TWENTY-SIX
Sobered by the work he had not done, Greg walked out after his first class, into the middle of the choreographed insanity of a Mushroom Madness Festival. Yet another of Smoke’s and the MDRG’s theater pieces, this one revolved around audience participatory performance art. A long roll of butcher paper had been unfurled and taped down to one of the walkways leading up to Remley Plaza, and it was scattered with pens, paint, crayons, chalk, etc. Five television sets on a large drop cloth occupied one corner of the Plaza; the set screens painted as a bloodshot eye, a laughing skull, a smoking brain, and the like, all begging to be smashed. In another corner of the plaza a modern dance piece was in progress. Yet a third plaza corner featured an immense mountain of styrofoam packing pieces into which several people were flinging each other and themselves. The fountain’s water was dyed blood red. And somewhere, if the MDRG was true to form, someone was selling psychedelic mushrooms packaged by the dose, at cost.
A man, too old to be a student and not dressed as a professor, stood in the amused, playful crowds checking out the scene. He stuck out in his straight, dark glasses and suit, more so than if he had worn absolutely dayglo clothes and checkered hot pink/lime green hair. Greg was not the only one to jump to the conclusion that ASU now had it’s own Fed, probably an FBI agent.
“Looks like the gov’mint boys are here,” Larry said at his elbow, holding a bag of ‘shrooms, “Also heard word that the Feds want to talk to the ‘Mexican Revolution Solidarity Brigade.”‘
“They want to negotiate?” Greg glanced at him, startled.
“I guess,” Larry shrugged, “Smoke heard. Said its the word on the grapevine all around the Bay Area. I told it to David and he and Beth are looking into it.”
Trap?”
“Probably. Then again, maybe the Feds are serious about talking. Smoke said there was an FBI agent on almost every corner in Berkeley yesterday. I’m glad the ‘stuff is hidden.”
“So am I,” Greg said, pushing his hair back nervously, “Hope David and Beth are careful.”
“They said they’d update us if they found out anything,” Larry shrugged, “By the way, Smoke’s doing a little talk this evening. For anybody who’s planning to do an autonomous street affinity at this Wednesday’s SF demo. On the patio at the pub at 5 today.”
“You going to do that stuff?” Greg indicated the dried ‘shrooms, “Won’t be in much condition for the talk if you do.”
“I’ll be coasted well down by that time,” Larry grinned, twisting up his face so that his eyes bulged comically. He then proceeded to munch down his dosage. Greg sighed. He liked psilocybin best of all the hallucinogens he had tried; not as pushy as LSD, not as spacy as mescaline, and not as smoothed down as the designer bullshit. But he was so far behind in homework that he dared not even contemplate purchasing a dose for later. Why had the Bay Area General Strike been called for Wednesday, instead of Tuesday or Thursday, Greg’s busy school days? The ASU Associated Student Body had endorsed the Wednesday strike in their Sunday meeting. The Faculty Senate was to vote on the strike that evening. The proposal to close the school Wednesday was expected to pass by a squeaker, with the sizable minority of business-as-usual faculty threatening to defy the vote by keeping their classes open.
His Humanities class was a snowstorm. Holmes buried Greg’s mind under a blizzard of words.
“The Christian Millennium is markedly different from both Paradise and Utopia. Forget for the moment the sectarianism within the millenarian tradition; the pre-millennialists with their direct divine rule by the Christ after his Second Coming, and the post-millennialists who split as to whether the Millennium is to be a golden age or an age of desolation, both agreeing that it will occur before the Second Coming. Consider the Millennium only as a golden age. It still is fundamentally set apart from both Paradise and Utopia. The Millennium is a fixed time, one thousand years in length. Both Paradise and Utopia are timeless, entirely outside of history. Marx, in defining human history to date as the history of class struggle, posited an end to history, or rather a transcendence of pre-history, in the achievement of his stateless, classless communist society. Only communism’s lower stage, what Lenin called “socialism,” is of a limited duration. And, in the Christian mythos, the time bound Millennium in no way substitutes for true Paradise, no matter how golden and blissful.
