Downtown Los Alamos was pleasant. There were few people in sight. I can't say I know what the residents of Los Alamos do for fun, but I imagine they were all either watching the protests, or had no interest in being near the protests. There was, unfortunately, a Starbucks, but there were a number of other food service establishments, and all of them were local businesses. There was even a bagel shop. Good bagels are hard to find in the southwest, and I sharply considered it, but wasn't really in the mood to be in a confined space.
And let me tell you something, it is a sad state of affairs when you're taking pleasure in the downtown of a city dedicated to destroying the world, but I had just left Santa Fe.
The night before, in the church, Jeanne Pahls of Stop the War Machine was telling me about the new National Museum of Nuclear Science and History that opened in Albuquerque. New Mexico is bought and sold by the nuclear industry, but she nonetheless felt that a kids' museum speaking on the wonderful and magical properties of nuclear bombs was pushing it a bit far. She did say how pleased she was that the museum board agreed to meet with her and hear her concerns—that was good of them, to give such a notorious and leftist peace activist props. But as respectful as their talk was, it wouldn't buy her no HAZMAT suit.
I wandered back to the park. The survivor was speaking of seeing the shadow, the imprint of her sister against a wall. I wandered away again.
I wandered past our van, and saw, parked next to it, an old black pickup with a cover in the back. It had emergency spotlights mounted on top, and was decorated with the sort of paint used to mark car windows for weddings and graduations. It was decorated with pictures of atom bombs and skulls-and-crossbones. I wondered if it was some sort of street theatre by the Veterans for Peace.
Jeanne had handed me a photocopy from the Albuquerque Journal. It spoke of the "Peace Day" celebrations in New Mexico. That's right. August 6th is now referred to as "Peace Day" by New Mexican newspapers. And man, if you find Yom HaShoah1 tacky (and apparently I'm the only one who does, but hypothetically), what the fuck, is this shit?
A chance for a poetry read?
A chance to do something unique?
A chance for me to have fun?
To give me something to write about?
It was about 2:30pm. The survivor had left the podium. A group of non-Buddhists were following the Buddhists around the pond. They were neither practiced nor graceful. A speaker was telling us of the letter from the mayor of Nagasaki to the mayor of Los Alamos, and how we would now deliver it to the Los Alamos post office. Before describing this event, the author would like to formally thank the good people of Nagasaki for allowing his comrades and himself to horn in on their symbol.
The protestors each carried one sunflower, so I returned to the center of the park and grabbed one for myself. I then marched with the protestors towards the post office, down a block and across a street. At the street crossing in front of the office, a cop was carefully controlling the huge crowd, and the building car traffic. He was wearing a hat that said LAPD, which no doubt made all the out-of-towners nervous. After I crossed the street, Twain showed up with two sunflowers. I looked at his sunflowers, looked at him, looked at the cop, looked at his sunflowers, and grinned at him. He dashed.
"This is for you, sir," he said.
The cop looked uncertain for a moment, then smiled and accepted the sunflower. "Thank you," he said.
"I've been wanting to do that for decades."
"I understand," said the cop and laughed nervously. He held it for a good 90 seconds, until it was the cars' turn to go, then handed it to a protestor. Times could be worse.2
In front of the post office was a man in an orange prison jumpsuit, handcuffs, and a Rumsfeld mask. I smiled politely, as I do when people unsuccessfully try to be funny near me. As the last of the protestors arrived, a speaker came up, placed his hand on Rumsfeld's shoulder, said "we finally caught him," and proceeded to give a very boring speech about getting rid of the neocons. Twain and I chatted about nothing for a bit, and looked for Marvin. We saw him wearing an orange slicker. That was exciting. Off in the corner of my consciousness, I heard the speaker say, "…and send the nukes back to Texas!"
"Hey," I thought, and Herbie shouted, "We don't want them!" I felt a little embarrassed at not having paid attention, but Herbie was picking up the slack, so fab.
