Nights in Tents

by Laura Love

  Physically, she was beautiful, I could see that. She looked like she could be in a Super Bowl commercial, selling … anything. She was the perfect combination of slutty and wholesome—sassy and submissive—hair like spun gold, teeth like pearls, drunk like a skunk—a heedless tumbleweed, party hearty womanchild, of perhaps twenty or twenty-two years of age, sucking fellatially on a gigantic brown beer bottle, and writhing around on the ground like a cat in heat. She seemed to have no idea whatsoever how she came to be there, or even why we were all there. Apparently unable to contain all her deep thoughts in one pouty, sexy, little mouth, she kept blurting out things like, “I’m horny,” and, “Will somebody just fucking kiss me,” as she reached out and drew both black and white men down to the ground to grind on and French kiss. After a time, another attractive young woman strolled by, unaware, only to be grabbed and pulled earthward by the insatiable coquette. Her victim seemed genuinely shocked, yet unable to resist the impossible urge to kiss and grind back. One cop, observing, looked like he was going to pass out. Not one among us could look away. She, with her brown forty-ounce bottle of beer resting between her sometimes crossed, sometimes splayed wide open like Olga Korbut, legs. She with the hoarse, childlike voice, rending the night air with illuminating pronouncements like, “I’m not political, I don’t even give a shit about any of this crap, the 69% or whatever—I just wanna fuck somebody hot tonight. Is that too much to ask?”

  I watched some of the cops begin to tremble, hardly able to contain the physiological responses they were having to her. I saw riot shields move to cover sensitive areas. I saw men looking down at those areas, some breaking out in a cold sweat. Hell, I was having some sort of physiological response to her, though I was way past menopause. Not only that, I loathed her. I wanted her gone, and the fact that the entire revolution was turning into a farce because of her stupid, compromised, randy ass was pissing me all the way off. Here we all were, about to meet our maker at the hands of a bunch of frothing-at-the-mouth cyborgs who were armed to the eyelashes, and all she could think of to say was, “I just wanna fuck somebody hot tonight.” Please God, make the sniper shoot her first, I thought wickedly. I hadn’t spent every night of the last week in a tent with maniacal crack heads and toothless tweakers to go out like this. I didn’t sacrifice all my creature comforts while placating murderers, and rapping with rapists for this. It might have been worth losing a few nights’ sleep trying to talk down meth addicts, hell bent on “beatin’ the shit outta their ol’ ladies,” if we’d made a little progress on foreclosures and income inequality, but not so this chick could party like it was 1999. I wanted to be charitable toward her, after all, she too was part of the 99% and probably could have benefitted greatly from services that didn’t exist anymore. I mean, it had been a life-altering journey and I had been brought to my knees watching damaged, ravaged people, even at their psychotic, paranoid, drugged out worst, attempting to have meaningful dialogues about social ills and the problems plaguing the planet. Overhearing their hazy, fucked up, jagged, and sometimes indecipherable conversations about democracy and out-of-control corporatization had made me love them all the more—but I hadn’t gone on that epic journey, only to have Drunky Drunkerson get us all shot up into confetti .

  Drunky Drunkatelli had the potential to whip these cops into an overstimulated, trigger-happy frenzy if she didn’t watch out. And to be sure, she wasn’t watching out. I may have had a little more patience for the girl if she hadn’t been turning the entire body of our labor and devotion into some sort of bizarre, third-rate spectacle. But, because I had spent that intensive week with all those whacked out, scary people, I was not predisposed to tolerate nonsense. Being jarred awake after marching with tens of thousands of like-minded, passionate, unstoppable dreamers, who dared to demand the impossible, made me disinclined to suffer fools. I did not think I could bear her running monologue of physical needs (“I need a cigarette, I need to get my nails done, I need a bigger bra, I need another beer, I need to get FUCKed”) one second longer. That’s when she launched into the chant that made springs shoot out of my head. She spun around to face the police, who now stood rigidly, ten feet before us, as she pointed at them with her premoistened fingers, which she had swirled suggestively in her sensual little mouth. “You’re sexy—You’re cute, Take off your riot suit,” she began, giggling nymphishly, obviously tickled pink with her clever little rhyme. She continued for some time. I wanted to stab her.

