Sit-In At The Alamo

~~~~~ Excerpt ~~~~~

Jimmy sat in his wheelchair in the main hallway, looking around. Every time he turned his head, the tail on his coonskin cap tickled his back. He liked that.

He shifted Ol' Betsy on his lap. Everybody had gone their separate ways for the moment. He wasn't sure what to do.

"Here, Jimmy," said Pauline, walking out of a room down the hall. She was a short, brisk woman with curly gray hair. "Have you seen this?" She handed him a flyer from a stack she was carrying. "We just had these printed up in the main office."

"Mm?" Jimmy accepted it, but he didn't feel up to reading the fine print.

"Oh. Here, I'll show you." She leaned over his chair, pointing to the paragraphs. "These are the demands we're going to make from Fleming. No more orderlies; they're to be replaced by nurses without prod rings. More flexibility in choosing our activities and changing our minds about them. We set our own visitation and curfew hours and we end the segregation of the men's and women's wings."

Jimmy nodded. He liked that part about the prod rings.

"Dinner time," said Barbie, coming down the hall with a big smile. She wore one of the cafeteria staff aprons over her own dress. "You know, Pauline, those demands sound awfully familiar."

"I noticed that," said Pauline. "I think we made a lot of these demands for the dormitories in Ann Arbor once a long time ago."

"You were in Ann Arbor?" Barbie brushed a strand of white hair from her eyes with a dainty little finger. "I was in Berkeley for People's Park. We must be about the same age."

"I guess so." Pauline looked back at her with an amused smile.

"Woodstock," Jimmy muttered, on impulse.

"What?" Pauline turned in surprise. "Were you at Woodstock?"

A tall, stooped man carrying a big piece of posterboard. "Remember this?" He held it up.

Jimmy squinted at it. It was a freshly stenciled red painting of a clenched fist.