Beet Read online

  “You interest me, Miss Polite,” said Bollovate. He grabbed a dozen salted peanuts.

  “You interest me,” said Matha. The two of them had just exclaimed “Cheers!” and were surveying each other, as if for size.

  “Why do I interest you?” asked Bollovate.

  “You fuhst,” she said, hearing herself sliding back into southern.

  “Well, for one thing, you’re a leader,” said Bollovate. “I watched you during the MacArthur House bullshit. The other students listen to you.” Matha smiled demurely. “I’m a leader too.”

  “That’s why Ah interest you?” asked Matha.

  “That is one of the reasons. I also noticed that you don’t care much for Beet College.”

  “And that appeals to you?”

  “Maybe you’re wasting your time here,” said Bollovate. He signaled for two more cabernets, and scooped up a fistful of pretzel sticks.

  “If yuh don’t mahnd mah askin’, Mr. Bollovate, what are yuh gettin’ at?”

  Bollovate downed his second wine, ordered a third, and encouraged his guest to do the same. “As you know, Miss Polite, Beet College is in bad shape. It pains me to say so, but there might not be a Beet College come spring.”

  “That would be awful,” said Matha. They looked straight at each other, innocent as larks.

  “So,” Bollovate went on, “you might be faced with the choice of transferring to another institution, or taking employment. Frankly, I must tell you, I think you’re ready to go to work right now.”

  Once again, Matha was torn for two or three seconds. She was a great if underappreciated poet and an important radical feminist, that she knew. But Mr. Bollovate seemed to be offering her a real job.

  “Of course, one of your demands was my dismissal.” He dug into a dish of oyster crackers.

  “Oh, don’t pay any mind to that, Mr. Bollovate. We were just funnin’.”

  “Miss Polite”—taking her hand, which had been left on the table for the taking. “Miss Polite, I would like you to think about something. You don’t have to make up your mind right now. But I’m setting up satellite corporations to develop quite a few large properties on the East End of Long Island. Very large properties, I kid you not. Tens of thousands of acres in all, where they used to grow ducks and potatoes. A waste of space, if you ask me. The plantings I have in mind will have three-car garages and cost from four to ten million apiece, each occupying a plot under an acre. You do the math. The point is, we will be needing people to sell those houses, smart people, born leaders who know what side is up, if you get my drift.”

  Matha studied the entirety of Joel Bollovate, mentally weighing him from nape to base. “Real estate,” she said at last. “You know, Mr. Bollovate, back home mah daddy’s in real estate. And mah sister Kathy has a thrivin’ real estate business in the very location you’re interested in.”

  “Perhaps it’s in the blood, Miss Polite,” he said, giving her hand a squeeze, to feel the blood.

  “Well, Ah certainly will think about it!” Now it was her turn to order up the drinks.

  In a short while the two of them wobbled out of the bar. They did not need to find a place to wobble to, since Bollovate had taken the liberty of reserving a room at the inn. So they went upstairs to continue taking liberties. Matha, who knew what side was up, insisted on being on top.

  These disparate events—the people with the flags, the tour party, the CCR secret lunch, the coming together of Matha Polite and Joel Bollovate, as well as the missing African artworks that the museum director had called Peace about—oh yes, and a vanished Calder stabile that had stood on the lawn outside the History Department—all of them, viewed independently, might have remained isolated incidents. Taken together, however, they added up to a definite change in the emotional weather at Beet College, one that had come on fast, and noticeably different from the usual collegiate mass neurosis. It was hard to put one’s finger on it. It was not yet a full-fledged nervous breakdown, but it showed promise.

  Five additional contributing occurrences deserve mention. They also were disparate, yet connected, directly or indirectly, to the personage of Chairman Bollovate.

