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Rebellion in a Curious Way | Poem

REBELLION IN A CURIOUS WAY by Jodey Bateman
 

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 CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
 
    In spite of the woolen scarf, the monkey started to shiver with cold. Hope handed the monkey to Harry. Then she went home with Naldo. Her brother Zack and his girlfriend Marilyn left. Then Harry said, "Goodbye everybody, this has been a great evening. I’ll always remember it." 
    Harry and monkey walked home with Mariah and Shin and the Wallenberg twins. Sally and Terry left and I walked back to Clu’s with Randy and Ben and Will. I explained my draft physical plan to them. 
    "Wow!" Will breathed. 
    "A good plan!" Ben said. "At least it’s not the virtue of daring." Then he went on to tell what he and will had whispered about at the picnic. It was the plan for the Field Board Haring and Will told me the role I might play. We all hugged on Clu’s front porch, then Ben and Will hopped in Ben’s rented car and drove off to Pronghorn. 
    Randy and I walked into Clu’s dim living room. 
    "Jeez," Randy said. "I’m still tripping my brains out. All these patterns moving around on the wall - it’s better than a kaleidoscope!" 
    "I’m still getting some pretty good movies myself," I said. 
    Just then our noise woke Clue up. She came padding out of her bedroom in slippers. She was wearing a pale blue night gown and she was pulling on a thin white flannel housecoat that reached about to her knees. She was wincing with the effort to stay awake and her long light brown hair was in disarray. I saw lines of anxiety around her mouth. 
    "Randy!" she said. "Why did you and Will leave me and go to that party?" 
    "Well, I’ll tell you," Randy said. "I got tired of being used to jump on Will." 
    "But don’t you think I got jumped on after you all were gone?" Clu said. "Randy, you and I both know that the Vanguard are the only ones able to do anything serious, but sometimes it’s hard for me to work with them when I’m alone. My shoulders aren’t strong enough to bear up under all that! I need your help!" 
    "Well, you should tell them they’re full of shit and to back off!" Randy said. "They need you as much as you need them." 
    But by this time Clu wasn’t noticing Randy. She whirled around to me. "Dale! I’ll bet this is all your doing!" she said flashing her eyes at me. "You’re disrupting everything I’m trying to build. Don’t you see?" and by now there was a note of weeping in her voice. She stamped her foot on the floor and turned around and went to her bedroom. 
    "What more is there to say?" Randy asked into the air. "Man, just look up at the ceiling!"
    I looked up and saw drifts of glowing, multi-colored dust flowing through the air. Randy was lying on his back on the couch, a wide smile on his face. 
    I had gotten a plan for my draft problem and some kind of new relationship to Hope - even if it wasn’t the sort of relationship I had once wanted. I hadn’t needed Will so much to help me face my problems, but I was glad he had come and found a plan to solve his own. The only thing that bothered me now was that I knew Clu was crying. So I just wanted to stay quiet a while, but Randy started talking again. 
    "You know, I was in the Organization a while," he said. "But I felt kind of strange. I only finished the eleventh grade and in the Organization I was around all these college kids - and they didn’t know what the fuck they were doing. The Organization is so un-together, I don’t see how you can work for them. Then I got in the Vanguard. Both my parents were factory workers and the way the Vanguard explained Marxism, people like me are the people that socialism is intended for - to set us free of being bossed around and stop us from being laid off to go broke every time someone can’t make enough profit off our labor. 
    "Well, I realized tripping tonight," Randy went on, "I believe in socialism more than ever. But I also realize how much I’ve resented the Vanguard. It’s like always having a foreman sitting on your shoulder, hollering into your ear. I don’t know how much longer I can take it. Still there are a lot of really good people in the Vanguard - they do a lot of good. So I’m kind of pulled both ways. I know I don’t have much use for the Organization, though." 
    "Well," I said, "how about you and me staying in touch and being willing to work together even though you’re in the Vanguard and I’m in the Organization. Did you ever hear of a guy named Bump?" 
    "Yeah!" Randy said. "I met him once. For somebody in the Organization, he sure knew a lot about Marxism." 
    "Bump told me," I said, "that before he became a Marxist, he was into a big Church  of Christ trip. And the church adults were real worried about keeping their youth from going to the Baptists or the Pentecostals. And finally Bump got tired of the adults trying to order the youth around and keep them away from other denominations and he told them he was quitting. He quoted their own scriptures back at them ‘some preach Christ for the truth’s sake and others out of envy, but what do I care as long as Christ is preached?’ Bump used to say the same thing should be true of socialism as much as Christ. Why waste our time hassling against each other - the Organization or Vanguard or the Communist Party or whatever?" 
