"Peaceful Assembly"

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

—Martin Niemöller 

There is a buzzing in my mind.  Unpleasant, erratic, insistent, distracting me from my work.  I am more afraid right now than I have ever been in my life. 

            This isn’t like the times when I was nervous about jumping off a rickety rope swing in backwoods Missouri, when my heart would race, thumping out of my chest, and my hands would shake.  This is painful.  I’m not shaking, my heart isn’t racing.  I would be sick to my stomach, if my stomach weren’t empty.  This is absolute terror, down to my very core. 

            I could die tonight.

            This might be my last meal, but I don’t have time to make anything fancy.  I just reheat a buffalo blue cheese sausage link in the microwave and wolf it down as fast as I can. 

            I look in the mirror.  Ugh.  My eyebrows are a mess.  I don’t want to die with bad eyebrows.

            This is silly.  Every day could be my last day.  Accidents happen all the time.

            My phone dings.

            Mom:  “I cannot stress enough what a bad idea it would be to go tonite. Please don’t go.”

            As much as I hate disappointing my mother, and my soccer team, and the social committee at work, some things are just more important.             

            Something is happening in St. Louis right now.  Something that has never happened before, and probably won’t ever happen again.   

            My clothes are simple, nondescript:  jeans, tennis shoes, a black v-neck shirt long enough to cover my pants pockets.  Stuff a white bandana in my back pocket, to cover my mouth in case we encounter tear gas.  My sunglasses will serve as eye protection.  I take my ID and $45, the bills all stuffed in different pockets.  Write my parents’ home phone number on the inside of my wrist, where it will be hidden by a hair tie.  Finally, ear plugs and my knife complete the outfit. 

            “Don’t bring your big knife,” Dick had said.

            “Well no, not the BIG one,” I joked back.   

            When I look back on this time—if I have the opportunity to look back—I don’t want to remember how I huddled in my apartment, repacking and staging my bug-out bag, too scared to go out after dark.  Or how I just carried on with my little life like nothing at all significant was going on.  I want to stand for something. 

            I took my mother to lunch today.  She had some interesting things to say, as always:  “That cop’s life is over anyways, whether he goes to jail, or kills himself, or whatever.”

            I’ve heard that suicide rates are highest among cops and doctors, a statistic that is disturbing for personal reasons better discussed another time. 

            “Life’s over at sixty anyways,” she says, in a throw-away manner. 

            I can think of no appropriate way to respond to this. 

            Initially I wasn’t going to come.  I have plans tonight—it’s the championship game for my soccer league!  And I have to make a pie for the Summer Social at work tomorrow. 

            . . . God damn, my priorities are fucked up.

            Soccer sessions last eight weeks.  Which means we have a championship game once every two months. 

            For a fucking pie, really?   

            This fear, the very fact that it exists, tells me that something needs to be done.  The more afraid I am, the more certain I become of this.  I should not feel this way.  Not in my own home.  And neither should anyone else.  I am not thinking, “Well it’s happening over there; I’m glad that I’m over here where it’s safe.”  Stores in my own neighborhood have been shut down due to supposed “threats.”

Riots.  Looting.  Militaristic law enforcement.  Shootings.  Molotov cocktails.  Violence.  Death. 

I live in the “big scary city,” where shit like this is supposed to happen.  If it can happen in Ferguson, it can certainly happen in the city.  And if I wait until it does, by then it’ll be too late. 

            I grew up one town over from Ferguson.  My ex-fiancé, his family, and a lot of our friends still live in Ferguson.  So I don’t feel disconnected from this issue. 

            All week this has been weighing heavily on my mind.  First I couldn’t wrap my head around it, then I didn’t know what to think about it.  Everyone seems to think that the only thing in this situation that matters, is what their fucking opinion is about it.  You and I are not allowed to form opinions on that which we do not understand.  Understanding is what’s most important. 

            What I understand is that intense anger has penetrated every part of St. Louis—like poison leeching from the tiniest of streams, first into small creeks, then branching out across the city like fingers extending out from a clenched fist, finally making its way to a furious river eroding a path of enmity through the land—so I’ve been going out of my way to be just a little kinder to people everywhere I go.   

            There’s a good chance that this could be the most important thing that happens in St. Louis during my lifetime. 

            Stupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupid girl.

            I can still change my mind.

            I just need to get to Dick’s house, that’s all.  I can still change my mind once I get there. 

            Before leaving, I look around my apartment, and all I see is stuff.  Stuff that I don’t need.  Stuff that serves no purpose.  Stuff that has no use.  Stuff that I can’t take with me.  And right now, all that stuff just seems . . . stupid.  Everything seems pretty stupid right now. 

            I run into my uncle in the apartment parking lot.  We hug and kiss, and he tells me about his day:  “I went to visit your Aunt Penny today in the home.  Of course Ferguson was all over the news.  Wanna know what your Aunt Penny said?  She said, ‘I love all black people—and Jews.  I’m going to heaven.’”

            “. . . I’m sure that all black people and Jewish people would love to hear her say that.”

            “Yeah she might make it to heaven sooner than she thinks.” 

            When I see Dick and his wife Sophie in plain clothes, ready to go, the fear disappears. 

            Part of me thinks that the people of Ferguson are probably exhausted by all this and maybe they don’t need more outsiders flooding their streets for a fifth night in a row.  Sophie speaks up, “See I think there’s still a need to show that they have support from other communities.”

            When we park in Ferguson, a mother and daughter immediately park next to us and engage us in conversation, and I feel no unease.  

