“You are informed that you are on private property and that you are now trespassing. If you do not move, you will be arrested. Any equipment or other belongings left on the premises may be deemed abandoned.”
The deed was to be done with force, at night, without forewarning, to avoid any public confrontation that would hamper the eviction. The police crept in, carrying weapons concealed by the dark. The park people were dispersed, stunned, and as they ran through the streets in the early morning darkness, they slowly realized the park had been lost. They’d been scattered without a fight. At that hour, it was too few who heard the call to arms: “The pigs are coming! The pigs are coming …” And those who did needed the night’s sleep.
From deep in her dreams, Kathy heard pounding on the front door of her College Avenue apartment. She opened one eye to the clock. 7:15. Suddenly, she froze, heart pounding, palms sweating.
“We’re getting busted!” she cried.
In a flash, she was out of bed into a tapestry shift, shakily trying to remember where she had put everything the night before. Jesus! But they had gotten so loose! There were drugs everywhere!
In the hallway, she met Danny, who was pulling on his jeans. For a moment, their eyes locked in the same knowledgeable frightened stare.
“How much can we get down the toilet before they bust in?” Danny screamed, racing for the living room, trying to gather stash.
“Where is everything?” Kathy shouted, following him.
“Kathy!” Andy banged.
Stopped by the familiarity of the voice, shaking, Kathy went to the door. “Jesus fuckin’ Christ, Andy! What the fuck are you doin’ pounding on the door at this hour? We thought we were getting busted!”
“They cleared out the park! They put up a fence! Early this morning!”
“What?”
“About 6:00 a.m. They put up this big steel fence around the park. No one can get in or out!”
“But … they just consecrated the park on Monday. Made it sacred ground!”
“The university will rue the day they pulled this stunt. Wait until the noon rally!”
Andy seemed to suddenly realize that he was still standing on the porch, shouting. He rushed inside. “Kathy, you have got to see this! An eight-foot chain-link fence! Expensive. Man, they mean business!”
“That’s the last of it, huh?” Bob said to Christian, regarding the ten pounds of Afghani that Christian had kept from his half of the load. “Then it’s time to make another run. Why don’t you come with us this time?”
The thought of returning to India did not appeal to Christian. But making the journey to Afghanistan and learning the hash contacts was tempting.
“Maybe,” he said, beginning to wrap the hash.
“We’ll need three or four months to get ready. But I think we can be out of here by September.”
“I’m in the middle of things anyway,” Christian told him.
“When won’t you be? It’s always work with you.”
Christian placed the wrapped pounds in a satchel with books. Kevin would be elated to have them. Afghani was scarce at the moment. “Want to have lunch in about an hour?”
“It’ll take me that long to shower and pull myself together.”
Although it was always difficult finding a place to park around campus, this morning the traffic was unbearable. Christian finally parked on College near Kathy’s, feeling guilty because he wasn’t offering the pounds to her. But he owed Kevin a favor for the lab chemicals he’d produced. She’d probably still get at least half of them. Kevin would sell them to her, taking his cut off the top, and she’d never know they’d originally come from him.
Maybe.
Not until Christian walked up College to Dwight Way did he understand the traffic problems. The perimeters of the park had been cordoned off with a fence. Across the street were lines of police cars, and the sidewalks were heavily guarded by khaki-clad officers with riot helmets, nightsticks, and jackets hung with tear gas canisters. One officer carried a four-foot gas-can launcher. Knowing that the erection of a fence meant direct confrontation, he was sickened at the prospect of the violence, the enormous rush of emotion once thousands of people began to battle for the land.
His senses were immediately heightened, his awareness of danger keen.
Christian looked at his watch. 11:15. Suddenly, he felt another fear.
Where’s Kathy? How’s she going to deal with this?
Then he remembered.
The noon rally on campus. The violence would begin there, in the anger of all those people. Kathy would be at the rally.
Stoned and sensitive, he was frightened. Not for himself, but for the city and the woman he loved.
The light turned green, and he stepped out into the crosswalk, alert, almost walking on his toes, knowing he was carrying and that he needed to get off the street as soon as he handed off the hash to Kevin. Surely, Kevin would be up by now.
Oddly, his sense of danger did not lessen as he moved away from the park and the line of cops.
What is it?
Senses tuned, trying to home in on it, he consciously let his mind float.
The front entranceway of Kevin’s apartment building was ten feet away when he spotted the dark suit across the street, an oddity in a crazy sea, an alien standing among students and armed police. Christian had almost missed him because everything was out of place today, but he was there, observing Kevin’s building.
The Heat.
He knew the vibe immediately and kept walking. All the other inconsistencies could not change the unmistakable smell of a nark.
The nearest pay phone Christian could remember was on campus, near the anthropology building. He hurriedly walked the distance, feeding the machine a dime. Three, four, six rings. Still Christian waited.
Come on, Kevin, get out of bed, and answer the goddamned phone!
Frustrated, he hung up and looked at his watch. 11:30. Kevin was known to sleep until two. Someone would have to go in there and rouse him. Thinking quickly, he decided to call Richard and Marcie. They were only a half block away. Perhaps Marcie could get him up with the doorbell.
