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Rebellion in a Curious Way | Poem

REBELLION IN A CURIOUS WAY by Jodey Bateman

complete novel
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CHAPTER THIRTY
    Will came by Jim Ed’s around six that evening. Jim Ed had bought some hamburgers for dinner. He wolfed his hamburger down - he had to hurry off to tend bar at the Barrage. Will came by the house right after that. His head was hanging down and his mouth turned down in a troubled expression. He clapped me on the shoulder. Then he dropped into a chair at the kitchen table and scooted it up close to Jan’s chair. He took her right hand in his left. Then with his right hand he picked up his hamburger and turned it around studying it like a scientist studying a new species of mushroom that might be poisonous. He took a few bites and then put it down. He just sat there staring downward between his feet, legs stretched out, the back of his heels against the floor, toes sticking up in the air. He didn’t say anything for a while. 
    "Isn’t Ben coming by to talk over the court-martial with you?" I asked. 
    "Oh, yeah, he said he would," Will said with the corner of his mouth sagging open. 
    I walked into the living room where Jan, Jim Ed’s girlfriend, was laying out a blanket for me on the couch. 
    "What’s the matter with Will?" I whispered. 
    "Oh, he’s been getting more like this every night this week," she answered in a low voice, "you don’t have to whisper. He won’t notice." 
    There was a knock at the door. Lou opened the door and attorney Ben Markovitz strode in like leading a brass band in a parade through a funeral. I followed him into the kitchen. 
    "Hello, Will!" he boomed, "I’ve talked with all the people I know who are specialists in military law and I think we’re going to get you out of the army with no more than a bad conduct discharge! Not even a week in the stockade!" 
    "Yeah," Will said, not lifting his head. 
    "So what’s this?" Ben said, staring around the room. "My grandfather would say everyone looks like Tisha Bov - the day the temple was destroyed." 
    "Ben, just tell me what I have to do," Will said, barely looking up. "I’ll do it, all right." 
    "Do?" Ben said. "You’re going to have to make a few responses to those characters at the court-martial - more response than you’re giving me. If you don’t you just might get some time in the stockade!" 
    "OK, OK," Will sighed. Then he looked at Jan and me and said, "could I just be alone with Ben for a while?" 
    Jan and I went into the living room. I closed the kitchen door behind us. 
    "Hey, what’s going on?" I asked. 
    "I don’t know," Jan answered. 
    "Shhh-just don’t bother!" Lou said with a wave of her hand. 
    A few minutes later Ben came striding out of the kitchen with a frown on his face. 
    "Ben, is everything all right?" I asked. 
    He came over and put his arm around my shoulder and said, "Just make sure he’s there tomorrow!" 
    Then he hugged Jan and hugged Lou and said, "Goodbye, dear hearts!" He walked out, slamming the door behind him and drove off to his motel in his rented car. 
    Lou went to her room. Then Jan went into the kitchen. I could hear Will getting up from the kitchen table and walking with her to the storeroom where she was staying. It was only about eight o’clock, but I turned out the living room light and wrapped myself in the blanket Lou had left for me on the couch. Soon I could hear the sexual noises from the storeroom and over them I could hear Will’s voice sobbing. Then there was silence. I couldn’t get to sleep. After midnight Jim Ed returned from tending bar. He crossed the living room, but I made no sign that I was awake. He went into the bedroom and got in bed with Lou. Then more silence. 
    About a half an hour later Will walked into the living room almost noiselessly. I could see the moonlight from the windows on his bare shoulders as he squatted by the couch. 
    "Dale?" he whispered. "Are you awake?" 
    "Hey Will," I answered, "what the hell’s going on?" 
    "Could you please help Jan and me get to Canada?" Will said. "Like you did for Stan and other people." 
    "But after the court-martial tomorrow you won’t be in the army," I said. 
    "I know," Will said. "but I’m just so sick of the whole thing. I’ve spent so much time with Jan in the last couple of weeks since she moved in here with Jim Ed and Lou. It’s like a taste of freedom I’ve never had. I’m twenty. My whole adult life has been the damn army. We’ve talked about having kids. How could I support them? I dropped out of high school when I was 17 to serve my country. Now, if we have kids, I have no education and a bad conduct discharge hanging over my head every time I look for a job. But in Canada..." 
    "What about your brothers back in Nam?" I said, "and all the Vietnamese people who were your friends? Didn’t you want to do something for them?" 
    "Yes-yes, I still do!" he whispered, and I could hear the sobbing in his voice. "But if I stay in this country, and it keeps on as crazy as it is, I’ll be like a soldier of the Movement for life - until the revolution comes, whenever that is. I used to think that would be great until I actually got to spend several nights with Jan and we got to talking about having kids. What kind of life will that be for kids, with their parents making $10 a week like I hear that you do? See that over there?" 