“What is more, the Millennium has no opposite. It is merely one in a linear string of historical ages in the Christian scheme of things. By contrast, those religions with a strong conception of paradise-as-heaven invariably posit a fiendish hell. Authors fantasizing a Utopia, an Erewhon or a Pala are as likely to conceive of a Brave New World, an Oceania, or a Fahrenheit 451. As for paradise-as-garden, the world itself is its opposite. In contrast to Eden is the Land of Nod. Yin and Yang. Paradise and Utopia share the intimacy of opposites. Human culture has not transcended patternings based upon polarity and opposition for the million or so years of our species’ sapiency, esoteric mathematics notwithstanding. Indeed, some argue that humans cannot know white without understanding black, good without evil, freedom without slavery. It can even be argued that the Millennium must be temporally delimited because it has no opposite.”
Once done with school for the day, Greg made the mistake of trying to study at the pub. He managed two hours before Larry showed up, sublime on his high’s decline. A pitcher of beer showed up, and Larry offered his friend a glass.
“Didja hear?” Larry grinned cheerfully, “ASP called off the P&M occupation.”
“No, why?” Greg looked up.
“We couldn’t take the building back Sunday, so the cops opened classes today.” Larry poured Greg a glass, “The lobby occupation had a meeting at noon. The only people who were being barred from their classes were the handicapped ‘cause they couldn’t use the lobby elevators. So they called it off.”
“Too bad,” Greg took a sip of beer, then a gulp, “Any more on the Feds and our ‘hot property?’”
“Nope,” Larry stared off, “But I gotta feeling we’re about to find out.”
Greg followed Larry’s gaze and saw David, Beth and a third person approaching through the Redwood Eatery’s front doors. David introduced the two already seated to Jason Trumble, winter quarter’s chair of the UC Berkeley Student Anti-War Alliance. Jason was a Feral, unusual in that he was also a politico. Most Ferals did not have a thought beyond gratifying what was between their legs. Ferals were sometimes considered third generation glam; the decadent, glitter side to rock/metal. Of equal influence were the gothic/gloom tendencies of punk, the gritty underside to industrial, and a taste of acid house, particularly the aphrodisiac promise in its “love drugs”—Ecstasy and Love 999. It did take lead guitar out of metal’s banalities, restoring psychedelia’s harrowing edge to the instrument’s sound. It made some use of the New Emo-Sound systems—Emo synths and amps—more as frosting on the musical cake. Feral had started before medicine developed the pack antibody vaccines to effectively fight AIDS and herpes. It flourished despite science having made sex relatively safe once again. Feral did best when sex was tinged with danger, and a little violence. Jason had an impressive Fu Manchu moustache. He wore his semi-dreaded hair matted, braided, and beaded, and his whirligig clothing torn as if by passion, in Feral fashion. He also wore the distinctive Feral lower apparel; Amerindian style pants cut away front and back at the crotch and covered by a decorated breech cloth so as to be “ready for action” anytime, any place.
“Jason, will you sit here and wait for us. We have to talk,” David addressed his friend, and then turned to Larry and Greg, “Let’s go out on the patio.”
“Smoke was right. There’s definitely something weird going on,” Beth said once outside, “Jason was approached by folks he thinks were FBI. When he refused to talk to them about anything, they told him the government is interested in talking with whoever has the riemanium. They even gave him an 800 number to call. He drove to Concord to call from a pay phone, and David an
d I drove to San Rafael to call, also from a pay phone. Obviously, anybody calling is going to be traced.”
“Anyway,” David continued, “The recorded message on the line sets up a meeting at Temptations Cafe in the city tomorrow night at 7. We’re supposed to approach the third table from the potted plants on the patio and ask for a cigarette.”
“Are we going to do it?” Greg frowned, not liking this turn of events at all.
“I think we should at least go to see what’s up,” David said.
“If it doesn’t look good, you don’t have to go through with it,” Beth added.
“I can’t believe the government is going to cave in to us,” Greg shook his head.
“I don’t either,” David said, “But this is an opportunity to see what the government has up its sleeve.”
