Nights in Tents

by Laura Love

  We were all tired but there wasn’t enough area for everyone to lie down on the cold floor with the metal toilet in the center of the room. Then of course was the inevitable need to pee, or worse yet, poop into a toilet that was inches away from someone else’s head. We all found elimination difficult to accomplish, yet talking about it beforehand made it more bearable. Most girls took advantage of the phone on the wall (which I was jokingly referring to as our “cell phone”) and made awkward collect calls to their parents, who ran the gamut from indifference to hysteria upon learning of their child’s whereabouts. Some of the teenagers among us had furrowed brows as they listened to what their parents had to say. After observing a few painful exchanges, I cajoled my cellies into shouting, “Hi Mom!” gaily, in unison, to each parent that got the late night call, which broke some tension and helped reduce the number of interactions that didn’t go well. After that was done, a cheery type named Kate made a proposal. “Hey, since there’s not much room and some of us are feeling a little down right now—you’re all welcome to join me in a cuddle puddle on the floor.” Lots of the girls took her up on it and soon they lay entwined like kittens on the concrete surface.

  A short nap was had by some before a uniformed woman, whose badge said “Fox,” rousted us by loudly barking, “Hustle your asses out onto the floor before I lose all of your paperwork.” We did as we were told and hurried to exit the cell, only to be commanded to stand with our faces to the wall with our arms extended outward. Another female officer joined Fox and walked up and down the line. I felt her hands reach under my breasts and lift them up. Then she worked her way down my body, over my buttocks, outside my thighs and down to the floor. After that she placed her hand inside my thigh and cupped my crotch. Some felt violated and had a hard time complying with this, as they flinched and shied away to avoid the contact—all to no avail. I didn’t suffer unduly through the procedure though, as I was mentally cataloging everything that happened and enjoying the idea of holding court with the lively tale at Thanksgiving dinner. When we’d all been searched, Fox told us to turn around and run our hands back and forth through our hair, which we did. Then she told us to lift up our breasts for her, which we also did. Apparently she wasn’t satisfied with our performance because she frowned exaggeratedly at us and brayed, “Come on girls, you can do a lot better than that. SHIMMY. Come on! Shimmy for me,” she insisted. One young woman in the lineup, a journalist, who had her official press badge prominently displayed when detained, rolled her eyes theatrically and clenched her jaws, gritting her teeth as if she were about to explode. I hoped for her sake that she wouldn’t. Then, Andrea with the two master’s degrees, decided to break bad with Fox, who earlier had refused to bring her her medication, for an acute bladder infection, from her confiscated bag. “You are violating my rights and I’m having a medical emergency. I need my prescription NOW!” Andrea shouted.

  “You ain’t havin’ no goddamn medical emergency. You know how I can tell? ‘Cuz you ain’t havin’ no seizure and you’re still breathin’,” Fox roared back. Then, she began to laugh, viciously, at Andrea who glowered back at her. Then she added, “And you ain’t got no rights in here. Just in case you hadn’t noticed, you’re in jail, sweetheart. Now, it’s gonna be a hell of a long time before you get outta here, cuz I just lost your paperwork, Andrea.”