    He pointed to an armchair in the corner where his dress uniform was neatly folded. "I don’t ever want to put on that goddamn thing again!" Will whispered in a harsh rasp. "Dale, you have names and addresses. You can get me and Jan out of here. I can do stuff for the movement in Canada and still have a decent job." 
    "Does Jan want to go to Canada?" I asked. 
    "I haven’t asked her yet," Will answered. 
    "Well, you’d better. And maybe Jim Ed will drive you and her to Clu’s new place tomorrow - but you know how Clu feels so you’ll have to find a new hiding place while I make contacts - if we do this." 
    "OK!" he whispered loud. He grabbed my hand in both of his and shook it and went back to the storeroom. 
    As soon as it was light, a car stopped in front of Jim Ed’s house. Within seconds, knuckles were rapping hard on the door. Jim Ed staggered out of the bedroom with his eyes half-closed, pulling on his underwear. He opened the door and two G.I.’s in fatigues came in - Pete Yoder and towering over him, Hank the Coyote who was in the Red Clay Runners bike club. 
    "Where’s Will?" Pete asked. 
    "Back there in the store room with Jan," Jim Ed said and started to yawn. 
    Pete and Hank walked briskly back through the kitchen to the store room. "Will," Pete called out banging on the door. "it’s time to get ready now!" 
    "No! No!" I could hear his voice. "Leave me alone!" 
    "Bullshit, Will!" Pete said, "What’s the matter with you?" 
    "You might as well get up and talk to them," Jan said. 
    In a few minutes Will came into the living room in his underwear followed by the two other G.I.’s. I was folding up the blanket I had been sleeping in. 
    "Look!" Will said. "I just want to get away to Canada with Jan. I’m sick of being at the beck and call of the assholes who keep court-martialing me. Dale!" I looked up. 
    "Dale," Will said, "you don’t know what it’s like being in the army. I’m locked up with a bunch of assholes telling me what to do all the time. I just don’t want to do it anymore." 
    All of a sudden in Pete’s gentle, childlike face, his crooked upper teeth showed, biting down hard on his lower lip as grim as you could imagine in such a simple innocent face. 
    "Look," Pete said. "You got me into this. I may not have been to Nam and seen the shit there, but I risked losing the insurance money I was going to give to my mom, I would have lost it too, if it hadn’t been for your lawyer Ben. And I was the one that spent thirty days at hard labor in the stockade. I saw a whole lot about assholes in the army. I did it for you and I was glad I did it. But you gotta do this now." 
    "Hey Will," Hank said in a deep, melodious Arkansas voice, "you can tell these people they don’t understand because they ain’t been to Nam, but I been there. You’re a brother, but if you don’t put that uniform on, I’m gonna hold you down so Pete can put it on you." 
    Will stared at me desperately. I shook my head. Then Jan walked into the doorway leading to the kitchen. She was wearing a light blue bathrobe. 
    ‘Yeah, Will," she said, "Southwest State is a shitty college but I had to drop out or get kicked out for you and I don’t know when I’ll ever be able to afford to go back to college again. I haven’t told my mom yet. She’s gonna have a fit when she finds out about it. And it’s all worth it - but this is your part you’ve got to do." 
    "Yeah, man," Jim Ed said. "I’d do almost anything in the world for you but that don’t include getting you out of town before you’ve been to the fucking court-martial." 
    Will edged over to the uniform like it was a rattle snake in the armchair. He stopped. Pete picked up the pants and headed for Will. Will took a deep breath. "OK, OK, give me the fucking things!" Will exhaled. "I just had to hear from everybody again!" 
    Pete handed Will the pants and he pulled them on. He put on the rest of his uniform in from of us. Then Lou came out of the bedroom in a yellow slip. 
    "Anybody want some coffee?" she asked. 
    A scattered chorus of "Yes!" from around the room, including me and Will. In a short time Lou had fixed coffee and we drank it down with a laugh as if the scene a few minutes ago had not happened. We were young with a lot ahead of us. 
    Soon we all went off to Fort Clay with Pete and Hank. Then Jim Ed and Lou got dressed. We drove into Fort Clay without the MP’s stopping us, in time for Will’s final court-martial, which was at nine a.m. 
    Jim Ed knew where to go. We went into the courtroom. I had slept in my clothes as usual. Pete and Hank were there with about ten other G.I.’s. I only saw a couple of reporters. Now that they knew Will was getting out of the army and that there was no danger of a riot, most of them had lost interest. There was a young woman I had never seen. 
    First the MP who arrested Will testified with his squeaky voice,    "Private Will Orry had been reported by the President of Southwest State College as being on campus and probably AWOL. When we found him he had no pass." 