The speaker stared at Herbie idiotically for a second or two, then picked up where he had left off as if nothing had happened. He didn't insult Texas any more, though.
The speech ended with a comment on the local restaurants (there was a restaurant directly across the street, but it was already at capacity), the letter was delivered, and Twain and I lost Marvin. Twain's tall, too, and we stood still to scan the crowd. He nudged me and pointed.
I saw Herbie talking to a woman. I saw his facial expression.
"So he's straight," I said.
"Yep. Do you think she is?"
"Can't tell. Doubt it."
Prurient curiosity satisfied, we continued to fail to find Marvin. Eventually, we gave up, but not before a cursory search of the aforementioned restaurant. Herbie joined us, and I recommended that we break for El Parasol, which had been recommended to me as a cheap joint for locals. We were interrupted by a young woman handing out flyers.
"Hey," she said to me, "I know you."
I blinked.
"From Albuquerque."
"I'm from El Paso."
"But you go to peace seminars in Albuquerque, right?"
"Oh, yeah, sometimes." I tried to remember what Judith Martin said about stuff like this.
"What are you handing out?" asked Herbie.
"Flyers for a Middle East film festival," said the young woman. "It's put on by the Arab-Jewish Peace Alliance." That was the sort of thing that all three of us would actually drive to Albuquerque for, which was good, because we all looked pretty stupid at that point.
"Albuquerque is a real cultural center," said Herbie.
I reached out my hands in patriotic fervor to choke the life from his body, then realized he was flirting, and let him continue.
"All of the really exciting stuff goes on there," said Herbie. "But El Paso's got great poetry," he added, smiling at me.
"Yeah," she said. "Well, hope to see you there," and left.
"I find it amusing," I said, "that Albuquerque is considered a cultural center. They have lots of Jewish culture. They have Arab culture. They have plenty of East and West Coast culture. And they have people like you telling them they are the cultural center of the Southwest, despite the fact that they have no Southwestern culture to speak of, the Mexicanos are largely either integrated or invisible, and the vast majority of contemporary Southwestern cultural artifacts are created in El Paso and Juarez anyway."
"What I mean by 'cultural center'…"
"Is wrong," I helpfully interrupted. "Is a product of jealousy and self-hatred. They have my culture, amusingly enough, but a cultural center is where a cultural region's culture is created, according to the traditions of…"
"Let's go eat," said Twain.
El Parasol had the layout of a fast food joint. One stood in line, ordered at the counter, was given a number, and sat anywhere. Of course, there would be nothing "fast" about a meal with a line this long, but I had gathered from queries that the food would be far better than a Burger King's, anyway. New Mexican food is neither Texican nor Mexican, and despite their tendency to place chili on top of Fritos and call it pie, is generally quite enjoyable. When we eventually got to the front of the line, we were helped by a young man who was cheerful and friendly in inverse proportion to the slow pace of his job. But I guess this was no normal lunch rush; he was serving hundreds of peace protestors, and it was clearly something he found entertaining. I guess the stories were already forming in his head, as he rushed around maniacally to take orders, helpfully advising us on the size and relative quality of the various menu options. I ordered a chorizo and egg burrito and chili cheese fries for the table.
"So one of the speakers," I said, "said he was running for mayor of Los Alamos."
"Right," said Herbie.
"I'm sure he'll lose, but let's consider, for a moment, if a peace activist became mayor, and really did have the power to stop the nuclear program at the Labs. What about all the lunch revenue from the protestors?"
"Well," said Herbie, "they'd have to dedicate the Labs to something else controversial."
"Ahh," I said. "Aren't most of these people from Pax Christi? They could dedicate the Labs to pregnancy termination research."
"Stem cells."
"Are Catholics against that, or is it just Protestants? I never know. Euthanasia!"
"I think some Catholics are against it."
"Our food is taking too long," said Twain.
"What are you talking about?" I asked. "There's like fifty people in line. What do you expect?"
