Excerpt: Bread & Puppet Theater

"You dudes okay back there?"

      "Yes, we're okay, but my buddy has to take a leak."

      "We'll be making a rest stop in about fifteen minutes."

      "Great. Where are we, anyway?"

      "Maryland, near the Delaware border." Three different people were answering from the front of the bus; not the driver, Peter. He paid attention to the road religiously. Behind him in the converted school bus, with only a little of the original yellow left between the multi-color Peter Max style motif, red, blue, green; behind him were three double seats left, on each side of the aisle. Between those seats and Johnny Emerson and Tony's nook at the rear emergency door, were a dozen or so ten-foot diameter heads, caricatures of villains like Agnew, Nixon, Kissinger, and assorted fairies and well-groomed men, all paper mache, all reaching the ceiling of the bus and busting at the windows. Johnny rested his jacket on Nixon's nose; very convenient. Tony reclined between a pinwheel and a calliope.

      The Bread and Puppet Theater were news to him and Tony. If not for Walter's introduction, they would never have known about them. They were prepared to catch a Greyhound to Washington. This trip saved them money. They weren't even able to contribute to the gas pool and were never asked. They were, however, asked if they would carry some equipment and costumes out, which they gladly agreed to do.

      The Bread & Puppet Theater shared the space over the Purple Onion in the East Village. Walter worked with them before they moved to Plainfield, Vermont in June 1970. There they were the ‘theater-in-residence’ at Goddard College. Later, they would move on to Glover, Vermont, and convert an old barn there into a museum to house their puppets and homemade instruments, sculptures, and things. They even gave workshops in mime and storytelling there. 

      Now, they were headed to D.C. to give another of their

performances against American involvement in Vietnam. Their goal was to entertain while teaching about the social injustices of war, hunger and oppression. Johnny had never seen them perform. The driver, Peter Schumann, the man who formed them in West Germany in 1962, was a nice to them, offering to share food and drink and making room for them in the back of their bus. 

      Guerrilla theater they called it. Until someone informed him, he thought it was the primate they were referring to since they seemed to be monkeying around with tsetse masks and stuff. These radical activists like the San Francisco Mime Troupe that Bill Graham belonged to before he started the Fillmore rock 'n' roll shows, were very popular at demonstrations. Abbie Hoffman used guerrilla theater when he and the other Yippies took over Wall Street in August 1967. It created quite a media-frenzy and pushed the anti-war movement onto the front pages of the Daily News and Post. It certainly annoyed the business people who were ridiculed and satirized by them. 

     Guerrilla theater was going to be used by the Bread and Puppet Theater in Washington that Saturday and Sunday at the Moratorium.

The bus arrived at the Tidal Basin in Washington Friday evening, seven hours after it had left Union Square in Manhattan. Everyone was told to meet back there at 5 pm on Sunday if they wanted a ride back to New York.

     He and Tony made it to the church that had opened its doors to demonstrators. Sure, they had to sleep on the floor in the basement but it was off the street. Perhaps a hundred people took cots and stowed their things for the night. What a night. Nothing going on outside but in his mind, the sirens were blaring. A headache like he had never felt before pounded his head. He was sure that it had something to do with the church. Perhaps because he was Jewish the spirits in the church were rebelling against him. All night long he stayed up.

     "Are you okay?" she said standing over him draped by a thin blanket the staff had handed out."

     "I have a terrible headache," moaned Johnny as he glanced over to his travel partner fast asleep beside him.

     "That's easy; come across the street with me to the rectory. I believe they have some medicine." She helped him to stand up and get his bearings and left the church. As soon as he passed through the door onto the street, his headache went away. 

     "I can't believe it; my headache is gone."

     "You can't be serious."

     "Yes, it's gone. Maybe all I needed was some fresh air." They went to the rectory anyway, sat in the kitchen and had tea together, something called herbal tea." Judith was her name. The night in the church was long and their conversation lasted until dawn, a dawn they spent rolling on the grass behind the Lincoln Memorial emancipated from the burdens of sleeping in the church, despite the chilly air, wrapped together with Judith in the thin blanket until the park service officer happened upon them. They had to leave, and so they strolled back towards the church where both of them had stashed their belongings. They said goodbye. When they returned the demonstration was already starting.

     They were to meet the Bread & Puppet Theater at the base of the Washington Monument at 8 am. Somehow, it was easy to find directions; everyone sleeping in the church were heading to the Monument or the Reflecting Pool. He and Tony found Peter and the troupe by spying the large Nixon and Agnew heads being propped up. They pitched in, as they had promised, and helped get all the sets ready. There was even some talk about Johnny being a Viet Cong soldier but then they found a replacement.

The show began, if you can call it a show. He had never seen anything like it before.

