From the Improvement Era, August 1935 –

The Squeeze

By Samuel Taylor

Gil Mathew was just a “stooge” to Beth Lewis, when she entered the class in accounting — a studious person who would serve as a crutch to assist her to a good mark in the class without much work — but she learned that he flayed tennis rather well and that brought on complications.

“This,” True Quail was saying, “promises to be the hardest quarter of my college career.” He paused, but when Beth did not reply he continued: “I’m stuck with psych 73 and comp 8. Prof. Barlow never follows any text in his psychology classes, they say. And comp 8 is short stories. You have to turn in stuff. No way out. No apple polishing.”

“And the stooges,” Beth surmised, “are homely.”

True sighed. “Worse, hopeless. Nothing, not a thing in either class with brains combined with even a shade of looks. I marvel how you have both. No; don’t simper. I’m too far in the mire. Where am I going? To the house of one J.P. Owens. He runs a drug store. But all the drugs in the world can’t change his daughter, Stella.” True’s wide shoulders shrugged. “But Stella’s so bright she dazzles, and she’s a psych major.”

Beth chuckled in sympathy. “And comp 8?”

“Don’t torture me! The name’s Maybelle Gooch.”

“Gooch? You’re well heeled there, True. She’s — .”

“Well, she ought to be a genius or at least a marvel, the looks she’s got. Compensation. But me — listen, Beth. Three months, do you hear? For a whole quarter I’ve got to have two beautiful friendships.”

She laughed. “Why don’t you try studying for a change?”

“As a gentleman, I did not hear that remark, Miss . . . You?”

“Easy. Groups full. I’m playing the easy profs. It’s a slide, except for accounting.”

He looked at her sharply. “Are you insane? You can’t take accounting. Listen — .” She shrugged. “I bit at that one.”

“No; it’s the truth. Dad — you know how business men are. He’s going to give me a job next spring. I can type.”

“Let it glide by. Who’s the stooge?”

Beth made a wry face. “He’s straight out of a book. You could shingle a roof with his freckles. Shy? I gave him a coy grin in class today and I thought he’d catch fire, he went that red. But Gil Mathew’s an honor student, so I pass accounting.”

“Contacted him yet?”

“He shoves a broom in the women’s gym of an evening. And purely by accident I left a book in my locker there.”

Gilbert Mathew was playing tennis with, and talking to, himself. Standing thirty yards from a wall of the gymnasium, he was rebounding the tennis ball, alternately forehand and backhand. Effortlessly, smoothly he swung the racket, the ball going low, rebounding, striking the floor, coming up to meet the racket. Ku-plut . . . pud . . . ku-plut . . . pud . . . “How far have we gone from democracy?” he was saying, speaking slowly, rhythmatically. “When first — ku-plut — “the idea of every — pud — “man in a government” — ku-plut — “having an equal voice in that government — .” The ball angled sharply and Gil, turning to strike it, saw the girl standing by the north wall. He gulped, flushing.

“Wonderful,” Beth exclaimed, clapping. “Marvelous.”

“It’s a s-sp-speech,” he stammered.

“I don’t mean that. The tennis form, lad. Flawless.”

“Nobody but me is supposed to be in here,” he said meaningly.

“I just came to get a book I left in my locker. An accounting book. I’m having the worst time with — why, aren’t you Gilbert Mathew? Of course! I wonder if you’d be so kind as to show me—.”

“Well,” True Quail said manfully next afternoon, “nobody can say I don’t work my way through college. I would avidly break rocks rather than go through last night with Stella again. And tonight it’s Maybelle. . . How’d you come out?”

“With Gil? He’s marvelous!”

“Like — say, I do believe you actually mean that.”

“See these starry eyes? They’re drooping. Why? Because I was up with the birds. Little Beth up at five, and at a quarter past I was receiving the neatest shellacking ever administered on a tennis court.”

“This Gil Mathew, you mean he plays tennis? He beat you?”

“Without trying. True, you’re outclassed; there’s another intercollegiate conference champion next spring. Gil’s good; I mean good.”

“I never heard of him.”

