Written down, his words almost make him sound like a cowboy, but nothing could be further from the truth. He’s a graphic designer. More relevant, he doesn’t often ask me to shop for him. And perhaps most importantly, I owed him a few dollars, so he figured it would be a nice way to cancel the debt. It made sense to me. Anyway, he was talking about my upside-down elephant shirt; the shirt that made my political leanings quite clear. I laughed and told him I’d stop at Union Square after work to see if the kid was still selling them.

     The Republican National Convention was coming to Manhattan, and the city was growing tense. At least that’s how I think of it now. Perhaps it was simply growing excited. Perhaps it really didn’t care either way, and the hot stone under our feet had only been a conductor for our own energies. Either way, the air was charged. People from all over the country were coming into the city to both support and protest the convention and George Bush’s policies and achievements.

     I wasn’t thinking of any of this, really. Well, that’s not true. I was thinking of some of it. Which is why I felt it so important to buy myself a shirt or three. I wanted to let all the Republicans know how I felt about their man coming into our city and exploiting the death of 3,000 people in order to further their own election prospects. I wanted to show them clearly how I felt about their little visit to the “blue” state of New York. And I felt good about helping even one more person voice the same opinion. So instead of catching the 6 train at Grand Central, and then transferring to the F to end up (two hours later) in South Brooklyn, I got off at Union Square. Before I did that, I called my girlfriend and asked her to meet me there.

    “The kid” was no longer selling his wares. The shirts had all sold out. And I wasn’t too surprised. They had been selling pretty quickly. But I was glad to be back at Union Square, to tell you the truth. It felt good to be surrounded by so many people who clearly felt the same way I did. It felt good to hear my own feelings spoken aloud, shouted aloud, even sung.

    For some odd reason, it seemed that so many of us who were outraged about the administration’s current course couldn’t show that outrage. It was as if we were afraid to speak what was so very obvious to all. In fact, it felt to me as if we whispered our feelings; as if we were being oh-so-careful about speaking aloud on what was so clearly (and terribly) wrong with the government and the current state of affairs in our country. Why was this? Were we already being cowed by the NewSurveillance—the modern Eye of Saruman? Or were we just afraid that the 30% of New York that was Republican would somehow punish us for voicing our opinions? Was it misplaced politeness? I think, maybe, that it is just that there is always a crowd that nods along, but the boy who confronts the naked Emperor is rare. We are afraid of making waves. We are afraid of the ripples that may radiate from our own hands.

    This day, though, nobody was afraid. And nothing feels finer than rising up out of an oppressed crouch. Nothing feels more inspiring than finally opening your mouth and saying “No! This is not all right! I do not agree, and I will not be quiet!” And Union Square was buzzing with that energy; the place was literally humming with the feel of resistance, of change. There were anti-Bush shirts, stickers, banners and speeches. There were so many of us, and there was a feeling of unity---something so foreign, in my experience, you hardly know what it is you are experiencing, at first.

   There was, of course, no missing the police presence. They were gathered in groups, and there must have been a couple hundred of them. They casually surrounded the park, and could even be seen across the street, and riding on scooters around the area. They guffawed and smiled in their tight-knit circles, a hand lovingly resting upon a nightstick, or on the black utility belts they all wore. Curious bunches of plastic loops were attached to their uniforms. I watched them, huddled in their tight numbers, and said aloud, but almost to myself, “They look like gangs.” And they did.
We milled about for a while, Christine and myself. Finally, I turned to her and said “Hey, do you wanna get going?” But she wasn’t ready.

   “I don’t know….I think I want to stay a little longer,” she said. And I had no problem with that. Later, hungry, tired and delirious, I would think back to that moment. But you know, even at four a.m. in an overcrowded jail cell, I wasn’t interested in going back in time and changing my decision. And that’s probably the most valuable thing I took with me, when it was all said and done: My absolute belief in what I had done. Again, not so common a feeling in this world we live in; this world of compromise, doubt, and unfulfilled dreams.

    It was then that the marching band/troupe began to play. I would spend many hours with these people in the days to come--many intimate moments, where I would learn many things about them. I would learn that the 40-ish man in the pink dress who played a clarinet was from the Bay area, and when asked for his name by the cops, would offer the unlikely appellation “David Weddingdress.” I would learn that the people playing the music that gave us all the spark to move were an “anarchist” band. I would see their tan and black uniforms grow dirtier and dirtier over time, as we were shuffled from cell to cell.

