| Every night when I went to sleep, I saw lines and lines of blue helmets and blue shirts, and, later in the week, Guardsmen in fatigue uniforms with gas masks on and rifles at the ready. They were just standing there in my head as I went to sleep, and they turned slowly and looked at me, facing me as I went to sleep. They were not clubbing, not charging, not tear-gassing, not wildly beating anyone, not jerking the wounded out of hospitals and shoving them into paddy wagons, not breaking into private homes and dragging kids into the street for beating. They were just standing there, blocking the startling and vivid rush of imagery that begins when the waking mind lets go and I am not yet fully asleep. They were standing in a sourceless surreal light at night under trees or along streets. They were not facing demonstrators or Yippies, these cops and soldiers in my mind. They were |
