Chapter Thirty-Four
After my shift the next day, I had a quick chat with Brighten and finally told her about my dad. She was astonished to hear what the Bishop had done to him and cried with me. I locked up the radio room, had a short visit with Dad, and then went to find Saffron and hand over the keys. I found her sprawled on the grass by the giant willow. She flipped up the brim of the oversized sun hat so she could see.
“There you are, looking sad like you always do after you talk to your friend. Come on. It’s a phantasmagoric day and you should be groovin’ on a sunny afternoon, like the song says. Turn that frown upside down, Daisy my friend. I have some fun in store for us.”
I couldn’t help but smile. Saffron always managed to make me feel better. “What kind of trouble are you going to get us into now?”
“Not trouble exactly. We’re going to a sit-in.”
“What’s a sit-in?”
“I keep forgetting you grew up in a cave. A sit-in is a happening.” Saffron was chewing a large wad of bubble gum and paused to blow a perfect pink bubble.
“Okay, what do we do at a happening?”
Saffron let out an exasperated sigh. “Come with me and learn at the feet of the master. Jean has lent me his van and we are driving to Vancouver to hear the leader of the yippie movement, Jerry Rubin, speak at the Faculty Club at UBC. I’m going to write it up for my newspaper and you are coming along as my photographer. It’ll be a blast.”
“Jean’s not coming?” I tried not to sound too disappointed.
“He’s worried that the forest fire might not be completely snuffed, so it’s a girls’ weekend.”
As we walked through a dense grove of mammoth evergreen trees, we heard music before we even saw the Faculty Club. It was a throbbing, pounding bass beat that we felt in our teeth and bones. The Beatles’ “Revolution” screamed at us from outdoor hi-fi speakers.
The building was spectacular, an elegant modern structure of glass and wood. The nearby parking lot was jammed with vehicles. We found a path through, inching past several vans, old beat-up cars, and a Silver Shadow Rolls-Royce painted bright yellow.
A long-haired man dressed in crushed-velvet bell-bottom pants and an unbuttoned, flowing white shirt sashayed by. “Cigars, cigarettes, weed, hash, LSD?” He stopped in front of us and held up two fingers in the sign of a V. “Peace, love, dope,” he said.
Saffron and I shook our heads, and I looked around for cops and security guards. I didn’t see any, none that were obvious, anyway. We followed the music and came to a clearing where hundreds of students were gathered, most sitting cross-legged on the ground or on concrete ledges. A few were wearing rubber Richard Nixon masks, while one shirtless guy had Fuck the Man painted across his bare back. The mood was an odd mix of defiance and humour.
A young woman stood in the centre of the circle. In one hand she held a mic, in the other she clutched a little girl on her hip who looked just like her. People near her held up signs saying ZARA FOR MAYOR.
“And if I’m elected, I promise to repeal the law of gravity. That way, everyone can get high.”
The crowd cheered and roared with laughter. I guessed that half the audience was already stoned. I closely followed Saffron as she worked her way to the front, just as Jerry Rubin was introduced.
He took the mic from Zara, pumped his fist in the air, and shouted, “Liberate! Liberate now!” Curly dark hair covered his head and most of his face, and it was held in place by a tie-dyed bandanna looped around his forehead. He wore a patterned shirt with flowing sleeves and a cape was tied around his shoulders. When I looked closer, I could see a white X painted on one cheek and a lightning bolt on the other.
“My father worked all year at a job he hated, just for his two weeks of vacation every summer. Fuck that, man, fuck that.” The crowd cheered. “This is a revolution, man, and TV is the link. Get yourselves on the nightly news, man, and that will spread the word. Don’t ask me what to do, you know what to do. We are all leaders.”
People began to stand, clapping and cheering. I took Saffron’s 35-millimetre camera from around my neck, focused it, and heard the sharp click as I snapped some shots.
More fist-pumping. “Don’t trust anyone over thirty,” Jerry said. “Take the power. Take control. Liberate something!”
He was a showman, charismatic and somehow very cool. I knew from experience that these kinds of people could be forces of good as well as evil. I wasn’t sure which he was.
The door to the Faculty Club was suddenly flung open and the crowd surged forward, taking Saffron and me with it. I entered through large double wood-and-glass doors, and strolled into a sitting room. People flopped onto couches and chairs while someone found the liquor cabinet and began liberating its contents.
Someone else set up a stack of records for automatic play on the hi-fi, and the first one dropped onto the turntable. It was a Buffalo Springfield song: “For What It’s Worth.” I had heard it on rotation on all the rock stations. I found its dark, brooding lyrics oppressive.
The room was getting uncomfortably crowded and I began to feel claustrophobic, a rising panic taking hold. Fighting a human tide, I squeezed out the door of the sitting room and into the hall. I spotted a quiet library next door, and I pushed my way through the throng towards it.
A group of young people was gathered around a TV, watching a horrific scene play out on the news. Protesters were being beaten on the head by police with billy clubs, and then dragged to waiting police vans by their blood-soaked hair.
“What’s happening?”
The man standing next to me turned his head and looked at me with a cold, dark stare.
“You don’t know? Wake up and smell the coffee, little girl. You need to tune in and be part of the solution, or you’re part of the problem.”
A large woman looked down on me with kinder eyes. “It’s an antiwar demonstration. The pigs are everywhere, beating up the yippies. It’s like Jerry said, you have to fight for what you want. It’s the only way to change the system.”
I wanted to leave, but I was rooted to the spot, watching the gruesome violence.
When had the hippies become angry and turned into yippies? How had it all become so grim? The news coverage flipped to scenes of the Vietnam War, and I realised that I was staring at the answer.
The government wasn’t listening to the cries of injustice and demands for change from their own people. Their answer was to beat back the protestors and keep everything the way it was—just like in Redemption. Maybe peace and love weren’t enough to bring the change I wanted. Maybe change required something a whole lot darker.
On the drive home, it finally became clear to me what I had to do.
I was afraid and didn’t want to do it—it was the last thing I wanted to do—but I had no choice. It wasn’t about me anymore. It was about Brighten, and my mom and dad. I told Saffron my intention, and she was furious at first, but the more I explained, the more she listened. After an hour of argument, we started making plans.