“Young man, I don’t give a hoot in hell whom you defend. I’m impressed because you took on tough cases and won them. I’m impressed by skill and toughness. What do you make a year?”
Abrahams had told him. Emmich had grunted with self-satisfaction, and revealed a slip of paper on which he had surmised what Abrahams’ income would be. Without further interrogation, Emmich had told Abrahams what he was after. He was, he had stated, after Nat Abrahams himself. He wanted Nat Abrahams in Washington, D.C. He made it clear that Eagles Industries and its multiple interests-cotton production, textile factories, chemical plants, brass and copper mills, insurance companies, shipping lines-had a vast network of legal representation, even in the nation’s capital. He made it clear that he was never satisfied with what he had, that he always demanded the best help, and that he was ready to pay for it. He made it clear that Washington, D.C., was a sore spot for him. Even under a sensible President like T. C., the government was putting its nose more and more into private enterprise. Emmich wanted the best there, the best minds, voices, legal lookouts.
Abrahams had heard all of this with detached fascination, but without interest. Even as he had listened, he could not conceive of himself abandoning the desperate and wretched people who needed him, for a more lucrative job with a mammoth combine. The Emmichs of the world, he had always known, advocated free enterprise for themselves and not a free economic society-less laudable. The Emmichs, he had always known, wanted competitors, consumers, workers, the government itself, controlled by their own definitions of freedom.
Abrahams had begun to shake his head, when Avery Emmich had announced Abrahams’ worth to the corporation in dollars and cents. Abrahams had been taken aback by the sum announced. The annual salary offered had been more than he had made in the last four years of exhausting work. After that, dazed, he had not shaken his head again. He had listened attentively, and with interest. It had amazed him the way Emmich had anticipated his unspoken reservations. He was being asked to represent the corporation as an attorney, no more, no less. He was being asked to speak for the corporation on legal matters and legislative matters, and to inform and advise the corporation on activities pertaining to its business. He was not being asked to compromise his ideals or attitudes. He was not being asked to perform contrary to his good conscience. He was not being asked to forfeit any part of his freedom as an individual. Eagles Industries would be his employer. Nat Abrahams would be its employee. He would not be lobotomized. He would be himself. Emmich wanted
And then it was that Abrahams had understood the sense of the offer. Every big company needed its basic liberal, to showcase, as every big company needed its basic Negro.
That visit in Emmich’s suite had been the beginning of it. Despite Sue’s squealing excitement over the offer, and his own headiness at what was suddenly made possible, Abrahams had clung to certain reservations about it, about the change itself. He had hated the thought of giving up a practice he loved, of dislocating himself and the family, for money. Yet it was only money that might guarantee him added years of life, and provide his wife and children with security. He had hated the thought of devoting himself to an impersonal financial combine, with headquarters in Atlanta, that had no motivation except profits and that regarded people as Social Security numbers. Yet it was a corporation that promised him unrestricted individual freedom.
While Eagles Industries bombarded him with telephone calls and memoranda, Nat Abrahams had remained indecisive. He had stalled his reply, and then he had made negotiations as difficult as possible, hoping that this would make decision unnecessary. He had refused to bind himself to Eagles Industries for seven years, and had insisted that three years were enough. Emmich had countered with five years. Abrahams had remained adamant. Emmich had agreed to three years. Abrahams had demanded more money, better side benefits, expense accounts, thorough definitions of his position, and to everything Emmich had acceded. Finally Sue had told him that he had been trying to create an encroaching monster, when the monster did not exist. And he had admitted that she was right.
There had been serious talks between Sue and himself. Both had circled the reality of his coronary warning, and both had finally faced it. They had also faced the fact that they lived on what he made, that aside from his life insurance policies, a still-mortgaged house, a pitifully small reserve of government bonds and blue-chip stocks, their financial future was bleak. He would never get far enough ahead to ease up, to enjoy semiretirement, to buy the farm they both wanted.
On a warm Sunday morning, with Roger, David, and Deborah churning about the back seat of the four-year- old sedan, they had driven down near Wheaton, Illinois, to look at the farm once more. The beautiful cottage, the freshly painted red barns, the smell of the machinery and livestock and brown-green grass and wheat and corn fields had overwhelmed them again. Driving home, the children happily napping in the back, he and Sue had speculated upon what his life could be on such a farm. He could retain an interest in the firm, serve as a once-a- week consultant on vital cases. He could give time at last to writings about what he believed in, writings that might accomplish more than his private cases had. He could manage the farm. He could be outdoors, live more easily with himself, have more time for Sue, for the children. Above all, he could live. In three years he could have this if he wanted it.
The following morning Nat Abrahams had telephoned Avery Emmich to draft a contract. In a month, he had promised, he would be prepared to go to Washington, to sit with Gorden Oliver, and mold the contract into its final form. And then he had taken an option on the farm outside Wheaton.
“Nat-”
His head came up at the sound of Sue’s voice, and he found her settling into the chair across from him.
“Where were you?” she was saying. “You were a million miles away.”
He smiled. “Not quite that far.” He thought: only the distance away you can reach in three years.
As she went at her grapefruit, he reminded the waiter of her coffee and melba toast, and then stuffed Emmich’s proposals into his attache case.
“How are the waiters here taking Dilman?” she asked between mouthfuls.
“I gather they’re pleased. That is, if this had to happen, they’re pleased the next in line was one of their own.”
“They’re not all pleased,” said Sue. “I was just talking with our porter. He says most of his friends are glad a Negro will have a chance to show he can perform as well as anyone else. But our porter says he’s not as happy as his friends, because he says he’s a thinking man and they’re not. He says he’s thinking ahead, and he’s frightened. He doesn’t think this country is ready for any Negro to head it. He thinks this focuses the wrong kind of attention on the Negro, and is bound to cause worse resentment and antagonism. Nat, you should have seen his face when he was speaking. So-uneasy.”
For Abrahams it was too early in the day to concur, and to bare his own uneasiness. As he tried to determine what to say to Sue, he observed that her attention had been diverted by three persons taking seats at the table across the aisle. There was an elderly, obviously well-off couple, and opposite them a slick-haired, smooth- shaved, jowly, overweight, middle-aged young man in a tailor-made Oxford gray business suit.
The overweight middle-aged young man, wiping his spectacles with his napkin, was speaking, and not quietly. “Well, after that, the meeting broke up, and we hung around the television set,” he was saying. “I tell you honestly, we weren’t so worried about this Dilman’s competence, because that doesn’t matter these days. The government is run by committee rule, and T. C. had some good heads there. Our worry is in the area where a President can’t be controlled as well. You know, appointments, policy speeches and such. Those people-I mean, like Dilman-are leftist, no question. I can show you the facts. Now that one of them has power, he’s apt to coddle the Communists-don’t get me wrong, Harold, I’m not saying Dilman is a Red; I’m saying he’s apt to have a sympathy for them, rapport, let them slip in and take control here, and go soft on them abroad. Well, Harold, we’re not going to let that happen-no, sir.”
The speaker lowered his voice to address some confidences to his Companions, and Abrahams turned his head away. He found Sue looking at him, gray and helpless. Before he could placate her, there was the sound of a fork against a glass. The middle-aged young man kept up the noise, half turning for the waiter. A tall, skinny waiter came on the run.
“About time!” the middle-aged young man boomed with mock joviality. “What’s happening to the service? You all too busy running our government today?”
“I’m sorry, sir,” the waiter said. “I was waitin’ for you to fill in your order.”
“Aw, give us a break, we poor folk can’t write,” the middle-aged young man said, winking. “Come on, Sam, one round of Sanka.”