“He’s never played around school, but he will this year. Do you know that for the past three years he’s worked twelve hours a day and carried a full course? It’s a fact. NRA finally caught up with him and made him cut down. He only works six hours now, in addition to sweeping the gym, so he’ll have time for extra-curricular activities. Those are his words, and you’ll eat ’em. He’s practicing for the oratorical contest — four months in advance — and he’s going out for debating. Keeps up tennis on a backboard. Don’t laugh at that. Fred Perry did the same. The man — Gil, I mean — is a marvel. You never saw such ambition.”

“I thought he was just your accounting stooge.”

“Showing the beast beneath the veneer!” she cried happily.

“Wait’ll I see Maybelle tonight, then I’ll tell you about my apparition,” True grinned. Beth winced at the pun. “Playing tennis tomorrow?” he asked.

“Yes. And if you’re there at five-thirty you can play a set. But be on time, because Gil studies from six to eight every morning.”

True grimaced. “I’ll bet he gorges spinach and carries small change in a purse. Never mind, I’ll get up.”

At five-fifteen next morning Beth and Gil were on the courts. Beth played her best — good enough to make her singles champion at Hanford — but Gil’s unerring placement, his smooth, incredible steadiness, were too much. True arrived near the end of the set. Beth introduced him, and True suggested a set.

“B-but — I can’t play you,” protested the freckled one. “You’re — why, you’re conference champion — .”

True laughed away the modesty, and they began. Beth noticed a difference in Gil’s playing. It was not merely that he had stiffer competition; no, it was something else. Nervous, erratic, Gil’s smooth form was gone. He muffed easy shots, popped up balls for True to smash, netted, overdrove the court, double-faulted. True swept through a love set.

“Guess I didn’t offer much competition. Sorry. Have to study. Thanks.”

Watching Gil go, first beam of the morning sun striking the red hair, True smiled. “Backboard player,” he said with satisfaction.

“You wait!” Beth snapped. True raised his eyebrows, grinning.

Beth sat by Gil during the daily lab period in accounting. He plugged the figures, she copying. But it was she who, by a smiling question, found the difference between deferred payments and accrued expenses, and it was she who spotted errors in posting, when a transposed number threw the trial balance off. Sharp, facile, Beth was the one to pounce on a problem and unravel it in a few minutes; Gil pulled the long haul.

“Never had a better stooge,” Beth told True the night before the debating try-outs. “How’s Stella and Maybelle?”

They were driving under the moon in True’s low, topless roadster. He grimaced. “Please. I’m fed up. Both of ’em — well, I feel sorry, in a way. They’ve never had any boy friends. That is, not the type — .”

“Not the type of Terrific True, you mean. You’re a rat and you ought to be ashamed.”

He nodded soberly. “Sometimes I think it might be best to get in and study. Actually I do.”

Beth was on hand for the debating try-outs next afternoon. True had brought Stella Owens. He was first to speak. Beth sensed instantly that he was not well prepared. But True had stage presence. Easily, smoothly, he talked, stretching his points, inserting irrelevant but catchy illustrations. Gil Mathew was next. He was visibly shaking and his voice broke on the first sentence. A titter did not help him. He began to stammer, closed his mouth and fought for control, spoke again, blurting out facts, spewing figures and data on the assigned subject. Just before his time was up he was speaking powerfully, but that was too late.

Beth felt sorry for Gil, and to an extent resentful. He defeated himself. If only he could have started out strongly. Next week he received another set-back. The pairings for the fall tennis tournament matched Gil against True in the first round. Beth wondered if he would default. He appeared, however, at the appointed time. He was sniffling, wiping his nose with a handkerchief.

“Anything wrong — except fright?” she asked.

“I’m sick,” he muttered.

Beth hated alibis. She turned to True. “Looks like you take it by default,” she said sharply, loud enough for Gil to hear.

“No,” grunted the red-head, “I’m playing.”

