Climbing Marble Hill

On a Saturday afternoon in March 1979, I went up to the Marble Hill nuclear power plant under construction near Madison, Indiana to get arrested. This was not long after the Three Mile Island meltdown in Pennsylvania and I feared a possible repeat performance here in my patch.

At the site, I asked, “What do I have to do here to get arrested?”

A flustered female security guard wearing a brown uniform told me to leave or I’d be arrested. I told her that was the idea, which seemed to confuse her further.

“How about if I just climb over this fence and wait for the police to come?”

“You’re trespassing,” she warned, her voice rising a notch.

But by then I was already halfway over, and as I dropped to the ground, she backtracked to her little kiosk to call for reinforcements. It was quiet at the huge construction site. No giant earthmovers ripping up the landscape. No workers at all, except the guard. Only the malignant twin cylinders mushrooming ominously over the ridge.

I’d hitchhiked out by myself from Madison, where there’d been a rally, then walked in the final half mile of the access road. When a television news van arrived two minutes later, I wondered how they’d known to get out here so quickly. The disheveled cameraman who came up to me explained that they’d been waiting for two hours, as they had in the past in anticipation of protesters materializing. I couldn’t believe my good luck. Getting the word out was my main purpose.

 “What are you doing here?” the reporter asked through the fence and thrust a microphone as close to me as she could.

I told her I was protesting.

“Who do you represent?”

“Nobody,” I said. “Everybody?”

When she realized it was just me, she said, “Well, that’s different.”

I said I was doing this because I was afraid of what might happen to my family if anything should go wrong like it had at Three Mile Island. The words were barely spoken when a Jeep trailing a cloud of dust approached. The driver, another uniformed armed guard, leapt out.

“No media allowed,” he yelled. “Get away from here.”

The media stayed put. So, did I.

This guard, who was older and surer of himself than the other, told me I was violating the law, that this was criminal trespassing. If I didn’t leave immediately, I’d be arrested. At this point, the first guard tried to tell him that was what I wanted, but he ignored her.

“Do you know the penalty for this offense?” he barked.

I didn’t.

“A five-thousand-dollar fine and six months in jail.”

Holy crap, I felt like fainting. What had I gotten myself into? I was a high school teacher and could lose my job.

 He tugged at the brim of his fatigue cap. “The police are on the way, but it’s not too late.”

But it was, and I knew it.

When the reporter pointed her microphone at me, the guard said, “Don’t interview him.”

But she did and he retreated to the guard shack. 

Yes, I was the only one getting arrested. Yes, I hoped it would do some good. I lived thirty-eight miles down the Ohio River in Louisville, Kentucky, and I didn’t want radiation harming my wife or unborn child.

“People say that one person can’t make a difference, but I believe they can—and must.”

After a few more questions, she asked me to go over it all again so the interview could appear in more than one news market. Fantastic, I thought. My answers on the second go round were nearly identical to the first, but for some reason this time they felt fake. I took a breath and realized my feelings didn’t matter. What mattered was the profound danger posed by this half-finished nuclear power plant.

Moments later, just as the media had finished with me, a broad-shouldered state trooper arrived. After conferring with security, he came over to me.

“Sir, I need to see some I.D.”

I had trouble getting my driver’s license out of my wallet. My hands were a little shaky.

When I handed it over, the trooper said, “Pate Merwin. That you?”

I said it was.

“Wait here,” he told me and got into his car.

Too late to turn back now, I thought, as I anticipated the life-altering events soon to come. A great weight had descended upon me, but also a fiercely excitement.

 “I’m going to place you under arrest,” the trooper said, a couple minutes later. “Turn around and put your hands on the fence.”

Oh my god. It was really happening, the moment I’d imagined from the start.

He patted me down, told me my rights, just like on television, and without handcuffing me told me to get in his car. The fact that he hadn’t put the cuffs on me seemed a good sign, but once we were out of sight, he might still beat the snot out of me.

Placing his Smokey the Bear hat on the dash, he started the engine and backed down the narrow access road I’d walked in on so blithely, but now I was on my way to jail, a place where I’d never been in my life, which after this would never be the same. Had I just made the mistake of a lifetime? Would I regret this day when I was standing in the unemployment line—if I qualified for unemployment?

 The trooper looked at me. “If you ever tell anyone what I’m going to say now, I’ll deny it. But I’m glad you came out here today. I agree with you about this nuclear power plant. So do a lot of other folks around Madison. I’ve lived here most of my life. This used to be a nice quiet little town. Now we’ve got thousands of new people busting in here, mostly wild-ass construction guys. Lots of us feel like it’s ruining the place.”

Shocked, thrilled, dizzy, and disoriented—That’s how I felt. I didn’t know what to think. The cop was agreeing with me, but for the wrong reasons. Or maybe he was only being inarticulate. But as we rolled back toward Madison, where the jail was, he introduced himself (I’ll call him Jem) and shook my hand. He wanted to know if I’d been at the rally in town earlier today. I told him I had, along with a hundred others who’d chanted No nukes! and other slogans outside the regional power company’s headquarters.

 Jem said the last time he’d been called to a protest at the site, he’d hauled in twenty-five people. “But you’re the only one coming out here today?”

“That’s right.”

I explained that I’d expected to be arrested with the whole group after the rally, which was what had happened on several previous occasions. But as the speeches ended, so did the rally. When I approached the long-haired leader, who resembled like a grad student or legal aid lawyer, he said, “We’re not getting arrested.”

