fic: introduction to civil disobedience and revolutionary tactics
Title: Introduction to Civil Disobedience and Revolutionary Tactics (1/?)
Author: ktcosmopolitan
Spoilers: Anything the show has already aired is fair game.
Rating/Warning: currently PG-13
Word Count: 2860
Disclaimer: I solemnly swear these characters all belong to NBC (which, a higher power willing, loves them as much as I do).
Summary: An AU story set in 1960s New York City, in which we meet the jaded lawyer, the fierce feminist, the tough civil rights activist, the lost athlete who never got his shot, the ambitious college student who wants to see the world, the entrepreneur who is simply trying to cater to the highest paying customer, and the photojournalist there to capture it all. (I bet you can guess who’s who.)
Author's Note: Ah, at last, the reappearance of this story! This is technically a reboot of one of my older attempts at a multi-chapter story, the first two chapters of which are still under my author tag on M/M. Anyway, I really love reading about this time period so I tried my very best to sound completely authentic in each passage, which, as it turns out, is pretty difficult and quite the methodical process. This first part is more a prologue than a bona fide chapter, but I needed to set up each character’s situation before I launched myself into the nitty-gritty of this era. Lastly, big thanks to na_thalia for the prompt. Hope y'all enjoy! xo Kate
…
CITY ECONOMY TANKS AND CRIME SOARS; WHERE HAVE OUR NATION’S LEADERS LED US?
“God damn it!” Britta Perry cursed as she finally shouldered open her front door and it flung inward. She toppled inside, landing on her tailbone. “Home sweet home,” she muttered before grasping a hook of the empty coat rack and pulling herself up. The distinct smell of sweat overwhelmed her and then she noticed the two people posed in a precarious position on the sofa. Each of them greeted her with uneager faces, only just visible in the dim light of the hallway.
“Oh, fuck.” Jeff Winger’s voice sounded abnormally high, as though he desperately wanted to finish that which had just been interrupted.
Britta smirked. “Well, well, well, don’t you two look cozy?”
The redhead lying beneath Jeff quickly shoved him off the couch before speeding into the bedroom. Britta watched her fumble around in the pitch black before she glanced at Jeff, who had biliously placed a pillow over his otherwise bare nether regions. This sent Britta into hysterics. The redhead appeared again, tugging her slip dress over her head as she marched toward the door. “You bring a lady home with another woman living here? Pig!” she snapped.
Just before the girl was out of earshot, Britta yelled, still choking on her own guffaws, “You’re not missing out! I hear he doesn’t make you breakfast!”
The door slammed shut and the apartment was pitch black. Jeff strained his eyes to glare at her silhouette. “I thought you forgot your keys.”
“Which would explain me having to act as a human battering ram. We really should get that lock fixed, I guess.”
He didn’t laugh (not that she thought he would). “You also told me you would be gone all night.”
“And it’s four o’clock in the morning, you deviant,” she retorted, fishing around for the outlet that lied somewhere in the southeast corner of the room. Once lamplight flooded the room, Britta crawled toward an armchair and let its plump, threadbare cushion swallow her up. “You know,” she said as she propped her feet up on the coffee table between them, “while you’re getting blow jobs from every secretary in the Tri-state area, the rest of us are actually out protesting and making a difference. Four other Sisters of the Revolution and I just heckled three members who were against the Equal Payment Act of ’63 outside another extravagant state dinner.”
“You must be proud,” he deadpanned.
She nodded quickly. “Oh, of course I am. Don’t you worry, I’m very satisfied with everything I do! You could be, too, but I guess banging women who don’t like that you’re living with one makes that a tad difficult.”
“What was it that you said about sex? It’s a ‘luxury that the establishment wants to turn into a tightly regulated commodity’ and the only way to take it back is to have lots of it? So, by your direction, I’m, you know, fighting the man.” Jeff punched the air halfheartedly before he tilted his head back and closed his eyes. When she did not speak, he let himself fall asleep, naked and probably a little filthy, in the middle of their piece of crap apartment in a piece of crap part of town in this piece of crap city. In a few minutes, she would drape a blanket over him, because even though she always made sure to remind him that she was not his wife nor his maid, sometimes she worried about him.
…
Someone had carved the word fuck into the dried soap suds streaked across the mirror, which was not much better than the contents of the sink below it. Troy Barnes frowned at what looked like a fresh bodily deposit festering beneath the faucet, probably a result of some heinous act performed the night before. “What a shit hole,” he grumbled, throwing a rag over his shoulder and walking out of the diner’s bathroom. He kicked the door shut behind him.
