Set the Night on Fire (14 page)

C
asey and Dar had come on the bus from Michigan on Sunday, August 26
^th
, the day before the convention started. Teddy was on the bus too—Casey vaguely recognized him from campus demonstrations. They struck up a casual conversation, and when Teddy asked where they were staying, Casey told him he was from the North Shore but wouldn’t be staying at home. His parents didn’t understand. He and Dar had heard about a youth hostel somewhere in Lincoln Park. When Teddy asked if there might be room for him, Casey said, “Why not?”

They arrived just in time for the Yippies’
Festival of Life
concert and spilled into Lincoln Park along with five thousand other people. An hour later, Casey hooked up with Eric Payton. He’d hitch-hiked from Iowa City where students were into corn more than politics, he said. One of the few activists on the Iowa campus, Payton claimed he’d heard about Dar through the Big Ten inter-campus grapevine.

The four of them hung out that afternoon. The sky turned overcast, the PA system wasn’t the best, and you could hardly see the singers, but they were grooving to the togetherness, the free dope, and the sheer numbers of people.

Then somebody tried to bring in a flatbed truck to use as a stage, but the cops refused to let it in. People started throwing rocks—so the cops said. Casey never saw anyone throw as much as a pebble, but he heard taunting and shouting and lots of profanity. The cops retaliated by sweeping into the park to bash heads.

Looking back, he supposed it was inevitable. Everyone knew there was going to be trouble. Hell, the Movement had been encouraging people to come to Chicago to disrupt the convention. The four of them had hung back. This wasn’t an organized protest, Dar said, and he didn’t like unplanned demonstrations.

“We might not embrace a capitalist society,” he’d said in his authoritative campus-leader voice, “but we’re not anarchists. Chaos is not an alternative.”

Payton looked like he wanted to argue, but Casey stared him down. Payton kept his mouth shut.

When the 11:00 p.m. curfew rolled around, a crowd of people moved south from the park to the area between Stockton and Clark. Police rushed in with clubs and tear gas, pushing the crowd further south into Old Town. Casey saw a news reporter get clubbed by cops just for asking a few questions. His anger flared, and he glanced over at Dar, certain Dar was feeling the same way. But the light was spotty, and Dar’s expression was unreadable.

Then a line of cops moved in, squeezing them from the rear. Casey heard a pop and a clink as something hit the ground. A metal canister rolled toward him, sizzling as it turned over. A fog of white billowed up from it.

“Tear gas!” someone yelled. “Back off!”

Enveloped in the gas, Casey’s eyes began to sting. He felt as if flames were crawling up his nose. He wanted to squeeze his eyes shut, but a flood of tears poured out. His throat started to burn, and he couldn’t stop coughing. He staggered back, trying to hold his breath. He wanted to cover his face with his hands, but touching his skin made things worse. He stumbled over a curb. He heard shouting. He was yelling for Dar. Dar didn’t answer.

A slice of light cut an open space through the fog. He lurched forward, gasping for air. That’s all he wanted. Clean air. If he took in little breaths instead of big gasps, he discovered the pain wasn’t as intense. He stumbled toward the sliver of light.

“Hey, you.” A girl’s voice came out of the darkness. “This way. Come this way.”

The streetlight pooled on the pavement, but all he could see was a silhouette. A girl. Slender. Not tall. He squinted through his tears. She was making big circles with her hands, beckoning. He started towards her but tripped on the curb.

She helped him up and led him down an unfamiliar street. At the corner she turned right and went behind some buildings. He had no idea where Dar and Teddy and Payton had gone. The walk and the fresh air helped—his vision was still blurred, but the fire in his throat was subsiding. The girl cut across a lawn, down an alley, into a building. Then up two flights of stairs. He could still hear the din from the riot, but the shouting was a few decibels removed, the sirens less shrill.

Inside the apartment, she made him lie on a ratty sofa and gently washed his face, arms, and hands. When he started to feel human again, he thanked her.

“That’s cool. Glad I was there,” she said.

“I’m Casey. Who are you?”

“Alix Kerr.”

