This chapter is dedicated to Forbidden Planet, the British chain of sci-ence fiction and fantasy books, comics, toys and videos. Forbidden Plan-et has stores up and down the UK, and also sports outposts in Manhat-tan and Dublin, Ireland. It's dangerous to set foot in a Forbidden Planet— rarely do I escape with my wallet intact. Forbidden Planet reallyleads the pack in bringing the gigantic audience for TV and movie sci-ence fiction into contact with science fiction books — something that'sabsolutely critical to the future of the field.
Forbidden Planet, UK, Dublin and New York CityMs Galvez's smile was wide.
"Does anyone know what that comes from?"A bunch of people chorused, "The Declaration of Independence."I nodded.
"Why did you read that to us, Marcus?""Because it seems to me that the founders of this country said that gov-ernments should only last for so long as we believe that they're workingfor us, and if we stop believing in them, we should overthrow them.
That's what it says, right?"Charles shook his head. "That was hundreds of years ago!" he said.
"Things are different now!""What's different?""Well, for one thing, we don't have a king anymore. They were talkingabout a government that existed because some old jerk's great-great-great-grandfather believed that God put him in charge and killed every-one who disagreed with him. We have a democratically electedgovernment —""I didn't vote for them," I said.
154"So that gives you the right to blow up a building?""What? Who said anything about blowing up a building? The Yippiesand hippies and all those people believed that the government no longerlistened to them — look at the way people who tried to sign up voters inthe South were treated! They were beaten up, arrested —""Some of them were killed," Ms Galvez said. She held up her handsand waited for Charles and me to sit down. "We're almost out of time fortoday, but I want to commend you all on one of the most interestingclasses I've ever taught. This has been an excellent discussion and I'velearned much from you all. I hope you've learned from each other, too.
Thank you all for your contributions.
"I have an extra-credit assignment for those of you who want a littlechallenge. I'd like you to write up a paper comparing the political re-sponse to the anti-war and civil rights movements in the Bay Area to thepresent day civil rights responses to the War on Terror. Three pages min-imum, but take as long as you'd like. I'm interested to see what you comeup with."The bell rang a moment later and everyone filed out of the class. Ihung back and waited for Ms Galvez to notice me.
"Yes, Marcus?""That was amazing," I said. "I never knew all that stuff about thesixties.""The seventies, too. This place has always been an exciting place to livein politically charged times. I really liked your reference to the Declara-tion — that was very clever.""Thanks," I said. "It just came to me. I never really appreciated whatthose words all meant before today.""Well, those are the words every teacher loves to hear, Marcus," shesaid, and shook my hand. "I can't wait to read your paper."I bought the Emma Goldman poster on the way home and stuck it upover my desk, tacked over a vintage black-light poster. I also bought aNEVER TRUST t-shirt that had a photoshop of Grover and Elmo kickingthe grownups Gordon and Susan off Sesame Street. It made me laugh. Ilater found out that there had already been about six photoshop contestsfor the slogan online in places like Fark and Worth1000 and B3ta andthere were hundreds of ready-made pics floating around to go onwhatever merch someone churned out.
155Mom raised an eyebrow at the shirt, and Dad shook his head and lec-tured me about not looking for trouble. I felt a little vindicated by hisreaction.
Ange found me online again and we IM-flirted until late at nightagain. The white van with the antennas came back and I switched off myXbox until it had passed. We'd all gotten used to doing that.
Ange was really excited by this party. It looked like it was going to bemonster. There were so many bands signed up they were talking aboutsetting up a B-stage for the secondary acts.
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How'd they get a permit to blast sound all night in that park? There'shouses all around there>
Per-mit? What is "per-mit"? Tell me more of your hu-man per-mit.
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Woah, it's illegal?
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Um, hello? You're worried about breaking the law?
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Fair point>
LOLI felt a little premonition of nervousness though. I mean, I was takingthis perfectly awesome girl out on a date that weekend — well, she wastaking me, technically — to an illegal rave being held in the middle of abusy neighborhood.
It was bound to be interesting at least.
Interesting.
