Why Occupy Wall Street Needs Music

If you’ve never sat in or marched or occupied some place against orders to evacuate, singing may seem irrelevant to you. On the other hand, if you’ve participated in a mass movement that included singing, you know the power of joining your voice to the voices of your comrades in arms. Singing creates a sense of transcendence, of a unity so intense, police batons can’t shatter it.

As Americans, we tend to individualism. Our individualism has been nurtured, praised, and enthroned—not for the purposes of teaching us to think for ourselves but for the purposes of separating us from those who shoulder the same burdens we shoulder. We are deluded into thinking that through the lottery or some magical manna from heaven we will become individuals in need of wealth management services. For this reason, we refuse to raise taxes on the rich, even as our lower income and middle class income taxes mushroom. The only transcendence we know is the transcendence of money—the only class interests are the class interests of the wealthy.

Yet lately, thanks to Occupy Wall Street, Americans are beginning to suspect they’ve been had. Big time. While they had imagined themselves members of a classless society since the end of the Great Depression, the past thirty years have finally awakened them, thirty years of shrinking income, of watching the rich increase their share of the pie—not splurging on the creation of jobs, as Republicrats claim, but on ludicrously expensive clothes, watches, shoes, champagne—in other words, luxuries.

But how to create unity among people so disparate, the so-called 99%? Citizens so enamored of their particularity, they mindlessly signed on to a crap slogan like “American Exceptionalism”?

Remember when conventional wisdom for the depressed involved smiling through your tears? The idea was that change could begin outside your skin and sink through into your psyche. Sounded weird because Western civilization perpetuates the belief that our minds and our bodies have little or no relationship to one another. Hey, over here’s the physical end of things, the part of us that operates on stuff. But over here’s the mental part, and that just floats around in the ether, doing nothing more than giving us something to do with our thoughts between television and focusing on work or school.

Surprise. Turns out that if you’re a bit down and you make yourself smile, you don’t feel quite as down after a few minutes of pulling the corners of your mouth toward your ears. True, smiling will not un-repossess your home or zip you back into the driver’s seat at your lost job or even cure cancer (sorry, Norman Cousins). Nevertheless, our physical being is far less stable than we like to imagine. It may be a thing but our mind is a thing as well. And the body may be amorphous but the mind is amorphous too. Turns out they share the same energy, occupy the same space, and draw on the same electrons and neutrons.

Take singing, for instance. Group singing.

In the Civil Rights Movement, the demonstrators sang—constantly. They sang on the picket line, on the bus, in the jails, during demonstrations. Wherever they were, they sang. Why? Because singing transformed them from a bunch of scared individuals into a powerful unit, a body of resistance more powerful than the law and all who carried it out.

The most powerful moment for me—one I included in my novel Bridge of the Single Hair—involved the force I’m talking about. I’m not the kind of person who finds it easy to “group sing.” Group chanting tends to make me clamp my teeth together. Admittedly, I’m an obnoxious individualist—American through and through. I don’t relinquish my separate identity without a fight. But, like all difficult things to do, this one turns out to be unbelievably worthwhile.

Back to 1961: The captain of Parchman Penitentiary, Mississippi’s State Prison farm, came into maximum security where the female Freedom Riders were housed. He brought his trusties and buckets and mops, instructing us to swab our floors and wash out our sinks and toilets. We took the cleaning supplies and set to work.

And we started to sing.

There wasn’t much to do at Parchman in maximum security. We never got out, except once a week to shower. We had no books, unless you count the single Bible shared by the entire block, which was reserved for the devout to read and for the non-devout to use as a bug killer. After all, we had no shoes. We couldn’t write, unless we borrowed the single stubby pencil, using toilet paper as our stationery. Letters were few and heavily censored. The most innocuous statements, such as “the weather remains warm” were blacked out to annoy us. Of course, if you were that easily annoyed, you didn’t belong in Parchman, that’s for sure.