      Later, Ramparts magazine detailed the performance for posterity: 

"A squad of soldiers moved through the part adjoining the U.S. Capitol. They were grubby looking troopers, clad in jungle fatigues and "boonie hats" with wide brims turned up. Jumping a low fence, they began shouting at a group of tourists. 'All right. Hold it. Hold it. Nobody move. Nobody move.' Their voices were full of tension and anger. A man broke out of the crowd and started running. Several soldiers fired at once, and the man fell, clutching his stomach. Blood could be seen on the clean sidewalk. The tourists turned away in horror. 'Get a body count,' a soldier yelled.                

"Another squad of soldiers emerged from under the Capitol steps.’All right. ID. ID,' they screeched. 'You got no ID and you Viet Cong.' They quickly grabbed a young woman and led her away, binding her wrists behind her back and prodding her with their rifles.... They grabbed [a] young man and threw him on the ground, tying his hands behind his back. Several of the soldiers kicked him, seeming to aim for his groin.

"Then someone took out a long, thick hunting knife and lifted up the man's shirt, holding the knife to his bare stomach, and pushed against it slightly. 'You VC? You VC?' The man said nothing. He was pushed to his feet and shoved down again. Then he was told to get up. This time the knife was pushed to the side of his neck, and the same question was repeated. Still no answer. The man was dragged away.... Then the soldiers left, and a smaller, less angry group of men dressed in khaki fatigues passed out leaflets to the astonished tourists.

"A US Infantry platoon just passed through here!" the pink colored piece of paper read in big bold letters. "If you had been Vietnamese... We might have burned your house. We might have shot your dog. We might have shot you... HELP US END THE WAR BEFORE THEY TURN YOUR SON INTO A BUTCHER OR A CORPSE."

       How much of Johnny's  trip was revolutionary and how much was it recreation? They were both at the same time. Getting a ride with the theater was great but they had their own ideas about what they would be doing in D.C. that weekend in November.

      “Georgetown is just across the K Street Bridge over Rock Creek Valley, left up Virginia Avenue Northwest, then right on Wisconsin Avenue Northwest ,” said the sweet young thing that happened to be seated on the grassy hill sloping down from the Washington Monument. Police had put high chain-link fencing around the rotunda at the obelisk’s base, but the lawn belonged to the people, most of them, like him, close to the age one had to register for the draft lottery. Julia didn’t have to worry about being drafted females weren’t targeted then. Julia, being all but fifteen, had only flower power in her bright blue eyes, no shades of politics or war. She chanced to live in a suburb of Washington D.C. which was neither a residence to poor underclass of African- Americans nor the home to denizen scions of diplomats. Her father, from a working class family, was a mechanic at Temple Motors in nearby Alexandria, Virginia. She was visiting the apartment her older brother shared with his classmate who was an undergraduate at Georgetown University. It was a beautiful Saturday, November 15, 1969.

      “Clear the area now or you will be in violation of Chapter 1, Section 7.96 ‘Parks Service Regulations – National Capitol Region.”

      “What did he say?”

      “He said the Parks Department wants us out of here.”

      “Why? We’re not doing anything bad.”

      “They’re flying kites?”

      “What did you say?”

      “They’re saying we can’t fly kites here.”

      “That’s ridiculous. Who said so?” A young bearded man in an Indian peasant shirt and beads handed Johnny Emerson an official flyer with the Parks Department logo on top.

     “It is covered in Section 1.5, ‘Closures and public use limits’,” said the young man sitting near them. “Look at Item #13. Under the title ‘National Mall Superintendent’s Compendium’ addendum to 36 CRF with an additional set of discretionary restrictions specific to the National Malls under Section 1.5 Subsection (c), it says, ‘Public Use Limits’ and the all important Item #13 which, indeed, prohibited flying kites [using glass-coated or other abrasive non- biodegradable kite string…”

      “Enough already!”

      “But it’s so nice here. Why would they want us to leave?” Julia got up from her spot on the grass and scanned the scene, her hand over her eyes for shade. She saw thousands of young people like herself down the slope and surrounding the Reflecting Pool leading up to the Capitol Building. The disturbing sound of helicopters droned overhead. An occasional caravan of police vehicles, sirens screaming, red lights flashing, sped down Madison and Jefferson Drive. A troupe of D.C. police waited down the side of the Monument, helmets on, visors down, batons in hand. The warning came again out of the mouth of a bullhorn from among their ranks.

      I don’t want to leave,” Julia protested. “It’s so nice here.” She passed half of a tangerine someone had given her. To her, it was a picnic for thousands who didn’t mind getting grass stains on their jeans. Julia preferred to sit on one of the large Moratorium broadsides someone had handed out. It was larger than the Revolutionary Worker newspaper which is the only reason why she kept one instead of the other.

      “You have fifteen minutes to clear the area or you will be arrested.”

