7.28.2015
4.28.2015
4.26.2015
3.31.2015
FOX Reporter's Biased Tweets
Tweets by FOX News Reporter about smoke bomb
Tweets after Beaux (tree protester) refused interview
Click links above for archived tweets. Then compare to video where FOX tells me they are giving unbiased coverage.
FOX News Reporter Receives Photograph from City Park Officials
FOX News reporter Rob Krieger tweeted a photograph of a smokebomb on March 30. Apparently, Krieger received this image from City Park Officials, who are now in the habit of giving photographs of what they allege to be a crime scene to reporters to tweet.
After I asked Krieger on Twitter about the authenticity and source of the image and he didn't answer, I went to City Park where I unexpectedly encountered him. His cameraman lied told me Chris Lane doesn't want me trespassing in the park (I was not trespassing).
Keep it classy, guys.
3.30.2015
March 28 - 29 City Park Golf Course Opposition, #WildIsFree hashtag, Police Harassment, and City Park CEO's #GreenScare
March 28, 2014 brought interesting developments to the controversy surrounding the development of a Golf Course in City Park in New Orleans, Louisiana. The day's activities came on the heels of a lawsuit City Park for Everyone Coalition filed to halt construction of the golf course.
Early Saturday, a man "Beaux" announced he had ascended the largest remaining Live Oak tree within the federally protected tract of Couturie Forest and stated he planned on staying up there for as long as he could. Beaux began livestreaming the destruction that was underway in the heavily wooded area that morning by the use of bulldozers and backhoes. Beaux posted over 40 videos of the construction on the WildIsFree livestream channel here: http://bambuser.com/channel/wildisfree.
The Second Line and Ceremony for the Trees of City Park took place to commemorate the demolished trees in City Park, especially a cypress tree that was cut down on March 24th after a protester ended his twelve day tree sit-in by being taken to the hospital after he fell from the tree. This peaceful event began at 1 pm and was described as follows:
At Second Line and Ceremony for the Trees of City Park, about forty people marched peacefully across City Park, some playing instruments and others carrying a "Wild Is Free" banner.
Participants built an altar near the location of the felled cypress tree.
The procession then headed towards the location of the newly occupied tree.
John Clark described the events in a photo essay "COUTURIE FOREST DEMONSTRATORS CONFRONT THE MACHINE"
The gravel path along the Arboretum Trail is not part of the construction site and is not fenced off (note: the Arboretum Trail is a trail that makes an approximately 2.5 mile loop around Couturie Forest).
Police arrived and told everyone standing on the Arboretum trail path, which is not part of the construction site and is part of a public park, that they were under arrest.
At that point, the procession ended and individuals dispersed without arrest.
Beaux, the protester living in a tree in the construction area, livestreamed his encounter with Sergeant Roberts.
"We are going to come and we are going to remove you. We're gonna get you down from there and you're gonna get to jail," said Sergeant Roberts.
Over the course of the day, news of Beaux's collection of livestreamed videos circulated, with reporters announcing the footage on Twitter.
Then City Park issued a press release with surveillance footage. Bob Becker, CEO of City Park claimed the protester was in possession of incendiary devices. Writer Jason Saul explains that Becker communicated the following statement via email: “The discovery of these incendiary devices has caused us and local law enforcement great concern for the safety of our visitors and the park itself.”
However, none of the images from surveillance cameras (STEALTHCAMS) show any incendiary devices, smoke, or vandalism occurring. One image is dated March 16th, which was the last night Heart occupied the initial Wild Is Free tree with Lloyd.
Note the lack of evidence of any incendiary devices in the image below.
Note the March 16th date on the image below, which does nothing but show that this event was photographed over a week prior to Beaux climbing a tree. However, the photograph was released with a press statement claiming individuals possessed "incendiary devices" and had committed vandalism on March 27th.
No facts to substantiate the allegation of incendiary devices have been presented by City Park, nor has a working definition of "incendiary devices" been offered. This sounds like a scare tactic and attempt to cause division among those united in resistance to the golf course development.
This warrants a discussion of the fence itself. The chain link fence that surrounds the City Park golf course construction area is covered in green tarp.
I have personally witnessed security and police telling people who go to the construction area that they are not allowed to touch the fence. Often, autonomous individuals who hear that people are living in trees go out to the fence to ask the tree-sitters if they're okay and if they have any food and water. For many, touching the fence seems like a normal thing to do since there is a green tarp on it that falls off in places and can be peered around without damaging the tarp. . For the past few weeks, law enforcement has stopped journalists, citizens, and legal observers from attempting to move the corner of the green tarp to see what is happening behind the fence. A camera drone has been used to document the destruction of trees and wetlands. The fact that people cannot see the construction that is occurring behind the fence has been problematic, especially since many allege that the construction occurring is illegal. As trees are bulldozed, City Park has spent thousands of dollars on private security detail to keep people from documenting or observing the destruction of trees and presence of nesting birds behind the construction fence. On March 17, a Sheriff's Deputy stated that City Park Chief Development Officer and Director of Public Affairs, John Hopper, had instructed them to prevent reporters from NPR, WWL, WGNO, and FOX 8 News from filming through the chain link fence. On that day, a corner of a flap of green tarp had slipped down, and police repeatedly pushed it back up to prevent news crews from filming the descent from a tree by a woman named Heart.
On March 29th, detail patrol from the Sheriff's Department claimed City Park had instructed them to prevent people from legally standing on the gravel road of the Arboretum Trail in order to communicate with Beaux. Police have repeatedly told supporters who stop by the area to shout support to the tree occupiers that they do not want people communicating with the tree occupiers.
Many who oppose the golf course claim that City Park is engaging in illegal unpermitted construction by bulldozing wetlands. If the construction is indeed illegal, as the lawsuit alleges, City Park is guilty of vandalism. These are not the only actions taken by City Park officials that need scrutiny. City Park officials - specifically Becker and Hopper - have indulged in scare tactics, directed the harassment of protesters and journalists including police shining spotlights on them for hours, orchestrated police intimidation (threats to arrest supporters of tree sitters for just standing in the area outside the construction fence and 3/17 threats to forcibly remove the tree sitters from the tree by a fire truck) and interference with freedom of the press.
On March 29th two Sheriff Deputy officers working detail told me they were in the area of Couturie Forest to make sure the fence was not tampered with. On March 29th and March 22nd, a Fess Security Officer claimed his job was to make sure the fence was not "compromised." This security officer laughed at supporters on March 29th and claimed he was there to make sure they did not communicate with Beaux by shouting into the trees (it is not illegal to communicate with someone in a tree). The security officer, who refused to provide his name, then drove a truck towards individuals gathered on the Arboretum Trail, forcing them to exit the trail onto Harrison Circle, before he drove his truck recklessly and above the speed limit while accompanied by a sheriff's deputy (Powell) who claimed citizens are not allowed to film the police. See video: http://bambuser.com/v/5389868#t=572s
The instruction the detail police at City Park are receiving requires review, as they are violating the civil rights of peaceful demonstrators, journalists, and individuals just walking around in the area.
The alleged amount of repairs Becker claims protesters have cost City Park should also be reviewed carefully, as the green tarp which only exists to block one's view of the construction is not a necessity. The green tarp on the chain link fence is not required for safety and serves no functional construction purpose. The only purpose that green tarp serves is to prevent people seeing the destruction of wetlands. One cannot help but theorize that City Park is trying to hide construction many consider to be illegal. The legality of the demolition is up to a federal judge to decide now that the lawsuit has been filed.
Growing speculation has occurred regarding "Wild Is Free" and whether this is a group of people, and who this group is. "Wild Is Free" was a phrase on a banner that the first tree occupiers (Lloyd and Heart) displayed on the cypress tree beginning on March 13, 2015. This same banner now hangs in the tree occupied by Beaux. Many individuals, including this writer, have used the hashtag #WildIsFree to document the activities going on around the construction area. To claim that anyone using this hashtag is part of a group whose members possess "incendiary devices" and commit "vandalism" is negligent on the part of the press. City Park for Everyone Coalition has made it clear that they are not condoning direct action, and it appears this has caused any individuals participating in protesting to be labeled part of "wild is free."
Benjamin Alexander-Bloch's assertion that "Two groups have formed in opposition to the project - the coalition and another group, Wild is Free, which appears to be a looser collection of individuals and often uses the #wildisfree on Twitter" requires clarification. There are not simply two groups, one that is the coalition and one that is "Wild is Free." There are numerous autonomous individuals who go out to the construction area and support the tree protesters because they find the tree protesters inspiring, and many of these people are not members of the coalition and do not consider themselves members of a group Becker is accusing of vandalism. The hashtag is at times being used (by some) to document events that are occurring in and around the construction area. It is my sincere hope that journalists will fact-check all allegations made by City Park et al, especially those related to this latest attempt by City Park to criminalize protest.
Hopefully, responsible reporters will demand Becker provide evidence to support his claim that one protester possessed "incendiary devices." During the time I have been documenting the activities around the construction area of City Park, I have not seen smoke bombs, flares, fireworks, or any illegal "incendiary devices." If Becker is referring to matches or a cigarette, he needs to make this clear. Those who oppose the golf course oppose it out of respect for and desire to protect the wetlands and nature and have shown no desire to damage it with any "incendiary devices."
It's obvious City Park's CEO does not want people knowing about the construction going on. Why Becker and the City Park board have gone to such lengths to keep the destruction of wetlands from the public is the question journalists need to ask relentlessly.
Photograph of uprooted tree in construction area.
Note: the photograph above was taken by a drone that flew over the construction area. The photograph was posted on the City Park for Everyone Coalition Facebook page. Someone flew a drone over Couturie Forest because it's impossible to see through the fence and photograph trees being ripped out of the ground. This photograph has been tweeted repeatedly with the #wildisfree hashtag. It's been tweeted by people who have never seen the drone and are not responsible for the drone but wanted to know what was going on behind that fence. The drone is not a member of any loose group called "wild is free" but was able to photograph what the public cannot see because of the green tarp on the fence.
