A woman in a blood-spattered dress and a hat with a bird falling over her head came screaming down the aisle. She shrieked that Jewish Communists had broken into a Catholic Church, beaten the priest, and spat on the nuns. The meeting broke up. The crowd headed for the downtown area of Jewish-owned shops. They stopped before each shop and scrawled graffiti and stuck “Buy Christian” stickers on the plate-glass fronts. They shouted, “You’d better get out of here quick, you Jew bastards. If you don’t get out, we’ll take your store and you with it. You’ve got two weeks to vacate.”
Two policemen stood on the sidewalk watching the scene with an air of calm detachment.
A year later, the Christian Bob League suffered a major setback. A group of its young followers stole ammunition and arms from the National Guard and were arrested and accused of plotting against the government.
Rev. Bob was not surprised at the arrests. He commented on the radio that no one should be surprised at the power of the enemy.
That same week, the representative from Mississippi, John Rankin, had described to Americans the typical “little Communist kike” on the floor of the House of Representatives: “A scavenger who stoops to as base a level as that of the loathsome ghoul at night, who invades the sacred precinct of the tomb, goes down in the grave of a buried child and with his reeking fingers strips from its lifeless form the jewels and mementos placed there by the trembling hands of a weeping mother.” Having concluded his remarks, the representative went back to his seat and sat down, glaring ferociously in all directions. Within minutes a telegram was placed in his hand. It bore congratulations and blessings. It was sent by Rev. Bob.
III
The Rev. Very Big Bob went on the air three days before the Rubells were executed. He seemed serene.
“Good evening, radio friends. I love you. I am physically naked tonight in the elegant Wee Kirk of the Heavenly Biscuit, brethren. My body glistens. The beautiful Celeste is at the reins. She plays like an angel, doesn’t she? Bradley is home, polishing my sword.
“Outside, the whoremongers, the bulldykes cavort. Flying saucers: a clear sign the final days are near. We count the days till the Rubells are no more. The worldwide revolt against Jewish tyranny is on. The boiling lava of inarticulate resentment is about to gush out.
“The hour is late. They have swallowed up Korea. They have taken the White House. They have stolen the bomb. They have poisoned the waters. They are into our little girls’ breeches. Haven’t they had enough? It sounds pretty good to me.
“I want to quote you two things the Bible says about the Rubells. Open your Bible, please, to the last book in the Old Testament, the Second Book of Maccabeus 14:6-7. Let us read together: ‘It is the Jews who are called Hasidaeans under the leadership of Judas Maccabeus that keep the war alive and stir up sedition, and will not let the Kingdom enjoy tranquility.’ “ Then in the tenth verse it says: ‘For as long as Judas lives, it is impossible for the government to find peace.’
“Perhaps now we shall find peace.
“I am reminded, as well, of a comment made on the floor of the House of Representatives by that courageous prophet, John Rankin: ‘Communism is older than Christianity. It hounded and persecuted the Savior during His earthly ministry, inspired His crucifixion, derided Him in His dying agony, and then gambled for His garments at the foot of the Cross.’ Well said, Big John.
“But my friends, even with the burning of the Rubells, we will hardly be out of the woods. We have black men crowding white ladies on buses. We have drunken debauchery and fluoridation. Our precious bodily fluids are being drained from us.
“We have the mental-health scam at work this very moment. Patriots and Bible-believing Christians are declared ‘insane.’ If you are moral and oppose Communism, you can be certified mentally ill. It is happening as I speak. Psychological methods are being used to create a new breed of amoral men and women who will accept a one-world socialistic government. If you are a God-fearing Christian, you are in danger of being kidnapped, placed in a mental-health prison, and mentally murdered by electric shock treatments, chemotherapy, hypnosis, and lobotomy.
“Part and parcel of this whole shitload of subversion is the Council on Foreign Relations. Its fourteen hundred members control the U.S. State Department, cabinet posts, the press, and A.T. & T. This is an invisible government, my friends, that sets the major policies of the federal government. The goal? To convert America into a Socialist state. This is the plan: the same old internationalists’ no-win policy against the Russians. Containment, not victory.
