Robert Roth

Opposite Sides of the Barricades

All in the family.

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I remember a scene right after the 9/11 attacks. It was during a demonstration from Union Square to Times Square protesting the impending attack on Afghanistan. The cops had just come up from the World Trade Center where they had been searching for bodies. They were wearing jeans that were smudged with dirt. Many had lost friends and colleagues. Most looked brittle and tightly wound. And here they were sent to contain a demonstration. I remember thinking that we should not press too hard. Not back off exactly, but not push up against the limits. How to share our common sorrow, respect their particular pain and yet not lose our own sense of the world was not an easy task. One woman asked a cop if he had lost anyone. His voice soft and appreciative answered, “Not directly. Thank you for asking.” 

Many years before at another anti-war demonstration, while standing with Lisa, I saw a group of cops from the Tactical Police Force, often the most brutal of the police, marching towards the demonstration. One cop caught my attention. I saw a playful sparkle in his eye. 

A bit later I wound up standing directly in front of him on the other side of a barricade. I recognized him, really by the sparkle in his eye, as a close friend from junior high school. 

“Hey Tom,” I said.

“Hey Bob,” he replied. “What you doing here?” he asked. 

“What you doing here?” I answered. 

At one point Tommy quickly removed his upper bridge to show me that his teeth had been knocked out while boxing as a light heavyweight in the Navy. All three of us laughed. 

Lisa breaking the mood, embarrassing me slightly, asked why do cops act so brutally towards protestors. 

“A girl will smile at you, wear a funny hat while she sticks you in the thigh with a hair pin,” he answered. “Someone else will kick you in the shins. No one sees them do it. All they see are innocent faces. If someone hurts me, I’ll hurt them back. It’s as simple as that.” 

The police line was ordered to move. “Take care man,” he said.

“Good to see you,” I replied. 

***

A few years later I met a mutual friend from junior high who worked in the welfare department. Like Tommy, Augie had been a tough, and for that matter very warm, Italian kid. He was now politicized and quite liberal in his politics. He was still friends with Tommy whose sense of the world was that it was a cesspool, that you couldn’t trust anyone, and that everyone was out for themselves and would always be ready to screw you. I think I remember hearing that Augie died from a very painful illness. I have no idea whatever happened to Tommy.

Robert Roth is author of Health Proxy (Yuganata Press, 2007) and Book of Pieces (And Then Press, 2017). He is also co-creator of and then magazine since 1987. "Opposite Sides of the Barricades" appeared in Health Proxy.

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