by C. P. Boyko
Chief of Campus Security Radner Pedersen was eating lunch in his patrol car, parked behind the stadium, when Gary Holdona called him on the radio. He swallowed before answering, for the same reason that he ate his meals clandestinely: he believed that the dignity of his office, upon which discipline depended, would be undermined by the image of him relaxing.
He had been brooding about his son, and at first the news of the takeover seemed only a continuation and amplification of his thoughts. “I could imagine all too clearly,” he says, “an army of Delrons loping into Founders’ Hall, slumping down on the desks and the floor, and slowly filling the air with their fug, like toxic plants turning oxygen and light into sweat and smoke.” They would bring their girlfriends along too—lissome, pliant girlfriends—and transform the building into one big fetid bedroom.
Indeed, Chief Pedersen could not think about his son without his thoughts turning to Sandria, the boy’s rangy, large-eyed girlfriend. She was seventeen, the same age as Ronnie, and though she dressed like a boy and laughed like a child, there was no question that she was sexually mature, and that together they were sexually active. The idea angered Chief Pedersen for reasons so numerous they remained tangled and obscure. He objected to their youth, which was, after all, so much more puerile than his own (sexually active) youth had been. He objected to their frivolity, their lassitude, their immoderation, and their depravity. He blamed his son for all this; towards Sandria he felt only a sad, disappointed protectiveness.
The scene at Founders’ Hall infuriated him for as many, and many of the same, reasons. A large crowd of the curious and the more cautiously supportive had gathered outside, and the mood among them was festive. “They were running this ostensibly serious political protest like a carnival,” says Chief Pedersen. “They were having too damn much fun.”
Chief Pedersen radioed Holdona back. “What happened to ‘Julius’?” —“I don’t know, Chief. He’s not answering his radio. He must have gone in.” —“All right. Here’s what we’re going to do. Get Elio and Alban to fill the truck with barriers and drop them off behind the Hall, that is, on the south side, away from the crowd. We’re going to cordon off the building. Send Nevis and Lo over for traffic control: let nobody else in. Pull Charles and Réal from the library, too. Everyone in yellow vests and full kit. Got that?” Full kit meant truncheons, handcuffs, and pepper spray, and was usually reserved for night patrol. —“Got it.” —“Then you get on the horn and call everybody on day crew and tell them we have a Code Eleven.” —“Code Eleven, Chief?” Code Eleven was a bomb threat. —“Just to get their attention and get them down here. While you’re doing that, have Lois wake the night shift and put them on standby.” —“All of them?” —“Everybody.” —“This thing’s pretty heavy, huh, Chief?” —“Not yet it’s not. We’ll try to keep it that way.”
Holdona told Pedersen that President Radil had called. —“Tell her I’ve got my hands full at the moment.” —“She’s still inside the building.” —“Well, maybe I’ll see her in a minute.” —“You’re not going in there alone, Chief?” —“No,” said Pedersen. “‘Julius’ is inside, too.”
“Julius” was Security Officer Darren Kolst, whom Chief Pedersen had sent to keep an eye on the Reinstate Professor Reid rally. Because the sight of security officers was known to sometimes inflame protesters, Kolst had gone incognito. He was not much older than the average student on campus, and could have passed unremarked in any of his civilian clothes; but this was his first undercover assignment, and he had taken great pains with his disguise. He had torn his pants, chafed his shoes, mussed his hair, and borrowed his girlfriend’s eyeglasses, which rendered him purblind. But he had labored most over his alias, finally adopting “Julius Arbuston” after an hour of making studious, ingenuous, and irate faces in the mirror. He had tested the name on his girlfriend and colleagues, and they had all deemed it plausibly namelike. He had been silently rehearsing it all that morning, and indeed through much of the rally, until it was so ready on his lips that twice, joining in a chant or a cry, he had nearly shouted his pseudonym instead.
Kolst was somewhat surprised to find himself shouting anything, having intended only to observe and smile sympathetically or, if necessary, discouragingly. But, afraid of being exposed, he reflexively matched his behavior to that of those around him. He reasoned that he was building credibility, which he could draw on should he need to intervene. Soon he began to take pleasure in this performance, a pleasure that was partly the thrill of deceiving, partly the satisfaction of exercising a newfound skill, and partly the intoxication of playacting—a feeling of liberated invincibility that was only enhanced by exaggeration.