In the evening, we’d all climb up into the top bunk, squint against the eternally burning lights and try to peer through the narrow windows at the night sky, on the off chance we might glimpse a star or two. We’d tell each other stories and we’d sing. The point of the singing was two-fold: entertainment and comfort, the kind of comfort that might’ve come from our mothers via macaroni and cheese or chicken soup and matzo balls or fried chitterlings. Whatever. Thick, nourishing (if fattening), warming and filling.

As we swabbed the floor and sang, Captain Tyson marched in front of our cells, coming to a stop directly in front of the cell I occupied. “Shut up!” he screeched. “Shut up!”

We had an elected spokeswoman. She was a nice person, too nice in my opinion. Far too accommodationist. She echoed the captain’s demand, albeit far more sweetly, and the Freedom Riders fell silent. If Captain Tyson had stood in front of any other cell, I believe that probably would’ve been the end of it. He happened to stand facing me and I looked in his eyes and he looked back in mine. I saw it.

Triumph.

I was eighteen and knew very little but I did know a man like Captain Tyson should never have the satisfaction of triumphing over a group of women who voluntarily entered prison as a way to demonstrate their commitment to justice. Although I cannot sing a note without croaking like a frog, I opened my mouth, looking straight at him.

                                    Ain’t gonna let nobody, turn me round

                                    Turn me round, turn me round

                                    Ain’t gonna let nobody, turn me round

                                    Walking and a-talking, talking and a-walking

                                    Walking into freedom land

Before I got all the way through a single phrase, no doubt to cover up the less than dulcet sound of my voice, the other freedom riders joined in. The cell doors opened. The trusties entered and began dragging our mattresses out, leaving us with cold perforated steel plates on which to sleep. Captain Tyson’s last words were “When y’all get ready to ‘pologize, I bring your mattresses back.”

Perhaps it’s unnecessary to say we never did apologize.

My point is that at the moment the other Freedom Riders joined their voices to mine, I felt almost as if my skin had dissolved, as if instead of one lonely silly girl standing before her cell door, I had melted into the larger body of women and we were one—a singular powerful whole. It was a journey I’ve never had the privilege of repeating. It was a journey the joy of which I’ve never forgotten.

And so I say OWS needs a body of music, rousing, unifying, thrilling. They couldn’t make a mistake to turn to the music libraries of the Civil Rights Movement.

The Psychopaths Among Us

Recent covers on The New Yorker replicate cartoons from the Great Depression—fat cats with martini glasses, floating away from the Titanic as it slips from view. Fat cats hoisting picket signs pleading for things to remain as they are. These would be amusing if it weren’t for their accuracy in depicting a class of people best described as psychopaths. In a recent photograph (sadly, I can’t recall where I saw this), a cluster of such history-challenged individuals gathered on a balcony above Wall Street, sipping champagne and sneering at the protesters below.

The word psychopath excites images of serial killers, but serial killers aren’t the largest contingent of this dysfunctional sector of our society. Estimates are that between 100 and 500 serial killers live among us, while “Joseph Newman, the head of the psychology department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison estimates that up to 1 percent of the general population in the United States can be described as psychopathic. This means that there are among us, roughly 3 million psychopaths.” http://www.psinvestigates.com/Psychopath%20At%20Work,%20Home%20and%20Play.htm

Consider (while contemplating our bankers and political leaders) Hare's PCL-R 20-item checklist for assessing psychopathology, generally considered authoritative.

1. GLIB and SUPERFICIAL CHARM -- the tendency to be smooth, engaging, charming, slick, and verbally facile. Psychopathic charm is not in the least shy, self-conscious, or afraid to say anything. A psychopath never gets tongue-tied. They have freed themselves from the social conventions about taking turns in talking, for example. 

2. GRANDIOSE SELF-WORTH -- a grossly inflated view of one's abilities and self-worth, self-assured, opinionated, cocky, a braggart. Psychopaths are arrogant people who believe they are superior human beings.