I will continue to document forms of resistance to the golf course. While some may feel that autonomous individuals must be labeled as group members, I do not feel that way. I will continue to use the #WildIsFree hashtag to document a) resistance to the golf course happening around the construction area, b) photos taken by aerial drones, c) police harassment of any supporters of tree protesters. Please do not assume that any people, places, things I tweet are necessarily members of a group just because I'm using a hashtag. People across the nation have been following this golf course story, and I've used the #wildisfree hashtag in tweets about the coalition, about the tree sitters, about nature, about police harassing supporters of the tree sitters, about art that celebrates nature, about just about anything related to not wanting the golf course.
Early Saturday, a man "Beaux" announced he had ascended the largest remaining Live Oak tree within the federally protected tract of Couturie Forest and stated he planned on staying up there for as long as he could. Beaux began livestreaming the destruction that was underway in the heavily wooded area that morning by the use of bulldozers and backhoes. Beaux posted over 40 videos of the construction on the WildIsFree livestream channel here: http://bambuser.com/channel/wildisfree.
The Second Line and Ceremony for the Trees of City Park took place to commemorate the demolished trees in City Park, especially a cypress tree that was cut down on March 24th after a protester ended his twelve day tree sit-in by being taken to the hospital after he fell from the tree. This peaceful event began at 1 pm and was described as follows:
On the morning of March 13th, Heart and Lloyd made home in the branches of an old cypress tree near Harrison Avenue in City Park.
Their brave action brought public attention to a space which has been, since Katrina, a refuge for people and wildlife, including coyotes and migratory birds.
The cypress tree the ecodefenders chose to nest in, along with over a hundred other various trees, had been marked for demolition in order to make room for a new and expanded golf course backed by FEMA money and private interest. This tree became a symbol of the campaign, receiving nationwide press under the banner #wildisfree.
Lloyd was on his 12th day in the tree when he was forced to abandon his post after a fall. Only hours later, while others concerned about the park's plans were in a meeting to voice their concerns to the park board, the tree was demolished in its entirety.
On Saturday we take to the streets of the park, to celebrate this cypress tree as well as all of the other trees in the park, the trees thriving, the trees slated for destruction.
We will meet under the wind chime tree at 1 pm, and proceed through the park to the site of the late cypress, where a ceremony and altar to honor this sacred space will take place. Bring musical instruments and things for the altar for the trees! Bands TBA
At Second Line and Ceremony for the Trees of City Park, about forty people marched peacefully across City Park, some playing instruments and others carrying a "Wild Is Free" banner.
Participants built an altar near the location of the felled cypress tree.
The procession then headed towards the location of the newly occupied tree.
John Clark described the events in a photo essay "COUTURIE FOREST DEMONSTRATORS CONFRONT THE MACHINE"
A citizen journalist documented the destruction site, noting that "This earth is just torn up. It's totally scarred."
The gravel path along the Arboretum Trail is not part of the construction site and is not fenced off (note: the Arboretum Trail is a trail that makes an approximately 2.5 mile loop around Couturie Forest).
Police arrived and told everyone standing on the Arboretum trail path, which is not part of the construction site and is part of a public park, that they were under arrest.
At that point, the procession ended and individuals dispersed without arrest.
Beaux, the protester living in a tree in the construction area, livestreamed his encounter with Sergeant Roberts.
"We are going to come and we are going to remove you. We're gonna get you down from there and you're gonna get to jail," said Sergeant Roberts.
Over the course of the day, news of Beaux's collection of livestreamed videos circulated, with reporters announcing the footage on Twitter.
Then City Park issued a press release with surveillance footage. Bob Becker, CEO of City Park claimed the protester was in possession of incendiary devices. Writer Jason Saul explains that Becker communicated the following statement via email: “The discovery of these incendiary devices has caused us and local law enforcement great concern for the safety of our visitors and the park itself.”
However, none of the images from surveillance cameras (STEALTHCAMS) show any incendiary devices, smoke, or vandalism occurring. One image is dated March 16th, which was the last night Heart occupied the initial Wild Is Free tree with Lloyd.
Note the lack of evidence of any incendiary devices in the image below.
Note the March 16th date on the image below, which does nothing but show that this event was photographed over a week prior to Beaux climbing a tree. However, the photograph was released with a press statement claiming individuals possessed "incendiary devices" and had committed vandalism on March 27th.
No facts to substantiate the allegation of incendiary devices have been presented by City Park, nor has a working definition of "incendiary devices" been offered. This sounds like a scare tactic and attempt to cause division among those united in resistance to the golf course development.
This warrants a discussion of the fence itself. The chain link fence that surrounds the City Park golf course construction area is covered in green tarp.
I have personally witnessed security and police telling people who go to the construction area that they are not allowed to touch the fence. Often, autonomous individuals who hear that people are living in trees go out to the fence to ask the tree-sitters if they're okay and if they have any food and water. For many, touching the fence seems like a normal thing to do since there is a green tarp on it that falls off in places and can be peered around without damaging the tarp. . For the past few weeks, law enforcement has stopped journalists, citizens, and legal observers from attempting to move the corner of the green tarp to see what is happening behind the fence. A camera drone has been used to document the destruction of trees and wetlands. The fact that people cannot see the construction that is occurring behind the fence has been problematic, especially since many allege that the construction occurring is illegal. As trees are bulldozed, City Park has spent thousands of dollars on private security detail to keep people from documenting or observing the destruction of trees and presence of nesting birds behind the construction fence. On March 17, a Sheriff's Deputy stated that City Park Chief Development Officer and Director of Public Affairs, John Hopper, had instructed them to prevent reporters from NPR, WWL, WGNO, and FOX 8 News from filming through the chain link fence. On that day, a corner of a flap of green tarp had slipped down, and police repeatedly pushed it back up to prevent news crews from filming the descent from a tree by a woman named Heart.
On March 29th, detail patrol from the Sheriff's Department claimed City Park had instructed them to prevent people from legally standing on the gravel road of the Arboretum Trail in order to communicate with Beaux. Police have repeatedly told supporters who stop by the area to shout support to the tree occupiers that they do not want people communicating with the tree occupiers.
Many who oppose the golf course claim that City Park is engaging in illegal unpermitted construction by bulldozing wetlands. If the construction is indeed illegal, as the lawsuit alleges, City Park is guilty of vandalism. These are not the only actions taken by City Park officials that need scrutiny. City Park officials - specifically Becker and Hopper - have indulged in scare tactics, directed the harassment of protesters and journalists including police shining spotlights on them for hours, orchestrated police intimidation (threats to arrest supporters of tree sitters for just standing in the area outside the construction fence and 3/17 threats to forcibly remove the tree sitters from the tree by a fire truck) and interference with freedom of the press.
On March 29th two Sheriff Deputy officers working detail told me they were in the area of Couturie Forest to make sure the fence was not tampered with. On March 29th and March 22nd, a Fess Security Officer claimed his job was to make sure the fence was not "compromised." This security officer laughed at supporters on March 29th and claimed he was there to make sure they did not communicate with Beaux by shouting into the trees (it is not illegal to communicate with someone in a tree). The security officer, who refused to provide his name, then drove a truck towards individuals gathered on the Arboretum Trail, forcing them to exit the trail onto Harrison Circle, before he drove his truck recklessly and above the speed limit while accompanied by a sheriff's deputy (Powell) who claimed citizens are not allowed to film the police. See video: http://bambuser.com/v/5389868#t=572s
The instruction the detail police at City Park are receiving requires review, as they are violating the civil rights of peaceful demonstrators, journalists, and individuals just walking around in the area.
The alleged amount of repairs Becker claims protesters have cost City Park should also be reviewed carefully, as the green tarp which only exists to block one's view of the construction is not a necessity. The green tarp on the chain link fence is not required for safety and serves no functional construction purpose. The only purpose that green tarp serves is to prevent people seeing the destruction of wetlands. One cannot help but theorize that City Park is trying to hide construction many consider to be illegal. The legality of the demolition is up to a federal judge to decide now that the lawsuit has been filed.
Growing speculation has occurred regarding "Wild Is Free" and whether this is a group of people, and who this group is. "Wild Is Free" was a phrase on a banner that the first tree occupiers (Lloyd and Heart) displayed on the cypress tree beginning on March 13, 2015. This same banner now hangs in the tree occupied by Beaux. Many individuals, including this writer, have used the hashtag #WildIsFree to document the activities going on around the construction area. To claim that anyone using this hashtag is part of a group whose members possess "incendiary devices" and commit "vandalism" is negligent on the part of the press. City Park for Everyone Coalition has made it clear that they are not condoning direct action, and it appears this has caused any individuals participating in protesting to be labeled part of "wild is free."
Benjamin Alexander-Bloch's assertion that "Two groups have formed in opposition to the project - the coalition and another group, Wild is Free, which appears to be a looser collection of individuals and often uses the #wildisfree on Twitter" requires clarification. There are not simply two groups, one that is the coalition and one that is "Wild is Free." There are numerous autonomous individuals who go out to the construction area and support the tree protesters because they find the tree protesters inspiring, and many of these people are not members of the coalition and do not consider themselves members of a group Becker is accusing of vandalism. The hashtag is at times being used (by some) to document events that are occurring in and around the construction area. It is my sincere hope that journalists will fact-check all allegations made by City Park et al, especially those related to this latest attempt by City Park to criminalize protest.
Hopefully, responsible reporters will demand Becker provide evidence to support his claim that one protester possessed "incendiary devices." During the time I have been documenting the activities around the construction area of City Park, I have not seen smoke bombs, flares, fireworks, or any illegal "incendiary devices." If Becker is referring to matches or a cigarette, he needs to make this clear. Those who oppose the golf course oppose it out of respect for and desire to protect the wetlands and nature and have shown no desire to damage it with any "incendiary devices."
It's obvious City Park's CEO does not want people knowing about the construction going on. Why Becker and the City Park board have gone to such lengths to keep the destruction of wetlands from the public is the question journalists need to ask relentlessly.
Photograph of uprooted tree in construction area.
Note: the photograph above was taken by a drone that flew over the construction area. The photograph was posted on the City Park for Everyone Coalition Facebook page. Someone flew a drone over Couturie Forest because it's impossible to see through the fence and photograph trees being ripped out of the ground. This photograph has been tweeted repeatedly with the #wildisfree hashtag. It's been tweeted by people who have never seen the drone and are not responsible for the drone but wanted to know what was going on behind that fence. The drone is not a member of any loose group called "wild is free" but was able to photograph what the public cannot see because of the green tarp on the fence.