“Where are you from?”

“Indiana. I came in for the convention.”

“I came in from Michigan.” He propped himself up on his elbows.

“We have a . . . well . . . I go to the Michigan shore sometimes.”

Casey nodded and looked around. “How did you find this place?”

“Um . . . a friend from home hooked me up with the man who owns the building. There’s a film studio on the first floor. The guy let me crash for next to nothing. He said the lights would make people think twice before ripping off his equipment.”

When she got up and went into the kitchen to rinse the cloth she’d been using, Casey took a good look at her. Long, wispy blonde hair framed her face, and her blue eyes were huge. Her nose was long, but her lips formed a perfect bow when her face was in repose. But that rarely happened, he came to realize. Her mouth twitched when she was amused. Which was often. And when that twitch turned into a dazzling smile, as was the case now, Casey’s heart cracked open.

Once he could breathe again, they went out to find the others, doubling back through side streets and alleys. People were gathering at Grant Park, they learned, so they headed south along the lakefront. The weather cleared, and a silver moon slid across the night sky, trailing a veil of sparks on the waves. By the time they reached Oak Street Beach, with the twinkling expanse of water on one side and the lights from the buildings on the other, Alix said she’d never seen such a beautiful city. Casey felt a swell of pride.

A crowd of about a hundred people huddled on the beach around a campfire. As they passed, Casey called out for Dar and Teddy. They heard a few shouts back of “Not here, man,” and “They’re waging the revolution.” Then a female voice called out, “Teddy Markham? Are you looking for Teddy Markham?”

Casey’s pulse quickened. “You know him?” he yelled back

A girl disengaged herself from the crowd and trotted over. She was small, with long silvery blonde hair that glinted in the moonlight. She was wearing a denim jacket, jeans, and granny glasses. A camera encased in a macramé sling hung from her shoulder. “I haven’t seen him, but we went to high school together.”

“In Madison?”

“Yeah.”

“Who are you?”

Rain hesitated. “Julie.”

“Cool.” Casey nodded.

Alix stepped forward. “I’m Alix.”

Julie started to sway. Alix grabbed her arm. “Are you okay?”

“I was gassed earlier. I guess I’m still kind of messed up.”

“Me too,” Casey said. They exchanged nods. Then Casey said, “So have you seen Teddy?”

“You know, it’s weird. I hadn’t seen him in over a year, but I thought I saw him earlier. In the park. He’s got long sideburns now, right?”

“That’s him.”

“But that was hours ago. I don’t know where he went.”

“Okay. Thanks. Peace.” Casey turned to go.

It was Alix who intervened. “Hey, Julie. You have a place to crash tonight?”

She shook her head.

“You want to stay with us? We have a place in Old Town. Running water and everything.”

Casey, elated that Alix had used the pronoun “we,” sidled closer to her. Alix didn’t seem to notice.

Rain did, though. Casey could tell. But all she said was, “That would be far out.”

The three of them walked to Michigan Avenue and caught a bus to Grant Park. Searching the crowd, Casey spotted Dar and Teddy and Payton. They’d marched to police headquarters at 11
^th
and State, but the cops had forced them back to Grant Park.

Casey made introductions.

* *

That was a mistake, Casey thought now, as he stared out the window in the apartment. From the moment Alix and Dar met, he didn’t stand a chance. It didn’t matter that they were totally mismatched: Dar, tall and brooding, from blue-collar Detroit; Alix, fair, petite, almost ethereal, from the wheat fields of Indiana. They couldn’t take their eyes off each other.

Rain saw it, too. Although she pretended to be excited about reconnecting with Teddy, Casey saw her glance at Dar and Alix when she thought no one was looking. Teddy seemed restrained, but whether that was because he’d unexpectedly hooked up with someone from high school, or because of the vibes from Dar and Alix, Casey didn’t know. The only one who seemed oblivious was Payton.

Dar made sure he sat next to Alix on the bus back to Old Town, and he offered her his arm—almost tenderly, Casey thought—as she descended the steps. Back in the apartment, when Casey finally crashed in one of the bedrooms, Alix and Dar stayed in the living room, talking softly. Casey tried to deny it, but envy gnawed at his gut.