People started to drift into Dolores Park through the long Saturday af-ternoon, showing up among the ultimate frisbee players and the dog-walkers. Some of them played frisbee or walked dogs. It wasn't reallyclear how the concert was going to work, but there were a lot of cops andundercovers hanging around. You could tell the undercovers because,like Zit and Booger, they had Castro haircuts and Nebraska physiques:
tubby guys with short hair and untidy mustaches. They drifted around,156looking awkward and uncomfortable in their giant shorts and loose-fit-ting shirts that no-doubt hung down to cover the chandelier of gearhung around their midriffs.
Dolores Park is pretty and sunny, with palm trees, tennis courts, andlots of hills and regular trees to run around on, or hang out on. Homelesspeople sleep there at night, but that's true everywhere in San Francisco.
I met Ange down the street, at the anarchist bookstore. That had beenmy suggestion. In hindsight, it was a totally transparent move to seemcool and edgy to this girl, but at the time I would have sworn that Ipicked it because it was a convenient place to meet up. She was readinga book called Up Against the Wall Motherfucker when I got there.
"Nice," I said. "You kiss your mother with that mouth?""Your mama don't complain," she said. "Actually, it's a history of agroup of people like the Yippies, but from New York. They all used thatword as their last names, like 'Ben M-F.' The idea was to have a groupout there, making news, but with a totally unprintable name. Just toscrew around with the news-media. Pretty funny, really." She put thebook back on the shelf and now I wondered if I should hug her. Peoplein California hug to say hello and goodbye all the time. Except whenthey don't. And sometimes they kiss on the cheek. It's all very confusing.
She settled it for me by grabbing me in a hug and tugging my headdown to her, kissing me hard on the cheek, then blowing a fart on myneck. I laughed and pushed her away.
"You want a burrito?" I asked.
"Is that a question or a statement of the obvious?""Neither. It's an order."I bought some funny stickers that said THIS PHONE IS TAPPEDwhich were the right size to put on the receivers on the pay phones thatstill lined the streets of the Mission, it being the kind of neighborhoodwhere you got people who couldn't necessarily afford a cellphone.
We walked out into the night air. I told Ange about the scene at thepark when I left.
"I bet they have a hundred of those trucks parked around the block,"she said. "The better to bust you with.""Um." I looked around. "I sort of hoped that you would say somethinglike, 'Aw, there's no chance they'll do anything about it.'"157"I don't think that's really the idea. The idea is to put a lot of civiliansin a position where the cops have to decide, are we going to treat theseordinary people like terrorists? It's a little like the jamming, but with mu-sic instead of gadgets. You jam, right?"Sometimes I forget that all my friends don't know that Marcus andM1k3y are the same person. "Yeah, a little," I said.
"This is like jamming with a bunch of awesome bands.""I see."Mission burritos are an institution. They are cheap, giant and deli-cious. Imagine a tube the size of a bazooka shell, filled with spicy grilledmeat, guacamole, salsa, tomatoes, refried beans, rice, onions and cilantro.
It has the same relationship to Taco Bell that a Lamborghini has to a HotWheels car.
There are about two hundred Mission burrito joints. They're all heroic-ally ugly, with uncomfortable seats, minimal decor — faded Mexicantourist office posters and electrified framed Jesus and Mary holograms— and loud mariachi music. The thing that distinguishes them, mostly,is what kind of exotic meat they fill their wares with. The really authenticplaces have brains and tongue, which I never order, but it's nice to knowit's there.
The place we went to had both brains and tongue, which we didn't or-der. I got carne asada and she got shredded chicken and we each got abig cup of horchata.
As soon as we sat down, she unrolled her burrito and took a littlebottle out of her purse. It was a little stainless-steel aerosol canister thatlooked for all the world like a pepper-spray self-defense unit. She aimedit at her burrito's exposed guts and misted them with a fine red oilyspray. I caught a whiff of it and my throat closed and my eyes watered.
"What the hell are you doing to that poor, defenseless burrito?"She gave me a wicked smile. "I'm a spicy food addict," she said. "Thisis capsaicin oil in a mister.""Capsaicin —""Yeah, the stuff in pepper spray. This is like pepper spray but slightlymore dilute. And way more delicious. Think of it as Spicy Cajun Visine ifit helps."My eyes burned just thinking of it.