  After shimmying, we headed off for mug shots and fingerprints, where I was torn between smiling and looking dejected for the camera. I wanted to relax and be myself, but I was so tired, I wasn’t sure how I felt or which look accurately depicted my state of mind. I chose the latter and walked the few steps to the finger print line, where five or six women preceded me. One of the women was a small, quiet teenager from Germany, who spoke very little English, but who’d told me earlier her name was Nadine, pronounced, “Nah-deen.” A tall, muscular, slow-witted male officer was leaning close to her face, shouting at her. “I said, What’s your name? I’m not going to ask you again.” Nadine looked terrified as tears streamed down her cheeks. “Nah-deen! Nah-deen!” she cried. We were all watching in horror, when I realized the policeman thought she was being uncooperative. He thought she was saying, “Nothing! Nothing!” instead of furnishing him with her name. I interjected, “Sir, she’s German, she doesn’t understand much English! Her name is ‘Nay-deen,’ but it’s pronounced, ‘Nah-deen’ over there. It sounds like she’s saying, ‘nothing,’ but she’s not. She has an accent …” I was trying not to sound like a big fat know-it-all college graduate when addressing him. The last thing I wanted was for him to think I was reprimanding him, or felt superior in some way. But in the end, none of that made any difference. The dolt cop took his pen out and jammed it between her wrist and the silver bracelet she wore. He jerked upward, breaking the chain and sending it crashing to the floor beneath her. Then, he reached down, picked it up, and hurled it into the trash can before I could finish my sentence. The brutality of the act was so unwarranted, we were stunned into silence. Even Fox lifted her head momentarily, raising her eyebrows as she sat on a stool next to him, completing her paperwork. I wanted to rush to the child’s aid—we all did, but knew that it would only make things worse for everyone, most of all Nadine. So I stood impotently behind her and felt every ounce of mirth drain from my body. The girl, who had labored to explain to me in English that she was eighteen years old, also told me that, in her personal philosophy, it made no difference what country she protested in, because she cared about all people, not just Germans. She was crying hard now—frightened nearly out of her wits. Just then I was beckoned by Fox to come forward and state my name, which I did promptly. I articulated it clearly to her and then said, as humbly as I could muster, “Um, look, I was talking with that girl, Nadine, back at the cell and she doesn’t know much English, so I don’t really think she was trying to give him any trouble or anything. I covered the same ground with Fox that I had with her male counterpart, this time hoping for a better result. “Yeah like, I think she pronounces her name like’ Nah-Deen,’ because she’s from somewhere in Europe or something. I guess that’s how they say it in Germany or wherever.” Then, for effect, I shrugged and rolled my eyes as if pronouncing it any other way than “NAY-deen” was the most idiotic thing I could ever imagine. Her co-worker’s behavior was so uncalled for, that I could tell it even bothered Fox a little bit. She cast some of the nastiness aside and looked me square in the eye, saying, “Yeah, you know, cops are just like protesters or anyone else out there—it just takes a few bad ones to make us all look like assholes.” She tossed her head over to the bully officer next to us that had just finished with Nadine when she said the word, “assholes” and I felt like we were having an incredible breakthrough. “You know we’re not getting that great a deal these days either, right, Bill?” said Fox, throwing her words toward a uniformed man in his fifties who was sitting at a computer inside a nearby office. “Nope, not this year,” he answered, affably. “They just hiked it up to five hundred bucks a month now that comes out of our paychecks for our benefits package and that’s not all they took away,” he went on. “Yep, it sucks,” agreed Fox. “See, we’re part of the 99% too, if you really think about it. To tell you the truth, I hope you guys get some things done.” I fought to hold my facial muscles in check and resist the urge to let my jaw drop to the floor. Another teenager who was standing behind me, waiting her turn, overheard the entire conversation, and as I glanced back at her, she mouthed the word, “Wow.” I decided to push a little further with Fox as she finished processing me, since the other big meanie had gone on break. I asked if she might be able to retrieve Nadine’s bracelet from the trash and give it back, because it obviously meant a lot to her. She answered, “Yeah, I’ll make sure she gets it back,” sincerely. I thanked her and as I turned to leave she said, “Now why don’t you convince Andrea over there to stop being such a cunt.” I ignored the crassness of the diss to smile right back at my new BFF, Fox, then headed back to my cell.

  It was just after 4:00 p.m. t
hat afternoon when someone came to our cell, unlocked the door, and told us we were all getting out. I rose, arthritically, to my feet and began to stretch painfully. I was the last to walk out the metal door. We were deposited at a station where a clerk was responsible for releasing our confiscated personal effects. Nadine was ahead of me. We had all showered her with kindness and tried to console her back in our cell after the bracelet incident. She had been beside herself, saying that police in her country would never have mistreated her so. I felt ashamed when she said that she had no idea American police were so cruel compared to Germans. She’d never intended to be arrested that night. In fact she’d obeyed their commands and gone back to the tents in order to be safe and not jeopardize her travel visa. She worried now that it would be revoked and she would have to leave the United States prematurely.

  When she got up to the clerk’s window, Nadine gasped as she took an inventory of her stuff. The police had returned the bracelet, however had stolen all the cash from her backpack. The clerk shrugged his shoulders, telling her that if it wasn’t written down at the time of her arrest, there was no record that she had ever had any money. I walked up and put my arm around her shoulder as she wept uncontrollably and pounded a frustrated fist on the counter, piteously lamenting, “How can they do this? All of my money is gone! This is not right! This is not fair! Why do you do this here?”

