The Right Kind of Pride

Allen Turner, a busy man with creamy cheeks and a rapid, decisive speech, tempered his hard duty by smiling with the steadiness of a clock. The face supporting the smile broadened magnificently with approval of his words. He smiled past a missing tooth. "You don't play poker? OK," he said to Dan Shaper, "you don't have to. This is the free demcratic world. You don't like the programs the fellows all like? Okay, the TV isn't a law, just for rec-ration. You had a ticket to the last game and you didn't go? It's your prillege. But boy," he added mournfully, "you don't ever play poker."

Dan Shaper bowed his head before this correction, just and measured as it was, administered by the President of the Chapter. Modestly he showed Allen the ridges of his scalp. His hair was growing back in little pinfeathers after their ritual shaving. He no longer wore the beanie.

Very friendly and fraternal, Allen went on with Allen's important phrases: Prepare for positive living ... develop the social side ... getting along, being well-liked, and good contacts ... Allen had risen to high office in his junior year. The voice faded in strongly: "We got Monsanto men who listen to us, we got G.M. men. We got Allis-Chalmers in our pocket, boy."

He paused. Now it was up to Dan to say something. Smiling, nodding, pulling the lobe of one ear, all excellent chapter spirit, Allen encouraged him to confess error and forthrightly resolve upon virtue. Allen put his tongue in the empty socket where he had lost a tooth. Patiently he sucked. He waited.

Skinny, quick, carefully controlled, Dan Shaper had searched about, hungering, during his first year at college. The winter had been sad -- like his own vacant, fatherless home. The first spring had been desperate -- like the mood of his mother when she remembered love. Watching the fraternity boys in easy fellowship with each other, or strolling confidently with their girls, Dan had gritted his teeth to say, No, no, stop! He would not carry his isolation through college with him.

The hungering shone in his eyes as ardent energy. He was both clever and shy, and yet had a touch of the easy lounging manners of the father he barely remembered. Before long he was asked again, and this time he joined, and now he wanted to be liked by these friends who had tested him for virtue and performance, approved him for display, and finally initiated him into brotherhood. They depended upon him to be one of the group. It was nice to be needed. He turned from the dark panels of the rec room to the strained leather couches, the collapsing ping-pong table, and the familiar lounging forms before the TV at one end of the long room and about the study table at the other end. It was an easy place, warm as kitchen life. His loneliness had been a terrible thing.

Allen abruptly stopped waiting. "Well? What's there to think about?"

"I wish," said Dan, and let Allen interrupt him.

"Don't think I'm telling you this just because I'm respossible for the whole Chapter," Allen said. "I'm speaking as a friend, duty aside. I voted for you personly."

With an effort Dan raised his eyes to Allen's. "I really appreciate how you took me in. I never expected ----"

"Don't misunnerstand me, boy," Allen insisted. "We like you to be serrus, a scholship student. How much your old man has in the bank or sound common stocks don't matter so much. The war changed all that. We need balance in the Chapter -- we already had athletes, old-type families, big men in activities like me, that element there. We need you the way you are, Danny boy! But one and the same, you got to show your true colors for being one of us ----"

"I know, I'm learning," Dan said to this very mature young man.

"Let me finish, please." For the first time Allen's voice turned sharp and cold and the smile froze into a quirk of tonguing the empty socket. "I was talking to you, boy, so you listen here to me now. Your individellism goes too far. It's not c'structive. If you want to be a loner, like I mean dating townies like that girl, you didn't have to join the Chapter. Nobody twisted your arm. In this moddun free world, we all do whatever we want, but when we decide, we got to take the consekences." The smile returned with his moral calm. He patted Dan on the back. "That's all I have to say, boy." He nodded encouragingly. "Now you talk."

Allen gave him this moment for confession and repentance. To humiliate himself just a bit would establish the old good-feeling, that sense of responsibility to a group upon which every mortal man's health depends. Allen was big enough to forgive and forget on behalf of all the boys, and say no more about it, if only Dan could find the right words -- shy and modest ones, but stalwart all the same, in the best traditions of the fraternity. Again Dan tried to meet his eyes, failed again, and said in haste and unsuccessfully, wishing only that Allen would stop sucking the empty socket in his gums:

"All right, all right, I'll play poker with the fellows next time."

