Friday, Jan. 23, 2009

Okay, here goes.

Paul and April and I were at the kids’ section. We weren’t going to march, it was pretty cold and April’s nap time coincided with most of the big media-worthy events. But we showed our support by showing up, buying a pin, eating a hot dog (at 10:30 in the morning… ick), and just generally being there. Paul was taking a smallish risk, after that insane memo from the White House but the Bushies aren’t really popular with the EPA rank and file and we bumped into Paul’s boss at the rally, so we figured we were okay.

I bumped into one of April’s playground friends, we’ll call him B. I knew B from our local park but had never met his mom or his older sister, just his nanny. So, while April and B played, Paul and I did a little Cambridge-parent shmoozing. We were in easy viewing distance of the Frog Pond, where B’s 7 year old sister was trying out her skates.

There was some noise from over the hill, but there had been noise for a while. Then I heard whump whump whump and felt my gut twist but I couldn’t figure out why I was suddenly nervous. Still, mom instincts kicked in and I picked up April. Then the crying started. Normally you don’t notice a few kids crying but this was four and then ten and then fifteen. Kids over on the fringe of the designated kids’ area were all screaming and crying and the smaller ones were vomiting and parents were coughing.

The noise form over the hill suddenly resolved, for me at least, from general hollering and crowd noise into a frantic, urgent, angry mob noise. I could hear bullhorns and shouting and screams. And the news helicopters seemed really low. That’s when I realized what that noise, that whump whump had been before. Tear gas cannons. (I was a reporter in my youth and covered some riots.) And a faint whiff of that smell.

“Tear gas–” I started.

“Something’s wrong,” Paul said almost at the same time and he looked at me and at April and then at B and B’s mom, who was much slower on the uptake. “Go, go, up the hill.” He picked up B and handed him to his mother.

“Where are you going?” I grabbed at him, selfishly terrified. Just about then, B’s mother tweaked into the fact that something was wrong. She screamed her daughter’s name and started to run towards the bad stuff, with her toddler in her hands. Paul grabbed her and hauled her back, pushing her up hill, towards me. I was walking up backwards, to scared to stay but not wanting to lose sight of Paul.

“I’ll get her, go!” he shouted at B’s mom (whose name I still don’t know, isn’t that awful?).

B’s mom and I headed up the hill towards Joy Street, if you know the area, slowly moving away, though I guess we were actually running but it seemed slow. Two squirming upset toddlers certainly slowed us down. B’s mom was crying and kept stopping to turn back. So did I, frankly.

I got to see Paul get to the Frog Pond where the kids — older than the toddlers but still pretty young — were all coming to a stop on their skates and standing, staring. I couldn’t hear, but I know Paul and he’s got a big deep voice, a good courtroom voice, and good lungs. He started shouting and waving and the kids looked at him with sort of wide eyes and then started running.

Running in ice skates is hard. Running in ice skates over broken frozen snow pack is impossible. But at about that moment a bunch of the Thugs broke over the hill. These guys were in full all-black riot gear, smoked glass face masks,

So Paul grabbed B’s sister and another kid and started hollering at the parents, many of whom were still standing around. They started running, too, grabbing their kids off the ice and helping them. Paul shouted at some of them and they helped the parents who had too many kids to haul. There were still some younger toddlers and parents gagging and coughing where the first plume of tear gas came around the hill, so Paul handed B’s sister off to some college student, pointed her at B’s mom and me, and ran to help the toddlers. Right towards the advancing line of Back Water Thugs.

I’m wholly ashamed to admit I screamed in anger.

Some male college students had the same thought as Paul and I guess the Thugs looked across the hill and didn’t see a bunch of men trying to help weeping, crying, vomiting parents and children. They just saw a bunch of big guys, several of them in long black coats. (It’s winter in Boston. We all wear long black coats!) Because they charged right at Paul and the toddlers.

Paul shouted something at them, the Thugs, and stood up, and I screamed again, from way up on the hill because one them fired a fucking GUN AT MY HUSBAND! AND PAUL FELL TO THE FUCKING GROUND!

I was clutching April against my shoulder and my voice is still hoarse I screamed so loudly. My world spun around me and I’ve never been that close to blacking out. Only April’s little hands and her voice saying, “Mama! Mama! Mama!” over and over in my ear kept me from running towards Paul.

Something in my brain was still rational enough to notice that Paul was not bleeding, he was moving and still yelling, probably some very bad words. And then a Thug pulled his boot back to kick Paul.

At this point, from my perspective, out of no where, came a white knight. One of the Park Rangers, riding one of those giant black horses, came thundering into the skirmish line, putting herself and her horse between the Thugs and the kids and more importantly, between the off-balance Thug who was about to kick Paul and my husband’s downed body. The horse body checked the Thug and he went down like a tree.

I looked her up later, she was a little bitty thing with a long brown braid, but she was like Joan of Arc and Boadicea and Ripley from Aliens all rolled into one in my opinion.

