Every young person I see I wonder, What were you doing three weeks ago? Who were you then? I look for signs of subversion. A girl wears a green headscarf. A kid shifts gears in his Kia Pride with an arm encased in a green cast. What does it mean? Together, in a crowd, the color green added up to something. Alone, spread apart and without context, they are just moments of coincidence.

Television has become almost unbearable. Stories alternate between the mundane and the absurd. The evening news shows parents waiting outside of testing halls where their kids are taking the Konkur, the once-a-year, high-stakes university entrance exam. This year, more than ever, the Konkur is an act of faith. For the less than half who get accepted and manage to finish their studies, one wonders what kind of job market will await them. A friend remarks, “We’ve got to be the most educated unemployed in the world.” Sometimes it seems that all we do is attend class, schooling has become the ultimate distraction.

The report on the Konkur ends and the next item is the case of Neda Khanom. Like Jim Garrison with JFK, the reporter shows us step-by-step how her death could NOT have been the result of a single gunman. The caliber doesn’t match, it occurred on side streets, why is there footage of her before the incident, etc. The reporter hints ominously at darker forces active inside of the country, that her death was no doubt a setup by a foreign power. Even by IRI standards, the report is breathtaking. Rather than hide the incident or pretend like it never happened, they try to play it to their advantage. There seems to be nothing beyond the pale, no outrage too great. We reminisce about better days, when the lying had enough truth in it that you could at least fool yourself into believing.

Khoobe, khoobe, bezar begand. Harchi bishtar, baytar. Good, good, let them say it. The more the better. Hamintor khatra siatar mikonand. They’ll only darken the line separating the people from the government. We sit and plot, kitchen revolutionaries at work. It is late and the drink is loosening our tongues. What we need is leadership. What about Moussavi? Poor Moussavi, all alone… If only Khomeini were still around, he would have put all of these guys in their places!. This last bit said by someone who has never accepted the Revolution. At 10 the neighbors start up, Allah Akbar! Allah Akbar! We keep drinking, pressing our hands flat against the table and wondering if maybe they’re letting us thrash around for a few weeks even as the screws tighten…

Still, I’ve written elsewhere that none of this was supposed to happen. It remains true. It is the people, the mellat, that have taken on the most creative and unexpected role in this drama. Their scenario remains the least predictable, and therefore most hopeful, of all of the actors, foreign or Iranian. Iran’s conspirators clearly did not expect the population to show up in such defiant numbers after June 12 and the truth be told, neither did many of us…

We are told, Mellat e Iran ra nashenakhtim. The state says that the turnout and election results shows that the world and by implication the opposition didn’t understand the Iranian people. Mellat e Iran ra nashenakhtim. We didn’t understand the Iranian people, say certain analysts in Europe and the U.S. The vote proves that Ahmadinejad is loved and the West once again didn’t get the “true Iran.”

Still, as the unrest continues, daily taking new forms — Iran’s innumerable revolutionary, religious, and national holidays promise to be new sites of protest — it would appear that it is the state, and its band of fellow travelers in the West, that has failed to understand what has happened…

Cats are on the prowl in the kuchehs and side streets of Tehran. They’ve never had it better. A two-year effort by the city to outfit the capital with trash bins has gone to waste. In a few nights of protest practically every bin in the city has been kicked over, stomped on, melted into its primal elements. Neighbors have gone back to placing trash-filled yellow and black grocery bags at the end of the alley (sar e kuche) at night. The cats wait until no one is around and then show up sniffing, padding about, looking for their night’s food.

Throughout the capital there are deep marks etched onto the asphalt, mottled grooves in the shape of a blocky “u” from where the bin fires burned hot against the pavement. The scars run at regular intervals across Tehran’s many neighborhoods, sometimes in overlapping pairs or threes. It will be some time before these blemishes are repaired. Entirely new roads will have to be built…

 The day before, on Tuesday, March 23, I had an abortion.

The procedure was not cheap, $450. A financially devastating sum for a freelance writer whose earning potential has been decimated by bloggers and budget cuts. I have health insurance. It’s egregiously expensive, all that I can afford, with a high deductible that renders the plan useless unless I get hit by a bus. Filing for reimbursement was not an option.

If this was just about money then perhaps I could set aside my frustration, anger, sadness and resentment over the ban in the name of compromise and a long-overdue, desperately needed overhaul of our nation’s healthcare system. I imagine this is how President Obama, who campaigned as a pro-choice president, rationalized his signature. But this is not just about money. It’s about becoming a concession in a public and political debate that was, and continues to be, devoid of the inherently private physical and emotional realities of having an abortion.

Not long ago, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty announced that April was “Abortion Recovery” month. Abortion recovery: What the hell does he know about that?

——

I am single, 34 years old and had never before been pregnant. I’ve wanted children ever since I can remember. This is wildly known among my friends and family, to whom I’m a beloved aunt, godmother and preferred baby sitter. For the past few years, I’ve been increasingly preoccupied with my biological clock and lack of serious boyfriend or partner. That fact, along with my age, and a long-standing bout with ovarian cysts had left me convinced it might no longer be possible.