He felt a tremor of disquiet when the rally entered Founders’ Hall; and he came fully out of character for a moment when Nhizhdin and the other staff were ejected from the building. “I felt in that moment,” he says, “not professional disapproval, but the isolated vulnerability of the minority, and a fear that I hadn’t experienced since a child, attending a new school.” He quickly recovered the armor of his alter ego; but, twenty minutes later, it was with some relief—which he was careful to mask with derision—that he saw Chief Pedersen making his way through the crowd and into the atrium.
Kolst was not the only one to welcome the appearance of the Chief of Security, in his yellow vest and paramilitary cap, and carrying at low port a bullhorn whose trigger he squeezed whenever he encountered an unyielding back, and which gave off a frightening crackle. Protesters got out of his way with sarcastic deference, but they got out of his way; and soon the room spontaneously quietened, without his needing recourse to the bullhorn.
“I can’t explain it,” says Rennie Jarabal, “but the sight of the chief made me feel optimistic—like things were finally about to get underway.” —Says Ethan Hendry, “I let out a sigh when I saw him, and felt myself relax—the relief of the criminal when he’s finally arrested, maybe.” —Elea Bukarica says, “It was time for a showdown.”
Allison Ziegenkorn was the first to speak. “Are you here to kick everyone out, Chief Pedersen? Will you use force if necessary?”
“I am here,” said Pedersen, in his deep, clear voice, “to ask everyone who is not here on official business to please vacate the premises immediately. If you leave now, no trespassing charges will be laid.”
“This is official business!” —“We don’t recognize your authority!” —“You’re the one trespassing, Chief!”
The jeers that met his ultimatum were, for the most part, amused and playful; but levity was more outrageous to Pedersen than anger or defiance, because it showed no respect for his person, his position, or the institution he represented.
“You have ten minutes to disperse. Anyone still here without good reason at 1:55 will face the consequences of their actions.”
“How about pollution? and theft? and injustice? Are those good enough reasons for you?”
Pedersen had turned on his heel to leave, the better to underscore his threat, but he could not resist a reply. “If you have legitimate complaints, you should lodge them through the proper channels. You’re not gaining any sympathy for your cause by behaving like a bunch of ruffians.”
Now the protesters grew angry. “When we go through proper channels, fuck-all happens!” —“Who’s the ruffian, threatening to arrest us?” —“Unlike you, we’re unarmed. This is a peaceful protest.”
Chief Pedersen pointed out that they were holding the building and several people hostage. —“They’re free to leave anytime!” —Pedersen reminded them of the staff whom they had ejected and who were not free to return to their work, an obstruction which, as surely as vandalism or theft, was costing the university time and money. —This argument elicited so many objections, factual, economic, and ad hominem, that Pedersen had to resort to the bullhorn to be heard over the uproar.
“What you’re doing here makes absolutely no sense. You might as well protest th
e price of potatoes by kidnapping the grocer’s wife. If you don’t like the system, you’ve got to work within the system to change it. Otherwise you’re just renegade delinquents. You don’t gain prestige by shoving people around, and you don’t get into a position of power or influence by hijacking buildings! It boggles my mind that grown adults need to be told such things!”
Elea Bukarica snatched the bullhorn from his grasp, to resounding cheers. Darren Kolst tensed, preparing himself, he believed, to leap to the chief’s aid. But Pedersen, his heart clenched in wrath, exited the building without another word. “I felt like I’d been mugged,” he says, “by a beggar I’d just given food. I should have known better than to try to reason with a pack of animals.”
The bullhorn was passed form hand to hand till it reached Sanders Brand, who used it to repudiate the chief’s speech. Langdon Bellhouse, standing nearby, found Brand’s amplified voice much more abrasive than Pedersen’s, and wrested the bullhorn away from him. He handed it to Nolan Forntner, who had again taken charge, and was calling for volunteers to guard the doors and stand watch at the windows.
President Radil, who had emerged from her office at the sound of the bullhorn, pursued Pedersen outside. Having spent the last half hour mostly failing to reach anyone on the phone, she rebuked him first for not returning her calls.
“I’ve been busy,” he said, and illustrated this statement by hailing Holdona on the radio and requesting an update.
Radil now told Pedersen what she had been trying to tell the Special Committee, the Campus Development Office, and the board of trustees: that the protesters were confused and poorly organized, and that, given a little time, she was sure she could persuade them to disperse before anyone got hurt. “But you make the job a lot harder for me when you go in there and stir up hornets’ nests.”
“And you make my job a lot harder for me,” said Pedersen, “when you treat unlawful trespass like a bargaining chip. As far as I’m concerned, anyone who hasn’t come out of that building in six minutes is not a protester but a criminal—and will be treated accordingly.”
