The Great American Novel (28 page)

“It is my understanding that these people now intend to launch a systematic campaign of slander against me, suggesting that I, Bob Yamm, am not entitled to the rights and privileges such as our Constitution guarantees to every American, but rather that I am—and I quote—‘a gimmick,' ‘a joke,' ‘a farce'—and what is more, that my presence on a major league diamond constitutes a ‘disgrace' to the game that calls itself our national pastime. Gentlemen of the press, I am sure I speak not only for myself, but for all midgets everywhere, when I say that I will not for a single moment permit these self-styled protectors of the game to deny me my rights as an American and a human being, and that I will oppose this conspiracy against myself and my fellow midgets with every fiber of my being.”

Frank Mazuma, whose motto was “Always leave 'em laughin',” immediately quipped, “Every fiber of his being—that's sixty-five pounds worth, fellas!”—and so the reporters departed once again in high spirits; but that Yamm had made a strong claim upon their feelings was more than obvious in the evening's papers. “A midget to be proud of,” one writer called him. “A credit to his size,” wrote another. “A little guy with a lot on his mind.” “Only forty inches high, but every inch a man.” One columnist, in as solemn (and complex) a sentence as he had ever written, asked, “Why are our brave boys fighting and dying in far-off lands, if not so that the Bob Yamms of this world can hold high their heads, midgets though they may be?” And the following week a famous illustrator of the era penned a tribute to Yamm on the cover of
Liberty
magazine that was subsequently reprinted by the thousands and came to take its place on the walls of just about every barber shop in America in those war years—the meticulously realistic drawing entitled “The Midgets' Midget,” showing Bob in his baseball togs, his famous fraction on his back, waving his little bat toward an immense cornucopia decorated with forty-eight stars; marching out of the cornucopia are an endless stream of what appear to be leprechauns and elves from all walks of life: tiny little doctors with stethoscopes, little nurses, little factory workers in overalls, little tiny professors wearing glasses and carrying little books under their arms, little policemen and firemen, and so on, each a perfect miniature of his or her fully grown counterpart.

All at once—to the astonishment even of Frank Mazuma—the entire nation took not only brave Bob Yamm to its heart, but all American midgets with him, a group previously unknown to the vast majority of their countrymen. Until Bob Yamm's entrance into baseball, how many Americans had even taken a good long look at a midget, let alone heard one speak? How many Americans had ever been in a midget's house? How many Americans had ever taken a meal with a midget, or exchanged ideas with one? What did midgets eat anyway? And how much? Where did they live? Did midgets marry, and if so, whom? Other midgets? Where did they go to
find
other midgets? What did midgets do for entertainment? Religion? Clothes? To all of these questions the ordinary, full-grown man in the street had to confess his ignorance; either he knew nothing whatsoever about the American midget, or what was worse, shared the general misconception that they were people of dubious morality and low intelligence, belonging to no religious order, befriended only by the sleaziest types, and constitutionally unable to rise in life above the station of bellhop, if that.

Following the publication of that cover drawing of Bob Yamm, photo stories began to appear with almost weekly regularity in Sunday papers around the country, reporting on the valuable work that local midgets were doing, particularly in behalf of the war effort: photos of midgets with blowtorches crawling down into sections of airplane fuselage far too small for an ordinary aircraft worker to enter; photos of midgets in munitions plants, their feet sticking up out of heavy artillery pieces—according to the caption, spot-checking the weapons against sabotage prior to shipment to the front. There was even a contingent of midgets, recruited from all around the country, shown in training for a highly secret intelligence mission; for security reasons their faces were blacked out in the photo, but there they sat, in what appeared to be a kindergarten classroom, taking instruction from a full-grown Army colonel.

On the lighter side, there were photos of midgets having fun, the men dressed in tuxedos, the women in floor-length gowns, celebrating New Year's Eve at a party complete with champagne, streamers, noisemakers, false noses, and paper hats. There was a photo story one week in the nation's largest Sunday supplement showing a pair of married midgets at home eating a spaghetti dinner (“Doris does the cooking usually, hut spaghetti 'n meatballs is Bill's own specialty. From the looks of that big smile—and even bigger portion!—it sure seems like
somebody
enjoys his own cooking in the Peterson household”) and another of a midget standing in the Victory Garden out back of his house, pointing up at the corn. (“‘Just growin' like Topsy!' says Tom Tucker, of his prize-winning vegetable patch. Tom, known throughout his neighborhood for his green thumb, modestly chalks his outstanding harvest up to ‘dumb luck.'”)