3. NEED FOR STIMULATION or PRONENESS TO BOREDOM -- an excessive need for novel, thrilling, and exciting stimulation; taking chances and doing things that are risky. Psychopaths often have a low self-discipline in carrying tasks through to completion because they get bored easily. They fail to work at the same job for any length of time, for example, or to finish tasks that they consider dull or routine. 

4. PATHOLOGICAL LYING -- can be moderate or high; in moderate form, they will be shrewd, crafty, cunning, sly, and clever; in extreme form, they will be deceptive, deceitful, underhanded, unscrupulous, manipulative, and dishonest.

5. CONNING AND MANIPULATIVENESS- the use of deceit and deception to cheat, con, or defraud others for personal gain; distinguished from Item #4 in the degree to which exploitation and callous ruthlessness is present, as reflected in a lack of concern for the feelings and suffering of one's victims.

6. LACK OF REMORSE OR GUILT -- a lack of feelings or concern for the losses, pain, and suffering of victims; a tendency to be unconcerned, dispassionate, coldhearted, and unempathic. This item is usually demonstrated by a disdain for one's victims.

7. SHALLOW AFFECT -- emotional poverty or a limited range or depth of feelings; interpersonal coldness in spite of signs of open gregariousness. 

8. CALLOUSNESS and LACK OF EMPATHY -- a lack of feelings toward people in general; cold, contemptuous, inconsiderate, and tactless.

9. PARASITIC LIFESTYLE -- an intentional, manipulative, selfish, and exploitative financial dependence on others as reflected in a lack of motivation, low self-discipline, and inability to begin or complete responsibilities.

10. POOR BEHAVIORAL CONTROLS -- expressions of irritability, annoyance, impatience, threats, aggression, and verbal abuse; inadequate control of anger and temper; acting hastily.

11. PROMISCUOUS SEXUAL BEHAVIOR -- a variety of brief, superficial relations, numerous affairs, and an indiscriminate selection of sexual partners; the maintenance of several relationships at the same time; a history of attempts to sexually coerce others into sexual activity or taking great pride at discussing sexual exploits or conquests.

12. EARLY BEHAVIOR PROBLEMS -- a variety of behaviors prior to age 13, including lying, theft, cheating, vandalism, bullying, sexual activity, fire-setting, glue-sniffing, alcohol use, and running away from home.

13. LACK OF REALISTIC, LONG-TERM GOALS -- an inability or persistent failure to develop and execute long-term plans and goals; a nomadic existence, aimless, lacking direction in life.

14. IMPULSIVITY -- the occurrence of behaviors that are unpremeditated and lack reflection or planning; inability to resist temptation, frustrations, and urges; a lack of deliberation without considering the consequences; foolhardy, rash, unpredictable, erratic, and reckless.

15. IRRESPONSIBILITY -- repeated failure to fulfill or honor obligations and commitments; such as not paying bills, defaulting on loans, performing sloppy work, being absent or late to work, failing to honor contractual agreements.

16. FAILURE TO ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR OWN ACTIONS -- a failure to accept responsibility for one's actions reflected in low conscientiousness, an absence of dutifulness, antagonistic manipulation, denial of responsibility, and an effort to manipulate others through this denial.

17. MANY SHORT-TERM MARITAL RELATIONSHIPS -- a lack of commitment to a long-term relationship reflected in inconsistent, undependable, and unreliable commitments in life, including marital.

18. JUVENILE DELINQUENCY -- behavior problems between the ages of 13-18; mostly behaviors that are crimes or clearly involve aspects of antagonism, exploitation, aggression, manipulation, or a callous, ruthless tough-mindedness.

19. REVOCATION OF CONDITION RELEASE -- a revocation of probation or other conditional release due to technical violations, such as carelessness, low deliberation, or failing to appear.

20. CRIMINAL VERSATILITY -- a diversity of types of criminal offenses, regardless if the person has been arrested or convicted for them; taking great pride at getting away with crimes.        