      “You said Georgetown wasn’t far, didn’t you?” he queried. “Could we walk there from here?”

      “Or take a train or bus.”

      “I don’t think any Metro trains or buses are running near here now.”

      “No, I guess not. Yeah, we could walk there. Why?”

      “How long?”

      “I don’t know about an hour, half hour…I never tried walking,” said Julia squinting her eyes in the sun.

      “You look so adorable when you do that.”

      “What. What was I doing?” said Julia as she squatted back down to see him face to face.

      “Oh, nothing. You were squinting your eyes in the sun and your nose looked so cute all scrunched up.” Julia put her hand in front of her mouth, chuckled, and smiled into Emerson’s eyes.

      “You’re a nice person, Johnny Emerson. Would you like to meet my brother? He knows more about what’s going on. The two of you could be good.”

      “Where is he?”

      “Oh, he’s down there near that red banner.” Julia pointed to the left side of the lawn where a group of students from a Georgetown University organization for peace had set itself up.

      “Come on. Let’s go down and get a drink. They have some cold lemonade there,” said Julia as she jumped up from her squat and put two hands out for Emerson to be pulled up by. They laughed as he took hold of them and both nearly tumbled back to the ground by his weight.

      Her brother was packing something when she startled him with a hello.

      “Julia, you’d better leave now. It looks like it is going to get ugly around here,” said Matthew, her be speckled brother, his long blond hair tied at his shoulders.

      “Go back to my place and wait for us there. Sunny?” he called out and gestured to a cooler near his classmate, a young woman with a sunflower painted onto her cheek. “Could you go with Julia back to the apartment and bring this with you?”

      “Here, let me take that,” said Johnny  reaching down for a handle on the heavy cooler.

      “Matthew, this is Johnny Emerson. He’s from Lawrence, Massachusetts.”

      “Lawrence, eh. Site of the Strike for Three Loaves. Right?”

      “That’s right. For thirty-two cents that the bosses cut from their salary.”

      “It’s nice to meet you. What group are you with?”

      “I came down here in a bus with the Bread & Puppet Theater but we got separated. I also lost my classmate, Tony. I hope to meet up with him and them at the spot they said they’d be leaving from late Sunday afternoon.”

      “If we stay here we’ll get arrested, you know,” said Matthew as he scurried to collect some brochures and pins the group had placed on a bridge table. They were packing up and getting ready for the siege.

      “I’ll come back and meet you, if you don’t mind, after we drop off Julia and the cooler,” he said as he and Sunny lifted the cooler.”

      “If we’re not here when you get back, we may be in RFK Stadium. That’s where the pigs are putting demonstrators, I heard,” said Matthew.

      With that, he and Sunny headed west off the Monument lawn with Julia holding a bag and a backpack. They headed toward Georgetown. They had just gotten down to K Street when they heard a roar from up the Washington Monument hill. The police were slowly walking in line up the hill and surrounding the demonstrators, Matthew among them.

      “They’re taking Matthew,” yelled Julia and turned to go back.

      “There’s nothing we can do,” he said putting the cooler down with Sunny and turning to see the police line moving up the hill, faster now, the people inside scampering and defending themselves.”

      “Your brother will be okay. He’ll know what to do. Let’s go before we get trapped, too.”

      The three of them followed with the crowd heading away from the ruckus. Still others circled around to join the main demonstration near the Reflecting Pool. Johnny, Julia, and Sunny headed past the Watergate Complex and across the bridge to Wisconsin Avenue in Georgetown. 

Excerpt: Reinventing the Wobbly Wheel

      “I want to make a deal with you.”

      “He wants to make a deal with us.”

      “Bring our union up to date.” Eupheus Crutch had requested at the previous monthly meeting, and over the internet, that members rendezvous with him at Ft. Green Park, it was decided as most of the members lived in Brooklyn, on a Saturday next, one o’clock, to hear a very important proposal he had been working on for months, had even sent in to general headquarters for their approval, to no avail. He felt that the weight of a New York City General Membership endorsement would open up some eyes when it was published in the G.O.B., the General Office Bulletin for the Industrial Workers of the World.

      “I’ve been thinking, and sure working hard. Tell me how y’all feel. I’m glad y’all come here today. If Eugene comes it’s five, and we’ll have a quorum; we can vote on it and make branch policy. Thank you for listening. Cigarette Emerson? Oh yes, that’s right. You’ve quit. How’s that going, by the way? Uh-huh; didn’t mean to tempt you. What’s that; sure Fellow Worker Fergie. You are more than welcome to one. Well, well well. Lookie who’s comin up yonder hill, and only an hour late. I’m sure he has a good reason; he always does. Why Fellow Worker Portobello, you do us honor with your presence. Why sure we’ll be finished soon; I wouldn’t want to keep you from your Dante Workers meeting. I, too, have an important meeting in the City at five o’clock. I’m so glad you could attend. And, congratulations; you are the fifth member here in good standing. You are in good standing, aren’t you? Well that’s just fine and dandy.

