Siff Notes (I didn't go to SIFF)

“You’re still here!!”

Well, I got shit to do. Do you know how I pay mind to all these people with nothing better to do than glom onto a mob protest? I’m protesting right back at them, treating today as "business as usual". Also, having an entire department to myself is hard to resist: I can crank up The Best Band You Never Heard in Your Life and not wince when Frank sings – “he puffs, he puffs up – his sanctified erection!!!” - one of several songs about the late Jimmy Swaggart. It makes me feel secretly irreverent in this professional cul-de-sac, and I’m most productive when I’m blasting music against the real world, anyways.

But I turn down the volume. The person exclaiming this to me is one of the top managers, probably still here as a show of solidarity for all the employees asked to come in today. There’s no context for what to expect the day following a riot in your own backyard. Most everyone came in; spent their day getting nothing done as they filed in and out of conference room 8A. They would loiter a few minutes watching CNN, gauge how long they had to stick around, eventually give up on the workday. An email went out at noon, describing the social climate in the streets, listing the official marches scheduled to take place today - along with a warning that planned marches could become UNofficial at a moments notice. Oh, and be out of the office by 2 PM. You’ve been warned.

It was now approaching four. “Yeah, I’m just finishing up. Just being stubborn, I guess. I hate letting a mob influence what I’m going to be doing today. Even if nobody ever knows I’m making my own little stand.” Mr. Manager isn’t all that impressed. “We have a real situation here, and we have to make accommodations…I know, we never asked for any of this. But whatever you’re doing, it can’t be as important as your safety.” I tell him okay, I’m logging off – and I tell him my bus is right outside the door on first avenue and getting out of town shouldn’t be a problem. He checks to make sure I know what hotel the company will put me up at - just in case.

I wrap my sling case over my shoulder and a need to get out of the city, the same impulse that overtakes me every day, sweeps me forward. I know I’ve been illogical. I’m torn between thinking we’ve learned and prepared between day one – where nobody was prepared – and thinking that, like an insidious disease or a cancer, anyone wanting to make trouble is going to learn from day one and adjust their approach.

A secret part of me wants to be part of this mob. That’s how I spent my lunch: I walked over to 5th and University and shouldered my way through a thundering roar of voices directed at a pair of hippies operating a ten foot puppet of the grim reaper; they stood atop some poor civilian’s car to do this. I took in all the people – the homeless, the itinerant, and the intense: I was compelled to classify each person I observed as either a true protestor, or someone who scuttled into this fray - someone wanting to be part of some feigned anarchy. I noted the number of high school aged children I saw, and I had to admit: if not for age and maturity, I would be sitting alongside them. All but for their dispossessed look: I had grown up with political notions defined by the Dead Kennedy’s and Minor Threat, and I’d like to believe – had this been a different time – I wouldn’t be some eye- shadowed emo squatter acting aloof where the action is happening. These were confusing moments for me, seeing adolescent dreams played out by others as my adult mind tallied up the damages to public property. The only rebellion I could muster was a cerebral one – a smooth reasoning and flattening of my straining adrenaline.

The official afternoon march was permitted to head south on Second Avenue, then eastwards on reaching Spring Street. My building faces both first and second - I catch my bus on first, so I only anticipate heavier re-routed bus traffic. I have this all played out in my mind, my only fear being the moment when Metro suspends bus traffic – as they did on the previous day – before my opportunity to get out of downtown. This happened painfully at 7 p.m. the prior evening, so I think I’m safe. The previous night was horrible. Michelle ended up trapped at the clothing boutique she works at, while her boss and some hired hands drilled plywood boards over the shopfront windows - all the downtown businesses were in crisis mode and doing the same (though in her case they really did lose a couple of windows). Getting her out of downtown was a challenge: I had to track, from home via television, where the violence was errupting while we anxiously communicated scenarios where we simply don't get her home that evening. By midnight, a path of vandalism was developing that led up Pike and Pine towards Capitol Hill: we coordinated a quick pickup that found us slowly creeping down second avenue to the viaduct, surveying the police presence at each intersection.