Each item on the checklist is scored from 0 to 2, with 2 the score for manifesting the characteristic wholly. A score above 25 indicates some measure of psychopathology. I may be harsh, but here's how I score politicians (in general) and bankers (forget the general):

(     (1) Most have to be glib with superficial charm to engage the broadest number of voters or the greatest number of investors. (2) To aspire to lead—men, women, people of all ages, colors, belief systems—that takes a grandiose sense of self-worth, even if all you’re leading them into is poverty. (3) Politicians and bankers are gamblers and risk takers, guesstimating their way into office or into a profitable trade (although there is some question about how much risk bankers ever really expose themselves to). (4) Who lies more frequently than a politician? Oh, yeah. A banker. (5) You can’t persuade people to vote for you or to give you their money by telling them the truth. Adlai Stevenson tried it and look what happened to him. To my knowledge, only Bernie Sanders has had significant luck with the truth. No banker ever tried it. (6) Declare war and watch thousands or hundreds of thousands of people die? No problem. Inflate the value of real estate, collect your profits, watch people tossed into the street? Next. (7) C’mon. No one with feeling could countenance ten minutes of the existence of an Abu Ghraib or a Guantanamo, not if they could end it. And who could endure champagne and caviar while grinning down at the hoi polloi? (8) See #7. (9) Who’s more parasitical than politicians and bankers? (10) If these guys don’t have poor behavioral control, I am a model of decorum. With their hands either in the till or up somebody’s skirt—they can’t imagine not taking whatever they want. (11) See #10. Also, if you google “sex scandal” and “politician” you’ll get an eyeful. For days. (12) Who knows? (13) Well, this is a gimme. Where has industry or politics ever shown the slightest far-sightedness? If these guys have grandchildren, I assume they believe sufficient wealth will enable those kids to buy filtered air and water while the rest of the population chokes. (14) No comment. (15) Another gimme. Do politicians or bankers even know this word? (16) Remember Dubya saying he took full responsibility and he’d done nothing wrong? He pretty much summed up what the rest of these guys would say if they were as dumb as George W. Bush.

The rest is debatable and not very interesting, geared primarily to the identified criminals in our midst. It’s the unidentified, or rather unindicted criminals we need to concern ourselves with.

Think about it.

OWS Looking More Like the Real Deal--Worldwide

Two things have happened that are encouraging with regard to Occupy Wall Street. First, OWS made a scathing statement, denouncing MoveOn: http://dailybail.com/home/photo-of-the-day-dear-moveonorg.html This came in spite of MoveOn’s brilliant video, exposing Obama and Clinton’s duplicity in praising the demonstrators in Libya, Iran, and other countries in the Middle East. The video intercuts shots of pontifical statements by the two politicos with shots of the Wall Street demonstrators being beaten by the police.

Clinton and Obama talk about the right to protest unfair conditions and a government that doesn’t represent the people. Now where on earth would we find such a government? See this video here: http://front.moveon.org/the-most-powerful-occupywallstreet-clip-you-will-see-this-month/

In spite of the power of this video, MoveOn, President Obama, and the Democratic Party (of which MoveOn is an arm) are making a blatant attempt to co-opt the Wall Street movement. OWS correctly repudiate both parties because neither has protected the interests of what OWS calls “the 99%”.

This movement grew in large part out of disgust with the President's betrayal of his promise of “change”, with business as usual returning as soon as he took office. Here’s a summary of Obama’s betrayals by Jesse Lava, Director criminal justice campaign at Brave New Foundation, writing in the Huffington Post:

If progressives had known that he would immediately hire Larry Summers, Tim Geithner and other insiders who had helped push the country off the financial cliff; that he would give a pass both to Bush-era torturers and to Wall Street fraudsters; that his "Keynesian" stimulus would fall far short of what Keynesian economists said was needed; that he'd not only escalate far more than he pledged in Afghanistan but also get us ensnared in Libya and Yemen without the congressional approval required by law; that his civil liberties record would lead ACLU president Anthony Romero to be "disgusted with this president"; that the U.S. would be even more hated in the Middle East than it was under Bush; that Obama's biggest progressive win would be a health care bill that lacked a public option (honoring a backroom deal he made with the insurance industry) and was eerily similar to what the conservative Heritage Foundation proposed two decades ago; that he would make virtually no effort at all on climate change and immigration; that he'd propose (propose!) cutting Social Security and sign a debt ceiling deal agreeing to slash spending at levels that Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush could only dream of -- in short, if we'd known that Obama the Conciliator would make it to the White House and Obama the Transformer would be left in Chicago's Grant Park on election night -- many of us would have gambled on someone else. http://www.procon.org/in-the-news-pdfs/huffingtonpost-the-real-obama-betrayal.pdf

Those who seek to blame the people who backed Obama for his failings haven’t been paying much attention. I didn’t support him but, frankly, he turned out even worse than I expected. Knowing what he was up against as the first black president, I didn’t think he could get much done—but I thought he might give it something of a try, at least here and there. What worried me from the get-go were the contrasts between speeches he wrote himself and those written by his handlers. While Obama is hardly left-wing, he is more thoughtful and articulate than those who speak through him. His handlers had him spewing the standard political crap, vague, semi-incoherent, unyielding to any penetration or thought. As his campaign progressed and came in sight of victory, his speeches grew increasingly insipid.

Yet he did make promises and people who otherwise wouldn't have bothered to vote woke up and gaily marched to the polls, after first plunking their tens and twenties into the hat. A renewed enthusiasm for democracy seized the country. And then reality set in.

In virtually every area in which Barack Obama promised change, he didn’t deliver. He handed the keys to the government coffers to every crook on Wall Street, in the banks, and in the mortgage industry. He told evicted home owners that Americans should give up the dream of owning their own home and contentedly rent apartments. He told his supporters to suck it up and stop whining. He even criticized black people for their putative self-pity. With every word and act, he dug himself a hole from which he won't be able to crawl out, not even by trying to resurrect Candidate for Change Obama. Unless the Republicans shoot themselves in the foot by nominating Michelle Bachman or Rick Perry, they have the White House locked up. Obama's supporters have largely fallen away and those he has wooed for the past three years hate him.

If you lie down with racists and you're black, you don't get up.

The second encouraging act by OWS has been to call for a national convention. Globally, OWS has hundreds of thousands of supporters and imitators. Here’s a small sampling of how far the movement has reached:

http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/15/world/occupy-goes-global/

http://www.kctv5.com/story/15705591/occupy-protests-spread-to-cities-around-the-world

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/business/2011-10/16/c_131193763.htm

I wish OWS had called for an international convention but I concede that would likely have been counterproductive--a big circus with no central act. Each country has to focus on its own specific needs. That OWS is coming together with their peers from across the United States gives reason to hope they will hammer out a strong platform, giving the lie to critics who call them confused malcontents.

What has been surprising this week has been the support for OWS coming from the national press, including media not formerly known to be sympathetic to those exploited and oppressed by bankers and financiers. ABC news, for example, followed the chairman of Bank of America in an attempt to force him to explain the bank’s levying an extra fee on its customers. The interview was not friendly.

But the handwriting's on the wall for all but the most determinedly blind. Fire in the class war, waged with unprecedented success by the ruling class since Reagan, at last has been returned. The 99% (or anyway a significant percentage of the 99%) don't seek the fiction of "wealth management" anymore; they want to keep their homes, find jobs, and live in relative peace.

The intensity of feeling in our country, not noted for class awareness, started as I said with Obama's repudiation of the principles he espoused. Having placed so much hope in the Democratic Party and in the democratic process, his supporters have at last begun to comprehend who really rules America.