  I, along with several other terrified, anxious demonstrators, had begun our day wanting to change the world for the better, and somehow instead found ourselves sitting here in a tense stalemate with a mob of agitated police officers, who didn’t seem to know right then whether to shit or go blind. Somewhere in the crowd, a ragged violinist began to play and softly sing, “I’d rather die on my feet than live on my knees.” I felt as though I’d fallen into a Dostoyevsky novel as he continued his mournful tune. Drunkenfrau resumed her writhing, looking as if she’d rather make a living on her back than anywhere else. How had our social justice movement become a personal opportunity for her to score with three hundred guys all at once? Some among us had even begun telling her to stop. A young man somewhere behind me yelled, “Shut the fuck up drunk bitch!” Another, growing bored with the impasse, stupidly skipped a votive candle over the brick street, where it rolled, broke, and came to rest just short of the line of police, who had nearly panicked and jerked their guns toward the harmless object. I too had almost mistaken it for a molotov cocktail. The close call prompted all of us to launch into a made up on the spot, chant, “Don’t Throw Shit, Don’t Throw Shit.” Then, sensing their ongoing ire, we amended the chant to, “Don’t Throw Shit—AT THE COPS.” We repeated the refrain until the tension eased and once more we resumed our uneasy standoff.

  Nearly two interminable hours dragged by in semi silence. Some stayed because we wanted to assert our right to peacefully assemble, while others stayed because they didn’t know if we had permission to leave. Some people lying down had even gone to sleep. Others, like me, kept a wary eye on the weaponry before us, as the holders began to shift from foot to foot in restless irritation. They too looked tired, and anxious to get on with it. Drunk girl even dozed for a few moments, but jerked wide awake to resume her favorite chant anew. “You’re sexy, You’re cute—Take off your riot suit.” The surreal atmosphere crossed the line into absurdity when all the young men in our group began to take up the chant. Growing stiff and weary, I got to my feet and stood about a yard in front of the black officer with a bullhorn, who seemed to be the main guy in charge. I asked him if there was any possibility, since it was so late and we were all tired and frazzled, that he could just order his guys to turn around and head back to the precinct while we all returned to our respective corners. Without question, none of us harbored any secret plans to break windows or light fires—we simply didn’t want to be ordered to give up our constitutional right. And the cops did not want us to feel like we’d gotten away with something. Just then, a woman’s voice began to flood the airspace around us.

  “Attention! You must leave the area immediately. Please be advised that this area has been declared closed and you are unlawfully assembled. Failure to disperse may result in arrest or injury.” The policewoman recited this same sentence, with little or no inflection, so many times, that it almost became soothing to me. Eventually she tagged the phrase, “Return to the Plaza and you will not be arrested,” to her mantra. It was well after my normal bedtime, and I wanted to go back to my tent. I asked the commanding officer again if we might call it even, and sort of mutually disperse. I told him that I understood how annoying it must be to have all these youngsters out here refusing to go home, but that it was not violent or unstable really, and none of them were breaking anything or acting a fool. He shot back with, “They’re all actin’ a fool,” after which he snatched up his walkie-talkie and spoke gruffly into the receiver, “Okay, uh ….You gotta tell me somethin’ about what you want me to do
out here now.”

  The disembodied voice on the other end said, “Well, what’s going on out there? Is anybody rioting or breaking anything … or … are there any more fires?”

  “Well, no. Nothing much is happening here right now and nothing’s been happening for a long time,” he answered, abruptly.

