“After we check out the revolution, let’s stop by Tiffany’s so I can return that knife set your mother gave me,” Lisa says. She is joking because that’s what this protest is to them. But it is also not really a joke, because Tiffany’s happens to be located very close to the protest. Lisa is very serious about wanting to return the knife set. She does not need sterling-silver knives to butter her toast.

“OK,” Peter says, because this is exactly the kind of thing they do on Sundays. They check something out that they have been meaning to check out while simultaneously doing an errand. That way, the errand doesn’t feel so much like an errand, and any fun they have along the way doesn’t feel entirely wasteful. “But wait, you’re going to bring the set? You want to hold it the whole time we’re there?”

“How long are we planning to be there, Peter?” Lisa asks. “Should we bring our sleeping bags?”

He knows she is joking because they don’t even have sleeping bags; they are not the kind of people who sleep inside bags. Bags are for the things they have; bags are for gifts to be returned; bags are for dead people.  They put Lisa’s father in one seven Sundays ago. Ever since then, Peter has been very careful to keep Lisa occupied. He keeps using that word. “You’ve got to keep yourself occupied, Lisa.”

Lisa remembers from her liberal arts education that occupation is the language of colonialism. It is also the language of airplane bathrooms.  It is Korean barbecue, then the Statue of Liberty, then MoMA and now Wall Street. What, Lisa wonders, will it be next Sunday?

“We’ll stay a little while, at least,” he says. “Long enough to get a good sense of it.”

And so Lisa gets the knife set and they put on their lightest coats. They head out and pass vendors selling American flags and large photographs and Peter leans down and says, “This one would be perfect for my father’s birthday.”  That is next Sunday. Peter’s father’s birthday. He holds up the photograph featuring a man and his golf clubs and in big white letters it says YOUR WORST DAY GOLFING IS BETTER THAN YOUR BEST DAY WORKING. As Peter buys it, Lisa thinks that this is true; she thinks of how the day her father died was the worst day in her life, but probably still so much better than many other people’s days. She thinks of people far away; people who do not have knife sets, people who do not have a set of anything.  This is what she says to Peter as they enter Zuccotti Park.

“What?” he says. There are people chanting loudly. Occupy Wall Street is very loud. A leader speaks, and the people around the leader echo the words. In all of Lisa’s life, she has never seen communication work like this. For Lisa, it has always been the opposite; words start out so big and end up so small. But here, the words start as tiny as a rock dropped in the ocean, and ripple outwards until they reach the street.

- – - – - – - – - -

In the park, Peter and Lisa stand side by side, looking at three women dressed in white dancing with dollar bills taped over their mouths. It is performance art.  The knife set is heavy in Lisa’s hands.  Peter and Lisa stand there watching for what’s got to be at least 10 minutes, and Peter looks around the park, and he almost nudges her to say, “Let’s check out a different part.” He feels an urgency to see everything here, a pressure to do it all, like when they were in London last year for only a day, and had to do Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, the Tower of London and the Tate.

But he doesn’t say anything, because he isn’t sure what the appropriate amount of time is to spend at each part of the park. He had the same problem at MoMA. He doesn’t know how long it takes to absorb whatever it is they are supposed to absorb from the women in white, just like he didn’t know how long he was supposed to stand quietly in front of White on White at the MoMA.  Just like he stood in front of Lisa’s father’s casket, and thought, How long as the son-in-law am I supposed to stand here? How long until I understand that he is dead? How long until everybody else understands that I understand this man is dead? How long does it take for meaning to transfer from one body to another? Well, he didn’t know. He just didn’t know.  He looked at the people dressed in black and stared.  He said, “All of this black is starting to depress me,” and Lisa said, “I have learned today that there are 100 shades of black,” and he guesses she was trying to tell him that she was seeing something he wasn’t; she was trying to hint that her version of the world was a much more complicated one than his, and she made sure to do this on a day when he couldn’t argue with her.

So they stand there, silent, staring at the women in white, and Peter wonders how many shades of white his wife is seeing.  He nudges her, and says, “Let’s go check out the anarchist section,” and she agrees.  As they move through the people, Lisa says, “There’s an anarchist section? Do anarchists even believe in sections?” He sort of smiles, but then says, “They believe in clusters.” He isn’t joking at all. “They really believe in clusters — here, look,” and hands Lisa a pamphlet, Anarchist Basics.  Lisa tries to read but is stopped by a man with a long white beard.  The man grabs Lisa’s arm, and says closely and quietly to her face, “When you wake up tomorrow, I’ll still be here.” Peter pulls his wife toward him because this is what he does when a strange man threatens something too close to her face.