    "Amen." Clu’s voice came from her bedroom, sounding full of laughter and crying at once. At least now I knew she was all right. 
    "Let’s keep on together, Clu!" I called to her. "Just be ready for anything Monday." 
    I went upstairs to my room and watched the play of bright colored designs until the sun came through my window. Outside I could see the trees with each autumn leaf arranged on the branches like an individual work of art. Then I fell into a deep sleep, all through that Sunday morning. I woke up early in the afternoon. I walked downstairs. Don and Marge were talking with Clu. Randy was curled up on the floor in his sleeping bag - still conked out. I said hello and hurried out into an afternoon that still had some LSD sparkle to it. 
    Next day the five of us started to Fort Clay. The Field Board hearing wasn’t supposed to begin until ten a.m. Once we were in the room where it was held, we waited half an hour for the hearing to start. Finally it did. A handsome, stern-looking woman of about fifty sat down in the witness seat. Her up swept hair was dyed bright red. She was sworn in as Gloria Waterman, a research analyst since 1958 for the House Un-American Activities Committee, a committee of Congress that investigated subversive activity. 
    The main items of Miss Waterman’s testimony were as follows: 
    "The Vanguard is a militant Marxist party dedicated to the revolutionary overthrow of the United States Government. 
    "Claudia Proctor has been a member of the Vanguard since July 1965. She went on a mission for the Vanguard in the Soviet Union and three Eastern European countries in August and September of 1965 - and again in July, 1966. 
    "Claudia Proctor attended Private Will Orry’s first court-martial and caused a disruption. She was arrested for trespassing while trying to attend his second court-martial. She has conferred with Private will Orry and his attorney Ben Markovitz, both in the town of Pronghorn and at her home." 
    (At this point the officers conducting the Field Board Hearing all tried to stare holes into Clu.) 
    Then Ben got up to cross-examine. 
    "Miss Waterman," he started off, "how does the House Un-American Activities Committee know that Claudia Proctor joined the Vanguard?" 
    "I refuse to answer that question for National Security reasons," Miss Waterman said. 
    "And how does the un-American Activities Committee know when and why Miss Proctor went to the Soviet Union?" 
    "I also refuse to answer that question on National Security grounds." 
    "What details, if any, does the Un-American Activities Committee know about Miss Proctor’s conferences with me and Private Will Orry in Pronghorn and how does it know them?" 
    "I refuse to answer that question on the same grounds." 
    By now, Miss Waterman’s frown was getting grimmer. She was sticking her chin out further and further. Ben was grinning like a cat over a bowl of cream. He rubbed the palms of his hands together. 
    "Miss Waterman," he went on, "has the Un-American Activities Committee monitored my visits or Private Will Orry’s visits to Claudia Proctor’s home and if so , how?" 
    Miss Waterman turned her head sharply to the Field Board officers. 
    "Please!" she said. "I must ask to stop all further cross-examination on the ground that it might seriously compromise National Security." 
    Right then Ben raised his right hand, with a sheepish smile on his face. He looked like a cross between a holy man giving a blessing and a school child asking permission to go to the bathroom. 
    "Yes?" one of the officers asked.. 
    "May it please the Field Board, "Ben said in a gentle voice, "I wish to ask no further questions of Miss Waterman about Claudia Proctor or Private Will Orry. But I do wish to ask her one more question about her job at the House Un-American Activities Committee, which surely must be a matter of public record." 
    "Mmm, I suppose so," said the colonel in charge with his mouth twisted in doubt. 
    "Thank you, sir," Ben said. "Now Miss Waterman, you said you have been a research analyst for the House Un-American Activities Committee since 1958. So were you a research analyst for the committee when it conducted the hearings in 1959 entitled Interlocking Subversion in Brooklyn?" 
    "Yes, I believe so," Miss Waterman said. 
    "Miss Waterman," Ben continued, "one of the witnesses called before your committee in that hearing was my aunt, Mrs. Bessie Gladstein. The congressman on the committee, with their memories refreshed by your diligent research asked my Aunt Bessie all about her life - what organizations she belonged to, who her friends were - you know, the whole bit. Aunt Bessie had to take the Fifth Amendment 45 times. She had a big shouting match with some of the members of congress and your committee. They said she was betraying the American people. She answered, ‘Most of the people I know well are my fellow garment workers. I have never betrayed them! Never!’ And she came home and had a stroke. Then when I saw you refuse to answer questions in this hearing you gave me a joy and satisfaction for Aunt Bessie’s sake such as I never imagined I might have. Thank you, Miss Waterman, you may go!" and the ring of Ben’s voice sent Miss Waterman to some other corner of the universe. 