Normally, the diner succumbed to an eerie silence around mid-morning, once the hope of an early morning rush finally faded and the cook chided Troy for expecting something different. Today, however, a thin man with caramel-colored skin and wide, thick-framed glasses sat in a corner booth, stirring the spoon of his hot chocolate as he read the newspaper. A silver and gray camera sat on the table, its strap woven protectively around his wrist. Troy recognized him; he had been coming in about once a week for a few months now, but they barely spoke more than a word or two each time. Their conversation started as, “What can I get you?” “Hot chocolate and short stack with extra syrup.” Now it had been simplified to, “The usual?” “Yep.”
The faint scent of the smoke from the cook’s lit cigarette sent Troy to the back room to take inventory for the fifth time in three days; the smell made him develop the hopeless desire to call Britta, if only to hear her voice, but he knew she would be asleep at this hour. They never could manage to work in the same circles.
Elvis Presley’s voice suddenly replaced the commercial announcements on the radio. “You look like an angel… Walk like an angel… Talk like an angel…” Troy closed his eyes. Counting sacks of flour grew old almost immediately. His mind began to wander and he thought of the birthmark below her right hip, the one that, when kissed, made her laugh and laugh. Then he dreamt of her golden hair running like threads of sunshine through his fingers; her lips warm against his; her eyes exploding like fireworks when he thrust-
The phone screeched more than it rang, sending Troy flying into a stack of silver bus boy trays. The cook growled from the kitchen in his thick Long Island accent, “Way to go, stumblebum!”
As the high-pitched rings continued, Troy rolled onto his back, staring at the ceiling while he considered never getting up. “ The rings continued, though, and he could already guess who it was-no one ever called the diner to ask about its menu. “I thought that I was in heaven, but I was sure surprised-heaven help me, I didn't see the devil in your eyes…”
“Hello?” he wheezed after crawling to the receiver.
“Troy.” Shirley Bennett had two different voices and right now she was using her tough voice. “We’re having an emergency meeting. I need you to close up shop right now-I know no one’s in there, it’s barely seven in the morning, for Pete’s sake. Tell the cook I’m making you do it, he won’t argue if it’s an order from me.”
“Emergency meeting?” Troy repeated.
Shirley paused to yell at someone in the background before returning to the phone call. “Yes, that’s right, an emergency meeting. I’ll be over there in ten minutes.” She hung up before he could remember that today was her birthday.
…
If I hear a single report about any sort of fracas regarding my daughter in that godforsaken town, I’ll have her come straight home, do you understand? No child of mine will take part in foolish revolutionary shenanigans-
Oh, please, Charles, give it a rest. You know me, I’ll make sure she stays out of trouble.
I’ll see to it that you keep your word, Pierce. I’m reading about these-these horrible troublemakers protesting and rioting and all sorts of fandango!
Well, yes, I suppose there have been a few rowdy demonstrations in the last few months, but, come now, Charles, they’re just little outbursts from young students. It’s nothing to worry about-
Oh, it’s everything to worry about, Pierce! Delinquents and vandals ruining the sanctity of this country, vying-vying for-for, what, equality? Just who do they think they are?
The last time Pierce Hawthorne saw his goddaughter, she was only seven years old, running around barefoot in a neighborhood picnic and shouting about giving all the boys cooties. Now Annie Edison was a junior in college, stood just below his chin, wore clothing he sooner expected off a department store mannequin, and spoke only when spoken to. No one had bothered to tell him they grew up so fast.
He cleared his throat diplomatically as he pushed open the large red door at the end of the hallway, humming a small tah-dah tune. “Here we are. I wasn’t quite sure how you’d like you room-I don’t know much about, um, about girly stuff-so I had the maids fluff up some extra pillows? Is there anything you-you’d need to be more comfortable? I thought maybe a vanity or a plush rug; I don’t know if you still play with dolls-”
Annie carefully stepped over the threshold of the bedroom, dropping her book bag beside the bureau. She stared at her reflection briefly before turning to greet some empty shelves. “Do you have any of the Beatles?” she asked, her voice bathed in a noticeable Southern drawl.
“Any what? Oh. Them? I would have figured that your father didn’t approve of them.”
“He doesn’t,” she said flatly.
“Oh.” Pierce had to admit he was a bit surprised at her manner; Charles made it sound as though his daughter listened to his every command. “Well, no, I don’t, but perhaps I’ll send one of the help down to the record store to purchase an album later this week, what do you way?” The phone rang in the next room and he begrudgingly took her silence as the only response he would get. “Listen, little lady-Annie-I know you’d much rather be staying in a dormitory, but your parents feel it’s best that you have-”
“That I have a chaperone. I know.” Annie had become measurably interested in the contents of her backpack.
