by Starhawk
“My dad and I moved down here after the Millennialists burned his church. He used to say that the poor were the ones who really needed him, anyway. That was back in ’32, when I was eleven, old enough to be a help to him. We started the gardens here, back before water got quite so hard to get. And he organized people. Actually, my dad stopped talking about God much after we came here. Mostly he talked about food and water. When I asked him about it, he’d just say that food and water were God to the poor.”
“Amen,” Madrone said.
“He died five years later, but I kept on. I couldn’t see joining the boys in the hills, running around with two rusty guns and calling yourself a revolution. I thought we had to begin to build something, to show people how things could be different. So here I am. And you? What is it about you we don’t know?”
“I’m tired,” Madrone said. “I’m tired and cranky and inside myself I whine all day long. I want to go home. I want to take a long hot bath and pick ripe tomatoes from the garden and sleep in my own bed with sheets. But I won’t go home now. I’m too angry and heartsick and stubborn to go home until we win something. Anything. And sometimes I wish I could kill and get pleasure out of it too. It seems such a simple solution.”
“I know.”
“Maybe Hijohn is right. Maybe it’s better just to burn it all down, even if we all burn with it.”
“That’s the temptation,” Katy said. “But is that how you won your revolution?”
“No. We did it the long, slow way. It took lifetimes to lay the groundwork for it. Some of the old ones spent their whole lives talking, organizing, trying one thing after another, never expecting to see real change. Some of them didn’t. The Uprising seemed to happen in an instant, but it was half a century in the making.”
“Well, there it is,” Katy said.
They sat for a moment, watching the silvery moonlight play on the gauze above their heads. She’s a remarkable woman, Madrone thought. In her presence I feel comforted.
“I’m glad I found you, Katy. I needed a friend here so bad. Just someone I can really talk to.”
“Me too.” Poppy was asleep, and Katy gently set her down. “Are you still hungry? I saved back a couple of corn crackers.”
“I could kill or die for one, Katy, if you’d only call it what it is: a tortilla, not a corn cracker. ¡Diosa! It makes my mouth pucker.”
“Torteeya,” Katy said. “I know that. My mother spoke Spanish, but I didn’t learn much. And what I did know I had beat out of me when I was a kid, after the Millennialists got the Stewards to pass the Language Laws. It’s still hard to get the words off my tongue.”
“Well,” Madrone said, “if you want to make una revolución, you’re gonna have to remember how to roll your r’s.”
They shared tortillas and the scrapings from the pot of beans. Katy took the child and went back inside to sleep, but Madrone no longer felt her fatigue. She sat outside, on the doorstep, where the canopies did not quite reach and she could look up to a narrow patch of open sky. Stars glittered up there, out of reach. She wanted someone to hold her and rock her and tell her that everything was going to be okay, but no one was there. Mama? Johanna? Why do you haunt Maya and never come to me?
And then suddenly she was there, just a presence, like a vapor on the wind, something warm and dark and comforting and, at the same time, challenging.
Johanna, we are not going to win here, Madrone found herself whispering. We’re facing an enemy too ruthless. And if we can’t defeat them here, how can we defeat them at home?
Silence.
Johanna, I’m going to die down here. I’ll never lie in the mint in the Black Dragon garden or make love in the ritual room or bring Maya her morning tea and sit in the sun and talk again. I’ll never have a baby. And what’s worse, maybe, I’ll never see these streets transformed into the fields and gardens they could be, never see the streams running free from the hills down across these plains. Johanna, are you with me? Did you ever feel this hopelessness? Do you feel it now?
More silence. The dark intensified, congealed into an almost solid presence that yet remained black and silent. What do the dead have to say to those who grab with both hands at precarious life? Hold on. Let go.
22
Maya had cooked Bird his favorite lunch, nachos and hot sauce and refried beans. He sat staring at them for a long time, while she hovered anxiously.
“You’ve got to eat,” she said.