    "This hearing is adjourned for lunch!" the colonel said. 
    "Bang!" went his gavel. 
    The five of us - Clu, Don, Marge, Randy, and I walked out onto the steps of the building. Suddenly off on the sidewalk in front we saw something that surely wasn’t in anyone’s plan. 
    Ben was dancing his head and upper body bobbing up and down. Sometimes he would leap into the air. He was holding his hands high over his head and clapping rhythm as he sang something I couldn’t make out, at the top of his lungs. Will and Jan and the other G.I.’s were standing around him, most of them in fatigues. They started clapping their hands and some of them started leaping like Ben. 
    Will stretched out his hand and motioned to me to come over to their group. I turned to Randy and said, "You’d better stay here to help Clu with whatever comes up." 
    I ran over to Will. Ben had just finished shouting the last thunderous words of his song. His feet hit earth from his last leap. He gasped for air and reached over and shook Will’s hand and then shook mine. 
    "What on earth was that?" I asked. 
    "A wedding song!" Ben panted. "When I was a kid at weddings all the women would get in one circle and dance this song and I’d be in the other circle dancing it with all the men. The words mean ‘you brought us out of bondage in Egypt’ - you see, even at weddings we remember oppression and the meaning of freedom. The songs ends up ‘and you brought us to Jerusalem! Jerusalem!" 
    Ben doubled both hands into fists and shook them,      "L-YeRoo-shalaYEEM! YeROO-shalaYEEM!" he bellowed the last words of the song and started laughing. 
    "You know what?" he said. "At one wedding I danced that song so hard I threw my leg out of joint for three days. I could almost do that now, I feel so great! I got one back for Aunt Bessie at their stupid Un-American Committee! I never expected to do that in my life! Grndpop was right! There must be a God!" 
    "Where are Jim Ed and Lou?" I asked. 
    "They went over to the Southwest State Campus," Will said. "They’re getting people together for us there." 
    Will and his girlfriend Jan and I got into Ben’s car. Ben handed Will a large sack. "These are hamburgers and Cokes," he said. "Pass them around. I can’t stop at a restaurant. I don’t want the cops to get to the college campus before I do." 
    He drove across Pronghorn as fast as he could within the speed limit. Sure enough, there was a cop car following a couple of blocks behind us. We drove up to the small student union building on the campus. 
    Jan pulled a key out of her handbag. "Come on to Conference Room B," she said. "i got the key from a friend in the Baptist Student Organization. The administration is so used to having that room used only for Wednesday night prayer meetings that they leave it with her all the time." 
    "Will she get in trouble for this?" I asked.
    "She told me she could always say she didn’t know what I wanted the key for." Jan said. "And she’s leaving this hell hole for a real college at the end of the semester." 
    We followed Jan down the hall to Conference Room B. When she opened the door we went in and sat in the neatly arranged folding chairs and finished eating our hamburgers. Ben went outside the union building. Then he came back in and told us, "The cops are parked across the street not doing anything. Everything’s cool for now." 
    Over the next hour more and more people drifted into the room. Will and Ben and I introduced ourselves to everybody. We started an informal discussion of court-martials, Field Board Hearings and other strange things. We didn’t say very much about Vietnam itself at first. A large part of the Southwest State students were the children of officers and twenty-year sergeants and they had heard a lot about Vietnam at home. One woman stood up and said, "At home my parents would talk about the war - that there was something really wrong and sick about it - but they wouldn’t say that to most of their friends, just a few that they really trusted. They didn’t want to hurt my father’s army career. It was like our secret. And I’m sure it was the same way in all the other military families. This is the first time in my life I’ve really felt even a little bit free to talk about the war and everything with a bunch of other people." 
    Voices around the room said, "Yeah, that’s right." 
    Several of the male students had been in Vietnam and they got into brief discussions with Will about what outfit he was in and where and when. Then at one o’clock Jim Ed came in. By now there were over fifty people in Conference Room B, some of them standing. 
    "I think by now everybody has met Will," he said. "Now it’s time for him to say the things he came here for." 
    Will stood up, his head slightly bent downward, a shy smile on his face. "At last," he said, "maybe now I can say what I really want to say without someone stopping me."
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