• • •

Lucille lived below the hill from campus. To save bus fare Dan made the long walk on foot down that coppery strewn slope toward the darker town autumn with its leaves frayed in the gutters. His trouble made the walk seem less long. He wanted time to think out Allen Turner and the fraternity and why he needed them.

At the curb part way into town someone was vainly trying to start an automobile, working the sick battery, roo-hum, roo-hum, while a thick blanket of wet leaves clung to the roof and other stray leaves mottled the hood. The man inside, mouth working, feet and hands punching, sweating ferociously in his topcoat, punished the starter button and gas pedal without mercy.

Dan shook his head, scuffing through leaves and tasting their acid burning. He would do anything to hold on now. He could give up Allen and the others, yes, he could do that; but he could not let them give him up.

The mark of the Yankee, he thought wryly. And smiled at his self-conscious college-boy naming of the thought. At home they wouldn't call themeselves Yankees: they were just stubborn was all. Besides, the warmth and laughter of the House was something for which he had been parched since the news came that his father had gone down over Calais.

The evening stroll with Lucille went badly. "What's the matter with you?" she demanded almost at once, knowing that he was not all for her tonight.

Despite her lovely, pale, almost silvery hair, worn unfashionably long, despite her huge eyes of that magical blue which can change in an instant from a wintery withdrawal to an ardent summer sky azure, she was gawky and shy herself, needing great tenderness from him before she could give him any of her own. A townie, grown up to warnings about the college boys on the hill. They only want what they want, and then they marry back home or one of the sorority girls. "Dan? Don't you like me tonight?" she asked. "You thinking about someone else?"

"No, no. I like you very much." How could he like anyone but this tall, long-waisted, silvery and quiet girl?

"You don't even look at me or call me Lucille. I'm tired. I need to go to bed early tonight."

"Lucille, let's not go back yet. Please."

"I want to go home, Dan. You don't even say you like my dress. I worked on it all day. I wanted something new to wear for Saturday."

"Lucille, wait, you're not giving me a chance about anything."

"I'm sorry. I guess I'm just tired. I thought you could make me feel better."

He heard the pleading shrillness of his own voice: "Then let me try," -- and knew it was no good. "Would you like to stop for ----?"

"I want to go home right now, Dan."

She permitted her hand to rest in his without gripping it. He did not let her go, fearing the moment when she would no longer be with him, even in this bad way with him. And almost her last words were, as he fumbled and pressed clumsily against her at the door, his shyness turned to pushing, his need brutally excluding her, turning her away as he wrestled like any stupid youth: "What is the matter with you?"

"Nothing you can't help!"

For the time of a single failing breath beneath his mouth, her body went soft and split, like a ripe plum under the midsummer blaze -- then she gasped, stiffening her reply to mere anger and elbows. She beat at his chest with both fists. He fell away.

"I'm sorry. I'm not myself, Lucille. I'm sorry."

She was furious, aroused despite herself, shivering in her new dress, and made still more cold and distant by fright at her secret ache of response to his strange violence. "Stop it! Is this the way they tell you to handle the townies? Oh I know you," -- and she used a girlish word which he hated: "Do you have to get grabby? Now stop it."

I, I I, he started to say, wanting to tell her of his trouble, trouble up on the hill at the House and now trouble in town with her, but he lost the strength for explanations. A girl is a mystery, and says grabby when you turn all the way to her because you are a stranger to yourself.

He had shown disrespect to his date. All right, then give her a dose of courtesy.

"I'm sorry," he said.

She relented at the return of his shyness. She worked against her own heavy breathing. "That's all right. Please don't say it like that. I wish ... Never mind."

"Good night, Lucille."

She gave him her lips chastely to kiss. He leaned forward, lightly encircling her shoulders in his arms, with only the heat of his mouth reminiscent of the brutal straining of a few moments ago. Despite herself, Lucille regretted that harsh secret person so abruptly fled, but she could only ask once more, "Dan, whatever is the matter with you tonight?"