“I know I should eat. The tension’s just getting to me, that’s all. The waiting. I almost wish they’d come, just to get it over with.” Dutifully, he scooped up a big wad of beans in a cheese-draped chip and raised it to his mouth.
They heard the door open below and a clattering of feet on the stairs. Rosa burst into the room.
“They’re here!” she cried. “They’re coming up the old freeway, over San Bruno Hill!”
Bird set the chip down, rose, and without a word walked out of the room. Maya heard him grab his jacket, heard the uneven cadence of his steps on the stairs. The door slammed.
He is terribly afraid, she told herself. That’s why he didn’t turn and say goodbye. Not because he doesn’t love me.
She sat there alone, staring at his empty chair and the plate of food he had barely touched. That was what hurt her, somehow, that he hadn’t had a chance to finish his food. Just a few short minutes ago, when she had been heating the beans and putting chips and cheese in the oven, he had been there, alive, free. She could have said anything she wanted to him. She could have touched his warm skin or stroked his hair.
I always tried to be so careful, she thought. I gave up caffeine when I was pregnant with his mother. I didn’t touch a drop of alcohol. And Brigid, when she was carrying him—she wouldn’t eat a thing they hadn’t grown themselves. Oh, she had spent years picking up rubber bands and thumbtacks and things that could choke a baby. They had installed catches in all the bottom cupboards to keep children out, and still to this day it was awkward to open the doors.
But you can’t keep them safe, she thought. Sooner or later they find a way to get themselves broken.
She turned and grabbed the handle of the cupboard and yanked it so hard that the safety catch snapped and broke. She banged it shut again and kicked it. Now I’m starting to cry, she thought. Well, good, that’s okay. Goddamn it, I have something to cry about.
Hours later, when Sam came in, she was sitting on the floor, sobbing, with the plastic safety catches she had ripped off the cupboard doors strewn all around her.
Most of the old freeways had been torn down as earthquakes weakened them, or later, after the Uprising, when trucking was replaced by the solar trains. But one stretch remained, an old segment of Highway 101 coming up from the south, carrying electric or alcohol-fueled trucks and horse-drawn wagons from the peninsula farms. Now it spilled down an off ramp into Market Street, not far from the open plaza that fronted Old City Hall. Bird met Marie, Roberto, and Lan there. Together they waited. It was market day, and the plaza was crowded with stalls and bright awnings, bins of vegetables and grains and ripe fruit.
“We present quite a picture of abundance,” Roberto remarked.
“Not for long,” Lan said.
Even as they spoke, it became clear that word had gone out. Vendors began packing their wares with quiet efficiency. Slowly, a crowd was growing, subdued and silent. Marie reached for Bird’s hand and drew him into a circle with Lan and Roberto. “Let’s breathe together,” she said. “And pray, to whatever gods you believe in.”
They stood in silence for a moment. I still can’t really believe this is happening, Bird thought. The following night was May Eve, Beltane. There would be no bonfires on the hill, no dawn dances the following morning to Sachiko’s sweet music, no maypole. Madre Tierra, help us. Help me. Let me find the strength I will need.
Then they heard a loud rumble, followed by a boom that shook the ground. Marie clenched Bird’s hand.
“The bridges,” she whispere
d. “We’ve blown the bridges.”
Another explosion followed, louder than the first. Tears hung in Lan’s eyes and Bird blinked back his own. Even now all the boats left in the City were casting off, setting sail for the east or north side of the Bay. Even now they were being cut off, isolated.
“Let’s go down by Market Street,” Bird said, breaking the silence. “I want to see what’s coming at us.”
The four moved down to where the plaza joined the street and stood beside the fountain, an affair of tumbling concrete blocks dating back to the 1970s. There they had a clear view of the off ramp constructed to lead directly to the central market. The asphalt surface seemed to be alive, swarming with a movement that resolved itself into line after line of men in dull gray uniforms, marching in perfect step, like a many-legged machine, orderly, regular, disciplined.
Bird felt oddly calm, as if his fear had compressed into a diamond-hard stone somewhere far below the surface of his mind. The waiting was over. They were here. They were real.