      Without further ado, I have here in my satchel all the documentation y’all will need to make a proper informed decision. We have a chance to make history here, fellow workers, and sister worker Sadie. Fergie, Emerson, Pete. What you now have in your hands is the re-worked Wheel of Industrial Organization.  

      Compare it, if you would all be so kind, to Figure ‘B,’ Father Haggerty’s wheel. The good father, bless his Wobbly soul, besides leaving the pulpit for some more worthwhile and constructive vocation, for the welfare of all working folk, designed this well nigh about a century ago at a time when certain industries were still immature or hadn’t even been born yet. For example, there were no franchise restaurants with prepared foods back then so he classified retail workers in the food industry instead of assigning them an industrial union number of their own; he put them with butchers and greengrocers instead of listing them as sales clerks. What’s that Pete? Yes, I know y’all make cappuccino and latte, but, bear with me a moment, I shall answer all your questions in due course. That is why I.U. 640 is no longer reasonable and another number should be assigned service workers. Now look, if you will, at the new wheel I invented; a separate I.U. 660 has been created to identify all workers in the fast food industry. What’s that, Emerson? Why of course. I’ll just run my mouth a little while you find yourself a place to relieve yourself. I shall go no further until you return. Why yes, sister worker Sarah; I would love a candy.”

       Eupheus Crutch went on for another hour using all the time allotted to him. His fellow workers were tired and wanted to go.

      “I know it’s late but I call for a vote on endorsing the new wheel of Industrial Organization I put together. Now who seconds the motion?” No one raised their hand. “Now come on y’all. How about you Emerson; second the motion, won’t you?”

      “I don’t think we should be wasting our time reinventing the wheel when there are more important things to do.”

      “But I have explained the necessity there is for new industry…”

      “I have to go Crutch; another time,” said Pete as he stood up from the lawn to leave.”

      “Fellow workers: let us strike while the iron’s hot; now sit down for a moment won’t you fellow worker?”

      “Okay, I second the motion, and vote ‘no’ for changing the wheel.”

      “But we’re not voting on changing the wheel; we’re only voting for an endorsement from our branch for the acceptance by the general committee to bring it up for a union-wide vote.

      The other three Wobblies all raised their hands to vote ‘no.’

      “The vote is four to one, fellow worker Eupheus. That’s that.”

      “Well if y’all are going to vote not to endorse the proposal then I retract the proposal.”

      “You can’t do that; it’s underhanded,” said sister worker Sadie.

      “Call it what you will sister worker; I retract my proposal.”

      “Too late,” Pete said as he stood and walled a few steps down the grassy knoll. “The vote’s been taken. We do not endorse your stupid wheel. Bye?”

      “Well, I never!”

      The result of the vote for the NYC GMB rejection of Colonial Crutch’s wheel was printed in the monthly Wobbly City newsletter.

      Ah yes; The Wobbly City; Emerson had taken on the responsibility for organizing a monthly newsletter for the branch. No one requested that he do it, and no one offered to help; he just thought it was the right thing to do and he felt like volunteering to do it. He promised the general membership branch that he would send each member attending the monthly meeting a first draft of the newsletter for their approval before he printed it up and would spend no branch funds. It was an offer no one could refuse, so they voted to make Emerson the editor of the Wobbly City, a name he himself had come up with. For three years, every month, Emerson culled news stories from the branch members, sometimes tweaking minutes from meeting or pulling arms to get some copy. Usually he had to write copy himself, under three different pseudonyms.

      Sometimes it got a little dicey about what he could print. Eupheus Crutch claimed all names should be anonymous so the authorities couldn’t pin anything on anyone and cautioned Emerson to remember that sabotage was disavowed by the union so don’t print anything about it. Ry Grossinger took exception to a truthful article about his nascent Dante Barista Union because it didn’t reflect the image he wanted to have presented to the public. They almost came to blows over propaganda versus truth. Ry would write the articles about him by himself. Emerson had to edit the newsletter to let him do so, and he had the votes of the general membership, padded that week with baristas to make sure his veto held up.

      When one fellow worker threw his hat into the ring to be editor, every barista there, and the few members who weren’t baristas, agreed to let the new guy have a chance since Emerson had been doing it for three years. Tom Hood became the new editor saying he would work with Emerson on the transition. He decided it was better to use the internet technology to put the Wobbly City on-line and save paper. One issue on the internet came out. After that, Tom Hood was too busy with other more important projects to continue; and he didn’t realize how much work he would have to put into it. The newsletter languished not to see the light of day again for years.