Then, in February, I had sex with a good friend, a former lover, whom I was visiting for the weekend. It was lovely and innocuous. A much welcomed, even needed respite from an involuntary sexual hiatus and a visceral kind of loneliness.

Four weeks later, the pregnancy news left me in shock, hysterical, instantly isolated and alone. Although, according to the ubiquitous “they,” there is never a perfect time to have a child, for me, this was definitely not the right time, not even close.

I’d recently been on a hefty dose of pregnancy-unfriendly antibiotics and had taken a series of pain meds for my back. I’d been drinking too much and smoking cigarettes. Although both had magically lost their appeal a few days before I received “the news,” the damage had been done.

Still, I considered it, imagined a future with a child and without a partner. What if the child were born healthy? What if he or she were born with defects that I, albeit unwittingly, caused? How would I support us? Where and how would we live? There was not a scenario that I didn’t run through, each one terrifying, impossible, sending me deeper into a black hole from which I’ve yet to fully emerge.

I scheduled my “procedure” for March 23, two weeks to the day after I found out I was pregnant. “You can always cancel,” said the clinic and my doctor, who, after telling me I was pregnant, discussing my options, and diagnosing me with a bacterial infection, prescribed “pregnancy-friendly” antibiotics.

If I was going to go through the abortion, I had to be far enough along to minimize the risk of complications. So, for two weeks, I mostly hid. During this time, my hormones, taste buds and olfactory system turned against me. It seemed my body was revolting. My back hurt. My breasts hurt. I had severe cramps. I couldn’t eat. I could barely keep down water. My weight, already on the low side, was quickly dropping. My mood was, and continues to be, erratic. I’d try to proceed with plans, then would feel sick and have to run home after making up lie (stomach virus, food poisoning, hangover) after lie to friends and family.

After knowing for a little less than a week, I told a few trustworthy friends, seeking advice, sounding boards, and a little familial affection, since I wasn’t ready or able to tell my family. I didn’t want this to be the way any of them, particularly my mother, remembered me saying “I’m pregnant” for the first time.

I quickly learned that getting unintentionally knocked up at my age, and being friends mostly with women my age who are new mothers, expectant mothers, or, like me, single and struggling with baby lust, makes me, and my pain, largely untouchable. The two new and expectant mothers I told pushed prenatal vitamins. The two single and childless ones were as I imagine smokers to be around cancer patients, avoiding physical and emotional contact. If I don’t acknowledge this, it won’t happen to me.

Eventually, I called the baby’s father. He drove to town from his home out of state. He was ready to move in with me, get a steady job, co-parent, be the best kind of friends that we are since, according to him, “marriage never works anyway.” He’s divorced. “Maybe this is the excuse I needed to settle down, stop living like a nomad,” he said. It was not the response I’d predicted. But I didn’t want to to be his “excuse” for a major life change. That wouldn’t work for me.

The state of Texas, where I live, didn’t make my decision any easier. The “Women’s Right to Know” Act, passed in 2003, requires pregnant women to listen to a detailed description of where their baby is in its development stage before they are allowed to go through with an abortion. I did that on the phone, while sitting alone in the corner of my room. It was a man’s prerecorded voice telling me that, “The lungs are beginning to form. Brain activity can be recorded. Eyes are present, but no eyelids yet. The heart is more developed and is beating. Early reflexes develop. The hands and feet have fingers and toes, but may still be webbed. The length is less than one quarter-inch.”

A girlfriend who’d had an abortion before went with me to the clinic. A cluster of female “pro-lifers” accosted me in the parking lot when I arrived. “First Amendment rights,” said the receptionist. I call it harassment. Sanctioned abuse.

In contrast, the nurses and counselors at the clinic were as kind as any group of strangers or even friends could be. There were dozens of forms to fill out. Then the intake nurse performed a vaginal sonogram. She was sympathetic and nurturing, assuring me that, if I wanted, I would have kids one day, when it was the right time. She didn’t make me look at the sonogram image, though I forced myself to glance up at the photos during my pre-procedure mandated counseling session. It was heartbreaking. Still is. I was five weeks and five days pregnant.

The procedure was excruciating and scary. The pixie of a doctor’s aid gave me an IV with a concoction of painkillers, a gas mask and earphones — the procedure is also torturously loud. And then the procedure, which felt like it lasted forever, but I’m told lasted only five minutes. Even with the drugs and the gas the pain was agonizing. My friend stayed with me, holding my hand and wiping away my tears. Then the nurse dressed me and helped me up and into the recovery room. My blood pressure was low. The nurse in the room gave me water, prescriptions and a list of dos and don’ts — do take your meds, don’t exercise, lift anything more than 15 pounds, use tampons, have sex, take baths until your follow-up appointment. She sat me in a comfortable chair, gave me a heating pad and kept asking me where my pain was on a scale of 1 to 10. First a 7, then a 5, then a 3, then she let me go. I was too bleary, too sad to respond to the women accosting me in the parking lot. I wouldn’t even wish this predicament on them.