  Late one afternoon, the November gloom was relieved by the sight of a mobile unit of Chuck E. Cheese’s that had set up shop smack in the middle of the visitors’ parking lot. The trailer played a little Chuck E. Cheese’s tune of enticement with bells, and at once the students ran toward it. It seemed—as Ferritt Lawrence learned after some crack investigative work—the college trustees had decided to lease a portion of the lot to the fast food chain to improve cash flow. The kids loved it, at least at first sight. Many found the games more challenging than their courses. And even the faculty, though there had been some reflexive grumbling in the beginning, seemed to take to it too. They seemed especially impressed with the robotic mouse. Speaking for Fine Arts, Professor Kettlegorf gave the franchise her blessing. “I just adore the yellow!” she told one of her classes. Then she sang “Yellow bird, up high in banana tree.”

  The second was a correspondence among several parties best presented verbatim:

  November 3

  Dear Mr. Bollovate:

  The Registry of Deeds would be pleased to have you visit us in pursuit of the questions raised in your letter of November 1. But I am afraid we cannot send you the document in which you are interested, and we cannot send you a copy of same. Any papers as old as the one you require are very fragile, as you must imagine, and are kept sealed under Plexiglas. Registry does not permit the making of facsimiles, but guests are free to come in and take notes. You would be most welcome here. We have quite a few historical exhibits in the main hall, supported by private donations by philanthropists such as yourself.

  Very truly yours,

  Norton Richards, Registrar

  Essex County, Massachusetts

  November 4

  Dear Mr. Bollovate:

  May I say how grateful we at the Registry are to have received your generous contribution of $5,000 for our historical exhibits. Please find the tax deduction form enclosed. Also enclosed find two Xerox copies of the land grant you requested. I would greatly appreciate it if you kept this transaction between us.

  Very truly yours,

  Norton

  November 5

  Dear Joel:

  The document you messengered over is fairly straightforward, yet it creates a problem. The land was originally transferred under a charitable trust that stipulated any current or future use for educational purposes only. That is, the Beet property was given to establish a school, and if it is transferred again, even after three hundred years, the new owner also must set up an educational institution. The Probate Court of Massachusetts oversees charitable trusts, and it is there—if you so instruct me—I shall argue that the original deed contains precatory language, not legally enforceable. In that case, should you wish to change the terms of the trust, you would need to sue the heir to the land, if you can find one living. As your attorney, I’d be happy to handle that for you. Or you could always simply buy him or her out. Of course, you know, Joel, as a trustee you would be forbidden to buy the property yourself, or to develop it or make any profit from it.

  All the best,

  Sam

  November 6

  Dear Mr. Bollovate:

  Great news! I have found Nathaniel Beet’s heir, and he is the only one! What do you think of that! He is Beet’s great-great-great-grandson’s nephew twice removed, and his name is Francis April. He doesn’t work, as far as I can tell, and he spent all the family dough on expensive wines and Joe Namath memorabilia, if you can believe that. I think he’s a fag, if you’ll pardon my French. Anyway, he’s hard up for cash! What do you think of that! Lives in Provincetown with a schnauzer named Nathaniel. Hope this is what you need. Invoice to follow.

  Your pal,

  Gus Tribieux

  Private Operator to the Stars

  November 7

  Dear Mr. April:

&
nbsp; I wonder if I might see you on a matter of business. I have a financial proposition which I believe will be of interest to you.

  Yours,

  Joel Bollovate

  Chairman and CEO

  Bollocorps

  Then one morning, Mrs. Whiting upped and quit. She walked away from a position she had held with quiet distinction for three decades, without a word to anyone but Professor Porterfield. To him she simply left a note of gratitude and wished him well.

  The fourth extraordinary event involved Professor Porterfield himself who never lost his temper, but in this instance, did. In the middle of a class, when Peace was working his way through Hugh Selwyn Mauberley, Bollovate threw open the door and asked Professor Porterfield to see him, now. Peace told him he’d meet with the developer after the hour, but Bollovate said he was a very busy man. Peace did not wish to participate in a scene in front of the students. He excused himself and went to stand with his intruder in the hall, as students crowded round the closed door.