I will continue to document forms of resistance to the golf course. While some may feel that autonomous individuals must be labeled as group members, I do not feel that way. I will continue to use the #WildIsFree hashtag to document a) resistance to the golf course happening around the construction area, b) photos taken by aerial drones, c) police harassment of any supporters of tree protesters. Please do not assume that any people, places, things I tweet are necessarily members of a group just because I'm using a hashtag. People across the nation have been following this golf course story, and I've used the #wildisfree hashtag in tweets about the coalition, about the tree sitters, about nature, about police harassing supporters of the tree sitters, about art that celebrates nature, about just about anything related to not wanting the golf course.
3.29.2015
3.22.2015
3.20.2015
Know Your Rights As Police Grow More Aggressive Towards City Park Protesters
What follows is some information about the New Orleans Police, City Park Police, the Sheriff's Department, and private security assigned to the construction area where people have been protesting the development of a Golf Course. A lot of people have been going to the area near Harrison Circle in City Park specifically to show support for the tree-sitters. As of Friday, March 20, Lloyd is still in the tree behind the construction fence, and more and more people have been going by to see him.
Since the tree sit-in near Harrison Circle started on March 13, 2015, cops have been growing more aggressive to supporters who come to City Park to show resistance towards the golf course development. Cops have photographed people showing support for the tree-sitters repeatedly, photographed cars, threatened and harassed activists and people walking their dogs in the park, and spent hours guarding a fence.
I'm working on a "Know Your Rights" flyer for City Park that takes the City Park rules, which I've included below, into consideration. There are a lot of Know Your Rights flyers and resources online, but the curfew situation with City Park and what is and is not an area one is allowed to be in after sundown and contradictions in what the police are saying to supporters inspired this post.
Things supporters say about cops around Harrison Circle and the "Wild Is Free" tree.
NOTE: I've been filming the police at City Park for a week now, and numerous passersby have told me that it is illegal to film the police in Louisiana and New Orleans. This is simply not true. If some random person or even a friend tells you it's illegal to film the police in a public place when you're not interfering with an investigation, please do your own research or use the links below because it's rather clear that is is completely legal to film the police, even if the police don't like it.
Know Your Rights: City Park is located on public land, owned by the City of New Orleans. However, the park's management- which is not city financed- generally does have the right to say who can be there and when, barring when it is used as right-of-way to other properties (Like Morning Call). But if you personally are not violating City Park's Hours and General Rules: http://neworleanscitypark.com/info/hours-general-rules-for-city-park then there is no real reason for you to move, except simply avoiding getting hassled or threatened by cops or private security. The NOCP site itself states that the fence is there to prevent someone from stumbling into a dangerous situation, so there should be no reasonable expectation of privacy regarding being photographed. Just read the rules and be careful not to damage foliage. It is legal to photograph anything visible from a public space- a street or city-owned and operated sidewalk, etc.- or from private property where you have permission to be. It is legal in Louisiana to record audio anywhere with one consenting party, which includes the person recording, so you can legally record audio along with video even if you are the only one who knows you are doing it, as long as it is not for lewd purposes.
According to the ACLU, "Taking photographs of things that are plainly visible from public spaces is a constitutional right – and that includes federal buildings, transportation facilities, and police and other government officials carrying out their duties. Unfortunately, there is a widespread, continuing pattern of law enforcement officers ordering people to stop taking photographs from public places, and harassing, detaining and arresting those who fail to comply" ACLU Photo guide: https://www.aclu.org/kyr-photo
Also, check out the EFF's guide for searches of electronic property: https://www.eff.org/issues/know-your-rights
Here is one of the City Park rules that applies to showing support for tree-sitters. The City Park website says it is legal to be using Harrison and Filmore even 30 minutes after official sunset. Sunset in New Orleans is 7:12 pm on March 20th. To find out the official sunset time on any given day, there are more dates here http://www.timeanddate.com/sun/usa/new-orleans
From City Park website: City Park (the "Park") shall be open to the public daily from 30 minutes prior to official sunrise until 30 minutes after official sunset, at which time all persons must vacate City Park premises. There are exceptions for Morning Call, City Park managed facilities, and special events. Harrison and Filmore Streets will remain open in the Park. People will be asked to vacate the areas bounded by Wisner, Marconi and up to but not including Harrison and City Park Avenue, and public areas from Harrison to Robert E. Lee.
However, "Any person found after 30 minutes after official sunset in areas other than those outlined herein for occupancy after official sunset or without special written permission shall be considered to be disturbing the peace by their very presence in such areas and shall be presumed to be doing damage to the grass, foliage, and other property of City Park."
So it seems like being on Harrison Blvd or Circle but not on the grass near the construction fence 30 minutes after dark is acceptable, but leaving the actual road (Harrison) to go near the fence could be considered disturbing the peace. This makes sense considering every night when the sun goes down a lot of cops show up at Harrison Circle to shine lights on anyone who is on the grass, but they stop when people go back to the actual street. -
Accounts from individuals show increased policing at sundown and after dark and it appears police are targeting individuals who go to show support on a daily basis; they also seem to be targeting people who go to the area alone.
Some Know Your Rights info and a Louisiana/ City Park specific flyer I'm working on.
Some great info from the ACLU: Know Your Rights Louisiana: http://lpdb.la.gov/Advocating%20for%20Clients/Materials/txtfiles/pdf/Know%20Your%20Rights%20Guide.pdf
Note: One private security company with detail workers at City Park has been identified as "Fess Security.'
Since the tree sit-in near Harrison Circle started on March 13, 2015, cops have been growing more aggressive to supporters who come to City Park to show resistance towards the golf course development. Cops have photographed people showing support for the tree-sitters repeatedly, photographed cars, threatened and harassed activists and people walking their dogs in the park, and spent hours guarding a fence.
I'm working on a "Know Your Rights" flyer for City Park that takes the City Park rules, which I've included below, into consideration. There are a lot of Know Your Rights flyers and resources online, but the curfew situation with City Park and what is and is not an area one is allowed to be in after sundown and contradictions in what the police are saying to supporters inspired this post.
Things supporters say about cops around Harrison Circle and the "Wild Is Free" tree.
“Have been on site all day. Police say they will cite anyone "helping" the tree folks.” ~ March 14
“At the park @8:15.. Was yelled at by an officer when I walked up to the fence near the occupied tree.” ~ Marin Marinov March 15
“FYI: the nice Sheriff's officer that warned me about citations yesterday said that C.P. has the authority to move the fence all the way to the bike path on Harrison and to all the official boundaries of the project. He said this would be done, if need be, to prevent further "trouble".” ~ March 15
“Just got home from visiting tree-sitting site (other side of the fence). It was about 7:00-7:10 pm. As we were heading back to our car near the arboretum, we were approached by a few men in an unmarked vehicle who said there was to be no congregating near the site & that we had to leave immediately "for no other reason than I told you." Everyone, keep visiting our friends to show support, but please know that there are park rules being enforced, so make safe decisions for yourself & those with you. WILD IS FREE!!!” ~ March 15
“As I was leaving the lookout today around 12:30 I was followed and stopped by park police for riding down the middle of the land of traffic as I was coming to the stop sign by the dog park. I was asked for my license, registration and permit to ride my bike. Was asked "how do I know it is your bike"? They are getting aggressive and agitated. Sheriff's officer too lazy to do it himself so he sent park police to follow me out of the park.. Gestapo is one word that comes to mind!” ~ March 15, Marin Marinov
“FYI I was just walking my dog down the service road between the forest and the fence and two people on horseback to appeared to the police without uniforms asked why my dog was not on a leash. I told them because he took off before I could put it on him, The leash was around my neck. He asked if he would respond if I called him I said yes and they rode away” ~ March 19
“Ok, was just standing/walking at least 8 to 10 ft from the fence and a ranger drove up and kicked me across the street. Said I was "trespassing on park property and subject to arrest" by one of the officers who (so far) have let us be. I knew it was past 7pm but the officer never said the park was closed, etc. Just "Step away from the fence, ma'am! You must move away from the fence!" (Confusing since I hadn't been near or touching it); started asking questions about where they were drawing this "line" and that's when he threatened arrest. But he clearly said I would not be trespassing if I moved across the street. Go figure.” ~ March 19
"Hey guys just stopped at the tree to say hi to Lloyd. A sherrifs officer told me I had to leave or I would be arrested. I hadn't even gotten off my bike so my phone was still buried in my purse in my bike basket. When I asked y the people swordfighting 10ft away didn't have to leave she said it was because they weren't talking to Lloyd. She told me to go talk to her supervisor if I want ed to know y but she was going to arrest me. I promptly went to her supervisor and I have him on video saying that she was misinformed and we can be there so long as we don't cross or do anything to the fence. I pedaled back to tell Lloyd and she called me over to apologize and said that's what she had been told at midnight when she came on the other night . I have that on video too....got to have phone more accessible from now on! Lloyd said he's feeling a little light headed but he's OK. no one is here right now and he needs support!!! I have to go somewhere but will be back in a bit. Ya all please come out
Since the cop situation is getting worse at City Park" ~ March 21
NOTE: I've been filming the police at City Park for a week now, and numerous passersby have told me that it is illegal to film the police in Louisiana and New Orleans. This is simply not true. If some random person or even a friend tells you it's illegal to film the police in a public place when you're not interfering with an investigation, please do your own research or use the links below because it's rather clear that is is completely legal to film the police, even if the police don't like it.
Know Your Rights: City Park is located on public land, owned by the City of New Orleans. However, the park's management- which is not city financed- generally does have the right to say who can be there and when, barring when it is used as right-of-way to other properties (Like Morning Call). But if you personally are not violating City Park's Hours and General Rules: http://neworleanscitypark.com/info/hours-general-rules-for-city-park then there is no real reason for you to move, except simply avoiding getting hassled or threatened by cops or private security. The NOCP site itself states that the fence is there to prevent someone from stumbling into a dangerous situation, so there should be no reasonable expectation of privacy regarding being photographed. Just read the rules and be careful not to damage foliage. It is legal to photograph anything visible from a public space- a street or city-owned and operated sidewalk, etc.- or from private property where you have permission to be. It is legal in Louisiana to record audio anywhere with one consenting party, which includes the person recording, so you can legally record audio along with video even if you are the only one who knows you are doing it, as long as it is not for lewd purposes.