      By the time Ry Grossinger had taken over the branch behind the curtain and nominated Emerson back as the editor of the Wobbly City, Emerson had already quit the branch.

Excerpt: The Hole in the Wall

It was Hole in the Wall where Emerson got his first job in San Francisco; a low-pressure position behind a counter selling hot dogs and ice cream cones. Perhaps he wouldn’t be so busy that he couldn’t study a little Chinese along the way.

An endless stream of tourists waited in a queue, shuffling slowly passed the hot dog stand, inching closer to the turntable near Market Street, to catch the famous cable car as it was turned on Powell Street back up and over the hill to Fisherman’s Wharf.

The Hole in the Wall was frequented mostly by white tourist families , but occasionally a Chinese man would go in, not for ice cream, but to ask Emerson strange questions like “How is business?” or “What day is today?”. They wanted him to tell Bruce Gao that they were there. Emerson called Mama Gao who was across the street somewhere in an office in the Woolworth Building. Emerson started wondering exactly what his store was a hole in the wall for. He soon found out.

Bruce Gao was a Chinese-American who hired Emerson. The short, thin, mustached entrepreneur in dark sunglasses would stop into the store every morning all summer and then rush out to the street to the cable car turntable a few yards down near the Market Street terminus where willing volunteers helped push the antique cars around; an endearing photo opportunity for visitors. Bruce was there with a Polaroid camera to snap them up for five dollars a shot. His Caucasian wife stood nearby wearing an advertising sandwich around her shoulders. She collected the fees Bruce handed her.

Fingers plucked a pre-tuned guitar, holding the pick with the only two fingers he had, playing Musslewhite slide-guitar with the aluminum top of a mixed-drink shaker wedged over the stump where his left hand had been. He played it so well. Slide guitar was as natural to him as a split fingered- slider was to Mordecai Peter Centennial "Three Finger" Brown, the famous handicapped pitcher. Like Fingers, he didn’t know how he played so well because he had never played any other way. Fingers played the Delta blues, with the red-felt lined guitar case in front of him, on the street. The endless line of summer tourists waited behind the ropes slung along the cable car line on Powell Street down to the BART Station promenade on Market Street.

“Look at that,” Fingers said to Emerson standing at the popcorn machine on the sidewalk, “That cheapskate just threw in a friggin’ dime.”

“Are you with the cable car company?” Emerson asked naively.

“Am I with what? Say what?” Fingers grimaced. “You’re surely joking, right?”

“No, I’m serious; they should pay you for entertaining the crowd,” Emerson replied enthusiastically.

“Yeah right; I scare the hell out of those buggers.” He gestured to the stumps at the end of his arms. “That’s what you get for being stoned drunk and falling asleep across a railroad track.”

Fingers had a captive audience for “Born under a Bad Sign,” which he most certainly was, and “Sittin’ on Top of the World,” which he most certainly wasn’t. Occasionally, some kid’s father would acknowledge Fingers by sending a daughter with a quarter to put in Finger’s guitar case; you could see him point her towards Finger’s cash case saying, “Go on; don’t be afraid.” But the child’s fear of approaching a fat, hand-less, Samoan with a guitar on the street was enough to make him think twice. Fingers had such a sweet smile though. But most tourists tried their best not to look at or hear Fingers, at all.

The line got shorter each cute cable car filled after being pushed around the turntable by the happy call for “volunteers” by the brakemen, to return up Powell Street to Fisherman’s Wharf. To be stuck in front of Fingers, listening to another rendition of “Summertime,” in the heat of a San Francisco summer, was more painful to some shy tourists than being stuck upside-down on an amusement park ride.

Occasionally, when things got slow, Fingers berated the crowd for being cheapskates. Minutes passed between songs without donations. He’d go into another rendition of “I’d Rather Go Blind than to See You with Another Man.” Parents cringed as their kiddies tugged at their pants and asked why the fat in singer in the Tom Sawyer could play the guitar but had no hands. “Could he really go blind that way? Did he see her touch another man?”

Bruce Gao’s mother showed up at The Hole in the Wall regularly; she was all business. Even shorter than her five-foot tall son. When she came, Emerson had to pretend he didn’t know Fingers. Unlike her son, she’d breeze passed Emerson at the popcorn machine without a “hello,” scurry down the narrow space in front of the counter, and expect him to follow behind. There, she rang up the cash register, opened the till, and counted the money witnessed. The income had to match the number of hot dogs and spiced sausages floating in the aluminum tub of hot oil-dotted water.

“How many hot dog you sell?” just to test him; she knew how many there should be justified.

“Fourteen.”

“Then why fifteen missing?”

“I had one for a snack.”

“It not lunch time yet.”

“I was hungry.”

“No eat behind counter; okay? Not professional,” she strongly said, took the extra cash, added five more dogs from the refrigerator, and left the store with Emerson almost at attention.