  “Don’t do that ever again, Mr. Bollovate,” he said as the two men faced each other.

  “Time is money, Professor Porterfield. We are just about to hold a board meeting. The trustees need to know if you’re getting this job done or not. There’s talk that you’re not.”

  “They don’t need to know right now”—looking down at the developer.

  “Yes or no?”

  “Yes,” said Peace. “The committee will provide the sort of plan the board is looking for. You have my word.” He did not know how this would happen, but he meant what he said. “Just don’t interrupt a class of mine again.”

  “You’re an employee here,” said Bollovate, his nostrils dilating, his cheeks puffing to a purple soufflé, and one jagged tooth showing just above his lower lip, which (yes, it did) trembled.

  “No, sir. The students and faculty are the college. You’re the employee.” And he went back to teach.

  In many ways, this exchange stood out as the most unusual incident among the unusual incidents, because it represented a first for both men. It was the first time Peace had felt the urge to pop anyone since his St. Paul’s baseball coach called the opposing catcher a “dumb nigger,” and it was the first time Joel Bollovate had quivered with rage and humiliation since his high school’s yearbook editors had voted him the man most likely to be fat.

  Speaking of which: the three-foot-high alabaster pig that made up the acroterion above the cornice on the Temple? That was missing too.

  Finally, there was an event that occurred outside the college purview, involving the rest of America, and thus went unnoted at Beet. While the story of the imminent closing of the college had trotted along—prompting editorials saying on the one hand that it was unimaginable, and on the other, it was not—a poll was taken by ABC and the Washington Post. It simply asked a large sampling of citizens whether they would care if all the nation’s four-year liberal arts colleges closed forever.

  The answer was, 71 percent “could not give a rat’s ass” if the institutions vanished from the face of the earth, just as Manning had thought. So while the results of the poll prompted editorials of their own—on the one hand, the American people didn’t realize the consequences of what they were saying, and on the other, they did—the businessmen of America got interested.

  “You know,” Bollovate told his fellow trustee developers at the board meeting following his contretemps with Peace, “this may be a sign of things to come. I mean, look, pro basketball players don’t go to college anymore. The best prospects don’t. Why should they? They become millionaires right out of high school. And the NBA nabs them while they’re young, before they can be injured playing college ball. Major League baseball players don’t go to college, most of them. It’s only a matter of time till pro football catches on and gives in.” His fellow trustees were rapt, eyes googly. This was their kind of talk. “You see what I’m saying? There’s nothing four years of liberal arts gives them but [chuckling] Plotinus!” The others chuckled too, without knowing why. “After four years of history and the Greeks, four years of Shakespeare, how can they possibly fit into the country? How can they help themselves? Help us?

  “Tell me”—as he was unwittingly about to paraphrase Virginia Woolf—“would the world be any worse off if Shakespeare hadn’t existed?”

  “We could teach them all they need to know in six months,” said Giles Rogaine, a developer of tract houses outside Framing-ham.

  “Six months!” said Bollovate. “Damn straight! Instead of paying tuition—for what?—they learn to earn! They make money. And they make it sooner. Everybody wins.” He leaned forward. “Do you know what the average four-year college costs these days? The average? Thirty thousand bucks! That’s what!”

  “Your crapper costs more than that, Joel.” All laughed.

  “And it’s worth more,” said Bollovate. All laughed again.

  Bollovate remembered the Department of Homeland Security. “That’s the model,” he said. “Six months of courses like Homeland Security. Trade schools, boys! There’s our future. Online trade schools. Am I right?”

  “You’re right, Joel.”

  “Online trade schools. Great for youth. Great for business. Great for America.”

  “Joel”—the consensus—“you’re a genius!”

