blades lifting the public mood into the whirlpool of the electronic broadcast. Caught completely off guard by the sheer size of the crowd, the NYPD was doing a marvelous job, setting up barricades all along Seventh and Eighth Avenues. They were coming from everywhere—the old and the young, black and white, rich and poor—moving east from West Forty-first, north from Fashion Avenue, east from West Forty-second, and north over Broadway and south down Seventh Avenue.
Twenty minutes before the scheduled eleven a.m. start, estimates of a crowd of twenty thousand were being thrown around. By the time it was ten minutes before eleven a.m., no one was suggesting a number below forty thousand. With a minute to go, Frank Stein got up on his makeshift podium again.
“No more slogans. I am tired of it. So are you. Let’s go.”
Someone handed him a placard that said, “No more rhetoric.”
A last-minute surge in the crowd had numbers around the fifty thousand mark. It looked unmanageable. The NYPD barricades allowed the early birds to settle into some sort of a walking rhythm, with all the late arrivals shouting behind the barricades all the way to Fifty-Ninth Street as the walkers made their way into Central Park. A throng of protesters mingled with tourists and passersby at the entrance to Central Park, waiting for the walking party. As the rally approached, they too began a chorus of “No more rhetoric!” The multitudes poured into the park and marched toward Cleopatra’s Needle.
At the stroke of noon, Frank Stein and his walking band of several thousand had reached Cleopatra’s Needle. For an hour, no one in Manhattan had heard anything else but “No more rhetoric!” as televisions and local radio channels blared it like breaking news. Around the country, these were the words spoken with disdain or admiration, with pleasant surprise or disgust, with shaking heads or the “ What does it mean? ” looks. By sunset that Sunday, just about every one of the three hundred million people in America who were old enough to speak had uttered the words.
Back in Washington DC that evening, Olivia had stayed up half the night trying to finalize her decision. She decided she had no time to consult Dr. Joshy, her psychologist. Gary had increased the time he devoted to tutoring. They wanted him to conduct more classes, he said. She had imagined this would make him reluctant to have her away as well, but he had been wonderful. “Sounds like the chance of a lifetime,” he said, and she could not agree more.
She was about to call Colin Spain to inform him of her decision when the phone rang. She had her cell phone off that morning by agreement with Colin, but it was Colin who was calling her fixed line at home. It was not unnatural for him to be impatient. He sounded upset.
“Turn on the TV,” he said. “ABC, CBS, PBS. In fact, anything.”
“Bloody Stein,” she heard him cursing as she saw and heard the droning multitudes on screen.
“Fucking bloody Stein,” he kept saying. Now was probably not the time to break the news, but it sounded like Colin could use some good news.
“I have decided to accept,” she interrupted him.
“What? Oh! This is a game changer, Olivia; we have to think about this.”
She had no idea why this march by an independent had so fired him up, nor could she glean how that changed his offer.
“How so?” She was worried that the deal was already off.
“It gives us the opportunity to paint Stein as the other side of the Kirby coin.”
Finally, Colin Spain stopped cursing Stein. He told her the more he thought of using Stein’s popularity against his Republican rivals, the better he felt. As to her reaction, she had dared not admit even to herself that she had quite enjoyed the spectacle of the walking, chanting mob and felt energized and intrigued by it all.
With the Cleopatra’s Needle rally done, Frank bid farewell. People waved to him as he passed by. It was a new experience to
Twenty minutes before the scheduled eleven a.m. start, estimates of a crowd of twenty thousand were being thrown around. By the time it was ten minutes before eleven a.m., no one was suggesting a number below forty thousand. With a minute to go, Frank Stein got up on his makeshift podium again.
“No more slogans. I am tired of it. So are you. Let’s go.”
Someone handed him a placard that said, “No more rhetoric.”
A last-minute surge in the crowd had numbers around the fifty thousand mark. It looked unmanageable. The NYPD barricades allowed the early birds to settle into some sort of a walking rhythm, with all the late arrivals shouting behind the barricades all the way to Fifty-Ninth Street as the walkers made their way into Central Park. A throng of protesters mingled with tourists and passersby at the entrance to Central Park, waiting for the walking party. As the rally approached, they too began a chorus of “No more rhetoric!” The multitudes poured into the park and marched toward Cleopatra’s Needle.
At the stroke of noon, Frank Stein and his walking band of several thousand had reached Cleopatra’s Needle. For an hour, no one in Manhattan had heard anything else but “No more rhetoric!” as televisions and local radio channels blared it like breaking news. Around the country, these were the words spoken with disdain or admiration, with pleasant surprise or disgust, with shaking heads or the “ What does it mean? ” looks. By sunset that Sunday, just about every one of the three hundred million people in America who were old enough to speak had uttered the words.
Back in Washington DC that evening, Olivia had stayed up half the night trying to finalize her decision. She decided she had no time to consult Dr. Joshy, her psychologist. Gary had increased the time he devoted to tutoring. They wanted him to conduct more classes, he said. She had imagined this would make him reluctant to have her away as well, but he had been wonderful. “Sounds like the chance of a lifetime,” he said, and she could not agree more.
She was about to call Colin Spain to inform him of her decision when the phone rang. She had her cell phone off that morning by agreement with Colin, but it was Colin who was calling her fixed line at home. It was not unnatural for him to be impatient. He sounded upset.
“Turn on the TV,” he said. “ABC, CBS, PBS. In fact, anything.”
“Bloody Stein,” she heard him cursing as she saw and heard the droning multitudes on screen.
“Fucking bloody Stein,” he kept saying. Now was probably not the time to break the news, but it sounded like Colin could use some good news.
“I have decided to accept,” she interrupted him.
“What? Oh! This is a game changer, Olivia; we have to think about this.”
She had no idea why this march by an independent had so fired him up, nor could she glean how that changed his offer.
“How so?” She was worried that the deal was already off.
“It gives us the opportunity to paint Stein as the other side of the Kirby coin.”
Finally, Colin Spain stopped cursing Stein. He told her the more he thought of using Stein’s popularity against his Republican rivals, the better he felt. As to her reaction, she had dared not admit even to herself that she had quite enjoyed the spectacle of the walking, chanting mob and felt energized and intrigued by it all.
With the Cleopatra’s Needle rally done, Frank bid farewell. People waved to him as he passed by. It was a new experience to
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