Emerson learned she had an office in the Woolworth building across the street. She processed photographs there, he later learned, for fake passports and visas. How did he learn?

Emerson went home on the Market Street streetcar. When it made the turn onto Church Street, he was just a few blocks away from home. Bob was there to greet him. Bob was the man who lived downstairs in the small Victorian house. He seemed nice enough, introducing his wife, Cathy and his two little daughters; a lovely woman and two lovely little girls.

The chaos started a few nights later at nine o’clock. The cool evening air was unstable. One blanket cloud, in high wind, marched east in the sky from off the Pacific Ocean to engulf San Francisco. The streets became urgent, sounds muffled.

      First Emerson could hear angry voices through the air duct in the wall behind the refrigerator; high-pitched tortured squeals dying with deep articulations like growls. Through the window now he heard them, boomeranging of the shocking pink plastic siding off the house across the alley.

      How do you get false papers to be smuggled to America? Every day that the sun shined during the summer, Bruce Gao was out by the cable car roundhouse taking Polaroid photos of kids with their parents. It was a front. The real business took place upstairs in the Woolworth building where Bruce’s mother was getting phone calls and making arrangements with snakeheads in Canton. The stolen passports were the job of Bruce Gao’s wife. While Bruce was taking photos of dads with their kids, his Caucasian wife was charmingly sneaking up behind them and lifting the passport from pop’s pocket. The handoff was made and brought to Mama Gao in the print shop where all the mechanisms were available for changing photos and names on passports using the original sensitive paper, changing the code, and sending it on its way to the recipient across the Pacific in China. Emerson knew something was going on when single middle-aged Chinese men entered the Hole in The Wall looking for Bruce or Mama Gao. They had no interest in a bag of popcorn or having their souvenir photo taken. Theirs were bigger fish to fry. 

      Emerson didn’t find out how it was done until years later when he was teaching at Norman Thomas High School. That’s when he met Ting Wang, a thirteen year old when his parents paid smugglers $25,000 to take him from his village in China to the United States. He had enrolled himself there, thanks to his immigration attorney who had searched for a legal solution and had gotten him a visa meant for victims of human trafficking – usually meant for people who were brought to America against their will, like women forced to work as prostitutes.

      It starts when the parents of a Chinese youth contracts a “snakehead,” a local mafia loan shark who promises to take the youth where he can have a better life and earn $1000 a month instead of $100 working at a restaurant in San Francisco. When he arrived, in a phone conversation with his mom, he learned that he had to send money home or their lives would be in danger. When the debt is paid off, the family is free. Immigration authorities detain thousands of unaccompanied youth trying to enter the U.S. Ting Wang was one that made it through.

      One snakehead’s connection was Bruce Gao and family. Mama Gao knew people from the youth’s village and did them a service. The doctored passports and visas were contracted for and picked up by an agent, a U.S. citizen who brought it to back to China and accompanied the youth on the return, pretending to be a relative. The whole transaction was done in cash. The agent was then supposed to set up employment for the youth and guide him on his way, but it often didn’t happen like that.

Once Ting Wang was brought to America, he was on his own. His mother told him to look around for employment agencies in Chinatown and he did, but he was told he was too young and turned away again and again spending the first five nights sleeping on a bench in the Embarcadero, until by chance he met a man from his village who offered him a job in his garment factory.

Emerson didn’t know about any of that when he hawked hot dogs at the Hole in the Wall; only that there was some funny business going on. To the Gao family, Emerson was a Trojan Horse. In an attempt to get them to lay him off so he could collect unemployment insurance, he threatened them not realizing how close he got to getting himself killed.

“I know what you’re up to,” he said

“What? What am I up to?” Bruce questioned cautiously when he stopped by to see what mess Emerson had caused; Emerson took to tossing a hot dog through the fan they had placed at the end of the counter and watching as it splattered all over the tiny store. Then, he would slowly clean it up, until Bruce got the picture, but Mama Gao wouldn’t suffer the contribution she would have to make to let him go, so she kept him on. However, they couldn’t jeopardize their smuggling racket and finally relented, but not before sending Emerson a warning.

It happened one day that a check his aunt had sent from New York had gotten lost in the mail. Emerson knew it was a month late because his aunt kept checking on it for him. Then, one day, Bruce Gao handed Emerson the envelope that contained the check at work and said that he had found it on the street near his home; what a coincidence. It was a warning. Emerson got laid off but knew he had better not look back once he was gone.

      “I lost my job today,” said Emerson when he saw Bob in his usual five o’clock spot; on the steps outside the house, beer can in hand.

      “Oh, so sorry. That’s tough.”

      “No, it’s okay; I wanted to get laid off. Now I can collect unemployment insurance and get food stamps,” explained Emerson. 

