The Free Speech Movement

		I'm in Berkeley, standing at the corner of San Pablo and Gilman across from the Pic 'n Pac waiting for a bus.  An old guy walks diagonally across Yen's Auto Repair and stands beside me at the stop looking first at me and then, inexplicably, in the direction of the traffic.
	He has long gray hair and rotten intermittent teeth. 




	After a while I ask him if the bus that stops here goes up Solano.
	He shrugs and says, We'll have to see about that, won't we?





	After spell he says he has a problem, which I figure is going to be about money.  I try for a civil, not exactly agreeable, yet not altogether unsympathetic smile.  
	He tells me his name is Jerry so I'm decently obliged to tell him I'm Bill.  We shake on it.
	The problem, Bill, is my father wants to kill me.



	How old is your father?
	87.
	Isn't that too old?
	I can't decide whether to kill the bastard or let him wither away, die on the vine.
	What's the matter with withering?
	He's a multi-millionaire. So far he's made three attempts on my life and it could be forever before he dies on his own.
	It's close but I'll stick with withering.

	The worst thing about him is he hates vegetarians and Buddhists.  He's a fucking materialist, he eats animals and not for one single day in his misbegotten life has he been a vegetarian.

	Was there ever a time you and your father got along? 

	



	Not since the Free Speech Movement anyway.

	The bus pulls in with a whoosh of airbreaks, the door folds open. Do you go up Solano? 	I'm up the stairs and gone; Jerry stays where he is, facing north, keeping watch on the future.