or
END THE WAR NOW
END THE WAR NOW.
That's when the first tear gas hit.
It was acrid and biting and its overwhelming power to disorient could not be denied. Julie felt her eyes knit in pain, and the world suddenly began to whirl about. The air itself became the enemy. Screams rose, and the sound of panic and confusion spread. Julie dropped to her knees, coughing hard. Nothing existed for a second but the pain searing her lungs and the immense crushing power of the gas.
But she stayed there with a few others, though Peter had disappeared somehow. The evil stuff curled around them, their eyes now gushing tears. But she thought: I will not move. They cannot make me move.
Suddenly someone arrived with a bucket full of white washcloths soaked in water.
'Breathe through this,' he screamed, an old vet of this drill, 'and it won't be so hard. If we don't break, they'll fall back. Come on, be strong, keep the faith.'
Some kids fell back, but most just stood there, trying to deal with it. Someone--no one could ever say who or why--took a step forward, then another one, and in a second or so those that remained had joined. The mass moved forward, not on the assault and certainly not to charge, but just out of the conviction that as young people nothing could deter them because they were so powerful.
As Julie moved she saw ahead a barricade of DC police cars, their lights flashing, and behind them Army soldiers, presumably a contingent of the 7,500 National Guardsmen called up to much hoo-hah in the newspapers.
They had an insect look, their eyes giant, their snouts long and descending, like powerful mandibles, their flesh black. The masks, she realized. They were wearing gas masks, all of them. This infuriated her.
'You are warned to disperse!' came an amplified voice.
'You are hereby warned to disperse. We will arrest those who do not disperse. You do not have a parade permit.'
'Oh, like that's really crucial,' said someone with a laugh.
'Shit, if I'd realized that I never would have come!'
A helicopter floated overhead. To the right, over the Potomac, the sun began to rise. It was about six, Julie saw, looking at her watch.
'Keep moving!' came a cry.
'One, two, three, four, we don't want your fucking war!'
Julie hated to curse, she hated it when Donny cursed, but standing there in the astringent aftermath of the gas, her eyes bawling, her heart knotted in anger, she picked it up and was not alone.
ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR
WE DON'T WANT YOUR FUCKING WAR
It was like an anthem, a battle cry. The kids that were left took their strength from it and began to move more quickly. They came together in the strobing lights of the police cars and the running lights of the circling copters.
Those who'd fled regained their heroism, stopped and, moved by the strength of the few who remained, turned and themselves began to march.
Pop! Pop! Pop!
More CS gas canisters came at them from the barricade, evil little grenades spurting viscous clouds of the stuff as they bounced. But the kids now knew it wouldn't kill them and that the wind would come to thin it out and take its sting away.
ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR
WE DON'T WANT YOUR FUCKING WAR
Julie screamed with all her strength. She cried for pale, poor Donny in his hospital bed, a sack of plasma over him, his face drawn, his eyes vacant because of the death that had passed through him. She screamed for the other boys in that awful place, without legs or hopes, faces gone, feet gone, penises gone, she cried for the girls she knew would be bitter forever because their fiances or brothers or husbands had come home in plastic bags dumped in wooden boxes, she cried for her father who preached of 'duty' but himself had sold insurance through World War II, she cried for all the beaten kids in all the demonstrations in the past seven years, she cried for the little girl running from the napalm cloud, naked and afraid, she cried for the little man with his hands tied behind him who was shot in the head and fell to the ground, squirting blood.
ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR
WE DON'T WANT YOUR FUCKING WAR
They were all moving forward now, hundreds, thousands.
They were at the police cars, they were beyond the police cars, the police were fleeing, the National Guard was fleeing.
'Hold it! Hold it, goddammit!' someone was shouting as the melee halted. Before them was clear bridge, all the way to the Jefferson Memorial. In the rising light, the Capitol stood before them, and over some trees the spire of the Washington Monument and off to the right the Alphaville Blocks of the new HEW complex. But there were no cars anywhere, and no cops.
'We did it,' somebody said.
