Angry citizens flooded Asbury Park by the hundreds, swarming the long wall veiled in black tarps and roped off by construction workers; the mayor was in hiding. A wrecking ball hung frozen against cold winds battering us beneath gray skies. Police kept nervous watch behind a roped-off perimeter; safe because we left them alone, because we had principles that meant something. They knew their authority relied on our respect of it, and that made them uneasy – scared – and gave us the power.

We weren't as young as they expected, not the punks and graffiti artists that had “overstepped the bounds of responsibility and privilege.” An older woman with gray hair to her elbows and a whistle around her neck was jabbing a “Speech is Free!” poster towards gray sky, trying to conduct the crowd’s protests to the same beat. She raised her voice above the rest, leading the chorus. When the crane started moving, she pardoned herself for pushing past me, elbowing for room alongside the others. To keep from being shoved farther back, I trailed her into the thick of the mass. It was hard imagining the same crowd a month ago, celebrating the mayor’s unveiling of our wall. Today his name was cursed while he hid, afraid to admit that free speech was nothing more than campaign fodder. Men wet from the cold rain running down their pale faces stood waiting for orders. From afar they were stoic, resilient, but I followed the woman ‘til I saw their eyes: not glazed with confidence but pointed with paranoia; their jaws not resolute but clenched; their bodies standing not at attention but out of our mercy.

I’d written on the wall before. A little girl drew a farmhouse next to me, and I lifted her high to draw the sun in yellow crayon while deciding what my mark would be. I went for simplicity, a famous line by Winston Churchill: Never give up, scrawled in bright blue beside the smiling sun. A few days later it had run off with the rain. A freshly-white wall stood ready and waiting.

This, the mayor must have hoped, would be the extent of our expression. But of course it wasn’t - not among a people so varied and opinionated, not with a chance to broadcast their voice from the top of the hill at the center of the city. Children’s art was quickly replaced by public complaints and criticisms, and soon after statements ranging from anti-establishment to Karl Marx’s famous quote. Religion is the opiate of the masses. No rain fell, but the next day the wall was white.

After the city’s morning commute was welcomed with So this is free speech? in bold red letters, black tarps veiled the protest. From behind closed doors, the mayor ordered his failed publicity stunt demolished.

This is where we stood when the ball started moving: mothers, martyrs, vagrants, Christians, hippies and hipsters, burn-outs and barn-burners, businessmen, crank-heads, college students with a jones for protest and their antiquated incarnations knowing the battle wouldn’t be won. We were all gasping for a new day, watching the same black sun rise. From somewhere came the order to start. The crane engine started and two officers un-clipped the tarps from their anchors, whipping them back from the wall. Spray-painted in red, a requiem for idealistic freedom; a last request.

Silence

Only a single whistle and the crane carried on.

---

Jonathan Crowl has written for a number of publications including The Daily Nebraskan, New York Newsday and ESPN the Magazine. This is his first published work of fiction. He lives in Portland, Oregon.