Before the end of the warming up period, Beth knew Gil really was sick. A crowd had gathered to watch the first public exhibition by the conference champion. Rumors had got around that Mathew was pretty good. Wallace, tennis coach, was on hand. Gil was too ill to be made nervous by the crowd. It took all his attention to watch the ball. He played steadily, smoothly, without a wasted effort. True’s steaming drives were too much, but with the score 3-0, the pace of the play seemed to clear Gil’s head, and slowly he rounded into form. On the fifth game he broke through True’s service, and then there began a truly epic battle. True was on top of his form, his every powerful shot blasting at the corners of the court; his service was blinding, his smashes brought applause. Gil was playing like clock-work. With the score five-all, True took the next game. Gil came back to even it, climb a game ahead. The lead sawed back and forth, each man taking his service. Gil finally broke through, then took his service and the first set, 18-16.

“If you’re sick,” Beth whispered , to him as he went around the net to change sides, “then best wishes for a continued epidemic.”

He passed apparently without hearing her. True was serving. Gil lunged for the ball, stumbled, the racket clattering out of his hand, and he sprawled on the court. The unthinking laugh of the spectators died as he remained motionless. Beth ran to him, turned him over.

“I’m — all right — .”

“He’s sick!” she cried. “He can’t play. Can’t you see he’s sick?”

The fall quarter came into the last week. True took Stella and Maybelle out on alternate nights, showing them a good time, being the perfect, romantic gentleman, giving, in his fashion, value for services rendered. Beth owed the same to Gil; but there was the matter of pride. She wanted him to ask her for a date, without trapping him. It was Thursday, the day before the Christmas ball that ushered in the holidays, that she went over to the women’s gymnasium to find Gil, his sweeping done, as usual practicing simultaneously his tennis and his speech for the oratorical contest, the latter still a month off.

“You ought to know that oration,” she said.

“Have to,” he agreed, missing the edge of her tone. “When I get up in front of the crowd I won’t be able to think.”

“What you doing over the holidays?”

“Got the job of balancing the books for the station. Lucky.”

“Going to the Christmas ball tomorrow night?”

He met her eyes. There was a long moment. She could have said something and she should at least have softened her face; but there was pride and a bit of irritation in the knowledge that she was obligated to this stooge.

True Quail squired her to the Christmas ball. She went home for the holidays but was back for New Year’s Eve. With True she danced the New Year in at the Gym, with a shouting mob jampacked around them. When the whistles began to blow True shouted. People were milling around, shouting, laughing, filling the air with serpentine and confetti. Frenzied, a trifle hysterical, they seemed not happy so much as defiant. New Year. Beth thought of savages leaping around a fire, working up a hysteria of courage. A wad of confetti struck her in the face. “Happy New Year!” She laughed. The orchestra was playing “Auld Lang Syne” and she danced, True holding her closely. “I could be sentimental,” he was saying. He was strong, protecting. They were, everyone was, on the frontier, fighting eternity. They danced again, again. They danced to show they were strong, to show they were happy; they danced to become tired, to numb the acuteness of perception, to avoid thinking. Everybody was friendly, realizing that each needed the courage of the other, that all were transient beings. New Year. Others had danced before, others would dance again; they were dancing now.

Later, the hysteria was soothed, by action, by proximity with others. Beth was thankful for the night, for the protection of True and the crowd. She was happy as they rode home, happy, tired, sleepy, forgetful, ready to relax and wake in the morning to a strong new world that would never end. She could feel the play of True’s shoulder-muscles as he drove; cold air fanned her face.

The car stopped, “Need some gas,” True was saying. Beth suddenly was awake. Gil Mathew was coming out of the station, hair touseled, a pen still clutched in ink-stained fingers.

“Three gallons,” True said. Gil obeyed without speaking. Beth thought of the mob in the gym. Gil had been alone. He had looked straight at eternity when the whistles were blowing. He had not shouted nor danced. He stood in the doorway as True drove away, watching the red tail light grow smaller.

“I’ve been to the registrar’s office,” True said to her the next Friday.

Beth shrugged, then said tartly: “What if I did get an A in accounting?”

“Nothing, except you’re out of the union. You studied.”

“I did not!” she defended hotly. “I never opened a book! It wasn’t my fault that old Thiele gave me an A. He likes me.”

