02 May 2002

The intersection at Plum and 8th. Trying to find the EXACT center. Locating something sort of close to it, and standing on one foot on that spot. No cars hit me: for fucking ONCE in my life, pedestrians WIN! Kissing a grad student I met on the bus and letting the other kids convince me I'm a complete subversive because I'm wearing a black hoodie and my aranciata can has a red star on it.

Half a dozen topless women painting each other. We're all next to a McDonald's, and someone writes "McStupid: I'd Rather Starve!" on the asphalt outside in the street. I borrow a piece of chalk. I will be a subversive today too.

A girl is arrested. "If we stay together, they can't arrest us! Solidarity!" is the battlecry, but the girl, Lily ("Free Lily, Free Lily, Free Lily!") wasn't paying attention, and got arrested for straggling. "SOLIDARITY!" And so we march to the cop-shop. The Anarchist Cheerleaders rouse the crowd: "Pee! Eye! Gee! Ess! What's that spell!?" A cop comments favorably on my crown of English Ivy which my new friend made for me. He's a very nice cop. He smiles. His badge says "GALLAGHER" in tough gold letters. I gave a handful of the ivy stalks to another cop earlier. He was too startled to refuse them. Had a photograph on my wall for a number of years of a woman putting a daisy into a raised gun; giving ivy leaves to a cop isn't quite the same, but nice anyway. The cop smiled. I said: "It's completely ignorant to believe they're out here to protect us from getting hit by cars, but I'd like to believe that."

Some people pissing in the bushes in front of the cop-shop. Riot police: an angry row of them. They look like the world's biggest, blackest, meanest pill-bugs. Our hands are tense and locked. Whispers about tear gas abound. We slip to the edge of the crowd, and there are cops on that side too. A cheer goes up; nobody understands exactly what's happened. Maybe they've released Lily. We walk to the Bethel Street Park. A maypole has been set up in the middle. People eat. Someone is arrested for peeing in the bushes. We don't know what happens then; a miniature fight breaks out. Some people banging on the hood of a cop car. Everyone runs back into the street shouting. And then, spontaneously, everyone is pacified and goes back to the park.

The maypole dance is not organized at all. It is an Anarchist Maypole. It looks like shit. I love it anyway. It is cold enough so that the topless girls put their shirts back on. Yes, down with the patriarchy, down with the Man, fuck work; it's May Day, but it's damn cold. My friend and I leave.

I ran out of chalk at the intersection of Plum and 8th. I couldn't write out my whole message on the street. Just part of it. It's okay. I wrote a good portion of it last September when I was fired the day after Labor Day.

I had seven jobs in 2001. For most of my working time, I was working two jobs. Sometimes 55 hours a week. They promised me management positions, then threatened to fire me when I complained that they'd gone back on their word. They wouldn't let me read during lunch breaks. They didn't GIVE me lunch breaks. They made me buy new clothes, then fired me a week later. They told me I was their best worker, then told me I wasn't welcome in their store anymore. They paid me five dollars and fifteen cents an hour. Minus taxes. They promised to hold my position open while I was sick, and they didn't. They didn't give a damn how far I'd had to walk in the rain; there was no time for me to go to the bathroom and try to dry off. They wouldn't let me use gloves to clean the bathrooms because gloves are too expensive to waste on protecting my health. They accused me of lying if I called in sick. They teased me about my lover and tried to get me to go to bed with them. They cut my hours when I didn't drink enough to be sufficiently easy. They told me I wasn't fast enough. They told me I wasn't happy enough. They told me I wasn't friendly enough. They told me they knew I was a thief. They told me about missing money and tried to make me confess, tried to make me turn someone else in. There were no benefits. There was a carbon monoxide leak and they never fixed it, and I had a headache two nights a week. They let a customer grope me in the bathroom while my manager was wandering around talking about the evils of women. They never cleaned their kitchen and we had cockroaches. They told me they were sorry they yelled at me. Then they yelled at me again, and again, and again, until I spent my lunch breaks crying. Then they apologized again and fired me. They didn't give me my last check and "lost" the payroll records. They said, "we give you a lot of benefits here; don't abuse them; we do it because we care about our workers." Five-fifteen an hour. A little over seven thousand dollars in 2001. They didn't give a damn that I was hungry. They didn't give a damn that I was tired. They didn't give a damn that I didn't have any time to do anything but sleep and work. They didn't give a damn about me.

May Day is International Worker's Day in Europe. The eight-hour work day was passed in the United States on May 1st. May Day is the original Labor Day. And I love Labor Day. I deserve Labor Day. And although I haven't worked since 2002 began, I figure that for the number of hours, and the amount of pain, and the amount of money I made, I deserve the official Labor Day AND May Day. I wrote on the street: "SEVEN JOBS IN 2001: MAY DAY OFF!" I didn't have chalk for anything more. So I kissed my new friend in the middle of the intersection. That was protest, too. That was a big FUCK YOU to almost all of my former employers. It meant: "I am loved. I am free. I am alive. I am happy. Those are my rights, not privileges, and I don't need you."

(Thank you, Olympia... Thank you, all of you... I hope, if you've never had the chance to write shit in the middle of streets with chalk, and kiss in intersections, and watch Anarchist Cheerleaders, and give nice plants to police officers, you will someday. Happy May Day.)

~Helena*


Why Protest? (Helena's rant)
News coverage of the May Day events in Olympia