"How many times do I have to tell you, you can't have your signs on public property," he proclaims, gesturing at the numerous, graphically horrific, blender-accident signs resting against trees and wired to a street traffic sign for the neighborhood residents to enjoy.
Glen immediately gets in his face. "Well, how come you can hang political signs on traffic signs," Glen angrily retorts. "We're expressing our right to freedom of speech! What about that sign?" hotheaded Glen proclaims, pointing across the street to a YMCA Construction Parking sign, posted in front of, well, the YMCA parking lot.
Harmon Leon
The Grim Reaper at work.
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"WE DON'T WANT TO BE DISCRIMINATED AGAINST!" soft-spoken Dave suddenly screeches in an angry tone, raising his voice for the first time today. Whoa! The Grim Reaper and I look at each other in disbelief. Glen storms off to get some reinforcements. Minutes later he returns with a stack of legal papers from the Life Legal Defense Foundation and presents them to the officer.
"What are you showing me here?" asks the annoying officer, shaking his head as Glen points to various sections. "This says nothing about having the right to post your signs on public property."
I try to help out the cause by bellowing "GOD BLESS AMERICA, LAND THAT I LOVE!"
Dave advises me to save my singing for later, and the police officer sternly lays down the law: "You can have your signs, but you have to carry them, do you understand?"
"Can you hold this sign?" Glen sharply requests, handing me a large sign with a very disturbing and graphic color image on it. The words on the sign read, "The 8th Week!"
I find myself manning a street corner next to the guy who's dressed like the Grim Reaper. Inside the costume, he seems to be talking to himself. Two Planned Parenthood workers motion toward me and start animatedly whispering.For their benefit, I throw in some loud, screaming chants with the spirit of a 49ers fan:
"2, 4, 6, 8.
"WHO DO WE APPRECIATE?
JESUS! JESUS! YAH, STOP ABORTION!"
Cars drive by, their occupants doing double-takes at my sign. The people driving by continue to flip us off and shout disapproval.
"Kids can see that, you know," screams an angry bicyclist.
"Well, what about all the kids who can't see it?" I retort, using abortion protestor logic.
Children are being picked up from the YMCA, and they look highly disturbed. I add a big, hearty smile and wave to my sales pitch, enthusiastically lifting my horrific sign up high, gesturing to cars as if beckoning them to a junior high school car wash.
"Can you move your sign?" screams a woman with a teenage daughter in an SUV trying to depart Planned Parenthood.
"Hey! Free speech!" I yell and burst into another chorus of God Bless America.
"You're blocking the view of the traffic," Dave explains, motioning me out of the way.
As I shout, "Can I give you some literature?" at another car, I start to have the uneasy feeling that I'm going to suddenly get a lead pipe to the back of the head, either from being discovered as an abortion-protesting imposter, or from an angry boyfriend with a newly traumatized girlfriend.
Glen invites me down for next weekend's protests.
"I usually get down here at 7 a.m.," he says.
"Oh, yeah? Well, I'll be down here at 6:30 a.m.," I say, topping him on fanaticism. Getting ready to leave, I grab my jar with the baby doll floating in water. The jar accidentally slips between my fingers and falls to the ground. It smashes. My eyes well up with tears as I look at Glen.