But Lisa finds something reassuring about this man’s promise; that is the growing difference between Peter and Lisa. Lisa sees it as a promise, and Peter sees it as a threat. And not only that, but Lisa believes him; the man’s beard is so long and white, she believes he has been living in Zuccotti Park forever.  The promise reminds her of her father, and how he used to say something very similar to her, when she was younger and afraid they’d all die in the middle of the night for some inexplicable reason.  She stands there, with her knife set, and Peter with his golf photograph, and she does not move away. She imagines next Sunday, when the man is still here in his sleeping bag, and they are at Peter’s father’s house in Connecticut. Peter’s father will unwrap the golf photograph, and he will say, “This will look great in my office.” Peter will say, “We got it two blocks down from the revolution.” Lisa can already hear the glass clink against their teeth as they try to drink and laugh at the same time.

Mostly, when we meet, it’s at the McDonald’s three blocks from his work. Says he eats there all the time, though he brings wipes like what Mer used to fix the baby, and usually he just gets tea.

I check my watch. I am going to be late. We’re stalled in traffic or maybe we’re just pulled over because of an outdoor festival and people milling around and in the crosswalk. Visitors on today’s tour are from Shanghai or Boston, it’s hard to tell, and anyway, they are all come to my side of the bus for pictures of the fair. I stand up and when I do, a guy on the sidewalk with some kind of rope ladder tied round his head starts yelling, “Ja rule!,” I guess because that’s what my T-shirt says, though really it says Ja Rules, with an “S” Mer Sharpie’d in because our baby’s name was Jade. Jade rules. Anyhow, the guy’s flicking me the peace sign next to a real sign about stop gawking, start talking, and I wonder what kind of festival is this. I make for the tour guide because there’s no whiff of us moving soon, only here comes the guide for me, or for us, saying over the PA, “And on your right, some people who are here to be with other people and there’s pizza, too,” which news sends everyone into the square, except the guide who’s just no good with the ad lib, and me, who’s late as is. He tells everyone to be back in five. I ask, Can I stay? and he says, “No, man, go be a part of history.”

I wonder if Bix has been round this way. It’s a big city but a small city down here, so I figure guys who look like Bix probably know Bix, but I don’t see none of those guys eating PB&J or ice-cream, even though it’s free.

One thing about being here: if Bix doesn’t put me up for the night, I have no place else to go. Most times, he doesn’t put me up, not since the first, but now because of Jade being passed and Mer sending me away for a while, it’s not like I have the cash to find a hotel. We still owe the hospital 90K it’s not like I have the cash for a hotel. Another thing about being here: I see other people who maybe don’t have anyplace else to go, either.

I tack through the crowd. Someone gives me a purple scarf, kinda sissy-like but OK. Someone else asks do I want a pin and I say I’m looking for my brother, Bix, and I describe Bix, and she says, “Tell that fucker my future is fucked,” then offers me a bagel when I still refuse the pin. “From Montreal,” she says, about the bread or herself, I don’t know. She’s probably Mer’s age minus the years older Mer looks from crying and maybe no exercise, plus she’s in Wellies and cut-off jeans shorts that put me in mind of the calendar some of the guys gave me when Jade was near done — Women in Waders, it was called — which had me thinking there really is something for everyone.

She says her name is Tara. That if she had a job, she’d be at that job, but instead she’s here talking to me. Asks if I’m up from Texas or wherever the hick I’m from, and if I come for this, and so again I tell her about Bix, and how we was twins and look at our lives divergent, that’s how he called it last, and she shakes her head and says, “Fucker stole my future. And look how he’s left you. Sure you don’t want some bagel? If someone drops dead in this park, it’s all over for us.”

It’s true I have not slept in days and maybe also the truth that I have not had the stomach to eat, and it’s nice that this girl cares because when no one cares, you think about dropping dead all the time. In the Navy, Bix always said he’d jump in after if I went overboard and I have gotten a couple emails from him since Jade died, and so I guess that counts as jumping if you’re Bix.