  CHAPTER 11

  THAT YEAR, PARENTS WEEKEND WAS COINCIDENT WITH VETERANS Day, November 11, which meant one less holiday for the college and less wasted time for the CCR. But considering the nonprogress the committee had made so far, the combining of events was of little help to Peace. And he’d lost November 8 to Sensitivity Day, when he’d decided to stay working in his office and be sensitive to his assignment. Sensitivity Day went without a hitch, save for an incident when a midlife-crisis motorist took so long to read the revised Slow Children sign, he wrapped his red Corvette around a mailbox. In an effort to get with the esprit of the college, Chuck E. Cheese’s served a Sensitivity Meal, but they had difficulty coming up with components. Since no product involving a living thing could be included—eliminating burgers, salads, cheeses, and shakes—the Sensitivity Meal consisted of a Coke, a gift certificate for double burgers with fries, and a Chuck E. Cheese’s bobble-head.

  Parents Weekend and Veterans Day created two pockets of festivities at the college and in town, separated by the dark woods. That is how one would have viewed the scene from above, say from a helicopter—a typical New England landscape in which the tea-black darkness is occasionally relieved by small and desperate flickers of light.

  In town, the event had all the fun of a Thanksgiving Day Parade, with people on television remarking on the fun. Beet had no living World War I veterans available to march, and only two from the Japanese theater of World War II (one of whom refused to admit the war was over, and yelled “Kraut” and “Gerry” at the plastic models of sashimi in the window of the Soo Piggy Soo Soo Sushi restaurant). The vets from Vietnam and Iraq numbered twenty-six, thirteen from each conflict. But the two groups hated each other so openly that one refused to march anywhere near the other, with the Iraq vets wearing combat fatigues, their faces painted green and yellow, and the boys from Vietnam dressed in sombreros, flak jackets, and fuchsia Speedos. Manning marched with his buddies from the Marines, who provided the parade with its only dignity. He had fought in no war, but took the day seriously, and never missed a year.

  A couple of hundred Beet citizens lined Main Street, looking strikingly related to one another, and swaying more from the November wind than from their singing, which was made up of clashing patriotic anthems belted out simultaneously. The Beet High School marching band, the Porkers, tried to play “Hail to the Chief” for some reason, but wound up in an offbeat rendition of “Sentimental Me.” The children of Beet, standing at their parents’ knees, gave miniature American flags a desultory wave, then grew tired and dropped them to the sidewalk. Beth Porterfield attempted to push her little brother in front of a slow-moving Army Jeep, but thanks to her mother’s gri
p on the boy, as well as the pace of the Jeep, failed.

  “Here’s Professor Manning!” Livi shouted to the kids.

  Marching in parade dress, Manning turned and winked.

  Over at Beet College, the parents didn’t know what to expect of the weekend. Of course, they’d kept up on the situation with the trustees and the CCR, which by now was reported regularly in cities like San Francisco, Miami, Houston, Chicago, New York, and, it goes without saying, Boston. The story was described as “a wakeup call” for colleges all over America. Dean Baedeker had offered himself to the PBS NewsHour to analyze the matter but was turned down in favor of Professor Manning, who served the topic more ably, since he saw it as unrelated to his own career. Manning presented his bottom-line theory. He was opposed by Donald Trump himself, who had just come from another television appearance where he had forgiven Miss USA for partying and sullying her title. Trump asked the PBS audience, “What’s wrong with making a buck?”

  Manning countered, “Nothing. Unless that’s all you make.”

  By now, Beet had become a big national story, no doubt about it. With nothing to opine on but Iraq and gay marriage, columnists—some of them alumni—produced emotions recollected in tranquillity, lamenting the passage of les neiges d’antan. News stories focused on the finances, the keener reporters noticing how many colleges were closing because of money, how many administrators were caught with their hands in the till, how much plain mismanagement was hurling institutions into bankruptcy. That poll showing Americans willing to see four-year liberal arts colleges disappear was repeated, producing the same results.