Chapter 43 : 
Desórdenes Publicos
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People :
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Author : Peter Gelderloos

Text :
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Desórdenes Publicos



Lunes, 23 Abril, 2007, was a beautiful day.  I was hanging out with Georgi
from Bulgaria.  It was the festival of St. Jordi, though all that meant to
me was that people were setting up tables everywhere to sell books and
flowers.  We passed some time looking at books, sitting in the sun,
shooting the shit.  Later, I finished up a stencil I had been working on
that protested the growing police state.  It said “Yo No [heart]
Karcelona,” a play on the “Yo [heart] BCN” design mass-produced for
the tourists here, which in turn was stolen from the quintessential NY
merchandise.  Karcel, or cárcel, means jail. Karcelona was a common
nickname given to the city by radicals. In the afternoon, the Assemblea
d’Okupes — squatters’ assembly — organized a little protest,
carrying a balloon-laden banner up Las Ramblas and passing out fliers
explaining the problem of gentrification and the reasons for squatting. 
The weather was gorgeous, everyone was really friendly, and it was nice to
see a low-key action that just involved talking with people and spreading
information.  I turned to Juan and said “This is my favorite day so far
in Barcelona.”  Georgi and I were about to leave — we were meeting
someone in Raval in a few minutes.



And then there was a loud boom.



I turned around, leaflets fluttered down through the smoke in the air, the
crowds stood frozen for a moment, some stunned, some laughing, and after
some moments police rushed onto the scene.



I would learn later, what would seem a long, long time later, that this was
a petardo, a traditional Catalan device, cannon-like, used as a firework or
for shooting fliers into the air.  I imagine it had some tongue-in-cheek
value: El Quico, Francisco Sabate, the anarchist urban guerrilla who long
eluded the fascists, famously goaded them by taking a taxi around the city
and firing off leaflets by the thousands urging the people to keep
resisting.  But alas, humor is in the eye of those with the guns, prisons,
socially conferred legitimacy, and, incidentally, absolutely no sense of
humor.  Some of these same squares, always preparing for the worse, came in
and made it worse, made all of us speak the only language they knew. 
Questionable gimmick was now terrorism.  The people in the demonstration
made themselves scarce.  The pigs started chasing one of the squatters.  I
saw them running; no one else seemed ready to help, so I decided to follow
them, mostly out of a habit I’d developed from Copwatching in the US —
is anyone arrested, is anyone beaten, do they want to pass on a message
before they get taken away?  The cops were running down Escudellers, and
other people were following too.  I assumed it was for curiosity’s sake
though many of them might have been undercovers.  Around a corner, the cops
had swarmed someone.  They yelled and manhandled him for a while, then they
told the crowd to disperse and led him away.  I lingered longer than I
should have, hoping to catch his eye and give him a friendly smile, and as
I was walking back to Las Ramblas, one of the cops looked me over and
decided I was suspicious. I had completely forgotten that that day I
happened to be wearing a shirt with a circle-A on it, given to me by the
anarchists in Bulgaria.  The cop asked me a question.



“Yo mala habla Español,” I said in my best American accent.  He
demanded my passport.  I gave it to him, but instead of looking it over and
giving me a chance to demonstrate my touristiness, he walked off with it. 
Shit.  “Uhhhh, what’s the problem?  Que es la problema?” I asked,
following him.  No answer.  Shit shit shit.  On Las Ramblas, he told
another pig to walk behind me.  I’m fucked.  And just like that, we
walked right into the police station.



In the basement of the Guardia Urbana, the other person they arrested was
on a bench, surrounded by three cops yelling at him and pushing him around.
 I demanded to know what was going on, demanded to speak to the US
consulate, told them I was a tourist.  They made me empty my pockets,
looked suspiciously at the black handkerchief, which I tried to convince
them was just a handkerchief — see the snot stains?  Then one of them
asked me to raise my shoes.  These were white New Balance tennis shoes, the
cheapest and most comfortable I’d found before leaving Virginia.  But I 
later found out that in European countries where it was forbidden to
display a swastika, the neonazis had appropriated the New Balance logo,
which is a large N — subtle, no?  So, in Berlin I had colored my shoes
black with a marker, and left a few uninspired slogans on them while I was
at it.  One, sort of a good luck inscription like the blessing on a newly
launched ship, was soon to prove worse than useless.  It read: “run to
live and fight another day.” Well, no use running when they have your
passport, and now in the police station it was the center of attention for
these troglodytic cops.  The only word they could understand between them,
lucky me, was “fight” and once they read that they all began grunting
“ocupa! ocupa!” (squatter, squatter) like happy trolls.  I started
making demands again — isn’t that what American tourists are supposed
to do? and asked what the hell was going on.  One of the Guardia Urbana
said I had to speak Spanish or nothing; that if I kept speaking English
they would beat me, and he raised his hand menacingly.  I kept going, but
they were only bluffing.  I tried to explain I was a tourist, but one of
them corrected me: “¡Tourist, no!  ¡Terrorist!”



