too ready-to-go.”
Reporters checked watches. Camera operators fiddled with their equipment. Two of Johnson’s allies chatted them up. They were right in front of the stage.
“How long are we giving it?” a rookie asked his team sergeant.
“Till they disperse. We’re not here for Wiley; we’re here for them.” He nodded at the crowd. “It’s not getting smaller. It’s growing on itself. If Wiley doesn’t show, we’ll end up dealing with a blowup here from the frustration alone.”
On Haste and Dwight streets cars slowed nearly to stops. Radios blared a cacophony of strings, horns, and rappers. The smack of hands batting the volleyball was as regular as clockwork.
It was four-forty when Bryn Wiley mounted the platform, eighteen inches above ground level. News crews jostled anew, shoving closer, trying to figure where Bryn would be on the podiumless dais. Reporters extended their microphones, cameramen shifted their minicams. In the crowd the tenor of voices lowered as people shifted toward the action. I checked for faces, looking for those who lived to confront and those who felt “their” park was being invaded. And for the young bullies who preyed on the homeless. Three guys standing together I recognized from every demonstration I’d been to here—Johnson’s crew. I moved between them and the stage. Murmurs bubbled up here and there, but mostly the crowd was quiet, waiting, ready for … for something.
I checked again for Sam Johnson. He had to know about the event. Nothing happened on Telegraph without Johnson’s knowledge. So why wasn’t he here? Was he “not dignifying” the event with his presence? Or maybe he had no answer to the charges Bryn would hurl. Either way, avoiding confrontation was not like Johnson. Particularly when the battle was in his own kingdom. Or maybe Johnson, the great tactician, had set himself an alibi elsewhere for whatever came down.
Bryn stepped to the microphone just as the sun broke through the clouds for that final startling gleam it gives on overcast days. The beam may not be stronger than it is all afternoon long on a sunny day, but on a gray day it’s like the piercing light that precedes a divine proclamation. Dressed in walking shorts and tank top with The Girls’ Team emblazoned in gold, Bryn smiled as the beam hit her and still cameras flashed. Her angular face was tan, her curly chestnut hair shining in the sunlight, the muscles of her lightly oiled arms and shoulders visible. All she needed was a red, white, and blue ribbon with an empty circle hanging from it for the Olympic medal she hadn’t gotten. I couldn’t help wondering if she had kept us waiting for forty minutes so she could catch the heavenly glow.
There was no podium to protect her. She strode to center stage and stood, slowly surveying the crowd as if to put each clutch of men—and the audience was almost entirely male—on notice that her words were meant for them. “Berkeley,” she said, in a deceptively lazy voice, “is living in the past.” She paused, staring into the crowd, daring them to object.
When no one did, she went on in that pulling-theories-from-the-back-of-the-mind voice. “What is ‘Berkeley’? Not this patch of land we’re standing on, not the National Guard troops that pointed rifles to keep you out of it, not the peace marches that brought you to it.”
Low murmurs ran through the crowd. Bryn took a half step closer to the microphones. “All that was twenty-five years ago! A quarter of a century ago! You”—she pointed to a boy with long blond hair and baggy clothes—“weren’t even born then.”
“Hey, what do you know? You weren’t here! We were talking about freedom!” yelled a dark-haired guy fifteen feet from the stage. I couldn’t make him. I glanced at Leonard. He shook his head—unknown to him, too.
“Right you are, man,” Bryn said. “Freedom, it was Berkeley against the state, Berkeley under siege from armed militia. Berkeley
Reporters checked watches. Camera operators fiddled with their equipment. Two of Johnson’s allies chatted them up. They were right in front of the stage.
“How long are we giving it?” a rookie asked his team sergeant.
“Till they disperse. We’re not here for Wiley; we’re here for them.” He nodded at the crowd. “It’s not getting smaller. It’s growing on itself. If Wiley doesn’t show, we’ll end up dealing with a blowup here from the frustration alone.”
On Haste and Dwight streets cars slowed nearly to stops. Radios blared a cacophony of strings, horns, and rappers. The smack of hands batting the volleyball was as regular as clockwork.
It was four-forty when Bryn Wiley mounted the platform, eighteen inches above ground level. News crews jostled anew, shoving closer, trying to figure where Bryn would be on the podiumless dais. Reporters extended their microphones, cameramen shifted their minicams. In the crowd the tenor of voices lowered as people shifted toward the action. I checked for faces, looking for those who lived to confront and those who felt “their” park was being invaded. And for the young bullies who preyed on the homeless. Three guys standing together I recognized from every demonstration I’d been to here—Johnson’s crew. I moved between them and the stage. Murmurs bubbled up here and there, but mostly the crowd was quiet, waiting, ready for … for something.
I checked again for Sam Johnson. He had to know about the event. Nothing happened on Telegraph without Johnson’s knowledge. So why wasn’t he here? Was he “not dignifying” the event with his presence? Or maybe he had no answer to the charges Bryn would hurl. Either way, avoiding confrontation was not like Johnson. Particularly when the battle was in his own kingdom. Or maybe Johnson, the great tactician, had set himself an alibi elsewhere for whatever came down.
Bryn stepped to the microphone just as the sun broke through the clouds for that final startling gleam it gives on overcast days. The beam may not be stronger than it is all afternoon long on a sunny day, but on a gray day it’s like the piercing light that precedes a divine proclamation. Dressed in walking shorts and tank top with The Girls’ Team emblazoned in gold, Bryn smiled as the beam hit her and still cameras flashed. Her angular face was tan, her curly chestnut hair shining in the sunlight, the muscles of her lightly oiled arms and shoulders visible. All she needed was a red, white, and blue ribbon with an empty circle hanging from it for the Olympic medal she hadn’t gotten. I couldn’t help wondering if she had kept us waiting for forty minutes so she could catch the heavenly glow.
There was no podium to protect her. She strode to center stage and stood, slowly surveying the crowd as if to put each clutch of men—and the audience was almost entirely male—on notice that her words were meant for them. “Berkeley,” she said, in a deceptively lazy voice, “is living in the past.” She paused, staring into the crowd, daring them to object.
When no one did, she went on in that pulling-theories-from-the-back-of-the-mind voice. “What is ‘Berkeley’? Not this patch of land we’re standing on, not the National Guard troops that pointed rifles to keep you out of it, not the peace marches that brought you to it.”
Low murmurs ran through the crowd. Bryn took a half step closer to the microphones. “All that was twenty-five years ago! A quarter of a century ago! You”—she pointed to a boy with long blond hair and baggy clothes—“weren’t even born then.”
“Hey, what do you know? You weren’t here! We were talking about freedom!” yelled a dark-haired guy fifteen feet from the stage. I couldn’t make him. I glanced at Leonard. He shook his head—unknown to him, too.
“Right you are, man,” Bryn said. “Freedom, it was Berkeley against the state, Berkeley under siege from armed militia. Berkeley
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