A President In Peril

Chapter Eight R₁ A₁ U₁ C₃ O₁U₁ S₁ (adj.) harsh; strident; grating

For the next two days, I figured I would leave behind all thoughts of the so-called ‘New Reich.’ This was my third annual football weekend visit to my son down at the University of Illinois. I packed an overnight bag, bid Catherine goodbye, and on Saturday morning rode the Illinois Central’s eight-fifteen train south to the school. Peter was at the Champaign station to meet me when we pulled in a few minutes after ten o’clock.

“It’s really terrific to see you, Dad,” he said with an enthusiasm that pleased me immeasurably. “We’ve got good tickets — forty-yard line. After the game, I want you to meet Amanda.”

“So she’s not going to the game with us?” I asked as we stopped for coffee and a sweet roll in a noisy café a block from the depot in downtown Champaign.

He smiled and flushed. “She said we should spend some time together, just the two of us, as I don’t get to see you all that often. We’ll meet her after the game.”

“Great by me,” I said. “By the way, let me reimburse you for the tickets.”

“Not necessary,” he said. “I got them from a fellow in the architecture school who went home to Springfield to see his girlfriend, like he does most weekends. He wouldn’t take any money for them. I’ve always had the impression that he comes from quite a bit of dough. Oh, and by the way, I’ve arranged it so you can sleep in his room in the dorm tonight.”

“A nice friend to have! By all means thank him for me. Now, on to more important issues: Are we expecting a victory today?” I asked as we left the diner and began the fifteen-minute walk to the stadium, on one of those sunny and breezy days that can make a Midwestern autumn so enjoyable.

“A fairly good chance,” Peter answered. “As you know, we’re not very good, but then neither is Purdue. There’s supposed to be a big crowd this afternoon. Maybe that will help us. What’s going on at work?”

“The usual stuff,” I said off-handedly, then decided to tell him about the activities of the last few days. When I finished, he was open-mouthed.

“God, that’s really terrible, Dad. After all we’ve learned about what went on in Europe during the war. But I even know about a guy here who...” His words trailed off and he shook his head as we stopped at a corner to let auto traffic pass.

“A guy here who what?” I prompted.

Peter scowled. “I don’t really know him and haven’t ever even spoken to him, but he lives in the same dorm as me, one floor up. I’m not even sure what school he’s in. Engineering, maybe.”

“And what about him?”

“From what I’ve heard around the dorm, he seems sort of like that... that man, the one you’ve been getting calls and letters from.”

“You mean a Nazi?”

“Well, it sounds pretty harsh when you come out and say it like that, but somebody in the cafeteria the other day claimed that he’s got a picture of Hitler up on the wall in his room.”

“Maybe that’s just a manifestation of some sort of warped college humor,” I ventured.

“I don’t think so,” Peter replied. “From what’s been said around the building, he thinks Hitler and the Nazis had the right idea.”

It was my turn to scowl. “Meaning anti-Semitism, among other things. What’s this character’s name?”

“Believe it or not, Jones. Alvin or Allen or Albert Jones. I’ve just heard him called ‘Al’.”

“Any idea where he’s from?”

“Chicago, I think, or maybe some suburb. And like the guy I got our tickets from, he apparently comes from money, too, or so it’s said around the dorm. His father is some sort of big industrialist up in the city from what I’ve heard through the grapevine.”

“I guess there’s more of that kind of thinking around than I ever imagined,” I said, shaking my head. “Very depressing.”

“Gee, I’m sorry I mentioned the Jones character,” Peter said earnestly. “I meant for this to be a really nice weekend.”

“And it will be,” I told him with a grin. “Let’s go and watch us some Illini football!”

The game that delightful afternoon wasn’t for folks who like to see a lot of scoring, but it was enjoyable anyway, and all the more so because Illinois won, 10 to 6.

Purdue’s quarterback and star, Bob DeMoss, had a bad day. His passes seemed to go everywhere except into the hands of his receivers, or when they were on target, they got dropped. Although the home team didn’t do much better, it was enough to give them their first Big Nine victory of the season and send the crowd home happy.

