The Reset Life of Cassandra Collins

by Shawn Inmon

  The parking around their house was always crammed, because parking everywhere within half a mile of campus was in high demand. It’s the reason she rarely moved the Mustang once she found a decent parking spot, and why she always walked to campus.

  She cruised slowly through the neighborhood, crisscrossing the neighboring blocks, patiently waiting for a spot to appear. Since it was so late on a Monday night, everyone was already in for the evening, making parking more challenging than usual.

  Finally, she spied an empty spot almost five blocks away from the house.

  Good enough. I don’t mind a little walk.

  She went to the trunk and opened it, intending to carry her newfound treasure inside, but she hesitated.

  I’ve never felt unsafe here, but still, it’s not a great idea to be walking in the dark, so burdened with packages that I can’t defend myself if I need to. Plus, once I get it all in the house, what can I do with it then? Where can I put it? Every nook and cranny is filled with furniture, someone’s belongings, people, or small open spaces that serve as a path between all that. I think I need to find a new place to live. The girls are great, but it’s just too tight. Someplace like Ethan’s would be a dream.

  Briefly, she entertained the idea of sharing that space with Ethan. There was plenty of room for two of them, even with all his paintings. It was too ludicrous an idea to seriously consider, though.

  Her mind flashed back on the spacious home she’d had in Middle Falls.

  Or that. That wasn’t so bad, was it? Safe. No worries about money. But, lonely, especially after Jimmy died.

  She shut the trunk without taking anything out and walked toward home. She kept her keys in the palm of her hand, with the ignition key thrust between her index and middle finger like a small dagger. She didn’t expect to be attacked, but she would never be caught unawares again.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Cassandra’s first few months back in 1966 had been filled with big decisions and huge life changes. The next few months were no different.

  After a month’s worth of classes at UC Berkeley, she realized that despite it having been her dream for an entire previous lifetime, it wasn’t really what she wanted after all. Sharing cramped quarters with four other girls, taking classes where she felt constantly lost, and having odd low-key dates with Ethan wasn’t awful, but it wasn’t the life she wanted, either. It certainly wasn’t the adventure she had fantasized about all her life.

  From that first date with Ethan on, she never attended another class at UC Berkeley. She wasn’t quite ready to move on from Berkeley, or even the university yet, though. She continued to walk around the beautiful campus, carrying her easel and paints. For the first time in many decades, she began to paint.

  Those were her most common outings with Ethan, walking to one scenic spot or another that he knew about, setting up, and each working on their own interpretation of the scene in front of them. One surprisingly sunny October afternoon, they piled into the Mustang, took the complex route to drive across the Golden Gate Bridge and hiked down to Marshall’s Beach. There, among the giant rocks, they were able to get a new perspective on the bridge.

  Cassandra loved these outings with Ethan—their shared love of painting and the way he had rekindled that in her—but she knew something was missing. Even after six weeks of regular dates and hanging out, he hadn’t so much as tried to kiss her, beyond the occasional, ritualistic kiss on the cheek when he said goodbye to her, as if she were his aunt.

  When she dropped him off after their Golden Gate painting party, she sat in the car, staring up at his garage hideaway.

  I thought it would be nice to have a boyfriend who wasn’t constantly pawing at me or trying to push me into bed. This is too far in the other direction, though.

  Finally, a few days later, when they were having coffee and tea at The Golden Bear, she came out and asked him about it.

  He was talking about the abstract expressionist stylings of Robert Motherwell when Cassandra interrupted him.

  “Ethan, do you think I’m pretty?”

  He stopped in mid-sentence and stared over her shoulder for a few seconds.

  “Why? Do you want me to paint you?”

  Not exactly the answer I was expecting.

  “Well, maybe. That’s not why I asked, though.”

  “I’m not sure I follow, then. Why did you ask?”

  “Well, it’s kind of a reassuring thing to know about your boyfriend.”

  “I didn’t know I was your boyfriend.”

  “Oh. That kind of brings things into focus, I guess. I know we never talked about it, but we’ve been spending a lot of time together, and I just assumed...” She let the remainder of that sentence hang in the air.

  He finally brought his eyes down and met her gaze.

  “I guess I should tell you. I don’t think a lot about girls.”

  “Oh! So, you’re...” She was about to say ‘gay’ but she stopped herself. She couldn’t remember if that phrase was used yet in 1966 and she didn’t feel comfortable saying ‘homosexual.’

  Ethan bailed her out from having to make that choice.

  He said, “No, I don’t think about boys, either. I think I’m missing whatever part of me is supposed to make me interested in the opposite sex. Or sex period, I guess.”

  Asexual. I knew the word, but I never knew that anyone actually felt that way.

  She reached across and laid her hand on his. He didn’t flinch away, but didn’t reach toward her, either.

  He returned to talking about Robert Motherwell again as if they hadn’t had any conversational detour at all.

  Cassandra nodded from time to time, but she wasn’t really listening.

  I’ve been here two months and I’ve managed to flunk out of school and find a boyfriend who doesn’t want to be a boyfriend. What’s next?

