minimum wage anymore.”

“You tell him, Jimmy,” said Franklin.

“Fuck you, too, asshole,” said Jimmy.

And Franklin turned on Windsor-Knot Wally. “And fuck you, too, for exploitin’ workers and makin’ students wear neckties.”

All that Windsor-Knot Wally could say was “Jesus Christ.”

Franklin stalked out, too. “Hey. Hey, wait.”

“What?” said Jimmy.

Franklin caught up to him. “Way to give it to the man back there.”

“The man?” He laughed. “Oh, yeah.”

“Can I walk with you?” asked Franklin. “If they come after you, they should know that the students have solidarity with the workers.”

“Oh, yeah? Pisser.”

Franklin offered his hand and his name.

The young guy took it and said, “I’m Jimmy Keegan. And I’m never washin’ another fuckin’ Harvard dish or another fuckin’ Harvard floor.”

“I’m with you, man.”

“Oh, yeah? You with me? Pisser.” And they walked into the Yard. After a time, Keegan said, “So . . . you rich?”

“Not as rich as a guy who flips the bird to the world and walks out on the man.”

Keegan laughed again. “Unh . . . I got an ounce of weed on me. Fifteen bucks. Want to buy?”

Franklin stopped right there, in front of Houghton Library, and looked into Keegan’s eyes. “Are you a narc?”

“What?”

“They always tell us to ask that. If you’re a narc, and I ask, you have to tell me the truth. Are you a narc?”

“No fuckin’ way.”

So Franklin dug into his pocket. He had been at Harvard for six weeks and hadn’t smoked a joint yet. It was time. And from what he heard, fifteen bucks an ounce was a dollar cheaper than you could get it anywhere else.

Chapter Twenty-eight

I
N EARLY
May, Harvard invited all high school seniors who had been accepted to come for a weekend, whether they had decided to go to Harvard or not.

It was a no-pressure sort of thing. Classes on Friday, orientation lectures, some fun on Saturday night. If you wanted to see what student life in Cambridge was all about, this was a good way to do it. Then you could make up your mind.

Peter Fallen was going to the parents’ program. A nice May day, a chance to hear a few lectures. He couldn’t resist.

He and Jimmy came into the Yard through the Class of 1875 Gate, the one with the inscription from Isaiah. Peter resisted a lecture on its meaning. “Open ye the gates that the righteous nation which keepeth the truth may enter in.”

The leaves still had a light green tint that made them look delicate and new, but they had filled out enough that the monstrous Science Center, which now loomed over the north end of the Yard like a creature in a fifties horror movie, could not be seen.

Of course, the Yard never looked greener than in mid-May, or neater. Commencement was coming, so all the brown patches had been sprayed with grass seed in green fertilizer. And just so no one stepped on any of the new grass, miles of wire had been strung along every paved path in the Yard. As commencement week began, all the wire would be unstrung, all the wooden posts put away for another year, and in a single week, all the grass would be trampled again.

But for now, everything was green and growing, with not even a Frisbee game to take away from the scene, because no one could play on the grass.

However, springtime in Cambridge not only brought out the leaves. It also brought out the demonstrators. There was always something to protest. It might be serious, like a war or wage fight; it might be as trivial as the miles of wire that kept students from playing Frisbee in the Yard. But the weapons were always the same—slogans and signs, leaflets and chants.

That day, a group was picketing in front of the president’s office in Massachusetts Hall. Their slogan, chanted and painted: “Save the ’Side! Save the ’Side! No Expansion in Riverside!”

Peter Fallon had learned in his freshman year that if he didn’t want to go hunting for a trash barrel to throw away a leaflet, he should ignore all “leaflet lackeys.” So he ignored the handout that someone offered him and kept walking with his son.

But the guy followed them. “You might want to read this.”

“Not today.”