My friend drove me home, picking up my meds along with way. I then slept for 18 hours. I’m sure I woke up for a few minutes here and there. I vaguely recall seeing a friend’s face, hearing another’s voice, feeling the man who would not be the father of my child petting my head. Tears rolled out of the sides of my eyes. There were the cramps, an incessant pain in my back. I think I swallowed pills. Antibiotics. More pain meds.

Then it was Wednesday. I woke up feeling damaged, empty, scared, guilty and in pain. The terms “pro-choice” and “pro-life” were emanating from the TV screen. They sounded reductive, glaringly inadequate. The word “abortion,” fraught with shame and accusation, was being bandied about for pieces of political theater. The words “baby killer” were omnipresent, too. Although I didn’t feel like a baby killer, like I’d killed my baby, I did feel partially dead.

Now, weeks into my recovery process — I’m still bleeding, cramping, underweight, emotional, grappling with my need for children and a partner with whom to raise them — I see my experience grossly manipulated by Pawlenty, a man who doesn’t, can’t, know how I feel. But it’s always like this, the moralists and proselytizers stealing the microphone because I, and millions of other women, didn’t make the choice they prescribed.

Just as no one wants to get the flu, diabetes or even cancer — though people still leave their homes, eat junk food, and smoke — no woman wants to experience an unplanned pregnancy. But it happens. Each year, almost half of all pregnancies among American women are unintended. When I was pregnant, I’d never before so desperately needed affordable healthcare and services, often two very different things. And I’d never felt more like I didn’t deserve them. But when it comes to our health, who deserves what isn’t, or at least shouldn’t be, the point.

On Oct. 7, Duncan and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder visited Chicago to discuss the killing and pledged $500,000 toward efforts to end youth violence at Fenger and its surrounding elementary schools. Parents at Altgeld Gardens want their children sent to Carver. On Tuesday, the Rev. Jesse Jackson rode a school bus to Fenger with students from Altgeld, promising to seek a meeting with Mayor Richard M. Daley, who has rejected the idea of reassigning students.

“The day that the city of Chicago decides to divide schools by gang territory, that’s the day we’ve given up the city,” Daley said.

The article below was written by a 17-year-old girl who lives in Altgeld Gardens and attends Fenger. She prefers to remain anonymous.

— Edward McClelland

I’ve been going to Fenger for four years. I’m a senior. I think that this is the worst that it’s ever gotten. It’s different gangs from different territories: They got 11-9, which is on 119th Street. 12-Trey, which is 123rd. They got the Ville, 11-Trey Crazy, and they got the Gardens. Ever since I’ve been going there my freshman year, I’ve seen people get stabbed in the school, I’ve seen people get cut in the face with a razor blade. Last year, the police Maced the whole hallway during a big fight. When I was a sophomore, the night before prom, a boy got shot. He was playing Russian roulette at his house.

The day Derrion Albert died, there was shooting outside the school early that morning. After school, I was at cheerleading practice. My best friend came in there and told my other best friend that her brother was out there fighting. It was kids from the Gardens and the Ville. The Ville is 111th. The fight happened on 111th. They got mad because kids from the Garden were in their neighborhood. Usually, the kids from the Garden take the bus, but they said they chose to walk that day.

When she left, they made an announcement on the intercom. They said “Everybody be safe. Don’t take the 111th Street route to Michigan [Avenue].” When I left school later on that day, I talked to some of the guys, and they told me that somebody got hurt, and we didn’t know who it was. A text was sent out that somebody died. The next morning, that’s when we saw Derrion on the news.

When we returned to school, people were treating kids from the Gardens differently. I was hearing rumors that somebody was going to shoot out the bus. People don’t know I’m from the Gardens, but every time I tell them, they say, “Oh, no, she a snake. She a snake.” Because of everything that happened. They say it’s our fault that he died. How they treated me before, it was just cool, calm and collected.

Kids from Altgeld Gardens will be hollering in the hallway, “We want Carver. We want it now.” They’ll just be playing. But I think that kids from the Gardens should go to Carver High, because that’s our neighborhood school. When I was in eighth grade, they sent me a letter that said, “You’ve been accepted to your neighborhood school, Fenger.” I’m like, “How’s Fenger our neighborhood, when Carver’s in walking distance?” A fight is going to happen anywhere, but our neighborhood wouldn’t have been in this if we weren’t going to Fenger.

Since Derrion passed away, the school has felt like prison. We have no freedom. You have to get monitored when you go to the bathroom. The lady stays there and holds the door. They have people patting us down, on the chest and in between the cleavage when we go into school every day. Last year, when I was there, none of this was happening. We had cellphones. You can’t have cellphones anymore. They take them and they return them at the end of the day.

After the fight, everybody transferred their kids out of the school. Everybody. The majority of kids transferred out. I want to, but this is my senior year, and it will mess with my credits.

Even if they give the school $500,000, it’s not going to work. Kids are going to be kids. They are going to fight. They are going to argue. They can’t stop the kids from doing what they want to do. At the beginning of the year, they said they were going to transfer all the kids out that caused problems. But they aren’t doing anything about that. Nothing can stop violence. It’s going to happen.

