Chain Gang All Stars

There was a man in a white shirt, a bass drum harnessed to his front, probably in his sixties. He swung a deep hit every third syllable. He was a grand unifier for them all, a battery. One of many. By the time Nile saw him, as they walked toward the school where the Links were waiting, the back of the man’s shirt was translucent with sweat.

The people united will never be defeated.

Twenty-four members of the Coalition to End Neo-Slavery had made the trip. They’d arrived later than they’d wanted, but they were there. They’d come wearing black, as had most people at the protest. They were in the hometown of the Hurricane, just days before Thurwar’s penultimate BattleGround match. They’d long planned to be here to protest, just as they had at Vroom Vroom. They hadn’t planned on being joined by thousands. But the energy of the movement was different now.

Nile felt like a drop in a tidal wave. They were doing something, there was no question. He looked at Mari, who wore a black shirt that read ABOLITION NOW in thick red block letters. She was staring straight ahead at the masses around them, but she didn’t seem to be seeing anything at all.

The people united will never be defeated.

There was space to move but only forward. They filled the road and the roadside with bodies. There was a couple, two women in black dresses, burning sage that smoked up and added a savory warmth to the air, which was electric with purpose. Just the fact of them, this mass of people, was a statement. And yet there was so much more to say. There they all were, on a westbound road to a farmers market of all places. Mari thought of the ridiculousness of the world and the hard beauty of what she was a part of. She didn’t want to be there. She was tired. Or rather she was exhausted by the brutality that was so ubiquitous in American culture. A reporter trailed by a cameraman holding a small rig on his shoulder pushed past the women in black; their bundle of sage fell to the ground. Both women disappeared into the mass to retrieve it, and when they came back up, Mari saw they were both smiling. One grabbed a lighter from a pocket, the other held the herb.

The people united will never be defeated.

A reporter, a woman with a shaved head, approached Mari.

Before she realized it, she had agreed to be interviewed. She cursed herself for doing something so stupid, considering her plan.

“Can you spell your entire name out for me?”

Mari stared at the woman. She decided to herself, Fine.

Marissa Roleenda spelled her name.

The woman smiled at her and asked, “How do you justify calling for the freeing of rapists and murderers?” And wasn’t that what it always came down to? Fear.

The people united will never be defeated.

Mari looked at the woman and took a breath.

“I’m an abolitionist, which means I’m interested in investing in communities to address problems rather than carceral answers that don’t serve communities at all. Murderers and rapists do great harm,” Mari said, “but the carceral institutions in this country do little to mitigate that harm. In fact, they do more harm to individuals and communities. The carceral state depends on a dichotomy between innocent and guilty, or good and bad, so that they can then define harm on their terms, in the name of justice, and administer it on a massive scale to support a capitalistic, violent, and inherently inequitable system.” And though this was what she said, and had said so many times, a part of her even then understood what this reporter was getting at. There were some people who she did not think should be released. Her father had been one of them.

“It seems like you’ve done your homework. But the fact remains that these systems protect communities from violence. Are you saying you aren’t worried about killers and rapists walking free on the streets?” the woman asked, dropping her tone as if they were just now starting to speak about something serious.

“I’m saying that the death penalty has always been an abomination, even before the CAPE program. Prison as it exists is an abomination. Right now, the fact is, people are doing the exact kinds of harm you’re describing. Prisons haven’t deterred the harm they’re meant to deter. They’re a failed experiment.”

“What does that mean? Aren’t there fewer criminals on our streets?”

“I mean that all those issues that you’re talking about are symptoms of our current system. Rampant poverty, a lack of resources for people suffering from addiction and mental health issues—those are difficult problems, but ones that can be addressed. But they aren’t. Because criminalization dehumanizes individuals and implicates them rather than a society that abandons them in times of need.”

“And what about the jobs Chain-Gang All-Stars and the prisons you hate so much create? Have you considered those positive aspects of our carceral system?”

Here Mari smiled weakly, an automatic response to an absurd idea, that this was about employment or that employment might justify these deaths. The woman’s face snapped from a sinister but inviting warmth to a slate of cool anger.

“Is that funny to you?”

What do we want?

“It isn’t.”

Justice!

“There has never been a time when men didn’t prey on women. When the strong didn’t prey on the weak. As an abolitionist, how do you answer to those who fear for their lives, for their children and their families? Would you release people who have victimized others onto the streets?” The woman’s voice shook. “You want them out so they can do it again?”

Mari hadn’t wanted her father released to her, but she wished he’d grown up in a world that had loved him better. She’d feared what her life would be with him in the world but knew that he didn’t deserve what he’d been given. She’d been angry for such a long time about how his decisions had shaped her life, and she was afraid of what her life would have become with him. She had not wanted him released to her, but she had wanted him freed to the world at least. When he’d died, at least a small part of her had felt settled, that a long journey had concluded. Another, louder part felt renewed in her desire to dismantle it all.

The woman looked straight at Mari, and the cameraman peeked out from behind the viewfinder and turned to his coworker with wide eyes.

Mari looked at the woman, who was angry, who was upset, but who was not her enemy.

When do we want it?

Now!

“Do you not have an answer? My sister was— I want to know what you’d tell her if she was still alive.”

Nile watched Mari speaking with the woman as they marched. He got closer so he could hear.

“I’m sorry you lost your sister. I’m sorry she was robbed of a chance to live and I’m sorry you have to suffer that loss.”

“It seems like you’d like to reduce our justice system to a series of ‘I’m sorry’s.”

Mari paused as if trying to find words that hadn’t been invented yet. “We aren’t asking for an erasure. We aren’t trying to forget the pain of victims. For us, abolition is a positive process. It means creating new infrastructure, new ways of thinking about reducing harm. That’s what we’re saying. I’m not saying there isn’t something to be afraid of. We’re saying the thing we fear is already here, so it’s wrong not to try to do better. And I can’t say that any one of us has the perfect answer of what to do, but we might be able to figure something out if we consider it together.”

What do we want?

Justice!

The cameraman recording them took steps backward as the interview followed the flow of the protest.

“And besides that, Chain-Gang has only deepened an already incredible indifference to human suffering. That’s what we’re protesting today.”

“And yet, you don’t have any answers for the actual people who won’t ever get to be who they were again. For the people whose trauma will shape their whole lives,” the reporter said.

“I—”

When do we want it?

Kai stepped forward. “That’s enough, I think.”

Now!

“Maybe,” Mari said, still to the reporter. “But I don’t think so.”

“That’s enough, Mari,” Kai said.

“I’m sorry about your sister,” Mari said. “And I’m sorry for you.” Nile tried to move even closer.

“You’re sorry,” the journalist spat. “But my sister’s still in the ground. So what does your sorry do?”

When do we want it?

Now!

“Let’s go,” Kai said. She put a hand on Mari’s shoulder.