True was shaking his head. “You’re a fibber and you know it,” he advised calmly. “Nobody gets an A in anything — especially accounting — without study and plenty of it. Sure, a lovely smile will generally pass you, and a good stooge will rate you a B — but an A spells work, Beth.” He shrugged. “You’ve gone soft. I’m ashamed.”

“All right, I studied! Go spread it around, why don’t you?”

The Edgar F. Hansen oratorical contest was in mid-January. For two years True Quail had taken the first prize of a hundred dollars and a gold medal. Gil survived the eliminations and was one of the five who would talk a half hour each on a subject of his own choosing. True had brought Mary Chamberlain, his new stooge in bacteriology. She sat on the front row as he spoke. True held the audience, dominated it; he was the fourth speaker, and easily the winner so far, with only Gil Mathew yet to speak.

Beth was in the wings. Gil, beside her, was breathing hard. True finished to a burst of applause, bowed, and came into the wings.

“You’re next, Gil. Good luck.”

Gil made a motion as if to walk out on the stage, but hesitated, as if the stage were a pool and he was poised high above. “I can’t!” he muttered. “I’ve forgot. I don’t remember a word! I can’t go on!”

In that instant all the four months of preparation went against him. He had built up too much for the climax, and he could not face it. His mouth was half open, hands fumbling one another. Impulsively, Beth put her arms around him and then gave him a gentle push. Gil Mathew walked out on the stage, bowed to the judges, and in a clear voice began, “How far have we gone from democracy? . . .”

“I’m a hump-backed walrus,” murmured True Quail, eying Beth.

Beth happened to be standing in the archway when Gil, flushed and happy, emerged from the auditorium. They walked in the darkness, feet crunching in the cold snow. He spoke, finally, “Beth, tonight — I was so nervous — it seemed — I knew I couldn’t. And then when you — when you — . Well, it took my mind off things — excited me in another way.

Beth wondered; was Gil handicapped by a nervous system too sensitive for most people to comprehend? Did he experience so much more poignantly the ordinary things, and did he go further, reacting to stimuli which a man like True Quail did not know existed? Did True sense this, and resent it?

Gil won his match at the next meet. Beth saw him stride out on the court, lips tight, eyes blazing, and with a cold, methodical display of form defeat Johnstone, Aggie captain, in straight sets, 6-4, 6-2, 6-1. She heard about it the next day from True, whom she met in the book store. “I was talking with the coach in the locker room,” True said. “Before the match. Thought we were alone. I was telling him that Gil had no place on the team. Then as we went out I saw Gil sitting behind the next row of lockers. Of course he heard, and how he did take Johnstone to the cleaners!”

“There’s your job, getting him angry before each match.”

“Say, he’s your stooge, not mine.”

“Don’t worry, I’m not letting him go. You’ve no idea how he can get work done. That psych class is a honey. But listen, I worked Prof. Barlow, and he’s letting me and Gil do a term paper together. Smart?”

True wagged his head in admiration. “You’re it, kid. I can’t do it. Look at Maybelle, quitting mid-year, poor thing. I did the best I could. But you” — he clucked — “you work a stooge all year, and don’t so much as give him a date. How do you keep it on a business basis?”

“Don’t worry; I’ll give Gil his due. If he doesn’t rake up the spunk, then I’ll trap him into a date. And I’ll show him an evening.”

‘Yeah. You ought to do that much for the poor sap. He’s — .”

True’s face froze.

“Give me a notebook,” a husky voice was saying beside Beth. She did not turn. Her throat felt hot. Gil paid for the notebook and went out the book store, back very straight.

“What a guy for happening in,” murmured True. “Too bad. How about that joint term paper?”

“Oh, shut up!” she cried, and ran out.

Gil cut the accounting and the psychology classes for the remainder of the week. That Saturday he won his match against Caldwell Normal. Beth wondered if it were the sting of his disillusion- ment which made him forgetful of the crowd, which numbed something in him and left only the animal, calm and sure, on the courts. Monday he was attending classes, but he ignored Beth. He was a novice at snubbing; the mere act of looking the other way took all his attention. By the end of the week he recognized her presence, but of course neither suggested that they study together any more. That week he won his tennis match, as he did the succeeding Saturday. The season closed, with Hanford taking the conference championship.