Suddenly, Paul scrambled up, and grabbed some toddler under his left arm and sprinted across the hill, away from where suddenly the Thugs were coming up against some Staties and that fucking awesome Ranger. Don’t mess with a lady on a horse, I can tell you. I didn’t know where the Staties came from, I was pretty well focused on Paul, but once I saw him moving I noticed that there were cops directing the parents and kids into the open gates of the State House, Patrick himself was helping some poor woman with her four kids, and I stopped just standing there, clutching April and took off for safety myself.

I found Paul in the crowd — thank god he’s a tall man — and he was fine. It had been a beanbag shot and apparently fired from much further away than it seemed to me at the time. He had a nasty bruise but insisted he’d be okay. I insisted we go to the hospital and thank god we did, because both April and I had apparently inhaled some of the tear gas. (I’ve got a mild case of asthma that doesn’t bother me unless, say, it’s really cold, or I’ve been running, or I breathe in something nasty. You can imagine how well I felt after all three.)

Okay, I’m shaking and exhausted and can’t write anymore.

Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2009

Dear God, where to start?

First, I imagine, with a general facts of the case. I assumed, since we hadn’t been watching the news, that the Boston Massacre II (as it’s being called, that’s the most awful name in history, I think) was all over the TV and all the phone calls we had on the answering were about that. Now that I see that protests all over the country went ugly and Boston wasn’t even the worst (though one of the worst), I imagine some of you don’t even know what happened.

Well, from reading reports and my own experiences, here’s what happened, generally. I’ll get to what happened to us later. Maybe tomorrow. I’m so tired.

Boston’s “protests” were really more of a rally, as I imagine they were in almost any blue state. On the Common, at least, there was food and music and street theater and a kids’ section with face painting and a moonbounce for the love of God. Not hard-core at all. Gov. Deval Patrick was going to speak, exhorting Mr. Bush (I refuse to call him President anymore) to allow elections to go forth.

There was going to be a march to the Old State House after the speeches and stuff. Up Tremont, past City Hall, to hear some one holler off the balcony where they first proclaimed the Declaration of Independence. It was a nice symbolic gesture.

Some of the more strident activists were camped out at City Hall Plaza while the rest of us had a good time on the Common. The kids’ section was near the Frog Pond, away from the main action, and hard to see from. There’s a hill in the way.

Anyway, according to reports, some of the folks down at City Hall got a little antsy and maybe a rock or two was thrown at the JFK Federal Building down there. The cops had it all under control in a few minutes, mostly some drunk folks it sounds like, though there’s one report of an organized gang throwing rocks. (Where the hell did they get rocks in the barren bricked-over wasteland of City Hall Plaza, I want to know?) But someone, somewhere, we have no idea who, called in the FPS (Federal Protection Services). Who apparently had some Hired Thugs stationed around the country just waiting for this.

The Thugs, who work for a little ole company henceforth know as BackWater (as in thuggish bullies from some small back water town), apparently didn’t actually listen to the report of violence at City Hall. Instead they went to the main protest site and “deployed” along Charles St.

The TV people said there were only 60 of them, I didn’t count. Dressed, I can tell you, in all black riot gear with masks covering their faces and big smoked-glass front helmets. Darth Vader’s storm troopers had nothing on them. They fanned out in a line and started sweeping forward, shouting orders to disperse.

Unfortunately, they arrived at about the same time as some street group was doing some parody theater, and apparently the troops couldn’t tell college students with water pistols (full of perfume, apparently) and yahoos throwing some snowballs from real rioters and things got ugly real fast. They started hitting people and rounding them up and tying their hands with zip strips. They threw tear gas bombs, too. And they started advancing quickly, at least one clump heading for the Frog Pond. You know, with all the toddlers.

Gov. Patrick, the man of the hour, he’s got my vote for life I swear he does, saw what was happening and did something. He ordered the cops — Boston cops, Staties, and Park Rangers — in to protect the kids. The Back Water thugs apparently didn’t recognize the cops’ uniforms or some such BS, I don’t fucking know, and there was an actual skirmish. One ranger — god I love Park Rangers — took her horse through the line to try to slow them down so that we, with the kids, could get out.

I’m tearing up. I don’t know if I can write any more. God. Okay, long long long story short. The tear gas came ahead of them, the kids were in a screaming panic, we all ran away, cops and Thugs fighting, Patrick opened the gates of the State House, most of the parents and kids got away. Our own story is a little more complicated, I’ll tell it tomorrow, I’m so tired.

The long and the short of it is, dozens injured, three dead. Ten of the injured are children who had a bad reaction to the tear gas. April is, technically, one of them. So, frankly, am I. Nothing like the hundreds injured and dozens dead in D.C. but pretty awful for me.

And then, not two hours ago, Monkey Brains Bush comes on the TV and says that the elections will be further delayed due to the Civil unrest! I’m read to scream.