Excerpt: Eyewitness to 911

It was a crisp cool September day, one week into the new term at Norman Thomas, the momentous summer school experience behind him,  a morning that made Emerson glad he was alive and living in the greatest city on earth; sunshine (warm enough to wear a t-shirt) clean air, and cosmopolitan. He got dressed, had coffee, walked down two flights of stairs carrying his bicycle to the front steps of his loft and out onto the streets of Manhattan. His route to work never varied; up Avenue A to 15^th Street and made a left, then a right up Irving Place to avoid the traffic mess at Union Square and stop off at his mom’s apartment on 20^th Street near Gramercy Park. He chained the bike to the fence (the doorman said it would be okay) and went upstairs to return a baking tray Mom said she needed for dinner next weekend for Rosh Hashanah September 18^th. Finding Mom well, he left to ride to Park Avenue South, turned right, and arrived at Norman Thomas at 33rd on time, chained the bike to the school fence and went in.   

Once in school, he moved his time card to the in-box and proceeded to his first class 7:52; forty-two minutes later, to the teachers’ cafeteria he would go for another cup of coffee and a buttered roll until 9:21 am; period three. He cleaned the chalk board and headed over.

8:51 am, he was standing at the counter about to pay Carol when he overheard the radio that stayed on all day, WINS 1010 news station:

“A plane has just crashed into the World Trade Center,” the reporter said. Carol and Emerson gave an ear.

“What happened?” asked Emerson as he poured milk into his coffee cup.

“An airplane flew into the Trade Center,” she replied nonchalantly, taking his change and ringing him up.

“A big plane?”

“They say a private plane.”

“Hope no one inside got hurt.”

“Yeah, right?”

Mom was home. Perhaps she was watching TV and could see what was going on. He carefully walked his coffee over to the ancient wooden booth in the corner and opened the accordion doors.

 “Hi Mom; say, on TV do me a favor and flip through the channels to see if there is a bulletin about some plane flying into the WTC?”

      She told him it was on all channels. She said it wasn’t a private plane; it was a commercial jet “…and there is smoke coming out of one of the towers. Oh -my -God!” he heard her exasperatedly say.

“What is it?!?”

“A jet just flew into the other tower!!!” It was 9:03 am. “Emerson, something bad is happening!” Outside the phone booth, Emerson could see half a dozen teachers stand to listen to Carol’s radio. Mom wanted to watch. “Call me back.”

Carol turned the radio up. Ms. Vole got on the public address system:

“I would like your attention. Teachers, stop what you’re doing. There is a tragedy unfolding in Lower Manhattan. The Twin Towers have been hit by two planes.” The students didn’t hear much else until the magic words “rapid dismissal” filtered through their minds. “Teachers, escort your classes to the exits.”

A middle-aged secretary rushed into the cafeteria in tears. Her son, she cried, was a stock broker in there she couldn’t get in touch with. Carol came from behind the counter to hug her.

 A physical education teacher walked by prancing around the halls, livid, agitated.” Why aren’t they getting everyone into the basement?” he called out to anyone who heard. “Why are we still standing here?” He didn’t mention the two thousand students who were presently streaming out onto the streets. The gongs had finished sounding. On the streets, traffic was still moving. Here and there, police cars with sirens screaming rushed south downtown.

Emerson walked up the stairs to the ninth floor teachers’ lounge, the one facing southwest toward the two smoldering buildings. Inside there were many teachers glaring out the window at the chaos two miles away. Students still in the hall disobeying the rapid dismissal, in a frenzy of carnival excitement, were enjoyably being chased around the building by security guards

      Perhaps Emerson was stunned; his colleagues gawked at him motionless at the window, unresponsive to their wails and cursing. These same teachers who had kept him out of their cliques for ten years; he wished them in the burning towers. What sympathy did they care to give Emerson about 3,000 dead in Taiwan’s earthquake two years earlier? “Where did you say you lived? Thailand? Isn’t that part of China?” This tragedy they couldn’t avoid feeling but Emerson wished they were closer.

      Emerson had his mind on a despondent Canadian flyer, the latest in a chronic problem of Canadians invading United States air space inadvertently. This gentleman had a plan to die by friendly fire. The AWAC Airborne Warning and Control System had detected him immediately and led him back over the border. These were commercial jets the radio said had taken off from Boston International Airport. Impossible that they got this far undetected.

      While Emerson’s colleagues scurried from floor to floor wanting to be close to each other and say their final goodbyes, just in case, hugging each other in mutual mock fear of an imminent attack, like the ones they had gotten used to seeing in the action films of Hollywood, Emerson had other concerns.

