door behind her.
“Doesn’t the picture ever change?” Nadine was still tuned into channel 63.
“Let me know if it doe s. But don’t wake me to tell me. ” MJ closed the bedroom door, got back into bed, closed her eyes, and waited for the aspirins to cure her pain and the Ativan to ease her misery.
The day of the protest to save the Pyramid the sun burned away the fog and made the sky clear, blue and bright for the first time in weeks. Mary Jean showed up about twelve-thirtyish, and parked in a coffee shop parking lot, which was directly across Wilson Avenue from the Pyramid Theater. The long overdue sun and beautiful sky made her feel so happy she could barely stand her bubbly self. Standing near her car, her sunglasses reflecting and her body soaking in the rays, she studied the situation across the street.
There was a decent size crowd, but not much happening. The crowd was in the parking lot beside and behind the theater, separated from a huge crane and other heavy equipment by a fragile temporary cyclone fence. A few workmen in hardhats were just hanging around inside the fence, talking and looking around, a few smoking cigarettes, while the crowd on the other side was doing the same.
Maggie, her tall big body with tiny feet on one end and a salt and pepper bun on the other, wasn’t hard to spot. She was on the sidewalk near a pizza parlor, apart from the main crowd, pontificating to her own small band of followers. MJ crossed the three lanes of Wilson, checking for traffic on the one-way street.
“Hello, girl,” Maggie greeted.
“So what exactly is going on?”
“Well, not the turnout I would have liked.” S he looked around at the six or eight middle-aged people milling around her. “It’s not like the old days. I guess now mos t people have day jobs and such. ” Maggie nodded in the direction of the crowd behind the theater. “At least Dennis got his college kids out here, though none of them seem too focused on the effort just yet.”
“The workmen aren’t tearing anything down. Are they just taking a smoke break?”
“Oh that, actually we took care of that yesterday. ” Maggie tapped a gentleman wearing overalls and a long gray ponytail on the back. He turned and smiled, showing a large expanse of buckteeth. “This is Roger Kater . He makes beautiful pottery for a living, but he is still licensed to practice law. He filed an injunction for us. We’re trying to get the theater declared a national landmark.
“It stopped ‘em for a while,” Kater spoke, still grinning like he’d just won the lottery.
“So we can go?”
“Not just yet. ” Maggie looked down the street. From her position on the sidewalk she could she see both the front and back of the theater with just a slight turn of her head. “Actually we were hoping for a little press coverage. I saw some little jerk from the newspaper walking around but only one local TV news van has showed up, and they don’t seem to be in too big of a hurry to get set up.”
Just then a noise, a chant, began from the farthest part of the crowd fifty yards away. Finally it grew loud enough to become discernible :
“Don’t get rid
Of our py - ra -mid
Don’t get rid
Of our py - ra -mid…”
The crowd around the fence began to get involved, tightening, swaying and chanting, piece by piece, down the line like a slow wave coming to life, some kids nodding to or elbowing their colleagues, urging their involvement. The inspiration for the crowd’s awakening came
“Doesn’t the picture ever change?” Nadine was still tuned into channel 63.
“Let me know if it doe s. But don’t wake me to tell me. ” MJ closed the bedroom door, got back into bed, closed her eyes, and waited for the aspirins to cure her pain and the Ativan to ease her misery.
The day of the protest to save the Pyramid the sun burned away the fog and made the sky clear, blue and bright for the first time in weeks. Mary Jean showed up about twelve-thirtyish, and parked in a coffee shop parking lot, which was directly across Wilson Avenue from the Pyramid Theater. The long overdue sun and beautiful sky made her feel so happy she could barely stand her bubbly self. Standing near her car, her sunglasses reflecting and her body soaking in the rays, she studied the situation across the street.
There was a decent size crowd, but not much happening. The crowd was in the parking lot beside and behind the theater, separated from a huge crane and other heavy equipment by a fragile temporary cyclone fence. A few workmen in hardhats were just hanging around inside the fence, talking and looking around, a few smoking cigarettes, while the crowd on the other side was doing the same.
Maggie, her tall big body with tiny feet on one end and a salt and pepper bun on the other, wasn’t hard to spot. She was on the sidewalk near a pizza parlor, apart from the main crowd, pontificating to her own small band of followers. MJ crossed the three lanes of Wilson, checking for traffic on the one-way street.
“Hello, girl,” Maggie greeted.
“So what exactly is going on?”
“Well, not the turnout I would have liked.” S he looked around at the six or eight middle-aged people milling around her. “It’s not like the old days. I guess now mos t people have day jobs and such. ” Maggie nodded in the direction of the crowd behind the theater. “At least Dennis got his college kids out here, though none of them seem too focused on the effort just yet.”
“The workmen aren’t tearing anything down. Are they just taking a smoke break?”
“Oh that, actually we took care of that yesterday. ” Maggie tapped a gentleman wearing overalls and a long gray ponytail on the back. He turned and smiled, showing a large expanse of buckteeth. “This is Roger Kater . He makes beautiful pottery for a living, but he is still licensed to practice law. He filed an injunction for us. We’re trying to get the theater declared a national landmark.
“It stopped ‘em for a while,” Kater spoke, still grinning like he’d just won the lottery.
“So we can go?”
“Not just yet. ” Maggie looked down the street. From her position on the sidewalk she could she see both the front and back of the theater with just a slight turn of her head. “Actually we were hoping for a little press coverage. I saw some little jerk from the newspaper walking around but only one local TV news van has showed up, and they don’t seem to be in too big of a hurry to get set up.”
Just then a noise, a chant, began from the farthest part of the crowd fifty yards away. Finally it grew loud enough to become discernible :
“Don’t get rid
Of our py - ra -mid
Don’t get rid
Of our py - ra -mid…”
The crowd around the fence began to get involved, tightening, swaying and chanting, piece by piece, down the line like a slow wave coming to life, some kids nodding to or elbowing their colleagues, urging their involvement. The inspiration for the crowd’s awakening came
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