According to the ACLU, "Taking photographs of things that are plainly visible from public spaces is a constitutional right – and that includes federal buildings, transportation facilities, and police and other government officials carrying out their duties. Unfortunately, there is a widespread, continuing pattern of law enforcement officers ordering people to stop taking photographs from public places, and harassing, detaining and arresting those who fail to comply" ACLU Photo guide: https://www.aclu.org/kyr-photo
Also, check out the EFF's guide for searches of electronic property: https://www.eff.org/issues/know-your-rights
Here is one of the City Park rules that applies to showing support for tree-sitters. The City Park website says it is legal to be using Harrison and Filmore even 30 minutes after official sunset. Sunset in New Orleans is 7:12 pm on March 20th. To find out the official sunset time on any given day, there are more dates here http://www.timeanddate.com/sun/usa/new-orleans
From City Park website: City Park (the "Park") shall be open to the public daily from 30 minutes prior to official sunrise until 30 minutes after official sunset, at which time all persons must vacate City Park premises. There are exceptions for Morning Call, City Park managed facilities, and special events. Harrison and Filmore Streets will remain open in the Park. People will be asked to vacate the areas bounded by Wisner, Marconi and up to but not including Harrison and City Park Avenue, and public areas from Harrison to Robert E. Lee.
However, "Any person found after 30 minutes after official sunset in areas other than those outlined herein for occupancy after official sunset or without special written permission shall be considered to be disturbing the peace by their very presence in such areas and shall be presumed to be doing damage to the grass, foliage, and other property of City Park."
So it seems like being on Harrison Blvd or Circle but not on the grass near the construction fence 30 minutes after dark is acceptable, but leaving the actual road (Harrison) to go near the fence could be considered disturbing the peace. This makes sense considering every night when the sun goes down a lot of cops show up at Harrison Circle to shine lights on anyone who is on the grass, but they stop when people go back to the actual street. -
Accounts from individuals show increased policing at sundown and after dark and it appears police are targeting individuals who go to show support on a daily basis; they also seem to be targeting people who go to the area alone.
Some Know Your Rights info and a Louisiana/ City Park specific flyer I'm working on.
 |
| Know Your Rights Info from crimethinc |
Some great info from the ACLU: Know Your Rights Louisiana: http://lpdb.la.gov/Advocating%20for%20Clients/Materials/txtfiles/pdf/Know%20Your%20Rights%20Guide.pdf
Note: One private security company with detail workers at City Park has been identified as "Fess Security.'
3.17.2015
3.10.2015
"Piss" from The Flower Vendor's Daughter and Other Stories
This is a work of fiction, originally titled "Water Boys," and first in a collection of short stories titled The Flower Vendor's Daughter and Other Stories. "Piss" is a work in progress, still undergoing revision and certainly the longest story in the collection. It also appears first in the book. This story has been posted here to share a somewhat finished piece of work with readers who are interested in what I'm working on, but not to ask for any type of critique. Thanks for reading.
Piss
The
story travels. It blows like a sheet of
loose newspaper, tumbling down sidewalks until it picks up speed and in a wind
gust, it finds a telephone pole and pastes itself there. For a day, the ones who learn it know a secret,
their lips mouthing the words, and their heads shaking with uncertainty, as if
asking, is this true? Is something
really and finally about to happen? The
rain comes then, gel like globs of it, and the street floods only slightly
before the water filters through storm drains and down into the belly of New
Haven. In the downpour, the story
disintegrates to scraps of tissue; you can see it running in a stream of pulp
into the secret tunnels below the Green.
Later, in pieces, the story emerges all over
the city, and no one can remember where it started. Instead, it steams from manholes and is
exhaled from Yale buildings made of marble, brick, and stone. Skater punks on Broadway flick cigarette
butts into the parking lot that once was a haunt for teenagers but has since
been invaded by no loitering signs. When
they hear the story, they cut their eyes over to York Street and drop their
voices to gravely whispers. Businessmen drinking Guatemalan coffee at Willoughby's
brush the story off and open newspapers, thumbing through them until their
fingers are black with ink.
People like Wandering Bob preach
it. As he circles downtown each day,
stopping to bum money for coffee or smokes, he spits and mutters about
underground laboratories. Eyeless
experiment victims and green glowing organs.
He changes the story into his own story, as if he can blame something
for his tweed pants and stained, so stained shirts, the group home, his
wanderings.
Sometimes the story is new to
someone, and then that person never a
Yale student blurts out:
"The Secret Society has
Geronimo's brain?"
People
like Richie Duncan held memories loosely in time, so his childhood often
floated unanchored in his mind. As a
teenager, although he knew the story of the brain, he couldn't remember where
he first heard it. Sometimes he thought
Wandering Bob told him himself, but in other, more lucid times, he could
remember leaning against a newspaper box on York and Elm while older boys
pestered the flower cart vendors about the Apache.
By the time he was fifteen, Richie
knew the names of the Secret Society buildings. Cup and Ball, Wolf's Head, File
and Claw, Manuscript, Scroll and Key, and the big one, Skull and Bones. To some people Skull and Bones was a secret
name for a boring, marble building across from the British Museum, but to
Richie, it was the head of an organized maze of underground labs. He knew somewhere, maybe on the sod too thick
to be real grass on Cross Campus, or by the coliseum where the old train tracks
ended suddenly as if the builders had abandoned the project, or along the side
of the Green that was once a graveyard, somewhere there was an entrance to
these labs. He had dreams of shooting
through caverns on some sort of subway, looking out at ghosts and large tanks
that glowed with water. He walked
aimlessly sometimes, sure that the way to the tunnels would jump out at
him. It made sense that these labs were
there, the same way other things in Richie’s life made sense while defying any
rationale.
Without even looking too hard,
Richie had a way of finding other people's lost things. He saw a girl's
notebooks stacked like shingles next to chunks of sheet rock on Howe Street,
and when he looked through them, they ingrained lines of poetry in his
head. When a van went unattended with
the side door spilling its guts of junk onto the street, he picked carefully
through shards of window glass and brought home a collection of Playboys, a
toolbox with a shiny silver ratchet, and a suede jacket with fringe. He wore the coat sometimes for luck.
Often, when he looked down at the
pavement, he found wrinkled dollar bills skittering along like dead
leaves. Other pedestrians shook their
heads then, as if wondering how they had missed the money themselves. Against the wall in Richie's kitchen stood
nine found umbrellas. Once, when he was
younger, his father grounded him for two weeks, demanding Richie explain where
he'd been stealing from, but as the years went by, his parents began to believe
him and took to asking him to help find things they misplaced.
If the laws of karma made losing and finding
equal in the end, then judging by the amount of things he had found and taken,
Richie reasoned he would someday lose everything he owned to some sort of freak
catastrophe. But he still took the
things he found and kept them around, content for the moment to collect luck in
pieces.
At school, the world seemed to
narrow in around him, and he thought about the things he found when a gray
feeling uncurled inside of him and he couldn't talk. When he was called on in class, his knees
shook and he came close to stuttering.
Sometimes at lunch he wanted to go to the snack bar, but that would
require walking by a table of popular kids whose laughter he imagined was directed
at his acid washed jeans. He thought
about saving his money to get a real haircut, instead of the choppy mess his
father insisted upon giving him, but he always ended up spending his money on
smokes or comic books. Sometimes when a certain group of kids laughed at him
after class, usually a class in which he'd been called on, Richie had the urge
to scream 'assholes!', but his voice always choked in his throat. There were
always cigarette lighters to be found by the lockers, or snap pops in one of
the stairwells. He had six calculators
that he kept hidden in his backpack.
Sometimes when a particular pretty girl pointedly ignored him, he
laughed to himself about the change purse he'd found under her desk one sixth
period. After school, he often took the
city bus downtown and hung out smoking cigarettes and looking at the ground as
he walked.
Too insecure to refuse Wandering
Bob’s requests, Richie was an easy target when Bob, his own circles overlapping
Richie’s as they paced, needed a smoke.
Extending his pack of generic filters, Richie was subjected to all sorts
of conspiracy theories, but the most consistent and lucid was always the story
of the brain. So when a boy who could find things started thinking about a
laboratory under the ground, he assumed he could get to it.
He pried a manhole up with a
pole. It was mid May, and the campus
lawn beat out silence. Early summer
muffled the town, the quietness unrolling in a thick carpet. Stone buildings walled the courtyard off from
the street.
The top rung of the ladder that
descended into the tunnel sweated visibly, and Richie counted eight rungs
before blackness swarmed up from the sewer floor. He had no idea how deep the hole went, where
it went, whether someone would come by and seal the cover back up, leave him
crawling down tighter and tighter drainage pipes. From somewhere he heard water dripping. For the first time all year, he wanted badly
not to be alone. He imagined that
somewhere down there, there were deep gorges filled with water, train tracks
stretching over drowned bodies that floated up in the sewage, kidnapped
children in cages. When he dragged the
manhole lid back, he told himself that it was not the right place.
Often, while considering the
tunnels, Richie’s imagination did not strike him as personal, but rather, as a
dream landscape all townies navigated in a more overlapping subconscious.
On thick summer nights, all over town, the
heat pricked not only Richie into dreaming, but a collection of sleepers all
lifted from bed to shuffle slowly towards State Street. If they noticed one another from their daily
routines, they gave no notice, but walked bleary-eyed through the tunnels,
blindly feeling their ways down corridors their waking selves denied
existed. The train tracks that had once
run beneath the green were still there, and the sleepers could pull gauze-thin
red tickets from pajama pockets or the waistbands of panties. When the old 59 train roared down the tracks
that by day were overgrown with weeds, but by night glistened, reflecting a
slivered moon, the sleepers held their tickets out and stumbled aboard. It was always a small diesel train, the kind
some might remember from years back.
