Distant Thunder

There were scenes of amazing courage or stupidity or selfishness, depending upon your point of view. The most obvious was the first fifty or so protestors from the UW who, at the 45th St. on-ramp to I-5 ran in front of 70 mph traffic, bringing it to a stop to allow over 10,000 of us to engage in a spectacular march to the Federal Courthouse downtown. As you might expect, there were risks even for the 10,000. After the courthouse demonstration we occupied the northbound lanes of the freeway for the walk back to campus. It was all sunshine and roses until several police cars roared down an on-ramp and cut us off. The blue meanies had arrived, and they were pissed. People scrambled in every direction. JB and I made it over a wall and down a grassy slope to what we thought was safety. Severy hundred of us had continued walking toward campus when just as suddenly another collection of squad cars screeched to a halt behind us. The cops jumped out armed with what looked like four-foot-long batons and began whacking the slow afoot across their backs, working their way through the crowd toward us as they went. By this time JB and I had, to our amazement, bumped into Leah, a sorority girl we knew as a Prep cheerleader. She was certainly the last person anyone would expect to find in this situation. Her father was a doctor, for Christ's sake! I grabbed her right hand and JB her left as we ran from the cops. It was at that point that I had what was probably the worst idea of my life: that we should run up the grassy bank and climb over a ten-foot cyclone fence to escape the cops. That was stupid. Fortunately, JB yanked Leah's arm back toward the street and we continued our getaway. Looking over my shoulder to see if they were gaining on us, I saw cops whacking the backs of guys trying to scale the fence. They were like bugs getting squished. We made it out of there and I swore I would never badmouth a sorority girl again. Leah, you rock. We demonstrated every day, sometimes 30,000 of us at a time, then watched the local TV news reports. This was guaranteed to piss everyone in the room off. It was all "just another picnic" to the weasels of local news. Ten or eleven days after the kids at Kent State were gunned down, law enforcement in Mississippi fired 400 - 500 rounds in the direction of students at Jackson State, blowing out their dormitory windows and killing two. This got a fraction of the news coverage Kent State received, some might say because those killed were Black. It was at about this time that the University administration announced that students who continued to "strike" would be given failing grades, not passing withdrawals, in their classes. Almost overnight the vast majority of students returned to class and the demonstrations withered. Even though I thought the strike was stupid, I was crushed that "my people" caved in. It seemed to validate the humiliating characterizations in the media about the whole thing being a picnic. Whatever sense of community I had was now gone. The day after the administration's announcement Anton and I stood at the main entrance to the Quad, which we considered to be the center of the campus, and shouted insults at the Greeks walking in from the north end to return to class. I do not know how we escaped getting our asses kicked that day, but we did. People were probably too ashamed to do it. Everything that mattered to me just faded away. I was not going to class and no longer had a job, or any prospects for a job. I was down to my last $200 - $300, so what the hey, let's play poker! There were five of us, including JB. It got to be about 3 AM and I was down $20 or so. It was a time to wrap things up so JB called "Acey-Deucey." For the uninitiated, the object was to get a third card between the two you had been dealt. The best hand was an ace and a deuce. After the ante, each player in turn announced the amount of his bet up to the total in the pot. If the third card was between the first two, he won the bet. If not, he threw the amount lost into the pot. When someone bet "the pot" and won, poker would be over for the evening. This usually spurred those who had been losing to make larger and riskier bets to try to get even. We played around the table several times without anyone risking a pot bet, but the pool of money in the middle of the table continued to grow. Destiny intervened as JB was dealing and I sat to his right. Everyone was dealt either aces and twos or kings and threes except JB, who had a queen and a four. I was bummed beyond belief. I was sitting there with a sure winner, an ace – deuce hand, but I had no chance in hell of even getting to play it. One of the other guys was certain to win a pot bet before me. Poker would be over for the night. I was doomed, DOOMED by the probabilities. That is why you play the game. The player on JB's left bet the pot and lost. This had little effect on my spirits because it was still a near certainty the next player would bet the pot and win. But he lost. My heart started to flutter. Is it possible? Sure enough, the next player bet the pot and lost! I had an ace and a deuce and the certainty of funds for the tough search for a summer job within my grasp.