            “What should I put on my sign?” I ask Dick.

            “A giant peace sign with butterflies and flowers and shit,” he responds, only half-facetious. 

            “I can do that!”  I make my own toothpaste; I’m a total fucking hippie. 

 

(The back side of my sign.)



            “Crap,” he says.  “I don’t know what to put on my sign.”

            He settles on “Choose Peace” written in simple black letters.  His wife Sophie puts “Stop the Violence,” the Stop written in red. 

            When I see people with their faces already covered—hidden beneath shirts, bandanas, hats, and sunglasses—while still daylight, I am a little worried. 

            When a few pedestrians eye us up and down, then shout to each other, “They white as hell, ya’ll!” we can’t help but chuckle. 

            When we enter the chanting, laughing, dancing, singing, smiling crowd, I smile along with everyone, and it’s not a stretch to imagine how easy it would be to get swept up in all this energy if it were to turn aggravated.  These folks, at least, do not seem exhausted.

            When we step off the sidewalk and suddenly before us looms the charred QT, the scene can only be described as surreal.  We’re at Ground Zero.   

            There is press everywhere, and almost every civilian has a camera or phone out, recording or taking pictures.  The ground is chalked with messages of “Rest in Peace,” and innumerable signs float among the throng.  I liked one in particular for its Fight Club reference:  “His Name Was Mike Brown.”  People chant back and forth:  “Hands up!  Don’t shoot!” and “No justice!  No peace!”  Black Panthers direct traffic.  The street is packed with cars full of people; there is a constant cacophony of honking horns, blaring music, revving engines.   

Most of the neighborhood locals are politely indifferent to our presence; as obvious outsiders, we are merely guests here.

Silly little girl, standing on a street corner holding a sign.

            Several people take our pictures; I can’t tell if they’re press or just people with really nice cameras. 

A few people tell us, “Thank you for your support.”  One gentleman talks with us for a while, repeatedly emphasizing, “It’s really important that you’re here.  It’s important for people to see that there are all races represented here.  It’s important for people to know that this isn’t just a bunch of black people out here acting crazy.”   

            Then I spot someone I know, who writes for The Riverfront Times; he comes over and says hello.  Now he looks exhausted.

            He glances around.  “This is three times bigger than it was last night.”

            Okay that concerns me a little bit.

            “But it’s way calmer.”

            That is reassuring. 

            “How long have you stayed here?” I ask.

            “I’ve been here for five days straight.”

            “Straight?  Where do you sleep?”

            “Oh I go home around four a.m., but then I’m right back at it next day.”

            As he walks away I call after him, “Be safe!” 

             Dick sighs, “This is the most boring riot I’ve ever been to.  This is more like a car cruise.”

            Sophie turns, “Are you getting antsy?  You wanna go get some food?”

             “Ooh let’s hit that burger joint we walked past earlier!”  Of course I took note of the local eateries along our journey. 

            The restaurant is a little Mom-and-Pop takeout spot with a few sit-down booths.  The husband and wife owners are marvelously efficient and kind.  There is something on the menu called a garbage burger so you know I’m gonna order that (bacon, egg, cheese, and all the fixings).  A couple of our friends order shakes, and declare them the best shakes they’ve ever had.  My burger is nothing to scoff at, either.  They also sell homemade slices of cake, and homemade pickles.  I’d love to buy some but, well, I’d rather not be carrying around a jar of pickles tonight.

            CNN is showing on the two TVs hung from the walls and Ferguson is the breaking story.  It finally hits home that we’re not the only ones talking about this:  the entire world is.  St. Louis is being touted as the most racist place in America.  My city.  My beautiful, filthy city that I adore with all my heart . . . is acutely flawed, and there is no telling how long it will take to heal this massive, festering wound.   

            Dick brought a bouquet of white carnations for us to hand out.  “We’re not taking any of these back with us,” he says.

As we tramp back to our car, a muscle-bound guy about my age half turns to look at us.  I extend my hand and say, “These are for you,” handing him my two flowers. 

            “Well let me give one back to you, baby,” he responds.

            “No,” I smile, “keep it going; spread the love!” and keep walking.

            Sophie wonders aloud, “Can you imagine, if it were a hundred degrees out right now?  Things would be so much worse.”

            This statement brings to mind the film Do the Right Thing by Spike Lee.

            “What if it were storming?” I muse.  “Do you think it would just stop?”

            We continue our way down the line of cars, and a girl of twenty-something hangs out a car window and shouts at us, “Hands up!”  We don’t react, so she yells again, “Hands up!” 

            I raise my hands and respond—but not too loudly, “Don’t shoot!”

            To whoever else is in the car with her she says, “She got it.”           

            The next day I log into Facebook.  And find everyone still spewing the same unsympathetic (and come to think of it, unsolicited) opinions fueled by animosity rather than fact, from safe behind their computers, tucked away in their secure homes, nestled in their neighborhoods, far from the danger and turmoil. 

            I log off.

Oh well.   

**EDIT**

In the interest of full disclosure, I want to add here two things that I didn’t learn until after we left Ferguson. 

First, both Dick and Sophie heard the phrase “White people need to go home” uttered/shouted multiple times at and around us while we in Ferguson.  I’m not sure what I was listening to, but I never heard it. 

Second, after we left, an acquaintance of Dick’s who was peacefully protesting near us most of the night was punched in the face by someone yelling “Black Power.” 

As Dick says, “You get knuckleheads in every crowd, that’s not a reflection of the community as whole.”  I had an overall positive experience in Ferguson, and that’s what I’m going to carry with me.