Black
October
We
were standing outside a Subway sucking beers from a straw waiting for the police
brutality march to start when the shrooms started to kick in. I turned to Jim and said, “My head feels like
it's full of helium” and he asked, “Is it floating away?” “No,” I told him. “It's still attached to my body but by a
long thin string that I don't trust.” He
nodded like my response was the most natural thing in the world and went back
to his beer. Then I was assaulted by a
barrage of voices singing that popular System of a Down song. They kept singing “DESTROYER, DESTROYER, DESTROOOYEEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRRRR!”
which meant that the Pirates of RCC had finally joined us. They were called this because of their habit
of wearing pirate rags, dressing stylishly bummy, their love of drink (just
beer, sometimes wine), psychedelics, herb and rabble rousing all in the name of
REVOLUTION! With the Pirates here
joining all of us in Food Not Bombs (Angela Angst, Jim, Ally, Miguel, James and
Rachel) Riverside was here in force.
They still singing and I heard myself say “Hey can someone change the
station they keep playing the same song over and over?” It got quiet. I looked around and a bowl was
going around. No one cared about the
cops because it was the beginning of things no one knew what was gonna happen
once the march got started but the anticipation was growing.
“Marge do you always have to
act crazy to get attention?” Zach asked.
“I dunno.”
He
was the one Pirate I knew mostly through Jim and also by legend. Last year he went nuts in the quad at RCC and
punched out a window while class was in session. The students freaked and when security got
him, he was babbling incoherent madness.
The cops came then the guys with the butterfly nets and he spent a few
months in the nuthouse. What was even
crazier was Zach's father owned the biggest newspaper in the county, The Press
Enterprise. But now he's back at RCC and
with the Pirates and he hasn't punched out any windows so I guess all is
well. I snapped a few pictures of the
Pirates and lit a cigarette. It was high
noon and a good crowd had gathered. When
it became clear no one else was showing people started marching towards city
hall which was the end point of the rally.
There was no leader, not with a bunch of anarchists in the crowd but
there were some people leading chants. The
Pirates tried to get a System chant going but they were drowned out by people
chanting “FREE MUMIA ABU-JAMAL!” I
didn't know who that was and wasn’t into it enough to ask. The shrooms were starting to come on strong
now. I looked at Jim he was trying to
light a cigarette but kept missing and I could tell he was at the beginning
stages of his trip where your brain's trying to figure out what the hell's
going on. Basic motor functions are not
lost but have to be carefully thought out before proceeding. I had gotten past this point outside Subway
but Jim was having trouble. I went over
to him and lit his cigarette. He lifted
up his shades and grinned at me. His
pupils were dilated beyond all recognition and then his eyes disappeared behind
the shades. I took his hand and led him
as the marchers started chanting “FUCK THA POLICE!” as cops on horseback
started showing up and shooting menacing looks from behind their mirrored
shades. This was no time to start
lagging, we had a few miles to go before city hall and we weren't even peaking
yet. All we could do was lean on each
other because we were the only ones in the group crazy enough to go on this
trip. We thought the only way to truly
experience the 1st big social event of the fall season while being
deep in the heart of the revolution was to go into pure Hunter Thompson gonzo
style. All this was decided the night
before at the FNB meeting at Angela Angst's place over a bottle of wine and two
blunts. Now here we are trying to
maintain as we inched toward the vortex of the revolution.
“This must be what it was like when
Moses led the Israelites out Egypt,” Jim said his voice was distant and dreamy
like at that moment he was there crossing the Red Sea on dry ground after old
boy Moses parted it. “Way on down in
Egypt land let my people go,” Jim sang softly over and over negro spiritual
style.
Let
my people go? What a thing to sing with
cops on horseback, maybe snipers on rooftops and most definitely storm troopers
lying in wait when we get city hall just ready to tighten the noose, we slipped
around our necks the second the march started.
