Last Wednesday was just a weird day, man. It started with that phone call I told you about. It ended with a scene that was almost surreal enough for a Fellini movie. Almost.
I had to work late that night. Not terribly late, really, just a little under a couple of hours; the sun was still in the sky when I descended from the 13th Floor and exited out through the Mall. But the thing you have to understand about Salt Lake City is that very few people remain in the downtown area after 6 o’clock. Unlike other cities, few people live there, and there’s just not much in the way of night life, despite the repeated attempts of mayor after mayor to find some way of coaxing dedicated suburbanites to stick around and spend their money in SLC proper, instead of fleeing to their outlying bedroom communities after the quitting bell rings. Which meant I had the platform all to myself as I waited for the next train heading toward my own bedroom community. There were a few passersby on the sidewalks across the street, outside the Mall, but the hum of activity that defines this block during the middle of the day had faded like an oven cools after you turn it off. There were no cars driving along Main Street, and a thick tide of silence seemed to descend the sides of the surrounding building one step ahead of the deepening shadows.
I briefly considered dipping into my messenger bag for my book, but, as much as it pains me to admit this, I find I really don’t enjoy reading anymore. Not after doing it at work all day long. That’s something I probably ought to write about in more depth one of these days. But the important thing for now is that I was standing alone on a train platform in the middle of an eerily deserted city that felt something like a post-apocalyptic film from the early ’70s. (Think of Charlton Heston’s Omega Man.)
And that’s when I heard it. An indistinct, rhythmic chanting. I tried to make out what the chanters were saying, but I’m not very good at that — the cries of “DE-FENSE” at basketball games inevitably sound like “Sieg Heil!” to my ears. I tried to identify where it was coming from, but it was echoing off the concrete and glass canyons of the city, seeming to originate from everywhere and nowhere all at once. The only thing I was sure of was that it was coming closer. (I found myself thinking of The Omega Man again…)
Then the cops arrived. Several police cruisers rolled into the intersection at one end of the block, their lightbars flashing. They parked so as to halt any traffic that might come along — not likely — and the officers threw open their car doors, stepped out into the street, and waited.
A few moments later, a crowd of people appeared on one of the cross-streets, turning the corner past the police cordon onto Main and marching right past me. The marchers were all young, college age it looked like, and most of them were dressed in black. Many of them had covered their faces with black bandanas. Incongruously, there was a pretty blonde girl on a bicycle in their midst, as if she’d just been out for an evening ride, seen the protest, and thought it might be fun to tag along. The two protesters in the lead had a long black banner strung between them, the only sign I could see in the entire group. It read “End Capitalism,” and had a dollar sign with a slash through it.
Their chant was clear to me now. They were shouting “No justice, no peace… f**k the police!” The police standing by their cruisers in the intersection took this provocation rather calmly, I thought.
As protests go, this one was pretty small. It took only a minute for the entire crowd to file past me, up to the end of Main Street, and turn westward around another corner, trailed by a slowly creeping cop car.
They had just vanished from my view when two stragglers came after them, a couple of guys wearing the stylized Guy Fawkes masks that have been de rigueur for protesters ever since the movie V for Vendetta was released in 2005. One of the cops called after them: “You know, your protest might be more effective if you all stuck together.” The would-be Vs both turned and showed the cop their middle fingers, then took up the “f**k the police” chant.
I remember thinking, “It might be more effective if people actually knew what the hell your protest is about.”
And then it was all over. The cops got back in their cars and drove away. The sound of the chanting faded away. And I was alone on a train platform at quarter-of-eight at the end of a very weird Wednesday, waiting for my ride home.
