Pink Slip Party (30 page)

“We cannot let the corporate American dictators jail a man for expressing his opinions! We must demand that our oppressors release Ferguson!”

Steph could be a cult leader. She is that good.

“Free Ferguson!” Someone in the back shouts. After a few minutes, the whole crowd is chanting it. Within minutes, half of them are taking their signs into the street in front of the courthouse, totally indifferent to the cars that are slamming on brakes and laying on horns.

Instantly, a row of forty or more people link arms and span the width of the street in front of the courthouse. Steph, who is shocked, nearly drops her bullhorn. Next to me, the woman who smells like an elephant grabs my arm and attempts to pull me into traffic. I resist as much as possible and just manage to keep my toehold on the curb.

As if on cue, the local television crew arrives, cameras on and filming. Horns are blaring. Curses are flying. And then things start to really get ugly.

A shouting match begins between a FedEx truck driver and one of the protesters. The driver is shouting at one of the men wearing a “Meat Is Murder” T-shirt. One thing leads to another, and the protester spits on the FedEx driver’s uniform and calls him a Nazi Fascist Oppressor, and then the shoving begins. Almost immediately, a few wild punches are thrown.

The scuffle stops only when two police officers run out from the courthouse and disentangle the two men. The officers then try to convince the protesters to back down but, significantly outnumbered and without riot gear, the officers give up and simply take away the now slightly dazed and ruffled FedEx driver, who is bleeding from the nose.

I look over and see Steph talking with the local camera crew, explaining the situation and attempting to gain spin on the story, while the rest of the protesters abruptly sit in the middle of the street — arms linked and legs crossed. They glare at the drivers and are oblivious to shouts of insults about mothers, foreign objects, and demands that we go be intimate with ourselves.

The woman who smells like an elephant takes particular offense when one of the men shouts that she should spend less time protesting and more time investing in shaving equipment for her underarms. She lunges forward, attacking the man with her “Free Ferguson” sign.

I take advantage of her distraction to drop my sign and disengage from the protesters, taking up a safer position as a spectator in the growing crowd of onlookers gaping on the sidewalk in front of the courthouse. About this time, Todd arrives, wearing a befuddled look on his face and is nearly trampled by the dozen or so riot-gear-clad policemen who come streaming out of a recently arrived police van.

Todd and I are separated by the police officers, and Todd is being pushed into the crowd of protesters.

“What the hell?” Todd yells.

The next events race by in a blur.

The police swarm the crowd, dispensing pepper spray like air freshener and throwing locked-arm protesters to the ground, fastening their arms behind their backs with plastic ties. Todd, who is still confused, is standing behind the woman who smells like an elephant. She ducks to avoid a police officer spraying mace, and Todd gets a mouthful of chemicals. Todd, sputtering, spits profusely. Unfortunately, his spit lands on the riot helmet of the police officer in front of him, and before I can even say “Run!” Todd is being spun around and his hands are being secured behind his back. He is led off to a nearby paddy wagon along with several dozen other protesters who are kicking at the legs of the riot police.

The last thing I hear from Todd before the police close the doors of the van, is: “I am a Republican, dammit!”

Todd handles jail remarkably well, and by well I mean he doesn’t, as I expect, have a total and complete mental breakdown in which he is frozen in a silent fetal position. Losing the afternoon of work alone would usually be enough to push him over the edge, but this time he’s remarkably calm. And by calm, I mean shouting profanities at me for only twenty minutes straight on the phone.

“Todd, calm down,” I say. “Todd, I’m going to hang up if you don’t calm down.”

“IF YOU DON’T GET ME OUT OF HERE I AM GOING TO KILL YOU,” he’s screaming into the jail’s pay phone.

“Tell him to keep calm,” Steph advises me. Steph avoided being arrested, but she did get a healthy dose of pepper spray, along with the news crew. She is sitting with me on my dad’s couch.

“Todd, I’m going to put Dad on the phone,” I say. I hand the phone to Dad.

“Don’t use that tone with me, young man,” Dad barks at Todd. “We’re going to do what we can to get you out.”

Dad pauses.

