what do you want? "Give the pedestrians guns!" cries the soldier in the army jeep. Trucks pull up filled with automatic rifles. A band of soldiers hands them out to everyone in the street. Immediately a large crowd of marchers appears over the hill. The marchers carry baseball bats and stones and are very angry. Their sleeves are rolled up and they look like they want to tear the place apart. They see rifles raised in their direction and they pull up short, forming a solid line. Thousands more keep crowding in behind, forcing the front line forward. Suddenly there is a wrenching cry as they begin to charge against the rifles. The guns stiffen. Some of the pedestrians kneel in the street to take aim. Women are pushed back, out of the line of fire. Snipers from special police units position themselves at windows and on rooftops. Helicopters hover at close range, playing searchlights over the crowd. Both sides hesitate at the last minute as they eye each other fearfully from a distance of a hundred yards. The soldier, who was about to order his militia to open fire, checks himself. One of the pedestrians has not lifted his rifle. Now he speaks clearly. "What do they want?" The men look at each other in confusion. One yells to the other side, "What do you want?" An angry murmur runs through the crowd of marchers. "Take back your helicopters." The man looks at the soldier and tells him, "Call off the helicopters." The soldier puts on a radio headset and talks nervously into it, inaudible to anyone there. "They're not going along with it. They want the helicopters pulled back."
	location: San Francisco date: 1987 average rating: 5.00 (1 vote) your rating (0-10):