Cars pass. Across the street, a woman walks out of Jansen’s with two small blond children, holding each by one hand, and goes into Beverly Coffee next door without even glancing across the street. More cars pass. Nobody says anything. The five of them just stand there and do nothing.
After a minute or so, Jesse starts to feel jumpy. She squeezes her toes and bounces a little inside her boots.
“Shouldn’t we, like, chant or sing or something?” she asks Esther quietly.
“It’s not a demonstration, gorgeous,” Margaret explains loudly, as if Jesse had posed the question to her directly. “It’s a vigil. You ever been to a vigil before?”
Jesse shakes her head.
“At a vigil, the point is not to make a bunch of noise and ruckus, the point is to stand up for what you believe in. Or in my case, sit down for what you believe in. Ha!”
“But um, what if no one pays attention to us?” Jesse asks. She hopes it’s not a rude question. Across the street, shoppers are coming and going, and no one has stopped to acknowledge—even to look at—the little group with their placards only fifty feet away.
“They see us,” Charlie says.
“They see us,” Esther agrees vehemently.
“And even if they don’t,” Margaret continues, “the point is just to be here. To stand up and be counted for what’s right.”
As if on cue, a passing Ford Taurus honks its horn, and the driver waves out the window at them. Margaret, Charlie, and Esther wave back enthusiastically.
“Hey.” Arlo has sidled over so he’s right next to Jesse, on the far side from Esther, and he pokes her in the sleeve to get her attention.
“Hey.” Jesse edges a fraction of an inch away from him.
“I get you,” Arlo says in a low voice. “Believe me. I get your problem.”
“My problem?”
“I hear what you’re trying to say. It feels purely symbolic, right? Like we’re not really doing anything? I hear you.”
“I don’t know if I—”
“Look, the first time someone dragged me here, I was like, this is the most pathetic thing I have ever seen. These people have been standing here on this corner for forty years begging, what, the air? and the sky? for peace? And is there peace? Did they make peace happen? The world’s in worse shape than ever, man! If they want peace so bad, why don’t they go chain themselves to a nuclear silo in Colorado or picket the White House or blow up the headquarters of Halliburton—like you could even find the real headquarters of Halliburton, right?” Arlo chuckles conspiratorially, and Jesse nods because she’s not sure what else to do.
“‘By any means necessary,’ right? That’s more your style?”
“I guess?”
“Yeah, that was me, too. I get you. I was all about direct action. And I wasn’t afraid of violence. I was at the Battle in Seattle in ’99, see?” Arlo drops his sign to the ground and tugs up the sleeve of his army jacket, revealing a crisscrossed network of pale, wormy scars running up and down his bony forearm. “Friendly fire,” he says with unconcealed pride. “Bottle rocket, premature detonation. I was supposed to throw it at the limo carrying the head of the World Trade Organization, but I didn’t time the fuse right. Went off in my hand, man.”
Jesse looks down at the arm Arlo is thrusting into her face and nods politely. “Nice.”
“Nice?” Arlo echoes, clearly offended. “Nice?”
“I just meant—”
“Is he showing you his scars?” Esther interrupts, leaning over Jesse now to peer at Arlo. “Arlo, are you forcing Jesse to look at your mangled arm? Put that away, nobody wants to see that.”
“I’m not forcing anyone to do anything, I’m talking to the new girl about direct political action!”
“Stop trying to prove how tough you are and leave Jesse alone.”
“It’s okay, really….” Sandwiched in between the hot intensity of Arlo and the cool intensity of Esther, Jesse starts to feel slightly claustrophobic.
“For your information, Esther, I was about to tell her that I put all that in the past, thanks to Margaret and Charlie and this group. I was about to tell her that I’m all about pure presence now and just being here in a peaceful way to bring about the new world order.”
“All right, so now you’ve told her. Put your arm back in your jacket.”
“You guys, it’s cool, it’s cool.” Jesse just wants them to stop bickering. What is it with people getting into conflicts at peace rallies?
In a huff, Arlo shrugs his sleeve back down over his arm, then turns away to check his BlackBerry with his back to the group.