3

I got hurt in the Cornell game.

It was my own fault, really. At a dramatic moment, I made the unfortunate error of calling their center a “fucking Canuck^[26].” I forgot that four members of their team were Canadians – all, it turned out, extremely patriotic, well-built and within earshot^[27]. To make matters worse, the penalty was called on me: five minutes for fighting. I could see our coach tearing his hair out as I climbed into the box.

Jackie Felt, our coach, came over. It was only then I realized that the whole right side of my face was a bloody mess. “Jesus Christ,” he kept repeating as he worked me over with a styptic pencil^[28].

“Jesus, Ollie.”

I sat quietly, staring blankly ahead. I was ashamed to look onto the ice, where my worst fears were quickly realized: Cornell scored. The Red fans screamed. Cornell could very possibly win the game – and with it, the Ivy title. Shit – and I had barely gone through half my penalty.

By now the fans for both sides had forgotten me. Only one spectator still had his eyes on the penalty box. Yes, he was there.

Sitting among the Harvard rooters was Oliver Barrett III.

Across the gulf of ice, Old Stonyface observed in expressionless silence as the last bit of blood on the face of his only son was stopped. What was he thinking, do you think? “Tch tch tch^[29]” or something like that?

But of course, who could tell what he was thinking? Oliver Barrett III was a walking, sometimes talking Mount Rushmore^[30]. Stonyface.

The crowd roared again, but really wild this time. Another Cornell goal. They were ahead. And I had two minutes of penalty to go! Davey Johnston skated past me, angry. And did I notice tears in his eyes? I mean, okay, the title was at stake, but Jesus – tears! However Davey, our captain, had this incredible luck: seven years and he’d never played on a losing side, whether in high school or in college. It was like a legend. And he was a senior. And this was our last serious game.

Which we lost, 6–3.

* * *

After the game, an X-ray determined that no bones were broken, and then twelve stitches were sewn into my cheek by Richard Selzer, M.D.^[31]

There was nobody in the locker room. I thought they had been at the motel already. I supposed no one wanted to see me or speak to me. With this terrible bitter taste in my mouth – I felt so bad I could taste it – I packed my gear and walked outside. There were not many Harvard fans out there.

“You’ll probably want a steak,” said a familiar voice. It was Oliver Barrett III. How typical of him to suggest the old-fashioned cure for a black eye^[32].

“Thank you, Father,” I said. “The doctor took care of it.” I indicated the gauze pad covering Selzer’s twelve stitches.

“I mean for your stomach, son.”

At dinner, we had yet another in our continuing series of nonconversations, all of which start with “How’ve you been?” and conclude with “Anything I can do?”

“How’ve you been, son?”

“Fine, sir.”

“Does your face hurt?”

“No, sir.”

It was beginning to hurt like hell.

“I’d like Jack Wells to look at it on Monday.”

“Not necessary, Father.”

“He’s a specialist—”

“The Cornell doctor wasn’t exactly a veterinarian,” I said, hoping to reduce my father’s usual snobbish enthusiasm for specialists, experts, and all other “top people.”

“Too bad,” remarked Oliver Barrett III, and first I thought he tried to joke, “you did get a beastly cut.”

“Yes, sir,” I said. (Was I supposed to chuckle?)

And then I wondered if my father’s quasi-witticism^[33] had not been some sort of reproach for my actions on the ice.

“Or were you implying that I behaved like an animal this evening?”

His expression suggested some pleasure at the fact that I had asked him. But he simply replied, “It was you who mentioned veterinarians.” At this point, I decided to study the menu.

As the main course was served, Old Stony launched into another of his sermons concerning victories and defeats. He noted that we had lost the title (very sharp of you, Father), but after all, in sport what really counts is not the winning but the playing. I gave him his quota of “Yes sir’s” and shut up.

We ran the usual conversation, which centers around Old Stony’s favorite nontopic, my plans.

“Tell me, Oliver, have you heard from the Law School?”

“Actually, Father, I haven’t definitely decided on law school.”

“I was merely asking if law school had definitely decided on you.”

Was this another witticism? Was I supposed to smile?

“No, sir. I haven’t heard.”

“I could give Price Zimmermann a ring—”

“No!” I interrupted, “Please don’t, sir.”

“Not to influence,” O.B. III said very uprightly, “just to inquire.”

