6
PARTISAN REVIEW
of blood and hate. Our day we fling like a banner to march with the other
bloody days when guns spat death at us that a few dollars might be saved
to fat bellies, when lead battered into us, and only our naked hands, tbt
fists of our bodies moving together could resist. Drown their strength
in
blood, they commanded, but instead they armored us in inflexible steel-
hate that will never forget... .
"It was as close to war ... as actual war could be," the papers
blared triumphantly, but Bridges told them, "not war ... MASSA·
CRE, armed forces massacreing unarmed." 'Vords I read through tears
of anger so that they writhed and came alive like snakes, you rear in me
again, "and once again the policemen, findi•.1g their gas bombs and
gas
shells ineffective poured lead from their revolvers into the jammed streets.
Men (MEN) fell right and left." " ... And everywhere was the sight of
men, beaten to their knees to lie ;n a pool of blood." "Swiftly, from
intersection to intersection the battle moved, stubborP.ly the rioters refused
to fall back so that the police were forced. . . ." "and the police shot
forty r01-1nds of tear gas bombs into the mob before it would move.... "
Law ... and order ... will ... prevail. Do you hear? It's war,
WAR-and up and down the street "A man clutched at his leg and
fell
to the sidewalk" "The loud shot like that of the tear gas bombs zoomed
again, but no blue smoke this time, and when the men cleared, two bodies
lay on the sidewalk, their blood trickling about them."--<lverhead an air·
plane lowered, dipped, and nausea gas swooned down in a cloud of torture,
and where they ran from street to street, resisting stubbornly, massing
again, falling back only to carry the wounded, the thought tore frenziedly
through the mind, v,·ar, war, it's WAR-and the lists
10
the papers, the
dead, the wounded by bullets, the wounded by other means-\V-A-R.
LAW-you hear, Howard Sperry, exserv1ceman, striking stevedore,
shot in the back and abdomen, said to be in dying condition, DEAD,
LAW AND ORDER-you hear and remember this Ben Martella, shot
in arm, face and chest, Joseph Beovich, stevedore, laceration of skull from
clubbing and broken shoulder, Edwin Hodges, Jerry Hart, Leslie Stein·
hart, Steve Hamrock, Albert Simmons, marine engineer, striking seamen,
scaler, innocent bystander, shot in leg, shot in shoulder, chest lacerated
by tear gas shell, gassed in eyes, compound skull fracture by clubbing,
you hear-LAW AND ORDER MUST PREVAIL-it's all right
Nick, clutching your leg and seeing through the fog of pain it is a police
car has picked you up, snarling, let me out, I don't want any bastard
