Playground Zero

by Sarah Relyea

  “It’s for dispersing a crowd. It burns the eyes—”

  “Burns them?”

  “Yes, it stings and—”

  “Burns so bad you have to run,” amended her brother, “unless you have a homemade gas mask.”

  There was another glare from her mother. Her brother shrugged and headed down the hallway. If the war went on and on, he would have to go and fight; then he’d be shot, or blown up, or burned . . . There was suddenly so much to learn.

  “What’s a curfew?”

  “People have to stay off the streets.”

  “Off the streets?”

  “Everyone has to stay home. The police can arrest anyone they find on the street.”

  “But what about school? Am I staying home tomorrow?”

  “They want to keep people from gathering during the night. The curfew ends in the morning. Even so, I may keep you guys home tomorrow, or at least Curt. There’s no reason for him to be anywhere near Telegraph Avenue.” She glanced over at Alice. “Your father’s coming home soon. Are you wearing that uniform for dinner?”

  With an embarrassed shrug, Alice went upstairs to change out of her Scout clothes. The day’s events had left her feeling agitated, her loyalties confused. The other girls had probably walked home, as usual, and been safe enough. Though the problems were real, her mother would use them to clamp down and keep her from wandering freely, or even defending herself. Just as Alice was feeling her courage rising, her mother’s moods would become more confining. Surely her mother had never been in real danger—if she had, she’d know why a person must fight back. It was necessary . . . fight back or go under. If she followed her mother’s ideas, people would go on pushing her around forever.

  She changed into jeans, leaving her uniform on the closet floor. Why should she be caught wearing it, if by some chance she gathered with others after curfew?

  In the living room, her father and Curt were standing by the hearth, conferring soberly. Her father’s work clothes seemed incongruous after the day’s events, reminders of a safe and orderly world that was fast slipping away, like a passing ship glimpsed from some far-off desert island by those on shore. He held a glass of red wine, cupping the bowl in a heavy workingman’s hand. The pale-blue eyes had a steady look.

  “About that gym,” he began, engaging no one in particular, though they were seemingly gathered for some purpose—a family conference. “I’m planning to report it.”

  Her mother’s eyes rounded. “To whom?”

  “The cops.”

  “But they’re the ones in the wrong.”

  “Let’s see how they respond.”

  Curt was leaning by the window, looking skyward for the drone of helicopters. He glanced from father to mother and back again.

  “But Tom,” her mother objected, “we’ve had enough for one day. In any case, the world already knows about the gassing of the gym. They’ve announced it on KPFA.”

  “What are they saying?”

  “The cops gassed a school gymnasium, clearing out eleven schoolboys, including our son.”

  The square jaw was damp and shiny. “Berkeley cops?”

  “No way,” responded Curt.

  “You’re sure?”

  “They had blue uniforms,” Curt smiled, enjoying himself.

  “Oh my,” her mother snapped. “And now we’re going up against the infamous Blue Meanies.”

  “There may be grounds to sue. And from what I hear, most of the other parents may have a hard time pressing a case,” her father responded, as though explaining the world to a child. “After all, they’re black.”

  “Yes, Tom, and maybe Ginger can help,” her mother announced coolly.

  Ignoring her, he raised the wineglass, congratulating Curt. “Regardless of what your mother says, I’m proud of you.”

  “If they come back,” Curt nodded, “someone’s gonna stomp them.”

  “What on earth—”

  Alice cringed as her mother rushed Curt and gave his shoulder a vehement slap. They were in startling new waters.

  “You’re staying home tomorrow! I won’t have you down there! If these things continue, there really could be civil war.”

  Tom spoke, firm and level. “They need to learn what to do.”

  “Who—Curt and Alice?”

  “Yes, they’ve got to be ready.” In the hush, they heard a faraway drone. “Or else you’ll see him in Vietnam.”

  “But Tom, we’re a peaceful family. And anyway, what’s happening now has nothing to do with the war. They’re arguing over some foolish park—in a place full of parks! We’ve never seen so much undeveloped land. What’s going on here?”

