Prologue - Berkeley, California, 1969
I am marching down Telegraph Avenue, a tall figure surrounded by hundreds of other demonstrators. I am wearing rose-colored granny glasses, and winter breezes blowing in from San Francisco Bay dishevel my long, wavy hair. My eyes burn from the tear gas that penetrates the campus’s entire southern section. I tie a wet handkerchief over my mouth and nostrils to stop it from ravaging my throat.
Policemen openly brandish shotguns, firing pellets and birdshot into the crowd. I hear a window shattering at the Bank of America ten yards away, between Bancroft and Durant Streets. I glance at the woman next to me, who has blood streaming down her face from airborne fragments of glass. “Keep going!” she shouts.
As I continue down Telegraph, a California Highway Patrol officer stationed along the perimeter shouts out my name: “Candy, what in the hell do you think you’re doing? You need to get out of this mess!”
It is my cousin Bill Loveless, the son of my father’s sister. He has been mobilized from Fremont, California. I remember when he and his wife bought their tract house in that suburban neighborhood thirty-two miles away. Now here he is, confronting me on my college turf.
“Leave me alone, Bill. You don’t understand what’s going on,” I say.
“That’s it,” Bill says, consternation in his voice. “I’m calling your dad.”