Rich Friends by Jacqueline; Briskin Page A

all over again.”
    â€œI have finally conceded,” said LeRoy Duquesne, “that it is well within the realm of possibility that there won’t be a single holdout.”
    â€œA few. Us in English. Dr. Caughey in History. LeRoy, think one more petition’ll accomplish anything?”
    â€œMaybe.”
    Gene gnawed a hangnail. “My feelings about the Oath never’ve been sound like yours. I mean, I’ve always nursed a sort of feeling that if we are making this much effort, why not use it to hire colored and Mexican faculty. But you, you’ve always seen it as a threat to academic freedom. You’ve fought the regents on their own ground. That takes tremendous courage.” LeRoy Duquesne kept his eyes on his feet, which were crunching through dry, wind-blown leaves. Gene went on, carefully. “That’s what I don’t understand. Today, when they were all backing down, I had this tremendous urge to fight. Me. A TA with no tenure, no nothing. I mean, why should I do battle when everybody’s dropping off the bandwagon?”
    LeRoy Duquesne had no answer.
    â€œWhy should I put everything on the line now, when nobody cares anymore? And when I never cared—for the right reasons, anyway?”
    â€œYou’re a born champion of lost causes,” said LeRoy Duquesne, his tone implying there could be no more noble occupation. As he bent his impressive head against the wind, he gave Gene an encouraging smile.
    Both men understood that without this approval, which meant so much to Gene, Gene would not have gone to his battered desk upstairs in Royce Hall, and in less than an hour composed his WHEREAS es. He and Caroline had circulated the petition, he with thoughtful sincerity, Caroline with highhanded, confident smiles. Both approaches had gotten terrifyingly small results.
    3
    Arrowhead is a mountain lake resort about eighty miles northeast of Los Angeles. On steep, hairpin curves Gene’s ’38 DeSoto boiled over twice. It was dark when Caroline, laughing and gasping into icy air, unlocked her parents’ cabin. The men accomplished a small fire. Mrs. Duquesne heated her curry, and Caroline produced two raffia-wrapped bottles of Dago red, which for love of Gene she called sour red. After dinner the two women went downstairs to use the chemical toilet.
    Their footsteps descending the narrow stairwell, Gene reached for his calf briefcase. “I’ve got some material,” he said. He released worn leather. The pain in his stomach was sharp. Sudden.
    â€œMaterial? On what?” LeRoy Duquesne set down maroon wine.
    â€œI took your advice.”
    â€œAbout what?”
    â€œThe short-story form,” Gene said, pulling out three immaculate sheaves of Eaton’s Corrasible bond.
    â€œThree?”
    Those that Gene considered his best work. Or rather, his least bad work. “Each more rotten than the next.”
    LeRoy held out his hand.
    Gene did not relinquish paper.
    â€œDon’t you want a reading?”
    â€œThey need more polishing,” Gene muttered.
    â€œI’ll tell you about that.”
    â€œThey’re nothing special.”
    â€œGene, give me some credit.” LeRoy Duquesne waggled his fingers. Commanding.
    Gene, placing his stories in the hairless hand, experienced a sense of release. Sure, he still feared losing LeRoy Duquesne’s respect. But he trusted the man. It was the kind of trust rarely bestowed on one human being by another, and then only by a completely decent person like Gene Matheny.
    The following morning Gene rose at the first thin light. Caroline slept, the top of her dark head tousling above the quilt. Worry about his literary lacks had given Gene a wakeful night.
    Upstairs in the living room, LeRoy Duquesne was already waiting, a terry-cloth robe wrapping his insufficient body.
    â€œHave you sent these out?” he demanded.
    â€œI thought maybe The New Yorker. ” As Gene spoke, he realized