I knew two of the kids that have been charged. They lived here in the Gardens. People say that they haven’t been into any violence. The Ville people was wrong for crossing the tracks. If the Garden people want to walk there, they should let ‘em. I walk from the school to Michigan every day, and I don’t have any problems. The kids from the Gardens crossed the tracks, and the kids from the Ville went after them. Also, if they go to Michigan, it’s one bus home.

Before this, we had to take two Chicago Transit Authority buses to get to school. It took 45 minutes to get to the school on the bus. Since the fight, the school has been sending buses to pick us up. It’s safer.

Mayor Daley is wrong when he says that sending kids from Altgeld to Carver will be letting the gangs decide school boundaries. I don’t like that man. That’s crazy. It isn’t any school boundaries. It’s safety. They’d better not give me no say so with him. I’ll tell him, “You don’t go to Fenger. You don’t know what’s going on. You’re putting Altgeld kids’ and innocent bystanders’ lives in danger by sending them to Fenger.”

Most of the kids at Fenger come from neighborhoods that are close by. The only out-of-area neighborhood is Altgeld. Ever since freshman year, every neighborhood has been getting into it with every neighborhood. Today at school, someone told me, “The Gardens dirty.” I responded in an angry manner, “The outside’s dirty. What place that you know isn’t dirty on the outside. When you walk in my house, it’s clean.”

Derrion’s death has given Fenger a bad name. When I went to go fill out a job application at a restaurant, they looked at my application and they was like, “We’ll call you,” and when I went out the door, they threw it out. I heard them say, “Fenger’s ghetto.”

People aren’t gonna forget Derrion’s death. It’s going to make people change their minds about coming to Chicago. I think it had to do with Chicago not getting the Olympics. Derrion did not deserve what happened to him. My thoughts and prayers go out to his family. I hope these kids just come to their senses and realize they are killing our youth. This is our future.

Frodo: “I wish the ring had never come to me. I wish that none of this had happened.”

Gandalf: “So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

On the news, it’s more of the same. The state-run media is trying to tell us that life needs to go on, that politics is a nasty business, but now it’s over. Except for that first night, the news broadcasts have not shied away from the violence outside. Instead they’ve found a way to turn it inside out, make it about the protesters and not the curious mathematics of the election. At least nothing is hidden or subtle. When they want to make a point they lay it on, 10 minutes at a time, sometimes close to 15. It’s like a friend says — this is not news, it’s interpretation, spin.

They interview regular folk on the street and in the parks. They want viewers to know that all those millions of protesters are, somehow, not regular folk: “Khastekonande.” It’s getting old. “Kasebam. Barayenke moafaq basham bayad moid e am dashte bashe.” I’m a businessman. For my business to succeed, I need for there to be calm. “Ma faghat mikhaim ye nooni darbiarim, dombal e kar e zendegi berim.” We just wanna make some bread, take care of our lives and our business. “In ha kay shooloogh mikonand mardoom nistand. Man fekr nemikonam kay mardoom hastand.” The ones who are rioting aren’t of the people. I don’t think that they’re part of the people. “Chand rooze ke natoonestam pesar va dokhtaram biaram park bekhatere in shoolooghia.” It’s been several days that I haven’t been able to bring my son and daughter to the park, because of the violence.

Back to “Lord of the Rings.” Gandalf the Gray returns to the Fellowship as Gandalf the White. He casts a blinding white light, and his face is hidden behind a halo. “Imam zaman e?!” someone in the room asks. Is it the Mahdi, the last imam and, according to Shia Islam, the savior of mankind? 

Who picked this film? I start to suspect that there is a subversive soul manning the controls at Seda va Sima, AKA the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting. It is way too easy to play with the film, to draw comparisons to what is happening in real life. There are the overt Mousavi themes: the unwanted quest and the risking of life in pursuit of an unanticipated destiny. Then there is the sly nod to Ahmadinejad. Iranian films are dubbed (forget the wretched dubbing into English in the U.S.; in Iran dubbing is a craft) and there are plenty of references to “kootoole,” little person, the Farsi word used in the movie for hobbit and dwarf. “Kootoole,” of course, was, is, the term used in many of the chants out on the street against President Ahmadinejad. He is the “little person.” (“And whose side are you on?” Pippin asks the ancient, forest-dwelling giant named Treebeard. Those watching might think the answer is Mousavi, since Treebeard is decked out in green.)

The 9-year-old in the room loudly predicts that the “Lord of the Rings” marathon will put an end to the nightly shouts of “Allah Akbar” from Tehran’s rooftops. People will not take to the roofs and windows because these films will keep them occupied. Besides, there is a dubious rumor going around that the basij are marking the doorways of those households that continue to call out “Allah Akbar!” at night, a kind of reverse Passover. Fear, as well as Tolkien, will no doubt play a part.

The 9-year-old goes on to report that the kids on his school “service” (no Blue Bird buses in Tehran, but long Toyota vans instead) have been chanting, “Pas rai e ma koojast?! Pas rai e ma koojast?! Pas rai e ma koojast?!” Then where is our vote?! Then where is our vote?! Then where is our vote?! I ask him what the driver is doing while all this goes on and he tells me that the driver honks along. Honk honk-honk-honk! “Pas rai e ma koojast?!” Honk honk-honk-honk!