"You're kidding," I said. "You are so not going to eat that."158Her eyebrows shot up. "That sounds like a challenge, sonny. You justwatch me."She rolled the burrito up as carefully as a stoner rolling up a joint,tucking the ends in, then re-wrapping it in tinfoil. She peeled off one endand brought it up to her mouth, poised with it just before her lips.
Right up to the time she bit into it, I couldn't believe that she was go-ing to do it. I mean, that was basically an anti-personnel weapon she'djust slathered on her dinner.
She bit into it. Chewed. Swallowed. Gave every impression of having adelicious dinner.
"Want a bite?" she said, innocently.
"Yeah," I said. I like spicy food. I always order the curries with fourchilies next to them on the menu at the Pakistani places.
I peeled back more foil and took a big bite.
Big mistake.
You know that feeling you get when you take a big bite of horseradishor wasabi or whatever, and it feels like your sinuses are closing at thesame time as your windpipe, filling your head with trapped, nuclear-hotair that tries to batter its way out through your watering eyes and nos-trils? That feeling like steam is about to pour out of your ears like a car-toon character?
This was a lot worse.
This was like putting your hand on a hot stove, only it's not yourhand, it's the entire inside of your head, and your esophagus all the waydown to your stomach. My entire body sprang out in a sweat and Ichoked and choked.
Wordlessly, she passed me my horchata and I managed to get thestraw into my mouth and suck hard on it, gulping down half of it in onego.
"So there's a scale, the Scoville scale, that we chili-fanciers use to talkabout how spicy a pepper is. Pure capsaicin is about 15 million Scovilles.
Tabasco is about 2,500. Pepper spray is a healthy three million. This stuffis a puny 100,000, about as hot as a mild Scotch Bonnet Pepper. I workedup to it in about a year. Some of the real hardcore can get up to a halfmillion or so, two hundred times hotter than Tabasco. That's prettyfreaking hot. At Scoville temperatures like that, your brain gets totally159awash in endorphins. It's a better body-stone than hash. And it's goodfor you."I was getting my sinuses back now, able to breathe without gasping.
"Of course, you get a ferocious ring of fire when you go to the john,"she said, winking at me.
Yowch.
"You are insane," I said.
"Fine talk from a man whose hobby is building and smashing laptops,"she said.
"Touche," I said and touched my forehead.
"Want some?" She held out her mister.
"Pass," I said, quickly enough that we both laughed.
When we left the restaurant and headed for Dolores park, she put herarm around my waist and I found that she was just the right height forme to put my arm around her shoulders. That was new. I'd never been atall guy, and the girls I'd dated had all been my height — teenaged girlsgrow faster than guys, which is a cruel trick of nature. It was nice. It feltnice.
We turned the corner on 20th Street and walked up toward Dolores.
Before we'd taken a single step, we could feel the buzz. It was like thehum of a million bees. There were lots of people streaming toward thepark, and when I looked toward it, I saw that it was about a hundredtimes more crowded than it had been when I went to meet Ange.
That sight made my blood run hot. It was a beautiful cool night andwe were about to party, really party, party like there was no tomorrow.
"Eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die."Without saying anything we both broke into a trot. There were lots ofcops, with tense faces, but what the hell were they going to do? Therewere a lot of people in the park. I'm not so good at counting crowds. Thepapers later quoted organizers as saying there were 20,000 people; thecops said 5,000. Maybe that means there were 12,500.
Whatever. It was more people than I'd ever stood among, as part of anunscheduled, unsanctioned, illegal event.
We were among them in an instant. I can't swear to it, but I don't thinkthere was anyone over 25 in that press of bodies. Everyone was smiling.
Some young kids were there, 10 or 12, and that made me feel better. Noone would do anything too stupid with kids that little in the crowd. No160one wanted to see little kids get hurt. This was just going to be a gloriousspring night of celebration.
I figured the thing to do was push in towards the tennis courts. Wethreaded our way through the crowd, and to stay together we took eachother's hands. Only staying together didn't require us to intertwine fin-gers. That was strictly for pleasure. It was very pleasurable.
Th............