Tara says, “Let’s find you a nap,” and she takes my arm. We pass round guys with drums and guys with fliers and guys in masks, and since I really am whupped and can see the bus still parked and I know where Bix works in case I miss him at McDonald’s, I just walk where she says until we’re at a tarp strung from tree to tree and underneath a sleeping bag she opens up for me. I say I can’t pay anything. That I owe Aiken Regional 90K, and she says, “Nuh-uh. Aiken Regional owes you. Sleep tight, Ja Rules.” And she zips me up so the bag turns cocoon, and once again I am alone with my life.

Down here, it smells like the brig even after a wash, but also like mud and rubber and just people together. I fall asleep thinking of Jade and how she wouldn’t go down unless me and Mer and two nurses sang her to sleep, just mom and dad not being party enough.

It is not long when Tara is back or maybe it is hours, but either way she’s yanking at the bag and going, “We got trouble,” and maybe because you never forget how to rise up fierce and ready to die no matter how wrecked, I am out of that bag and reaching for the nearest object of hurt, which is a broom.

“Not on me,” she says. “Them.”

I stand on a chair to see over about 100 people clumped around some folk, some folk being two guys who look like my brother and also my brother between them, calling my name. They are hanging tight like the crowd is bears and stay back. ‘Cept the crowd maybe is bears because they’re eyeing Bix like dinner.

I smile big and push on through. “Bix!” I say, and then remember myself, and call him by his work name, which is Ben. I try to hug him but maybe because he smells the brig on me, he steps away and says, “I saw you on TV. Just by chance. What are you doing here?”

I don’t know if he means here in the square or here in New York, so I say, “These your buds?” and the buds go, “Yeah, we’re with him, which means we’re also with you,” though they don’t talk this last part to me at all. I stand back and look them over. They look like they shop together. My one suit is Navy standard, but Bix has got a closet full and from the doorway, it looks like mini-men standing hut against the wall. Today he’s in gray with a blue tie.

The mob around them is not just me with a broom but many of us with brooms. They are calling my brother thief and trash and get out of here, you rich piece of shit. They are saying he’s the one percent. I feel like I should be swelled up proud for a comment like that, but today not so much.

“What do you want, Lew?” he says. And then maybe because the TV cameras are on us he takes out his checkbook and says, “To you or the 501(c)(3) here?”

I shake my head, but Tara says, “Take the man’s dough, Ja Rules. Take it all.”

Bix writes me a check for two grand. I take it, but feel like buttons just come off my life jacket.

“OK?” Bix says. “We good? Think maybe you ought to leave now?”

But I dunno. I think a lot of things. Like how if the Navy watched over its own after service. If I wasn’t laid off from Jimmy Creek Lanes. If we could have afforded a doctor sooner. If our savings wasn’t like dye in water. If we still had the house. If anyone cared.

“Shazam!” Tara says, seeing the check. “Dinner’s on you.”

I spot a cardboard sign bent against a tree. No illegals, no burritos. Bix asks again Please, will I go home? But I say no, I don’t think so. I raise the sign over my head. And as I walk through this party, it comes easy to chant my grief out loud.

Whereas Stelline was radiant. Her hair was blue. Her nose was pierced. The earring in her nose was sparkly and blue. She was a lesbian. She was a social activist. She was fearless. Most of the time, she ignored me.

“What? Where are we going?” I said. “What are we going to do? I drank too much coffee. I don’t want to get arrested.”

“Shut up,” she said. “Come on.”

“I don’t want to get arrested,” I repeated.

“Of course you don’t.”

Stelline was the lesbian, but I was the one in love. I let her pull me from my futon, and I let her lace my Converse sneakers, and we walked to the subway and waited for the N train and I was happy.  On the train ride into Manhattan, Stelline talked and talked about how Occupy Wall Street was going to revolutionize the country. Stelline had not gone to college and she did not have student loans and she was a killer waitress. Unlike me, she always had money, and she was always giving it away. She gave $20 bills to homeless people and she sent checks to Planned Parenthood and NARAL, and to a woman in Ecuador with three children who wanted to go to college. She supported another woman in Tanzania who had opened a bakery.

“You have been fucked by the political system,” she told me.

I didn’t see that, not entirely. I had voted for Barack Obama. He was an African-American, and he had been elected president. Plus, he was still cleaning up Bush’s bullshit. Yes, he was making too many compromises and spending too much on the military. But the student debt was my own damn fault. I was supposed to have started in on a career by now. My other friends from college had real jobs. Or they were in graduate school. Or they had rich parents. The ones with rich parents had internships. The bad economy, I thought, was because of the Bush administration. It would get better.