“What if they got pictures, from demos?” Larry sputtered, “Arrest you all just because you’re there.”
A few minutes passed as the implications of Larry’s statement percolated.
“Well then,” David returned to deliberateness, “All they’ll have is a false arrest. Temptations Cafe is open to the public, and we have the right to go there to eat. They have no evidence we’re there for anything else, and if we don’t talk, they’ve got nothing. We could even threaten to sue.”
“We could set something up with our ACLU lawyer also,” Beth offered, “Tell her we heard this was going down, and just want to see what its about. We can ask her to be on call is all.”
“Sounds like a good back-up,” Greg said, cautious as hell.
“I dunno,” Larry said. “Won’t the lawyer get suspicious?”
“She’ll still respect client confidentiality,” Beth commented.
“We’ll drive down in my car,” David said. Several ASP members drifted onto the patio, followed by a couple of the MDRG boys, making further conversation impossible. David recovered Jason from inside the pub. Dusk deepened. It was clear now why Jason was there as David’s guest. The Berkeleyite was also a “street fightin’ man,” and he was to monitor Smoke’s presentation, even offer a second opinion, at David’s request. More people arrived. Finally, Smoke hustled in on threads of night and fog. The gathering retired to an isolated corner of the pub’s upper patio.
“To,” Smoke began, to focus attention, “All of you, I take it, are here because you want to participate in the Hooligan actions of the SF march next Wednesday. David, how’s that going to be organized?”
“Well,” David was taken aback by Smoke’s polite address, so into his rivalry was he with the man. He clasped his hands together. “As you all know, this is a national day of action that has become an international event. In the Bay Area three separate marches are supposed to come together. One from UCB and one from downtown Oakland are supposed to converge just before crossing the bay bridge. The combined east bay contingent is then supposed to merge around 5th and Market with the SF march coming south on Market. I’m not quite sure of the route from that point. I think we go up Van Ness to Fell, and then to Golden Gate Park.”
“Thanks.” Smoke nodded under deck lights defining swirling columns in the gathering fog. “ASFs plan is to start from Berkeley. Well be able to join up with the Hooligan contingents there. The general plan is to split off from the overall march just before it gets to the park rally.”
At that moment Lori and Mary walked into the conspiracy, beers in hand. They sat next to Larry and Greg.
“Hello,” Lori said, sweetly, placing a hand on Greg’s knee.
“There are three key factors to successful autonomous street actions,” Smoke continued, unperturbed. “Anonymity, mobility and cellular flexibility. I’ll take these in reverse order. Hooliganism is a mass movement made up of contingents, roughly corresponding to independent columns like the Black Column, THRUSH...”
“Terrible Hags Ruthlessly Uprooting Self-Hatred,” Lori laughed.
“And then there are the more concentrated affinity group and cellular organizations that make up the columns, or sometimes float free,” Smoke glared at the interruption, then quickly iced, “Like the Crabby Times Crew, BdN, Hardcore Autonomy, the Pickles Eccarius Liberation Front, Anti-Fascist Skin Front, Black Gang, etc. At the end of this, this group is gonna have to figure out how to affiliate and whether to stay as an ASP affinity.
“Autonomous action relies upon cellular organization even deeper than this however. Groups like Hardcore Autonomy or BdN are actually several autonomous affinities under a common name and action platform. And in each affinity, participants hang in groups of two to five during street actions. When an affinity is charged by the cops, it can quickly disperse and easily regroup. If pressed by a full on police assault, folks can run in all directions, with a buddy or two so you can watch each other’s backs. That’s the basis to the cellular model, people who are friends taking care of each other as a unit. A streetwise unit. Cellular structure also allows for maximum flexibility. If one cell is mostly arrested or broken up, the remaining individuals can be quickly absorbed into other cells. And cells can develop hand signs, street calls, even battle plans and contingencies in coordination. Before this meeting’s done, those are other things to discuss.