On his long walk back up the hill, the sleek sweat started again under his new suit, and the chill breezes made him feel feverish. Yes, it's true that trouble, once finding a door, sprawls and breathes foully in every corner of a man's life. Trouble with Allen and the Chapter led to trouble with Lucille, and these troubles made it hard to study, and troubles with his scholarship were surely due. All this made it difficult to write home -- thus trouble with his mother. And the thought of it turned him hot, turned him cold, and what if he caught some disease, the flu or something, and had to take to bed?

No! he decided. He would not look for release by illness. He resolved to stop perspiring in this stop-and-start way, not to catch a germ, not to do it. He paused near the car with the bad battery, glistening under its wet fringe of leaves, unmoved, shut, abandoned beneath the streetlight. Someone had cursed; someone had failed and gone away. He made himself smile.

Better, better. He would call Lucille tomorrow, and maybe send her a box of candy with a note composed now, before bed, to tell her how he felt about her. It must be earnest but elegant, something she might even want to whisper over proudly with her best friend -- and yet it would take its lonely sense from their gathered memories together of a fine dark autumn. (One night, after walking so late that it was dawn when they stopped, they had gone to have breakfast together in a steaming early morning restaurant. Very precisely caring for him, she had buttered his toast, sliced it, and offered him the warm bread with a smile which, more than any other gesture, promised that she might someday be his.) As he wrote, he thought of her tender, tilted grace when she buttered toast for him. She would understand his stammering. Wanting him as he needed her, the someday was already and now. Or so they might both feel.

The letter was painfully made up, working to tell the truth without spoiling it, difficult. Writing to her helped him to remember and hold on.

He sat awhile at the table downstairs in the rec room. Most of the men were still out on their Saturday dates, but the few who were playing cards left him in peace. He was grateful for that, said goodnight without interrupting their game, and went up to bed.

• • •

Usually the brothers lay slugabed on Sunday mornings, but when Dan went to the House kitchen to make his coffee, he found Allen long awake, waiting for him near the stove, dressed, combed with much water, his face cheerful at the cheeks and wet at the temples.

"Had a good date?" Allen asked. "The fellows say you got in before midnight. What's the matter, that girl of yours having her sick days? Why you in bed so long? Dreaming? Or were you (continued on page 26) Right Kind of Pride (continued from page 22) awake and thinking, boy?"

"Thinking about what?" Dan flushed. He had tossed hotly, unwilling to begin Sunday, yes, and thinking of Lucille.

"About what I said -- my frenly advice."

"Sure," Dan agreed, dryly working this around into a joke, "sure." His longing for Lucille was a tightness of chest and belly every morning unless the alarm routed him out for a class. I joined the fraternity because I was alone, he would explain. Well, I'm just another townie, she would say, I wouldn't know about that. You feel better now? And he would answer very simply, responsible to her need: I've met you, Lucille. And she would say ...

Allen elbowed the fantasy away. "Well; thinking isn't enough in this moddun world," he continued. "When I anlized your problem for you, boy, I wasn't just bulling around -- issue of the uttermost portance. You got to straighten up and fly right. I'm telling you brother to broth, not because I'm Presdent of the Chapt."

"OK, you're right, I will," Dan said, much too fast. He needed the coffee and wanted privacy for warming his hands over the cup and figuring out Lucille.

Allen did not go. He blocked the way, his body settling without moving. His face darkened. Hiding the vacant gum, the small full mouth stopped smiling. Easy victories did not please Allen. The glitter at his forehead was no longer water from combing; perspiration swelled in little droplets. "Just a sec, Shaper," he said. "Way-tup. Not so fast, boy."

Dan watched this pensiveness with an unreasoning flutter of panic in his stomach. It was a long Sunday for quarreling. He didn't like that part of brotherhood; it was too much like his own meddling relatives. The bland false faces that appeared abruptly at the several doors to the kitchen were ready. It had all been arranged, and Allen's solemnity was another sham, part of the play.

His trial, conducted along lines of strict democracy in the fine old mansion, was scheduled for that very afternoon. He had the right to choose a defense attorney. Only Allen, as President, could not serve -- he regretted, he had to be judge -- but anyone else Dan wanted. In a democratic way, the Chapter as a whole would sit as jury.