Just to make sure they hadn’t accidentally arrested an innocent tourist,
the cops pulled a fast one.  They had been interrogating the other guy
pretty harshly, and then they caught him off guard with a slow pitch —
they asked him an easy question.  “¿Quien es?” they asked, pointing at
me.  “Peter,” he replied, confused.  Though at that point I didn’t
really know him, he remembered my name.  And now the police knew I was
connected to the squatters, which, in their terms, meant I was guilty. 
They took us to a holding cell.  The other detainee was named Xavi, and he
had never been arrested before.  I knew it would just be a matter of
waiting, but it was frustrating as hell to think that the whole thing could
be cleared up immediately if only we were allowed to talk to a judge before
the cops had a chance to get their story straight.  Ask two different cops
the same questions and it would become obvious that they were lying.  But
that wish was a non sequiter: it simply didn’t apply to the situation. 
The purpose of a trial is not to find the truth, anymore than the police
are there to protect us.



The cops came back a little later for the contents of our pockets, our
belts, and our shoelaces, and then deposited us back in the holding cell
for more waiting.  Now I had the opportunity to realize that they would
likely try to deport me, that this would come with a ban of several years
from the Schengen visa territory, which includes all of Western Europe, and
that after waiting four and a half months I probably would not get to see L
on Saturday.  But doing the natural, human thing — trying to break down
the door or punch the next cop who came by — would only make the
situation worse.  So I went through the yoga routine taught to me by my
friend Greg.  I met Greg in prison in the US.  In the end, prison killed
him.  He did a dozen years on the inside, and stayed healthy as much as
possible in that environment, but less than a year after getting released
he died of a heart attack, just that past October.  He was only in his
forties.



That night the Mossos d’Escuadra picked us up and drove us in handcuffs
to the commissary.  I lost sight of Xaveliño and got put in a cell about
twelve feet across, with four others.  The next two days there was nothing
to do but wait.  Wait, get called out for fingerprinting, get photographed,
wait, attempt to sleep, wait, try to drown out the ceaseless sound of the
junkie in withdrawal begging for medication pounding the bars insulting the
guards and screaming before going back to sleep to rest up and start it all
over again.  Wait.

Esperar



24 April





They use the same word 
for waiting and hoping 
but as I’m pacing the sullied floor 
of this Barcelona cell 
1 day after my arrest, 
2 days before the deadline 
to appeal my deportation, 
and 4 days before someone I love 
shows up at the bus station 
looking for my face, 
what I’m awaiting and what I’m hoping 
are exact opposites. 
Yet I’m surrounded 
by the agonized marriage 
of these two antitheses 
as I pull and push the prison bars, 
which are the strongest symbol 
of the desire for freedom 
and its final impediment.





Martes, 24 Abril, the next day, I found out that the Mossos had notified
the US consulate of my arrest, and the consulate would contact my mother. 
I wasn’t allowed to talk to them — it was set up so I couldn’t get
any help at this stage.  I did get to talk with a court-appointed attorney,
accompanied by a translator.  The translator was very nice, which delayed
my realization that the lawyer was incompetent.  I chose not to make a
statement to the police: by now they were irrelevant to the process and
waiting until I saw the judge would give me the chance to speak to the
lawyer first.  The most important things I found out from her was that I
would see the judge tomorrow and might be released after that, but I would
need to give an address.  Someone from RuinAmalia had contacted her and
would find an address that I could use — one that was not a squat.



After more hours of waiting, I was again called for a meeting with a
lawyer, this time an immigration lawyer.  I learned the national police
were starting a deportation process against me, accompanied by a seven year
ban from Schengen, on the totally fabricated argument that I was in Spain
illegally.  They said I had entered Schengen in February, 2006, when in
reality the date of entry, from Bulgaria to Greece, was 1 March, 2007. In
February 2006 I was in Harrisonburg, and didn’t even come to Europe until
July, although the whole winter I was in Ukraina, outside of Schengen. I
had 48 hours to appeal, but my passport, which had the stamp that could
prove my legal status, was locked up with me.  The lawyer assured me that I
would be released the next day after talking with the judge, and I should
go immediately to her office with my passport to file the appeal.