The convention was marked by flashes of exhilaration and moments of fear. There was no master plan. Demonstrations erupted opportunistically—someone wanted to march to Grant Park, someone else wanted to liberate the Amphitheater, someone else to overrun the Hilton. Squads formed and split off, only to be stopped by the cops who overpowered them with billy clubs and tear gas. If not for the injuries and arrests, it might have been funny, in a black-comedy, Lenny Bruce kind of way, Casey thought. Everyone was playing their assigned role.

Through it all, though, Dar was their leader. If he ordered them to march, they marched. If he ordered them to hang back, they hung back. Casey understood Dar’s need to right the wrongs of the system and insure that every member of society had a piece of it. That system had failed his family—his father had killed himself after losing his job, he’d told Casey. He didn’t want it to fail others.

“Isn’t that just another word for Marxism?” Teddy said one afternoon when they were relaxing in Lincoln Park between demonstrations.

“Not necessarily,” Rain said. It had only been a day or two, but Dar seemed to exert a pull on the rest of them. Rain and Alix hung on his every word; Rain even mimicked Dar’s language. “There used to be a balance in this country between social conscience and militarism,” she said soberly. “But we let the military-industrial complex throw it out of whack. We need to restore that balance, and the first step is to stop the war.”

Payton was different. He had a reckless streak and favored bold, flashy moves. Like the night he convinced Rain and Alix to sneak into the Hilton where a lot of convention delegates were staying. Their mission was to throw open the doors so protestors could overrun the hotel. Alix and Rain had gone to a Salvation Army store for second-hand high heels and cocktail dresses and nervously presented themselves at the hotel’s entrance. When questioned, they claimed to be meeting Humphrey campaign staffers in the bar. The doorman seemed inclined to let them in until a security guard demanded IDs they couldn’t produce, and they were kicked out. Later that night a crowd of protestors smashed through the bar’s plate glass window.

There were quieter, peaceful moments, too: a rally in Grant Park where they listened to Dick Gregory, Allen Ginsberg, and Norman Mailer . . . the night Alix anointed Julie “Rain” because of her silvery hair . . . the afternoon when Rain found someone to take pictures of the six of them together.

When the convention ended, Dar decided to stay in Chicago. He would have more impact working for change on the street, but everyone knew he wanted to be with Alix. Alix would stay also. She’d never been much of a student, she said. Her parents wouldn’t be happy, but she could handle them. Payton had dropped out and would be staying, too. Universities were the handmaidens of the establishment, he said, sucking your life-blood and turning you into corporate drones.

Casey was torn: he enjoyed campus life, but Dar was his best friend, and loyalty trumped school. He decided to stay too, but couldn’t tell his parents—they’d try to talk him out of it. Instead he confided in his sister, Valerie. She’d tell them. She owed him, anyway—he’d covered for her abortion six months earlier.

Rain couched it in political terms. Her father would be angry, but going back to campus life would rob her of the chance to change society. Her mother, a long-time labor activist, would understand—Rain was practically a red diaper baby.

Teddy wanted to stay as well, but knew his father would be furious. So he decided simply not to tell him. By the time he discovered Teddy wasn’t back at Michigan, it would be a fait accompli.

Alix talked to the guy who owned the film studio and came back with good news. They could all live in the Old Town apartment, provided they chipped in thirty dollars a month per person for rent. No phone or TV, but those were the earmarks of a materialistic society anyway. They didn’t need superficial contrivances.

That’s the way it started, Casey thought. People sharing their homes, their money, their beds. Together they would change the world.

D
ecked out with turrets, Roman arches, and even a few Gothic touches, the Chicago Coliseum looked more like a fortress than a convention center, Rain thought. Maybe that was because the building’s façade once belonged to a Civil War prison in Richmond, Virginia, and had been transplanted, brick by brick, to Chicago.

“Spooky,” she said, as the six of them gathered outside the building at 16
^th
and Wabash. “Why does SDS want to have their convention here?”