      His first thoughts were of a U.S. government conspiracy; the ruling class wanted to seal the fate of American working people, he thought, now that they received such cognitive violent reactions to the domination plans of World Trade Organization and International Monetary Fund; it would be harder to implement without terrorizing the people first. Step one: Seal the workers means of livelihood. Step two: Paralyze them with fear of a foreign enemy. Step three: Empty the public coffers paying off corporate projects the people opposed. Enslave them once and for all by destroying unions, make them all part-timer workers without security or pension. Make them struggling people who have no time to organize resistance. This is what Emerson thought in the hour after the first plane crashed as the South Tower, then, in a ball of smoke, it toppled. Emerson kept his thoughts as the North Tower fell a half hour later.

      Emerson saw the whole picture from the other side. The mounting consciousness-raising of populist progressives in the ‘90’s all came tumbling down. Already, Emerson was no longer able to speak out about any of the wild thoughts he had in his mind. Surely he would be called insensitive at best and a terrorist sympathizer, or worse, if he said a word.

It was such a common ruling class tactic; creating terror, forming foreign (or domestic) enemies. He had seen its aftermath first hand in Taiwan; the Chinese Communist threat, and then the Taiwanese workers, paralyzed, accepting a two-party system in a bloodless revolution; anything was better than terror.

When the Twin Towers came crashing down, so did Emerson’s aspirations of making a sustainable world for the children to live in, helping families gain safe work places and living wages, ultimately abolishing the wage system altogether. A jubilee was not on the capitalist menu.

Emerson wasn’t giving up though; he had to fight back, more now than ever. There was still some time, he thought. While the government used the attack as an excuse to set up blanket surveillance and militarize the police forces, there was still time. Over the next few days, with memorials popping up at Union Square and around the city, Emerson knew he wasn’t the only one with these same thoughts of hope and fight-back, but not against the Muslim targets.

As he watched replays on TV of the disaster from a dozen angles, except one, he did not think of giving up the fight. He spent more time on the streets in demonstrations against scapegoating Muslims. More union organizing was done in and out of school. To Emerson and the progressive community, it was a matter of who got to the dungeon door first, the workers or the CIA. The door would be opened, now, or closed forevermore. Emerson was sticking to the union; you couldn’t scare him.   

 All the classes in New York City were suspended until further notice to give staff time to work out ways of helping students cope with the tragedy. The Board of Ed. held closed meetings with city reps, principals and counselors to make plans.

After a day off, classes resumed Thursday. Most students were absent. Nothing was normal. Groups of student congregated outside the building talking to others, staring into space as dozens of emergency vehicles continued to stream downtown. The flag flew at half-staff. On Monday, the High School of Economics and Finance, students and teachers, were to report to Norman Thomas at 1 p.m. The schools located below 14th Street in Lower Manhattan remained closed indefinitely.

Each school in New York City strained to get back to normalcy. How do you address the needs of students after all this violence? "We just don't know what else they're going to hit," Emerson heard a student say. The terrorism was taking effect.

Children cried. Loved ones were obliterated. There was no closure, just open wounds and the task of cleaning up the rubble. Bin Laden’s family was whisked away, given passage back to Saudi Arabia; it wasn’t really in the news; no one noticed. Israeli offices in the WTC had the day off on September 11^th but it was anti-Semitic to say so. The poet laureate of New Jersey, Amiri Baraka (born Everett LeRoi Jones) after reading “Someone Blew up America,” had his title taken away for saying so. Emerson could have been proud of his connection to the ones chosen to be protected, but he was just ashamed.

The ignorant followed the media and blamed Muslim terrorists, ignoring that Bin Laden was a U.S. CIA-paid operative from Saudi Arabian allies. Emerson saw folks crying on the streets, holding their heads low, cursing the Middle World, and justifying any U.S. government retaliation. It was so convenient. The angry eyes of laissez-faire colleagues, apologists for U.S. global domination, supporters of commercialism, defenders of sweatshops in the name of low prices, the outsourcing of pollution an workplace abuses, anti-immigrant forgetters of their own American heritage.

The hardest folk for Emerson to face were those who had family and friends that were collateral damage in the destruction. He couldn’t tell them what he knew was the truth. Each victim, to a fault, blamed it on Muslims, but Muslim students at Norman Thomas had their families under siege; parents taken from their beds in the middle of the night and put into detention cells somewhere in Brooklyn.

All open minds had to keep their mouths shut; Emerson was the exception. He had already been ostracized by the Jewish clique for not defending Israel and for defending Muslim students. He had been called a “dreamer” by the union chapter leadership for supporting grass-root collective decision making and inclusion in the chapter, a loose cannon at Teacher-Administrative meetings, anti-Christian by the Italian clique for not participating in Christmas.

Across the Western World, and especially in the United States, the doors of perception were being bolted shut, the outcasts cast out, wires tapped, internet followed, as flag pins started popping up on every suit lapel on TV news people.