The next morning our wing of the commissary was emptied out and we were
rounded up into prisoner transport vans — those inconspicuous, windowless
police vehicles that are constantly ferrying strangled futures across the
streets of your city without drawing a second glance. The Barcelona
courthouse, just like the courthouse of any other city that is big enough,
had a back door with a garage that allowed the prisoners to be driven
directly into the illusionless dungeons that are the necessary though
invisible companion to every lofty hall of justice.  While the police and
prosecutor were on the streets or in their offices preparing their case,
working to keep us behind bars, we were confined to more agonized waiting. 
Nearly everyone else crowded into the holding cell was an immigrant,
arrested for possessing marijuana, getting into a fight, being accused of
stealing a tourist’s cellphone, stuff like that.  Xavi was there too.
After hours and hours, he got called up, and then I did.  Throughout the
agonized waiting, I had been preparing something to say to prove my
innocence, but I should not have been so naïve. I was talking with a
machine. This was to be a routine meeting in the judge’s office, with a
translator, my lawyer, the prosecutor, the judge, and a secretary. On the
way up I saw Maduixa, from RuinAmalia, waiting in the lobby, but I
pretended not to know her, and she followed cue.  They took off my
handcuffs just before sending me in.  I’ve always suspected this ritual
is more to preserve the judge’s illusions rather than to ensure the
comfort and equality of the accused.



The judge started out by describing at length what had happened, based on
the information given to him by the prosecutor, which was an elaboration of
the police story.  The squatters organized a protest, they were on Las
Ramblas handing out fliers, and then they fired off “a mortar,”
intentionally choosing the Catalan national holiday of St. Jordi, the
busiest tourist spot, and the busiest time.  The police were watching the
demo, they saw the protesters form a circle, they saw Xavi take the mortar
into the circle followed by me, and then they chased and arrested us after
it went off.  Then the judge said that two people were injured by the
explosion.  I was shocked by this part of the story, though it all made
sense when I later learned that the police had pressured two older people
to say they were injured by the so-called mortar, but they refused to make
a denunciation and ultimately testified against the cops.  At the time,
though, all the judge knew was the bullshit spilling out of the mouths of
the cops and prosecutor, though he had been in the trade long enough to
realize that whom he chose to believe was an entirely political decision. 
The prosecutor piled on some more claims: it was a serious attack, an
“urban guerrilla” action, designed to send the message that the
squatters were a “paramilitary force.”  I was starting to realize how
fucked up the situation was.



I found out the charges were manifestación ilegal — a minor offense in
the city code — and desórdenes publicos, public disorder, with
heightened sentencing provisions because the disorder was allegedly
committed with explosives.  The minimum sentence was three years in prison,
the maximum six years.  The judge’s first question for me was why I
didn’t make a statement to the police.  I said the police had been lying
and threatening me from the beginning so they were hardly the people to
talk to.  I tried to add that in the US, lawyers tell people not to make
statements to the police but the judge interrupted me to yell that “in
the US they would throw you in Guantanamo for such an act!”  I wasn’t
sure if he was upset by the apparent influx of American terrorists taking
advantage of Spanish leniency or sad that Spain did not also have such an
efficient system.  I assumed this judge had been a fascist when that was
still fashionable, just a few decades ago, but it turned out he was one of
the left-wingers who hates anyone farther to the left.



Finally I was allowed to make my statement, and briefly argue why I should
be released rather than sent to prison.  The judge made sure the secretary
got it all down, and then sent me back to the dungeon.  On the way I was
asked if I needed medical attention, and I said I did.  I had been arrested
wearing my contact lenses, and had to sleep with them in for two nights so
I could make eye contact with the judge and see what was going on.  Without
glasses or contacts, I can’t even read billboard-sized writing from more
than a few meters away.  But after seeing the judge, I had to take them
out.  My eyes were dry and burning.  They put them in a little container
for me and promised to send them along with my property bag.  I never saw
them again.  Didn’t see much of anything for the next few days.



