I have never heard him so calm, so melancholy, so focused. Because he knows me so well he is sure that if I show up at the date and time he specifies, the date, time and place he repeats over and over again, it will be an important moment, both for me and the organization. It might not be a lesson I like but it will definitely teach me something important, something I need to know. I think about following his instructions and it feels like walking into a trap. I can tell that Emmett already knows this set-up sounds like a trap, perhaps that is why he has made his voice so calm. But the old Emmett confidence is still in full effect and therefore he also believes I will simply be persuaded by the pure force of his argument and comply. As I’m listening I am gripped by a feeling that I don’t remember ever having in my life. It is so uncanny, and many times when I later think back on it, even then I feel completely drained. The feeling is so simple I don’t even know if it has a name. I want to ask him to forgive me. But I don’t, and I don’t think in the few short sentences I have uttered during our brief conversation I let my voice crack even once. He doesn’t get the upper hand. I curtly say I will research and consider his proposal and then hang up. In the silence that follows, I wonder if I will ever hear his voice again.
2.
The buses roll up but no one gets on. Not a single worker. We all stand in the dust and don’t get on. That is how it starts. Instead of getting on the buses, as we have always done, we just stand there staring at them, staring them down, our arms linked as we surround them. Already, as the buses are pulling in, I am startled to see how many television cameras have arrived. I had underestimated Emmett, he really came through: I said get us media attention and here it is. I am trying to count them but it’s difficult in all the early tangle and commotion. There must be at least a dozen television crews here, all angling for the best possible shot. Already things are going better than I possibly imagined. As we stand in stoic silence, the buses unable to move forward or back as we surround them, I am imagining what it will look like on television, an image of quiet strength and solidarity. The subcontractors knew this strike was coming, but it seems they weren’t expecting it this soon, because the police and scabs haven’t arrived yet. Dawn is still breaking and there is no one here but us, the bus drivers and television crews. I can’t quite explain it, everything is such a strange mix of stillness and commotion.
When the police arrive the mood changes quickly. Police vans start pulling up and keep pulling up for hours. It is as if they’ve already decided to outnumber us and can of course do so effortlessly. In two hours the entire field is surrounded and they’re on their megaphones repeating over and over again that this strike is illegal, we must disperse immediately, this strike is illegal, we must get on the buses, get back to work, this strike is illegal, through the tepid buzz of the megaphones, over and over again for hours. We stand our ground, keep the buses from moving, and the cops also hold their ground, surrounding us with their numbing megaphone repetitions. We eat lunch all still standing, surrounding the buses that have now been abandoned by their drivers, and in late afternoon the scabs start to arrive. It’s strange to me that at first there aren’t that many, maybe a hundred or so, as they fan out across the field in packs of five or ten, unclear what precisely they are there to do, sizing up the situation in a manner that might almost be described as relaxed, nonetheless making us nervous, sniffing around towards their first move if we don’t make our move first. A few try to get between us and the buses but we don’t let them and they don’t yet insist. Everything is still calm, but tensions can’t help but gradually creep forward, and I scan the field nervously waiting for something to crack.
I don’t know what time it is when the first rock is thrown, nor am I quick enough to catch who threw it. Later, several witnesses claim it was thrown by one of the scabs, thrown directly into the face of a cop who had momentarily let his shield down in boredom, but of course the newspapers will say it was thrown by one of us. One rock is all it takes for the cops to storm in. Suddenly I am in the middle and no overview is possible. I’m being pushed and pulled from every direction. Out of the corner of my eye I see a scab charging a police officer, see him smashed towards the ground, blood from his head mixing into the dust. As the violence is starting I already feel I’m in some strange sort of theatre. All those actually fighting work for the bosses, some of them pretending to be workers while others pretend to be police. Actors fighting as if the cameras were rolling and they are. I realize this is what will actually be on the news tonight, violent foreign workers attacking noble white cops. But this is only the beginning and maybe the story will still change over time. A fist hits my head, I don’t see where it came from or who it belongs to. I immediately feel dizzy, wonder if one punch is all it takes, if I’m going down, will be trampled to death by the people I love most, but manage to regain my balance, slide through the bodies and I’m standing again. The drivers have made it back into their buses and are pulling away as so many of us continue to mob around in an attempt to stop them, the cops beating us down or dragging us away. It is only later I learn that we managed to get into the engines, someone knew which part to remove, that many of the buses broke down less than a mile from this field. When they write about today, years from now, it’s something every story will mention, how we managed to stop the buses: first one way, then another.
Cops are handcuffing workers and dragging them into the vans at the edge of the field. I see the mentor at the far end, handcuffed and shoved into a vehicle, doing her best to shove back. If we actually succeed, I realize at that moment, it will be because of her. A few feet in front of me two cops are handcuffing a man they’ve slammed down onto his knees as I rush forward to intervene, pushing one cop out of the way as my friend pulls free and runs. The other night around the fire he was the first one to use the word dignity. In a second two guns are pressed against either side of my head and my hands are high in the air in surrender. Time is completely detached from itself; I can barely follow the words they are yelling at me, barely separate them from the dull buzz of the megaphone: this strike is illegal, you must disperse immediately, this strike is illegal, etc. I think: I am finally doing it. What I was always told is impossible. I am dying for a cause. It was probably on a day much like today that my parents were killed. I always thought they had died for nothing, but suddenly now realize almost the opposite is true. I have judged them wanting and was completely and utterly wrong. I feel both cops about to pull the trigger, that in a moment I’ll be dead, and open my mouth to scream but can’t understand what’s happening, I’m not screaming but singing, I’m singing as loud as I possibly can, one of the old songs I’ve been figuring out in the library. Some memory from my previous life already knows it’s the most popular one, the song we all know. The cops on either side of me are so surprised that they pause, probably only for a few moments, but it seems long enough for those around me to start singing as well. They all know the song but we’re each singing it in our own language, with slightly different words, a song that spreads like a wildfire. It’s the strangest thing. All the workers are singing but the scabs don’t know the melody or the words. In less than a moment it becomes violently clear who is one of us and who is one of them. We are all singing at the top of our lungs. I have never heard so many sing so loudly. There is still fighting but it is as if the singing has taken over. The cops are handcuffing us and dragging us towards the vans as we continue to sing. There are still two guns against my head but, as I continue to sing at the top of my lungs, I’m not as sure as I was before that they’re actually going to fire. My arms are raised high above my head in surrender. As I continue to sing I feel a secret hope that on television tomorrow there will be fighting but there will also be singing. That as we continue to sing this song that we all heard as children, as we continue to sing the world will actually hear us, that they will see us and hear us on their screens.