  When that same clerk handed me my backpack, I surveyed its contents and found everything to be there, except for a handful of loose change and a few prescription ibuprofen pills. I remembered that fifteen hours earlier, when my personal property was being cataloged, the officer told me that she was going to do me a “big favor” because I was her “last customer that night.” She said, “Tell me the four things in this bag that you’d really like to see again and I’ll write them down so they don’t (air quotes) ‘disappear’ in evidence.” Without hesitation, I told her I’d like to see the hundred twenty dollars cash, my new cell phone, my Mp3 player, and my wristwatch. “Done,” she said. “Now don’t make me have to write down anything else because I’m not good at spelling and I’m tryin’ to get out of here tonight.” It was just a lucky break that I was last and got my possessions back, but I made a mental note never to carry anything I valued into a police standoff again. I thanked the clerk, who was behind a bulletproof enclosure, for my backpack, which was returned to me through a one way revolving drawer, and walked with the other women into freedom. There were a few news reporters outside the Santa Rita jail waiting to interview us, as well as a couple of National Lawyer’s Guild volunteers, who had driven the distance to take us back to Oscar Grant Plaza. On the ride back I perused my release papers and read that I’d been charged with a violation of Penal Code 409, “Unlawful Assembly or Failure to Leave the Scene of a Riot.”

  Chapter 4

  Quan Lake

  Mid-November, 2011

  After the unplanned night in Santa Rita jail, I flew back to Seattle, and drove 250 miles to Pagan Place, my North Cascades mountain home. I had no intention of returning to the Bay Area anytime soon. However fascinating and illuminating, I didn’t think I’d ever need to experience that level of involvement with Occupy Oakland again. While still an ardent supporter of the movement, my brief but painful loss of liberty satisfied any curiosity I may have had about police brutality and incarceration in general. I slowed to a crawl on the dirt road to spot Buddy, Dancer, and Rosie, our fat quarter horses, looking up lazily from their hay bins, mouths full, as I passed the corral. Oh, to be home in rural Central Washington State again! No tear gas, no midnight fights, no flashbang grenades, no nightly disruptions, no crack, no meth, and best of all—no cops.

  I burst into the door and embraced my family with the urgency of a returning soldier fresh from the battlefield. Our nine-year-old daughter, Kristy, leapt into my arms and didn’t move a muscle, until I squeezed her so long she finally pushed away and asked if I was okay. Later I tumbled into bed and peered out my curtainless window at the array of twinkling stars in the dark country sky, before falling deeply asleep for thirteen hours straight. The next day I rose slowly, took a good look around and contemplated how fortunate I was to be comfortable and secure—surrounded by life and beauty. Outside, the sun shone brightly on the Ponderosa pines across the way on Cook Mountain. The odor of trash and sewage gave way to the fragrant aroma of Ceanothus and fir. Honking geese and rustling leaves replaced the abrasive sounds of sirens and street hustles. Home was where we produced our own electricity, drank pure water from a spring, and grew ancient varieties of vegetables that we ate fresh out of the garden all summer and canned in the fall. Home was where I fished for trout all four seasons, then brined it up and smoked it for future consumption. I could ski from my back door all the way to Canada if I wanted, sometimes crossing paths with hungry moose foraging for food. The sun beating on my face was the alarm clock that told me when to get up and go to work. Some days the work was hunting mushrooms and wild asparagus for a savory soup while others it was repairing a section of downed fence or pulling weeds. When I got back from Oakland, I wanted to prostrate myself and kiss the fecund earth to give praise that nothing in my world was anything like the Alameda County jail. No more acutely aware of that was I than those first days back at Pagan Place in early November when I was eager to catch up on my duties. In my absence, the garden had been neglected and a banner crop of heirloom tomatoes had gone uncanned before the freeze and plump onions lay unharvested before they were buried in snow. I threw myself into my chores, enjoying even the most mundane tasks—be it washing dishes, cleaning the cat box, or gathering firewood. I became hyper aware of how strife-free and rewarding life on Buck Mountain was.