Late that night, all the other people from all the other cells had been
released pending trial.  There was only one psychotic Cuban in another
cell, and me and Xavi.  We speculated what would happen, ran around the
cell to work off the stress, and, figuring that he might get out, I had him
memorize a short message to send to L.  And we waited some more.  After
hours we were both summoned to the all-purpose processing room at one end
of the dungeon.  Xavi and I exchanged a good luck squeeze.  There was a
blur of people around what must have been a table.  Xavi was told he would
be released pending trial.  I was being sent to Modelo prison on a 30,000
euro bail.  I later had an opportunity to talk to the judge’s secretary
and she told me she sympathized with me and had never seen so high a bail
for such charges in her 25 years of working there.  In the next few minutes
of waiting I wrote a note for Xaveliño to take out with him.  Then my ride
came.



Modelo is a prison built in a panopticon-influenced style in the Eixample
neighborhood of Barcelona.  Half of the renowned Spanish anarchists did
time there, which titulated my dorky historical side.  This reminded me of
USP Atlanta, where I spent three weeks out of a six month prison sentence,
and where Alexander Berkman did two years before being deported to Russia. 
The similarities ended there. Going into Atlanta was like being taken into
the Death Star.  At Modelo, reproductions of famous paintings hung in the
entrance hall.  Though equally sterile, Modelo was a little softer around
the edges, and to be admitted I only had to go through one control point
— a pair of remotely controlled doors that only open one at a time. The
strip search was remarkably unobtrusive, and the person processing me was
so docile I thought he was an inmate trustee at first.  They gave me
something like dinner even though it was going on midnight, and sent me to
my new cell.  My cellie was the psychotic Cuban from the courts.



He was a good guy, though periodically he would start punching the door,
yelling for guards, and insulting Spaniards.  Early on he explained to me
his plan: he would keep requesting drugs to sedate him for his stay, and if
he didn’t receive them he’d freak out, get sent to whatever medical
unit they had, and ensure himself a steady supply of tranquilizers.  By
Thursday, he had followed through.



I was surprised by the conditions at Modelo.  My cell was a little larger
than those at USP Atlanta, though the bunk bed had three bunks instead of
two, so more people could be crowded in.  But the room, which measured
about six feet by twelve feet, also had a desk, a stack of cubbies, a
shower, and a toilet.  The shower was completely unprecedented for me —
in the US it’s always common showers, often without curtains.  The toilet
was graced with a partition so one could actually shit in privacy.  The
newcomers’ goody-bag, in addition to the standard mattress, blanket, and
soap, also contained shampoo, shaving cream, washcloth, and a condom!  The
latter really blew my mind.  It was like we were actually human.  In the
federal prison system in the US, having sex is categorized as the second
worst level of offense, just below murder.  And the phone calls at Modelo,
when we got to make them, cost the same as on the street.  In US prisons
and jails phone calls cost three to fifteen times more.



While it’s important to be optimistic when entering prison, and the
conditions in a Spanish prison pleasantly surprised me, especially given
that Spain has a bad reputation within Europe, nothing can erase the fact
that all prisons are horrible institutions that kill you day by day. 
Outside the temporary wing, conditions worsened, and politically active
prisoners faced severe violence.  Every few years in Catalunya a rebellious
prisoner would die in his cell, having committed some impossible form of
suicide, like beating himself in the face, tying his hands behind his back,
and hanging himself from the ceiling.  Throughout the 90s and the beginning
of this decade, there had been a major struggle inside the prison system,
with hundreds of prisoners rioting, going on hunger strike, and occupying
parts of the prison.  Anarchists on the outside gave support —
protesting, spreading the news, raising money, and attacking prison
industries and government buildings.  There was also a letter-bombing
campaign.  None of the letter bombs went off, and it is unknown whether the
purpose was to actually harm any of the officials responsible for murdering
prisoners, just to scare them, or to generate media attention.  If I stayed
in Modelo long enough, I might get to meet some of the active anarchist
prisoners.  One of the 4F prisoners was also locked up there.



My first morning waking up in Modelo wasn’t so bad.  The future spread
before me within much diminished horizons, but I could make do.  The Mossos
had told me, and for whatever reason I stupidly believed them, that it
would probably be two to five months before trial. I could do that.  I’d
receive visitors, friends would send me letters and books, I’d get a lot
of writing done, exercise, meditate, stay in control, and come out fluent
in Spanish.  The food turned out to be really good, and plentiful — at
Crisp County Jail in Georgia, while I was still vegetarian, I had to
survive on the navy beans my cellies didn’t want to eat, and the diet at
FPC Cumberland left me with persistent health problems.  But in Modelo the
meals filled me up and sometimes even tasted good.  In the afternoon I
could make phone calls, every day I got two hours in the exercise yard
where I could jog and practice hand-stands, and on the weekend I’d get to
go to the gallery, where there was a library, and I might meet the other
anarchist prisoners.



