Let it be known that the protest did not go entirely as planned! But then of course you already know that. However, it was such an epic and wrenching day, I must write it all down for posterity (or maybe just as a form of processing and therapy?).
I was so nervous and excited that the night before the protest I loaded all the signs into my car so I’d be ready to go in the morning. At one point I had thought about having protest attendees make and bring their own signs, but Annie said no way. You could perhaps expect a few people to show up at an anti-Lulu rally, but with all the other more substantial problems in the world it would be too much to ask for them to show up with a homemade sign. “Save that for some pro-choice or women’s rights rally,” she said. Part of me thinks she was right, and part of me thinks she was so sick of me complaining about not painting or drawing she was just trying to get me to do something even vaguely like art. As I loaded the signs into the car, I was full of apprehension. What if no one came? What if the signs were dumb? What if this whole endeavor was self-indulgent and all-around stupid? And again, what if no one came?
Artemis was still scheduled to work at Lulu during the protest. She said it might actually be to my advantage, as she could text me any insider info she gleaned regarding how protesters were being perceived, as well as any possible countermeasures being planned by the manager. “Fine,” I’d said. I know it’s stupid and irrational, but it hurt my feelings she was going to be working for the enemy on my big day.
I arrived five minutes early and parked my car in the Waterloo Records parking lot. Texas and his bandmates stared down at me from the FAIL BETTER! poster with eyes that said they’d learned how to both celebrate the world AND feel its underlying melancholy. Assholes. While Annie had sworn to me she would arrive right at 11 a.m., my phone dinged with a text from her saying she was running really late but would be showing up with a surprise. I climbed out and walked around the corner to Lululemon. There was absolutely no one there. My heart fell to my stomach. I waited for five minutes and then ten and then thirty, too shy to pull a sign from the back of my car and start protesting the corporate chain all by myself. Everett, when you walked around the corner it was a roller coaster! First relief at seeing a friendly face, and then when I saw Nadia on your arm, a tinge of jealousy. She’s so beautiful, Everett! Her long hair tinted purple. I wish I could pull that off. I was nervous to meet her. But she was so sweet, throwing her arms around me in that giant—if surprising—hug. It was hard to imagine her getting regularly fingerbanged by her entire household of Goddess-only-knows-how-many OM house residents.
When we went to my car I was careful to pick out a really great sign for each of us. Mine read: I BRAKE FOR WOMEN OF ALL SHAPES AND SIZES and had a painted drawing of a curvy goddess I’d covered in gold glitter. Nadia’s read: VENUS SAYS DON’T BUY SWEATSHOP CLOTHING with a painting of Venus rising out of Town Lake on a half shell. The sign you carried was one of my favorites: CORPORATE BIGOTS OUT OF DOWNTOWN AUSTIN with a 3-D paper sculpture of the Capitol building I’d made bursting out of it.
I was happy with the signs. But it suddenly seemed ridiculous to think that marching around in front of a Lululemon store would have any effect at all. It wouldn’t change my hometown back to the way it used to be before it became traffick-y and overcrowded and full of corporate stores. For a moment I just wanted to toss the signs back into my car and drive home for some couch time with the furballs.
But when you told me you were here for me, that I could do this, I felt a little better. Everett, you always know what to say to me. I nodded, so grateful a tear spilled out and ran down my cheek. You put your hand out and Nadia puts hers on top, nodding for me to add my hand to the pile. Just as I did so, Nelson and Jason jogged up.
“We want in!” Jason yelled, and they scooted in to join us.
“We’re gonna say, ‘One, two, three, Buy Local,” Nadia said. “One, two, three.”
“BUY LOCAL!” we all yelled.
“Does Whole Foods count?” Nelson chuckled as we broke apart. I handed Nelson and Jason signs. Jason’s read: HONK IF YOUR THIGHS TOUCH, which made him laugh.
As a motley group of five, we walked toward Lululemon.
“I thought you and Nelson were scheduled to work today,” I said.
“We are,” Jason said. “But we told Dirty Steve we were walking out to support you and your mad cause.”
“I bet he loved that,” I said.
“He said anyone who follows the cult of Poxy Roxy deserves to be covered in chickenpox boils.”
