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ing any either, and there were shouts of "Go back to school whereyou belong!" and lots of outside-agitator jokes hurled at the condescending Berkeley crowd as they submitted to peaceful arrest. Billy showed up, just as a car full of Students for a Democratic Society pulled down the street with a bullhorn blaring out instructions to "Stay on the Avenue of Psychedelics after the curfew hour and confront the fascist police!" The HIP merchants countered with signs in their fog-lighted shop windows advising, "For your own safety and for your own good, stay home and off the streets!" Emmett and Billy disagreed with the SDS and HIP, because both used the curfew for their own petty interests. They decided simply to ignore the curfew and do or not do whatever they wanted. They put up a few scribbled posters to notify the street of their alternative to foolhardy confrontation and cowardly acquiescence. A short time later, Emmett spotted a number of the Leary-oriented leaders from the psychedelic Oracle staff, standing under the marquee of the Straight Theater near the top of Haight Street. One of them was a chubby thirty-year-old named Michael with a penchant for white cotton clothes that invited comparison with yesteryear prophets. He was also the Mickey put down in Norman Mailer's poem that was liberated into the "Take a Cop to Dinner" leaflet, and he was actually tearing down a poster--a poster Emmett had just fastened to the lamppost in front of the theater. "What the fuck do you think you're doing! Huh!" Emmett yelled, as he came up from behind and spun him around. He was about to paste him one in the face, but Billy caught him because the area was full of heat whose attention he was already attracting by shouting, "Well, what the fuck do you think you're doing with our sign?!" "Take it easy, Emmett. We didn't mean anything. We just have a different way of dealing with the police, that's all. Why don't you come over to the office with us and we'll talk about it, okay?" "No, there's nothing 'okay' about it! We already know your ingenious plan! You're gonna love 'em to death with fancy suppers 'n suffocate 'em with smoke from burning incense! Well, we got our own way, see! Like standin' on a street corner waiting for no one, if you want, 'n defendin' your right to do it or anything else! That curfew's for you! So, you better hurry home before the nasty policemens give you all a spankin'! 'N leave our signs alone!" "Emmett, why do you have to be so hostile? We're--" "Oh, get outta my face, willya! Just Get Outta My Face!" [end page 242] |
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