What scared me much more than the prospect of a few months in Modelo was
the deportation and seven year ban.  I put L on my visitor’s sheet,
hoping she would still come to Barcelona even though I had suddenly gone
incommunicado.  Then I made a To Do list with everything I needed to
accomplish to prepare for trial, communicate the situation to folks back
home, coordinate support, and live my life in the meantime, and once I
couldn’t think of anything else to write down, I tried not to worry about
it.  There would be plenty of time later for the inevitable sea of
depression, but for now I was finding bright sides.  There was more privacy
and less agression than in US prisons.  No one threatened to beat me up,
neither guards nor inmates, and anyway I was one of the larger prisoners in
my wing, which is hilarious in comparison to Crisp County Jail, where they
nicknamed me Sugar Slim, i.e. skinny white boy.  In my experience in the US
there was strong camaraderie among prisoners, plenty of really nice people,
but you always had to keep your guard up.  Of course in Spain the police
frequently torture detainees, but torture and assassination are prison
universals.  You don’t lock people up like files in a filing cabinet
unless you’re willing to go all the way.  That same violence existed
here, but the threats and degradations didn’t permeate every single
interaction.  It was a violence the guards held in reserve, rather than one
they rubbed in your face every single opportunity they had.  For example
they tolerated the verbal abuse of my Cuban cellie much longer than I
expected; it was only when he upped the ante and threatened to kill them
that a large guard actually capable of hurting him came to the cell and
took him off somewhere.



At some point on Thursday, the day after I got there, I got taken for a
medical interview.  TB shot, a few questions, then they dismissed me.  I
stayed to inquire after my contact lenses.  They didn’t know anything
about it.  I explained that I couldn’t see a damn thing; I couldn’t
even tell the inmates from the guards.  The apocalyptic undertones of my
little speech — “how disastrous for discipline, not being able to tell
the inmates from the guards!” — should have stirred some sympathy in
the prison doctor’s heart.  In the back of my mind I was hearing some mix
of John Lennon’s “Imagine” and Bette Middler’s “From a
Distance”.  Alas, I didn’t quite infect the good doctor with my
intended sense of urgency.  He promised to look into the problem and
nothing more came of it.  I guess from a distance we all have enough and no
one is in need.  And people who imagine there’s no authority can be
brought around with a number of other means.  Squinting: can someone tell
me how to get back to my cell?  I have more waiting to do.

One Open Window



26 April





My two cellies sleep long and late 
sedated by pills or the depression of captivity. 
I stand in the dark on a trim metal stool 
stretching my face towards this one open window 
watching, for hours, 
the sky change colors and feeling 
the air cool and quicken, 
dancing graceful spirals 
these mute steel bars can neither see 
nor comprehend.



Men of Steel



26 April





These window guards are men of steel. 
In some prisons they bark razor-edged commands 
that leave your skin bleeding from contact. 
In others they are encased in smudged and indelible 
plastic —  
unapproachable, apathetic, 
but always letting through 
the regulation quantity of sunlight. 
Here they are painted pastel, 
almost easy to reach and smooth to the touch, 
they even say please and thank you. 
But everywhere when you jump 
to catch a shooting star 
or reach out to touch 
someone you love or someone you’ve wronged 
they throw you back 
bruised and denied. 
They may laugh, they may look away, 
they may apologize and say 
they are only doing 
their job. 
And so it is our job, 
those of us who would catch a shooting star 
or take a lover or an enemy by the hand 
to greet men of steel not with handshakes 
but with sledgehammers.





There’s something about the acoustics of prison cells that make even a
tone-deaf bastard like me sing the blues.  I didn’t know the lyrics of
many songs so I had to make them up, but when you stand right by the door
and sing with no embarrassment, you can hit a note that resonates along all
the sharp corners of what is not in fact a cell but the chamber of a
musical instrument whose euphony says unequivocably that you are in tune
and exactly where you need to be.



