Jonathan Relevant and Minerva ran to a window. They could see the sound truck speeding toward the spot where the city police were massed and waiting. The chancellor stood atop the truck with his arm outstretched like Napoleon on the verge of ordering Marshall Ney to launch a cavalry charge.
Then the city police started moving toward the building held by SDS. Clubs held high, Mace spray-guns at the ready, for the most part badge-less, the cops moved in squads, quickly, but without running. The platoon bringing up the rear included some fifty savage-looking Doberman pinschers straining at their short leashes.
On the steps the campus security police were mopping up the last of the Weathermen. Then, from around the corner of the institute, a new group made their appearance. It was the Greeks and jocks, led by the captain of the football team, determined to help stop the assault on the billys of the campus police by the skulls of the Weathermen.
“SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL POLICE!” they chanted as they headed for the fray.
The sentiment didn’t help them. It fell on deaf ears. Before the crew cuts could reach the steps, the city fuzz intercepted them with a cloud of Mace. “You’re making a mistake. We’re on your side,” the football captain tried to explain just before a billy was shoved into his groin.
“You kids gotta learn respect for authority!” the chief of police announced as the jocks and Greeks ran from the snarling dogs.
“We’re learning!” an Alpha Mu sobbed as he ran.
“Which side are you on, boy?
“Which side are you on? . . .”
The singing of the blacks reached the ears of the law and order Whiteys as they fled past the Administration Building. The Dobermans howled an answer, snapping at college-shop slacks all the way back to the gymnasium. Here, what was left of the crusading jocks and Greeks gathered lo try to figure out what had happened to them.
Meanwhile, the state Guardsmen were preparing to go into action. One young Guardsman, scared, a staunch catholic, murmured a novena before inserting his bayonet. “And God bless Mommy and Daddy and Mayor Daley and—oh! yes!—Mario Procaccino—-Whatever that is,” he added.
The Guard marched toward the Administration Building as the city police joined the campus cops on the steps of the institute. The Weathermen were doing their thing. “Bleed, baby, bleed!” They were bleeding. Some of the SDS-ers came out of the institute and pulled a few of the more badly wounded Weathermen inside the institute. Then they barred the doors against the police. Outside, on the steps, an elite group of Weathermen hemophiliacs proved it was possible to cooperate with the most sadistic cops by laying their masochism on the line.
The Guard formed ranks in front of the Administration Building and put on their tear-gas masks. On command, several canisters were thrown through the windows of the building. Inside, the black students and their ghetto allies covered their faces with wet handkerchiefs and lobbed the canisters back out as fast they were able. The wind carried the tear gas toward the institute and a few moments later the unprepared campus flics and city blue-coats and Weathermen bleeders dispersed into a choking mob bent only on fleeing the cloud of gas.
The Guardsmen marched toward the entrance to the Administration Building, their commander bent on their breaking down the door with their rifle butts. The blacks prepared to meet the assault by shoving every available piece of furniture in front of the door. G. P. decided that if the Guardsmen broke through the best thing to do would be to retreat to the second floor, where the one staircase might prove a strategically defensible position. He ordered the statue of the Angel Gabriel carried up there.
Before the Guardsmen could launch their assault, however, a new element confused the situation even more. The Ad Hoc Faculty Committee, led by Mercy Altebopper and Dr. Umpmeyer, mounted the steps of the Administration Building to offer “a compromise solution” to the blacks inside. If the blacks accepted, the Ad Hoc Faculty Committee intended to try to influence the administration to likewise go along with it.
But the faculty members never got to talk to either group. Before they realized what was happening, the National Guardsmen were surrounding them on the steps and prodding at them with their bayonets. “Umpgrghhimmllfarschtuk!” a young Guardsman commanded Dr. Umpmeyer through his tear-gas mask.
“Could you speak more clearly, young man? I have this hearing difficulty and——”
“Ngralkpmphbginahrybvznew!” The Guardsman prodded Dr. Umpmeyer’s chest with his bayonet.
“Oh, dear! Now you’ve done it! You cut the wire! What is it that you want? If you’ll take off that mask, maybe I can read your lips!”
“Jgfumplladquigyoldbstrdsvbtchcmmnst!”
Jonathan Relevant observed the scene from a distance. But even from his position at the window of the institute, he could tell what the major difficulty was. Communication is never easy! Jonathan Relevant decided. Never!
“Wouldn’t it be great if a teacher was killed and a student got the blame?” the CIA Indian puffed to Jonathan Relevant on his pipe.
“If the Administration Building falls, we’ll be next,” Minerva said anxiously.
“We may be first,” Jonathan Relevant pointed out the Window. “Look.”
The paratroopers had fallen in and were marking time smartly, waiting for the order to charge the Science Research Institute. Behind them other paratroopers were being held in reserve. And behind them waited jeeps with barbed wire, weapons carriers, a few small tanks, and some light artillery.
As they prepared to charge, the Guardsmen were clearing the last of the Ad Hoc Faculty Committee from the steps of the Administration Building. Inside the building, G. P. had just become aware of a second problem. “Where’s my nitro?” he demanded. “Who took my sack of explosives?”
Everybody looked blank. Hardcore looked blankest of all. G. P. confronted him. “You took it!” he said accusingly.
“Shoot, man, would I do that?”
“You would! And I’m betting you did! Now give it back!” G. P. demanded.
“Wha’ for? You ain’t gonna use it.”
“That’s right. And neither are you. No matter what, nobody’s going to get killed if I can help it.”
“Then what you want with them ’splosives anyway?”
“Give them to me and I’ll show you!”
Hardcore reached behind the statue of the Angel Gabriel and produced the sack. G. P. took the sack, went over to a window, and flung it into the shrubbery. Hardcore shook his head in disdain.
A moment later a state Guardsman found the sack in the bushes. He opened it, looked at the contents, and scratched his head, unsure what they were. He decided he’d better bring it to the CO.
En route, the Guardsman collided with a Weathermen student fleeing the police. The sack went flying from his grasp and the contents were strewn over the ground. Miraculously, none of the explosives were activated-— then.
“Go ahead and stab me with your bayonet!” the radical believer demanded bravely.
“Nahh. I don’t swing that way,” the Guardsman replied.
The Weatherman shrugged philosophically. “Got a cigarette?” he asked.
“Yeah.” The Guardsman gave him a cigarette.
“Got a match?”
“You want me to smoke it for you too?” The Guardsman gave him a match.
“You think it’s easy for me to come to the establishment and beg like this? Sure you do!” The Weatherman answered his own question. “That’s how much you apes know about human dignity!” He lit the cigarette and flung the match on the ground.
BAROOM? . . . Nope. There was no one mammoth, overwhelming explosion. What did happen was a chain reaction of small blasts which mounted in intensity as one explosive set off another. The student and the Guardsman both dropped to the ground and tried to burrow for safety.