“Out of the classrooms, into the streets! We want peace in the Middle East!”
“Must you swear?” says one kid.
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I smirk. Fucking is obscene, but war isn’t? Yet they have a point. You can’t persuade by offending. Unfortunately, there’s no time to evaluate different protest groups. I don’t approve of disturbing classes, but here I am, swept up with the crowd. Swept up with the overwhelming emotion of “I have to do something!”
“You Ess Ay!”
No one’s asked them yet, and they’ll never ask me. But if I had understood, 18 years ago, I would have scrapped the Pontiac Firebird, sweated in the summer, and frozen in the winter. Survived without electric can openers, curling irons, and pencil sharpeners.
We decide it’s pointless to break our necks climbing back down the frozen steps of the stadium. There are no railings to clutch. We stand behind the balustrade, watching the tiny group of less than a hundred protesters marching round and round in a circle, going nowhere. Across from us, at the top of the stadium, is the slightly smaller group of counterdemonstrators. Halted by campus police, they stagnate in one place.
But there’s not much time for conversation. Seconds later, John is gone. Too rushed to have noticed me displaying peace signs. Too rushed to have commented on the action. I wonder which side he’d be on–this student who wrote about local drug enforcement–or what he’d think if he saw me marching. I wonder if someday soon he could be drafted.
