The Way It Was The Second Time Around

New Haven the second time around. More like a Cambridge Common rock concert than a rally. Not worth a trip from Boston, let alone Algeria.

Optimistic organizers wanted a crowd of 5000. Less than 1000 showed. You knew it when there were no hitchhikers at the entrance to the Mass Pike. Perhaps the only people hoping for a crowd were the Connecticut state police. They had the radar set up and it seemed that most of the speeders happened to be kids. But maybe it just seemed that way because they caught me.

Noon and the sun shining. It could have been May Day except for the colored leaves. No speakers in sight. Only a crowd patiently sitting in front of a small platform. A colorful sign for gay liberation. A stark black and white one: "Free Bobby and Erika." That was what it was supposed to be all about. But you might not have known.

Someone turned on a record at the platform. David Fry imitating Nixon. Nixon the ass eats a joint over the mike. People shout "right-on" and begin lighting up their own. I lie down with the others and feel the sun on my face as the new Bob Dylan record comes on. Too nice a day.

Too nice to really free Bobby and Erika. Music sun and dope for about an hour. People are really digging it. A two-year-old child tries to investigate the psychedelic bus behind the platform, but can't get in. He comes back crying to his mother. She comforts him. "They won't let you in? Those mother fuckers. You just go on up and tell them to fuck off. Don't let them give you no shit." She takes him over to the bus and he gets a guided tour.

Finally the speakers arrive. Elbert "Big Man" Howard. He rouses only a few right-ons and "free Bobby, free Erika's." A lot of people are stoned.

Everybody knows how Bobby and Erika have gotten fucked over. But we want to hear it again.

"Fuck the polls. We're going to lay bare the U.S. machine and all the criminals and watchdogs within it. They're guiding the complete denial of any of our remaining constitutional rights. There's a conspiracy in the Senate to put the Panthers at the mercy of the racist mad dogs."

And then Delinger. The one white man. He looked like the perennial blue collar worker. Worked hard all his life. Traveled the long and dusty road.

But he has unquestionable credentials. The Chicago Eight. And he knows what he is talking about.

"Nixon is the chief of the most violent and criminal organization in the world."

"Trials will only be fair when people like Mitchell, Wilson, Nixon, and Agnew are in the dock instead of Bobby and Erika."

The newsmen are all here. The CBS man with the video tape machine clamped to his shoulder is moving all around and blocking everybody's vision. I see him at all the demos. He looks like he's doing a new step trying to get himself interested in a dance routine with which he is already too familiar.

Now Elaine Brown is at the stand. Deputy Minister of Information for the Panther Party in Oakland. She could be a member of the Ikettes that back up Ike and Tina Turner. She doesn't even have a fro. Soft hair and rimless glasses. In a knit jumpsuit that might have come from Bobbi Baker's she moves with her words.

"I've just come back from visiting our brothers in Asia and I want you to know that there are 40 million people in Viet Nam, 40 million people in Korea, and 400 million in China and they all want to see Bobby and Erike freed."

The mike broke down as Michael Tabor of the New York 21 got up to speak. A few people started chanting "Free Erika Fuck America," but they stopped after a minute.

When the sound system finally got going Tabor was angry.

"A couple of minutes ago you were chanting. Why has this chanting stopped? It makes no sense for us to be out here mumbling and silent."

"A lot of you out there just come to rallies and say 'All Power to the People' and go home and smoke dope and listen to Hendrix and wait for the next rally . . . but that's not how Bobby and Erika are going to be freed."

"After this is over some of you should go to your local gun store and pick up some M-18's or go to your local pig department and get some equipment there. Then you will really be ready to free Bobby and Erika."

I had been waiting for someone to say it. Really it is the only way the thing could be done now. But you knew it wouldn't happen out of this rally. In the background two cops, a black cop and a white cop, were telling jokes and laughing with a reporter. And that's the way it was the second time around.