  Whoever was talking to him on the other end asked, “Well, what do you wanna do with them? Can you flank ‘em and push ‘em back into the camp, or what … how far are you away from the tents out there?” That’s when I realized the person who had the power to order us all blasted into microchips wasn’t anywhere near the Plaza, and probably hadn’t been all night. For all I knew, the voice was coming from an office downtown somewhere. It was unfathomable to me that someone wielding so much power and influence over our immediate well-being could give life-threatening commands without even being on scene to assess the threat level for himself.

  “Hell … I don’t know man, just tell me whatchyu want me to do. We been out here all night and ain’t nothin’ goin’ on. Whatchyu want me to do, man?” returned the cop in front of me, gesturing impatiently into the handset as if it were a live human being.

  “Well, get on it—arrest somebody and get it over with if that’s what yer gonna do,” was the final edict. I wasn’t sure what that meant, but it all became clear when I felt someone’s hands grab the straps of my backpack, pull me into the row of cops, shove me onto the ground, and put a knee in my back. I hit the pavement hard, despite having put my hands out to break my fall. Someone pinned my face to the ground, and I felt my right hand being grabbed and yanked behind my back, and then, the left one. A set of rigid plastic zip-tie cuffs were then placed around my wrists and pulled savagely to their tightest possible setting. “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” I screamed, “please, it hurts. It’s too tight. It’s cutting into me. Please, I know you’re just doing your job, but please, I’m not going to give you any trouble, sir, can you just loosen it a little … please,” I beseeched. He didn’t acknowledge my request in any way. After awhile, I stopped asking and tried to endure the pain, as the police officer reached into my pockets and searched for weapons and sharps. Tears ran down my face and onto the street. I was completely isolated from my group. Most everyone fled either back to the Plaza encampment or home, and that meant no one on my team was around to see what happened to me or film them, as I was violently arrested behind the curtain of cops. I was afraid—very afraid. A powerful hand grabbed my wrists from behind and jerked me up, by my handcuffs, to a standing position. I yelped in pain just before the officer scowled, “You got a little gas tonight?” At first I was confused, saying, “Excuse me?” But then, understood exactly what he meant. “I said, you got a little gas tonight?” He repeated disdainfully. “You just farted in my face.” I felt my own face flush, as I remembered the air that escaped from my rear end as he wrenched me, painfully, to my feet. “Um, yeah, I guess so. Sorry … I wasn’t expecting that,” I said, instantly furious with myself for letting him embarrass me. I stood there in abject fear, until another police officer, whose name was “Alvarez,” came over and asked my tormentor whether he should “cut my backpack off, or just loosen the straps.”

  “Whatever—it’s your call,” was the flat response from the first cop. I remained silent, knowing instinctively that my opinion mattered little here. I expected Alvarez to make a show of selecting the biggest knife in his arsenal and hacking away at my newer backpack, but instead, he opted to loosen the straps until they were undone, and gently lift it from my shoulders. The unexpected kindness made more tears flow down my face as I ventured to quietly ask him if he could loosen the cuffs just a little bit. There was genuine concern in his eyes when he asked a colleague if there was a way to decrease the pressure. The answer didn’t surprise me, but Alvarez’s bothering to check did. He walked me slowly to the van and then helped me up into it, as I struggled with the high paddywagon entry. Three men were already in the divided cages of the van, as was a woman who looked distressed. “You shouldn’t have to wait too long. You’ll just get processed downtown and released … probably won’t be more than two, three hours, tops,” Alvarez said, helpfully, as he left us to get back to his job.

  Three hours later we arrived in a large, enclosed concrete bay at a downtown Oakland jail and were asked to stand up outside the van to await processing. By that time the fetters had cut off the blood supply to my hands, which had swelled like sausages, and my wrists were throbbing in pain. It was nearing four o’clock in the morning and I was calling out pathetically, to have the shackles removed. A woman officer came over to me and snapped, “You see that?” pointing to the inside of the building, where a madhouse scene of protesters were being dragged here and there by mean looking cops. “Yes,” I said wincing.