The invitation tennis tournament, to crown individual conference champions, was scheduled for the last three days of the next week. Beth entered the girls’ singles and, paired with True, the mixed doubles. Her father made the trip to watch his daughter play tennis, as he said.

“But you never came four hundred miles to see me bat a ball, Dad.”

M. M. Lewis laughed. “To watch you and someone else. There’s an opening at the office for a bright young man.”

“Meaning what?”

“Who’s this True Quail you’ve mentioned so casually in your letters?”

“Forget it.”

“I’m serious. About the job, anyway. As an old Hanford alumnus I’ll take a student from here. If you haven’t a recommendation I’ll see what the prexy says.”

“I have the man for you,” Beth said, a sudden edge to her voice. “But you can decide. See those two over there by the center court? The good looking one is True. That skinny one with the freckles is Gil Mathew. It’s one of those two. You decide which. They’ll probably meet in the finals.”

“I’ll decide,” said M. M., “after the tournament.”

In the first round True swept through his man in championship form. Gil, playing smoothly, overwhelmed Dewar, of Teacher’s college.

“Good work, Gil,” Beth complimented as he came off the court.

He smiled, lips tight. “I’ll win this tournament,” he said significantly. “And I owe it to you. I thought — never mind what I thought— but now I know more than I did. I’ve grown up.”

“You haven’t grown up and you don’t know anything!” she retorted. “And I know what you’re doing. You haven’t opened a book in our two classes for weeks.”

“Whose business is that?”

‘That psych term paper was due yesterday, and also that set of corporation books. You didn’t hand in either.”

“All right. And what next? Maybe two of us will flunk out.”

She looked at him, frowning, then burst into a laugh. “So that’s it! You think I need you to — Gil,” she said, suddenly serious, “I’m awfully sorry about that, about what you overheard me saying to True. I — well, it’s True’s way, and it used to be mine. But — wait, Gil,” she said as he went to turn away. “I want to tell you something. I did take up with you just because you could help me. I admit that. But it was only at first. Will you believe me? I’ve studied, honestly worked. It was you — something about your earnestness. I couldn’t fake.”

“Why should I believe that?”

“I wasn’t going to tell you. But it won’t matter; you’ll find out Monday. Listen Gil, you’re not flunking accounting, and you’re not flunking psychology. There’s two sides to this stooge business. You had your turn; I took mine. I handed in your corporation books, complete, and I handed in that joint term paper. You did most of the notes on that paper anyway, so I wrote it. And if I do say so, it’s good.”

She wheeled and strode away, face burning.

Gil swept through to the finals on sheer exuberance. True was on top of his form. Saturday afternoon came, hot and clear. A crowd was around the white court, waiting for the crowning match, the singles between True and Gil to decide the championship. Beth saw them emerging from the locker rooms, and — her father was walking between them, talking. The two players took opposite sides of the court and began warming up. True was steady, handsome in white, poised. Gil was nervous, jerky. The smooth form which had brought him into the finals was gone.

“Dad, you didn’t—?” Beth said. “Why did you tell them?”

M. M. Lewis smiled. “I think I know what I’m doing. The man I hire is the one who can come through in a pinch. So I told ’em. The winner of this match gets the job, and — well, they know. They’re both in love with you, Beth. A baby can see that. They know.”

“But— listen, Dad. Gil— look at him. You’ve helped True, by telling them, but Gil — he’s the nervous type. He’s all shot.

“Can’t come through in a squeeze, you mean? — or are you sorry for him?” The match began. True electrified the gallery by steaming placements, blinding smashes. Gil made error after error, netting the ball, driving it over the backline. He double faulted on set-point. He seemed to get worse as the crowd applauded True’s terrific pace. True captured the second set; he had a two game lead in the third when Gil began to rally. The heat, the pace, the very physical strain were quieting his nerves. True was pounding Gil’s backhand, and Beth saw the stroke gradually stiffen, become steady, then sure, then deadly. Gil began the uphill climb. The games at five-all, True rallied, took the next and a forty lead. True poured on the fire. Gil made two incredible placements, then drove past True at the net for deuce. Gil took the next two points, then ran out the set. The stands cheered a mighty come-back.