  LATER THAT DAY, SHE was sitting at home on the couch. Weekday afternoons were often the best times to be home, because most of the others had gone to classes or other activities. It gave her time to think.

  Today, it was just she and Dara alone at the house and Dara was getting ready to leave. She was the most serious of Cassandra’s four roommates, more focused on her studies and social issues than finding a new boyfriend or which fraternity held the best parties.

  “Where you headed?” Cassandra asked.

  “Protest today at the plaza.”

  “What are we protesting today?”

  “Whaddya got?” Dara said, but she was smiling. Then, her smile faded. “The war. They’re wiping out an entire generation of young men for absolutely no reason. I really believe we can make a difference. Look what we’ve done so far.” She put her hand on the doorknob to leave, then stopped. She turned back to Cassandra. “What are you doing this afternoon?”

  “My nails?” It was the first thing that popped into her head.

  “Oh,” Dara said. She shrugged and opened the door to leave.

  “Wait! I was just kidding around. What’s going to happen at this protest?”

  Dara shut the door most of the way. “It’s pretty organic. We’ll meet on the plaza and there will probably be some speeches there. Then, we’re planning on going to Sproul Hall and have a sit-in.”

  “Sounds a lot more exciting than sitting around here doing nothing. Let me get my coat.”

  The next thing she knew, Cassandra was walking down the street toward campus with Dara, who she’d barely ever spoken to. As they walked along, a few more students joined them.

  By the time they got to the campus, there were dozens of them walking together. It was casual, but they all walked with a purpose. They joined other groups like theirs at the edge of the plaza. By four o’clock, there were thousands of them gathered together.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Here I am—Cassandra Collins, accidental time traveler and now accidental protester.

  All around her, young men and women were gathered into small knots, talking excitedly about the
ir chances of causing enough of a stir to stop the war. Some were practical, just wanting to start a national dialogue. Others were more optimistic, envisioning a massive sea change emanating from this very protest.

  Cassandra was more circumspect. She knew that unless something extraordinarily different happened—unless history changed in a major way—the war was going to continue for a long time. It might push Lyndon Johnson out of office, but Richard Nixon would continue the war for years, searching for that elusive “peace with honor.”

  Within a few minutes, people were packed in tight, filling the plaza. On the steps was a lectern with a microphone. The crowd was an interesting amalgam of people. Most all were young, and the majority of students were UC Berkeley students, but there was a smattering of others. San Francisco, just across the bay, was in the early stages of becoming the center of the hippie universe and a fair representation of that lifestyle was also present. It made for a colorful and diverse crowd.

  Cassandra could smell the sweet, skunky smell of marijuana surrounding her, but even though she kept her eyes peeled, she never saw who was smoking it. As the gathering grew steam, the smell of weed and the sweat of so many humans gathered tightly together formed a unique smell that she knew she would never forget.

  What if someone passed me a joint? Would I take it? I lived seventy years without it last time, but is there any harm in it?

  The question remained rhetorical for her because she had become separated from Dara, the only person she knew at the protest, and now she felt invisible.

  Soon, an earnest young man stepped to the microphone and began speaking. He was polite, but impassioned. Cassandra had a hard time arguing with what he said, which was all about asking why we were sending our young men to fight and die in a war that we never should have been in. A war Cassandra knew we would never win.

  He only spoke for a few minutes, then another young man, dressed in a winter coat, a button-down shirt and slightly high-water khakis, took his turn at the microphone.

  One by one, different students stepped up to speak. Some were calm and logical, but as the afternoon wore on, more strident speakers made their voices heard. A young man whose brother had been killed in Vietnam earlier that year took the lectern.

  “My brother wasn’t lucky enough to get into college and get the deferment a lot of us get. He got drafted, and he went. And now he’s dead.”

  The crowd raged.

  “Stop the killing!” and “Stop this senseless war!” and “Hell no, we won’t go!”

  Cassandra felt herself swept up, both emotionally and physically. She thought of Phillip Norris, the boy who she had taken American History with. The boy who had parked cars at her graduation party. The boy who had been killed in Vietnam in 1967.

  He’s somewhere over there right now. Living, breathing, dreaming about a home that he will never get back to.

  Her heart was filled with righteous anger. She began chanting along with the rest of the crowd—Hell no, we won’t go!—over and over.

  The crowd surged forward and without intending to, Cassandra was moved toward the front, toward the speakers.

  An attractive young woman with a guitar around her neck stepped up to the microphone, strummed a few chords and began to sing Blowin’ in the Wind. Cassandra remembered the lyrics and began to sing, as did most everyone else in the crowd. When that wound down, the young woman, dressed in a long coat and with her hair hanging loose around her shoulders, began to sing Where Have All the Flowers Gone.

  Again, the crowd joined in, which gave Cassandra the courage to open herself up a bit and sing the words out. The song had been written by Pete Seeger, but she remembered the version by The Kingston Trio.

