[Newspoetry] 2/15/03 Protest 1000 Words Draft 2 for newspoetry, Kimberly, Sandra

[William Gillespie]

After what has been since Christmas Eve a harsh winter today was
especially fierce. For two days we anticipated the ice storm like a
rumored faroff apocalypse, a blizzard that continues to rage quietly
outside with no end in sight. At about one PM we began to shave the ice
off the white enameled shape that contained Meadow's car, pushing away
snow and using a scraper tool to make areas of the windows transparent,
though the ice continued to fall all around and over us. Once inside we
fired the engine and let it warm, carefully adjusting every defrosting
mechanism, all of which roared vainly against the accumulation of
precipitation. Windshield wipers went through their motions bearing clumps
of ice. We looked forward through the condensation of our breath in a mist
on the inner windshield, glass, and an archeology of ice, some clear and
wavy, some of it white and frosty, as wet and dry snowflakes continued to
thump and tick outside the vehicle. Backing out of the driveway was
strictly guesswork, the passenger side window would not roll down. We
could only roll down the drivers' side window and take a quick appraisal
of oncoming traffic from that direction, squinting against the freezing
rain, before rolling it up again. If we backed out into the white area
where the street was without colliding with another vehicle that was only
because it was Saturday and few people were foolish enough to be driving
that day. Then we were moving mostly forward into a tunnel of white with
curbs somewhere and houses on either side. Meadow's car is light, low
slung, and has a fully manual transmission, so the action was more like
iceskating than rolling. A gentle touch it took, but too much gentleness
would leave one stranded. Momentum, balance, poise, motion, and a studious
regard for all oncoming or nearby traffic. Losing control in the open
street might mean spinning and coming to rest in a drift, at worst bumping
in to a telephone pole or streetlamp. But losing control in the presence
of other vehicles could mean collision, leaving the vehicle, rain and
painful conversations, police, insurance, bills, and terrible dramas that
lead nowhere, occupy one's entire mind and then are gone leaving no memory
or consequence. One person almost drove through an intersection in front
of me, they were so intently perusing oncoming traffic from the other
direction. There is no braking action in these conditions, only more or
less controlled slides. Actually hitting the brakes could mean
relinquishing the vector altogether, your best option if in trouble is to
use the brake sparingly while dropping the car into second and letting the
drag of the engine slow the wheels down. If you skid, turn the steering
wheel in the direction the rear wheels are going. Be prepared to
immediately repeat this in the opposite direction: often your only course
of control will be to go back and forth like a pendulum while the car
loses momentum and hopefully passes over an area of the road with friction
to reinstate velocity in the direction of the tires. I missed the turnoff
from Springfield onto Prospect because, waiting at the intersection, when
the light turned green, I started to drive and the car barely moved. I
upshifted and the speedometer read fifteen while the car slid forward at
about two as the wheels simply spun and encountered no resistance from the
icy road. I had not encountered a driving surface quite like this and
rapidly tried to crunch a decision on whether a lower or higher gear was
more appropriate, and moved through the intersection at such a slow pace,
while beneath me my wheels ridiculously spun as if I were trying to escape
police, that the light had turned red again before I made it to the other
side. Not wanting to bother with an unplowed side street, I continued to
Mattis, and came back East via University. Would there be protestors
there? Because believe me we had dwelled on the thought of not attending
at such length that each of us must have at one time been convinced we
weren't going to attend, but at least one of us was confused enough that
we all ended up going. So approaching the intersection of the protest, as
all 139 (by one count) of us must have, we expected, perhaps even hoped,
to see no one there. In the whiteness with the traffic going two ways on a
street with no visible center line a shadowy figure crossed the street as
if an apparition. Then a few more. One with a rectangular sign,
silhouetted against the swirling ice, moving through clouds of snow as if
lost. And then, and then, emerging like a hallucination from the
blankness, a line of us stretching wayback. Lots of people with signs and
kids and dogs and all manner of scarves gloves hats and facemasks, smiling
grimaces of frozen pain beneath inflamed bloodred cheeks. We passed
through two drifts we thought denoted an entryway into a parkinglot, where
we slid into a drift in what we thought might be a parking space. Outside
the car, the cold was immediately unendurable. A penetrating wind
ballooned our parkas, knocked us sliding on the ice, and savagely tried to
wrest everything from our grip especially the windsails of protest signs.