“I’m disturbed. I’m troubled. Even if they do kill the Rubells— and who can be sure? I mean, why should they?
“Please stand with me. If we lose our battle, nothing you have will be worth anything. Senator McCarthy is marked for death by these Christ-haters and so am I. It is up to you to see to it that the maximum good is accomplished before my time comes to go, whether I am taken by the hand of nature or by the manipulations of the enemy.
“Naked and alone, in the cool night air, I await your generous calls. Here come my fourteen little helpers. Move your butts, boys.
“As a special offer, for a ten-dollar contribution—for those who call within the next half hour—I will mail you in a plain brown wrapper … a picture of the Council on Foreign Relations, the scene of the worst debaucheries of the twentieth century! It will send needles up your spine. It will send you spinning. This is a high you can’t miss. Share it with the boys at the clubhouse after you pull down the blinds. Some of you have etched for me your warm memories, your first recollections of the ‘it’ girl, Clara Bow, of summer nights in jalopies with your first dates, the girls’ mouths tasting of candy and licorice. You didn’t think you could recapture those feelings, but now you can. Just write ‘Hot Picture’ on an envelope, add a ten-dollar bill, and mail it to me, Father Very Big Bob, at the same old address.”
Rev. Very Big Bob was silent for a full five minutes. Listeners wondered if he had fainted or was jerking off. But occasionally they heard his rasping breathing, the start of a word, the pulling in of breath. Rev. Bob was struggling with something he wanted to say.
“It is my sad duty to relate news that sickens me to death. I have discovered beyond a doubt that J. Edgar Hoover, director of the F.B.I., is a tool of the Communists. One has only to study his new book about Communism to see this. It is veritably a manual for revolution, with tips and rules and guidelines to follow to overthrow the U.S. government.
“In fact, Hoover is the surviving constituent of the ‘big four’ fanatic Bolshevik conspirators of the master plan for world conquest. He is the Communists’ trojan horse of the century!
“Look, it is not easy for me to say this. I can hardly breathe. The big four Bolshevik madmen assembled in Petrograd in March 1917 to direct the revolution. Just listen to me. Lenin arrived from Switzerland, Trotsky and Hoover came from the U.S. (Trotsky was living on St. Marks Place in Greenwich Village where they fuck night and day), and Joseph Stalin from Siberian exile. The Communists’ tool, Hoover, ordered the liquidation of the following non-Communists first in the U.S.: the police, stockbrokers, especially lawyers and clergymen. I quote the book, his book; it’s all there: ‘Don’t hesitate to use illegal methods … use any weapon: knives, hatchets, or guns to achieve your aim … tear capitalism down completely … inspire civil rights demonstrations, integration, strikes… .’ Hoover’s atrocities against non-Communists surpass those of Genghis Khan or Attila.”
Rev. Bob paused. “So you ask, am I happy about the Rubells? Who could be happy under these circumstances? We have much bigger fish to fry, dear Christian friends.”
Shoot First
Choke on it.
—G. L.
Manya Poffnick had had a few beers on an empty stomach before she testified that day. On the way out of the courtroom, Hy Briské blew her a kiss. She felt heartbroken about it, and was terrified that the Party would expel her.
But the Party leaders were friendly.
Not an angry word, even from Henky Rubin. Manya pondered this for a long time. Now why was that creep, the head of the National Review Commission, V.H. Spellman, who loved to make comrades crawl, patting her on the behind? V.H. knew which side his bread was buttered on.
The F.B.I. watched her from windows. The Party was shot through with informers and opportunists. It was no good. If Stalin only knew what went on. “Stalin,” she said, “is as right as steam heat.”
“I fucked up. What are they sending me flowers for?” She was musing aloud in the bathroom of the automat on Union Square where she washed every morning. “How did I wind up in bed with scumbags? Their pipes, their tweeds, their corduroys! Spellman, I think, is a prostitute. But he’s not F.B.I. Still, he is not sincere. He thinks one thing and tells you another. Eugene Dennis wants to be by himself. He can’t be with people. How in the world does one of that join the Communist Party? Dennis is a question. Gus Hall— him! That momzer! Him I knew before he went to the Lenin School. He’s never suggested a logical thing. When he speaks, I have to hold on to my chair with both hands to stay awake.”
