Walking onto the bus was a heroic act of defiance for Dave Huddlestone. How could he even make that simple act seem so cool, so rebellious? Every morning, we'd stop at his house, and every morning he'd flick his cigarette into the cornfield, hitch up his Levi jacket and enter the accordion doors. We all admired him, wanted to be like him. He was cool with everybody, but made it clear he didn't care what we thought. I'd notice which seat he sat in, and try to be there the next day to get a few words with him. That was a long time ago, and I think of such persistent resistance while I flick through the pics of arrested refuseniks singing their hearts out in Madison today, the fourth day of mass arrests.
(all photos by Overpass Light Brigade)
The Solidarity Singers sang their illegal songs, and 30 more went down. They were cuffed with tough ties twisted on wrists, and then marched by the grim men in black suits, black hats, black boots, to the basement. A large cafeteria, one that used to serve food to the homeless on weekends, is now the Capitol Police's processing center. Handcuffed, you sit and wait for your $200 ticket. Your name will be entered into the database, and any signage you have will be taken as evidence of your guilt for your trial. All of this for a moronic charge of a trumped-up violation, one that rises to the severity of a parking ticket.
You are handcuffed hard. Twist ties bite into your wrist, your arms wrenched behind your back, your hands fall asleep as you sit in shame. You are supposed to sit in shame. You are supposed to submit. You are supposed to obey, but instead you sing. You simply sing, engaging the tuneful collective crime that brought you to this place.
I remember Dave Huddlestone every morning coughing into the bus with an American Flag sewn on the back of his jean jacket. Every day he would wear it to school. Pretty much every day he would be taken down to the office where demands would be made, where his parents would be called, where he would have to withstand the insipid meanderings of authority, where he would be forced to wait in detention. We have all the time in the world, young man! Throughout the year, he'd lose the jacket, or regain the jacket, or come up with another jacket, and every day he would embody some form of protest. We, secretly cowering in fear of "getting into trouble," would marvel all the more at his deep disregard for the mosquito flight of authority, for the insistent buzzings about behavior, for the projected necessity to get in line and shape up.
Up on the rotunda floor, a policeman just tells a mother with a young child that if she comes back with him, they'll call Child Protective Services on her. That is truly appalling, even in a world where these men have license to appall. The Singers, in response, will set up an impromptu childcare center out under the tall oaks. Bring your kids, drop them off, we've got games and songs.
Today, the Singers never stop singing when cuffed and escorted down the travertine hallways, into the golden doored elevator, down into the vast dungeon where no one dare go. Deep in the bowels of the building, the songs continue, louder than ever. You can hear them if you listen, rising up through the marbled hallways, with staccato barks of arresting officers telling them to quit singing, to be quiet, to shut up, to quit making things bad for themselves, to quit embarrassing themselves, to quit arriving, to quit insisting, to quit resisting, to simply quit. No one listens to the commands. An officer bends over a handcuffed harmonizer and says, "If you don't stop singing, we're not going to process you!" Processing will be slow today, because the perps just keep on singing. They keep on damned singing!
Thirty people are arrested today for singing, bringing the total to almost 100. Groups of 20 or more are expected to get a permit, and no one is giving ground. Treatment gets rougher, zip ties tighter, digging in to wrist skin. Observation is participation. Clapping and toe-tapping tourists are subject to arrest.Taping your mouth, using your mouth, gagging your mouth, holding a sign, singing a song: all are crimes against this state, this land that was your land, that was made for you and me...
The bus pulled up every day to Dave Huddlestone's house where the farms used to be at the far edge of the new sprawl. My stop was two before his, and I always checked out what coat he had on. In the fading pictures of my mind, I see him climb the steep three steps of the school bus. He's got the jean jacket on today, not the leather one, but on his back is a dark blue rectangle where the flag recently was. I couldn't believe it: they finally broke him! They made him strip off his flag patch! He saw that I was looking at the emptiness on his back, turned to me, smiled.
"Hey, what's happening?" I tentatively asked.
"Check it out!" he said, his smile wider.
He opened his jacket in a secretive gesture like he had watches or drugs to sell, and laughed. There, inside, lining the full damned thing, were the stars and stripes of one serious night's sewing.
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(video captured by Leslie Amsterdam)
Note: you can help out with court costs for the arrested by donating to the First Amendment Fund.