And on these nights, the train would
whistle, always more of a foghorn’s moan, before the doors slid shut around its
passengers. The train would charge
forward, to the cutoff point on the tracks and beyond, through the tunnel doors
by the coliseum that were usually bolted in place. Streaking beneath the city then, they’d pass
a junked jackhammer where long ago there were bodies of men, and they could
almost discern white bones beneath the rusted metal as the scene blurred by,
through the junkyard of eighteen wheelers, and west under George Street where
the air sweated with the smell of salt water, Long Island sound splashing over
the tracks. Crabs, jelly-fish-like in
their iridescence skittered by as the train would rattle through, with its one
orb headlight casting on the water the shadows of thin-bodied drowned women.
Down farther the 59 would turn,
beneath the three churches where coffins sank more deeply beneath the
green. And farther still it rambled,
through secret passages and into the bowels of campus. Past a heart beating rose waves of light,
gracing a pulsing set of white lungs, and beyond writing neon worms of
intestines.
The train always slowed there, while
the passengers clutched their seats before a moment before, realizing this was
not their stop, they could relax because, with a burst of speed from its
engine, the train propelled faster, roaring beneath downtown then, past
children frozen in glass cages, birds whose wingspans could eclipse a man, and
finally the mason cemetery with its headstones formed from shiny white
teeth. Only a gunmetal blur then, the
train would accelerate back to the station, and the sleepers, having not seen
the brain, would grow more disoriented.
It was there; they could sense it like a tumor they’d need an x-ray to
find.
Above ground, those still awake
would note the tremor beneath them, and think vaguely of the constant shifting
of plates, bedrock thousands of feet below.
Each voyage ended with the train screeching to a halt as the doors slid
open, the sleepers de-boarding to follow invisible paths home. In the morning, they would rise well-rested,
realizing they’d pulled sheets over their heads despite the heat, most of them
sure they had dreamt about water.
This
much Richie could figure, or at least imagine he saw in Wandering Bob’s darting
eyes.
On quiet days, Richie always seemed
to be alone and walking. Down streets
that he realized suddenly had no one at their ends, and with no people around,
he could imagine a step onto the next block would cement a passage into a
wasteland of abandoned store fronts and throbbing neon signs. He pictured himself looking through bakery
windows at displays of sweet rolls and croissants, bagels and scones, and
pushing through swinging doors to stuff his pockets with bread. Still warm from the oven, those would be
proof that the people in town had all disappeared suddenly. He could walk right into the movies and see a
film already in progress, R rated if he was lucky, and help himself to popcorn
and Sour Patch Kids. He'd take his time
exiting Cutler's with too many CD's to carry home.
Perhaps later he would see someone,
maybe Leigh selling cemetery carnations on her rusted old bike, with playing
cards clacking against the spokes as the wheels whirred, or Wandering Bob with
a pack of fresh smokes from an abandoned Store 24. They would eye one another across the green
as refugees from another time, and later, walk as if snake charmed to where
Cliff belted out a guitar solo in the middle of Elm Street. This was something Richie had seen happen at
night when everyone else had gone home, and he, having sneaked out of bed,
could enjoy the night, but on certain Sundays it seemed possible that the town
would open up to the late night hours at noon. He would smooth the napkin from
a hot dog out in his hand as if it were a ticket he could present farther down the block, when he would rest it
in the hands of a statue and step into a silent town. He imagined he'd be able to yell out loud
into the street when everyone else had gone away. Anything would be possible then.
This sensation of possibility was
the same feeling he often had before Friday confession at Saint Mary's, when he
imagined walking into the confessional and kneeling down, whispering about
murders with broken bottlenecks and telling the priest he had stolen children
from their beds in ghettos. His options
would be endless if he could only make his life up. Other times, when he stepped off the city
bus, he imagined he could be anywhere, because for a moment he was that blank
about which corner he was on.
And it was there at the bus stop one
Tuesday in September, when Richie, cutting classes for no reason at all, jumped down the steps to watch F Scott become
more than a mysterious blur in the high school hallway. F was headed toward Richie, kicking through
leaves as he walked. He sported baggy
dark jeans cinched with a belt and a flannel shirt that had faded to a muted
version of the leaves he kicked. A pair
of aviator sunglasses reflected the bus-stop sign above his thin yet carefully
manicured goatee.
For a moment, Richie shook his head
from the haze of the bus ride, before he realized that F too was ditching
school. He hoped F wouldn't notice him.
He'd have to say something to F, and he wasn't sure if he could talk
right then. He didn't really know F, but
he'd heard he got his nickname from people always saying, "Fucking
Scott."
"You got any smokes,
man?" F asked. Raising the glasses
onto his forehead, he half-grinned at Richie, spitting on the sidewalk after he
spoke.
Richie surprised himself by
answering quickly. "You wanna get
some?."
At Zachary's where Elm Street
started going one way instead of two, Richie bought Marlboros while F lifted a
bottle of cheap champagne. They sneaked
two glasses off a table at the diner on Chapel Street after asking to use the
bathroom, and ran as a red faced waitress yelled for them to stop.
"The cops will be after
you!" she screamed.
"Champagne?" Richie asked
as they ran.
"It was the first thing I
grabbed.”
Riche was surprised that he could
keep up with F. Even though they were in
the same grade, F had a reputation as a bad kid who ran fast and won fights.
"We're celebrating," F
said. "It's Wednesday, and we're
not in school."
"It's Tuesday, man,"
Richie yelled back. "You want to
hang out on the green?"
"No way, I know a better
place," F answered, and they bolted down Crown Street, stopping at a
parking garage by the coliseum.
"You want to drink in a
parking garage?" Richie panted.
"No, come on. There's a road down there."
"What?" Richie stopped to
catch his breath at the garage entrance.
"No one's ever down
there. Just some winos."
Richie almost expected F to ditch
him once they were clear of downtown F
was a loner but he stood and waited.
"Come on," F said. "At least we won't have to sit in class
with a bunch of pussies."
F Scott popped the cork, and they
took chugs from the glasses, pacing back and forth down the underground street
before heading to a loading dock where trucks sometimes delivered things to the
restaurants around town. The smell of
wet concrete mingled with piss, and dripping water echoed down dingy yellow
corridors. A lone patch of graffiti
glared Latin Lords near the entrance.
F shattered his glass against the
wall and began swigging from the bottle, wiping his mouth on the sleeve.
"Yeah, I know this guy
Lou," he told Richie. "He had a job one year painting these walls. He
says you used to be able to drive all the way to the Polish Club from here, but
they walled it off a long time ago."
The champagne warmed Richie’s face,
like the times he'd sneaked beer from his mother's twelve packs.
"Do these go under the
college?" Richie ventured.
"There's supposed to be some kind of walking tunnels."
"I never heard of anything
like that."
"Yeah sure," Richie
said. "You can go down there and
see some really weird shit. They got
Geronimo's brain down there." He
hesitated, but F didn't laugh.
"You want to check it
out?" F asked instead.
They killed the champagne, smashing
the bottle on the ground and heading back through the garage and over to Cross
Campus. The world seemed wider with F
there, as if Richie had room to yell out loud at any moment. He kept quiet though, afraid that the feeling
would go away if he spoke. Everywhere,
students walked with their back packs, looking straight ahead as if Richie and
F weren't there at all. Richie wondered
if the barren time, in which he imagined looting the movie theater, would have
all the students in it they moved more
like phantoms than people, ignoring him and F as the two of them pried the lid
of the manhole up.
For a moment, Richie expected the
ground to be visible, but then he counted the same eight rungs.
"Come on!" F said, and
they were climbing down.
Richie counted eighteen rungs
before his feet hit the bottom. He
reached down to touch the floor with his hand, and sure enough, the ground was
dry, no sewage. They could stand easily,
even F who was taller than Richie by four inches at least.
F lit his Zippo and Richie could
see his face in the flame, and he realized the champagne was hitting him
hard. He was here, in the tunnel, the
cement walls sweating beneath his hand.
He had always expected the tunnels to stink of shit, but now he could
see that was not the case. The air,
fresher than that of his own basement, smelled of rain evaporating where they stood.
"We're drinking down here from
now on!" F hollered.
"Let's see where it
goes," Richie whispered, rushing crazily ahead.
They fumbled down the tunnel that
was more like a corridor than a drainage pipe, both of them feeling the walls
and groping ahead in the darkness.
Richie expected to see rooms of
experiments any minute, glass pipes bubbling with green liquid and thick
ooze seeping down the sides of jars.
When they got to a door, he was sure there would be a lab on the other
side. He was panting by then. F kicked open the door to the lab.
Instead, they found themselves in a
room with a lone table, and walls lined with hanging, black hooded capes that
suspended from hooks in thin silhouettes.
"What the fuck is this?" F
asked.
Richie counted twenty one capes on
the cement walls.
"Is this the fucking
KKK?" F shouted.
"Quiet, man," Richie
whispered, and he was sure he was right about how F Scott got his nickname.
Richie grabbed one of the sleeves,
and raising it in front of his face, was surprised it smelled clean, no mildew
or old closet odor. They both pulled
capes over their heads and stared through the eye slits.
"Boo!" F yelled.
They ran back through the tunnel,
and for a moment, not remembering how long they'd actually walked, Richie was
afraid someone had sealed up the manhole, but then he saw the bright circle of
sky over head. They clambered up in the
capes, trying not to trip over the bottoms on the ladder, and emerging in the
center of Cross Campus.
Not bothering to reseal the
manhole, they ran, and as they did, the students all around took notice, and a
murmur rose up from the crowd.
On the street, pedestrians fell
silent as they approached, F screaming "Whoooo!" and Richie flapping
the loose arms of the cape. Richie
noticed the street was busy with the after work crowd; people were all milling
about. And for a moment, before they ran
faster, he felt like they were mere mirages, no longer really a part of that
world, but having moved on to different terrain, where possibility was
inevitable.
*
People who remember seeing them
that day think of nights when the town is peopled by shadows. They think of a certain night each spring
when men in black hoods emerge from side streets. On these nights, doors are left open, and
students lie awake listening through the traffic for the sound of specter-like
hands creeping through black sleeves to tap their shoulders and enter them into
a Secret Society. Once chosen, they are
led around campus until morning, and their figures shifting in and out of
street lights.
