Faster on My Own: Chapter 1

Steven takes his comrades to task in the aftermath of a beating.

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A blue and purple bruise on Steven’s neck came a hair short of breaching the circle of the anarchy A tattooed just below his ear. The hammer and sickle on the other side was undisturbed. A single fluorescent bulb lit the food co-op’s basement where twelve of his fellow collective members, all dressed in black, gathered to reek of tear gas. All the rest of them laughed and chatted amongst themselves, and what were they laughing at? His back and knee throbbed to remind him of how they let the cop tackle him to the ground. How they and the rest of the crowd watched as Steven endured blow after blow from his club. Only when tear gas enveloped the two of them had Ashwin’s enormous hands pulled him back into the crowd and to safety. But one man’s bravery didn’t excuse everyone else’s cowardice, and even the soothing scent of Caroline’s perfume– which took Steven to afternoons spent laying in the sunlight and away from battle– couldn’t quell his rage at his laughing comrades.

“What’s everyone so happy about?” Steven lurched off of the bags full of potatoes and walked into the center of the room to display his bodily wreckage. “Were we at a different action? I got my ass kicked.” The smiles ceased, but somberness didn’t take their place. Instead, everyone feigned perfect neutrality. His anger was being humored. He carried on forward above his rigid knee, his entire leg no better than a cane. Little gusts of wind blew behind him, maybe from the door, maybe from the little window that peeked onto the sidewalk, maybe from Caroline rushing to grab him and pull him back to his resting place and her fingers closing rapidly around air.

While she failed to stop him, Ashwin sauntered to the room. He never moved quickly, but always with purpose, and soon his body was a soft wall between Steven and the rest of the collective. Not that it was Ashwin’s goal. Steven knew exactly where Ashwin had wanted to go: the center, where everyone could see him and no one else could be seen more than him. “Steven is right to be angry.” Ashwin said, words drifting out of his mouth like fallen leaves on a gentle river. “No, we didn’t expect an altercation like that at this action. But we’re all responsible for each other, and we failed to keep Steven out of danger. Each of us owns that.”

“Not just you. Why are we out there fighting for people who won’t fight for us? What’s it going to take?” Steven knocked over a crate for emphasis and a handful of popcorn kernels spilled to the floor. While he hobbled past Ashwin to take his own place at center stage, where he’d been since he and his college friends founded the collective in response to campus over-policing years before anyone else in the room had joined, Caroline lifted the box back onto the stack, scattering a few more kernels.

“We should all remember that we’re here in partnership with the co-op.” Ashwin said. “Let’s recognize their needs.”

Steven dug in his pocket and threw a handful of change into the popcorn. “That’ll cover it.” The rest of the room stared silently as Ashwin smiled at Steven and Steven glared at Ashwin and Caroline finally found the tense band of muscle to the right of Steven’s neck and worked her fingers into it. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t see what was happening. I promise I would’ve come.”

“I know, babe, I know. I’m not mad at you. I’m not even mad at any of you.” Steven’s back demanded rest and he returned to the sack of potatoes now that he could no longer be ignored. “Well… I don’t know about that. I’m mostly mad at them.” Steven gestured toward the outside world and winced at a new pain in his ribs. “They’ll hold signs, they’ll chant. But that’s it. When push comes to shove, they don’t do either.”

“That’s a good point. That’s a very good point.” Ashwin’s calm body was belied by eyes held in intense focus. To be looked at by him was to be studied and comprehended, to feel as though he was placing the object of his attention into a vast, interwoven system that grew more complete by the day. “The public isn’t where we are. And that can be frustrating. So frustrating. I’m sure Steven isn’t the only one among us who’s felt that.”

“I’ve felt it.” Caroline nodded. Her bright red hair bobbed along with the motion.

“Me too. Very deeply. There’s no telling when they’ll catch up. It could be tomorrow. It could be ten years from now. Everything moves slowly until it moves quickly. Our job is to push when we can, and be ready for our moment.” He never answered what pushing meant, what being ready meant. Steven knew better than to challenge him on that. Even Caroline was nodding her head. He thought she was smarter than that, but maybe he’d been wrong. 

The meeting went on to its business: a looping conversation where they tried to develop consensus over who would be putting up fliers, who would be working the door at an upcoming punk show, and who would be assigned tasks which they had no intention of completing. The second the meeting was done, Steven limped his way up the stairs rather than participate in the socialization that everyone else had been pushing through the rest of the meeting to reach. Nothing these people had to say held any interest for him.

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He didn’t even make it to the bus stop before Caroline caught up with him. At least she’d noticed he left eventually. They had another twenty minutes before the B44 arrived, and the metal bench was colder and harder than the potatoes. But Steven didn’t regret walking out. His absence would send a powerful message than anything he’d said in the meeting. Caroline, at least, seemed to have understood its gravity. She caught brief moments of contact with Steven’s eyes, but she always jumped away. What could they say to each other? Steven could have been arrested, could have died, could have seen his entire future of agitation and revolution snuffed out by a well-aimed swing of the officer’s club. 

Her purple lips shifted a bit. Rehearsal for whatever would come soon. At least Steven knew the silence was nearer to death than he was earlier. They’d been together for a couple years. Their first date had been only a couple weeks after Caroline joined the collective, her then-pink hair a rare splash of color and beauty in the dreary black of serious matters. Over their time as a couple, Steven had learned all the ways she signaled what she was about to do: the preparation for speaking, the muscles tensing in anticipation of movement. A little inhalation, and, as predicted, she spoke. “I don’t think it’s fair for you to blame everyone for today. We should’ve come to get you faster, but you weren’t supposed to be there.”

“It wasn’t my plan.”

“Sure. I’m sure it wasn’t.” She peeked into traffic, as if she thought the bus might come any moment, but dozens of headlights illuminated her so that she became a luminous outline, red hair and brown leather glowing around a pitch black canyon where her body once was.

He wanted to explain to her that he thought he saw an opportunity. That the officer had let down his guard and gotten sloppy. That he thought a victory, no matter how small, would show all the protestors that there was so much more their hands could do than hold a sign. But so few people ever got the chance to feel history making demands of them. How could he describe the certainty which poured into his heart at the moment? How could she understand that even though he was right, he had been wrong? 

They didn’t say anything more to each other until they were on the bus; the white lights running in little circles down the ceiling brought out the pale yellows which hid on the outskirts of Steven’s bruises, cowering behind the strength of dark purple. His black-night reflection in the bus’s window looked like a corpse no one had the decency to put in the ground. What if that club, those fists, had buried little seeds of death inside him? Spring would come and they would bloom blood-red and taller than any tree. Caroline rubbed the back of his neck and said, “It’ll be okay soon. Everything will be okay.”

“Everything is terrible.”

“That’s true too.”