People in Trouble (32 page)

The others were waiting for her in James's living room where they had been trying to come up with a plan for a demo at the Meadowlands for the next Jets game.

"We only have an hour before we have to meet the others at Saint Vincent's," James said.
 
"So let's try to get this meeting over with quickly.
 
Here is a map of the stadium."
 
He handed out Xeroxed sketches.
 
"Now, the goal of this action is to give women support for asking men to wear condoms, right?"

"Right," said Jo-Jo, a recently recruited gay skinhead who came to Justice on his skateboard, even in the snow.

"So, we've made up these bumper stickers to put on all the cars in the parking lot.
 
They say `Men, Use Condoms or Beat It."

Jo-Jo, what's your report?"

"Well," he said, putting his jackboots up on the coffee table.

"I called up Trojan, like you said, and they will donate ten thousand free condoms for us to distribute to men and women as they go into the stadium."

Molly sat back into the cushions on the couch.
 
She was very tired.

She held a warm cup of tea in her hands and brought it to her face.

The radiators knocked.
 
The winds rattled the shaky windowpanes.

I'm tired too," James said.

"So many people are so self-satisfied," Molly said.
 
"They sit around, they don't do anything."

-i"Suffering can be stopped," James said.
 
"But it can never be avenged, so survivors watch television.
 
Men die, their lovers wait to get sick.
 
People eat garbage or worry about their careers.
 
Some lives are more important than others.
 
Some deaths are shocking, - I some invisible.
 
We are a people in trouble.
 
We do not act."

Then everyone went to Saint Vincent's because there was -nothing more to say.

the end.