  Appreciative as I was for the gifts fate had bestowed upon me, I still found myself logging on to the Internet every few hours to see what was happening with Occupy Oakland and elsewhere. As soon as my work day was done, I’d check to see who was livestreaming around the country, but especially in Oakland. The Oakland Occupation was like none other for rawness and unbridled passion. The insanity of Oscar Grant Plaza made an indelible impression on me with its unique culture of raging souls and quixotic warriors. Soon again, I was anxious to return to her streets and reunite with my comrades on the front lines, but I knew that shirking my responsibilities at home would be unpopular, so I tried to contain my restlessness.

  Then, I stumbled onto a teach-in that Spencer (Oakfosho) was broadcasting live from OGP, a short distance from where I’d been arrested. I missed the beginning, but soon understood that I was watching a renowned scientist from Cal Berkeley, sitting on the steps of City Hall imparting her vast environmental knowledge to a group of Occupiers that encircled her. I’m sure that university students paid a handsome fee to attend her lectures on the same material she was doling out for free that day, to people ranging from homeless drug addicts to would-be scholars, who, for the want of tuition, may never have had a chance to hear her speak. What they all had in common though, was that they were listening intently, straining to hear every word being said. She was in the midst of discussing climate change and the dire necessity to act now in order to have any chance of saving our ailing planet from a terrifying, human-caused demise. She delivered a brilliant, unamplified, unrehearsed speech which asked that even those who didn’t particularly support the Occupy Movement, or understand the message, please come out and protest what was being done to the earth by corporations and the fossil fuel industry. What really got to me though, was when she met the eyes of nearly every one of the fifty or sixty people sitting before her and said, “If you can’t do it for yourselves, please do it for the Florida panther that is on the brink of extinction. The Florida panther needs you to come out here and Occupy. The evening grosbeak needs you. The Canadian lynx needs you. The honeybees need you. The manatee needs you. The whooping crane needs you. The monarch butterfly needs you and the gray wolf needs you. They can’t buy lobbyists or Occupy for themselves so they need you to do it for them. The wild prairie gras
ses need you, the California condor needs you.” She listed one endangered species after another that would not be here in another fifteen years if we didn’t do something drastic right away to stop the wholesale destruction of habitat. She told her listeners that our insatiable appetite for more than we need was unsustainable and could not be allowed to continue. If unchecked, the damage our consumption had caused might be irreparable and fatal to nearly all living things. She ended on a positive note, however, by telling us that the technologies exist today that would allow us to thrive and prosper without depleting the Earth’s natural resources. She cautioned though, that the window of opportunity was rapidly closing and “we must wean ourselves now from our addiction to oil in order to have any chance of reversing the cataclysmic path we are on.” She divulged that there was systematic suppression of vital information by multinational corporations that controlled local, state, and national governments. These entities, she said, colluded to deny most of us access to simple, sustainable, sound practices that could feed, house, clothe, and provide electricity for every man, woman, and child on earth. Her last words were that if we did not immediately organize and radically oppose these powerful structures, life on earth was doomed. I booked my ticket back to Oakland that night and broke the unwelcome news to my family that I was leaving again.

  My plane landed in the afternoon of November 13, and I was back in Oscar Grant Plaza by three o’clock. My friends Anne Irving, Laura Koch and her wife, Lori Delay met me with an old tent that they were willing to lend me for the cause, since I’d donated my previous one to a couple that needed it at the end of my last visit. They seemed uneasy about my staying there that night as we watched two young, visibly high women wildly screaming at each other over some chicken wings that had somehow been paid for by one of them and never delivered by the other. One was threatening to pull out her knife and cut the other, while their male companions alternated between laughing and half-heartedly pulling them apart. “Bitch, I will cut yo’ ass. You think I’m playin’? You think I’m gon’ let you come in here and get all up in my grill, lyin’ in my face after you done took my wing money and got yo’ black ass high with it??” Clearly the fellas were enjoying the entertainment the ladies were dishing up. When one woman tried clumsily and off balance to reach for something in her pocket, the men separated them in earnest and told them to “hush up and stop actin’ crazy before the motherfuckin’ po-pos come.” Amazingly the girls obeyed the edict from they mens and almost instantly quieted down. Since it was my second time camping at OGP and still daylight, I wasn’t overly concerned by the dust up, but my friends seemed reluctant to leave me there, offering me unlimited lodging in their homes and reminding me that it was okay to call any time of the night to ask for a ride out.