She opened the door, and headed for the front where she worked as a countergirl. She wore her usual button: Shoot First.
Manya didn’t have her own apartment. She slept four hours a night in comrades’ living rooms, rising at dawn to join picket lines before going to her job at the automat. She had one dress, three pairs of sneakers, two blouses, and two sweaters. In 1932, when tuberculosis was widespread, she was ill with a bronchial condition. She bought a bottle of Lysol. If it turned out to be TB, and she was confined to a bed in a place where she might infect others, she would take the Lysol and get it over with. The diagnosis was not TB. She called friends: “Good news! It’s not the lungs, it’s the heart!”
(Later, in the seventies, she had a studio apartment in Morningside Heights, and it was like a monk’s quarters, like Maury Ballinzweig’s. She had joined the Black Panthers. The reporter visited her there. She sat on her bed with a bottle of beer in her hand, an old woman overtaken by leukemia and diabetes, phobias and allergies. There were two cups, two plates, two forks. She had one tiny table on which she had placed, for her visitor, coffee, cookies, candies, gefilte fish. Everything kept plopping off the table, and the reporter kept picking things up off the floor. “Your table is too small,” he said.
“That’s right,” Manya said. “I had a bigger one. I gave it away. Somebody needed it.”)
After the revolution, a young man came from a big city to Schedrin and said to Manya, who was twelve years old, “Why don’t you get in touch with the Bolsheviks and see what’s doing?” She had already tried the Bund—boys with suits and ties, neat, clean future lawyers and drones. Forget it.
Manya had taken off, walking fifty miles barefoot. As she walked, she thought: how do I find a Bolshevik in the big city? Suddenly she thought she spotted one, and ran after him: “Young man, you I was looking for.” He said, “For me, you were looking?”
“Personally, no, believe me,” Manya said. “I’m looking for a Bolshevik.”
Her intuition was right. Later, he visited her in Schedrin. She became an organizer for the Bolsheviks, distributing leaflets from village to village.
She hounded the Party leaders and Henky Rubin. “Why are you so happy with me? Why are you kissing my ass? What is it, Goddamnit? I did terrible. I hurt them. Why did the Daily Worker keep silent until they were convicted? And look at their editorial today: ‘Prayers are in order for that sweet little couple who are going to their doom.’ How the fuck is that going to arouse the masses?”
Henky Rubin stared at the livid woman, rather attractive in her faded ruffian way. “My dear Mrs. Poffnick, to tell you the truth your button disturbs me terribly. How do you think you are going to reach the masses that way? The Party’s position on the Rubells will be tested in the crucible of struggle. The crucible of struggle.”
“But how can I help save the Rubells? I fucked up so bad at the trial.”
“We do not feel that you did. You struck a blow against the Korean madness, your political perspective was perfect. You denied the Rubells did anything. You attested to their sweetness. This was good and proper. At a time when Wall Street’s policies spell world disaster, we must develop correct tactics adapted to the concrete situation. The concrete situation. Subjectively you feel that you fucked up. Objectively you focused attention on the key issues on a high plane of political maturity.”
“But what can I do to help?”
“We are planning a prayer vigil later in the week. If you take off that button, we’d love to have you.”
When she was in the Party, she was really there. She looked with both eyes.
In the thirties she was an organizer for several groups helping the unemployed. They offered her ten dollars a week. She would not take it.
At one striking shop, a scab was trying to discourage the boss from settling with the union. The scab told the boss not to get discouraged and worked fifteen hours a day to set a good example. The strikers called Manya.
On a winter morning of snow, frost, and rain, the alarm clock awoke her at four. When Manya reached the subway station, a worker was waiting for her. The worker would shake his umbrella three times when the scab arrived.
He shook his umbrella. Manya hit the woman with a bottle of Coca Cola wrapped in a New York Times.
