Edward emerged through the doorway carrying a large bowl of corn chips in one hand and a smaller bowl of salsa in the other. With his foot he hooked a small stool out of a corner of the porch and lowered the bowls onto it. “Whatever Wayman’s been telling you, don’t forget he’s not even a citizen.” Edward reclaimed his deck chair. “His road to ruin should be a lesson for you boys.”
“Ruin?” Jay asked.
“We’ll need more beer to wash these down,” Pump observed.
Edward reached for some chips. “Go get them then.”
I picked out some chips myself and ran them through the salsa.
“You mean ruin, as in how he became a protester?” Pump coughed, and smoke streamed out his nose.
“A radical,” Edward said.
“I didn’t start out radical,” I objected, chowing down on the chips.
I considered mentioning how maybe journalism was the starting point for me coming to hold the beliefs I did. First as a reporter for the UBC student newspaper, and later on the Sun, I had been shocked when I interviewed authorities concerning injustices or other societal failures. This response was reinforced when I listened to Sun reporters tell their insider’s experiences with politicians and bureaucrats. Whether the issue was substandard student housing — converted old army barracks still in use, with rotting floors and leaky plumbing — or repressive university policies, or provincial government or corporate scandals, the men and women in charge appeared incapable of mustering a convincing argument to defend their decisions, actions, or inaction. I had grown up expecting the world to be orderly, rational, with any remaining social problems on the verge of solution. The reality I discovered was very different.
“When I first got involved with SDS, they were into an activity called Gentle Thursday,” I told Pump. The idea, I explained, was to reveal that the university is repressive, despite its tolerant appearance. On Gentle Thursdays people were supposed to come to campus and be gentle — bring babies and balloons, fly kites, blow bubbles, play guitars and flutes, romp on the grass, get high and trip out.
“Sounds like a be-in,” Pump said.
“Where’s that beer?” Edward demanded.
“Exactly,” I said. “The deal was, the university would crack down on all that, saying, ‘You can’t be gentle here.’ That would prove its true nature.”
“Doesn’t seem very radical,” Jay said.
“That’s my point. Three years ago, that’s the sort of activity —”
“You hapless hippies might have thought you were being provocative,” Edward said. “The administration treated it like any wacky campus event. It might as well have been a Homecoming Week stunt — if Irvine had been around long enough to have a Homecoming Week. Frat boys cramming into a phone booth.”
“Definitely,” I said. “But SDS kept changing. Gentle Thursday didn’t last long as a protest. We thought more about everything, read more, rapped about it, pushed back harder at what was pushing us around. I don’t necessarily mean at Irvine. All across the country.” I launched into how I had originally regarded Vietnam, segregation, the way the university functions as just aberrations. But slowly I became convinced these were direct consequences of how North American society is structured.
“You take heed,” Edward mock-cautioned his brother. “Listen to Wayman’s subversive talk, and who knows where it will lead.”
“It’s about changes, that’s all,” I said, trying to sum up, starting to wish there were refills for the beer.
Edward chuckled, his mouth full. “Give the university some credit for tackling racism. Remember the Watts project?”
“What about Watts?” Jay asked.
“That’s pretty funny,” Pump interjected, tittering. “Watt about whats, you mean.”
“Watts blew out in August,” Edward said, ignoring Pump. “Irvine first opened its doors that September.” He turned to Pump. “Are you going to get those beers or not?”
Pump stood, grabbed a handful of chips, and moved indoors.
“Some bright light had the idea that Orange County kids needed to be sensitized to racism.”
“When was this?” Jay asked.
“Sixty-five. I came the following September. Same as Wayman. But everybody was still talking about it.”
Pump was back with four bottles. “These are the last,” he announced. All four of us munched with dedication.
“How did Watts figure in?” Jay prompted.
Edward related how in the interests of interracial harmony UCI sociology students were bussed to Watts once a week to learn about the black experience. “The organizers put them in a room and let some beautiful black brothers and sisters harangue them about what racist pigs white people are. Very morally uplifting.”
“Doesn’t sound too cool, man,” Pump said.
“This went on week after week,” Edward continued. “Finally, one time this soul brother is berating the Irvine contingent for being gutless, like every whitey. ‘We burned down motherfucking Watts,’ he says. ‘You chicken-shit honkies would never be able to do anything like that.’ One of the UCI students seated by a window calmly pulls out his lighter and sets the curtains on fire.”
Jay hooted. “Right fucking on.”
“Too much,” Pump said.
Edward smiled. “The place starts to go up in flames. Everybody freaked. That was the end of the program.”
“To be fair,” I said, “I learned something about racism from a guy from Watts. He spoke on campus that first September we were here. I can’t remember his name, but he had a big Afro and wore a fifty-calibre machine gun bullet on a chain around his neck.”
“That’s heavy,” Jay said.
The speaker, I recounted, had helped organize patrols in Watts that would dog the cops when they rousted people. The patrol would cruise the streets, and whenever they saw a cop hassling somebody, or making a bust, they’d pull over and act as witnesses.
“I’ve heard about that,” Pump said. “Black Panthers.”
“These guys weren’t Panthers, just community activists,” I said. “I was impressed by their jam, though. The cops weren’t too thrilled about having a bunch of blacks tailing them. The guy said he had about a thousand and one tickets for every form of vehicle and traffic violation. He said the LAPD once had him face down across the hood of his car. A cop rams his gun against the side of the guy’s head and says, ‘Nigger. You are one second from eternity.’”
“I wouldn’t like that, man” Pump said. “Were these the last of the taco chips?”
“Go up to the liquor store and get some more,” Edward ordered. “Pick up some Olys while you’re at it.”
“Who was your servant last year?”
“How much good do you think bird-dogging the cops did?” Jay asked.
I shrugged. “Who knows? Like Pump said, the Panthers began patrols in Oakland after that, or maybe at the same time.”
“I bought the last dozen beers,” Pump said.
“It didn’t stop Watts from burning again a year ago when King was shot,” Edward said, ignoring Pump.
“Not to mention a few other cities,” I added.
“I’ve never understood why they’d torch their own neighbourhoods,” Jay said.
This was