Dan looked at his brothers. They watched without speaking. "I'll defend myself," Dan said.

"That's your prillege, of course." Allen shrugged. "Privilege. But our procedure is merely to p'tect you from yourself, Dan, you should know that. We're all your brothers."

"I'm not afraid."

"We're a demcratic club. Maybe you want to be alone now to think things through?" The gap in his teeth abruptly disappeared and reappeared. The plump body leaned solicitously toward Dan. "You prolly have lots to think over, fella."

"Yes."

"Any questions?"

"May I know what I'm accused of?"

Allen smiled and touched his arm, sorrowing at the duty to report such grave charges: "Natch, this is a d'mocracy. Billy Kay, our pre-law senior, has put the complaint in correct form, but I speak as man to man." He paused before pronouncing the accusation, very careful, giving every syllable its value: "Arrogance. Lack of Brotherhood. Insufficient Belongingness. Lone Wolfism. Any further questions?"

There were none.

The Chapter sat whispering away the morning, giving Dan his right to quiet alone in his room while he thought through the charge. To plead guilty would indicate an almost perfect humility and might earn special forgiveness from the brothers. "It's the right kind of pride," Billy Kay told him, "the kind the fellows would appreciate." Curled in a tight arch as he lay fully clothed on the unmade bed, Dan admitted his guilt to himself, felt it and felt punished, but did not know if he could admit it in the mock seriousness of a mock trial. He tried thinking of Lucille to make himself strong. He needed strength to take her; he could not draw on her while she too was mysteriously not yet his. Stiff and pale, he imagined kissing her hair, her distant eyes, the full mouth which once swelled under his teeth -- but he was not yet sure of her. Perhaps he really did suffer under the wrong kind of pride.

• • •

The first unfavorable impression made by Dan's neglecting to shave, shower, and dress in his best charcoal grays was dissipated by his pale, modest, bowed tonsure as he heard the charge and the testimony.

Item: Alleged sarcastic attitude for card-playing. (I don't care, it's a matter of taste, I don't have the money.)

Item: Quitting after winning one game of ping pong, without giving Billy Kay a return match. (I had to study, and besides, he could never beat me with that weak backhand of his.)

Item: Persistent silence, hasty eating, and running to his room after meals. (Yes, I like my room. How can I explain that I feel less lonely with you all in the house, but still need privacy?)

Item: On the day of the Greenville game, when the House chartered a bus so that all could go together ... (Guilty, I wanted to spend that last Indian summer Saturday with Lucille.)

Item, item, item.

Guilty, guilty, guilty. Dan assented to the judgement. But he liked them anyway, he did; he wanted them to like him. With a long dwelling together, couldn't the group come to understand?

And now came his most serious symptom: Lucille. Weren't the college girls good enough? Didn't he know the traditions of the Chapter -- that the sorority across the hill counted on each of them? This year there were several extra girls; he had no excuse. Couldn't he understand that using a townie was an insult to the honor of the club?

I'm not using her, Dan thought, gritting his teeth as he listened.

"Defense?" Allen inquired.

"What?"

"Defend yourself, boy."

"Nothing to say."

"Were you listening?"

"Yes."

The voice rose fiercely: "And you still don't have anything to say, boy? Listen here now -- you admit everything?" Then there was no need for the jury to vote. He denied nothing. Just sentence him.

Allen considered. The born leader, he knew how to impose his silences upon a group. Dan looked at the walls of the rec and study room, finding comfort in their familiar closeness even at this moment, remembering his year of helpless loneliness before the Chapter took him in. He could be grateful for the punishment which would cleanse him of guilt and put him in good standing.

They would not expel him. He had paid for his room and meals, and it was inconvenient to refund the money -- this the practical reason. It would also be a scandal. They needed his record as an honor student. The duties of leadership and the weight of decision lay heavily on Allen's shoulders. Responsibility -- what would a senator do? How would the director of a great corporation behave? Where lay Justice and Security?