On tap nights, the rooms of the
college shiver with silence, and all around town, that silence spreads. Lovers in apartments jerk awake suddenly, and
for an instant can't recognize one another.
Children dream about apparitions, pissing their beds in their
sleep. Single men wake up and down
glasses of scotch before falling back into troubled sleep, and women lie
uncomfortably on their backs until morning, sure that turning on their sides
will bring intruders sneaking up behind them.
The flower cart vendors stir with dreams of guilt about the extension
cords they sneak from the dormitories to their stands. Somewhere in town, a single fire hydrant
leaks and spreads dreams of rain and rides on rickety trains. The people who are still awake and out jump
at the sight of dark figures slinking around corners, and hurry home to bed,
not knowing that no one is safe on tap night, not even in sleep.
*
People would wonder about Richie
and F. It made sense that they’d assume
Richie was a bad kid like F, and that somehow the two loners had formed some
sort of a pact based on isolation. Kids from
the high school tried to figure out where they went. Some days they hung out at Cafe Dolores
playing cards and smoking cigarettes, but other days they emerged in the late
evening with red rimmed eyes. Sometimes
they bragged to younger boys that they'd been to New York all day watching XXX
movies and jerking off at peep shows. Other times, they wouldn't say.
The
truth was, F had troubles because his old man’s grocery business had gone
bankrupt. Richie had never entered the
small apartment building where F lived with his bankrupt father, but there were
always empty beer cans on the stoop, and the stairwell carpet reeked of smoke
and mildew. He suspected that the inside
of F’s house would be different than his.
His house was just boring, while he imagined F’s being cluttered with
old, useless things, grocery ledgers with cigarettes put out on top of them,
wooden crates marked celery used as furniture, frozen tomato sauce scalding as
F’s father thawed it on the stove.
Richie was curious about F’s apartment, but he never asked to go inside,
never told him that he’d heard his father had lost his business unjustly.
They had no reason to hang out in
one of their houses anyway. Richie and
F Scott found secret places, parts of town where time seemed to have been
busted open and its pieces dropped in random piles. In the upstairs of a Howland's Department
Store where the remains of a beauty parlor lay in shambles, the world turned to
static as they sniffed paint thinner.
Dust from ripped up sheet rock turned chairs and walls that were once a
bright pink to a chalky shade of mauve.
Heating helmets hung from crane like necks over vinyl cushioned chairs,
and smashed out light bulbs stuck out around dirt streaked mirrors. In this junkyard of salon products and
crumbling walls, Richie and F held rags to their mouths and breathed.
The turpentine sent a silver streak
through Richie's brain, and around him, the old shelves seemed to flicker. From down stairs roped off with chains and
“Employees Only” signs, cash registers rang and shopping carts careened down
aisles, loaded with polyester suits. The
store was having a going out of business sale. Richie crouched behind a series
of filing cabinets, ready to bolt until the paint thinner spun him away from
the sounds below, and white spots dotted his vision.
"You know," he said when
his mind cleared, "I think my mom used to get her hair done here when I
was little."
F leaned back against a floor
length mirror, rubbing at his face.
Richie could see his reflection behind F in the mirror, as if he was a spectator
watching him from far off.
"You want to hear something
weird?" F asked.
It was spring by then, eight months
since that first day they'd ditched school together, and Richie was used to
hearing something weird from F.
"What?" he asked.
"I don't know what I looked
like when I was a little kid," F said, and coughed.
Richie breathed what was left on
the rag. "What do you mean?"
"I mean I can't picture myself
as a little kid."
Richie had two images of himself as
a child: one from a photograph his mother had taken of him in a pumpkin patch,
surrounded by future jack-o-lanterns, baby teeth more straight then his
secondary set would ever be, and another, more constant image of a chubby face
and long, unkempt hair.
"Didn't your mom take
pictures?" Richie asked.
"Sure, but it don't
matter."
"You just can't picture
anything?"
"Well here's the thing. I think of this other little kid when I try
to think of myself. Some kid that had
the same raincoat as me."
"That is weird," Richie
said. He tried to picture F as a little
kid but couldn't.
F soaked the rag from the paint
thinner can. "Yeah."
"Maybe you can keep a picture of
yourself in your wallet to look at," Richie said.
But F was into the turpentine again
and didn't seem to hear.
Later, they walked downtown and
smoked a joint behind one of the campus buildings. The sun was setting and for
a while it seemed to Richie that the day would stay suspended in twilight
forever.
"It doesn't feel like it's
going to get dark," he said.
"It's just the weed," F
said.
They sat in silence, until the
light slanting in through the trees dissolved into gray tinged air.
Far
down High Street, Bob was accosting a group of women, gesturing with his arms
before they hurried away.
"You think we'll ever find
that brain?" F asked.
"Geronimo's?"
"Yeah."
"I don't know," Richie
said. He thought about the tunnels
underground and the black capes they'd found.
He was starting to think it was just one of Wandering Bob's stories,
like the theory that it didn’t matter who you voted for anymore because the
Secret Societies elected all the presidents anyway.
"I mean," Richie said,
"don't you think we would have found it?"
"It's out there," F said.
But Richie wasn't sure
anymore. Geronimo had been floating in
and out of his consciousness. Sometimes
he pictured the brain underground as a clear image, but other times, that image
dissolved as his dreams did when the day went on. Often when he thought about the brain, he
felt like he'd forgotten something that had made the story make sense. He tried to think about how the brain had
ended up there to begin with, but he couldn’t remember. He wondered if the story would make less and
less sense as he got older, but then he thought about Wandering Bob, who was
close to sixty.
"Maybe people made it all
up," he said to F, but saying that made him sad somehow, the way he'd felt
when he realized he had stopped keeping track of what time the ice cream man
drove by, or when saying dirty words no longer gave him a rush of adrenaline.
F acted sure that the brain was
there, but didn't seem to care about it.
"Those fuckers have it," was all he said and blew smoke into
the fading light.
“They
got to,” Richie said.
*
The summer before their senior
year, a murmur rose around town as places began to disappear. At first they were only places Richie didn't
care about: the candy shop, the general
store, restaurants he couldn't afford to go to and didn't have a girl to take
to anyway. Sometimes at the mention of
one of the bankruptcies, F’s eyes would flash darkly, and Richie would picture
F’s father, who he’d only seen once, taking out the trash in a wife-beater,
hair like black spiders across his back.
F’s father’s father had started the grocery store as a vegetable cart in
the Italian section, moving closer to downtown as Wooster Street got richer and
richer. But Richie didn’t know much more
than that, and when he asked F about his father’s business, F would mutter
something about his old man being a pussy for giving in so quickly.
Then one day, on the first weekend
of September, Cafe Dolores shut down overnight.
It was the middle of a late summer heat wave, and telephone poles and
mailboxes seemed to be melting into the street.
The paper threatened a black out because so many people were using air
conditioners, and Richie had the uneasy feeling that if he walked for too long,
he'd disappear into a black swirl of asphalt and heat. He didn't have to walk much though.
F Scott was selling weed by then,
and he had a white Buick Regal that roared around town. F had a dealer named Lou, the same old guy
who'd painted the tunnels years ago, and Richie knew he lived somewhere in the
Italian section, down on Wooster Street where iron gates had been put up
declaring the neighborhood 'Little Italy.'
Richie pictured Lou as some sort of tycoon who smoked Cuban cigars and
wore thousand dollar suits.
"I'll take you over to meet
him," F promised. "Just wait
until it's the right time. He's funny
like that."
They were driving to Cafe Dolores
where F usually sat and made eye contact with local kids before taking them out
to the back of a parking lot to sell them dime bags and sometimes eighths. Sometimes he’d wander down to the
dormitories, selling students bags for rip off prices, bags of weed cut with so much oregano only a fool
would buy it. Richie usually played
chess or poker at the Dolores and tried not to give all his cigarettes to
people who bummed.
When they got to the coffee shop,
the doors were closed, and a group of kids with a megaphone stood on the
sidewalk.
"Yale cannot get away with this!"
a girl Richie recognized screamed. She
wore Egyptian like make up around her eyes in the Goth style most of the
regulars flaunted.
F parked the Buick, and they fought
their way through the crowd. People
shook F's hand, knocking fists on top of fists and snapping a finger in his
direction, and all around them the shouts became a chorus.
"Yale raised their rent over
night, on a Friday, so the courts were closed," Andre the out of work
tattoo artist bellowed and raised a ‘Yale Should Not Bail’ sign towards the
sky. "They were given twenty four hours to pay. The Dolores is done."
"Just like that?" Richie
asked.
"They're done," a skater
repeated, twirling a pacifier on a shoelace at his side.
The picketing went on all day, and
F stood twitching at the curb. Wandering
Bob showed up in the early evening, and Richie supplied him with cigarettes
despite himself. A group of Yalies
walked by, in their khaki pants and bent-brimmed baseball caps pulled over
cleanly cut hair. They passed the
Dolores without looking at the mob, and noise rose from the crowd as they did
so.
"We want our town back!"
the megaphone girl yelled, her eye make-up streaking her cheeks in the heat.
"You'd better watch out,"
Wandering Bob said. "You make too
much noise around here, they lock you up."
"Who locks you up?" F
asked.
"Cops. Yale cops.
They put you in the Yale psyche ward and charge you to get out.
Happens." Bob dropped his voice and
his eyes darted across the crowd. Richie
thought about Geronimo’s brain then. He
couldn’t articulate it, but he got the feeling that everyone was forgetting
that the brain and the labs had somehow caused this problem, as if without a
certain piece to a puzzle, the whole scene of downtown would piece apart
slowly, starting with the Dolores and continuing until they were all swallowed
by something bigger than they were.
"Hey Bob," Richie said,
"what did you used to say about the underground labs?"
But Bob stared blankly at him, and
Richie began to wonder if he'd made the whole idea of Geronimo up himself. The heat was giving him a headache behind his
eyes, and all around him, air conditioners wheezed.
"No, come on, did you see
anything or not?" He reached for
Bob's arm, but the old man snatched it back.
