Hey, hey, ho, ho
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by Rob Sheely (buzz@boulderweekly.com)

Richard went most days without talking to a soul. Sometimes he went weeks or even months. A two-room cabin in the middle of 50-odd wooded acres constituted his entire world, not counting occasional trips down into Boulder for supplies-and even more occasionally to visit Dorothy. It was a life as carefully controlled as the man who had constructed it.

And now both control and man were breaking down.

"You look like shit," said Dorothy, opening her door to him. He walked silently inside. She shut the door and joined him on the couch. "Are you sleeping?"

He shook his head, no.

"Drinking?"

"Not so far."

She nodded, and for the first time in weeks he felt able to breathe.

They had met in '91 when a DUI landed Richard in the Sunday night AA meeting Dorothy had been attending for years. Upon first sight, each recognized the other-if not as individuals, then for the cliches they represented: haunted Viet vet and graying hippie chick. Instant dislike gradually softened to tolerance and eventually to grudging acceptance. Finally, one night in December, he rang her doorbell and they became lovers.

That first night she had run her hands over his body, stopping only when she came to the hole in his left bicep. It was a ragged inch in diameter and extended twice as deep into the meat of his arm.

"Go ahead," he whispered.

She put her finger inside, feeling the knots of scar tissue lining the obscene indentation. "Does it hurt?"

He shrugged. "There's some muscle and nerve damage that gives me trouble," he said, flexing his hand. "Other than that, it's just your basic flesh wound." That was as much as he'd ever said about his war experience, but she hadn't needed a degree in psychology to know that the hole in his flesh represented the least of his wounds.

Dorothy watched him now, leaning forward on her couch, his body coiled, his hands clenched on his thighs. "If we're going to do this," he said, "let's do it."

They rode to Denver in silence, taking 25 to Spear to Colfax. At the corner of Bannock they saw the first sign: "Say No to War!" Dorothy honked and the sign holder gave her a thumbs up. They passed the beginnings of a crowd in front of the City and County Building. A block beyond, they found an open meter and parked. Richard stood stiffly beside the car, taking in the air of chaos, the people streaming by, the honking horns and raised voices. It brought back his only previous experience at a demonstration-which had involved being spat on and called "baby killer."

"You going to be all right?" said Dorothy.

"Too soon to tell."

They found a spot on the edge of the gathering and listened to the speakers taking turns at the microphone. The atmosphere was half political rally, half carnival. There was an abundance of hand-made signs, outlandish costumes and black balloons.

Just before noon, the crowd formed into a ragged line. Mounted officers watched impassively as the marchers walked 16th street to the Adam's Mark where the President was supposedly speaking for $1,000 a plate. Along the way, the first chant broke out: "No War for Votes! No War for Oil!" Beside her, Dorothy felt Richard flinch at a sudden noise overhead. She looked up to see a helicopter circling low.

"Easy, cowboy," she said softly.

The chanting grew in intensity as the marchers reached the metal barricades in front of the hotel. On the other side a phalanx of city cops scanned the crowd from behind their mirror shades. Beside them news cams panned and zoomed, searching out color and motion.

"Hey, hey, ho, ho!" someone yelled. "Your war machine has got to go!" The rest of the crowd picked up the chant. Richard winced at the childishness of the words. Suddenly he realized coming here was a mistake. What the hell had he hoped to accomplish? Exorcise old demons? Single-handedly stop the nation from sliding into insanity? Spare another generation of children from spilling their innocence on distant soil?

"Hey, hey, ho, ho!" the chant grew louder around Richard. Just as he was about to turn and fight his way back through the crowd, something made him glance up. In the hotel windows, people with name tags on their lapels and drinks in their hands stared down in amusement at the sideshow below them. At the sight a rage gripped Richard. A fierce desire to pierce each smirk with a high velocity round. To literally wipe the smiles off their faces. He knew this rage like an old companion-knew he could take it home and let it feed on him. Or he could stand and do what he'd come to do.

"Hey, hey, ho, ho!" he yelled in the most unnatural act of his life, an absurd leap of faith, a desperate prayer that his voice would somehow make a difference.

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