Pierce sighed. “They just don’t want to have to worry about you. It’s a big city, New York, nothing like Huntsville, Alabama. For now, you just focus on getting acquainted with the town and preparing for school in September, all right? I’ll see to it that you get your record albums. And, uh, I forgot to say-welcome. I think you’ll like it here.”
…
When Troy flipped the OPEN sign to CLOSED, he remembered the man with the glasses in the corner booth. “So, um, we’re having a neighborhood meeting in here in a few minutes,” he called out. He waited a moment before adding, “But-you can stay, if you want.”
The man knocked back the last of his hot chocolate. “I think I will. This will be good material for my August article on the evolution of public dissonance against the backdrop of extreme marginalization of minority groups.”
“Uh, right,” Troy said, uncertain of what this meant. He noticed the camera again and made a mental note to later ask the man what he did for a living.
In half an hour, forty or fifty people had crammed themselves into the small diner, probably breaking fire codes and risking Troy’s job. He did not complain, though; he owed Shirley a few favors.
Everyone twittered with gossip about neighborhood incidents and jabber about prospective events, all taking their time to speculate why this meeting was called. When Shirley emerged from the kitchen, they fell silent. She was rather skilled in demanding the attention of a crowd. “Rumor has it President Johnson will sign the civil rights legislation soon… While this is a victory for us, there is lots of negative backlash to expect,” she explained. Some people booed and she swiftly held up a hand. “We shall not stoop to their level. To win, we must continue to see this as a strictly positive strike for our efforts. This, of course, means we need publicity.
“For those of you who run churches or community groups-make flyers, host celebratory meetings, do anything to get the word out and encourage everyone else talking about it. Make conversation about it with neighbors, bring it up at the grocery store, anything you can to get people talking about it. Be sure to market it as a good thing, hmm?”
Once the crowd dispersed, Troy pulled Shirley aside. He spoke quietly, “You can’t keep yourself going like this; it isn’t good for you. Andre told me you stayed up for thirty hours straight last week making signs and banners for a peace march that isn’t for another month-”
“Andre’s just tired of having to take care of the kids all the time ever since he was laid off,” Shirley scoffed.
“And he mentioned the other day that you got really dizzy in the morning and couldn’t stay standing up for the rest of the day.”
“I just got up from the bed too fast.”
“Shirley.”
“Troy.”
He hesitated, knowing she often had the last word in their arguments. “I just can’t help but worry about you. And, shit, it’s your birthday today-”
“Thirty-four is nothing,” she said, shrugging. “Look, Troy, the thing is-” Her voice suddenly grew soft, almost dulcet. “This all means more to me than anything, with the exception of my boys. Of course, I include you in that, but you’re old enough that you get to be here. You get to rally and rebel if you want to. But they’re still just little babies now and if I’ve missed some precious moments with them because I’m spending too much time ensuring they have a brighter future than I did at their age-well, then, so be it, Troy. I need us to succeed, Troy. I need my babies to grow up feeling like they’re on top of the world, not beneath it.”
They heard the clang of silverware as the man with the camera stood abruptly and rushed out. Shirley turned to Troy, furrowing her brow. “Who was that?”
Troy watched the man disappear once he turned the corner at the end of the block. “He’s a-he comes in regularly. And he wanted to stay for the meeting. I’m don’t really know why.”
…
Toward the end of the summer of 1961, following reports of the attacks on the Freedom Riders in the south, someone had spray painted the same single message across several buildings in the city. Most of them were painted over or removed immediately, and few people would later be able to say they had personally seen the graffiti that would one day become famous. A landlord of one target site, however, was too cheap to replace the brick wall, and so for years, hundreds upon hundreds-maybe thousands-of people passed the neat writing in all capital letters and black dye, their eyes sometimes burning and their noses sometimes stinging at the thought that maybe the paint was fresh.
TELL ME, WHY ARE YOU HERE?
Each of them passed it at separate times. One of the passed it on his way to work; another passed it late at night, when she could barely see as the tear gas ran deep behind her eyelids; others saw it from far away or from up close, for a short or long amount of time, depending on where they were headed.
No one acknowledged it aloud, but everyone answered the question, sometimes by relaying it to someone else, but more often to themselves, silently, and they all cried and cried and cried like they would never stop, like they knew this would be how they would go: drowning in their own tears as they cried and sobbed and mourned.
Because they decided they could choose whether or not to love me. Winger.
Because I can’t accept the injustices they’ve so willingly humored. Perry.
Because I was a mistake they couldn’t correct. Barnes.
Because nothing else works; it’s just the way it is. Hawthorne.
Because my boys deserve better. Bennett.
Because I couldn’t see the world from where I used to be. Edison.
Because no one else is telling this story. Nadir.