Behind the Scenes in DC

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The group of CodePink women came and sat in a radiantly pink circle right in front of me. Among them were the women who came to help Cindy when she was alone in the ditch in Crawford and then stayed to become Cindy's improvisational support and infrastructure. They were singing and laughing and, like sirens, they beckoned me in. "But don't you still need me out here?" "No, it'll be fine," they said. Come, come. I calculated the appointments that I'd miss and lifted the yellow police ribbon to duck under. A heavy set cop with a mustache blocked me. "But I want to get arrested." Too late he said. "But how can it be too late to decide to get arrested?" You can't come in here, he said. So I backed away from the ribbon, took a few breaths, and then went forward and under. I was almost sitting down in the circle when he grabbed my arm.

Surround her, someone ordered and suddenly I was under a pile of pink women. The cop still had my arm but I wriggled it loose. I thought for a moment that he would give up, but he he grabbed me again and it seemed prudent to quit struggling. When I got up, he was furious, screaming in my face, why did you have to do that? Why couldn't you have decided earlier? Why didn't you stick to the plan? He walked me over to a police car, stood me against it, put metal cuffs on me, and told me I was going to a different place and would be dealt with separately from the other protesters. Then he sat me on the curb and told me I'd be there for a while. As I waited, it started to dawn on me that the last thing he wanted was to wrestle a middle aged woman with press credentials. When he walked by me, I told him that I appreciated that they were doing their best to do their job as gracefully as possible and that I hadn't intended to make his life more difficult. "Well, you did," he said, "and I've been on duty since 5:30AM." "I've been on since 5:00AM," said the woman cop standing above me. I listened to her answer her cell phone and explain to one of her children -- they were boys, 5 and 7 -- that she wouldn't be home for dinner, not until late. On one of his trips back and forth the heavyset cop said that this wasn't how he had hoped to spend his birthday.

Eventually they switched the metal cuffs to plastic ones, which cut into my wrists, and took away my shoelaces. There were moments when I was nervous, but I knew nothing really bad was going to happen to me. The discomfort was so paltry compared to the suffering we were there protesting, but still it was enough to open my awareness just a tinge. I had time to ruminate on such things while I sat on that curb. Then they put me in the back of a police car by myself and seatbelted me, still handcuffed, against the hard plastic seats which made the handcuffs cut in more.

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