Angela started a “FIGHT THE POWER!” chant that caught on
immediately. In between the chants I'd
catch snippets of conversations. Some
old school protesters were talking about how it was in their day with the peace
and the love and how even though they got our boys out of Vietnam in the end
Nixon, the 70s and cocaine were their downfall.
Yet watching us still fighting the good fight let the old timers know
that their legacy lived on. No one could
argue with that. Then there were the new
breed of protesters the ones who had gone to the WTO thing in Seattle where
cops were shooting protesters with rubber bullets, stun grenades, pepper
spray. They were ready for the storm
troopers, the apocalypse, anything and everything. Most of them had on beat up army fatigues,
knapsacks and as we got to the point of no return covered their faces and
readied their gas masks. I had been
fighting off small waves of paranoia for a few blocks and seeing people
starting to prepare themselves and glancing at us and shaking their heads like
we should've been prepared for war but came acting like we were going to the
park wasn't helping. The shrooms are
running strong now and I'm still leading Jim by the handout of habit now or
maybe I just need something to hold on to.
We were two kids twisted, mad, scared, confused walking into the mouth
of the beast unprepared. But can you
ever be prepared to walk into the lion's den?
Just then Angela got everybody’s attention.
“Alright slackasses look alive we're
almost at city hall. When we get there
BE READY! because shit goes down no one can panic. You know why people panic because they're not
ready for what's coming. Now we've been
watching what's coming for the whole march so we have no excuses! Stay close to each other and remember don't
panic!”
Angela
telling us not to panic didn't help me and Jim as we finally made it to city
hall and saw that we were completely surrounded by cops on horseback and storm
troopers. One of the organizers had a
portable PA/mic set up and they cranked up Rage Against the Machine and
suddenly it's like that video they did with Michael Moore. There's a lot of dancing and jumping around
but I couldn't deal with it. Fear
gripped me and I grabbed onto Jim just as he was grabbing onto me. When the song's over some of the organizers
are on the mic saying something about how it begins and ends with the people
and that there's more us than them and stuff but then security comes and takes
the mic away and one of the organizers tries to take it back someone gets
punched and that's all the storm troopers needed. They rush the crowd batons out and all I hear
is screams and bones breaking. I
remember what Angela said about not panicking but now I can't move. I look up at Jim and he's got his head on a
swivel but has no idea what to do. Then
Angela grabs us like a mama bear protecting her cubs and shoves her way through
the crowd and down an alley and she doesn't stop till we're in the car. Me and Jim are shaking uncontrollably so
Angela goes into her car and packs a bowl.
We all smoke and calm down a little but no one talks about what
happened. It's still too fresh in our
minds with ambulances and fire trucks screaming past us. The rest of the group show up a few minutes
later not tripped out like me and Jim but excited to think that this'll be on
TV later tonight and that they didn't catch a baton to the skull. Our trip had been screwed up by the burst of
violence and near escape so me and Jim got in Angela's car in the
backseat. Next thing I knew Angela's
driving saying something about a meeting at this anarchist house near Echo
Park.
“You know all shit like this does is
let me know that we're fighting right side because if what we we’re doing
didn't matter then the powers that shouldn’t be wouldn't have called the dogs
on us. We're shaking the cages people!
we're shaking cages people! we're shaking the cages!”
Despite
the march devolving into chaos with tear gas and beatings Angela had hope. Something was stirring and the bastards in
power knew it! If they were going to
bring their vision of 1984 to past, they were in for a fight. Not from me and most likely not Jim but
people like Angela, the Pirates of RCC, Food Not Bombs, anarchists and many
others who would rather die on their feet than live on their knees! Of course, I could just be feeling overly
optimistic. Psychedelics do that to me
from time to time.
Demond J. Blake
Demond J Blake is a
warehouse associate who has traveled the country working odd jobs, meeting and
writing about various artists, musicians and nonconformists living life on the
fringes of society. He lives in Colton, CA with his wife and son. Demond is
currently seeking publication for his essay 'The Spiritual Matrix', 'The
_______ Generation: Slackass' his first novel and 'Pay Me the Penny After' his
first collection of poetry.