“Planned spontaneity?”
“That’s the best kind. Let the kids and the radicals blow off a little steam every day and maybe they don’t try to actually upset the apple cart.”
The passing parade had moved off to the west and traffic was moving again. There was a parking structure to their right and Turnbull pulled in. A sign proudly announced that there was no charge to park, parking fees being, apparently, racist and imperialist. They found a racism and imperialism-free parking space on the second floor.
“Interesting how fighting racism and all the other -isms always seems to require measures that make things better for rich people,” Turnbull said as he exited the Lexus, being careful to keep the driver’s door from scratching the Tesla parked beside them. A power cord ran from the Tesla to the outlet on the wall, and the indicator indicated it was charging. There were no brownouts in the special sectors.
They headed out to the street, blending in with the served caste rather than the serving class, their faces down, both in dark glasses. They passed a pair of PBI thugs hassling a Latino man wearing a worker’s uniform, demanding his papers; the conflict drew not even a glance from anyone else. Turnbull relaxed a bit after a few steps. His plan, had they been stopped, formed instantly and unconsciously. It was to punch the first one in the throat, draw, kill the other with two shots to the forehead, and then put two hollow points more into the face of the one struggling to breath.
The campus began where the shops and restaurants stopped – there was no signage demarcating the campus from the community. There was only a sign pointing toward the Hillary Clinton Medical Center – as a kid, Turnbull had gotten stitches there back when it was named after Ronald Reagan. Below the sign was a bank of newspaper racks. The Los Angeles Times, which cost seven dollars and was printed on 8.5” x 11” newsprint, had a headline which read “PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC SETS NEW RECORDS FOR PRODUCTIVITY AND SOCIAL JUSTICE.” A second above-the-fold article was titled “GOVERNMENT RELUCTANTLY AGREES TO PEOPLE’S DEMAND FOR UNPOSITIVE RATION ADJUSTMENTS IN SOLIDARITY WITH OPPRESSED PERSONS.”
In the next box was the UCLA student paper, The Daily Entity. It had been The Daily Bruin until a few years before when a student from Marin County, who claimed to be part Cherokee, demanded that the name be changed because bears were sacred to his people. The new symbol of UCLA was a circle; the original smiling bear had been changed to a stick figure human, but despite its lack of sex-specific characteristics it was deemed too “cispatriarchal,” so the symbol morphed into what was essentially a happy face. Then there were objections to that image by the visually impaired community, because it had eyes, and by protesters against “facial normativity” who passionately argued that the presence of a nose and mouth “disempowered and invalidated” the deformed. The present circle had its critics too; the student government was scheduled to discuss eliminating the mascot altogether. UCLA’s new mascot was likely to be, literally, nothing.
The Entity’s headline chronicled the latest defeat for the UCLA Entities basketball team; a photo showed the wheelchair-bound center forward going for the ball against her 380 pound gender indeterminate opponent. The headline read “ALL PEOPLE ARE VICTORIOUS WITH INCLUSIVE SPORTS!” Reading further down, one would find the final score was 6-9 in favor of the Stanford Reproductive Freedoms.
Perhaps fifty yards beyond inside the campus was a bronze statue of a smiling man, his right hand raised in greeting, with a plaque reading “People’s Hero Barack Obama – ‘No Justice, No Peace’.” It was unclear whether this was honoring him for his presidency or his work as the United Nations Secretary General, which in some quarters was widely hailed as a smashing success despite the numerous acts of war and terrorism, economic disruption, and the Splitting apart of the United States that occurred during his tenure. Before fraternities were banned, one caused outrage by sticking a nine iron in his hand as a prank. Those not arrested for this hate crime were either expelled or forced into extensive reeducation to root out their manifest racism.
Past the statue in a small plaza was another protest, though “protest” might not be the correct word for the gathering of a couple dozen students and, clearly, nonstudents, in a drum circle. A tattered banner read “Drumming for Soldarity with the Peoples of Color of the People’s Republic.” There was no “i” in the word “Solidarity.” If any of the students walking by during the banner’s long lifetime had paid the protestors any mind at all, one might have noted the error.
Another speaker just a few steps beyond standing on a box outside an administration building, shouting demands that the government “stomp out the racists and deniers and the wreckers who refuse to support the People’s Republic!”
“Aren’t protestors supposed to actually protest against the status quo?” whispered Junior. That’s how it had worked at college back home.
“I don’t think the authorities would take real well to actual protests. They prefer a festival of acclimation. Oh, wait, there’s some actual protesting,” Turnbull said. “Look over there. The shaved headed women with piercings.”
“Which ones?” asked Junior, confused. “The ones in overalls?”
“No, the other ones, the ones in old timey bathing suits. See their signs? They’re protesting the rape culture here at UCLA. I assume that’s allowed by the authorities to make sure the university stays in line. Can’t let alternate power centers develop.”
“Okay, I’m already sick of this place. So how do we find my sister? Let’s get her and get out of here.”
“According to Jacob’s schedule, she’s in class right now about halfway across campus,” Turnbull replied, looking at his watch. “We can get her as she leaves. Assuming she doesn’t freak out when she sees you.”
“She won’t.”
“No, maybe she won’t. But I’d feel better if she knew we were coming,” Turnbull said, and then stopped and looked at Junior. “Do you think she knows we are coming?”
“What? We haven’t even tried to contact her.”
“I know. That would have been too dangerous. They could have intercepted the message. Then we could have been made by the PBI. Except, we were made by the PBI.”
“You sure they were after us and not trying to quell the riot?”
“I don’t know. But I felt like we were being watched the minute we left David’s, and then the bad guys show up at the food center. But since then, nothing.”
“You think we’re being followed now?”
“I don’t feel it, but…come on, in here,” Turnbull said, pulling Junior with him into a classroom building.
The central hallway was light and airy – blue-clad janitors were sweeping up while oblivious students passed them as if the workers were invisible. To the right were three doors, each opening into a large lecture hall. The nearest one was wide open. From inside, a high, bored voice intoned, “In people’s math, we ignore the racial and privileged freight that comes with so-called numbers, and reach for a deeper narrative of class, gender, and girth issues that it gives rise to. Two plus two is not four. It’s oppression.”
There was a muffled question, then the first voice responded: “Yes, that will be on the final. Which is open book, open notes, and a collective effort.”
Turnbull and Junior huddled under a stairwell, away from the passing students, next to a garbage can and six differently denominated recycling containers. A hand scrawled poster on the wall next to them from something called the “Ear Justice Conspiracy” warned that “Speaking Is Hearist!”