Crunched shoulder to shoulder on a cold bench in The Tombs, with the courtroom hundreds of feet above us on the surface of Manhattan, up there beyond the reach of these hundreds of African-American and Hispanic men. Well, there was me, and then a couple guys who looked like elderly Keith Richards, but without the money to replace their blood.
The floor was covered with men in fetal positions, trying to ball up for warmth. I took my turn on the floor, hoping against all odds to make my white polyester suit into some kind of sleeping bag. I closed my eyes – warming up on thoughts of Savi and Lena. Only charged with misdemeanor trespass – I should have gotten signed out of Midtown North. I did the freezing 18 hours in the Tombs (went ‘into the system’) on the request of the UBS bank security people. But maybe after our sermons and songs in their lobby, those guys knew now what mountaintop removal and fracking and tar sands are. That’s what they are defending.
