The Rebellion of Yale Marratt

by Robert H. Rimmer

  "That's not going to happen because I won't ask him, and I'm sure that Harry won't," Yale had said. He told Harry that he was sorry.

  Harry shrugged and said that sorrow would do him no good. When the Marratt employees read Pat's advertisement he would be washed up in Midhaven. Officials at his union's headquarters would be terribly angry. Their only hope would be to denounce him and move fast to save the strike. A new business representative would be sent to Midhaven.

  Sarah listened impassively to Harry. She sighed. "All this trouble because sometimes, in our own back yard, and in our own house, we didn't wear clothes. We bother no one. This Jack Leonard, we haven't seen him for years." Her face brightened as she remembered. "You were there, Yale, and Mat Chilling. You remember. Ruthie and the boys were there, too. Ruthie has four of her own now." Sarah smiled happily. "That was the very last time we ever saw Jack Leonard. That was the day he told us that he was a Communist."

  "Listen, Sarah, you have been playing with fire," Yale told her. "You and Harry have been doing unconsciously what I am doing consciously. If I get burned, it will come as no surprise. But remember that I am playing with new rules, and backed by the one thing the average man respects in this country, money. I remember Mat Chilling telling you that afternoon that you could have ideas different from the masses, and maybe you could lead them, but on certain fundamentals such as sex and nakedness you were either very circumspect or you were in trouble. For most people in this country, educated as they are, nakedness and sex are equivalently a dirty business. Pat has found your Achilles heel. Without the power of money behind Challenge it could very well be mine.

  "I'm sorry that at the moment Harry's neck is in the noose, but the Midhaven Herald isn't the only way for Pat. If I stopped the advertisement, Pat could have it run as a handbill, and probably do just as good a job. Right now he is mad enough to try and pull the paper down around my ears. Challenge is going to need the Midhaven Herald . I bought it to get Peoples off the hook, but I can't let it drain the foundation." Yale sighed. "I feel badly, Harry, that I can't figure out any way to extricate you. At least by accepting the advertisement we can attempt to counteract it. I have already discussed it with Peoples. We will run a headline editorial on the front page. We'll try to show the readers how they are being played upon emotionally. We'll honestly show them how the half-true statements that Pat has made . . . the whole emotional approach . . . has been done to inflame the public and create prejudice and hatred. We'll tie the whole thing in with Challenge. Appeal to their reason . . . and at the same time show the essential validity of what we are trying to do." Yale patted Harry on the shoulder. "Cheer up, Harry, I want you working for me, anyhow. You can do more for people with the Challenge concepts than you ever could with unionism."

  Harry's smile was sad. "It'll help you sell a lot more books, but it won't do me any good, personally. I'm sorry for you, Yale. I like you, but I don't believe in Challenge. I don't believe that man is God. I've been raised a Jew. God is outside man. Some men may get close to God, but man is not God. A feeling like this I cannot change."

  Anne remembered that they had talked for a long time. Yale had been obviously upset to find that Harry couldn't accept the Challenge Commandments. Harry had underscored his feelings with a bright red line when he told Yale that Yale was more interested in abstract principles than the men who would be necessary to make the principles work.

  "I have a feeling, Yale," Harry had said, in almost a whisper, "that if it came to a choice between saving a friend and proving the validity of your Commandments, you would sacrifice the friend."

  Yale had demanded that he be more explicit.

  Harry shrugged: "So far there's Paul Downing, young Jim Latham, Alfred Latham. I understand that your father has had a heart attack. Have you been to see him? He is your father."

  Yale scowled at Harry and shook his head. "And now I have, as you put it, 'sacrificed' you, too."

  Harry realized that Yale was deeply hurt. "Yale, my friend, I am afraid that you are so dedicated to your mission in life that you have a blind side. Anyone with a name like Cohen would be a hindrance to you. You are going to have enough disapprobation without having a landslide of subtle anti-semitism. No Jew so far as I know, since Christ, has dared to be connected with a new religion."

