I Love a Broad Margin to My Life - Maxine Hong Kingston [32]
of the capital in an unmarked white vehicle.
No one would know what became of us. Keep
singing. Keep loving. Say in unequivocal
words, “I love you.” Hear, “I love you, Maxine.”
The Metropolitan Police, the men, stood
in one-line formation. The women, we,
the demonstrators, drew one another close.
We were a bouquet knot of pink roses.
How can it be that all the cops are men,
and all for Peace women? I can’t live
in such a world. I don’t want to keep
living out the myth that men fight
and women mother. We regressed—the junior
high dance. One boy crossed
the wide floor, chose one girl,
escorted her back to the other side, where
he arrested her. “My wife
is gonna kill me,” said a black cop;
“I’m arresting Alice Walker.” “Don’t hold
hands with me,” said a white cop,
shaking off his partner, who was smiling up
at him; “Don’t take my arm either.”
They had each one of us stand by herself
alongside the van, and took our pictures.
“Quit smiling. What are you smiling for?
This is an arrest.” This is your mug shot,
not your prom photo. I was smiling from
happiness; my government will not disappear me;
the tarp was but backdrop for shooting pix!
And the beautiful pink aura was still upon me.
My cop and I did not speak. A woman
officer in casual uniform, no gun,
took my purse, hair clips, pink poncho,
my earrings, and put them in a plastic bag.
Ready for handcuffing, I presented
my hands, wrists together, in front,
but my arresting officer signaled: in back.
I won’t be able to write, to touch, to catch
myself, and will fall on my face. I turned about,
held my arms behind me as high as I could,
bending way forward, making my gestures
large for the witnesses to see. Handcuffs
in this age of new plastics work like the ties
for bread and trees. My arrester could
have tightened the cable-tie so that it cut
into the skin. The hands turn blue, burst.
These police were kind to tie us loosely.
Our belongings taken, our pictures taken,
handcuffed, we were made to get into
a paddy wagon, about 8 per wagon.
There are cages, like dog cages, between
the front seat and the side benches. I sat
in the middle of a bench, my shoulders touching
women’s shoulders beside me, my legs touching
women’s legs before me. Women outside
pounded, drummed on the van. Through the windshield,
we could see them applauding us. Somebody said,
“There’s my daughter.” The van started up;
the crowd parted, let the van through.
It got quiet. We were driving away from
the magic. The rose light went out.
I had nothing apposite to say, but
had to talk. “Now I’m on the trip
my father went on. In a paddy wagon to jail.
I’m reliving his arrests. I’m knowing his feelings.
Scared. Helpless. He wondered what would become
of him, maybe deportation. They’re driving
him to the border, never to see his family again.
Oh, but my father wasn’t committing civil
disobedience like us. He committed crime,
ran gambling, half the take in the city.
It was his job—go to jail, regularly.
Once a month, they raided the gambling house,
and took just one guy, my father.
He was all alone in the paddy wagon
riding through the streets and out of town.
It was okay. By the end of the night, he
was home. They let him go. He gave them money
and whiskey and cigarettes, and they let him go.
He gave them a fake Chinese name,
a different Chinese name every time;
he doesn’t have a record.” BaBa
used to say, “I want the life
you live.” Now I’m living
the life he lived.
A few women squirmed
out of their handcuffs, marveled at how
loosely they’d been tied. Arriving at the prison—
an immense spread-out building on bare land
fenced off from other bare land
in the middle of nowhere—they put their handcuffs
back on. We were taken to an office,
which had a wall that was a bank of jail cells.
We were separated, I in a cell by myself.
It was like a toilet stall; an unlidded
toilet faced the door. Also for sitting
was a little bench. Being little, I could
sleep curled up on it, just right.
At last, the solitary confinement of my