  Tom wiped the dampness from his jaw. “Now there’s a curfew, on top of an ongoing state of emergency. They regard us as criminals. That’s what’s happening.”

  He went down the hall for another glass of wine. Marian hung her head, crying softly, unable to look at anyone.

  No one had much to say during dinner. The beef stew had been Curt’s personal request, and he devoured a large second helping. Then for the presents, they grouped awkwardly on the living-room couch, as Tom stood by the fireplace, sipping wine. Curt opened the present from his father—a baseball glove—and thrust in one hand, holding it up for them to see.

  “I needed a new glove,” he said, smiling and fingering the laces. The smell of leather filled the room.

  IN MRS. WHITMAN’S room, the class was reading. As the afternoon wound down and the class grew increasingly unruly, Mrs. Whitman called for order. She was a clergyman’s wife, the girls had heard, and now she stood before them, hands clasped as though seeking rather than offering guidance.

  Jason was humming to himself. He was the boy from Garber Street, near the Raysons—the one who’d had the sleepover party. Though he seemed cool, Alice had never forgiven him for the ugly Halloween call.

  “Please, Jason,” Mrs. Whitman urged.

  The boy burst forth in a triumphal crescendo and slouched back in his chair. Mrs. Whitman looked around the classroom and began to speak.

  “Many of you have heard something of what happened yesterday. When we have much controversy and conflict in our world, as we do now, then we should remember how important it is to learn from one another. By sharing our thoughts, we can come to understand our world and learn helpful ways of responding to each other.” Mrs. Whitman’s eyes were weary, her mood somber. “Yesterday we saw Berkeley, a peaceful place, become caught up in confrontation. We saw unnecessary suffering—assaults, tear-gassing, injured police and bystanders.” There was a long hush, and then she wrung her hands. “I was hoping some of you would speak up.”

  Longhaired Jason waved an arm.

  “Yes, Jason?”

  “So many people made the park. The land belongs to everyone. What happened was wrong, to put a fence around it.”

  “Can you see any reason for the fence?”

  “No—just greed. No one was using the land, so they made a park.”

  Debra’s hand shot up. “They were planning on building a dorm before those park people came along. Then they were willing to come to an agreement, my father says, for a community garden, but those people from Telegraph Avenue had no committee. They didn’t even think they needed one.”

  “My mother has roses,” Tammy could be heard murmuring. “Roses for People’s Park.”

  Jason’s arm was waving. “There should be a vote. Everyone should do what the vote says.”

  “How come you go there?” demanded a boy from the back row. It was Vaughan.

  “Who says I do?” Jason responded.

  “’Cause I heard they got drugs and everything over there.”

  “The park was for people, that’s all.”

  “Yeah, tramps and them.”

  There was smothered laughter from some of the black students, but Ben hung by himself, churchy as usual, ignoring Vaughan. Now he put up a hand—warily, at half-mast. Mrs. Whitman nodded encouragingly.

  “Yes,
Ben?”

  “I’m not sure about that park and all yesterday. I never heard so much about it as Jason and Vaughan and everyone. But when I hear these things . . . about these arrests and shootings . . .” For a long moment he paused, floundering. Then he gathered himself up and went on: “My brother, he was at Hunter’s Point when they had the problems over there. He never did anything wrong, they arrested him anyway.” Ben had begun crying softly. “He’s been in there over two years.” The class was squirming, except for Vaughan, who’d begun exchanging glances with Michael. “They framed him. They say he had drugs but I know that’s wrong. My brother never used no drugs.” Ben was snuffling too hard to say any more. The bell rang, ending the day.

  There was another argument about the park as Alice’s school bus was passing Telegraph Avenue. From the rear of the bus, longhaired Jason hollered, loud enough to be heard over the throbbing radio, “Defend the park!” A clean-cut boy shouted back, “Trespassers go home!”

  The bus chugged along. Then Jason responded, “Someone plants a flower, so you’re gonna shoot him?”

  “They’re bums. They should go somewhere else.”

  “So you’re gonna shoot them?” Jason demanded, coming forward.

  “They’re trespassers,” the clean-cut boy said, glaring.