“Richard,” Christian’s voice was tight. “I went to visit your friend around the corner …”
“Yeah. Which one?”
“The one on Dwight. I couldn’t get in. Seems he has company across the street.”
“I see.” Richard’s voice lost its sleepy edge.
“Maybe Marcie could go over and rouse him with the doorbell. She needn’t go up. Just mention the scenery.”
“Okay. Where are you?”
“On campus. Did you know they put a fence up around the park?”
“Jesus. Then that was the noise we heard last night. We’re just getting up.”
“There’s going to be trouble. The noon rally on campus. Marcie should hurry to avoid it. I’m coming over. I need to get off the street.”
Kathy had spent the morning following Andy from group to group, watching him play through the politics necessary to determine the shape of the retaliation. At first, she was excited to be a part of it, angry and indignant. But before long, the battles and hassles over just how the park should be taken back began to tire her.
Almost noon, she stood in Sproul Plaza trembling at the intensity of the growing crowd with a queasy feeling that nothing constructive would happen today. From her position near the stage, she looked out over the growing mass of people. Her eyes scanned the milling crowd, the stage activity, the number of campus police officers dressed in riot gear. She considered leaving, but couldn’t. These were her people. She had to tough it out with them.
Promptly at noon, the rally began. Speakers took the podium, one by one expounding on the park. The ninth speaker to address the restless crowd was Dan Siegel, Boalt law student and president of the student body. His speech was not long but was impassioned. “… Don’t let those pigs beat the shit out of you! Don’t let yourselves get arrested on a felony! Go down the
re and take the park!”
“Yeah! Take the park!” single voices cried out from the crowd. “Take the park!”
“We want the park!” “We want the park!” chanted thousands of voices in unison. “We want the park!”
Kathy felt her skin prickle, knew she was listening to the cry before battle. A deceptively overwhelming sense of elation flowed through her body.
Sergeant Casey, the UC policeman who officiated over the electrical system at noontime rallies, gave the order to cut the power. The next speaker held a dead mike.
Thinking the rally over and having heard what it wanted to hear, two thousand people began to move out from Sproul Plaza toward Telegraph Avenue and the park fence. The clap of a tear gas launcher startled them. Then another. The pause of a single breath, and the crowd became a frenzy of screams and shoving. White clouds of tear gas billowed up as more canisters exploded, covering the area, impairing visibility, and feeding the haphazard panic.
Andy, choking and gasping for air, grabbed Kathy’s arm. “Come on!” he shouted. “Run!”
Somehow, she managed to find her feet and began running through the thick, blinding smoke, her own silent scream a blend of the hundreds of other shouts and sounds.
“This way!” Andy pulled her.
Ahead, she saw a phalanx of cops, moving in battle formation, swinging at random, right and left. Cops behind picked up the pieces, arresting those who stumbled or fell in the face of the baton.
“We’ve got to get to a stash of bricks and bottles,” Andy shouted.
Kathy could only shake her head. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t mouth the words. But she followed him, east across campus, until the tear gas was lighter.
“Andy! They pulled the sound!” she screamed hysterically.
“Take it easy,” he coughed, his eyes tearing so badly he could hardly see. “We’ll show them.”
“Show them what?” she screamed again, trying to cover her nose and mouth with her sleeve. “People are really getting hurt out there!”
Then they both heard it. A sound louder than the noise and yelling of the confused crowd. A gunshot.
Then more.
“What’s … what’s happening?” Kathy’s red and watering eyes turned to the direction of the sound, her body shaking so that she could hardly stand. “Were … were those gunshots?”
Andy looked uncertain for the first time. “I have to go back. This might be it! The revolution we’ve been talking about! Do you want to come?”
“It’s not my revolution,” she cried. “All I ever wanted to do was make people high. Build a park where they could be happy. Create a world of equality where men lived without fear of violence.” She shook her head, everything very clear. “This isn’t my kind of revolution.”
So Christian had been right, she thought, remembering what he’d shared about Lama Loden’s teachings. Adversity and compassion. Opposite postures, mirroring each other. The tao. The only way to win was to unite, to consume, to become whole. Funny how the spirit of the Lama touched her through Christian.
“I’m going,” Andy shouted at her. “Will you be alright?”
“I’ll try to make my way home. Or maybe to Marcie’s. Let me hear from you later.” The sound of more shots being fired echoed past them. Her voice became shrill again. “I’ll be desperate until I hear from you!”
“Later,” he said, and quickly moved to the side of the next building.
Unknown to Marcie, the tear gas canisters had just been fired as she pushed the buzzer to Kevin’s apartment. She waited. Nothing. Again, she pushed … and again, trying to rouse him.
Maybe he’s just not home, she thought, nervous, intimidated by the energy on the streets. Hadn’t Christian warned them about trouble at a noon rally? Better to just walk back around the corner and go home.
She failed to notice that her eyes were blinking, that she was becoming disoriented from tear gas drifting over the whole area. When her nose started to run, she flashed that it would be a few days before her sinuses were working again because of the coke run.
Standing once again so that no one could see which apartment bell she was ringing, she lifted her finger to the buzzer for one last try.