Allen started suddenly as if waking from a dream, as if thinking: Mercy! Repentance, Forgiveness, Honest Reform -- these words now flowed freely from his lips. He made a brief but statesmanlike appeal. The applause was spontaneous. Billy Kay led it. Allen modestly raised his hands for silence.

"Is it greeable to you, Dan?" he asked mildly. If Dan would submit to a little further initiation, this would put him back in good standing, cement his place in brotherhood, give proof of sincerity.

Having passed successfully through the initiation only a few months ago, Dan found this most generous -- and yet he began to shiver. He could not understand his delayed anger and fright after such unexpected clemency. He managed to reply yes, and to nod yes, and to stand to say, "Yes, thank you, brothers."

The ceremony was for that very evening. Close the business, declare peace and harmony for the new week ...

Allen patted him reassuringly on the back and invited him up for a drink from his personal bottle. "Buck up, boy," he said, "it's not so bad. I don't even know what it'll be myself. You know how busy I been with you? I haven't made my d'cision."

• • •

They kept Dan in his room. Allen, very busy, bustling, arranging, and managing, popped his head through the doorway to say, "You OK? Don't you worry about a thing." It was a pleasure not to jitter through another dull Sunday evening. Even in his liquored detachment, Dan sensed something like (concluded on page 36) Right Kind of Pride (continued from page 26) gratitude to him for the sin which they could all celebrate together.

There was a conference downstairs, but judging by the way his good friend Allen kept running in and running out, showing his blank tooth and smiling his orders, Dan understood that the decisions were executive ones. Allen would take the responsibility. Well, that was all right. Allen was his friend, his good brother, President of the Chapter.

"Put on your pajamas," -- and Allen ducked out. Dan got undressed while Billy Kay watched him. Billy, plump and friendly, and a bottle, friendly and plump, had been delegated to keep Dan company. Allen didn't want him to worry. Billy watched curiously while he undressed and dressed in the dullest, brownest pajamas he owned.

"Wait just ten more minutes, fella," -- and Allen disappeared. Dan could wait. He folded the top inside and pulled the drawstring. Billy filled his glass, but this time he shook his head. He could take anything. He was ready.

"Is the brother all set?"

"Yes, Allen."

"OK, just a sec." He looked sternly to Billy. "It's now tenna-ten. S'chronize your watch. Bring him down to the rec hall at ezzackly ten o'cla," -- and the door slammed to. Allen was a preparing person tonight. An automobile pulled into the driveway and there was hubhub downstairs. Dan found it odd that, this last time, Allen had not spoken to him. Bring him down. It was as if he were an object or an animal.

"Let's go."

Barefooted, tipsy, cool and sure within, Dan moved under Billy's command. He followed obediently down the carpeted stairways -- the tufted wool pleasant on his bare toes -- across the linoleum of the kitchen -- slippery and cold it was -- and into the basement from the back way. As instructed, Billy led him into the laundry room.

A large unshaded bulb filled the place with light -- sink, soap, pails, brick, a heap of old tennis shoes in the corner. Lounging and easy with himself, his healthy chops pink with smiling, Allen waited to greet him. He put out his hand, then said to Billy, "OK, you go in now. Go on. I'll explain it to the brother." Billy started through the door. Allen put a hand on his arm, saying, "Thank you, Billy," making it personal, making it something done for Allen.

Alone with Dan, Allen went on nodding and smiling. It was his way of showing that nothing worried him. Others were always filling up empty spaces; Allen Turner did not need to talk. Naked under flimsy pajamas, Dan found it difficult to meet the eyes of this fully-dressed man. He needed a belt. He wanted shoes. Finally Allen spoke: "Don't you worry now, boy."

"I'm not," Dan said.

"It's nothing much. It's just for the form."

"I'm all right. I'm ready."

"Here, boy, put away a bit of my bottle."

Dan took it. He had never drunk so much in one day. It was generous of his pal, Allen.

Allen smiled, then steadied him, backing him against the automatic washer. "Now listen," he began. Dan barely understood.

He listened to Allen with a beautiful smile. The fellows were all swell. They were a swell bunch of fellows. It would all be over soon. Dan was happy in his new brotherhood. Allen approved of him.