Back to the movie. Gandalf’s white steed strides into the frame. It is instantly transformed by local viewers into Rostam’s mythical horse, Rakhsh. Rostam, the great dragon-slaying champion of Ferdowsi’s poetic epic “Shahnameh,” which recounts the whole history of Iran.

The 9-year-old is wrong about the rooftops. The sound begins as a low roll from a nearby park then quickly builds upward. “Allah Akbar! Allah Akbar!” No way. We rush to the window. It begins at 10 at night and will continue for another 30 minutes …

On the television screen, Boromir, human of Aragon, falls. He dies an honorable death defending the lives of his compatriots.

“In edame dare.” This is to be continued. The phrase has become our hesitant slogan, our phrase of reassurance. “In edame dare.” People are not going to let up so easily.

Each time I’ve lost faith, I’ve been wrong. Iranians are proving to be a sturdier lot than I have given them credit, much mightier even than the formidable kootooloos that stand in their way. 

“Az enqelab mirisim be azadi!” “From Revolution we’ll get to Freedom!” A kid in the Internet cafe had, minutes earlier, made a clever pun, referring to today’s march from Revolution Square to Freedom Square. Saturday afternoon was to be a repeat of last Monday’s massed millions but after the most recent Friday Prayers and the supreme leader’s injunctions, the march had been called into doubt. Around 2 or 3 in the afternoon, there came word that another warning not to come had just been issued, that the regime’s “patience” had run out. The kid was putting on a strong, defiant face.

Standing outside, looking at this show of force, the kid’s bravura seems silly. So does mine. Power is about force and place. In Tehran it is quickly becoming about who can stand where and when.

Spooked, I walk away from the square and make my way home using an alternate route.

Back at my apartment, I realize that, like an idiot, I have left an opposition newspaper with notes scribbled all over it — in English, source material for these dispatches — in the Internet cafe. I return to retrieve it, taking back alleys.

I call a few folks along the way. Cellphones for some reason are working, perhaps so that people can tell each other not to go to the march. That is more or less the message I received from my friends. It’s becoming less and less worth it, they’re saying, only the fully committed to seeing this thing through will show and their numbers will no doubt be dwindling.

I reach the cafe. The paper is still there. I grab it and set out for home. I stiffen my spine, walk right into the circle, the newspaper curled up into my hand. I make a point of walking past a row of the officers waiting at one corner of the plaza. I need to do this. Some are bored, others are keeping themselves busy with stupid things. They help each other strap and tighten their helmets, one taps his fingers against the top of his plastic shield. I see that one or two of the guys have on fashionable glasses, vestiges of their other life.

As I pass, I look them in the eye. Iranians in general stare. This habit isn’t antagonistic. Fixed eye contact is a normal thing, part curiosity and partly a way to size up the person walking toward them. A friend observes that Iranians have been lied to so much the only device left to them for ascertaining truth is the zaher, or appearance. As with the ancient Greeks, the assumption is that the external reveals true character.

The cops look back at me with little interest.

I receive a very different response from the young basijis coming up the road. They show up after the police, in beige camo trucks traveling in convoy. Today, under daylight, they emerge from whatever hole it is they hide in, wearing uniforms to go with their oversize helmets. Think “Spaceballs.” In the back of each transport truck a large red flag is flapping.

When I fix my eyes on them, the look is deadly, menacing.

Basijis. The lesser cousin of the police, they are the more serious of the two. For the cops it’s a job, and so far at least their hearts don’t seem to be in it. For these basijis, it’s their reason to be. They bring an enthusiasm to their “work” that only an ardent hobbyist can. As a member of my family notes, this is their good time. They don’t screw, they don’t drink or smoke pot (bet you didn’t know that went on in Iran). What else are they going to do with all of that energy? For 360 days of the year basijis don’t do shit, but for the past week …

Ke chi bishe? What’s the point? It feels so unnecessary. Every rally has been peaceful, folks have really done their best, truly taken great care not to antagonize. They deserved better than this. Delam vaghan misooze. My heart aches …

And I am feeling isolated, and losing my nerve. I figure it’s all over, I give up.

The shit hits the fan

Saturday evening, not yet sunset. The little guy is cracking himself up silly. “Moo … ! Moo … ! Akharesh shod … Mousavi!” I sit in the front of the shared taxi ride. The small boy wraps his hands around my headrest and repeats the chant. “Moo … ! Moo … ! Akharesh shod … Mousavi!” Moo …! Moo …!” He’s saying, “At the end it became Mousavi!” His mom sitting in the back, her voice barely above a whisper, tells him, “Na azizam, aqasare agha ye Mousavi na shod.” No dear, at the end it did not.

The three of us, the adults in the car, grouse about everything that was happening. Ba zoor hamichi ra mikhand. Yemosh havoon. They want everything by force. Animals.

