Questions

I slept atop a pile of pillows in Patty's apartment, in the exact spot where Ibeth's bed would have been a few weeks ago. This was the last night of my road trip, which had seen me sleep in a UCSD van, the Doubletree hotel in Berkeley, the Goldman School of Public Policy, the UC Berkeley Foothill student housing, Ben's apartment in the Castro, Jesse's apartment in Westwood, and now, finally, these pillows.

I walked to class armored with a heavy backpack, a gym bag full of clothes, and Ron Currie Jr's God is Dead, a funny dystopian novel I picked up at the UCLA store.

As I was crossing the street that separates the dorms from the rest of campus, I came across the AFSCME 3299 service workers, which were holding up their picket signs and trying to hide from the scorching morning sun. Like all my other recent decisions, I didn't think about it much, letting out a scream:

"Que vivan los trabajadores!!!"

A few of them cheered and smiled. At this point, I noticed that Currie's prose had taken me away from my fellow pedestrians, a group of young gymnasts. One of them sought to break that disconnect.

"What does that mean?", she asked.

I missed her at first glance. She was miniscule, must not have reached 10-years-old yet. I smiled at her with a sense of journalistic pride.

"They are the ones that clean up the school, and they don't pay them enough." Again, I had let the words come out without thinking much, or scoping the surroundings for parents who don't appreciate strangers politicizing with their children. In this case, it was a protective gymnastics camp counselor.

"Don't bother the nice man, (inaudible name)." I threw her a dirty look as she hugged the inquiring young girl away. Currie got my attention back rather quickly as I I kept walking down the hill that leads to the middle of campus.

I hope that young girl always asks questions.