    Then it was Will’s turn to stand and make his statement to the judges, which I scribbled in my notebook. It was easy to write it down, because he spoke slow and steady with the calm of someone who has finally figured out his path in life. 
    "The Field Board Hearing wanted to prove that I was associated with a ‘militant subversive’, Claudia Proctor, that’s Clu’" he said. "She has been my friend and I hope she still considers herself my friend because she is one of the best people I know. 
    "Anyway," he went on, "Clu advised me to win my Field Board Hearing, and I really wanted to at first. If I could have done that, it would mean I could stay in the army and the army would be guaranteeing my right to give out literature against the war." 
    At this point the officers judging the case gave little starts of amazement. They blinked, then they leaned forward and stared at Will. 
    "I see how that must look to this court," Will said. "I knew the army would try to stop me even if I won my case at the Field Board Hearing. I would have to go again and again to get advice and direction from Clu and the people she knew. I would need all kinds of legal help that should go to poor people who need it more. "Besides that," Will continued, "I knew the army wouldn’t let me stay in. I saw that when they wouldn’t let Ben cross-examine the main witness against me at the Field Board Hearing, but I knew it already. Ben would have had to keep appealing my case until my hitch in the army was over. 
    "All I ask," Will said, "is for an honorable discharge. I fought in Vietnam, I got wounded, I got medals. The only think in this whole court-martial and Field Board business that has worried me is what a bad conduct discharge will mean to my children  - if I ever have any. It will make it much harder for me to get a job to support them. 
    "But if you give me the bad conduct discharge - that will also be something for my children’s sake that I’m giving them. I’m doing my bit, sacrificing so that my kids won’t be forced to go to war when some bunch of millionaires think they should. One thing I got from all that literature which is supposed to be subversive that Clu sent me - it’s something I never learned in school. It’s how people that worked with their hands like my parents and grandparents sacrificed to organize to get decent wages. Some of them gave their lives. I can sure enough take a bad conduct discharge so my children can live in peace." 
    As Will spoke, he seemed to be growing. There was a wave of energy from him. The G.I.’s started applauding. Then so did Jim Ed and Lou and I. I stood up like Clu had once done and started chanting "END THE WAR IN VIETNAM, BRING THE TROOPS HOME!" 
    Then all of us were on our feet, chanting at the top of our lungs. One of the judges slammed his palm against the desk and we shut up and sat down. The officer who was the presiding judge said, "Private Orry, in the army we are supposed to carry out the missions we are assigned by the civilian leadership who were elected by the people of this country. No matter what your record was like in Vietnam, we can’t allow you to remain in the army and disrupt our mission. And we have to give some kind of penalty so that other soldiers will not be encouraged to do the same thing. You are separated from the army with a bad conduct discharge and you will process out of the army on Monday." 
    In a few minutes we were out on the sidewalk. Everyone was cheering like we had won. Ben was clapping and singing his Hebrew wedding song. Will pulled off his dress uniform coat with his combat ribbons and flung it to the ground. He unloosened his tie and toke off the army shirt and flung tie and shirt to the ground. Hank and Pete picked Will’s discarded army stuff and carried it to Hank’s car. Jan handed Will his BLACK HLL FOREVER T-shirt and he put it on. 
    Will stretched his arms out trying to put them around Jan, Jim Ed and Lou. He reached out and his hand touched my shoulder. Just then a tall slender woman came running up. She had long dark brown hair and deep-set violet eyes in a thin oval face. I had seen her in the court-martial audience and wondered who she was. She ran up and clasped Jan’s hands and said, "Thank you!" 
    Then she looked around at the rest of us and said, "Excuse me. My name is Linda Kokenhauer. I’m the social secretary of the Baptist Student Association. I’ve been Jan’s friend since we were in Young Republicans together. I’m thanking Jan - partly for returning the key to Conference Room B." 
    "You’re welcome," Jan said with a bright smile among her freckles. 
   "It’s more than that," Linda said. "Thurston Craig, the college president, called me into his office. He was pretty upset. I told him you said you needed the key to have some kind of meeting over the noon hour. What I said was kind of untrue because I didn’t tell him I knew about Will coming. I gave him the key and he didn’t expel me and I can transfer easily to a decent college next semester. I hear there were fifty people in Conference Room B listening to Will - more than we ever had at an unauthorized meeting before. Some of them were Vietnam veterans and threatened to get ahold of their congressmen if President Craig tried to expel them. So Jan, if you or I don’t finish college at Southwest State, at least we made more freedom there." 
    The Frog and Hattie from the Barrage walked up. "We got here late," Frog said, "but everybody come by the Barrage and let’s have a party! Three hours of free beer, and Dale, you should sing us something!" 
    So we all went to the Barrage and partied - even the Baptist Student Association Social Secretary. And I was ready to do what I had to do when I went for my draft physical Tuesday morning, November 7th.
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