Pacific Views

THE DANCE OF THE DRUNKEN MONKEYS

[In which Pat K. picks up (sort of) where she left off in this archived essay.]

The sky was darkly ominous, and distant rumbles of thunder could be heard. Mind you, this was an August afternoon in the San Francisco Bay Area where it isn’t supposed to rain from about May thru October. Fortunately, I had enough smarts to wrap four of my signs in Saran Wrap before I left the house. (What would we war protesters do without Saran Wrap?)

Sure enough, I no sooner made it to the park and began to punch my signs on their plant poles into the ground when big splashes of rain began pounding down. Like a madwoman, I pulled up the unprotected signs, tossed them back into the truck before they could be ruined, and shrugged into rain gear. No freak shower was going to stop my weekly vigil for the dead in Iraq. Eventually, my friend Danika joined me, umbrella up … and we settled in for an hour’s worth of acute dampness.

Suddenly it became quite apparent that we were not exactly alone. We had an audience. A group of teen-age boys had taken refuge from the storm in the gazebo behind where we stood.

Now teen-age boys aren’t as a rule terribly threatening … taken one at a time. In fact, most are fairly intelligent. Why, I’m told that some actually think before they act, and some can even be said to possess a modicum of thoughtfulness.

But get a bunch of bored teens into a pack … and their brains tend to disappear. It’s a shame.

First we heard loud hoots and hollers along the lines of “SUPPORT OUR TROOPS” and “Why don’t you MOVE to Iraq??” … followed by equally loud guffaws and snickering. Danika attempted to engage them in conversation. But they weren’t after a stimulating debate on the merits of our Iraq misadventure. They were strictly in it for the giggles. So Danika and I went into Zen mode and zoned them out.

Then one of the boys found a piece of cardboard and scrawled on it “SUPPORT OUR TROOPS”. That’s when the dance of the drunken monkeys began (minus the organ grinder). Whooping and hollering, with the rain still coming down in buckets, they pranced around us, up and down the sidewalk, waving that sign giddily at traffic. The bolder of them came up and held the sign out to me. With such a look of innocence, hardly masking the malice behind it, he said, “Lady, here … why not hold THIS sign?” I calmly and politely smiled and said no thanks. Off they went again, shouting and leaping around, waving that sign like a scalp.

Someone on the street honked. Danika and I smiled graciously and waved in acknowledgement, ignoring the boys completely. The boys scowled. “Hey, they were honking for US, not YOU!!” More whooping. A little later came another honk. Danika and I smiled graciously and waved in acknowledgement. The boys were furious. “That was OUR honk, not YOURS!” they sneered.

Then from out of nowhere, a man walked up to us and began to chat, paying no mind whatsoever to our teen-aged tormentors. He talked about the war, how our troops were faring in Iraq, “what this country was coming to” … in fact, we talked for at least 5 minutes, raindrops not withstanding, before he left (somewhat more sodden than when he’d stopped). The boys resumed their act. Not two minutes later, another man walked up. Same deal. He stood and chatted with us about the war, and about encroaching fascism in this country … stood there in the rain for some 10 minutes before he finally had to leave (rather sodden also).

I don’t think I’ll ever forget that. The boys by now had retreated to the gazebo. And although the taunts continued, the tenor was definitely less strident. Danika and I stood out there in the wet for half an hour longer than we usually would have. We smiled the whole time.

Posted by Pat K., California at August 30, 2003 08:29 PM | TrackBack