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Jay looked dubious.
“I’m pretty sure Jay and I bought the beer before that, too,” Pump weighed in.
“Nothing I’ve read or heard indicates the ghettos have improved any since 1965,” I said.
“They keep burning it down,” Jay insisted.
“It’s your turn, Eddie,” Pump concluded.
“Forget it! Whose house is this?”
Pump was scouring the last of the salsa out of the bowl with a chip. “You ever get into any far-out action, man?” he asked me.
“Nothing like Watts.”
“Wasn’t some protester killed by the cops in Berkeley this spring?” Jay asked.
“When the cops cleared People’s Park in May,” I confirmed. “I’ve never been in anything like that, either. The worst for me was Century City. That was scary enough.”
“Where?”
“In L.A. a couple of years ago.”
“Are you going to roll another?” Edward asked Jay.
“Huh? Oh. Sure. Just a sec.” Jay moved toward the door.
“Nobody got offed?” Pump asked.
Jay was back from the living room with a baggie and papers. “What about Century City?”
I thought I better put the experience in context. I told how a contingent from UCI had driven up to San Francisco for the big peace march that April, the first anti-war mobilization to be called in New York and San Francisco simultaneously. Two years ago, I reminded Pump and Jay, was supposed to be the Summer of Love: peace, flowers, good vibes.
“‘If you’re going to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair,’” Edward sang, his tone mocking.
“I thought you said Century City was in L.A.,” Pump objected.
“I’m coming to that,” I continued. “Fifty thousand people were at the San Francisco march. I’d never seen close to that many human beings at one demonstration. Marchers were handing flowers and balloons to the motorcycle cops, and they’d attach them to their bikes. Everything was groovy. It was all — ‘What do we want?’ ‘Peace.’ ‘When do we want it?’ ‘Now.’ Not too much of — ‘Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?’ Our crew had travelled up in a couple of cars. We were a real mix — SDS and just students opposed to the war. We didn’t have signs of our own, so we marched behind the Orange County Peace Center banner. The idea of there being a Peace Center in Orange County drew a huge laugh and a round of applause whenever people first caught sight of our banner.”
“How come?” Pump asked.
“Orange County’s regarded as very right wing,” Edward explained. “Why do you think John Wayne lives in Newport?”
“He’s sick of cows?”
The Century City protest was two months later, in June, I went on. Johnson was visiting L.A., staying at the Century Plaza Hotel, where he was going to speak at a thousand-dollar-a-plate fundraising dinner. A coalition of local peace groups called a demonstration. We figured it would be another version of the San Francisco march.
“L.A. isn’t the Bay Area,” Edward interjected.
The march organizers knew that, I agreed, so they expected a small turnout. But ten thousand people showed up, probably because we were going to protest in front of LBJ himself. The organizers were totally unprepared for so many.
“What kind of preparations does a march take, man?” Pump asked. “Don’t you just start walking?”
Edward snorted. “You’re not parading down the sidewalk.”
“Oh. Yeah,” Pump giggled.
I explained how you have to assemble someplace beforehand and arrange for speakers where you’re going to finish up. Traffic needs to be rerouted, which involves permits and the cops. Your own marshals are needed to keep things moving, or hold the march up at certain intersections. And to ensure things are as cool as possible with the Man or with hostile spectators.
“Don’t bogart that, Pump,” Jay said.
Pump handed him the remnants of the doobie. Jay affixed his roach clip to it, one of the more elaborate ones I’d seen. The pinchers were soldered to a wire rising out of an elongated diamond of stained glass. Three leather cords, each with a coloured bead near the end, were tied to the wire below the pinchers. The smouldering weed went around another time. I declined a toke, wanting to retain what clarity my brain still possessed to relate events.
“When we arrived at the assembly area, we could tell right away this wasn’t going to be anything like San Francisco,” I continued. “The LAPD motorcycle goons were zooming up and down, trying to ride herd on us. Seeing how close they could come to us without driving right over our feet. If anybody offered them a flower, they just threw it onto the ground. They would have stomped on it except that would have meant climbing off their bikes.”
My remembrances were still vivid. At the assembly point people filled the whole street for what looked like miles. The march was supposed to begin around 6:00 p.m., but we waited for more than an hour before we started to walk. By now the sun was beginning to set.
Those of us from UCI were about a quarter of the distance back from the front of the march when at last we heaved into motion. In the shifting, fluid alignment of people in a procession, I ended up mostly chatting with a fourth-year Spanish major, Henry, who had frequently attended our SDS meetings but seldom said much. Occasionally, Emma, in whose van I had ridden up to L.A., or another Irvine student I knew drifted up alongside as we plodded forward. Unlike at San Francisco in April, this march was far from boisterous. Participants seemed solemn, even a bit tense, as the LAPD motorcycles raced back and forth along the march perimeter, jarring me with the sudden gunning of their engines. Despite the cops’ constant patrolling, chants as usual originated from someplace ahead or behind, swelled, and died away.
As our part of the protest came opposite the hotel, the parade ground to a halt. The pause went on and on, much longer than a delay to allow a traffic light to change. People speculated to their neighbours about the reason for our lack of progress. Somebody announced he had heard that the cops had blocked the march. A couple of freaks from our vicinity departed to check out what was happening. The duo showed up after about a quarter of an hour to report that a group at the head of the march appeared to have launched a sit-in on the road.
Meanwhile, the light was getting dimmer. Police choppers circled low overhead, engines so loud I could hardly hear Henry or anybody speak beside me. Street lamps switched on. The high-rise hotel where LBJ was staying was set back from the road where we stood. Lights began to appear in the windows. We did some half-hearted chanting: “One, two, three, four, we don’t want your rotten war.” Everybody was patiently waiting for the march to resume.
By accident I had been walking on the outside edge at the time we stopped, so I had a clear view west across the hotel grounds. All at once several squads of police jogged toward us from that direction. The cops seemed to individually swell in size as they advanced. In seconds they formed up shoulder to shoulder along the curb, creating a barrier between our stalled parade and the hotel. Everyone, of course, turned to face them. The moment the march rotated toward the cops I was on the front line.
Opposite me, eyeball to eyeball, was a guy in a helmet. He was maybe six or eight inches taller than I, but his bulky gear made him loom even larger. His club was drawn and angled across his chest so that the business end of the stick rested in his open left palm. He was wearing black gloves. But his club didn’t frighten me as much as his eyes. He looked scared. He was a big guy, and he was spooked.
The thought struck me: He imagines there are thousands and thousands of us united against just him. He doesn’t