But just for the form, like he said, just to make sure, just not to back out now, they wanted him to pass one more little initiation rite. It was nothing serious. He had nothing to fear if his loyalty was perfect. "Take off the pajamas."

Dan stripped, shivering in the chill cement dampness of the laundry room. He stood naked before Allen, sobering dizzily, pulling his wrists together in front.

"Stand up like a man."

Dan tried to pull his shoulders straight, as in ROTC drill.

"You're among your sworn brothers. Don't look so damn chicken."

Dan fixed his teeth to stop the chattering. He was alone with Allen, but secure among his brothers. Over soon. He was not frightened, but being without clothes in the cold basement, with everyone else dressed, obscurely troubled him. He had dreamt of times like this, and never believed the dreams.

From the rec room, through the door, Dan heard the phonograph playing. They all were waiting for him. The record was some cornball Hawaiian tune, aloah-oh, with many guitars and a sickly jogging rhythm. Allen explained, talking rapidly while, around Dan's middle, he tied an Indian headdress, part of the Chapter's stock of souvenirs.

The feathers behind and the front bare-naked. The feathers tickled the back of his legs. They hung and scratched at his flanks as he moved. "Now you go out there and do a hoola dance for the boys," Allen said.

"Wh-what?"

Allen nodded encouragingly.

"Like this?" But these feathers -- I'm naked -- I'm worse than ... The stiff working of his mouth meant protest; his voice -- joining the group -- already -- did no work for him and he could not speak out.

"It's nothing at all, boy, you heard me, and then it'll be all over. A nice little hoola-hoola kootchie-kootchie, that's all. Now you just wait here a sec."

"No!"

"Listen here, c'trol yourself, boy. I'll go up front and call you when we're ready. OK?"

Dan nodded his head yes.

Alone again, he wished that Allen had remained until it was time. He needed to talk. He tried moving the way he had to, and the prickly feathers tickled him. He knew that he could not hide himself with his hands or the fellows would hoot and complain. He had to throw himself into the joke. All right, he would show them. He knew them! He knew himself! He punished himself for his own failures, first of all for his awful loneliness last year, by offering this tribute to belonging before he took his stand on the outside. For stubbornness, for punishing pride, for perverse justification of all his' differences, he would conform now in order to stand afterward more firmly apart.

"Brother Dan! Hey, Brother Dan!" It was Billy Kay's voice.

Dan emerged, blinking, into the rec hall. The ping pong table had been dismantled. They burst into applause and cheers: he turned to let them see the feathers and fluffed them up behind and they shouted and clapped their hands. Someone turned up the music. He was suddenly very drunk and victorious.

"Dance! Dance now!"

He began slowly undulating, keeping his back to them, arching it, giving them what they wanted, calm both in contempt for the watchers and victory over his own feelings. He held to this sense, dancing furiously, even bumping and grinding to their cheers, flipping the stiff feathers and letting them fly. Aloah-ho, aloah-oh, sliding and moving. Now, still dancing, he turned.

Many of the faces were not watching him. Odd. He danced, but they were craned around, staring at the door. Allen had come in through the front door of the long room. He was standing with someone. She had a round, astonished, terrified face, and her eyes were fixed on him with an expression so strange, so fixed, and finally so cold even in her fright, that for a moment he did not recognize Lucille.

Allen had promised her a surprise party, and maybe said it was his birthday -- a sprize potty for g'dold Dan? Understanding at once, in the single act of his rush through the audience while the music screeched and whined, Dan felt completely clothed, not at all naked, winged and feathered by rage as he flew toward Lucille. He did not touch her, however. He fell on Allen, flailing, punching, kicking, working deliberately toward Allen's bad teeth, and it took Billy Kay and two others to pull him off.

Looking at Allen's aggrieved face, white and stiff in the unexpected, not having counted on this, the mouth already puffing and swelling, Dan Shaper felt that he had come a long way toward his education. You have to make your own terms, he decided, even for fellowship. Lucille had slipped out alone. The girl could not now be Lucille; having committed herself to his disgrace, even by mistake, she should have stayed with him until the end; but after this evening, with the next girl, Dan and everything else would be different.

And Allen's lip would stay broken for awhile.