  “How about the guy on the roof—”

  The two boys were face-to-face. “Why was he there?” the clean-cut boy demanded. “Just throwing things down on the cops—”

  “How do you know?”

  “The cops say so.”

  “They’re lying,” Jason sneered.

  “How do you know?”

  The bus lurched along, reaching the corner of College Avenue and Derby Street. Alice descended, followed by the boy who’d been defending the cops. Caught up in the argument, he’d gone beyond his regular stop. Freckled and glaring, he eyed her as the bus chugged away.

  “How come you know those guys from the park?” he demanded. “What do you do with them?”

  “Nothing,” she blurted, as though guilty of something, then added, “I never go there.”

  “Yeah, sure, hippie girl.” He gave her a shove and ran up Derby Street.

  She headed along Forest Avenue, wondering why he’d chosen her. Lingering by a neighbor’s rose bushes, she grasped a stem, tearing off three plump roses. A car passed and she jumped: had she just trespassed? How easy it would be to end up in trouble—for nothing, for a flower.

  If she could escape Forest Avenue, where would she go? Freedom should usher in something new. There would always be some who fled through the evening curfew along dangerous, winding paths, searching for the new, searching for what they’d lost.

  THE CONFRONTATIONS WENT on for days. Angry gatherings were met by gassings and arrests and the grinding sound of helicopter rotors churning the sky. Squads of armed guardsmen enforced the curfew, even as bands of vigilantes dug new parks for them to crush. The savage cycle made Alice queasy, as if a baby had fallen in a swimming pool and the lifeguards were laughing. Every day when she came home from school, she heard left-wing announcers informing her mother of the day’s gassing or roundup, and she found the announcers’ feelings of outrage oddly comforting. She was feeling a similar outrage, though who could say why? People’s Park was scarcely real for her. Even so, she was mourning along with the announcers.

  Before the war for the park, she’d ignored the newspapers, learning of far-flung places and events through her parents or the girls at school. Even now, much of California seemed safely in the West, far from the news. Colorado, Wyoming, Nevada, Utah: spaces on a map. For all the drama, People’s Park was a game; demonstrators could stage a truce in the park war by running a few blocks home. But in the real war, homes were in flames every evening on the TV, village after burning village.

  In her room, Alice brooded over photographs of cops in gas masks, armed with guns, and young men in headbands, hurling rocks. She wondered where her brother was roaming. Maybe he’d joined the young men, just for fun. One evening when they were alone, he’d cornered her and bragged how he and Sammy had jumped the fence at People’s Park. Then he glanced away, eyes gleaming with amusement as he frowned to keep from laughing. The story sounded so improbable, for the Barb showed an army camp overrun by National Guardsmen. Her brother was shamming—though who could be sure? Boys could do so many things; maybe he and Sammy had found a way. So far, she was alone; how would she know what to do, where to go?

  One day, after the school bus had gone, she headed for People’s Park, hoping for a glimpse of the ravaged site and the guardsmen—nothing more. Reaching the corner, she saw the fence and then, where the park had been, the army camp, a large tent looming in the center, equipment flung over the grass. Surrounding the parcel of land were men in military clothes, holding rifles, and on the rifles were unsheathed bayonets, ready to run her through. She ran, feeling her legs pumping, her hair flying.

  When she reached home, her mother looked up from the couch in confusion. Her hand grasped an envelope; her face was flushed. Seeing Alice come through the door, she slipped the envelope in the pocket of her cardigan and smoothed her skirt. “I told you to come home from the bus,” she reprimanded.

  “I only went around the block.”

  “Just remember, no wandering near People’s Park or Telegraph Avenue.”

  “I never go there, Mom.”

  Her mother could have wrung a confession from her easily enough, but her mother had something else on her mind.

  Then on Sunday, her father asked if she would go for a walk.

  “Where are we going, Dad?”

  “Just for a walk. It’s a beautiful day.”

  So, he’d learned the local commonplaces, Alice thought, though coming from him the slogan sounded phony and jarring.