What one photo story after another revealed, and what was at first so difficult for their fellow Americans to believe, was that midgets were exactly like ordinary people, only smaller. Indeed, after Mrs. Bob Yamm had appeared on Martita McGaff's daytime radio show, the network received letters from over fifteen thousand women, congratulating them for their courage in having as a guest the utterly charming wife of the controversial little baseball player. Only a very small handful found the program distasteful, and wrote to complain that hearing a midget on the radio had frightened their young children and given them nightmares.

*   *   *

“I only wish all of you out there in radioland,” Martita began, “could be here in the studio to
see
my guest today. She is Mrs. Bob Yamm, her husband is the pinch-hitter who has major league pitchers going round in circles, and she herself is cute as a button. Welcome to the show, Mrs. Yamm—and just what is that darling little outfit you're wearing? I've been admiring it since I laid eyes on you. And the little matching shoes and handbag! I've never
seen
anything so darling!”

“Thank you, Martita. Actually the sunsuit is something I designed and made myself.”

“You didn't! Well, watch out, Paris—there's a little lady in Kakoola, Wisconsin, who just may run you out of business!
Have
you ever thought of designing clothes specifically for women midgets, Mrs. Yamm? Am I correct—it
is
‘women midgets'; or
does
one say ‘midgetesses'? Our announcer and myself were talking that over just before the show, and Don says he believes he
has
heard the term ‘midgetesses' used on occasion … No?”

“No,” said Mrs. Yamm.

“Tell me then, what
do
women midgets do about clothes? I'm sure all our listeners have wondered. Do most of them design and make their own, or are you out of the ordinary in that respect?”

“Yes, I guess you could say I was out of the ordinary in that respect,” replied Mrs. Yamm. “But since I'm rather thin for my height, and most children's clothes just swim on me, I took to making my own—I guess as a matter of necessity.”

“It
is
the mother of invention, isn't it?”

“Yes,” agreed Mrs. Yamm.

“And may I say,” said Martita, “for the benefit of our radio audience, you are
marvelously
thin. I'm sure the ladies listening in, some of whom have
my
problem, would like to know your secret. Do you watch your diet?”

“No, I more or less eat whatever I want.”

“And continue to remain so wonderfully petite?”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Yamm.

“Oh, that we were all so lucky! I just
look
at a dish of ice cream—well, let's not go into
that
sad story! Now—what is it like suddenly being the wife of a famous man? Do you find people staring at you now whenever you two step out?”

“Well, of course, they always stared, you know, even before.”

“Well, I wouldn't doubt that. You
are
a darling couple. How did you meet Bob? Is there a funny story that goes with that? Did Bob get down on his knees to ask for your hand—or just how did he pop the question?”

“He just asked me if I'd marry him.”

“Not on bended knee, eh? Not the old-fashioned type.”

“No.”

“And just what do you think it was that made you attractive to a man like Bob Yamm?”

“Well, my size, primarily. My being another midget.”

“And a very
lovely
midget, if I may say for the benefit of the radio audience what Mrs. Yamm is too modest to say herself. Just to give our radio audience an idea of
how
lovely I'm going to run the risk of embarrassing our guest—I hope she won't mind—but coming into the studio today, for the first moment I did not even realize that she was real. I had seen photographs of her, of course, and knew she would be my guest today—and yet in that first moment, seeing her in that darling outfit, with matching purse and shoes, sitting straight up in the corner of my office sofa with her legs out in front of her, one demurely crossed over the other, I actually thought she was a doll! I thought, ‘My granddaughter Cindy has been here and she's left her new doll. She'll be sick, wondering where it is, such a lovely and expensive one too, with real hair and so on'—and then the doll's mouth opened and said, ‘How do you do, I'm Judy Yamm.' Well, you're blushing, but it's true. I was literally and truly in wonderland for a moment. And I wouldn't doubt that Bob Yamm was, when he first laid eyes upon you.”

“Thank you.”

“Was it love at first sight for you, too? Did you ever expect when you first met him that Bob would be a major league baseball player?”

“No, I didn't.”

“What a thrill then for two young people who only a few months ago thought of themselves as just an ordinary American couple. By the way, are there any little Yamms at home?”