"Be cool man," F said to
Richie. "You know he's seen
it. Right Bob?"
Richie waited for Bob to say
something, believing the answer would come when the old man stopped chewing his
lips. He handed Bob a cigarette, and Bob
lit if off the one in his hand.
"They fuck everyone over
around here," Bob muttered smoking more furiously than ever.
"Well I say we fuck them
back!" F Scott yelled. He ripped
his Red Sock’s cap off and raked at his hair.
And people raised their fists into
the air. "Yeah!" the crowd shouted.
When the sun set, Richie and F
filled yellow squirt guns with lukewarm water.
They had the kinds of guns that held a gallon each and could shoot jet
like streams of water half a block's length.
In bathroom of a falafel place, Richie bent over the gun, angling his
dick toward the opening and splashing himself as he released. It was his piss after all; he’d know it
before on his knuckles in the bathroom, or dripping down his leg. It wouldn’t take long, and moreover, it would
be worth it. They tested the guns in back of the falafel place. Richie fired at a dumpster and tears of dirt
slid down its side. They climbed into
the Buick, and F pulled the brim of his baseball cap down low, over his
forehead and his darting brown, almost black eyes.
Richie stretched the mask's elastic
string over his head. It was a clear
mask, the translucent kind with peach colored lips and blue eyelids, eyebrows
that appeared penciled there; his face perspired instantly.
"Let's go," F said, and
revved the engine in a long, lawnmower like whirr.
Then they were speeding through the
red light on Elm Street, around the corner and down Park. Richie leaned out the window and shot the
first of the victims, a flock of Yale girls in white T shirts with hair cut
bluntly around their ears. When he fired
the water in a long, piss like stream, the girls screamed. Their voices hit the
night air shrilly and somehow at the same pitch as giggles.
They shot a bigger group and boys
in khaki pants and ties even at nine at
night, ties jumped back and hollered.
"What was that?" a girl
screamed, but F and Richie were already racing fast down to Church Street and
taking the corner wide.
"Remember, no homeless
people," F said.
Richie switched guns and pumped,
and they were circling again, coming up behind an even bigger gaggle of
students, and to Richie the gun in his hand had been charged with lightning. He
imagined in the morning the papers would say it had only been water, but in an
hour, as they ordered sushi or whatever they ate in one of the nicer
restaurants, it would be his piss they smelled on their jackets.
"Remember," F said
through his laughter, "only Yalies."
They turned the corner, back tires
skidding out for a moment before falling in line, and then, they were circling
the green one more time. All around them the street lights dimmed as the city
went into a brown out. The mask welded itself to Richie's face with a film of
sweat. He could picture himself in it,
hanging out the window and shooting into the night, a nameless, faceless
presence blurring down Elm Street, finally screaming, "Take that you
assholes!"
*
The story inevitably returns to
water. When people talk about the Secret
Society, someone always brings up the fact that Skull and Bones runs up the
highest water bill in New Haven. Someone
might mention George Street then, that it used to be submerged in ocean. Those listening picture tanks blurring by
through dirt streaked windows and hear the sound of rattling wheels, but it is
more like an after image than a real memory and fades quickly. Some people think of childhood tap nights
when they awoke with their pajama legs wet, or about spring nights when they
soak their sheets with sweat. The town
feels like a pool on those nights, as if they could float, unanchored in their
dreams, into deep ravines or down canals, bumping into buildings they have
never noticed before. They talk about
what would happen if the green flooded badly enough, that the bodies would
somehow rise and float over to Grove Street where the headstones were moved
years before. Sometimes someone mentions
the water boys, who went on a rampage one fall, soaking the town night after
night, eventually tossing bucketfulls of toilet water from the Buick window.
They disagree on how many times it
really happened, but most people admit there was at least a two week run of
drenchings. They remember that inevitably the boys misguessed sometimes, and
splashed waiters on their way home from work, or street people standing next to
carts of cans and bottles. Those like
the flower vendors, who watched closely, might remember the smell of piss and
the exact number of nights, and know that soon after the water throwing, the
one kid stopped stooping to pick up dropped money on the sidewalks.
Maybe he stopped finding cash
because of what they did in the Buick, or maybe it was the Buick that caused it
to happen. Not walking so much anymore,
Richie lost the knack for finding change and dollars wherever he went. He felt as if his identity had shape-shifted
somehow, like the woman who recited Shakespeare for money on York and Broadway,
her eyes rolling crazily as Lady Macbeth, so that she was Lady Macbeth when he
passed her. Somehow, by being refereed
to as a ‘Water Boy’, Richie had been forced to exchange one role for another.
*
At first, he was convinced the sidewalks
were mocking him. After a week of not
finding anything, Richie stalked change all the way from his house up to
Broadway, down one of his luckier routes.
Tiny flakes of mica glittered ahead of him, and twice he mistook silver
gum wrappers for dimes. A bum asked him
for money, and Richie surprised himself by announcing, "I don't find
fucking shit anymore!" so loudly that the guy shrunk back onto the green.
That day, Richie wandered into some
of the less fancy restaurants and looked beneath tables, catching glares from
customers as he scanned the floor under jackets they hung over their chairs.
Outside, the world whirred with
people. They hurried to cross streets
before lights changed and rushed in and out of shops. Two men pushed a cart loaded with boxes, and
police on horseback barreled by. A woman
pulled the chains on her two dogs as they jumped at Richie. A clamour rose up
from the place, and the street seemed to blur, as if all the people had taken
up the space he needed to find things in.
Richie stormed up to Broadway to where F Scott leaned against his car.
"You want to go for a
ride?" F asked.
"It's fucking
unbelievable!" Richie said as they cruised around town. "A week and no money."
F had long ago exchanged his
aviators for black-tinted Oakleys, and yanking them over his eyes, he pulled a
bottle of pills from his pocket.
"Maybe you just got to wait it
out," F said.
"Wait it out? I never waited it out."
"Look at me, I can't even move
an ounce this week."
"It's different," Richie
muttered.
F tossed some white pills into his
mouth and offered the bottle to Richie, but Richie shook his head. Speed sent a streak of white heat through his
blood and made his head feel like it was going to burst but couldn't, like blue
balls of the mind.
"You know, I've been
thinking," Richie said. "Maybe
it's karma."
F shrugged. "How so?"
"Like maybe I'm being punished
for shooting those people." They always referred to it as a series of real
drive- bys.
In the past two weeks, they'd only
skipped one night when F drove around with a girl until morning. Somehow, maybe because the weather had
shifted from summer to fall, it seemed like they had been soaking people for
much longer.
"You give a fuck about
that?" F asked.
"I don't know. I mean, why now? The only difference is that we're throwing
water at night."
"Then we'll stop," F
said. “I got shit to do anyway.”
So the water nights stopped as
abruptly as they'd started, but penniless streets continued to haunt
Richie. Sometimes instead of driving
around all the time, Richie convinced F to go for long walks, but he never
found so much as a lighter low on fluid and usually ended up high and drunk.
Sometimes people called out,
"Hey Water Boys!" as they roared by in the Buick, but Richie ignored
the new name. He was sure the shootings
had changed his luck somehow. When
people yelled at them, F would spin the tires and send smoke and exhaust into
the street. Occasionally, when Richie
climbed into the Buick, he’d find quarters wedged into the seat crack, but he
knew F had put them there himself.
"Nice try," he would say
then.
F would turn the music up loud and
mutter something about karma, knocking on the dashboard after selling a bag.
*
Later, people would speculate on
what happened to F Scott. When Richie
and F were out of high school, Richie got a job waiting tables. He wasn't a good waiter, and on the night Lou
died, he was afraid he was going to be fired for laziness. His old man was already pestering him for
rent money, as he called it.
F showed up in the restaurant
popping speed. Richie was fighting his
way through the Friday night crowd to the service bar when F grabbed the sleeve
of his white waiter shirt.
"You gotta get off
work." F's eyes were pure obsidian,
so Richie could tell he'd been high for hours.
"You crazy, man?" Richie asked.
"I got a full section."
He thumbed the money in his pocket.
"Lou's dead," F said,
chewing on his lips.
"Shit," Richie said. He had only ever met Lou twice. "How?"
F shrugged. "Heart attack or something like that. He
owes me almost two grand for this shit I was supposed to pick up tonight. Fucking money up front." F moved faster than time, so that Richie,
behind on all his orders, wished he too could move that quickly. He had five tables, and above the bar's
clamor he could hear the cooks ringing their little bell. Inside his head, a clock ticked and would not
slow.
"I gotta get into his house
before anyone searches it," F said.
"You coming?"
Richie had to drag F over to the
hall were the restrooms were while a waitress rushed by and shot them both a
dirty look.
"Are you crazy?" Richie asked.
"Isn't it in the bank?"
"Fuck that. He buries it all in potted plants."
"Potted plants?" Richie asked,
but getting no answer, counted the money he’d made. “Give me an hour.”
When he picked his drinks up, he
caught the bartender's attention, slapping a twenty down on the bar. "Get this man whatever he wants on
me," he said, gesturing frantically to F.
Richie collected from his last
tables and re stocked the kitchen, but F must have slipped out when Richie’s
twenty ran out. Still in his waiter
uniform, Richie took off on his bike towards Lou's house, expecting to see F,
dressed somehow all in black then, lurking in the bushes with a razor to slice
a square from Lou's window. The lights
in the neighboring houses were out, and a lone street light shone beacon like
from downtown. When he was sure F wasn't
there, Richie peddled around town a few times and then headed home.
F didn't answer his phone all
night, but he was there the next day in the restaurant parking lot when
Richie’s lunch shift started. Still
freaked out on speed from the night before, F wore a wife beater and a pair the
black workout pants in gangbanger style.
Two thick gold chains Richie had never seen weighed heavily around his
neck, and his face, with two black circled eyes, appeared coated with wax as he
leaned against one of the cook's cars.
Richie held his waiter shirt over
his shoulder, balancing his bicycle with one foot.
"I
gotta get out of town," F said.
"You want to take the train to the city with me?"
"What are you wearing?"
Richie asked.