“Yeah, who is it?” came Kevin’s irritated voice.
“Ah! So you are home. It’s me, Marcie.”
“What’s goin’ on?” he yawned. “You comin’ up?”
“No. I just wanted you to know you have a visitor standing in front of your house. He’s wearing sunglasses, a coat, and tie.”
“Christ, Marcie. You going to start that again this early in the morning?”
“Hey, this is no joke …”
At that very moment, not more than twenty feet from where Marcie stood, three cars pulled up in front of the building, flashing lights on the dash. The sentry standing across the street ran to the other men getting out of their cars. All Marcie could see were drawn guns, intent faces.
“Kevin,” she cried, using the last second of strength and time, terrified. “They’re here! Move it!”
The door opened and the manager of the building stepped out by prearrangement. Marcie moved away quickly, shaking violently, feeling as though she might be sick. No one paid her the slightest attention.
Ten feet away, she could hear Kevin’s heavy voice answer, “Sure. Listen, can you give me Michelle’s number? I’ve got to call Debbie.”
BREMER, KEVIN, AND HANSON
BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA
MAY 1969
Agent Bremer had been at his desk early that morning to work on his own upcoming police assault. Checking his file once more, he made certain that everything was in order. But it was impossible to sit for long. The offices and halls of the police building were filled with men laughing, guffawing, collecting masks and tear gas canisters, and making plans for their participation in the noon rally.
“Hey, Dolph, good to see you. It’s been a while,” one of the officers called.
“Nolan,” Bremer nodded, walking through the hall, acknowledging the men he knew. “Fred … Rod …”
“Too bad you can’t be with us today, Dolph,” someone called.
“I’m with you. Give ’em hell!”
At ten o’clock, the men of the narcotics squad gathered. Dolph knew it had been a long time since he’d felt so animated. Not even having Hanson around could affect him today. For months, he’d been looking for a way to get rid of Hanson and his judgmental raised eyebrow. Just like once before when he’d had to get rid of a partner. Up in Eureka. But today, Bremer knew a new kind of fervor—focused, intense, infectious.
“This punk is going down!” he told the assembled team.
As the clock reached eleven, he tried to steady himself. The halls had cleared as the Berkeley cops moved toward the campus area. Nervously, he knew the holiday mood had to cease. These were his men sitting, waiting, and they would not be up against the college crowd. They would be storming an apartment where all the factors were unknown.
Try as he would for calm, Bremer trembled with excited anticipation. The atmosphere was too powerful. His strength was stirred. He wanted a little of what the riot police were going to get. More than anything, he wanted a drink to steady his nerves, but it was too late, the time too short. Instead, he reached into his desk drawer and took the pearl-handled Colt into his hands, polishing it one last time with the cloth.
Phillips grinned, obviously pleased.
“Okay,” Bremer told them heavily. “Let’s move out. You each know what to do.
As he drove, he had to make a wide circle around the student area, take the south-facing direction of College Avenue toward the university, maneuver roadblocks, brake to avoid a crowd as he got closer to College and Dwight. The intensity and images of the streets electrified him—hard-edged faces of heavily armed police at roadblocks, raised and flying nightsticks, swiftly running students, all combined with the wailing sound of his siren and the flashing light on the dash.
Bremer swelled
with a sense of pride. On this day, all police officers were involved in the same battle. Communism would be defeated here, on these streets. Another creep would do time. And he was fortunate enough to be a part of it.
Approaching the rendezvous point, he screeched to a halt, threw open the door, and then … the sound of gunfire.
I’ll be damned! he exulted. They’re finally letting the bastards have it!
By the time he reached the front door of the apartment building, he was stimulated beyond control, had to urinate, absently noted his erection.
God, if only I could have a drink!
He fretted momentarily, fumbling for the handle of his pistol. The door opened on cue. He rushed past the startled people on the street, the cooperating manager, and up three flights of stairs to Kevin’s flat.
Everything was in tune, a synchronized drama. Three men covered the front of the building, the stairwell, and elevator. Another two covered the rear, walkie-talkies in hand, waiting for orders to come up. Bremer and Phillips from the State Bureau, Hanson representing the local police, Thompson and Rudgers, the Feds, Jackson from the FBI, all hit the hallway outside the suspect’s apartment. Bremer, sweating profusely, used the side of his gun, loud, against the door. “Police! Open up! We have a search warrant!”
Two seconds later, he gave the door his right foot, heard it splinter at its jamb, stepped back to avoid possible gun fire, then he threw his shoulder against the wood. Phillips joined him, stumbling as the door came completely off its hinges and fell with a crash to the floor.
Inside, after Marcie’s call over the intercom, Kevin had laid back down on the couch, neither awake nor asleep, incredibly bummed. He yawned loudly.
Now I’ll have to get dressed and go get Michelle’s phone number. He shook his head tiredly. Maybe I’ll try for some sleep again. What next?
From the first rap of the gun, he was on his feet, his body pumping adrenaline, terrified, confused, and running, not really knowing where, only to the back of the apartment, away from danger.
A Nation of Mystics_Book II_The Tribe Page 36