    I knew none of this then, however. All I knew was that there was music, and the thrumming, shivering, thrill in my heart was being given a shape by this music. My anger, my hope, my present outrage and belief in what was right and what was wrong had all been given a vessel within which it might boil. The lyrics to the song were addressed to a “Mr. President.” They asked him What have you done? and I found myself moving to the beat. Music is a powerful thing. This is why every army in history has brought their own drummers along (although these days, we simply install mp3 players in tanks).

    The crowd was pressing tighter. We were all heeding the magnetic draw of this music, this heartbeat in the center of this organism we all made up. The clarinet was a little out of tune, the voices wavered, and the bass drum was harsh and its beat smacked against our eardrums, Simply, put, it was all marvelous. It was all live, and real, and a beautiful antidote to the endlessly equivocating and duplicitous pundits of the day—men who are so practiced in doublespeak that you are twice as confused when you finished listening to them than you were when you began. It was pure, this joyous wailing. It was the true voice of the people, not an interpretation to be edited, censored, manipulated and finally, frozen in ink, or uploaded to the glaring white of the World Wide Web--it was motion and sound, and sweat and laughter. It was authentic. And that is what made it dangerous.

    Before I even knew what was happening, I was moving forward. The band--and behind it, the crowd--had simply broken out of stasis and had spilled out of the park and into the street. It was not planned, and there had been no consensus. Neither was there any question of what to do. We all moved with a singular impulse. We all followed. We began clapping to the beat as we moved. We were all overflowing into Broadway, stopping traffic, and turning expectation on its head.
This was what seizing the moment felt like! This was change. This was taking notice. This was history. And it felt like freedom.

As soon as we moved from tension to release, we moved with purpose. I felt as if I were being lifted and buoyed along by some mighty river. The crowd around me was truly triumphant. I looked at Christine and her face reflected my inner experience. She was beaming: laughing and clapping to the beat of the drum, as I was. In fact, the entire crowd was in sync, and in retrospect, I imagine this was the psychology of the Crowd at work; that feeling of being an outreach of something larger than yourself, where your actions are all emboldened by fearlessness and conviction. As a person, you are so very fragile and small. We are so temporary, as individuals. As part of a larger organism, we become immortal, invulnerable, important. And again, reflecting upon this now, I imagine this is why many people have religion; community; cliques; armies.

    We--and I can’t honestly say “marched,” for we all filled the street like a river--flowed Northward. I felt a great sense of the moment, of being present, and of exerting power upon my own course. I laughed and shouted over the music to Christine, I said I finally feel like I am living up to my family values! which we both knew was funny, because as the child of both a flower child and an activist latino poet, conforming to family values often means not conforming to the larger societal expectations. And later, after it was all over, I would smile to myself, noting that with the 34 years my biological mother and father had been apart; with my entire past marked by both rebellion in one form or another as well as achievement--this was the first time I could remember their being so synchronized in their verbal support for something I had done. I mean, sure, it makes sense. But I had not, until now, seen it in action. For there had never been a time I had felt so very strongly moved.

   In the past—regardless (or rather because of) my parents’ beliefs or actions—I had silently sneered at protestors. I grew so disdainful of them, talking about protesting as if it were some trendy lunch-hour piece of business: Oh, did you go protesting this weekend? Do you want to carpool? I would tell people I was going to paint a sign that said THIS SIGN CHANGES EVERYTHING and stand in the street with it. I used to wonder what Thoreau would think of these modern-day “protestors,” a man who truly understood embodying your beliefs. A man who disagreed with his government’s principals and actions, and therefore, refused to financially support it. A man who sat in jail as protest against slavery; a man who would have understood that there is a cost for true gain, a man who would have told these “protestors” something about their college-age fad. But that day, and those moments on 16th street, were completely organic; they rose up out of pure necessity, We did not file for a permit, no. You do not file papers with the city requesting permission to fear for the lives of your children in the future, you do not apply for a license to sit up late at night wondering if the end of the world is coming, and you don’t file papers with the city to indicate your pure, unsullied outrage, either. Some things are their own justification. There is a predilection for joy in the human being; there is a need to stand on two legs and walk upright.