“If you use that kind of language with me, son, I’m going to hang up the phone,” Dad says.

He pauses again.

“I mean it, Todd,” he says.

Then, without hesitation, Dad hangs up.

“That will teach him,” Dad says.

Steph coughs. Her eyes are nearly swollen shut from the pepper spray. She looks like she’s been attacked by a swarm of bees. “We’re going to be on the ten o’clock news and in the paper for sure,” Steph says.

“I don’t see how that is good news,” Dad says.

Steph then attempts to explain the finer points of public relations and marketing to Dad. At the end of it, Dad coughs.

“Liberal yahoo rubbish,” he says when Steph finishes.

Steph and I watch ourselves on the six, six-thirty, and ten o’clock news. Luckily, I am in none of the shots, but Steph is articulate and calm even when she gets jostled and pushed around by the protesters. She gives great soundbites that land intact on the news — a thoughtful, articulate indictment of Maximum Office’s treatment of its workers, and most especially the “trumped up” charges against Ferguson. She even manages to get her web site, www.freeferguson.com listed in two of the news reports.

Dad springs Todd from jail that same night. When he walks into the lobby, Todd looks disheveled, his usually pristine golf shirt collar wrinkled and askew. He is still a bit puffy from the mace.

Todd glares at me.

“I don’t think I need to tell you this is all your fault,” he says.

“I’m sorry,” I say, but I am having trouble not laughing.

“I never expected you’d be arrested with those hippie protesters,” Dad says, in a semi-teasing tone.

Todd’s face turns red, and he looks like water that’s about to boil.

“Don’t even start with me, Dad,” he says.

“It could’ve been worse,” I say. “You could’ve been arrested trying to get Hillary Clinton’s autograph.”

“I am not speaking to you. Again. Ever,” Todd tells me.

The next few days are a whirlwind of activity. Media outlets keep calling Steph, and the
Tribune
runs a series on corporate corruption and excess, featuring the Maximum Office layoffs and the protests. Some companies start canceling Maximum Office orders, fearing a reprisal. The big merger between Maximum Office and its closest competitor, Office Online, is put on indefinite hold because of bad publicity and Maximum Office’s tumbling stock price. And I discover, through Steph, that there are rumors that Mike Orephus’s fiancée is dumping him.

I am amazed how little I care that Mike is getting his. I think it’s because Kyle has sucked all the fun out of revenge.

“Oh, and did I tell you?” Steph breathes. “Two more attorneys have offered to take Fergie’s case for free.”

In my parents’ living room, I find Dad sitting on the sofa completely engrossed in
The View.
He abruptly changes the channel to ESPN when I walk into the living room.

“I saw what you were watching,” I say.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Dad says.

There’s a pause.

“You can put it back on,” I say.

“OK,” he says.

He flips back to ABC and
The View.
“I’m hoping watching this will help me understand your mother better,” he says, rather defensively.

“You don’t have to justify it to me,” I say.

“By the way, Kyle called for you,” Dad says.

My heart leaps. Maybe he doesn’t hate me after all.

“He called? When?”

“I don’t know. Yesterday. Or maybe the day before,” he says.

“Dad,” I say, collapsing over in an exaggerated fit of frustration. It’s as if I’ve gone back in time and I’m fifteen again. I straighten. If I learned anything from an adolescence filled with missed phone calls and Dad’s bad message-taking, it’s that Dad does not respond to fits of hysterics.

“This is very important,” I say, enunciating every syllable as if I were talking to a person who doesn’t speak English as their first language. “Tell me
everything
he said.”

Dad thinks about this a moment.

“We talked about the Cubs,” Dad says.

“And
what
else?”

“What else
is
there to talk about?” Dad barks. As far as Dad’s concerned, men only talk about three things: baseball, business, and lawncare.

“You don’t remember when he called?”

“Maybe Monday,” Dad says.

I sigh and throw up my hands. Trying to get a message from Dad is like trying to translate French backward while underwater.

“Did he sound happy or mad?” I ask.

“What kind of question is that?” Dad scoffs.