“Why not? That’s why I came up here,” I said.

“Not today. That’s not the plan.”

Not his plan.

Twenty minutes later, Trooper Jem and I reached a bluff full of well-preserved Georgian homes overlooking the river. The county jail was a short distance from the rally site. Jem escorted me in for booking. My bail was set at fifty dollars. I only had forty.

“You got a lawyer?” Jem asked.

I shook my head.

“Hey, don’t sweat it. I happen to know the legal counsel for the Paddlewheel Alliance, the ones who’ve organized opposition.”

 He thumbed through a phone book. “Dial this number. The lawyer will help you out.”

“Better hurry,” the jailer warned. “No bail after six. You got about half an hour. After that, you’ll be in here until Monday morning.”

His words had a sobering effect. I hadn’t counted on spending the whole weekend in jail. When I called the lawyer and uttered the words “Marble Hill” and “protest,” the voice demanded to know who I represented. Was I claiming to be a member of Paddlewheel Alliance?

“That again? I don’t represent anybody but me.”

Jem grabbed the phone. “I’m the arresting officer … He seems like a pretty upstanding fellow.”

A pause with a grim expression.

“Well, dang it, I thought you’d be on his side ... Well, I’m the one who told him to call you ... Okay then, just forget it.”

Jem hung up.

“He’s not the only lawyer in town.”

He flipped through the phone book and dialed again. “Listen, I got a fellow at the jail needs your help.” 

After a brief conversation, Jem hung up again and said, “This one will take care of you.”

Before I could express my gratitude properly, he was called away for an emergency.

I was booked, photographed, fingerprinted, relieved of my belt and shoelaces, and escorted to the second-floor lockup. Four other prisoners awaited me there in a big stinking cell with a couple of barred windows. There was also a seat-less toilet and four concrete picnic tables bolted to the floor. I avoided eye-contact and immediately pressed my back into a corner.

The grungy character at the next table asked what I was in for.

 “Criminal trespassing,” I grunted, trying to sound tough.

His offense was house-breaking. He introduced the other cellmates, who included the town drunk, a guy delinquent on his child support, and a doper. The housebreaker wanted to know where the rest of the protesters were, and was amazed when I told him there weren’t any.

“You mean you done that all by yourself?”

The other inmates took an interest. Turned out, the doper’s brother-in-law worked construction at Marble Hill.

“No problem, though,” he said. “I hate that sumbitch.”

Marble Hill, I thought. What a beautiful name. In my mind, not a hill at all, but a mountain—impossible to scale and much prized for its glittering beauty. Or a huge mound of those colorful agates I used shooting marbles as a kid. Marble Hill just sounded nice. But so did Three Mile Island. Was it coincidental that nuclear power plant sites had pleasant names? 

The jailer called mine. “You’re out.”

Jem’s lawyer friend Wanda had managed to get me released ahead of the deadline.

“Take us with you,” the housebreaker said to me, “and we’ll go out there and get locked up all over again.”

While I buckled my belt and laced up my shoes, Wanda said she was against Marble Hill, too.

“I don’t want to see my hometown destroyed. Good thing I got the call when I did. You almost didn’t make it.”

Deeply grateful for all she’d done, including fronting me the bail money, I handed over every penny I had, promising her the rest in court Monday morning.

Outside the jail, the rally’s leader met me.

“I’m with Paddlewheel Alliance. I understand you got arrested this afternoon for protesting at the site. Who authorized you to do that?”

I told him I didn’t know I needed authorization to get arrested.

He asked if I claimed to represent Paddlewheel Alliance.

“No, why would I do that?”

“We’ve been at this for a long time now,” he said. “We’ve all been locked up before. We’re organized. If you’re really serious about this fight, join us and do it in a disciplined way. Being a lone wolf won’t help the cause, you know. Going-it-alone stuff is pure exhibitionism.”

I shook my head and told him we were supposed to be on the same side, but the cops and even the jailbirds had treated me better than him. I said I appreciated him coming but I wasn’t asking for his help.

After a pause he said, “Guess you could’ve lost your head in the excitement. Maybe you got a little carried away. I believe your heart’s in the right place.”

We shook hands.

*

Back at school, a colleague said, “Surely they didn’t let you off scot-free?”

I explained that I hadn’t seen any point in prolonging the trial. I was certainly guilty. The prosecutor and the judge didn’t want the expense of a trial. If I accepted a plea bargain, I would not have to serve six months in jail or pay a five-thousand dollar fine. Nor would there be a felony on my record. For ten dollars plus court costs, they would turn me loose and even call me “an upstanding citizen”—so long as I didn’t ever do it again.

“Have you been fired yet?” the same colleague asked.

“As a matter of fact, after seeing me on TV, the principal congratulated me.”

“No.”

“Yes, and the head of the school board asked why I didn’t tell her I was going to do this. She said she’d have gone up there with me.”

Four years later, the half-finished Marble Hill plant was abandoned, supposedly due to cost overruns and design flaws. But I’ll always believe that it was protesters who’d shut it down, and that one person can indeed make a difference.

© 2024 Rick Neumayer

“Climbing Marble Hill” will appear in the forthcoming THREE FOGGY MORNINGS: Stories by Rick Neumayer. If you liked this one, I’d love to hear from you.