   When I saw the police zip alongside of us on scooters, I was proud of them. I was happy to see that they were there to protect us, to protect others. They rose a notch in my estimation; I was impressed that they would so quickly and seemingly eagerly, rise to the challenge of this unscripted moment. I thought they were clearing the sides of the streets, and heading off traffic.
Yeah, well. It’s no secret to myself that I sometimes, still, exhibit glaring streaks of naiveté.
We found ourselves being guided into making a right-hand turn, about two blocks North of where we had first spilled into the road. So we turned. Again, there was no choice as an individual. But I don’t say this to sidestep responsibility, for when I stepped off the curb, I was fully aware that I was stepping over a line. Anything that happened after that, I had agreed to in that moment, barring, you know, something harmful to myself, perpetrated by another. I cannot claim responsibility if another man decides he wants to be violent. That is his choice. But I had no reason to believe anyone would instigate violence against me or anyone else. We may have been loud, and we may have stopped traffic, but we were happy. Happy to be noticed, happy that our collective voice was causing the big, collective ear to tilt our way.

    We were happy until we marched into a line of very serious-looking police, buttoned, zipped, and buckled up in riot gear, and holding an orange net across our path. We reached the end of the street and we sat down, together, in the street. We locked arms. The press was all around us, it seemed, but I think, really, it was mostly just people with cameras. These days, everyone seems to have one, even if it’s only their camera-phone. But shutters were clicking away, and I even saw some video-cameras. I thought about the effect that a camera has upon people. What an illusion, to assume that introducing a camera into a situation could ever do something as harmless and neutral as simply record that moment, a moment that somehow stands apart from the camera and is purely contained. Anyway, aside from these musings, I’m not sure what I was thinking. I had set myself upon a course, and I was following it to its natural end. Did I know I would be arrested? I don’t think I did, somehow. Would I have shied away from marching, or Parading Without A Permit if I had known what was to come? This was something we would discuss at 4 am the next day, as we hung idly against the fences that sported razor wire atop them, as we waited in line for our blessed turn in the Port-a-potty.

    Were we unreasonable in our expectations or actions that day? Yes, I think so. Were we being unreasonable, as the cops would scream at five am, the day after the day after that day, in causing the machine to stutter for a moment or two? Yes. And when unreasonable wars are being waged, when unreasonable lies are being told, and when unreasonable men are ruling my country, I will most certainly be unreasonable, as well. As E.L. Doctorow wrote, in The Unfeeling President, our administration is our moral compass. Given that assertion, I say, to be anything but unreasonable in reaction to unjustified and harmful government is simply be treasonous.
Some cops came through the street shouting GET ON THE SIDEWALK; GET OFF THE STREET NOW! and the fellow on my left, (Christine was on my right), simply stood up! I didn’t know whether to laugh or spit. What kind of action was this? “I’ll sit here until you tell me to get up!” Here was another modern-day protestor, one who wanted to do something for show, but who didn’t have any emotional, spiritual, or political attachment to his actions. I was left with nobody on my left side. I was a bit disappointed. It seemed he was not the only one. The crowd right around us were getting to their feet. Okay, so we’re getting to our feet, I thought. Okay. Where now? Into the orange containment nets? Should we dive in? Should we run over to the cops with our arms behind our backs, wrists close together? Should we get up against the wall, too?

    I begrudgingly got to my own feet with those around me. I felt a bit better when we started moving again, turning away from the containment net, and marching west on 16th, back the way we came. Except there was now a net across that side of the street. We were penned in. We weren’t going anywhere.

    We came to a stop on the sidewalk, close to intersection, but not quite there. We had cleared the street, as the cops had asked, and were more or less defensively grouped against the buildings. The cops said nothing beyond CLEAR THE STREET, GET OFF THE STREET. They just faced us, sticks in hand, tense. Nobody said anything to us. There was this sense of waiting, and I didn’t know what we were waiting for. But I sensed we were all waiting for a certain command or moment.
We were crammed into a tight knot, or I guess were crammed into many tight knots. The heat began to rise. I was right up against someone’s hair. There was a current of emotion, now, being transmitted in the tightness of the knot of people directly around me. I think the emotion was fear. Or maybe it was just excitement. I don’t know what to call it, or what anyone else was feeling. But I knew that there was a tension that was rising, swift and sure. I could feel it radiating from the bones of the city, from the pavement, from the wall behind us, and from all the cops and their excitement and anxiety. I could see it written in the taut brow of the cop who kept us against the wall, who gripped his club like a gift he couldn't wait to unwrap. His rigid, leaning stance was an obvious retort to all us who dared step into a street and shut down the machine for even a few moments.

Shit—as they say in Washington—was about to go down.