Wheels

He had been in his office the previous Saturday afternoon, seven-day work weeks being normal during model changeover, and one of the older secretaries, Iris Einfeld, who was also working, had brought him coffee.

Matt began drinking it gratefully. Suddenly, for no reason he could determine, he was unable to control the cup and it fell from his hand, the coffee spilling over his clothing and the floor.

Angry at himself for what he thought of as carelessness, Matt got up - then fell full length, heavily. Afterward, when he thought about it, it seemed as if his left leg failed him and he remembered, too, he had been holding the coffee in his left hand.

Mrs. Einfeld, who was still in Matt's office, had helped him back into his chair, then wanted to summon aid, but he dissuaded her. Instead, Matt sat for a while, and felt some of the feeling come back into his left leg and hand, though he knew he would not be able to drive home.

Eventually, with some help from Iris Einfeld, he left the office by a back stairway and she drove him home in her car. On the way he persuaded her to keep quiet about the whole thing, being afraid that if word got around he would be treated as an invalid, the last thing he wanted.

Once home, Matt managed to get to bed and stayed there until late Sunday when he felt much better, only occasionally being aware of a slight fluttering sensation in his chest. On Monday morning he was tired, but otherwise normal, and went to work.

The weekend, though, had been lonely. His daughter, Barbara, was away somewhere and Matt Zaleski had had to fend for himself. In the old days, when his wife was alive, she had always helped him over humps like model changeover time with understanding, extra affection, and meals which - no matter how long she waited for him to come home - she prepared with special care. But it seemed so long since he had known any of those things that it was hard to remember Freda had been dead less than two years. Matt realized, sadly, that when she was alive he had not appreciated her half as much as he did now.

He found himself, too, resenting Barbara's preoccupation with her own life and work. Matt would have liked nothing more than to have Barbara remain at home, available whenever he came there, and thus filling - at least in part - her mother's role. For a while after Freda's death Barbara had seemed to do that. She prepared their meal each evening, which she and Matt ate together, but gradually Barbara's outside interests revived, her work at the advertising agency increased, and nowadays they were rarely in the Royal Oak house together except to sleep, and occasionally for a hurried weekday breakfast. Months ago Barbara had urged that they seek a housekeeper, which they could well afford, but Matt resisted the idea. Now, with so much to do for himself, on top of pressures at the plant, he wished he had agreed.

He had already told Barbara, early in August, that he had changed his mind and she could go ahead and hire a housekeeper after all, to which Barbara replied that she would do so when she could, but at the moment was too busy at the agency to take time out to advertise, interview, and get a housekeeper installed. Matt had bristled at that, believing it to be a woman's business - even a daughter's - to run a home, and that a man should not have to become involved, particularly when he was under stress, as Matt was now. Barbara made it clear, however, that she regarded her own work as equally important with her father's, an attitude he could neither accept nor understand.

There was a great deal else, nowadays, that Matt Zaleski failed to understand. He had only to open a newspaper to become alternately angry and bewildered at news of traditional standards set aside, old moralities discarded, established order undermined. No one, it seemed, respected anything any more - including constituted authority, the courts, law, parents, college presidents, the military, the free enterprise system, or the American flag, under which Matt and others of his generation fought and died in World War II.

As Matt Zaleski saw it, it was the young who caused the trouble, and increasingly he hated most of them: those with long hair you couldn't tell from girls (Matt still had a crew cut and wore it like a badge); student know-it-alls, choked up with book learning, spouting McLuhan, Marx, or Che Guevara; militant blacks, demanding the millennium on the spot and not content to progress slowly; and all other protestors, rioters, contemptuous of everything in sight and beating up those who dared to disagree. The whole bunch of them, in Matt's view, were callow, immature, knowing nothing of real life, contributing nothing . . . When he thought of the young his bile and blood pressure rose together.

And Barbara, while certainly no rebellious student or protestor, sympathized openly with most of what went on, which was almost as bad. For this, Matt blamed the people his daughter associated with, including Brett DeLosanto whom he continued to dislike.