"I'm going to complain," said Twain, and stood.
"Don't you dare," I said to his back.
He complained to the friendly and helpful young man, and returned to our table. "He said he'd do something for us," Twain said, and walked outside.
I turned to Herbie, angry. He smiled, bemused.
"So during the protest," he said, "I kind of walked up and down the line…"
"Oh yeah, right. What was up with that?"
"Well, I just didn't feel I had anything to serve penance for."
"Really?" I said, now being a dick for the sake of being a dick. "Nothing at all? That must be an enormous relief…"
"Let me rephrase that," he said with his best you're-a-dick smile. "I have plenty for which I need to serve penance, but I don't feel I need to serve penance for the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which happened twenty years before I was born."
I disagreed, but didn't see the point in saying so. One can only claim innocence of one's ancestors' crimes if one has changed direction. Our culture has not, and as long as we economically and socially feed our culture, objecting to it is meaningless.
Our number was called. I picked up our food and apologized to the young man for Twain's behavior. He laughed and said it was fine. I figured I'd eaten human spit before. Twain reappeared, and we ate ravenously, with Twain in a black rage, and me trying to avoid joining him. The food was superior. At slightly higher-than-fast-food prices, we were getting a tasty and satisfying deal. The fries, especially, were delightful.
"I spent a lot of time exploring the Los Alamos Medical Center," said Herbie.
"Yeah?" I asked, amazed that no cop interfered with him.
"And as the protest finished, some turkey vultures…"
"Yeah, we saw. So Twain, what were you doing while we sat there?"
"Well, I saw it as street theatre, so I was mostly trying to get into character, you know, as an Old Testament mourner. And I had to keep reminding myself, to be disciplined and sit still for half an hour." Hundreds of people, throughout my life, have told me of the difficulty in sitting still. I find it completely incredible, but sometimes can refrain from saying so. "You?" he asked.
"I was trying to figure out whether the person sitting next to me was a man or a woman."
"Me?"
"No, on the other side of me."
"Oh. That's good. For the whole half-hour?"
"Yeah."
"Any conclusions?"
"No."
Marvin appeared. We chastized him for disappearing, he ate some chili cheese fries, and we left.
"I have to go to the bathroom," Herbie said as we approached the van. Actually, I did too. So while Twain and Marvin waited at the van, we found the restrooms in one of the buildings adjacent to the park. As we exited, Twain entered. Herbie walked to the car, and I waited for Twain, then walked with him back to the van. We passed the truck with the mysterious nuke paintings. Standing in front of it were four teenage boys, being interviewed by a kid who was probably from the college paper. The teenage boys were wearing hand-made t-shirts featuring hellfire, nuclear explosions, and insults to faggots and hippies.
Twain laughed and waved at them. They waved back and laughed. "Funny," he said.
"Uh, I don't think they're kidding," I said.
"Sure they were," he said. "That's satire."
"No. I'm afraid it's not."
"They're kids. It's satire."
"Twain, when you were a kid, you made a lot of satirical social statements, right?"
"Exactly."
"And all the other high schoolers got together and beat the shit out of you every single day for it, right? Well, those kids we just saw aren't being satirical. They honestly think that we are hippies and faggots and should and will burn in hell for failing to take pleasure in destroying civilizations."
They could hear us, of course. I wasn't afraid of them in high school, and I'm sure not afraid of them now. Twain didn't believe me. Three of the teens were shooting me angry glances; the reporter was actively ignoring me. One teen was staring at me. Although my face was no longer neutral, he, too, looked acutely embarrassed.
Marvin and Herbie could hear me too. "They're just kids," said Marvin. "It's what they've been taught."
"I'm not mad at them," I said. "I'm used to it." I have neighbors like them, after all.
Note:
1Often translated as Holocaust Remberance Day, yom ha-shoah simply means "day of the holocaust."
2I wrote this a few hours before the nation discovered Homeland Security's unofficial policy regarding Louisiana of "let the niggers die."