We are on Sattar Khan Street, heading south toward Tohid Square, or Unity Square. Tohid, formerly known as Kennedy, was once an up-and-coming neighborhood, a fashionable enclave for young and newly married couples to make their first move outside of their parents’ home. Duplex-style housing from the mid- and late 1970s still lines the street, the bottom floors of many now converted into offices and small shops. The area around Tohid is where the first fast-food joints opened up, some of the original pahtoghs, or hangouts. Though no longer unique in Tehran, on Thursday nights certain stretches and bends of Satter Khan above Tohid are full of cars filled with families. Tehran has elements of the American small town. For want of better options, diversions consist of cruising and hanging out at burger and ice cream joints late into the night. 

The traffic is horrific. No one is moving. Cars stop, engines turn off, people get out to see what is happening. There is dark smoke ahead. We can see at least two helicopters circling above. I see families gathered on the rooftops. Everyone is looking south toward the square. What has happened?

On the other side of the street comes a pack of protesters chanting. I didn’t expect this. I was wrong. It is not over: “Marq bar diktator! Marq bar diktator!” Unable to move, the vehicles have effectively become the fixed seats of a street theater. With nowhere to go, drivers and their passengers get out. They stand up on the edge of their doors to take pictures with their mobile phones.

One of the marchers points across at us, her face screwed up in anger and frustration: “Hemayat, hemayat, Iraniane BIGHEIRAT!” Help, help, Iranians WITHOUT honor!

What’s going on ahead? Why aren’t we moving? Motorists coming back the other way tell us that Tohid is on fire, they’ve burned Cinema Bahman. They tell us to turn back, turn back. Our taxi driver, a young man sporting a beard (“I just grew it out so that they won’t mess with me!”), pulls a classic Tehran move and wheels the old Iranian-made Paykon 180 degrees. He cuts into an alley. Maybe we can get to Tohid this way. He’s not the only one with this idea and as he pulls the car down toward the square we get stuck again. This time it’s worse.

It’s not looking good. Cars are backing up and we’re off the main road. Our driver gives up. “Sharmandam, I am deeply sorry, but I’ve got to go back home. Please, forget the fare, I’m so sorry.” The mom and her son get out, she tries to take his hand but he rushes forward between the cars, then stops. Karate stance.

Shit. I get out. Ahead I see a group of basijis. They are lined up against a wall, awaiting their orders. I notice that one holds a lead pipe at his side. The pipe is the length of his leg.

I decide to try to walk to Tohid. Can anyone help me? I ask the crowd for directions. I want to go to Vali Asr. “Go that way, but I don’t think that you’ll make it. Tohid is a mess, they say that they burned a 13-year-old girl.” I keep cutting south. Cars that have come off of the main road and into the warren of this neighborhood remain stuck, not moving. I weave my way through the grid, leaning into windows, asking here and there how things are from where they’ve come. Agha, in var shoolooq e? Sir, is it safe? The answer is always, “Yes.” I begin to worry. I don’t know this neighborhood, I don’t have anyone to take me in just in case, and it’s getting close to sunset. I have to laugh. It’s like a disaster and zombie movie all rolled up in one.

I continue to cut south toward Tohid. The black smoke coming from Satter Khan and the square grows thicker, continues to climb into the pale evening light. The neighborhood that I am in is faring no better. At a corner I see an incredible sight, two street battles raging perpendicular to each other. I stand at their juncture. In one direction, at least three fiery heaps stretch out straight down the middle of the street, there is smoke everywhere, and beyond the haze a crowd of men marches toward a line of armed and waiting basijis. At the top of the street is the burned and tinny carcass of a motorcycle, a basiji mount, its rider nowhere to be found.

To my left, at the end of the street, another group of young men face off against the paramilitaries. They show no fear, the chants come faster and faster.

I turn back. This is not going to work. I need to get back home.

Back on Satter Khan, now heading north, it only gets worse. It’s really an unbelievable scene. Every 50 to 100 meters there is a confrontation or a fire, people are chanting, they are defiant. And in between there are the cars, in both directions just sitting there, not moving, engines off. Everyone is out and watching. This has become an accidental march. Everyone, without planning to, has taken the side of protest.

What are they going to do with all of these people? What’s going to happen when the cops pour in? I wonder. These people can’t move. At bus stops I see citizens sitting on the benches and railings, either waiting for the bus or hanging around until the commotion passes. One old lady is peeling oranges and sharing with her husband and the others seeking refuge inside of the shelter. Car horns up and down the road are honking, nearly in unison, “doot-doot-de-doot-doot, doot-doot-de-doot-doot.” There is no letup.

Near Patrice Lumumba Street I stop to get something to drink. I’ve got several kilometers to go yet. Bottled water is out at all of the stores and kiosks. All that is left is Rani, a juice drink (with real but unnervingly way-too-big fruit chunks inside), and Delster, Iranian non-alcoholic beer. It’s quite a sight, people kicking back a few brews, watchin’ a riot, no worries at all …

A pedestrian asks me what is happening further down the road, using the alliterative phrasing that Iranians are so fond of: “Bezan bezan hast?” “Na, bekosh bekosh.” Is it hitting hitting going on? No, comes the answer from a man standing next to me, it’s killing killing. 