Beth saw Stella Owens behind the fence on True’s end. Poor Stella. She never would realize. True would be her man, now, regardless. His memory would haunt her. When she at last gave up hope and married someone else she would view her husband always as superimposed on the classic ideal of True Quail.

The fourth set brought out astounding tennis. But Gil had more behind him. Hours with a backboard had made his backhand impregnable. His stroking was flawless, measured, in rhythm. True, at last, began to crack. Gil took the set 6-4, making it two-all. There was a rest period before the final and deciding set. Gil went to the lockers ; True was talking to Stella, then he followed Gil. Beth was afraid for Gil. The rest period would give him time to think; he might come back on edge, nervous. Stella was driving away in her car.

When the players came out of the lockers Gil’s stride was too quick. The rest had done him no good. Stella Owens met them with two bottles of soda pop. “Precious!” True exclaimed. . . “Here, Gil, it’s good for what ails you.”

Play began. True was back on his game, Gil erratic. True took two games. Something was wrong with Gil. He was asking the referee something. The official turned to True, who nodded, smiling. Gil began running across the courts, but stopped suddenly near the gate, retching. It was not a pretty sight. He straightened, face chalky beneath the freckles, and went back on the court. “Ready,” he called.

A flash of knowledge came to Beth. Stella — of course. Stella was the daughter of a druggist. Beth hurried around the court.

“What did you put in that bottle — the one you gave to Gil?”

Stella’s eyes widened, fear in her face. “I— I—.”

“Quick! What was it? Is it dangerous?”

“N-no. Dad said it would merely cause nausea for — I don’t know why I did it, Beth! I wanted True to win. He said — .”

“Shut up!” Beth didn’t want to know whether the doping was done under True’s suggestion or whether it was Stella’s idea. She didn’t want to think that of True. She went back to her father.

Gil was sick. True was — Beth saw it now so clearly — at his best against a weakling. He knew Gil was sick, and so True was smashing drives to the corners, running his man down. Poised, confident, bronzed face contrasting to white shirt, he never looked better than now. Nauseated, Gil seemed almost lazy; he struck no attitudes, cared not a hoot for the crowd, nor even for his opponent; he had no nerves at all. Ku-plut. . . ku-plut . . . ku-plut . . . ball striking court, impacting racket, sailing over the net. Beth suddenly laughed.

“Dad, watch that man. Watch Gil. Watch him pull out in a pinch!”

She knew. The game from then on was merely a matter of scientific curiosity to her. She’d seen Gil play when sick. She knew what he could do when his nerves were numbed. Stella; good old Stella. Unknowing, she’d made True lose. Gil would have beaten himself, except for that bottle of soda pop. Sick, he lost self-consciousness, nervousness, tension, and he regained that easy, relaxed form which he had perfected on the backboard.

Then it was over. M. M. had the sense to leave Beth alone. True stayed in the locker room until after Gil came out.

“How do you feel?” she asked.

“Sick,” he grunted. “Let’s walk.” Beth was glad. When a man’s sick he doesn’t care; his consciousness of petty things is dulled; shyness goes; embarrassment ceases to be a menace. She knew Gil would speak his mind now.

He did. He said, “I don’t want that job in your father’s plant. He would push me; I’d lose my individuality. True can have that. I have a good thing at the service station. They put me in accountant. There’s a chain of ’em. It wasn’t the job which worried me; it was you. I knew your father wouldn’t have made that proposition unless he knew that you felt — . It scared me stiff. You’ve been such a big thing to me that I’ve been afraid to approach you. Haven’t even asked for a date, fearing to spoil everything. And now that doesn’t seem important. I have to tell you. I feel too rotten to care. I’m in love,” he growled.

“Hang it all, Beth, I’m in love. Laugh if you want to. I’m the stooge, and here’s your chance for a wise crack.”

Beth didn’t laugh; she didn’t even smile. She merely said “Gil” with a sort of tremendous connotation to the word, and they continued walking slowly down the street.