F pumped his chest up, flexing what
muscles he’d kept over the years. "I'm going to jail if they catch
me. I don't want to get fucked with
there."
"Jail? What’d you do man?” Richie didn’t expect an
answer. F was obviously crashing hard,
almost inarticulate. “I’d take that shit
off.”
“I gotta go. You got any weed?”
“There’s
a roach in the ashtray at my place. My folks don’t care if you stay in my
room. Just try and hang there."
"Meet me there, I gotta go,"
F yelled and started to run out of the parking lot, not bothering to glance
back, the speed and fear like demons pursuing him.
Richie had seen F on a long high
before and knew he would have to wear himself down. He shook his head. "Two thirty!" he yelled after F.
But when lunch ended, Richie’s
mother had seen no sign of F. Bit by
bit, he learned the pieces. F Scott had
tried breaking into Lou's house the night before while Richie got rid of his
tables, and jimmying the back door open, F set off the alarm. Panicking at the sound of sirens, F tore out
of Little Italy like hell on fire, Buick tires squealing for miles. Or Richie imagined. The car was found wrecked and smoking by the
train tracks. F took off running when
the car crashed and hid out until morning when he'd gone and seen Richie in the
parking lot.
Sometime during the lunch shift, F
had sneaked back to Lou's house, and the cops who were waiting there told him
not to move. He ran anyway, charging
frantically to State Street, in the direction of the train station, and as the
cops gained on him, he turned into the tunnel by the coliseum, the one for
eighteen wheelers where they'd drunk champagne years before and the smell of
wet concrete mingled with an even riper piss.
F raced, propelled jet like into deeper, darker tunnel places, along
train tracks and through unlit corridors.
Falling asbestos tore at his eyes as the feet of cops pounded behind
him. The police report said he
disappeared there, but Richie could figure.
Sprinting deep into the belly of
New Haven, F hit salt water under George Street, and stopping to raise a wet
hand to his mouth, he tasted the Sound.
He kept running until his lungs ripped at him, sure that he would reach
the outside somewhere along the coast, and catch a ferry to Long Island. With the cops far behind him then, F saw the
drop, and as if stepping from one frame in a reel of film to the next, he
catapulted over the edge with his mouth frozen in a silent scream.
Richie could figure anyway. When they never found the body, Richie walked
the tunnels at night, but the usual gates were closed. The cops were sure F had never come out, and
even more sure that there was no way into the old parts of the tunnels. Sometimes Richie told people F was in
Jamacia, hiding out in a hammock with a group of whores, operating a chain of
jack shacks in Canada, or sneaking around in attics and old warehouses in
Brooklyn or Queens. But F never
contacted him, and as months went by, Richie grew sure he was dead. Wandering
Bob told Richie that F was underground in a tank somewhere, with a third eye
growing on his forehead and tentacles extending where his arms had been, but
Richie didn’t believe those stories anymore.
They were just things Wandering Bob said because there was no
explanation, and no explanation carved a hollow spot in the world where
anything could fit in and become one of Bob’s stories. Richie told people that somehow, F had been
chased into the darkness, through one of the gates that was normally closed,
and he had fallen down one of the drops.
Sometimes when scanning the
newspapers, he tried to think about what specifically had happened to F. But the fact was, there was no real story,
nothing that made sense. F’s father had
no ideas later. Richie had seen him at
the church one Sunday soon after F disappeared and, terrified that the man was
planning to hold a requiem, approached him.
F’s father crossed his thick arms in front of his chest, and chewing a
toothpick in his mouth, said in an accent more Italian than Richie had
expected, that he too just didn’t know.
As months went by the not knowing bothered him, and at night Richie
would lie awake wondering. He’d think
about F’s father sometimes, and wish he’d asked the man for a picture of F as a
child, sensing somehow that seeing the beginning of the story would somehow
bring him closer to the end. He only
thought that sometimes though, and whenever he passed the apartment on Goffe
Street where F had lived, he never stopped and asked for such a thing. On the bad nights he wondered if a picture
of F would indeed force it to all make sense, because his disappearance had
taken F Scott so far out of any context that Richie couldn’t really figure what
had happened. He had to drink vodka or
smoke weed then and fall into a heavy , thoughtless sleep.
*
In the thin hours before daybreak,
the 59 idles at the platform. The
bleary-eyed shuffle on board, finding their seats by sixth sense. The train moans five times and still hesitates. A few miles away, a young man lies, glued down
by a long drunk and sweating vodka into his sheets. The umbrellas of previous years have been
packed away; the money has all been spent.
The train allows one last groan.
Dawn will be breaking soon, and the train has to go. In the bedroom of his parent’s apartment, the
beginning of a dream enters the young man’s head but dissipates like engine
exhaust. It wanders to the place for the
lost dreams of drunks where a mouth swallows an ashtray of butts; a screen door
slams, sending clouds of gnats to die on a porch. The smell of lavender wrestles the stink of
chickens. A flying dream, triggered by a
long bender, soars over chunks of ice, and a naked woman steps in front of a
speeding car. The young man’s vision of
his missing friend blends in; ragged wife-beaters float in a puddle of
gold. The train senses the dream’s
departure, and its cars sigh as they take off down the tracks, leaving almost
despite themselves in the knowledge that sometime soon, even he will dream.
*
Around town, they talk sometimes
about the water boy whose friend disappeared, how he used to walk home with
baseball sized lumps of change in his pockets.
Those kids giving out Free Food Not Bombs on the green know about
him.
One asks the other, "Hey
whatever happened to that kid? You know,
the one who saw Geronimo's brain?"
His friend ladles carrot soup into
a container. "That's not what
happened. He just cracked up. I see him on Wooster sometimes, you know,
'Little Italy.'"
"I'd crack up if I saw that
brain. Poor kid."
"Kid? He's like older than us."
But somehow, people picture Richie
younger, with a bad haircut, picking up money where it fell and bugging the
flower cart vendors for stories about Yale.
They picture him shooting streams of water from the window of F Scott's
car, or emerging at Cafe Dolores out of nowhere.
No one remembers seeing him at K’s
Lounge one night, hunched into his jacket on the student side as Peg the
waitress shuffled by with pitchers of beer, and he stared through the smoke
stained partition to the bar, over to where old men sat like statues, only
moving to raise glasses of scotch to parched lips. Her name
the girl he’d picked up was
Laura. She was a Sophomore at Yale with
thick dark hair and eyelashes, but her ripped jeans and Ramones T-shirt had
pegged her as deceivingly un-Yalie like.
After learning her situation, Richie continued hitting her out of some
sense of irony. He felt like cutting off
the whole exchange, but felt some obligatory attempt at intimacy.
She was saying something about the
debate team.
"Hey," he interrupted,
"do you know anything about the Secret Society?"
She looked around for a moment and
then laughed, as if realizing she was taking something too seriously, and then
her posture seemed to relax.
"I'm not in it," she
whispered. "But I know all about
it."
"Oh yeah?" He leaned in closer. "What's it like?"
"They have a lot of parties. Dinners."
"And what do they do?"
"They drink beer and eat
dinner." She wrinkled her nose at
him.
"I mean, do they do anything
illegal? Like experiments?"
She gave him a long, bored look, a
look that symbolized all the reasons he didn't want to ever lay eyes on her
again, a look that clearly stated he was silly and a dreamer and not part of
some world she been born with a ticket into.
"Don't be stupid," she
said. "It's more like a big slumber
party."
He realized she'd hurt his
feelings. He stopped paying attention to
her then and thought about F for the first time that day. For all his talk about fucking them back, F
had never picked up a Yale chick. “They
puke once you get three drinks in them,” he’d said.
Richie
excused himself after that and headed down Chapel Street. For the first time in a while, he found
himself looking at the ground as he went, keeping to his old habit of scanning
quarters and bills. He ended up rambling
over to Little Italy and past Lou's house.
The lights were on in the front room, and people moved by the window in
front of white walls, like in the movies he and F had seen once on the Lower
East Side, films that were shown on the side of a building so that car drivers
slowed down, only catching an instant of image before rushing on. Richie kept walking, thinking that the people
in Lou's house would go to bed soon but in his mind would stay frozen in the
living room all night. F, having been
gone just over a year, was frozen that
way for him in the restaurant parking lot, gold chains strangling his neck, but
that image hardly mattered in regard to the mystery that came after.
Along the side of Libby's Ice
Cream, two Goth girls swung double-dutch ropes in the street.
"You want to jump in?"
one of them asked.
"Please?" the other one said. They wore the usual spiked collars beneath
cropped, inky hair and looked about fourteen, girls who would’ve been playing
checkers or tarot at the Dolores six years ago.
"Don't know how," Richie
answered. For a moment, he felt like
mourning his childhood, as if his life had failed him because he had never
learned how to skip between two blurring ropes. He shook his head and walked
back downtown across campus. On
instinct, he cut across the green.
Cliff was there with this guitar,
and Leigh the flower lady was with him, leaning against one of the rails and
listening to his solo. The two of them
seemed frozen for a moment, their silhouettes all that mattered in the
flickering street light, and Richie thought about the quiet walks he had gone
on before meeting F Scott and remembered the feeling that the town could end up
barren. Cliff and Leigh looked like subjects
in a photograph from that world of endless possibility he’d imagined once, a
photograph that would send an electric current through him if he touched it at
all.
He trudged through Cross Campus and
passed one of the nameless buildings he’d seen a thousand times before. There, in front of one of the iron-barred
basement windows, a yellow bulb glowed.
Richie crept closer and, crouching down, brought his face to the window
bars until the iron chilled him. His
heart pounded in his chest; for a moment he thought he’d see F Scott, smoking
cigarettes in handcuffs, his face unshaven and beaten. The room was empty though. The light snapped off.
It wasn’t quite late enough for the
campus to be empty. Two teenagers with
skateboards idled as they smoked, and in an archway, a man ate fried chicken
from a box. The campus cops were waiting
with their flashing lights, ready to spend them spinning when the wind carried
the shriek up over the city, hurling it over the green until it bounced from
the campus walls. Richie’s shouts kept coming until a small crowd
gathered, always the same roar reverberating in the night.
“I saw it, Motherfuckers!”
copyright
2013 Tara Jill Ciccarone
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