“Ouch!”
We were now standing in front of Lululemon. I could see a couple of employees inside craning to see what we were doing, but I couldn’t spot Artemis among them. I tentatively raised my sign up high and everyone else followed suit. We marched in a small circle. I started the chant timidly, but my voice grew stronger when you and the others joined in. “Hey, hey, what do you say. Down with Lulu, all the way.” After about five minutes of that I realized again how idiotic this whole endeavor was, how stupid, and how much time and energy I had wasted painting these ridiculous signs, organizing this nonsense, and daydreaming to myself about how I would wrest this previously fantastic spot from the clutches of a lame corporate store selling tights sewn by children in the developing world to tech trophy wives recently moved to Austin from California. But I forced myself to soldier on. Next we chanted, “Sixth and Lamar is for Local Stars,” then “Lululemon is a full-blown lemon,” which was a crowd pleaser. A couple heading into Amy’s Ice Creams stared at us. A car driving by honked at my sign and we all waved.
But other than that: nothing.
My big protest was in reality just me marching in a circle with four friends.
This march would affect no change.
It was a Failure with a capital F.
Artemis cruised by the window of the store. I refrained from waving, not wanting to give her away as an informant. I put down my sign to text her. TOTAL FLOP, I wrote. I’M GOING HOME.
HANG IN THERE, she texted back. MY EIGHT BALL TELLS ME THINGS WILL PICK UP SOON.
Sure enough, ten minutes later, Kate, Rosa, Yolanda, and Barclay showed up. Yolanda is trying out some eyelash extensions to see if she likes them enough to wear them at her wedding, and though in theory I object to eyelash extensions—what could be more horrifying and patriarchal than having women hot-glue appendages practically on their delicate eyeballs?—they looked amazing. “These signs are incredible!” Yo said. I went with the girls to my car to grab more.
“These are glorious!” Barclay gushed. “You’ve always been so talented.” Barclay, Kate, Rosa, and Yolanda are the best. I’m so glad we are back on the road to seeing one another regularly. (Thank you, Venus!)
Barclay’s sign read: KEEP AUSTIN LOCAL, YOCALS! Kate’s sign read: HER LIPS ARE LIKE THE GALAXY’S EDGE with hot-pink lips that bled off into the Milky Way. “It’s so bold, surrealist, and political,” Kate said. Rosa’s sign read: MY BIG SEXY THIGHS TOUCH. CAN YOUR CRAP TIGHTS HANDLE THAT?
Yolanda’s sign had Betty White’s face like a Warhol painting with the quote: “WHY DO SOME PEOPLE SAY ‘GROW SOME BALLS?’ BALLS ARE WEAK AND SENSITIVE. IF YOU WANT TO BE TOUGH, GROW A VAGINA. THOSE THINGS CAN TAKE A POUNDING.” The sign was a little off topic and I’d had to write the words really small to fit them all on the piece of cardboard, but I thought it was still pretty impactful.
When my college crew of four joined our existing five, the protest started to feel legitimate. More cars honked in encouragement and everyone passing by stared. Several people stopped to ask what we were protesting and I handed out a flier I’d made outlining the reasons Lululemon—as a corporate store with a pseudofeminist agenda—did not belong at an intersection that symbolizes the real Austin of music, books, local businesses, quirkiness, etc. People walked away reading the fliers.
Progress was being made.
Next a few of your friends from Kerbey Lane Cafe showed up and I gave them signs, too. Then Lulah, the barte
nder from Deep Eddy, arrived with her husband and daughter in tow. Our chants were growing louder. It was getting to be a respectable protest. All of a sudden, I felt a tap on my shoulder.
I whirled around. Annie stood there with Whole Foods CEO Lite Topher Doyle at her side! “Surprise!” she said. “I brought a special guest.”
I was so excited I hugged her and Topher Doyle, too. He seemed kerfuffled (but not entirely displeased) at the invasion of his personal space.
“This is quite a protest,” he said. “Your signs are something else.” I couldn’t even manage to say thank you, I was so floored. All I could do was hand him a flier. He read it carefully, then said, “I’ve never really thought as much as I should have about how this intersection is a core location for local values and local businesses. But it makes total sense. I have to say I agree with the ethos of your protest.”