  The girl with the guitar didn’t have a great voice, but she had passion. Eventually, she heard Cassandra singing along. She leaned back, whispered something to a curly-haired man beside her and nodded at Cassandra.

  The man hopped gracefully down the steps and spoke into Cassandra’s ear. “Billie wants you to come up and sing with her.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t!”

  “Of course you can,” the man said, grabbing her by the elbow and pulling.

  The next thing she knew, she was standing at the top of the steps, looking out over the crowd, which overwhelmed her. She had felt comfortable being in that crowd, looking up. She was petrified being atop the steps, looking at the huddled people staring up at her.

  She hadn’t gotten a lot out of her classes at Berkeley, but one quote did pop immediately into her mind. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee.

  Thanks, Nietzsche. Or Sartre, or whichever one of you that was.

  The woman with the guitar—Billie, apparently—bent her head toward Cassandra. “Do you know We Shall Not be Moved?”

  Cassandra nodded. “Of course.”

  Billie smiled at her, then turned back to the crowd. “My voice is shot today, but I could hear this woman singing loud and proud, so she’s going to lead us in this next song. Sing along if you know it!”

  She strummed a few chords and she and Cassandra started as a duet. “Well, I’m on my way to heaven—”

  The crowd answered back, “—We shall not be moved.”

  Cassandra and Billie continued the call and response from there.

  “On my way to heaven—”

  “—We shall not be moved.”

  “Just like a tree that’s standing by the water side—”

  “—We shall not be moved!”

  The song, derived from an old spiritual, was about being steadfast in one’s beliefs. The irony of the title was not lost on Cassandra, though. As she stood on the steps, side by side with a woman she had never met, singing out to thousands of strangers, she was moved, indeed.

  When the song finally finished, Billie put her arm around Cassandra and said, “Thank you. I didn’t have the voice to get through that one today.”

  Cassandra looked at Billie with tears in her eyes and a full heart. She tried to speak, to let some of the emotion that was in her out, but she couldn’t.

  Billie enveloped her in a hug, then turned back to the microphone.

  “We are moving the protest to a sit-in at Sproul Hall. Let’s make our way there now. Peacefully. Don’t give them any reason to harass you before you get there.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Sproul Hall was already familiar to Cassandra, and to all students. It was everyone’s first stop in their university life. It was where Cassandra had registered for the classes that she now knew she would never complete.

  If the students could shut down Sproul, they would effectively do the same to much of the university.

  Somehow, Cassandra, who had been completely anonymous twenty minutes earlier, walked arm in arm with the leaders of the protest toward Sproul.

  They reached it with a force of hundreds of people behind them. They climbed what would eventually be called the Savio Steps to the entrance, named after Mario Savio, who gave an electrifying speech from those very steps.

  Cassandra, Billie, and the man who had fetched her out of the crowd hit the doors first and pushed on inside, followed by a swarm of other protesters. From somewhere behind them, they heard voices once again singing Blowin’ in the Wind.

  Billie turned toward Cassandra as they walked up the first flight of stairs inside. “I’m Billie Cannon. Billie Jean Cannon, actually, if you ask my mother.”

  “Cassandra Collins. Pleased to meet you. I’m a little overwhelmed by all this. I’ve never been to a protest of any kind before today.”

  “You’re here with us, now,” Billie said, nodding to the tall, dark-haired man who had pulled Cassandra out of the crowd. “The hard part is behind us. Now, we just sit and wait.”

  They continued to climb.

  “Billie always forgets to introduce me,” the man said. “I’m Curlee.”

  “Like curly-hair?” Cassandra asked.

  The man flashed a quick smile as the climbed. “K
ind of like that, but with two e’s on the end. My name is really Floyd Curlee, but nobody calls me that. I’m just Curlee.”

  Hard to tell if you two are together or not. You seem so comfortable with each other, you could be brother and sister, just friends, or soul mates. I think I’d like to know which of those you are, though.

  They reached the landing at the top floor and sat against the wall.

  “And now, we wait,” Billie said.

  “What happens next?”

  “Nothing, probably for a long time,” Curlee said. “Someone downstairs is frantically calling someone, who will call someone else, and so on. Then, they’ll get together and have an emergency meeting to figure out what to do with us. Then, they’ll come and negotiate with us, to try and get us to leave. That all can take hours and hours, of course.”

  “Oh, I should have eaten something before I left the house,” Cassandra said. “I’m a little empty.”

  “I think I can help you there. This isn’t our first sit-in,” Billie said, opening the large purse she had been carrying. She rooted through it for a moment, then pulled out a handful of sandwiches and a Thermos of water. “I’ve got peanut butter and jelly, or bologna. What’ll you have?”

  “I’d love a PB&J, but are you sure?”

  “Of course, but eat it fast—I don’t have enough for the hundreds of our closest friends who will be right behind us.”

  Cassandra gratefully unwrapped the sandwich and bit into it.

  “Mmmm. Heavenly.”

  “Here,” Billie said, pouring a splash of water into the Thermos’s cup. “Don’t drink too much, though. They’ll make it tough for us to go to the bathroom here.”