At halftime, a ceremony out on the field honored Illinois alumnus Lou Boudreau, the player-manager of the Cleveland Indians, who, just a few weeks earlier, had led his team to victory in the World Series against the Boston Braves. It was the first time Cleveland had been in the World Series since back in 1920.

“Did Boudreau ever play football at Illinois?” Peter asked after the game.

“No, but besides being on the baseball team, he made a name for himself in basketball here. Quite a star, he was. I saw him play for Illinois against somebody — DePaul, maybe — in the Chicago Stadium years ago.”

“Nice to know the school turns out at least a few famous sports names,” Peter said.

“Nobody more famous than Red Grange,” I told him as we filed out of the big double-decked stadium.

Peter allowed as to how he’d heard a little about Grange and his heroics at Illinois before joining the Chicago Bears. But he really didn’t know much, so I filled him in on a bit of that history as we walked back toward downtown Champaign. I pointed out that Grange had a great deal to do with popularizing professional football with the Bears back in the 1920s, when it was just a poor stepchild to the college game.

We were at an intersection teeming with pedestrians and cars when I noticed a blue automobile the likes of which I had never seen: sleek, streamlined, with a sloping back and an improbable third headlight in the middle of the grille — or rather, where the grille normally is on a car. This futuristic vehicle had a small grille under the headlights and just above the front bumper.

“What is that, Peter?” I asked, pointing at the car, which had stopped for a red signal.

“Hey! It’s what they call a Tucker Torpedo. I’ve never seen one before, only in photos,” he said. “That’s really something. They’re made in Chicago and there aren’t very many of them around yet.”

Others on the sidewalks were gaping at the car as well and gesturing toward it. As it started to pull away, Peter tugged on my sleeve. “That’s him, Dad. That’s him.”

“Who?”

“The one I was telling you about. Jones, Alan or Albert or whatever his first name is. You know, the one with the picture of Hitler in his room. He’s riding in the front seat.”

As the so-called ‘Torpedo’ began to accelerate, I got a profile glimpse of the passenger, a sandy-haired youth with a turned-up nose. A man a generation older was behind the wheel.

“Is that his father driving?”

Peter shrugged as the car pulled away and turned a corner at the next block. “I don’t know, could be,” he answered. “I’ve never seen him.”

We walked the rest of the way back into town and had supper at a burger-and-beer place Peter said was popular with the college crowd. The raucous, celebratory atmosphere and the waitresses scurrying about with pitchers of foam-crested beer bore out his comment.

“This okay with you?” he asked uncertainly, as we made our way to a booth toward the back.

“Fine by me. Let’s celebrate the Illinois victory with a beer, if you have no objection.”

My son chuckled his agreement, which for him is the equivalent of an outright guffaw. He comes by his reserved and even-tempered bearing from his mother, my first wife, Norma. I can only assume that my genes are responsible for his inquisitive nature.

As we drank cold beer from mugs and waited for our hamburgers, I asked Peter about the car we had just seen. I had read a little about this Tucker fellow and the automobiles he was making in the old Dodge plant on South Cicero Avenue in Chicago, but I’m not a car person. I’ve only owned one for two years now, and it’s a dented, pre-war gray Ford coupe that saw its best days ages ago.

“There’s a guy in some of my classes who loves auto design,” Peter said. “He’d like to work for one of the car companies some day. He’s always drawing futuristic-looking models, and whatever I know about the Tucker Torpedo I’ve picked up from him.”

I nodded between sips of beer, and he went on.

“Seems this Tucker — Preston Tucker — is quite a maverick,” he continued as our burgers and fries were delivered. “For one thing, the engines on his autos are in the rear, where you’d think the trunk would be. Also — and this is stuff I learned from my car-crazy friend — the cars have independent four-wheel suspension, a pop-out windshield, and a padded dashboard for safety in case of a crash.”

“And the cars look pretty flashy on top of everything else,” I put in.