“Pardon? Oh, no—just Bob and myself.”

“Uh-oh, I'm being told to cut it short, time for only one more question—so at the risk of being as ultracontroversial as your ultracontroversial husband, Bob Yamm, brilliant pinch-hitter for the Kakoola Reapers, I'm going to ask it. Do you think a midget can ever get to be President of the United States? Now you don't have to answer that one.”

“I think I won't.”

“Well, I'm no political pundit either, but let me say that I've been talking to a midget who could certainly get to be First Lady in my book—and that is the utterly delightful and charming
and
beautiful Judy Yamm, wife of the famous baseball star, and clothes designer in her own right—and I only hope our granddaughter Cindy isn't waiting outside here, because one look at you, Judy Yamm, and she's going to want to take you home for her own! This is Martita McGaff—have a happy, everyone!”

*   *   *

The enthusiasm that Bob Yamm had generated around the nation took even the audacious Frank Mazuma by surprise, and though the owner continued to delight the fans by making unscheduled appearances on the stadium roof when Yamm came to bat, he let it be known to the press that of course his high-powered rifle was loaded only with blanks; in public, he even stopped referring to Bob as “Squirt” and “Runt,” allowing the fans to enjoy the midget however they liked. If they wanted to make a hero out of somebody who was only forty inches high, that was their business—especially as it was good for business. In fact, when a midget a full three inches shorter than Yamm turned up at Mazuma's office one day, claiming to be a right-handed pitcher, Mazuma promptly pulled a catcher's mitt out of his desk drawer and took him down beneath the stands for a tryout. The following day, a new name was added to the Reaper roster: No. ½, O.K. Ockatur.

For a week, Ockatur sat alone in a corner of the Reaper dugout, pounding his little glove and muttering to himself what were taken at the time to be analyses of the weaknesses of the opposing batsmen. Then the Mundys arrived in town direct from a series in Asylum, and the right-hander climbed down off the Reaper bench, and with his curious rolling gait—for he was not so perfectly formed as Yamm, nor so handsome either—made his way out to the mound, where he pitched a four-hit shutout. Using a sidearm delivery, he started low as he could, actually dragging his knuckles in the dust, and then released the ball on a rising trajectory, so that it was still climbing through the strike zone when it passed the batter. “Why, I never seen nothin' like it,” said Wayne Heket. “That little boy out there, or whatever he is, was throwin'
up
at us.” “The mountain climber,” some called the Ockatur pitch; “the skyrocket,” “the upsydaisy”—and as for Ockatur's right arm, inevitably it was dubbed “the ack-ack gun,” and with characteristic wartime enthusiasm little No. ½ was labeled “Kakoola's Secret Weapon”—until the players around the league got the knack of laying into that odd, ascending pitch, and began to send it out of the ball park, “where,” said the writers, who weren't fooled for too long either, “it belonged to begin with.”

What caused the disenchantment, when it came, to be so profound was the discovery of Ockatur's fierce hatred of all men taller than himself, including Bob Yamm. At the outset, his refusal to be photographed shaking Yamm's hand on the steps of the Reaper dugout had startled those who had drawn around, in a spirit of good cheer, to observe the historic event. Visibly shaken by the rebuff, Yamm had nonetheless told the reporters present that
he
understood perfectly why Mr. Ockatur had turned away in a huff; in fact, he
admired
him for it! “What O.K. Ockatur has made clear, gentlemen, and in no uncertain terms, is that he has no intention of walking in Bob Yamm's shadow.” And, in the face of increasingly blatant provocations, Bob continued to conduct himself as he had earlier with Frank Mazuma, when the Reaper owner would do whatever he could to get a laugh out of Bob's size: he ignored him, and went about his job, which was to draw bases on balls as a pinch-hitter. Only with an adversary like Ockatur, it required a far more heroic effort of restraint, for where Mazuma was a clown who invariably could be counted on to compromise himself by his own exceedingly bad taste, Ockatur was a crazed and indefatigable enemy, who despised him and attacked him with all the ingrained bitterness of a man who is not only a midget by normal standards, but an exceedingly short person even by the standards of the average midget. Though it was not a word Bob himself would ever have used either publicly or privately to describe Ockatur, in the end he had silently to agree with Judy, when she broke down crying one night at dinner, and called Ockatur, who was trying her husband to the breaking point, “nothing but a dirty little dwarf.”