“Thank you,” I managed to say. “Would you like to carry a sign?”
“I’m not sure I’m ready to be the poster child for a battle against Lululemon. My PR director would have a stroke! But count me in as a supporter. I have to get back to my office now, where I’ll be working to create an international anti-GMO coalition led, not by our nation, but by our company,” he said with a wink.
As he and Annie turned to walk away, she looked over her shoulder and gave me a giant thumbs-up. “I’ll be back,” she mouthed.
“THANK YOU!” I mouthed back.
We all marched and marched and then a giant gaggle of about fifteen or twenty women came around the corner from the Waterloo Records parking lot. A couple of them were carrying huge speakers and another woman lugged two car batteries. I went over to one. “What are y’all doing?” I asked. Too late, I recognized her as the dark-haired burlesque goddess who’d been making out with Patrick. “Shit, it’s you,” I said.
“Roxy?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m sorry—I didn’t know when I got together with Patrick that you’d been hooking up. I didn’t even know you existed. I shouldn’t have been so rude. I’m Sal, by the way.”
“So what are you doing here?”
“Artemis has a surprise for you,” she said. “She told me to tell you to roll with it.”
What choice did I have? I had no idea what they were up to. But the women expertly set to work hooking the big speakers up to the car batteries. By that time we had way more protesters than signs, and we filled the sidewalk all the way down the block. I’d spotted old pals from my ThunderCloud Subs days—including Logan Ray Jones, currently of Emo’s bouncer fame—and a few of my Barton Springs lifeguard buddies, too. Chants of, “Hey hey, ho ho, Lululemon has got to go!” reverberated in the air. Traffic on Sixth Street was almost at a standstill as rubberneckers slowed to check out what we were up to.
The door to Lululemon burst open and Artemis stormed out decked from head to toe in Lululemon and wearing a full face of dramatic makeup. “You guys need to shut the fuck up and listen!” she yelled.
We all fell silent and turned to gape at this redheaded Erinyes who had burst into our midst. Had she gone insane? The burlesque girls moved quickly to stand behind Artemis in a triangle formation with their redheaded queen at its foremost tip. The speakers began blaring the opening of a pop hit it only took me a moment to place.
As the lyrics sounded, the women began to dance in unison.
Girls, we run this motha, yeah
The burlesque girls had clearly been practicing, because they were tearing some shit up. I’m not saying Beyoncé would have been proud, but she would have been something. The crowd cheered as the dancers stomped and shook and slid and shimmied; they high-kicked and did a military march. Then together, they yanked off their pants and skirts in one motion so that they were all dancing in shirts and gold underwear. Artemis must have rigged her Lulu outfit with stripper snaps for a quick removal. I looked around to see two women on the edges of the crowd filming with their iPhones. Horns blared. Protesters jumped and cheered. My heart swelled with emotion. I’d thought Artemis had forsaken my protest for her lame-o job, when in actuality she’d clearly spent weeks practicing her moves with the burlesque girls, working them over with her enthusiasm, manic energy, and choreographic talents until each and every one of them could finally hold their own. As the song ended with “Who run the world? Girls!” the dancers all ripped off their tops, revealing bare breasts ornamented with gold pasties. Across all of their stomachs the words LOCAL NOT LULU! had been written in black paint.
A cacophony of horns blared and the protesters went absolutely fucking nuts. I was crying and jumping up and down, yelling with joy, completely carried away. A burlesque girl pulled two cans of spray paint out of a backpack. Artemis grabbed them, tossing one to me. Instinctively I shook my can, and we both ripped the caps off.
“Come on,” Artemis said as she stepped toward the glass front windows of the store. She gave me her hugest grin. With the crowd cheering us on, I didn’t hesitate. I raised my can of spray paint and began to write: LULU OUT!
I could see Artemis spraying, KEEP AUSTIN WEIRD!
The act of spray-painting the windows of Lululemon in broad daylight with a crowd cheering me on was more liberating than anything that’s ever happened to me in my life. It felt like a wonderful dream, as if Wonder Woman and a troop of fairies would fly out in a moment and crown me and Artemis Co-Queens of the Motherfucking World.