“And as far as I’m concerned,” said Radil, “it’s you who’ll be trespassing if you come in and start pushing those kids around.”
After another minute of fruitless argument, President Radil strode back up the stairs, but was stopped at the entrance by a couple of zealous sentries. “I’m the president of this university,” she said. “I’m here negotiating. I’ve been here the whole time. I just stepped out for a moment.”
—The sentries conferred by gaze, and shrugged. “Sorry, lady. Can’t let anyone in who isn’t a student.” —Eventually Radil tried another door, where she had more luck.
About a dozen people, some with their hands raised over their heads, emerged from the Hall by Chief Pedersen’s deadline; but over the same period of time, and by various doors, another forty or fifty people had entered—including Professor Givcha Lura’s entire local history seminar. “This was history in the making,” says Lura. “I decided to hold an old-fashioned teach-in.” Most of her students were delighted by the break from routine, but some, like Jallica Ingledew, were consternated by the unorthodox field trip. An ambitious academic and assiduous conformist, Ingledew navigated the vagaries of university bureaucracy with anxious complaisance, and could be thrown into a state of panicked self-reproach by a last-minute room change or an unintelligible exam question. She too, like Chief Pedersen, was repulsed by her first glimpse of the protesters, who struck her as a rambunctious mob obviously breaking any number of rules; but at the same time, she could not believe that Professor Lura was wrong to invite her to witness and in effect join the takeover. Trembling with a mixture of apprehensions, she quickly began to devise justifications for her presence there, arriving eventually at a stance of judicious sympathy. In retrospect she says only, “I didn’t necessarily agree with their methods, but I did share many of their concerns.”
Suz Palombo, too, was appalled by her first sight of the takeover. Following Chief Pedersen’s warning, most of the protesters had spontaneously broken into small groups to prepare for the raid, which they expected imminently. Some groups built barricades or armed themselves with unlikely bludgeons; some planned passive resistance, and discussed the relative merits of going limp and going stiff; some, expecting tear gas and nightsticks, pulled their shirts over their faces and crouched under desks; others linked arms and braced themselves for martyrdom. But when Pedersen’s ten minutes and another ten minutes had elapsed, the would-be defenders became restless. To vent their nervous energy, they deconstructed or improved fortifications, threw objects and insults out windows, and roved throughout the building, looking for acts or symbols of oppression to thwart or destroy. Slowly, and by small increments, the cost of damages done to university property rose from the price of a restaurant dinner for four to the price of a used car.
It was this scene of frazzled lawlessness that Palombo found when she entered the Hall. She went hunting for Arjmand, but found Allison Ziegenkorn first, who gave her a colorful if fragmentary summary of the past hour’s events, one which seemed to absolve Arjmand of any real responsibility for the takeover. Palombo was somewhat mollified, but could not share Ziegenkorn’s enthusiasm. “Xin has got some gorgeous photos. It’s a real coup, Suz!”
She found Arjmand in the atrium, where President Radil was urging the protesters to elect their representatives. Several people nominated Forntner, who nominated Tonja Salanitro, Daenil Polotz, Sylvie Reinhardt, and Thalia Undine. Clark Dalerow nominated Dunkan Tomlinson, who nominated Clark Dalerow. Elea Bukarica, Sanders Brand, and Rennie Jarabal nominated themselves. Palombo nominated Arjmand and Herman Triem, and accepted their nomination for her. Radil nominated Dean of Admissions Gloria Chisholm and Professor Vaglaf Falck to represent the administration and faculty. Diana Pirales, by commentating on the election for everyone’s edification, inadvertently nominated herself.
Says Radil, “It was a larger group than I would have liked, but I hoped that the large net would catch all the largest fish, and that no one would feel neglected.”
“It was not an ideal election,” says Jarabal, “but we didn’t know how much time we’d have—so we acted quickly. And since no one objected, and there were no more nominations, we felt that everyone who wanted to be part of the decision-making had been included. Of course that wasn’t true.”
Clapping her hands ceremoniously, Radil invited the sixteen members of the newly formed Occupation Committee to convene in the boardroom. Nolan Forntner wanted to make a parting speech, but most of his audience had melted away, and he could think of nothing to say. On his way out of the atrium, he took Langdon Bellhouse aside and handed him back the bullhorn. “Protect the building,” he said. “It’s all we’ve got.”
As soon as the negotiators had left the room, voices of cynicism and dissent were heard. “Shit, whatever happened to ‘No more decisions behind closed doors’?” —“Yeah, who the hell voted for those assholes?”—“You know they’re just going to sell us out, don’t you?” said Wil Partlingover.