Adam Smith articulated what few Americans have been willing to admit until recently:

Till there be property there can be no government, the very end of which is to secure wealth, and to defend the rich from the poor.” http://mises.org/journals/qjae/pdf/Q11_5.pdf

With so many in the middle class finding themselves slipping into poverty, the rich are at last in some trouble. It remains to be seen how much trouble, at least for the immediate future. For the long term, the heads of the fat cat rulers are on the chopping block. As Flannery O'Connor told us, the message has to be shouted for the near-deaf and written very large for the near-blind. Our rulers, however, are absolutely deaf and blind.

Revolution? Or Tantrum?

The conservatives (who tend to see danger under every bed anyway) are screaming for the heads of the disorganized, disgruntled demonstrators on Wall Street and elsewhere. "It's revolution!" they shriek. The so-called left agrees, crowing that the revolution has arrived at last—or at least it tootles toward us on its merry courteous way.

Sadly, the real Revolution—the organized one—has already come, achieved success beyond any grandee's wildest dreams, and has for some time been settled in as the status quo in what used to be our admittedly flawed democracy. The Revolution began with Ronald Reagan, who quashed reasonable taxes on the rich and on corporations and began the job of slashing oversight on everything from unions, and health and safety for workers to the financial services industry. It continued through Bill Clinton who, if he could only have kept his pants zipped, would have put Social Security on the table for privatization. He had a committee working on it when he was dragged before the American people to explain Monica's stained dress. As it was, Clinton did manage to eliminate welfare, something the Republicrats could never have done.

The real Revolution continued through 9/11, when the sheep of this nation lowered their eyes and turned away from the stripping of the Constitution as well as the public exposure of a rotten core underlying our "democracy," one that gloried in torturing people for the hell of it. The fiends who had been tutoring Latin Americans oligarchs found new employment in teaching the skills of waterboarding and stress positions to the next generation of torturers. We the People, as the saying goes, meekly acceded, begging only, "Keep us safe!"

The revolution finds a home, as well, in Barack Obama who has stepped up punitive measures on whistle blowers, presided over the dismantling of "Hope" from his watery Medicare bill, further demolished, to laughable, bills putatively creating rules that will keep Wall Street from decimating our economy yet again. Those bills would be ineffectual even if Congress funded any of them.

The "occupiers" of Wall Street and innumerable other communities, large and small, find themselves in the position of the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War, although perhaps not quite as valiant. They seek to restore our republic to its former glory—and oh yes, please throw in some jobs and give us our homes back. Is there any more, sir?? The demonstrators bristled when Fox News and other minions of the media charged them with "anti-capitalist" intentions. They grew defensive over the accusation that they had launched class war: "The rich did it first!"

The demonstrators are disorganized because they came together spontaneously, out of rage. The majority of Americans, I suspect, share their rage. Years of watching wages remain static while bonuses for bozos skyrocketed reached an apotheosis in foreclosures and unemployment. The President who promised us "Change!" delivered the same-old same-old and then scolded us for not being happy with our watery porridge. He even had the gall to suggest that the American dream of owning your own home was outdated. "Renting is fine," said our President, a man who will never stretch a pathetic retirement income to cover an ever-escalating rent. That retirement income itself, of course, is on the chopping block. We can't have war, huge bonuses, massive profits, AND social services. By the way, the infrastructure must crumble as well. Nothing is too dear to sacrifice to the greedy. And I'm not referring to homeowners who took out seemingly attractive mortgages.

A side story that's on point: Around the time Countrywide was riding high and wide, my husband and I decided to refinance our home. The rates were very attractive so we contacted the broker who had arranged our then current mortgage. We made it clear we wanted a fixed rate, not an adjustable rate, mortgage. Fine, she said, and quoted us a great percentage point. We agreed and the house was assessed, the paperwork drawn up and sent to us for signature. My husband, a meticulous man, went over the paperwork slowly and carefully. In the fine print, he discovered Countrywide's nasty little secret: The loan was NOT fixed rate but adjustable, with a horrendous escalation rate built in. As we tossed the paperwork into the shredder, I thought about the people without a PhD, without the patience and the ability to wade through oceans of lawyer-speak to uncover what they were actually signing onto. Later, when pundits blamed homeowners for jumping at these loans, I remembered how Countrywide nearly caught us in their fishnet.