  When he was leaving he begged Yale to be careful. Harry patted Cynthia's cheek fondly. "This little girl loves you too much . . . see that she doesn't get hurt again." Anne knew that he was reminding Yale of the night that Mat Chilling had brought Cynthia to his house. She wondered what Cynthia thought about Harry's remarks that a Jew would be a hindrance to Yale. Knowing Cynthia, and able to guess the silent, tortuous course of her thinking, Anne suspected that Cynthia was troubled. Anne had put her arm around her. She told Harry not to worry. No matter what their crazy husband did, she and Cynthia would stick together.

  Harry smiled at Anne and shook his head. "Two such lovely beryeh . A lucky man, this Yale Marratt. Why should he wish to go around doing mitzvahs for the world?"

  It was the last time they saw Harry Cohen. The advertisement had been published two weeks ago in the Midhaven Herald . Peoples had written an excellent editorial. He explained that he had interviewed Harry Cohen very thoroughly and while Harry admitted that Jack Leonard had been a friend, Harry Cohen had had no idea of Leonard's political leanings. Never had Harry Cohen in any way been associated with the Communist Party. Peoples went to great length to explain the strong democratic leanings of a man who had devoted his life to his friends and the underpaid workers of Midhaven. Peoples did not attempt to deny that Harry and his wife enjoyed the pleasure of their home and their back yard, occasionally in the nude. He suggested that probably many Midhaven families did the same. Certainly, there was nothing of sexual significance in this. Peoples enjoined his readers to weigh Pat's charges carefully in their own minds. He pointed out to the striking Marratt employees that the absurd charges obviously did not affect Harry Cohen's acumen as business representative of their union.

  But reason seldom triumphed against emotion, Anne thought. The large black type of Pat's advertisement shrieked its message of fear and hatred, and in its simple virulence denied the quietly reasoned editorial that Peopies had written.

  Fuel was added to the fire by headline stories that appeared in the out-of-town newspapers which circulated widely in Midhaven stating that influential legislators were going to demand an investigation of the Latham Shipyards coup as well as initiate a probe of the Challenge Foundation. Knowing Yale Marratt had suddenly become a worse stigma for Harry Cohen than his association with Jack Leonard.

  They had no trouble finding Harry's house that night. The black sky over Helltown was pink with the reflection of the holocaust. Anne remembered the horror of forcing their way through the jeering crowd, asking stony-faced people who recognized them if they knew where Harry and Sarah Cohen were; all the time praying that they hadn't been trapped in that inferno of flames.

  Someone recognized Yale. In a few minutes it was generally known that they were there. In the fire-lighted faces there was anger and distrust. Thinking of it later Anne knew that they should have been forewarned of worse to come. A groundswell of anger against Yale Marratt and his wives was gathering momentum. She and Cynthia had finally received the full impact of it the next day.

  As they edged toward the fireline that had been drawn in front of the house they heard nasty comments: "That's young Marratt. He's the one that's screwin' up the works at Latham."

  A heavy-built man grabbed Yale by the arm. "If that rat Cohen is getting his ass fried, you and your two whores caused it. Why don't you get the hell out of Midhaven? Go back to those heathen countries where you can have a whole goddamned harem."

  Yale wriggled out of his grasp, but the big man had followers equally as verbose. One of them kept up an exceptionally filthy barrage on their marital life, following them and taunting them. "You're a dirty rotten man," he concluded incongruously. "You and your
fuckin' Challenge stinks."

  Yale located the chief of the Midhaven Fire Department, who told Yale that when the fire engines had arrived the place was beyond saving. All they were trying to do now was keep it from spreading. "If Cohen and his wife didn't get out, they won't be nothing . . . not even a mess of bones. Whoever started that little blaze must have gotten his arson training in the U.S. Army. A very thorough job."

  Yale continued to search but he couldn't find any trace of the Cohens. When they got back home Peoples telephoned, and told him that he could stop worrying. Harry and Sarah had packed up and gone to New York that morning. Peoples told Yale that Pat Marratt, ostensibly recovered from his heart attack, had been the last one to talk with Harry.

