Chapter 13 Hella Occupy
San Francisco, 2012
JJ Carlisle could think of about a hundred places he would rather be going, but he reached for his jacket and checked the pockets for a BART ticket with more than a buck on it. His light jacket, the one he wore when there was basically no likelihood that he would need to scale a fence or duck a cop’s baton. In other words, the thing he had been wearing all summer. Off to a strategy meet up – no action, no demo, just planning for the one year anniversary of the night Occupy Oakland was forcibly torn down.
Halfway down the street, he remembered he was supposed to mail back the final letter to his lawyers, some signed document they needed that proved they had worked on his behalf. Jenna had left him a couple messages about it, making it clear that her bosses were hounding her to get it done. God, that life, kowtowing to those guys, that poor girl.
He was running late though, and would miss the train for sure if he stopped now. At least, with the charges gone, he should be able to do more when the actions started. JJ upped his pace, cutting crosswise across the street, glaring at a driver who honked. Asshole in a Lexus. In this neighborhood, maybe he should watch it himself. JJ was tempted to turn, try to key the car or intimidate the guy, but that wouldn’t get him over to Oakland any faster.
Instead, he dodged past the usual bums and shuffling overweight ladies, past a couple guys selling CDs and another with a cart of churros for sale. Down the wide stained stairwell and through the turnstile, running when he heard a train. A couple guys in front of him shoved into the nearest car and pressed against the door for a moment until he slid in. “Thanks, man,” he murmured, moving to an empty seat to spread out.
He held out his phone, squinting against the dark reflection. It was slow to load on BART, hard to read. Both his sisters had been complaining about needing reading glasses at Dad’s party. Complaining about getting old, which seemed fairly rude considering that Dad was turning 80, but whatever. Dad just liked it when people showed up. Jackie had warned him, laughing in that it’s-not-really-funny way of hers, about turning 40. Well, fuck that, he wasn’t there yet.
Facebook opened with a bunch of posts about an anniversary, and JJ was surprised. Not that many people who still posted here were that into Occupy. Quickly he realized they meant September 11, that anniversary, which was tomorrow. All the candidates and politicians would have flowery words to say. People online tried to come up with pithy, sentimental phrases, or images like empty shoes or the hole in the skyline.
JJ tilted his head back, feeling the vibrations of the moving car through the dirty blue cushion. There were supposedly people who, even now, were afraid to be in crowds or on public transit like this, who feared another attack on a big city landmark or transit hub. He glanced around at his fellow riders, every one looking bored, zoned out or squinting at their devices. He wondered for a moment, if something were to happen here, say an explosion at the other end of the car – who would be the hero amongst these people? Who would freak out, who would think to punch out the fire extinguisher, pry open the doors?
Back after the actual 9/11, he used to have thoughts like those a lot. It had been a weird freaking couple weeks, that was for sure. The day of – he hadn’t known a thing at first. It went down back east, early morning in California. A guy he worked with had called, woken him up, told him nobody was going to the office and to turn on the TV. JJ could still recall bumbling over, half asleep, trying to understand the images they kept showing over and over. By that time, the Twin Towers had collapsed, people in New York were streaming over their bridges on foot, covered in crazy gray soot. TV news people were barely coherent; the news didn’t make sense and it was on every channel.
But once he pieced it together, understood how easily those guys had gotten onto the planes, how they had forced their way into the cockpits, he found his anger. He had become as enraged as anyone. Even now, eleven years later, thinking about it brought back a taste of that searing fury. All those planes were headed for California – it was as if he had been personally attacked.
And in the towers, maybe a bunch of capitalists had fallen, but so had regular people from all over the world. Waiters, janitors, working class firemen. JJ could remember comparing notes about all this with his co-workers the next day. Nobody working, not even hiding the fact that they were basically grouped around the little TV in the break room talking, pointing out slight variations of the same things as the stations replayed those sickening images again and again.
For awhile there, he had felt an intense sort of patriotism that was completely new. Sure he had grown up reciting the pledge, hearing the anthem at games and whatever, but it never had meaning. Until these dudes were like, we’ll kill you because of who you are. And suddenly he had understood the connection to people across all across America. How veterans must feel at their parades, the pride and cohesion, the sense of unity.
It was weird, he almost missed those feelings. The closest thing since was the sense of solidarity from the beginning of Occupy. Maybe that was part of what motivated him even now, the memory of that unity despite all the recent splintering and internal bullshit. Because it was like they all belonged to something big, they were all working together to make sure everybody got a piece of the pie. Too bad that now, not only were there 99 percenter spin offs and little groups haggling about protect Oakland, even the Occupy core had gotten uncomfortably segmented.