“Yeah. I didn’t realize just how modernistic they really were until I saw this one today. Really low-slung. Oh, and that center headlight—”

“The one that looks like a third eye in the middle of a forehead?” I interrupted with a laugh.

“Yeah. It’s designed so that when you start turning a corner, that headlight turns in the same direction, too, throwing its beam ahead of you so you can see the road you’re turning into.”

“Sounds ingenious.”

“It does,” Peter agreed, “but Tucker has had all sorts of problems getting his company off the ground.”

“From what little I’ve read, it seems there have been some financial shenanigans going on.”

“Could be. But — and again I’m citing my friend, the would-be car designer — Tucker is up against the big auto companies, General Motors, Ford, and the like, and apparently they’re trying to find ways to put him out of business. It sounds like the guy is really struggling.”

“Nobody ever said big business in this capitalist world of ours was easy, although you hate to see someone not get a fair shot at starting up an enterprise.”

“I agree completely, Dad. I don’t know how well-made these cars are, but it seems like they’ve got some terrific forward-looking features.”

“Hmm. I believe this Tucker would make a good personality profile in the Sunday Trib.”

Peter smiled. “A profile that you, of course, would write?”

“Of course. What do you think?”

“You’re really good at that sort of thing. Like the Frank Lloyd Wright article you did a couple of years back, the one that got me that summer job with him up at Taliesin.”

“Helped get you that summer job,” I corrected. “Wright wouldn’t even have considered it if you weren’t already an architecture student with a good record at school.”

“Well, anyway, I think it would be interesting to talk to Tucker and find out what makes him tick,” Peter said. “Let me know how it goes.”

What I didn’t tell him, although he may very well have figured it out, is that I had an ulterior motive for wanting to sit down and have a conversation with Mr. Preston Tucker, automaker.

As I was sitting in the booth and mulling how to approach Tucker, Peter looked up and broke into a grin as wide as I’ve ever seen from his still-boyish face.

“Hi,” he said, looking over my shoulder.

“Hi, yourself,” answered a lovely strawberry blonde in a yellow sweater and brown skirt. I stood, and so did my son.

“Dad, this is Amanda,” Peter said, reaching over to caress her cheek. I’m sure he wanted to kiss her right there, but my presence was an inhibitor. “Amanda, this is my father.”

“Pleased to meet you, sir,” she said, holding out a hand. Her grin captivated me, not that I’m ever immune to the smiles of women.

“You will join us, of course?” I asked.

“If I don’t get in the way of a discussion of the game you just saw,” she said, sliding into the booth next to Peter, who put a protective arm around her waist and squeezed her, then motioned a waitress over and ordered a beer for Amanda.

“We’re all done discussing the game,” I told her, pleased to see their interaction. “What did you do while we were sitting in the stadium rooting for the orange and blue?”

It turned out that Amanda, who was majoring in art history, spent the afternoon helping to set up an exhibit of student art. She talked animatedly about the quality of the work. I liked the girl immensely and saw in her a prospective daughter-in-law.

I began to feel like a third wheel as the two of them talked about the art exhibit, which Peter had also been helping to set up. But Amanda was quick to bring me back into the conversation.

“I’d love to learn more about your work, Mr. Malek,” she said. “I’ve always been fascinated by the newspaper business.”

“Where is home for you?” I asked.

“A suburb of St. Louis called Clayton.”

“You’ve got some good dailies down there, the Post-Dispatch and the Globe-Democrat.”

“From what I’ve seen, I think your papers up in Chicago are better, though, particularly the Tribune and the Daily News.”

“Thank you for including us,” I said, hoisting my stein in a salute. At her prodding, I talked a little about my job and some of the interesting stories I’d done over the years. She seemed interested, and I was duly flattered.

After we had finished our beers, Amanda excused herself. “I’ve got to get back to the exhibit. If things aren’t mounted just right, it’s my neck,” she said with a laugh.

“Terrific girl,” I said to Peter after she left. His answer was a smile that said more than words could have.