  "Bert Walsh called me this morning," Peoples said. "Bert sounded quite elated. Harry had admitted defeat. Bert said that they were as surprised as hell to see Harry walk into the administration offices this morning looking for Pat. Harry found Pat walking around the empty plant. Bert saw them talking together for a few minutes, and then Harry left. When Bert demanded to know what Harry was up to, he said that Pat had a strange look on his face. He told Bert that the strike was over, and then he said to Bert, 'Under other circumstances that son-of-a-gun and I might have been good friends. I admire him, Bert Walsh. He has dignity, and do you know something? He thinks my son is hell-on-wheels.'"

  What Pat meant by hell-on-wheels remained a mystery. Liz had not come back to the house, but Barbara had seen her occasionally and mentioned that the subject of Yale Marratt was not for discussion. "He's made his bed. Let him rot in it," was Liz's report of Pat's attitude.

  But it was apparent that the vandals who had set fire to Harry Cohen's home hoped that the Cohens were inside. Harry had left Midhaven without saying goodbye to Yale. Nor had they heard from him since. Although he claimed that it was inevitable, and what had happened to Harry was no fault of his, Anne and Cynthia knew that Yale was deeply disturbed.

  Anne noticed that Cynthia had turned half on her back, and was looking across the bed in her direction with a troubled expression on her face. She reached her hand across Yale's chest without waking him, and squeezed Cynthia's hand. "Stop thinking about it, Cindar," she whispered. "It was just a bad dream that you had. Nothing can touch our love for each other."

  Cynthia smiled at her gratefully and returned the pressure of her grasp. Yale stirred restlessly and continued to sleep. I love you, Anne, Cynthia thought. I love the strength and lightheartedness that you manage to show even when I know you are as frightened and terrified as I am. I accept your tenderness and concern because I know that if the need arises for you, you will turn to me. We are the equal halves of the arch that holds the structure up. Cynthia grinned. Yale would like that idea.

  But society wouldn't accept it. Cynthia wished that she could stop worrying. She wondered how Yale could take so calmly that the day after tomorrow he would be in a courtroom fighting for his right to live with both of them. It was hopeless, she thought. The law couldn't be denied. "A marriage contracted while either party thereto has a former wife or husband living shall be void." It meant in reality that she wasn't legally married to Yale, because she was the second wife. But did it really matter? She remembered telling Yale once that she didn't care if they were ever married, just so long as they could live together. What was marriage anyway? A convenience for the state to assure the future of its progeny. Looked at that way, wasn't this marriage a responsible marriage? But would the three of them have the courage to insist on their moral right as a higher right than the law of the land?

  "As long as you want me," Yale said, "I will see that the three of us stay together. I promise you that, Cindar. I'm not afraid or embarrassed that we love each other. You've simply got to look upon this trial as unavoidable. It's only the beginning. The world needs its thinking shaken up a bit. Our morals, our ethics, and our religions have grown musty and need a breath of fresh air."

  But the little people of the world weren't pleased with deviationists. Cynthia wondered if she herself would have the courage to continue to defy the well rooted common beliefs of the world. She hadn't told either Anne or Yale that Rabbi Weiner had telephoned her. It had been a rather one-sided conversation. She had invited him out to the house, but he had curtly refused.

  "I don't know how to say this to you," Rabbi Weiner had said. "If you don't mind, I'll make it simple for myself and refer to you as Mrs. Marratt." Cynthia noted the implied disgust in his voice, and was tempted to tell him that bigamy was quite a common custom in old Jewish chronicles. She refrained and listened. "What I briefly wish to point out to you is that if you have any love for your people and your traditions, you should disassociate yourself from this madness. The Jews in Midhaven are a small respected group. Prejudice has been at a minimum. Now, since that disgraceful advertisement and that terrible episode last week, we have become a target of enmity. Innocent people are being held responsible for your actions." Rabbi Weiner intimated that while he wouldn't come out to Challenge Farm, he would very much like to talk with Cynthia in his own home. "I think you have forsaken your people, Mrs. Marratt. Come and let my wife and me remind you how good and peaceful it can be to follow your own traditions."