To start with, some people were acting like leaders of their supposedly leaderless movement. Calling for their three point plans, for long term goals and strategies and all this crap about reaching out and compromise. Yeah, reach out to the cops and watch how they had torn down their tents. Try to compromise and you end up with some mushy middle ground that loses the point entirely. They needed to take a stand and keep it. That’s what made the thing so effective from the beginning, from Zuccotti Park, from the very start of occupying Wall Street until the corrupt system fell by the wayside.
Now some people were like, let’s just re-elect the president since he talked about the 98% who make under $250 thousand in his speech. Let’s not do anything at night because it might scare people or make their commute five minutes longer. Stop waving the Fuck the Police signs because some suburbanites might be offended. Don’t try to take over the port again because some old guy in the paper complained about it. When it was pretty damn clear to JJ that that sort of action was the only way to go. They needed stronger tactics, not weak watered down stuff.
If he really had his shit together, he would have come up with some better ideas, JJ thought. Last night, for instance, instead of getting hooked on some series Oscar had on the TV, partaking in the medicinal meds. Well, that was partly being a good roommate – he couldn’t pitch in on the bills, he could at least be decent company if Oscar wanted to hang out. He’d be screwed but good if Oscar decided to kick him out, that was for sure.
JJ scuffed his shoe along the seat opposite, edgy at the very thought. It sucked that it was Oscar’s good luck that made him master tenant, that put him in that position of power, even if he was pretty cool about it. It sucked that he himself could get booted when he had lived here for so long, had paid the high rent during the boom years.
He imagined himself committing to live in a tent full time. Backed by a revitalized Occupy. They could find a way to decently heat the place, hook up fast wireless, and he could spend his time scheming up serious actions. He could lead some anti-corporate forays again, only this time they’d listen to him as a respected spokesperson instead of trying to haul him to jail.
JJ was still spinning out his fantasy as BART pulled into Oakland. So much for arriving with a plan of action. No big deal, though, he thought best on his feet anyway.
The meet up was, no surprise, a combination of hyper organized and chaotic. JJ didn’t even try to follow the agenda. Let those losers complain, he had stuff to say. As did a lo
t of other people, most of them on the same side for once. With the so called moderate bloc pretty much out shouted, the rest of them agreed on the need for a diversity of tactics.
In other words, relax, folks, nobody was preventing the basic march. The core group with the papers and agendas, they could write up their press release. Tell everybody that no one intends to break windows. They’d better hope the police would allow the peaceful march.
But clearly, the occasion called for more. One year ago October 25, the cops tore down Occupy, and gassed everybody, even people who were trying to leave. A freaking Iraq war vet had been nailed in the head by the cops, landed in the hospital. The sort of corruption that allowed cops to indiscriminately beat people like that and the politicians who allowed it, they demanded more than a quiet march. How else could anyone understand the depth of the corruption?
JJ found himself tuning out. Too many people all talking at once just turned into a blur in his head. He’d made his point, and he had chimed in on a couple others, guys he didn’t even recognize. In fact, a lot of the faces were new. Also, few people seemed to recognize him, which was probably a good thing, although a little insulting. His case gets dropped, and he’s a nobody all of a sudden? He noticed that the little cadre of faux leaders were purposely ignoring him, doing their best to shut him and his ideas out. Well, they’d all see, come the anniversary.
By the time the stupid meeting was over, JJ felt pretty low. There was obviously a lot left unsettled, or maybe just assumed by the guys who had anointed themselves in charge. But hey, their agenda said the time was up, they had their jobs or music or whatever to get back to. He noticed a couple of guys he thought he recognized as black bloc leaving together, and he ambled in their direction. But he was pretty sure that they took his presence in at a glance, and quickly moved away.
They were young guys, barely in their twenties, with enough energy and Red Bull in them to leap over the shoulder high concrete barrier and off down to the street below. JJ shrugged it off. Where were they going anyway, back to someone’s mom’s basement to take pictures of themselves in their Guy Fawkes masks probably.
He went back home, outlining a nice long rant in his head. By the time he got back, though, he was too disgusted with the whole thing to even bother. Way to many words for Twitter, and who would even look at Facebook but people like his sisters, who really shouldn’t be kept apprised of any of this stuff anyway.