Jacob Wren - Rich and Poor

I don’t know at what time I finally drifted off, or how long I managed to sleep, but it couldn’t have been for long, and either before I drifted off, or shortly thereafter, I could already feel dawn cracking through the edges of the cheap tent. Even in the tumult of my anticipations and doubts, the morning light was here to tell me that it has all already begun.

1.

Emmett phoned me. It was the first time I had heard his voice in I don’t know how many years. The moment he started talking I had the devastating feeling that he wants something. He’s not just calling to chat. Later I had to ask myself: why did I find this feeling so devastating. I had to admit that all this time I’d harboured a secret hope that some day Emmett would call to offer the olive branch, would call for no other reason than to rekindle our friendship. But this was not such a call. As he is talking, trying to explain something to me, I feel distracted, trying to listen to this Emmett on the other end of the line while at the same time remembering the Emmett from before, the old Emmett, the Emmett I used to know. I find myself trying to remember the last time we spoke and what was actually said. Trying to remember if that final conversation began with me calling him or him calling me.

I remember him saying that he hoped I burned in hell, my reply that I knew he didn’t mean it and his insistence that he did. He told me that he had dedicated his life to me, that I didn’t know what a friend was or how to be one, and that I now had to spend the rest of my life watching my back because some day he would get his revenge, served cold as ice. When he had saved my job, saved my company, he had done so on the assumption that we were in this together, that we had each other’s backs until the very end, and he would have done things very differently if he had known that I in fact saw his back as little more than a target. As he said all this I remember the way I sat hunched in my chair, in my office, trying to think of some way to de-escalate the situation, to bring him back towards me, but any word I spoke just poured gasoline on his fury. I understood his position but still felt there was some way for us to work it out. He promised he would hurt me, that whatever I’d just done to him he would someday do to me but one hundred thousand times worse. He said that I wasn’t a human being, and that every time I looked in the mirror I should remember that my best friend in the world now doesn’t even think I’m human and wishes nothing more than I burn in the most disgusting of hells for all eternity. Then he hung up and that was the last time I heard his voice until today.

His tone today is almost the opposite, more calm than calm, so calm it’s almost deadening. He’s telling me about a situation he feels I should be aware of, that he thinks I should see for myself. He keeps repeating the day and time, saying that I should be there. That it is an important event that would be made even more important by my presence. He is speaking as if I already know what he’s talking about and somehow I am ashamed to admit that I don’t. He explains that he hasn’t contacted me in so long, and I should take the fact that he is contacting me now as evidence that this is a call towards something that truly matters. He then changes the subject, telling me he knows I am in crisis, not explaining how he knows, but that it’s all right since he’s in crisis as well. He knows that his crisis is because of me but is not yet certain if my crisis is because of him. So much time has passed but he feels convinced that he still knows me better than anyone. Don’t I know you better than anyone, he asks, and I am forced to admit that he probably does.

I have never heard him so calm, so melancholy, so focused. Because he knows me so well he is sure that if I show up at the date and time he specifies, the date, time and place he repeats over and over again, it will be an important moment, both for me and the organization. It might not be a lesson I like but it will definitely teach me something important, something I need to know. I think about following his instructions and it feels like walking into a trap. I can tell that Emmett already knows this set-up sounds like a trap, perhaps that is why he has made his voice so calm. But the old Emmett confidence is still in full effect and therefore he also believes I will simply be persuaded by the pure force of his argument and comply. As I’m listening I am gripped by a feeling that I don’t remember ever having in my life. It is so uncanny, and many times when I later think back on it, even then I feel completely drained. The feeling is so simple I don’t even know if it has a name. I want to ask him to forgive me. But I don’t, and I don’t think in the few short sentences I have uttered during our brief conversation I let my voice crack even once. He doesn’t get the upper hand. I curtly say I will research and consider his proposal and then hang up. In the silence that follows, I wonder if I will ever hear his voice again.

2.

The buses roll up but no one gets on. Not a single worker. We all stand in the dust and don’t get on. That is how it starts. Instead of getting on the buses, as we have always done, we just stand there staring at them, staring them down, our arms linked as we surround them. Already, as the buses are pulling in, I am startled to see how many television cameras have arrived. I had underestimated Emmett, he really came through: I said get us media attention and here it is. I am trying to count them but it’s difficult in all the early tangle and commotion. There must be at least a dozen television crews here, all angling for the best possible shot. Already things are going better than I possibly imagined. As we stand in stoic silence, the buses unable to move forward or back as we surround them, I am imagining what it will look like on television, an image of quiet strength and solidarity. The subcontractors knew this strike was coming, but it seems they weren’t expecting it this soon, because the police and scabs haven’t arrived yet. Dawn is still breaking and there is no one here but us, the bus drivers and television crews. I can’t quite explain it, everything is such a strange mix of stillness and commotion.

When the police arrive the mood changes quickly. Police vans start pulling up and keep pulling up for hours. It is as if they’ve already decided to outnumber us and can of course do so effortlessly. In two hours the entire field is surrounded and they’re on their megaphones repeating over and over again that this strike is illegal, we must disperse immediately, this strike is illegal, we must get on the buses, get back to work, this strike is illegal, through the tepid buzz of the megaphones, over and over again for hours. We stand our ground, keep the buses from moving, and the cops also hold their ground, surrounding us with their numbing megaphone repetitions. We eat lunch all still standing, surrounding the buses that have now been abandoned by their drivers, and in late afternoon the scabs start to arrive. It’s strange to me that at first there aren’t that many, maybe a hundred or so, as they fan out across the field in packs of five or ten, unclear what precisely they are there to do, sizing up the situation in a manner that might almost be described as relaxed, nonetheless making us nervous, sniffing around towards their first move if we don’t make our move first. A few try to get between us and the buses but we don’t let them and they don’t yet insist. Everything is still calm, but tensions can’t help but gradually creep forward, and I scan the field nervously waiting for something to crack.

I don’t know what time it is when the first rock is thrown, nor am I quick enough to catch who threw it. Later, several witnesses claim it was thrown by one of the scabs, thrown directly into the face of a cop who had momentarily let his shield down in boredom, but of course the newspapers will say it was thrown by one of us. One rock is all it takes for the cops to storm in. Suddenly I am in the middle and no overview is possible. I’m being pushed and pulled from every direction. Out of the corner of my eye I see a scab charging a police officer, see him smashed towards the ground, blood from his head mixing into the dust. As the violence is starting I already feel I’m in some strange sort of theatre. All those actually fighting work for the bosses, some of them pretending to be workers while others pretend to be police. Actors fighting as if the cameras were rolling and they are. I realize this is what will actually be on the news tonight, violent foreign workers attacking noble white cops. But this is only the beginning and maybe the story will still change over time. A fist hits my head, I don’t see where it came from or who it belongs to. I immediately feel dizzy, wonder if one punch is all it takes, if I’m going down, will be trampled to death by the people I love most, but manage to regain my balance, slide through the bodies and I’m standing again. The drivers have made it back into their buses and are pulling away as so many of us continue to mob around in an attempt to stop them, the cops beating us down or dragging us away. It is only later I learn that we managed to get into the engines, someone knew which part to remove, that many of the buses broke down less than a mile from this field. When they write about today, years from now, it’s something every story will mention, how we managed to stop the buses: first one way, then another.