  Cynthia knew that he was wondering what kind of person she was. Probably after reading the story of what had happened to her and Anne in the newspapers, and seeing that picture that had been published in one of the out-of- town newspapers showing both of them half-naked -- similar to pictures she had seen of women in German concentration camps -- probably Rabbi Weiner assumed that she had deserved what had happened . . . a tribulation.

  She couldn't forget it. Detail by detail she remembered the horror and shame and utter degrading fear that she had known. Just a few weeks ago, Saturday, after Pat's advertisement had been printed, and after the fright they had received, thinking Harry and Sarah might have been burned alive in their own house, Anne had suggested that they both needed a change. They would go into Midhaven and buy some new fall clothes, and then stop on the way back and pick up some groceries at the supermarket that had just opened on the New York highway.

  Cynthia remembered, afterwards, that she had a premonition that they were being followed. But she had forgotten about it as she and Anne piled two carts high with groceries; both of them enjoying the fun of deliberating over hundreds of exotically packaged foods while they decided what they could buy that wouldn't be too fattening. When they brought their carts to the check-out counter, Cynthia noticed a noisy group of high-school boys dressed in jeans, their shirttails tied nonchalantly around their middles, milling around in front of the store. Two of them walked into the store and stared boldly at them as the clerk packed their purchases into cartons.

  One of the boys nudged Anne and said, "Hey, what's the scoop? Is one guy really gettin' into both of you?"

  "Jeez . . . he must have a big dick!" the other one said, smirking at Cynthia.

  "Maybe neither of them is gettin' enough."

  One of the boys grabbed Cynthia's arm. She stared at him, terrified.

  "Wanta try it with a man?" The boy leered at her and put his pimply face close to hers.

  Anne pulled him away from Cynthia, and demanded that the check-out clerk get the manager of the store. She told him to call the police and tell them that they were being accosted. Cynthia noticed that a group of women shoppers had collected around the entrance and were watching, nodding their heads and smiling sarcastically at each other.

  And then two more boys walked into the store. They grabbed their cartons of groceries. The first two boys, although they probably weren't more than eighteen or nineteen years old, towered over Anne and Cynthia. They quickly clasped Anne's and Cynthia's arms behind them and propelled them through the door into the waiting crowd who let out a yell of pleasure as they surrounded the girls.

  There must have been at least fifty of them, mostly teen-age boys, a few girls, and a handful of older men. Both Anne and Cynthia screamed their fright as they s
uddenly realized that they were prisoners in the middle of a rioting mob. Their screams were greeted with a roar of delight, as the tough looking boys milled around them, calling them whores and worse; saying the filthiest words Cynthia had ever heard in her life.

  When the girls had tried to break out of the circle and run for their car the boys surrounded them, pinching them, trying to fondle their breasts, and grabbing at their buttocks. Just as they reached the car, one of them clasped Cynthia around her waist. Another boy bent down and, ignoring her kicking, yanked her dress over her hips, tugging at it, and tried to pull it over her head. She felt the dress being ripped at the belt. She screamed in panic as she realized that her arms would be captured by the dress and she would be trapped inside while they dragged her around. Just before the dress was pulled over her head she saw one of the boys slashing at Anne's dress with a switch knife.

  They were both being stripped in front of this raving mob! Cynthia screamed, clawing at them frantically. She felt hands rubbing her body, ripping off her panties. She felt them clutching at her bra, and then suddenly her dress, that had caught at her neck and armpits, was yanked violently. The garment gave way and she stumbled forward, free of it and naked into the arms of several grinning boys. They held her arms and she watched frozen with fear while another group ruthlessly stripped Anne. Anne had stopped struggling and was letting them cut off her clothes while she dazedly watched them.

  Naked, they were pressed into a narrow circle by a yelling, slobbering crowd of teen-age boys who kept shoving them from one to the other, squeezing them and feeling their bodies everywhere.

  "You like to walk around naked!" one of them yelled. "We're just giving you a chance."

  "Come on, shake those titties for us."