The vanguard of the marching lines reached the curb near the fountain. Out of the ranked masses of men, one stepped forward. His eyes were invisible behind a mirrored visor, and his hands were taut on the stock of the laser rifle held clenched before him. The men, Bird noticed, were sorted by color like a box of crayons, the molasses and mahogany in one platoon, ocher and umber in another, beige and tan and shades of pink together.
“I am Commander Pershing Nelson, Acting Commander of the Fourth Army of the Stewardship,” he barked. “Who is in charge here?”
Now it comes, Bird thought. The four of them stepped forward together.
“We are here to repossess this land in the name of the Corporate Stewardship, from which it was stolen,” the Commander said. “If you cooperate, we are prepared to be lenient. Resist, and we can be merciless.”
He waited. There was silence throughout the crowd. He looked at the four of them and finally fixed on Roberto, the oldest male.
“You. I’m waiting for an answer. We’re offering you a chance to surrender without bloodshed. You’re outnumbered and outarmed. All we ask in return is a little cooperation in bringing this city under proper management. Answer me!”
Roberto’s face was calm and composed. He looked into the Commander’s eyes and said mildly, “There is a place set for you at our table, if you will choose to join us.” “What?”
“There is a place set for you at our table, if you will choose to join us.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
Marie stepped forward. “I am Sister Marie Seraphim, of the Order of Our Blessed Lady of the Waters, and one of the freely elected representatives of this city. What we mean is that we will never cooperate with violence, neither by submitting to it nor by using it.”
“You got to do one or the other, lady,” the Commander said. “I suggest you submit and save us all a lot of trouble.”
“We propose an alternative,” Marie said, pitching her voice to carry to the ranked troops. “Your armies are swollen with the poor and the dispossessed from your own land. We are a small population now, decimated by famine and epidemics, in an area that once housed and fed hundreds of thousands more. We can find room for those who wish to join us, to live the way we do, with respect for the Four Sacred Things, air, fire, water, and earth. We are not a wealthy people; everything we have depends on our mutual cooperation. But for those who wish to join us we can make a place.”
“Joining you is not the issue in question,” Nelson said. “We are here to impose the power and authority of the Stewardship.”
“We do not recognize that authority,” Marie said.
“I’m not offering you a choice in the matter.”
“Nevertheless we have made our choice, which is to make this offering to each one of you. There is a place set for you at our table, if you will choose to join us.” Her voice rang out over the assembled troops, and she arched her neck to meet the eyes of the darker soldiers far down in the ranks.
“I’m not accustomed to arguing with women,” Nelson said to Roberto.
Marie smiled pleasantly. “Then you have some new experiences in store.”
Nelson ignored her, speaking directly to Roberto again. “Get this. We’re moving in here, and we’re taking over. This is not a game. Now, I need your cooperation in billeting my men. As I said, if you show the right spirit, this can go pretty easy on you. If not, I’ll put my men where I decide to put them, and you may be sorry about that.”
“There is a place set for you at our table,” Roberto said.
“The next person who says that’s gonna be sorry they did.”
Lan, Roberto, Bird, Marie, and all the massed crowd chorused together, “There is a place set for you at our table, if you will choose to join us.”
The Commander slapped Roberto across the face with his hand.
“Say it again, boy. Go ahead, just say it again.”
That wasn’t smart, Bird thought. We’ve only provoked him into losing control. And if he hooks Roberto into this duel, we’ll have a murder here. Now comes my turn.
He stepped forward.
“We don’t accept your authority,” Bird said. “We will do nothing to aid you in any way. We will not cooperate, we will resist you in every way short of violence. But we will never stop offering you the choice to join with what is here instead of attempting to conquer and control it.”
Nelson’s face twisted contemptuously. “I am really not accustomed to taking advice from niggers.”
Bird had not heard that term since his escape from the Southlands prison. It struck him as strangely archaic, a weapon out of some bizarre past, as if the officer had suddenly rushed at him with a bronze spear or a stone ax. A ripple of disturbance went through the troops. It was hardly audible, just a low murmur in the darker divisions, like the growl of a dog disturbed from sleep.