  “If I stop everything I’m doing here and pay attention to you, then all those guys over there gotta wait even longer. And then they take it out on you for making them wait. You don’t want that. You got it?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  Though she’d indicated otherwise, she did return quickly to free my hands, which put me in a much better mood. After the manacles came off, I felt downright giddy and decided to make the best of what I hoped would be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Three anxious young women and I were soon placed in a holding cell, where I was pleased to have company, so I began to chat them up. None were thrilled to be there, but we did have a few laughs while we waited for something to happen. Hours went by before one of my cellmates, Andrea, who held two master’s degrees from Cal, noticed that there was a phone hanging on the wall. She picked up the receiver and minutes later was placing a collect call to the National Lawyer’s Guild Hotline. We all had a chance to give the lawyer details of our arrests and tell her how badly we wanted out before hanging up, which made us feel better. Another hour passed before a severe officer came to free us from the cell. I was ecstatic to be leaving and said so, only to have the officer laugh at me, “Oh no, you’re not done. You’re going over to Santa Rita at Alameda, County. You’re gonna love it there. Your party’s just starting.”

  We were combined with a dozen or so other female Occupiers and lined up in the concrete bay we arrived at to board a prison bus to Santa Rita jail. I smiled conspiratorially at the other women, who were all much younger than I, and in no mood for joviality. Ignoring their standoffishness, I congratulated them for surviving our first night in jail. I hoped my friskiness would rub off on them as I imagined the fun of telling my friends about the whole ordeal. The ride reminded me of a sixth grade bus trip I’d taken to a YMCA summer camp. I broke the ice with other riders, just as I had then, by telling funny stories along the way. Everyone seemed to perk up somewhat, after a fashion, and the morning sunshine felt good to me through the dirty bus windows. I struck up a dialogue with our transport driver through the metal cage mesh between us, which seemed to amuse him some. I guessed that didn’t happen too often in his line of work.

  The Santa Rita “Campus” was manicured and green—almost inviting from the outside, which I glimpsed briefly before being unloaded inside another enclosed bay. I was swiftly disabused of this notion as we were paraded past a cramped holding cell full of mostly black men on the way to our destination. They jumped to their feet, grabbing themselves and ogling us hungrily as they pressed up against the bulletproof glass windows. The young women with me were obviously humiliated and some came visibly unglued, clutching their clothing and covering their faces while we walked the gantlet. I, on the other hand, felt like a tourist at Disneyland and began waving deliriously at them—flashing the peace sign in solidarity with my fellow incarcerees. Because most of the men were less than half my age, I felt more protective toward them than threatened. It pained me to see such numbers of dark-skinned people caged up and serving time, rather than studying for exams and launching careers. Many of the hard-bodied inmates abandoned their rough exteriors, returning my grins and signs exuberantly. Thirteen of us were escorted to a sterile white cell meant
to hold no more than six. It did boast a tiny cut-out shower, which had a tile bench and a single drain in the middle of the floor. Unfortunately, the tile bench was already occupied when we arrived, by a tiny young black woman with a buzz cut, who looked more like a twelve-year-old boy than a nineteen-year-old girl. She was curled into a fetal position on the bench from which she hung her head every few minutes to vomit what appeared to be fruit flavored vodka onto the floor. She did not look up at any of us. I tried to keep my nose closed while selecting a bench seat as far away from her as possible. She kept her eyes closed and did not acknowledge any of us who tried our best to give her space and privacy. A few of the girls joined in my jocularity, but others stayed sullen and inward. I learned from them that they had all been arrested inside the Plaza, where the tent village was, and where we had all been ordered to retreat to by the OPD if we wanted to “avoid being injured or arrested.” According to my cellmates, the police went back on their word and immediately began arresting everyone who returned to the encampment after the final dispersal order was given. Though they were promised safe haven there, they’d been chased, trapped, and teargassed anyway, even while compliant and cooperative.