The police car must have pulled up without a siren. I didn’t even realize at first who had grabbed me from behind. I just knew someone had both my arms pinned to my sides—I heard Artemis’s voice screaming “ROOOXXXXYYYY!”—and in my panic I fought like holy hell, kicking and thrashing and screaming. By the time one of the cops came around into my field of vision I’d already managed to kick one, and I think I might have butted another in the nose with the back of my head. The protesters all around were shouting on my behalf. “Artemis!” I yelled. But when I looked around I didn’t see her in the crowd. As the cops wrestled my hands behind my back and put handcuffs on me, I could hear someone screaming, inexplicably, “We are the ninety-nine percent!”
I scanned the line of protesters. I saw you and Nadia and Annie—who must have returned without Topher Doyle around the time the dance started. I saw my friends from college, and Jason and Nelson, and the burlesque girls. I saw my old pals from Barton Springs and ThunderCloud Subs. All of them yelling and shaking their signs and looking concerned on my behalf. So much support. So many people I love in this growing, changing town.
But where the hell was Artemis?
I kept scanning the crowd until the cops turned me around and walked me toward a police car. One of them pushed my head down so that I’d be forced to step into the back of the cruiser. The last thing I heard before the door slammed behind me was Annie yelling, “We’ll get you out, Roxy!”
At the station the cops took my mug shot and fingerprinted me, then said I could make one phone call before they put me in the cell. Just when I decided I would call my parents, I remembered they were in Peru at their phone-free, internet-free eco-lodge. I started to panic. The police had taken my cell phone and I didn’t have anyone else’s phone number memorized. But Annie had yelled that she’d come for me, so I decided I’d just sit tight and hope she followed through. I mean, everyone I know had seen me be arrested. Surely at least one of them would try to help.
The officer walked me down to a holding cell. At the push of a button the doors opened. I stepped inside as all the women looked up at me. The cell doors clanked shut behind me. The holding cell was about what one might expect: concrete floors, bars, and three metal picnic table–style benches bolted to the floor—which was ironic as this place had nothing else even remotely picnic-y about it.
The women at the benches looked like life had knocked the stuffing out of them. Several sat with their heads down on the table. One lady with dirty hair lay passed out on a bench. Everyone was surprisingly subdued, though one older woman let out an occasional moan and said, “My
daughter-in-law is going to kill me!” Another woman wept quietly in the corner, her head in her hands. My heart was a turmoil of feelings as I paced the room. It had been so amazing to have so many people show up for my cause. But what a crazy and disastrous ending to it all! And how the fuck was I going to get out of jail? I would surely have to post bond, which would be impossible as I had exactly $52 in my bank account and some maxed-out credit cards.
I kept expecting the doors to open and the police to force Artemis into the cell, but long moments passed and she didn’t appear. How had she escaped when I’d been snapped up before I even saw the police arrive?
Finally, I sat down next to a middle-aged woman with dark braided hair. I figured she would ask me what I was in for, but instead she said, “You got a panty liner?” Having just been stripped of all my belongings, I had to admit I did not. I hung my head in shame at being unable to help my fellow jailbird in her moment of feminine need.
And then I remembered—Roscoe needed his insulin shot! There was no one to give it to him.
I paced the cell for hours, sick with worry, imagining Roscoe lying in a diabetic doggy coma on the kitchen floor. This worry pushed out other worries of the consequences of this arrest spooling out ahead of me. When boots finally sounded in the hallway, I was relieved to hear the officer call my name.
When I stepped outside it was pitch-dark out—I’d been in jail for hours. You, Annie, and Nadia stood on the front steps of the Travis County Jail. You rushed forward to hug me. “Thank you so much for getting me out of there!” I said. “I love you so much!”
“We weren’t going to leave you to rot in the county jail,” Annie said.
“Roscoe! His insulin shot!” I said, almost hyperventilating with worry. That’s when you told me you’d gone to my house and given it to him, which made me shaky with relief. (You’ve never given me back the key to my place, of course, which could have been annoying, but in this case was a lifesaver.) I’m so grateful for you. I should have said it right then. “How much was bail?” I asked.
The Roxy Letters Page 19