There is tension here, Bird thought, a crack, something we can exploit. The hold on this army is tenuous. I must remember this.
Marie opened her mouth to speak, but Bird motioned her back. He needed to handle this himself.
“We are not accustomed to hear that word used in this city,” Bird said, pitching his singer’s voice so that it carried far back through the ranks of men. “There are no barriers of color here. I say this to you, brothers, black and Latin and Chino and white too, that we set an equal place at our table for all who choose to join us.”
Nelson swung his rifle and smashed Bird in the side of the head. The impact hit him with a shock that chased away pain. He stood still, unflinching.
Well, it’s better than being dead, he thought. Blood trickled down his cheeks and wet the collar of his shirt.
“You do not understand,” Marie said to the Commander. She was angry, Bird knew, because of the bright red spots that appeared on her cheeks, but her voice was still low and calm. “You do not understand the power that we have in this city. It is a power you can never destroy or conquer, that will not bend to your will.”
The officer turned his back to her. “Prepare to make camp!” he barked at his men. “Johnson, cordon off the area. Bring up the tents.” He turned back and addressed the crowd. “I want everybody out of here before I count ten!”
Lan sat down.
I’m ready to go, Bird thought. His head was starting to hurt. I could give a little, here, but he sat down too. Roberto, Marie, and the crowd followed.
Nelson turned to his second-in-command. “Clear this area, Jones. I don’t care how you do it—drag them away, run trucks over them, shoot them, but get it clear!” He stomped off, going down the lines, his chest thrust forward and his ribbons bobbing.
“You heard the Commander,” Jones barked, trying to look sure of himself. Nobody moved. “Men, get rid of them!”
The men remained standing.
“Well, what the holy hell are you waiting for?”
“Sir,” one of the men asked quietly, “what exactly do you want us to do?”
�
��Drag them off. That’s an order! And don’t be too gentle about it!”
The soldiers moved forward, looking scared. If we had guns, Bird thought, concealed under our clothing or in our boots, this would be a highly effective trap. But we don’t. The crowd began chanting, “Hold our ground! Hold our ground!” His head hurt badly, now, with a throbbing that changed to a flare of pain as two officers grabbed his ankles and pulled him along the ground. He tried to become as limp and heavy as possible, but his neck tensed in spite of himself to keep his head from banging on the pavement. His shirt rode up his back and his bare skin scraped against the pavement. Around him he could hear blows being struck and occasional screams of panic as the chant got ragged.
Sing, he thought, we should be singing. As loudly as he could, he began to sing.
“We are the power in everyone, we are the dance of the moon and sun.…”
Around him, voices took up the chant, and it flowed over the crowd and the soldiers both, until they were all of them linked in the same harmonies, the same rhythm, coming not through the ears but direct through the body, or something deeper than the body, sustaining them with the beat.
“We are the hope that will not hide, we are the turning of the tide.…”
The streets filled with soldiers that night. They seemed to be everywhere, marching up and down beside the streams, tramping through the open gardens, kicking at turf in the park, pulling ripe fruit off the boughs. Bird maneuvered his way around them, ducking into the doorways of friends, hiding in the shadows of trees. Sam had bandaged his head; Maya had cooed and fussed and nursed him and tried to make him stay inside, but he had to talk to Lan and Marie and Roberto.
A wooden footbridge crossed the stream that ran south from the hill. He decided to avoid it, heading instead for the stepping stones, where he had always preferred to cross as a boy. They’d played endless games there, pretending the river was full of piranhas, crocodiles, dangers, as they tottered from stone to stone. Now the dangers were real and he took the stones at a run. His bad leg still bothered him a bit, but it was better than it had been; he could compensate for his awkward gait at only a moderate cost to his balance, and some pain. But he slipped on the last stone, twisted awkwardly in the air, and crashed heavily onto the opposite bank, nearly coming down on a still figure who crouched in the shadows.
