Nuclear Option. Dorothy Van Soest
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if I can do what they did. Maybe I’m too old,” I said.
Bertha laughed. “Never too old to do what has to be done. And the older you get, the less you worry about the consequences.”
At ten o’clock, during the meeting to plan the day’s action, I thought about what Bertha had said. Whenever suggestions were made that felt risky or scary to me, I imagined what I would be like in my fifties, sixties, and seventies if I already allowed myself to be overly cautious now at only forty-two.
At noon, one hundred twenty of us walked to the depot in a single file along the side of the highway. An army truck drove past and a hand popped out from under the tarp, its fingers flashing a peace sign. We all cheered. We walked through the town of Romulus, and some people waved to us, others gave us the finger. I smiled and nodded to all of them, feeling secure in the truth that what I was doing was what I had to do in that moment.
Three rows of soldiers stood at the gate to the depot. Straight and tall, billy clubs in front of rigid bodies. Stone faces with no expression. On the other side of the road, forty or fifty white townspeople, young and middle-aged men, angry-faced women, teenagers.
“Go home, bitches,” a woman with big blond hair screamed.
Aiming an American flag at us like a weapon, a young, clean-cut man shouted, “You’re nothing but a bunch of Communists, feminists, lesbians, and . . . and vegetarians!”
I laughed and poked Mary Lou with my elbow. “I’m not any of those things,” I said. But then two teenage boys threw rocks at us and one fell just short of my foot. I stopped laughing.
“Disperse!” an MP in full riot gear shouted into a bullhorn. “Disperse or you will be arrested.”
A soft, mournful song, in Pam the Quaker’s voice, arose from the middle of our group.
Child, child, child, child,
Will I ever see you grow?
I am fighting for your future
I love you so.
A few of us sang the first line again, then others repeated it after us, and soon our voices rose in a round, the words and melody alternating a message of love. Tears streamed down my face. I wiped them away and more kept coming.
The crowd across the road started singing, Oh beautiful for spacious skies. We fell to our knees and joined them. America, America, God shed His grace on thee.
“Hey, that’s our song,” someone yelled.
“Yeah, shut up, you don’t give a rat’s ass about America!”
“Why are you kneeling?”
“Yeah, you don’t even believe in God!”
The song ended and we stood up. We walked over to the depot fence and started hanging items that symbolized what would be lost in a nuclear holocaust. Norton had sent his army uniform with me, to do with it whatever was needed, he’d said. I fastened it to the fence with clothespins and then cut it into tiny strips with a pair of scissors from my backpack. Soon the fence was covered with precious items that broke my heart—baby shoes, a hand-crocheted baby blanket, a pendant worn by one of the nuns for forty years, a banner from a casket that said Mother on it, photographs, children’s toys, a diary, medals.
Someone took my hand and pulled me into a circle. In the middle, three lithe young women danced, their legs slowed by grief, disbelief, and shock, their arms outstretched, begging, mouths shouting out, raging at death.
NO! NO! NO!
We shouted back with hope for life.
YES! YES! YES!
One of the dancers stopped mid motion. “The bomb has just dropped,” she said, “and you have five minutes to say good-bye to everyone and everything you love.”
A moment of stunned silence. The eyes of the three dancers closed. Then their mouths opened to an intense mournful wailing, a keening expression of grief traditional for women in many cultures. Others joined in, their howling sharp and shrill. The sound swelled, died down, swelled again. Hands were thrown up, striking our breasts as we grieved together with a high-pitched divine madness that sounded like howling alley cats as large as lions.
The terrible, unpleasant din was more than the townspeople could bear. They surged across the road, started yanking our things off the fence. We dropped to our knees.
One of the dancers raised her palms to the sky. “Living day to day and knowing that you have no future makes your heart a rock,” she said. “Crying cracks the rock so something can grow again.”
We held on to each other and swayed from side to side. The sound of our keening lurched over the depot gate. It drove the townspeople back to the other side of the road. Then a horrifying scream pierced my ears. A howl so terrifying and from a place so deep it consumed me with unspeakable pain. A grief beyond words. A sound that silenced all other sounds. It was only when I felt gentle fingers touching my face and arms encircling me that I realized the scream had come from deep inside me.
Everything happened fast after that. I was bound to a woman on each side with nylon wristlets that cut into my skin. Hands reached around me and over me, winding brightly colored yarn around my body, weaving me to other bodies, to the gate. An MP’s helmet got caught in the yarn’s web and he cursed, shouted “Disperse! Disperse!” as he struggled to untangle himself.
Other MPs in riot gear repeated the warning. “You are trespassing on federal property. If you do not leave, you will be arrested.”
Women stood outside the yellow line chanting their support. The whole world is watching! The whole world is watching! A news reporter took notes, a photojournalist took pictures. The MPs charged: “Disperse!” The supporters responded: The whole world is watching!
To the sound of a banjo playing America the Beautiful across the road, my hands were cuffed behind my back. Hard fingers dug into my armpits and the backs of my knees. My body was carried away. Supporters cheered. Townspeople jeered. I was thrown onto an army bus. Driven away with military police jeeps on each side of the bus. Taken to a makeshift detainment center, fifteen women in a plywood and chicken wire cell. Ushered out one at a time. Fingerprinted. Photographed.
“Identification, please.”
I shrugged. It’s over. It doesn’t matter anymore. Rough hands on my shoulders. Pockets of my shorts pulled inside out, emptied of nothing.
“Your name?”
I shook my head.
“So you want to do this the hard way, huh?”
I was pushed onto a chair off to the side while others were processed. For crossing the yellow strip on the road that separated federal and Seneca County property, they were given a “ban and bar” letter. If they came back to the depot, six months in a federal prison and a $500 fine. Two women who were repeat offenders were carried away. The others were released. Then I was the only one left.
“So, are you ready to tell us who you are now?”
I opened my mouth, tried to say Jane Doe, but my lips were stuck together. What was I doing? I hadn’t planned to resist, hadn’t even planned to risk arrest. I had no driver’s license or ID with me. I had no control over what I was doing. I raised my shoulders and they froze up like I’d gone catatonic.
“Okay, sit there until you’re ready to cooperate. All night if you want.”
The MPs talked among themselves. What should we do with her? Should we call someone to come get her? No, we can’t let them think they can get away with this. Do you think something’s wrong with her?
A tear trickled down my cheek. My hands are cuffed. Can’t wipe it away. No matter. It’s over. I’m dead. We’re all dead. Nothing matters any more. The bomb has already dropped. It’s too late.
I was pulled up from the chair. I opened my mouth. Air rushed in. I’m dragged into a tiny room.