The ice was ideal for taking a running slide for fun, but the serious
blistering fierceness of the windstorm made recreation inconceivable.
Well, this was the day, of citywide, statewide, countrywide, worldwide
protest, and six of us out of two million protestors picked our way across
the wild blasted tundra of the Lowes parking lot as a gale reduced
everything to monosyllables until our very lips were numb and we could
only mumble in the slow measured accents of patients undergoing heavy
anesthesia. I walked from one end of the line to the other, what seemed
like a few blocks. I saw people I thought I recognized but most peered at
me like anonymous hitmen from skimasks sunglasses hoods stocking caps
shawls and scarves. Despite this, the mood was euphoric. Giddy even. We
were drunk with pain and laughing through our endorphins as serious
weather conditions made extremities burn, ache, and go numb, as the
freezing rain saturated and penetrated every garment, and was taken by a
stiff wind up every crevice of clothing. NO IRAQ WAR (couldn't we shorten
that to NO WAR, or, if one really thinks war might someday be necessary,
perhaps NO BUSH WAR?). After one impressive blast of wind would come
another, worse, for emphasis. TEACH A CULTURE OF PEACE (I like that one).
I was ascending a rise to the front of the line, marching through deep
snow behind the line of people, who stood beside a curb none could see.
While cars streamed past. ATTACK IRAQ? NO (unequivocal). As I went higher
above the highway the wind got noticeably more intense until I had passed
beyond pain into the serene onset of hypothermia. A car moved by and a
teenaged man leaned out the door and shouted "Kill Em All!" I assumed he
was being funny, because not even Dick Cheney is suggesting we Kill Em
All, and anyway I have basically had a life sheltered from death and
violence and just can't believe anybody could be that cruelly oblivious
but obviously some people can be or else two million of us, in places like
Honolulu, Austin, and San Diego, would not have to be enduring the worst
blizzard of the worst winter of recent years in order to wave our
icecovered signs at motorists and smile with lips drained of all
sensation. At the end of the line I found two brave souls to greet the
oncoming traffic and beyond them camerapeople filming us, one for Channel
15, one for Michael Moore (so I overheard him claim). Then the cars. Some
honked. Some refused to look. At least one more shouted epithets endorsing
Kill Em All or violence even more concise and widescale than the
atrocities our leaders are proposing. We had brought cookies which some
protestors were actually eager to eat even if it meant momentarily
exposing their faces to frostbite. Back in the car, as we went through the
ritual of cranking up the engine and defrosters, almost a superstitious
rite as they were all but ineffective, considering which route home might
be least dangerous, I observe in the rear view mirror that my face has
become reflective, plastered with a thin layer of glistening ice. The
drive back was epic, even a lame REO Speedwagon tune on the radio seemed
sung by angels. I did not like the sensation in my feet when I regained
sensation in my feet. Afterward I collapsed into a feverish lull from
which not even cocoa could quite revive me. And yet I know it was only a
trip to the mall and I suffered not at all, not of thirst, not in the
desert, not of bombing or disease, not like the children splashing in the
sewage, the parade of dying citizens, or the Baghdad intellectuals forced
to trade their books for black market water I saw in the photograph which
for some reason remains as vivid in my mind as the moment I was looking at
it. Despite everything the people of Iraq have suffered for our
soundbites, sanctions, and bombs, it is being forced to barter treasured
books, pieces of ones mind, invaluable and yet probably, on the black
market, nearly worthless, that gives me a window on suffering worse than
any I can imagine. Did we stop the war yet?