  She could see they were heading for Telegraph Avenue. She wondered if they would be passing the park, but her father was an uneasy presence and there would be no asking. Contact of any kind was becoming unbearable; there was a hum whenever they found themselves alone in a room, the sound of suppressed anger. She could not remember when they’d last gone anywhere together; but here he was, on a Sunday in May, offering to lead her on a walk through the forbidden zone. Maybe the park was a sign of change, and he was responding. Maybe the adventure would forge a bond between them, the beginning of a new sympathy. She’d never been on Telegraph Avenue with her father alone. She could sense him moving alongside her, carrying her along. Why was he taking her there? Was there something he planned to show her, something he wanted her to know?

  They rounded the corner by the park, the same corner she’d passed on her own before running home. They saw armed men guarding the fence, the hapless parcel of land overrun by vehicles and equipment. One hand resting on her shoulder, her father shepherded her across the street and proceeded along the edge of the park. Every few yards, they passed close by a National Guardsman as the young man’s face responded, the eyes following them, human and wary. Armed with rifles and gleaming bayonets, the men were ready for combat, or for a sunny campus day.

  Her father had placed himself between her and the armed men, as though forming a moving barrier—ready to block, dodge, flee. She was by a scrimmage line, and he was guarding her. They pressed on, ready for a move by one of the guardsmen. Then, as they passed a heavy-jawed man, the man shifted his weight and her father veered, bumping her hard.

  The sunny day glared numbly, marred by her father’s fear. If only she could run home, but her father’s hand was grasping her arm.

  Moving at a faster pace, they cleared the park and rounded the corner onto Telegraph Avenue. The army camp had faded, mirage-like, replaced by simmering anarchy and people in colorful garb. Her father was moving along in a bubble, barely glancing around as he paused and removed a copy of the Berkeley Barb from a vending machine.

  “Here’s the paper,” he remarked, handing it over. “Don’t go anywhere—I’ll be right back.” Then he moved on, leaving her by the door o
f the jeans shop as he approached a nearby jewelers. She unfolded the Barb: on the cover was a photograph of a boy, younger than herself and seated in a swing. Up he smiled, sunny and joyful, at the overbearing body of an armed man, demanding that he leave or be uprooted and removed.

  Emerging from a doorway, a boy dropped and crushed a smoldering cigarette before prancing on.

  She moved under an awning, away from the flow of passersby. A car horn sounded as a Ford pulled up; the door swung open and several longhaired boys tumbled forth in purposeless hurry to be there.

  As she lingered by the jeans shop, wondering why her father was buying jewelry, she was bumped by a young man. Pale forehead, black hair, eyes of blue glass: she’d seen him before, maybe in photographs of the park. He was lean and muscled, wearing frayed bell-bottoms slung low; beads on a leather thong hung over the bare abdomen. He paused before her, shoulders pale, and waved the lazy plume of a musk-smelling cigarette. He engaged her eyes; as he reached forth offering her a smoke, she saw the thumb, where he wore a heavy ring made from the handle of a spoon.

  “I’m Johnny,” he confided, holding the smoke between them. The tone was close and friendly. “I’ve seen you before.” He put the joint to his mouth and inhaled sharply. When he spoke, a plume poured from his mouth, fading. “What’s your name?”

  The heavy cloth of the awning flapped near her face. “My father’s in there,” she said, and glanced toward the jewelers.

  He moved away and was soon squandering words with a couple of boys her age. They reminded her of windup toys she’d once seen, abandoned in random movement on a store shelf.

  When her father emerged from the jewelers, he was burying something in a jeans pocket. The jeans were no longer new; he always wore them now when he was home. She wondered what he’d found in the shop but never bothered asking, sure of an uninformative response.

  They were passing along the park, as they’d come, when her father grasped her arm roughly and dragged her by a parked car. Then he leaned and scooped up a fragment of asphalt, balancing it loosely in his palm, as a nearby guardsman adjusted his bayoneted rifle. She would have run, but how could she abandon her father to the guardsman? She was staring at the man’s rifle in the ugly noonday glare, when her father propelled her along between the parked cars and across the asphalt no-man’s-land to the far side of the street. There they passed an overgrown rhododendron.