“It’s the only place that’ll have them,” Casey said. The Students for a Democratic Society had tried to find a venue for weeks, but no other spot in the city was willing to risk the violence they feared would accompany the proposed gathering.

“I think it’s romantic,” Alix said. “Like something out of Shakespeare. Or King Arthur.”

It was a few days after the Democratic Convention, and they’d taken the bus to the national SDS office on the west side. Rain wasn’t thrilled about it, invoking the Groucho Marx rule that any club that wanted her was not a club she wanted to join. But she made an exception out of respect for Dar.

The two-room office was small and patchy, with a few battered desks, a couple of second-hand typewriters, and a mimeo machine. The walls were covered with posters glorifying the Black Panther Party and Ho Chi Minh. Two men and a woman with brown waist-length hair were perched on desks. Rain didn’t know their names, but she was sure she’d seen them on TV. The woman, talking on the phone, didn’t appear to see them.

“There’s no question that the FBI is trying to infiltrate,” she said. “They’re probably listening in right now.” Her voice rose. “Hi, Feebies. Hope you’re having a good day.” She laughed. “Of course, it’s a hassle. Hoover’s a rabid dog. And Daley’s right there with him. The twin dogs of war.”  She paused. “No shit!” She covered the phone with her hand and spoke to the two men. “Do you believe it? Congress is planning hearings to find out whether there was Communist subversion during the Convention. Like it matters.” She laughed again and went back to the phone. “Sure. Bye.” She hung up.

One of the men, his back to them, said to the woman, “You know we’re fucking sitting ducks.”

“That’s why we need to cement our relationship with the working class. Build some defenses . . . ” She swiveled around and caught sight of Rain, Dar, and the others. “Hello. Who are you?”

Dar introduced himself.

“From Michigan, right?”

“You know him?” Rain jumped in.

“Heard the name.” She looked them all over. “You’re all friends?”

“We’re a collective,” Payton jumped in.

She frowned. “Why are you here?”

“We want to help. I’m Eric Payton. From Iowa.”

If Payton thought he’d be recognized, he had to be disappointed, Rain thought. The woman made no sign that she knew him. “Well, well, that’s far out.” But she didn’t look pleased. She looked suspicious. She pushed a shirtsleeve above her elbow. “Well, if you’re serious about helping, there
is
something that needs doing.”

“Anything,” Payton said.

“We need someone to case the Coliseum. They’re willing to let us have our national convention there next June, and we want to make sure it’s cool.”

“Isn’t that where the Doors show was a few months ago?” Casey asked. “And where Hendrix is coming next month?”

“That’s right.”

“How about we check it out then, like from backstage?” He grinned hopefully.

A sour look was her answer. The woman spotted Rain’s camera, which was slung over her shoulder. “Is that a 35 millimeter?”

Rain nodded. “It’s a Minolta.”

“Cool. Could you take some shots of the place? It would really help us figure out the lay of the land.”

And keep us out of your hair until you check us out, Rain thought. She glanced over at Dar. He was watching her. Probably thinking the same thing. She turned back to the girl and shrugged. “Sure. Why not?”

* *

 “Damn. My lens isn’t wide enough.” Rain stopped snapping pictures of the exterior, which occupied the entire block of Wabash between 16
^th
and 17
^th
. “I’ll have to take a series and bracket them.”

“Where’s the door?” Payton asked.

She pointed to an entrance with an overhanging canopy. “Right in front of you.”

“Let’s go in.”

They filed into a huge, cavernous arena with a gently arched ceiling. It looked bigger than two football fields, not including the balcony that ran around the perimeter.

Payton whistled. “I bet you could fit fifty thousand people in here.”

“Probably,” Casey said. He scanned a flyer he’d picked up near the entrance. “Did you know both Republicans and Democrats have held conventions here?”

“How many is SDS expecting?” Rain asked.

“I’ve heard ten, maybe twenty thousand.”

They climbed up to the balcony. Rain framed the widest shot she could manage and clicked. “We’re becoming a force.”

“Maybe.” Dar leaned over a railing.

“Maybe?”