Across from a police substation, officers stand poised with their plastic shields in front of them, facing north. Rocks are being thrown at them, one by one, then two by two. The officers stand their ground. I am on the other side of the street, watching. Two young men turn the corner and walk toward me. They are both eating chocolate-glazed donuts. I tell them, “Bi khial, Wow, you two are really taking it easy!” One of them answers, “Come on man, gotta take care of the stomach first.”

The rocks now start to rain in by the dozen and the police run. They rush to their motorcycles and hop on, flying south. Protesters pour down the street, a full assault. One of the officers awkwardly throws rocks back at his tormentors. Unable to get off a good shot he wheels toward us and throws in our direction and I, the Donut Brothers, and about 20 other people run away, around the corner.

This is a glimpse of what is to come. The decision to prevent people from marching calmly and peacefully through the squares and main boulevards has thrown the action into the kuches and mahals of Tehran. It’s gone into the neighborhoods, the alleys and corners of where people permanently live, not the public squares and intersections that they occasionally pass through.

You have to understand the importance of the “kuche” or alley if you want to understand Tehran, especially now. Sar e kuche, too ye kuche, boro kuche — the beginning and end of everyday life happens in a kuche, the alley.

“Alley” as it is used here isn’t the same as what we might imagine in the U.S., the dark and dangerous spaces of a big city where bad things might happen. Back in the day, Tehran neighborhoods consisted primarily of single-family homes, many with a hayat, or yard, with a central hoz, or fountain (the film “Children of Heaven” is a good depiction of what I’m talking about). The buildings were close to each other and the kuche served as the shared ground between entrances. You had to walk down an alley to get home and the odds were that you would run into your neighbor along the way. Likewise, the alley provided a crude form of security. If someone had no business being there or was up to no good it would be immediately known.

Neighbors knew who belonged there. Neighborhoods were populated by men with colorful names: Behrooz Sibili (Moustache Behrooz), Ali Hezar Dawshi (Ali 10 Cents), Mahmad Damagh (Mahmad Nose), Jangir Khiki (Fat Jangir). Neighbors simultaneously spied on and looked after each other. A patriarchal code of honor, with all of its blessings and vices, held sway, and woe onto the young man who wandered into the neighborhood. Hava ye ham digar ra dashtand. While this code has dimmed considerably because of shifts in demographic and housing patterns — more and more people live away from their families in apartment towers –  the familiarity remains. Tehran, despite its size, remains an intimate big city, the reason being that the base of social life outside of the family remains the kuche. Even if they don’t personally know their neighbor nor care to, residents of a block will come to each other’s aid when threatened from without (read Asef Bayat’s important book “Street Politics” to see what I’m talking about).

The geography of Tehran’s urban life is going to play a big role in the coming days and months. Every time the police manage to squeeze down on protesters on the main road, the kids run sideways and backward into the crisscrossing alleys. It will be different now …

The walk home is many kilometers. Under a bridge a crowd is chanting. Half of a car is on fire and a host of people have gathered to watch. A fire truck shows up, the crowd hoots and whistles. They rush over and surround the truck. Do they want it to leave? Before I can figure it out the truck abandons the street.

It takes me two hours to get home. Along the way there is wonderment. Life goes on. I smell freshly sliced cucumber. A young boy sits on a storefront stoop and sees about the business of eating folded flatbread with feta and cucumber. Kids on bikes race each other. Three boys walk past me on the sidewalk with ping-pong paddles; they are coming back from the park (Tehran’s parks, like those of Paris, come equipped with ping pong tables). Satter Khan Park is filled with families and couples on blankets eating seeds and sharing tea. Many are enjoying traditional ice cream, Akbar Mashti made with pistachio and cardamom. There is a guy selling fish, a guy selling meat. Old men stand outside their fruit stand. The car wash under Satter Khan Bridge continues its business. A father and his daughter come plodding down the sidewalk, three grocery sacks hangs between them, cucumber, tomatoes, watermelons.

I finally make it to where I need to be. I spot a man selling DVDs. Iranians are notorious film buffs and before this ruckus began if you were to see a crowd gathered on the street in Tehran odds were they were buying up the latest Hollywood film, frequently while the picture was still in the theaters. I flip through the pile of plastic sleeves and choose “Night at the Museum, Part Two” and “Frost/Nixon.” How’s business in all of this haye hoo, I ask the man? Eh, it’s not bad, what can I say? Don’t you want to buy more, he asks me. No, this’ll do.

That night, with reports coming in of the newly dead and wounded, they sang “Allah Akbar” with renewed verve. “ALLAH u AKBAR!!!! ALLAH u AKBAR!!!!” The calls had never been louder. We sit in the kitchen and listen. A girl’s voice leads. Tonight she is without restraint. She doesn’t wait for the response. Voices heave, swinging back and forth, call and response.

Natarsin! Natarsin! Ma hame ba ham hastim! Don’t be scared! Don’t be scared! We are all in this together. 