I call Kyle, but all I get is his answering machine. After three hang-ups, I remember that he has caller ID.

Credit Counselors U.S.A.
1408 Dempster St.
Evanston, IL 60611

Jane McGregor
1410 Elmwood St.
Evanston, IL 60201

May 17, 2002

Dear Ms. McGregor,

You have taken your first steps on the road to financial freedom. Congratulations!

With your new debt consolidation loan, you have consolidated your payments, won a lower interest rate, and have successfully avoided bankruptcy.

Enclosed you’ll find information on our mascot, Debt-Free Stan — The Checkbook. Remember, Debt-Free Stan says, “Everybody Wins with Good Credit!”

Sincerely,
Rachel Inman
Customer Representative
Credit Counselors U.S.A.

22

M
y attorney, Dan Schmidt, calls to tell me he has managed to discover that the district attorney’s office is not currently investigating anyone else for the Maximum Office break-in, and furthermore, because of pressure from the company (a contributor to the district attorney’s campaign) the charges against Ferguson likely will soon be dropped.

Dan Schmidt also has sorted out my lease agreement, and tells me Landlord Bob is willing to forgive most of the back rent in exchange for seizing my furniture. Given that my furniture probably permanently smells like pot, thanks to Ferguson and Ron, I’m happy to oblige.

My clothes and personal items, however, must be removed immediately.

“At least this won’t be on your record,” Dan Schmidt says. “If we’d gone to court and this was on your credit history, I doubt you’d be able to rent anything else again.”

I am not sure whether or not this is supposed to make me feel better.

“Thanks,” I say.

Mom and Dad come back with me to my apartment for one last time on Saturday to help clean out clothes and anything that isn’t “furniture.” Technically, they are not back together, but they have moved beyond the need to be in completely separate rooms at all times. Dad has taken this new development as a sign that reconciliation may still be a possibility.

My old apartment is a mess. Empty beer cans, broken bottles, toppled furniture and food and other stains cover the floor and walls.

“What in the world?” Mom exclaims, mouth agape.

“This apartment isn’t as nice as I remember,” Dad says.

It takes us a few hours to pack up everything, and most all of it fits in the back of Mom’s white Volvo station wagon.

Before I leave for good, I take one last look at my trashed apartment, like Mary looking at the studio in the last episode of the
Mary Tyler Moore Show.
I switch off the light and don’t look back.

I’m turning the corner when I practically plow into Kyle.

“What are you doing here?” I squeak at him, holding my chest so my heart doesn’t fall out.

“Todd said you’d be here,” he says.

“I thought Todd wasn’t speaking to me,” I say.

“He isn’t speaking to you, but he’s speaking to me,” Kyle clarifies.

“Oh,” I say. I am still having trouble looking him in the eye. It takes a great amount of effort just to manage to stare at his shoelaces. I am afraid he’s going to lecture me about the protests and about jail and about how it’s my fault Ferguson is facing a court date.

“Jane!” shouts Dad, laying on the horn. “Get a move on!”

“One second, Dad,” I shout.

“Kyle! Is that you?” Mom says, getting out of the front seat.

“Hi, Mrs. McGregor,” Kyle says.

“If you two want to talk…” Mom’s voice trails off.

I am not sure I want to be left alone with him.

“Traffic’s going to be terrible if we don’t leave,” Dad shouts.

“I can take Jane home,” Kyle says, before I can say anything.

“Sure, sure,” Mom says. She actually winks at me. I turn tomato red. It takes all my force of will not to run after my parents’ retreating Volvo.

“Kyle, I am so sorry I didn’t trust you, and I meant to call and tell you that, but I just, well, I don’t know,” I say.

“I think I’m the one that should be apologizing.”

My head shoots up. “Why?”

“You didn’t tell me about Mike,” he says.

“How did you find out about Mike?” I ask.

“Dan told me.”

“I thought that was supposed to be confidential,” I cry.

“You really should have told me,” he says. “It explains a lot. It sounds like he took advantage of you. It’s not entirely your fault. And it’s no wonder that you suspected I might be cheating. After a relationship like that, I’d be a little hesitant to trust again, too.”