“The convention was one thing,” Dar replied. “But now everyone’s trying to figure out what direction SDS should take. There’s a lot of politics and saber rattling.”

“What do you mean?” Rain asked.

“Some people want to forge an alliance with blue-collar workers. Convince them it’s in the financial interests of the powerful to keep the war going. Encourage them to take action.”

“Stand over there,” Rain ordered. “With Payton and Teddy.” She took a shot of the three of them together, the hall in the background. “So?”

They headed back down the steps. “Other people want to open channels with the Black Panthers.” Dar glanced at Payton. “And others want to organize on the community level, using the Methodist church or other grassroots organizations, like Saul Alinsky.”

“It’s all bullshit,” Payton cut in. “The next step should be direct action. Confrontation.”

“There’s that too,” Dar said.

“Hold on, Payton,” Alix spoke up. “Just because things aren’t perfect doesn’t mean you have to destroy them.”

“That’s counter-revolutionary thinking,” Payton said.

Alix crossed her arms. “Actually, it seems to me we have a choice whether to see things in political terms or not. That’s the beauty of living in this country. I choose to think you can improve things without annihilating them.”

“Spoken like a true member of the ruling class,” Payton sneered.

Rain finished shooting her roll of film, rewound it, and popped it out of the camera. Alix didn’t look happy.

“Issues and agendas are created for all sorts of reasons,” Dar offered, clearly trying to calm the waters. “You have to look at their motives. Most SDS members aren’t from the working class. They aren’t oppressed. They aren’t even poor.”

“Like us,” Alix said.

“Well . . . ” Dar hesitated, as if the answer was obvious.

“Are you saying it would be better if we’d been born poor?”

“Not necessarily. When you have an organization with factions splitting off in different directions, there can be a vacuum of leadership. No matter where you come from.” He paused. “They didn’t coin the term ‘divide and conquer’ for nothing.”

“Like what the FBI is doing to us,” Teddy said.

“It’s not just them,” Dar said. “We’re starting to do it to ourselves.”

“What do you expect, man?” Payton shook his head. “You can’t just wish change. Or pray for it. Someone has to take a stand.”

“Dar was arrested twice at the convention,” Casey said. “I think that’s taking a stand. What about you?”

“Just because the pigs didn’t get me doesn’t mean I’m not committed.” He looked around. “Do I have to be a martyr like Gantner?”

“No one’s attacking you, Payton,” Dar said peaceably. “All I’m saying is that this might be a good time for me to shift gears.”

“You’re gonna do a Timothy Leary? Just drop out?” 

Dar started back toward the front door. The others followed. “Actually, Alix has convinced me I’ve been neglecting my spiritual side. I’m going to India.”

Payton rolled his eyes. Teddy looked shocked.

“What the fuck’s in India?” Payton asked.

“Maharishi Mahesh Yogi,” Dar said.

“The dude the Beatles went to see?” Teddy asked.

“He teaches transcendental meditation. Which is supposed to help you achieve a higher level of consciousness, creativity, and energy.” Dar smiled at Payton. “How about you, Payton? Want to come with?”

“I have all the consciousness I need. I don’t have the time—or the bread.” Payton frowned. “Hey. How can you afford it?”

“I’m lending him the money,” Alix said quietly.

Payton looked at Casey, then Dar. He started to say something, then stopped.

“Is she going too?” Teddy asked.

Dar shook his head.

“Well, you can’t go alone,” Casey said. “I’ll go with you.”

“You?” The surprise in Payton’s voice was genuine. “You’re about as spiritual as Teddy’s tennis racket.”

“There’s always a first time,” Casey said. “You’ve got enough commitment for the rest of us, anyway.” He turned to Rain. “What about you?”

“Actually, I think Payton’s right. There is work to be done here. I met some people who work for
The Seed
.” She held up her camera. “I’m gonna be their photographer.”

“What about you, Mr. Markham from Madison?” Casey asked.

Teddy scratched his cheek with his little finger, an oddly feminine gesture, Rain thought. “I think I’ll help Payton mobilize the Black Panthers.”