Someone in my packed car jokes, “Today Hashemi carries us to victory!” He’s referring to the fact that the metro system, a notorious cash cow, a hole in the ground where money disappears, is run by former president Hashemi Rafsanjani’s son.

Spirits are good. It’s after 4 in the afternoon, cellphones are completely down, but everyone already knows where to go and what to do. Today we wear green and we wear black — black for those who have died during the past week.

Darkness to light, and we pour out of Imam Khomeini Station and into the square of the same name. Already the crowd is huge. Citizens have arrived early, not the customary one to two hours late — Iranian time, as it’s known. The weather has returned to normal this week. It is hot, and we are made hotter by the darkness of our clothing. Fat, full clouds dangle from the sky, and rain feels imminent.

Other than the sheer size of the demonstration the main thing that strikes the observer is how quiet it is. Nothing above a murmur. No one moves. Today’s theme, captured in hundreds of handmade signs, is “sookoot e sabz,” or “green silence.” We are here to mourn the fallen, those who have died in the past few days at the hands of the paramilitary basiji. The chants that played such a prominent role prior to the elections and which here and there can be heard, are contained by the “shushes” and “quiets!” of the crowd. Perhaps after 30 years of chanting the best way to answer is with silence.

That Imam Khomeini Square is so still it borders on a minor miracle. Formerly known as Toopkhone, literally “cannon house,” this square is one of Tehran’s most storied. It was once the site of regal state ceremonies and Dar al-Funun, Iran’s first modern college, built in the 19th century. In recent years, Khomeini Square has settled into its current role, a major south-central transit hub covered in ashen grey and lined on three sides by small shops and boarding houses for itinerant workers and their families.

To the south of the square rises the smooth glass of the mokhaberat, or telecommunications building, built in the doleful international style so common in the developing world. From the building, they watch us. We can see a man on the fourth or sixth floor filming the goings-on with a tripod-mounted camcorder.

The state is taking pictures of us. We show them, in turn, photos of what they have done to us. Many hold up the pictures of the wounded and killed, gruesome images of blood-covered chests and heads, the young and the middle-aged who have fallen. There is a picture of a plainclothes basiji rushing at a protester with what appears to be a cattle prod or perhaps a knife. His face is clearly visible. On some of the pictures of the basijis people have written the word “killer.”

This is important. Things are moving faster. The old-timers, the ones who had seen 1978 and 1979, when the shah fell, tell us that it took months for it to get to the same point we are now. Then it began with the college students. First the students came out, then the families, mothers famously sending their sons forward to face the soldiers of the shah. We are not yet a week out from the voting and the movement is already filled with different ages and occupations.

I do not believe that this is a revolution, however. People have seen what that brings. The comparison to 1979 is limited. Nonetheless, many of the contours of the two are shaping up to be the same.

The crowd gathers around a woman and a man. They are speaking in anguished tones. The woman, older, has her face covered like so many others here — fear still remains despite the strength of numbers. I can see only red, red eyes. “Chera? Chera?” she asks. “Why? Why?”

We ask who she is, what has happened. We find out that she is a mother of a young shaheed, or martyr. People reach for their mobile phones to take a picture and the man who is comforting her beseeches them to put the cameras away, to have sympathy for her.

A kid grabs my arm and tells me to come, come take a picture of his friend. The friend is in bad shape. They lift up his shirt and we can see the bruise where the baton struck him. When he turns around I see that there is a white dollop on his head, a fresh bandage. I grin and tell him that he’s the champion of the people. He laughs.

We finally start to move, slowly, feet shuffling northward toward Ferdowsi Square several kilometers away. People debate what to do next. Should we go to Friday Prayers tomorrow, where Supreme Leader Khamanei will speak? Should we let them know that we respect and accept our Rahbar, our supreme leader, this nezam (system) and revolution? Or do we stay away? It might be better not to antagonize the crowd that Khamanei and Ahmadinejad and the regime loyalists will draw. There are reports and rumors that the basiji will be out in full force on Friday, that the supreme leader will speak and no doubt cast his final verdict on the elections. It is ultimately decided not to go — decisions are made collectively with this crowd, unlike the top-down gatherings of the pro-Ahmadinejad forces. A new song passes through the crowd in waves: “Farda khabari nist! Farda khabari nist!” It means, “Tomorrow there is nothing going on! Tomorrow there is nothing going on!”

“Agha, Ferdowsi am ba mast!” a young man tells his friends and points toward the statue in Ferdowsi Square. Iran’s national poet, the author of the epic “Shahnameh,” has been cloaked around the neck and the wrist with a green shawl. “Ferdowsi is with us!”

But now Mousavi shows up, we’re told. He and his entourage are moving on the other side of the square. He is minuscule, impossible to hear, impossible to see.

“Bishin agha! Bishin! Sit down, sit down!” We squat on our hams like soccer players lining up for a photo. I hold onto the shoulders of the guy sitting next to me. Mousavi never rises far enough out of the crowd for us to see him but we can track his progress through the press by the security and cameramen standing on top of his car. They float above the heads of the thousands gathered and make their way north.

Exhausted, thirsty, I make my way back to the metro.