A taxi was waiting at the station. The cab driver saw what had happened and didn’t want to let Manya into the cab. She pleaded with him. “Is she fooling around with your husband?” he asked Manya. “She’s after him every day. My husband wouldn’t do it if she wouldn’t make him do it,” Manya said. They sped away.
Manya took the taxi to a friend with two babies. Manya sat on the floor and played games with them.
The scab was in bed for six weeks. Manya felt guilty. But when the woman came back to work with a bandaged head, she resumed scabbing. Manya was relieved.
It wasn’t easy for her to do a thing like that. She’d had to think of all the hardships the scab had caused the workers. “So finally I got her, so I gave it what I could.”
It was always difficult for her to find steady work. She could never push herself ahead of the other workers at the union hall. They came with stories of starving children, sick husbands, and mothers. Some of them lied, she suspected, but she couldn’t compete with such misery. After all, she was alone.
She would leave the hall and walk into the street. She often had no carfare and no place to sleep. She went to a comrade’s place, or the public baths.
Bernie Nudelman, “that mincing little fairy,” as the Rubell Committee call him, raised arguments that persuaded the Supreme Court to stay the Rubells’ execution for a month. Henky Rubin had opposed every effort Nudelman had made. But when the Supreme Court made its announcement, Henky publicly kissed Nudelman on the lips to show how happy he was. Nudelman swatted him off. Manya knew little of Nudelman, as he was never mentioned in the Daily Worker.
The day after the execution, it was Nudelman who stood on a soapbox in Union Square addressing a crowd of workers. He said, “Workers and toilers, if you are happy about the murder of the Rubells, you are all rotten to the core.” Nudelman paused, looked around at the effect his words had had, turned, and ran down the street, pursued by what he called this “band of maniacs.” They chased him into a police station.
Three years later, Manya was seated in a bar frequented by progressives, nursing her third beer. A man with a ponytail, a shopping bag, and a smell of hunger to him, walked mincingly through the door. He said to the man seated beside Manya, “Wipe that silly smirk off your face.”
Nudelman sat down beside Manya. “I am attracted by your button,” he said. “If you don’t touch me, everything will be all right.”
She was silent.
“I will tell you about the day of July 8, 1954,” he said. “That was the day this country was about to murder the Rubells. It didn’t, because of me.”
“Who are
you?” Manya asked.
“My name is Bernard Nudelman. To certain Supreme Court justices, I am known as one with ulterior motives. To Judge Goldman, I was an interloper. To the Rubells’ lawyer, I was an anathema. To Albert Einstein, I was a fresh mind. I will tell you of hideous truths, pernicious nobilities, and abominations.”
“Sure,” Manya said. “Why not?”
“I don’t want to hear this Trotskyite garbage,” one of the regulars said. The others gradually turned away and resumed talking to each other.
“Let us recall some smothered facts,” Nudelman said to Manya. “I am talking about the moment in the trial when Henky Rubin asked Judge Goldman—that agent for a sinister cabal—to seal from public view, in the interest of national security, the diagram that Dolly’s brother Hershie said he had composed. We heard from Hershie’s soiled lips that the drawing was a true copy of a diagram he had composed five and a half years back.
“So what did the Rubells’ lawyer do? Henky patriotically implored the judge to impound it so that it remained a secret. It was this trash that sealed the fate of the Rubells. Ooooh!” The rubber band around Nudelman’s ponytail had snapped. His hair cascaded around him.
“The stay was granted on my point that the Rubells were tried under the wrong law: they should have been tried not under the Espionage Act of 1917, but the Atomic Energy Act of 1946. Under the 1946 act, a death sentence had to be specifically called for by the jury, and they could call for it only when intent was shown to injure the United States. The Rubells were accused of giving secrets to an ally. Henky Rubin said of my argument, ‘it makes me want to throw up.’
“The majority overruled my point and the Rubells were rushed to their death.”
Nudelman said, “The majority opinion referred to me as a ‘peculiar champion with an odd record.’ Those scumbags were speaking of my conviction on a charge of dissolute vagrancy. The police produced a witness who said I insulted the pope in Union Square, called for revolution, and pressed my rubber heels against a bench.”
Red Love Page 24