“All of which leads into the need for street smarts and mobility. Everybody here should get a map of San Francisco and study the march route. Study all the side streets you can, especially along Market and Van Ness. Check out dead ends and the way traffic flows. Check out parks and other open spaces. In theory, everyone should walk or drive through the area and check it out before Wednesday. On the day of, wear your running shoes and be prepared to do some fast and unexpected maneuvering. You can shut down a public building by sitting down until the cops get there, then disperse and regroup to block another building. Keep on the move and one step ahead of the powers-that-be; that’ll keep you active and out of jail on Wednesday. That’s especially true if you intend to do some vandalism. There’s no dress rehearsal, or dry run for street fighting. So when you’re on that march and in those streets, keep your eyes and ears open. Keep alert. What’s the pedestrian traffic like at any given time? The number, armament and placement of cops? Any paddy wagons or cop choppers? What cars and buses are on the street and where? There’s only one take on this riot. You either get it right or you go to jail.”
“I want you tonight,” Lori leaned to whisper into Greg’s ear, her voice southern sticky, her hand sliding up his thigh.
“Finally, we get to street presence.” Smoke caught her maneuver in the corner of his eye, and refused to acknowledge it. “You all know how to dress for regular demos—loose, comfortable clothes, no jewelry, etc. Hooligans work within such guidelines toward anonymity. Its hard for the cops, even using videos and super zoom photography to pick you out of a crowd breaking bank windows when everyone in the crowd dresses alike. Wear dark clothing. Black is preferred. A black bandana, cheap mirrored sunglasses for the neurolasers, sweat pants or sweatshirt with another layer of clothing underneath, maybe a cap, and your identity is covered. Cheap black nylon gloves, a couple of dermaflex pads to cut down the tear gas, jacket pockets full of rocks, maybe a slingshot or a roll of pennies, and you’re complete. Most of these items can be easily bundled and quickly tossed away. It’s no crime to wear black. I know the Killer Klown Kontingent go for wild costumes and face makeup, but they’re doing the same thing. When there’s thousands of ‘em on the streets, the cops can’t tell who’s who, and who did what. And, no ID. It’s no crime yet to go walking around without ID, especially during the day. But the cops have the right to haul people in without ID on suspicion and hold them incommunicado for over forty-eight hours. That means setting a regroupment time and place, so you can see who’s missing, find ‘em and spring ‘em.”
“Smoke,” Eric, the MDRG dreadhead, coughed, and imperceptibly gestured. A young man, ostensibly dressed and outfitted as a student, approached the patio’s upper terrace, climbing the stairs, beer in hand. But just like the suit at the Mushroom Madness Festival, the cu
t and manner of this one spoke louder than anything else. Cop.
“Is this the ASP meeting?” the man said, standing now as the entire meeting stared at him. The MDRG boys, up until then loitering on the edges of the meeting, sauntered unobtrusively to surround the newcomer.
“No,” Smoke smiled, not quite friendly, “It’s kinda a private party. A little private celebration.”
“Okay,” the newcomer shrugged, and glanced about. He noticed an empty table at the far end of the short terrace and moved toward it. When he moved, so did the MDRG, and that’s when he noticed them.
“It’s still a free country, isn’t it?!?” the newcomer said, scowling.
“Freer up here than you might like,” Eric grinned, wolfish.
“As in free-for-all,” Darrel, the skin, pointedly cracked his knuckles.
The newcomer did not say another word. Instead, he turned and walked back the way he’d come. He wasn’t scared, or surprised. He was angry, making the point to carefully control his anger.
“Let’s wrap this up,” Smoke said as his audience turned back from watching a real autonomous cell in action, “You’ve got the basics. The only way to really learn is hands-on. Time now to settle some issues. First, buddying up.”
“Mary and me are going to join up with THRUSH,” Lori said, first thing.
“Does anyone want to form an ASP affinity?” David asked, at cross purposes. Most of the rest of the folks at the meeting wanted to, and Greg buddied up with Larry.
“The MDRG usually does its own thing,” Smoke grinned and winked. Fog began to halo the night lighting. “But well hang with you all on Wednesday.”
They arranged a time and place to regroup in Berkeley, as well as the necessary legal backup. Smoke hurried out a few more suggestions.
End Time Page 26