It begs the question, why did I go into work today? Beyond the already stated indignation at protest, I don't have any answers. There were no human casualties the day before, just a lot of damaged property. To my knowledge, only one person had been inappropriately pepper sprayed. There just didn't seem like enough of a lingering threat to anybody's life, and even if there were: there was a slight allure to being near it. Being at work was more interesting than watching and waiting for something to happen on the television; this way I was a heartbeat away from the physical drumbeat.

As I cross the street and arrive at my bus stop, I can hear the march in the distance. The 54 bus is already there - less than 100 yards away - but the noise echoing from Second Avenue is making me nervous. In the few seconds that it takes the light to turn from red to green, the noise changes from the loose unison of pedantic chant to the cacophony of human outcry. Green. The bus bursts forward like it has urgent information the seven of us waiting to board are uninformed about; it opens it's doors before coming to a complete stop and I hear the pok-pok-pok of tear gun fire in the distance. Everything is going wrong.

The next several moments are hurried. Individual shouts are becoming immanent and distinct against their mob equivalent backdrop, and I am the last to board the bus as I see through the windows dozens of people charging the intersection at First and Union. It is not unlike the arrival of locusts: they interweave between cars, run over the hoods of vehicles, they move quick and bee-like and it is impossible to know their intended destination. I grab the nearest seat, and they've arrived at the bus and they are pounding the sides, slapping their palms against the window. I take the time to flip them off. I immediately regret it; there's a good chance this bus is going nowhere.

From where I was sitting, I could not see through the bus driver's eyes. I could not tell if we were hemmed in; I could only say that from my window the cars next to it were frozen in place. The bus lunges. When I try and imagine what the driver had to deal with in this situation, I'm at a loss. I can't escape thinking that he instinctively accelerated - without consideration for the people outside. They were already everywhere. The bus moved forward, and the fist pounding trailed away from me, back, fading to the back of the bus. I could not hear it over the sound of all the chaos around me, but it would soon become apparent that a similar police blockade had been set up on First and University.

Though the bus was outstripping the marchers in the Southbound lanes, dozens of people had already made it down the opposite side of the street. The police reacted, and the bus headed into a big cloud of tear gas.

The cloud was visible and everywhere. You could not see it inside the bus, but it was thick enough that the world outside it's windows turned to smoke. The effects anticipated the visual: everything in your head feels so congested that you're fooled into believing you can't breath, your throat grows thick and your eyes fill with water. Imagine being stuck in the moment before a sneeze, only not as precious. It is intense to the point of pain, and I was not the only person down on their knees on the bus floor (the other was a senior citizen. but hey).

It would appear bus driver was hero and culprit: somehow he managed to navigate through the blockade to the next block, but also? His was the only window open in the entire bus. The other riders were hysterical, crying: once he made it past University, the driver brought the bus to a halt. There was no other moving traffic about. We appeared to be the last ones to get out.

All faces were twisted in nausea, mine included. The bus driver resignedly opened all the doors while I made my way down the aisles to make sure everyone was okay. No one was having a severe reaction. There was an elderly woman who wanted to get off the bus and I told her she should wait, the driver is trying to air out the bus and there won't be another behind this one. I tell her this through a thousand winces and blinks before getting back to the bus driver, who tells me he'll be okay. This is when I see his wide open window, realizing he got the worst of it. There's an opportunity to play hero: "Why don't you let me drive the bus down to Columbia?" He's huddled over in pain and doesn't find this funny. "No. Just let me sit here a few minutes".

I tell him I understand and I walk up and down the aisle trying to explain to people that we're just stopping for a few minutes. I'm not sure why this seems to have affected me less than others; I'm still physically inhibited by the gas but so many people about me range from extreme discomfort to outright pain. I stop to put a hand on the shoulder of a woman in tears, responding to an external show of misery. She's actually okay - I'm responding to a physical emanation. After a few minutes, I feel the bus moving forward and I return to my seat.

We make it to Columbia. Though there is no conceivable answer for how it was arranged, there is a medic car that the bus arrests behind: the bus driver disembarks, walks to the nearest wall, and collapses. Two EMT's rush to him to give him attention as another fresh bus driver gets on the bus. He lets out a whooo-eeee: "ugh, smells like you people have been through something". I tell him how we drove through the tear gas and how everyone wants to get home. He is full of good humor, he tells us he'll get as there soon as he can.

As we pull onto the viaduct, I walk up and down the bus opening each and every window.