“You got a liberal arts education and now you are screwed by a debt that will hobble you for the rest of your adult life. Everything you make, you will be spending on finance fees.”

“Oh, Stelline,” I said. “Don’t. Please. I don’t want to think about it.”

“Then you are an idiot,” Stelline said.

“I know that,” I said.

“No, you are not. Jesus.” Stelline shook her head.

“You are so irritating. When the march is over, I’ll buy you a slice of artichoke pizza.”

There was a place I liked on 14th Street. I had told Stelline about it once and she made fun of me. “Artichoke pizza,” she said. “You are such a yuppie.” But clearly she had paid attention. She did like me. Of course I would protest with her.

Once we got off the subway, it didn’t take long to find the protesters. YOU GREEDY RAT BASTARDS YOU SOLD THE COUNTRY DOWN THE RIVER. WE ARE THE 99%. GREED SUCKS. I wanted to stay where we were, read the signs, watch the people march, show my support from the sidelines, but Stelline pulled on my arm and I followed her.

There were police everywhere. There were police on horses and police standing on street corners. There were police in vans and police bellowing instructions from bullhorns, and at every corner, there were barricades. I had thought we would march on the street, but instead Stelline and I were corralled into a narrow penned area on the sidewalk. Before we had even begun to march, we were squashed into the crowd. I could not walk. I could not move. I could not get out of this corralled space if I wanted to — and I wanted to.

“Stelline,” I said.

It was pitiful, but I was afraid. I noticed a black female police officer right outside the pen in which I was trapped and I smiled at her, as if that would make me safe.

“I want to go home,” I told Stelline.

But Stelline was talking to a girl with waist-length hair. She was wearing a cut-off T-shirt that that showed her belly. I was embarrassed for this girl, whose stomach was not flat, and I was embarrassed for myself, judging the protesters for their clothes.

After a while, the black female cop opened our pen, ushering us into the pen across the street, because that was how the march was going to go. Like a prison procession. I was done, I was going to go home.

And then I heard someone scream. An amplified voice said to stay where we were. Everyone began to run, in all directions, into the street, away from the police-sanctioned space. The hippie girl wearing only half a T-shirt was screaming at a police officer who was arresting a cute guy wearing khaki pants, and for a second I thought I knew him, that he was my philosophy T.A. during freshman year.

I watched as the police officer threw him to the ground, and then as two more police officers pulled his arms behind his back, snapping on plastic handcuffs, while the guy screamed. They were going to break his arms. I felt tears spring to my eyes. “Stop,” I screamed. “Stop. Please. You are hurting him.”

Stelline started to run and I ran with her. I was running blindly, down 12thStreet, away from the subway.

“I want to go home,” I yelled. “I want to go home.”

Stelline tripped, fell down on the street, and I toppled down on top her, and when we got up, we were standing face to face with that same black female police officer.

“Don’t move,” she said, and she pulled out this orange net and we were caught. There was nowhere left to go. I don’t know why, but I felt relief, because I had put my trust in her before. “I just want to go home,” I told her.

The girl with half a T-shirt was also in this orange pen.

“Police brutality!” she screamed.

“Police brutality!” Stelline screamed.

Everyone in the crowd was screaming. I hadn’t been arrested, but I would be arrested. I had been afraid, but all of a sudden I was mad, I was furious. This was Union Square. We were around the corner from Whole Foods. I should have the freedom to go there, to use the bathroom. To make a salad at the salad bar. I should have the freedom not to protest, to go home and read about it on the Internet.

“Police brutality!” I chanted along with the others. “Police brutality!”

Stelline was standing next to me. Her hands were scraped and bloody. We were chanting together. I had become part of this movement. I had my fist in the air. The cops weren’t going to protect me, they were going to protect the system, and I would be paying into this system until I died — and I was still young. The police were pulling the philosophy T.A. to the van, dragging him on his back.

“Police brutality!” I screamed, as loud as I could, leaning over the orange net.

The pain came from nowhere.

I was blind, I couldn’t see, and I could hear Stelline screaming in pain. I was also screaming. It was as if someone had poured Tabasco sauce right into my eyes. I fell down on my hands and knees. I could still hear Stelline, but I couldn’t see her, we were no longer holding hands. I had lost her. I thought of my mother. She would be so angry at me. I wanted to apologize to her. Tell her I didn’t want to get arrested. That I had tried to go home. I wanted to tell her I was all right. I would be all right. The pain in my eyes, it was going to stop. I wouldn’t be blind forever.