In reality, Matt Zaleski - like many in his age group - was the prisoner of his long-held views. In conversations which sometimes became heated arguments, Barbara had tried to persuade him to her own conviction: that a new breadth of outlook had developed, that beliefs and ideas once held immutable had been examined and found false; that what younger people despised was not the morality of their parents' generation, but a facade of morality with duplicity behind; not old standards in themselves, but hypocrisy and self-deception which, all too often, the so-called standards shielded. In fact, it was a time of question, of exciting intellectual experiment from which mankind could only gain.

Barbara had failed in her attempts. Matt Zaleski, lacking insight, saw the changes around him merely as negative and destroying.

In such a mood, as well as being tired and having a nagging stomachache, Matt came home late to find Barbara and a guest already in the house. The guest was Rollie Knight.

Earlier that evening, through arrangements made for her by Leonard Wingate, Barbara had met Rollie downtown. Her purpose was to acquire more knowledge about the life and experiences of black people - Rollie in particular - both in the inner city and with the hard core hiring program. A spoken commentary to accompany the documentary film Auto City, now approaching its final edited form, would be based, in part, on what she learned.

To begin, she had taken Rollie to the Press Club, but the club had been unusually crowded and noisy; also, Rollie had not seemed at ease. So, on impulse, Barbara suggested driving to her home. They did.

She had mixed a whisky and water for each of them, then whipped up a simple meal of eggs and bacon which she served on trays in the living room; after that, with Rollie increasingly relaxed and helpful, they talked.

Later, Barbara brought the whisky bottle in and poured them each a second drink. Outside, the dusk - climaxing a clear, benevolent day - had turned to dark.

Rollie looked around him at the comfortable, tastefully furnished, though unpretentious room. He asked, "How far we here from Blaine and 12th?"

About eight miles, she told him.

He shook his head and grinned. "Eight hundred, more like."

Blaine and 12th was where Rollie lived, and where film scenes had been shot the night Brett DeLosanto and Leonard Wingate watched.

Barbara had scribbled Rollie's thought in a few key words, thinking it might work well as an opening line, when her father walked in.

Matt Zaleski froze.

He looked incredulously at Barbara and Rollie Knight, seated on the same settee, drinks in their hands, a whisky bottle on the floor between them, the discarded dinner trays nearby. In her surprise, Barbara had let the pad on which she had been writing slip from her hand and out of sight.

Rollie Knight and Matt Zaleski, though never having spoken together at the assembly plant, recognized each other instantly. Matt's eyes went, unbelievingly, from Rollie's face to Barbara's. Rollie grinned and downed his drink, making a show of self-assurance, then seemed uncertain. His tongue moistened his lips.

"Hi, Dad!" Barbara said. "This is"

Matt's voice cut across her words. Glaring at Rollie, he demanded, "What the hell are you doing in my house, sitting there . . . ?"

Of necessity, through years of managing an auto plant in which a major segment of the work force was black, Matt Zaleski had acquired a patina of racial tolerance. But it was never more than a patina. Beneath the surface he still shared the views of his Polish parents and their Wyandotte neighbors who regarded any Negro as inferior. Now, seeing his own daughter entertaining a black man in Matt's own home, an unreasoning rage possessed him, to which tension and tiredness were an added spur.

He spoke and acted without thought of consequences.

"Dad," Barbara said sharply, "this is my friend, Mr. Knight. I invited him, and don't . . ."

"Shut up!" Matt shouted as he swung toward his daughter. "I'll deal with you later."

The color drained from Barbara's face. "What do you mean - you'll deal with me?"

Matt ignored her. His eyes still boring into Rollie Knight, he pointed to the kitchen door through which he had just come in. "Out!"

"Dad, don't you dare!"

Barbara was on her feet, moving swiftly toward her father. When she was within reach he slapped her hard across the face.

It was as if they were acting out a classic tragedy, and now it was Barbara who was unbelieving. She thought: This cannot be happening. The blow had stung and she guessed there were weal marks on her cheek, though that part was unimportant. What mattered was of the mind. It was as if a rock had been rolled aside, the rock a century of human progression and understanding, only to reveal a festering rottenness beneath - the unreason, hatred, bigotry living in Matt Zaleski's mind. And Barbara, because she was her father's daughter, at this moment shared his guilt.