For the last several years, the hubris of the ruling class has flowed like blood in the streets. Not strange that several Wall Street titans saw fit to toast the rabble below by quaffing champagne on their balconies and tittering.

For now, the "occupiers" (of our bought and paid-for real estate) must subscribe to nonviolence. Otherwise, our frightened populace will run back to their sheep pens and huddle. While Europe and the Middle East fight fire with fire, Americans hope their rulers will play nice. A few weeks or months of hoisting picket signs, chanting slogans, and throwing a few "Christians" to the lion-hearted cops—who boast that their "little nightsticks" are going to "get a workout"—and we can all go home.

And resume business as usual.

Say it isn't so, Sam.

Tilting at Windmills, The Rest of the Story

After waiting in the cold for thirty minutes, I boarded the bus, stopped by my house to pick up the car, and headed over to the sitter’s house for my daughter. I knew I was too tired at that point to carry her all the way home and too cross not to get into a fight with her over walking on her own.

But I felt something else more keenly: shame. I’d let my temper get the best of me and left my child vulnerable. My husband would be furious, if he knew. I promised myself I wouldn’t tell him. But that sort of promise I’ve never kept. If loose lips sink ships, there’s a fleet at the bottom of the Atlantic with my name on their bows.

Several days later, Walter’s mother had pulled through. I headed out to the airport once more to pick him up. It was an unusually clear San Francisco day. Waiting in the airport lounge, looking out at a cloudless sky, I heard a peculiar announcement: The landing of my husband’s flight had been delayed. The plane was socked in by fog.

Those of us waiting could see planes coming down, taxiing to their gates. First one, then another. One came in to the gate right next to ours. Yet again the loudspeaker explained that “fog” was preventing the landing of the plane for which we waited. Fifteen minutes went by. Thirty minutes. I had long before begun to sweat and shake, relieved only that my daughter was safely tucked at the sitter’s house. Whatever had happened, I thought it wouldn’t be something she needed to witness. I didn’t need to witness it either, but I had no choice.

Forty-five minutes after the scheduled landing—probably a mere blip on today’s airport radar—Walter’s plane came in. He was the first person off the plane. In spite of the fact that he is an African American, his face was pale and he was clearly shaky. We walked together a short distance away and he told me what had happened.

“I was sitting up front and the copilot came busting out of the cockpit, knelt down in front of me and started tearing at the floor. When he got the floor up, he leaned over and started pushing on the landing gear. It wouldn’t come down. I looked at the field and they were spraying foam all over it.”

Oh, great, I thought. And I spent my free time challenging a muni bus. Welcome home. But for once I kept my mouth shut.

About a week after this, Walter and I were sharing a bottle of wine and chatting about his trip. Naturally, I took this as the opportunity to unload, expecting him to blast me for my irresponsibility in risking arrest while he was three thousand miles away. But to my astonishment, he laughed.

And told me his own story.

He too had been on the Mission Street bus one night, leaning over to spot the 10 Monterey that would carry him up the hill. He saw it pull to the intersection as the doors to his bus opened. He too flung himself toward it, waving frantically. The driver ignored him. Walter pounded on the bus door. The driver continued to ignore him. Walter kicked the door. No response. He began shoving the bus until it started rocking back and forth. At last the driver opened the door and Walter boarded.

“Is this the 10 Monterey?” he said.

The driver looked at him coldly. “No,” he said. “It’s the 57 Ingleside.”

“Oh. Sorry.” And Walter got off.

When I stopped laughing, I told him, “You have more nerve than I do. When he said it was the Ingleside bus, I would’ve said, ‘Thank god,’ and sat down.”

While we might both have been fools to pit ourselves individually against San Francisco’s municipal railway, I was pleased to know we shared a reluctance to take injustice and swallow it. Even when we had no hope of a real victory.