“Father, I want to get the letter with everyone else. Please.”

“Yes. Of course. Fine.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Besides there really isn’t much doubt about your getting in,” he added.

I don’t know why, but O.B. III has a way of^[34] disparaging me even while saying laudatory phrases.

“It’s not so easy,” I replied. “They don’t have a hockey team, after all.”

I have no idea why I was putting myself down^[35]. Maybe it was because he was taking the opposite view.

“You have other qualities,” said Oliver Barrett III, but didn’t go into details. (I doubt if it was possible for him to do.)

I can never predict what subject my father will set before me next.

“And there’s always the Peace Corps^[36],” he remarked, completely out of the blue^[37].

“Sir?” I asked, not quite sure whether he was making a statement or asking a question.

“I think the Peace Corps is a fine thing, don’t you?” he said.

“Well,” I replied, “it’s certainly better than the War Corps.”

We were even.^[38] I didn’t know what he meant and he didn’t know what I meant. Was that enough for the topic? Would we now discuss other current affairs or government programs? No. I had momentarily forgotten that our quintessential theme is always my plans.

“I would certainly have no objection to your joining the Peace Corps, Oliver.”

“It’s mutual, sir,” I replied. I’m sure Old Stony never listens to me anyway, so I’m not surprised that he didn’t react to my quiet little sarcasm.

“But among your classmates,” he continued, “what is the attitude there?”

“Sir?”

“Do they feel the Peace Corps is important to their lives?”

I guess my father needs to hear the phrase as much as a fish needs water: “Yes, sir.”

* * *

At about eleven-thirty, I walked him to his car.

“Anything I can do, son?”

“No, sir. Good night, sir.”

And he drove off.

Yes, there are planes between Boston and Ithaca, New York, but Oliver Barrett III chose to drive.

Not that those many hours at the wheel could be taken as some kind of parental gesture. My father simply likes to drive. Fast. I have no doubt that Oliver Barrett III was going to break his speed record, set the year previous after we had beaten Cornell and taken the title.

I went back to the motel to phone Jenny.

It was the only good part of the evening. I told her all about the fight and I could tell she enjoyed it. Not many of her wonky musician friends either threw or received punches.

“Did you at least total the guy that hit you?” she asked.

“Yeah. Totally. I creamed him.”

“I regret I didn’t see it. Maybe you’ll beat up somebody in the Yale game, huh?”

“Yeah.”

I smiled. How she loved the simple things in life.

4

“Jenny’s on the downstairs phone.”

This information was announced to me by the girl on bells^[39], although I had not identified myself or my purpose in coming to Jenny’s dorm that Monday evening. I quickly concluded that this was good for me. Obviously the “Clifeif ” who greeted me read the Crimson and knew who I was. Okay, that had happened many times. More significant was the fact that Jenny had been mentioning that she was dating me.

“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll wait here.”

“Too bad about Cornell. The Crime^[40] says four guys attacked you.”

“Yeah. And I got the penalty. Five minutes.”

“Yeah.”

The difference between a friend and a fan is that with the latter you quickly run out of conversation.

“Jenny off the phone yet?”

She checked her switchboard, replied, “No.”

Who was Jenny talking to? Some musical wonk? It was not unknown to me that Martin Davidson, conductor of the Bach Society orchestra, considered himself to have a franchise on Jenny’s attention^[41]. Not body; I don’t think the guy could wave more than his baton. Anyway, I would put a stop to this usurpation of my time.

“Where’s the phone booth?”

“Around the corner.”

I walked into the lounge area. From afar^[42] I could see Jenny on the phone. She had left the booth door open. I walked slowly, casually, hoping she would catch sight of me – my bandages, my injuries – and she would slam down the receiver and rush to my arms. As I approached, I could hear fragments of conversation.

“Yeah. Of course! Absolutely. Oh, me too, Phil. I love you too, Phil.”

I stopped walking. Who was she talking to? It wasn’t Davidson – there was no Phil in any part of his name. I had long ago checked him out in our Class Register: Martin Eugene Davidson, 70 Riverside Drive, New York, High School of Music and Art. His photo suggested sensitivity, intelligence and about fifty pounds^[43] less than me. But why was I bothering about Davidson? Clearly both he and I were denied by Jennifer Cavilleri for someone to whom she was at this moment blowing kisses into the phone!

