1930S America was in the depths of the great worldwide depression. A rich young man, educated in the radical mix of the University of Chicago, joins with a group of young communists who want to abet the struggle for union rights in the emerging labor union movement. They are in the thick of the physcial and economic struggle when Rick shoots several strikebreakers who are beating some unarmed strikers. His group aids him in his escape to South America and then to Berlin. There he becomes involved in the political intrigues that led to World War II. He accompanies a strange little man to Zurich where he meets "The Fat Man" a worldly wise amoral adventurer who has developed a scheme for running guns for Emperor Haile Selaisse of Ethiopia in his struggle againts Mussolini's fascist dreams of a new Rome. On arrival Rick sees quickly the futility of the scheme which rapidly unravels. The group escape from Ethiopia, scatters, and he goes to Spain. There he joins the International Brigades who are fighting General Franco's fascists. Soviet intrigues, espionage, and betrayals cause him to flee to Paris. There he meets a mysterious young woman and falls in love. His happiness is interrupted by the approaching Nazi Wehrmacht.

The Fundamental Things

By Phillip Dibble

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2010 Phillip Dibble
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4520-5639-5

Chapter One

Three-year-old Ricky Blaine held out his arms to the man looming above him. The air was redolent with the contents of his bulging diaper. The man's face bore a permanent scowl, but it was his daddy's face and Ricky wanted to be lifted up and hugged. Instead the big man turned away, saying, "Helene, what's the matter with this kid? Why does he need to be held all of the time? You're making a sissy out him.

Ricky's mother smiled nervously and said, "Richard, he never cries. Can't you just hold him once in a while just to let him know you love him?" She picked up the little boy and hugged him.

"Helene you will hug the manhood out of that boy." With that, his father left the nursery and walked down the stairs to his den. Before closing the door he called back, "Mark my words."

Rick grew up always facing this disapproval; he was skinny, awkward and walked like an ape with shoulders slouched and his feet pointing outward. His parents enrolled him in a lab school associated with Princeton University because Helene liked the small, academic, protective environment while his father liked the name "Princeton."

By the time he was seven the, bigger more athletic boys were taunting and teasing him. Often they would push him down to the ground and sit on him. Rick would stare up at their belligerent faces and wonder why they always chose him. The teachers ignored these actions convinced that boys will be boys.

One rainy recess, one of the bullies, Billy Hooper, pushed him down, turned him over and wiped his face in the mud. Ricky did not fight back, and when the bell rang he slunk back into the classroom. All of the kids began to laugh at his muddy face and clothes while the teacher looked at him and said, "Ricky Blaine, whatever have you been doing? Get yourself into the boy's room and clean yourself up."

Rick obediently turned around and started towards the rest rooms when the bully tripped him, causing him to fall into the desks. When Ricky regained his balance he turned and suddenly hit Billy Hooper in the face as hard as he could. He felt Billy's nose fold under his fist, then Billy fell over onto the floor screaming, his face and twisted nose a carmine mass of blood and snot.

The teacher grabbed Ricky by the shoulder and dragged him towards the door. "What in heaven's name are you doing," she screamed. "Why did you hit Billy? That was the meanest thing I've ever witnessed." She started to shake him. With that he retaliated by kicking her in the shins, then he pushed her and she shrieked as she sprawled in a heap on the floor and began to cry.

Later in the principal's office he sat quietly while his father spoke to the principal in another room. His mother sat next to Rick, wringing her hands in despair. He heard his father's voice echoing loudly behind the closed door. "We're pulling him out of this damn sissy factory and sending him to a real school." With that, the door opened and a red-faced Richard Blaine emerged. He picked up Ricky with both hands and carried him out of the building, Helene in hot, tearful pursuit. His father said nothing to Rick, just deposited him in the back seat of the company limousine and told the chauffeur to drive them home. Richard Blaine hid his satisfied smile from his son and wife.

The next week Ricky was enrolled in a private Catholic boarding school for boys where he remained until the ninth grade. He became an excellent student with a special interest in Italian and Spanish. He saw his father at Christmas, Easter vacation, and the one week in the summer that the elder Blaine appeared at their summer home in Bar Harbor, Maine. His mother visited frequently, always obsequious towards the priests, and never inquiring about his behavior.

"Ricky, I'm sure they like you here, they never mention any trouble you've caused. Such a good boy." With that she would kiss him and leave.

Rick remained a loner while his father's distance from him became so profound that the boy felt he never knew him as father, rather, as some kind of unapproachable icon foisted upon him by his mother. Rick spent many nights dreaming up schemes in which he bested him; schemes in which Father was in great psychic pain and needed his comfort. He relished the feeling of triumph as he spurned his Father's entreaties. Unfortunately, none of these fantasies saw daylight; his father seemed to grow stronger, while his own needs made him feel even more impotent.

When he had finished his freshman year at St. John's, his father transferred him to a private co-ed high school. He asked his father, "Why am I changing schools? I haven't had a problem here and I like it."

His father replied, "It's time you learned about boy-girl things. I won't have you growing up uninformed. Besides, these Jesuits are dangerous. And, you will live at home now."

Rick became an apt student and a successful athlete. He lost his awkward walk, and was no longer bullied. In fact the boys seemed to like him. He wondered if anyone from Princeton had mentioned the infamous altercation.

He hoped his relationship with father would change but until that day he would practice his indifference and offer himself to no one. Like his hero Nietzsche, he believed that which did not destroy him would make him stronger. Still, some of his nights were spent in the fantasy in which he lived in a loving family, laughing as they frolicked in all that life could offer the economically blessed. He blamed his mother as he loved her believing she should be capable of changing this monolithic man into something more pliant, more loving and open. Yet he knew that she had tried and failed. Instead she turned all her affection to him and her own secret garden. Ah yes, the garden, a poisoned garden whose products were the sweet oblivion that Lady Macbeth sought. Her private mailbox was filled daily with the seeds for her garden, the merchants only too willing to prolong her journeys to oblivion. These were the memories of his non-childhood that lead him into a young adulthood of distrust and a recognition that he was totally and solely responsible for any personal realization.

He graduated from high school with honors and entered the University of Chicago, majoring in Philosophy and Business: Philosophy for himself and Business for his father. He elevated his language skills in Italian and Spanish while studying German on his own. Because he had few close friends he was surprised when, at the end of his sixth semester, George Wilson came up to him and asked, "Blaine, how'd you like to go to Europe with me and some other guys? We could have a skidoo time."

"What other guys," Rick asked.

"Torrance, Ballance, and Duell."

"Those are swell guys. How do you know they want me to go?"

"Cause I asked them."

Rick was elated, this was a great bunch of guys. But why did they want him to go along?

The trip was great and Europe was their oyster. They met a group of American girls on the ship who joined them for the summer. One was Gretchen Van Dyke, a pretty, although vacuous flapper type. "Hey Blaine, Gretchen thinks you're the cat's pajamas."

Rick blushed but he thought she was swell, too. But then his experience with girls was limited. By the time the summer was over, Rick thought he was in love with Gretchen and asked her to be his girl. She laughed, but she agreed. "OK Rick, I'm your girl."

Gretchen was not naïve; the Blaine fortune beckoned and she felt...