Then the jangling of keys strikes a note of a different kind, always
registering like an electric shock in that one notch low on your spine. 
The guards sang out to me in the musical tones of Spanish, translated
jarringly into English:  “¡Peter Alan!” They didn’t know what to
make of my last name, or they didn’t know the difference between a middle
name and a first last name.



It was Friday now.  This time they were calling me to meet a lawyer. 
Telephone and glass wall affair.  When he showed up on his end I saw that
this was not the incompetent public lawyer but a private one,
semi-political — the same guy they had gotten for Xavi in time for his
meeting with the judge.  We had a good conversation.  He disabused me of
the notion that it would be a short wait.  I could be locked up two or
three years until trial.



Then he dropped a bombshell: the Barcelona collectives had already raised
the 30,000 euro bail. If I wanted to there was a chance I could be released
that afternoon, though I’d have to stay in Barcelona and sign in every
two weeks at court. I was blown away by this news. He also told me they
were in contact with my family and with L, and she had gotten on the bus
down to Barcelona even though I was locked up. I might have a chance to
meet her at the bus station after all.  While I was digesting all of this,
the lawyer showed me the letters that folks had written for me — Alex and
some people from his house, people in RuinAmalia, people from the ill-fated
protest — sending me love.  I felt pretty guilty about all the money
being wasted on me, and it was jarring to be suddenly pulled out of the
little world I’d resigned myself to living in, but if it would give me a
chance to meet L at the bus station, I said yes, spring me out of this
joint.



Then I was taken back to my cell, paced for an hour in smiling silence
while my cellies slept, ate the big lunch that came, paced some more, and
went out to the exercise yard.  A poem was coming to me but I had lost my
pen.  The guard called me out to use the phone — I called my dad, but
there was still no anwer.  The previous day I had left a message that I was
locked up.  After hanging up I asked to borrow the guard’s pen.  She gave
it to me and stood watching as I started pouring out verse onto a scrap of
paper.  “¿Que es?”  “Tengo una poema, necessito escribirlo,” I
explained.  She threw up her hands in official disgust; she thought I
needed the pen for a phone number or something important.  As she led me
back outside I assured her “es muy importante.” She couldn’t keep a
straight face any longer, and broke out in a smile that was most
incongruous with her ugly uniform.  A few minutes later another guard
opened the door to the rec yard and searched me out.  “For your
inspiration,” he said laughing, handing me a sheaf of blank paper.  A
short time after rec ended, they opened my cell door and told me I was
being freed.

Solidarity is a beautiful thing



27 April





Politics pollute poetry 
set the stanzas marching side by side 
in adjacent party lines 
thus it is impossible to write a poem 
demonstrating that solidarity is a beautiful thing 
But the day my visitor 
held letters from friends and strangers up to the glass 
for me to read 
YOU ARE NOT ALONE 
was so beautiful 
the prison walls melted 
words failed me for hours 
and no poem ever written 
was any more 
than decorated paper.





It seems to be a prison universal how they make you wait inexplicable
periods while they are in the act of releasing you.  Ten minutes in front
of this door, fifteen minutes by this guard station, twenty minutes in
these holding cells, rarely with any justification.  Their legal right to
imprison you has expired, but they can still do as they like.  The message
is clear: all liberty is provisional, there are always more hoops to jump
through.  I finally got to the property office to reclaim my things, though
my belt and shoelaces were missing.  The bastards.  Everything was still a
myopic blur, so I had to ask where the exit was, which must have confused
the guards.  It was big enough for a car to drive through, and I was
standing right next to it.



And beyond that door was the street, and on the other side of the street a
very large yellow blob, consistent in size and shape with a banner. After a
few seconds loud cheering came from the direction of the yellow shape. 
Eventually, I picked out the sound of my name, or the Spanish rendition
thereof.  Yup, a banner, and the crowd that goes with it.  What appeared to
be cars were coming.  I waited.  The cheering went on.  Road seemed clear,
so I crossed.  About twenty people were waiting for me, and as they came
into focus they surrounded me with hugs and kisses.



“¡Tio! ¿Que tal?”



“Me roban el cinturon.  Cabrones.”



And there’s laughing and more stories and more hugging as we walked away
from Modelo.  Most of the people from Monday’s protest were there, along
with the people from the house.  I got a ride to RuinAmalia on the back of
Xaveliño’s bike, and it’s so much better than going in a Mossos van.



     From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org

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     Chapter 43 -- Added : January 21, 2021

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