I had been away only forty-eight hours, and some bastard named Phil had crawled into bed with Jenny!

“Yeah, Phil, I love you too. Bye.”

As she was hanging up, she saw me, and without blushing, she smiled and waved me a kiss. How could she be so twofaced?

She kissed me lightly on my unhurt cheek.

“Hey – you look awful.”

“I’m injured, Jen.”

“Does the other guy look worse?”

“Yeah. Much. I always make the other guy look worse.”

I said that as ominously as I could, sort of implying that I would punch out any rivals who would creep into bed with Jenny while I was out of sight and evidently out of mind^[44]. She grabbed my sleeve and we started toward the door.

“Night, Jenny,” called the girl on bells.

“Night, Sara Jane,” Jenny called back.

When we were outside, about to step into my MG^[45], I put the question as casually as I could.

“Say, Jen…”

“Yeah?”

“Uh – who’s Phil?”

She answered calmly as she got into the car: “My father.”

I wasn’t going to believe a story like that.

“You call your father Phil?”

“That’s his name. What do you call yours?”

Jenny had once told me she had been raised by her father, a baker, in Cranston, Rhode Island. When she was very young, her mother was killed in a car crash. She had told me all this explaining why she had no driver’s license. Her father, in every other way “a truly good guy” (her words), was incredibly superstitious about letting his only daughter drive.

“What do you call yours?” she asked again.

I had been so distracted that I hadn’t heard her question.

“My what?”

“What term do you use when you speak of your father?”

I answered with the term I’d always wanted to use.

“Sonovabitch.^[46]’

“To his face?” she asked.

“I never see his face.”

“He wears a mask?”

“In a way, yes. Of stone. Of absolute stone.”

“Come on – he must be proud as hell. You’re a big Harvard jock.”

I looked at her. I guess she didn’t know everything, after all.

“So was he, Jenny.”

“Bigger than you?”

I liked the way she enjoyed my athletic qualities. But I had to shoot myself down by giving her my father’s.

“He rowed single sculls^[47] in the 1928 Olympics.”

“God,” she said. “Did he win?”

“No,” I answered, and I guess she could tell that the fact that he was sixth in the finals actually afforded me some comfort.

“But what does he do to qualify as a sonovabitch?” Jenny asked.

“Make me,” I replied.

“Beg pardon?”

“Make me,” I repeated.

Her eyes widened like saucers. “You mean like incest?” she asked.

“Don’t give me your family problems, Jen. I’ve got enough of my own.”

“Like what, Oliver?” she asked, “like just what is it he makes you do?”

“The ‘right things,’” I said.

“What’s wrong with the ‘right things’?” she asked.

I told her how I hated the fact that I was programmed for the Barrett Tradition. And I had to deliver x amount of achievement every single term.

“Oh yeah,” said Jenny with broad sarcasm, “I notice how you hate getting A’s, being All-Ivy—”

“What I hate is that he expects no less!” Just saying what I had always felt (but never before spoken) made me feel uncomfortable as hell, but now I had to make Jenny understand it all. “And he’s so incredibly unemotional, when I do come through. I mean he just takes me absolutely for granted^[48].”

“But he’s a busy man. Doesn’t he run lots of banks and things?”

“Jesus, Jenny, whose side are you on?”

“Is this a war?” she asked.

“Most definitely,” I replied.

“That’s ridiculous, Oliver.”

She seemed genuinely unconvinced. And there I got my first suspicion of a cultural gap between us.

I mean, three and a half years of Harvard-Radcliffe had pretty much made us into the self-assured intellectuals, but when it came to accepting the fact that my father was made of stone, she stuck to some atavistic Italian-Mediterranean notion of papa-loves-bambinos, and there was no arguing otherwise.

I told her about that ridiculous nonconversation after the Cornell game. This definitely made an impression on her. But the goddamn wrong one.

“He went all the way up to Ithaca to watch a lousy hockey game?”

I tried to explain that my father was all form and no content. She was still obsessed with the fact that he had traveled so far for such a (relatively) trivial sports event.

“Look, Jenny, can we just forget it?”

“Thank God you’re hung up about^[49] your father,” she replied. “That means you’re not perfect.”

“Oh – you mean you are?”

“Hell no, Preppie. If I was, would I be going out with you?”

Back to business as usual.