I.

I've met socialists in the wild only once in my life, circa 1998, when I was just twenty years old visiting my once high school sweetheart at Brown University. We were trying the long distance thing, which was doomed from the start. At the time I resided in Miami, where every third woman is drop-dead gorgeous, and every fifth woman is willing to sleep with you. But my sweetheart, surrounded by liberal arts majors with far more direction than me, had similar enticements. I was certain that at least two among thousands of these featherweights on campus were sticking it to her on a regular basis.

As my sweetheart attended class, I was hanging out at Brown's main college green watching a Kosovo War protest. I had zero interest in the event but took a liking to a hot female protester who had but one imperfection – body hair pride! No matter. I thought, how do I get this chick to look in my direction?

A bullhorn lay in the grass and no one seemed to be its owner. Then an idea came to me. Yes, this will get her attention!

I reached for the bullhorn, pressed the button, and yelled, “FUCK THE EVIL EMPIRE! FUCK THE EVIL EMPIRE!”

I said it again, several times more.

“FUCK THE EVIL EMPIRE!”

Like magic, four, then six, then twelve, and finally, seventy protestors followed suit: “FUCK THE EVIL EMPIRE!”

At last, I caught hairy armpits girl’s attention. She looked over in my direction and smiled a big, bright, beautiful smile. I smiled back and winked at her in that effortless, manly way so few men have command of. It was working!

A voice from the crowd yelled, “Keep going, maaaaan!”

I then chanted, “MOTHERFUCK THE EVIL EMPIRE!”

The crowd: “MOTHERFUCK THE EVIL EMPIRE!”

I felt the crowd’s enthusiasm wane then felt compelled to change it up: “WE WILL NOT BE SILENCED!”

The crowd: “WE WILL NOT BE SILENCED!”

I began to panic. What else do people say at protests? Think, man, think! Wait, I got it!

“THEY WILL NOT REPLACE US!”

Then seventy voices dwindled to twelve, and then six, and then four, and finally there were groans. No, no, no! This can’t be happening. The blood rushed to my head and I started feeling faint. Was I having a spell?

“Hey, asshole!”

A shrill voice cut through the air and seemed to impale me from earhole to earhole. I turned around. To my horror stood before me a bald, gaunt, bespectacled and besandaled man with a beard hanging down to his sternum.

He said, “That’s my megaphone, you fucking asshole!”

“Megaphone?!”

It was the first time I’d ever heard someone call it that.

“Yeah! It’s my mine, you fucking piece of shit!”

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” I said.

As I handed him the bullhorn, he spat in my face and said “You’re fucking piece of shit!”

Did this dirty hippie just spit in my face?! He turned his back to me and proceeded to walk away. I then grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, threw him to the ground and began smashing his face into the grass, about seven or eight times, I can’t remember exactly, it was excessive is all.

Three or four guys pulled me off him. A gaggle of young women, including the hot one with hairy pits, all hissed at me.

One of them said, “No one likes you!”

Another, “We’re not gonna call the campus cops on you cuz we’re not snitches. But you should leave!”

And then another, “You’re not cool, man!”

And finally, the deathblow from sweet hairy pits, “You think you’re hot shit but you’re so not, you violent pig!”

I sat at a bench psychically wounded. I would have traded a brutal shit kicking for this cruel shunning. When my sweetheart got out of class she told me she’d heard about my the incident.

I said, “I’m so sorry. I’m sorry if I embarrassed you.”

“You’re going to have to leave,” she said. “You can’t stay in my room.”

“But my flight isn’t till two days from now!”

“I don’t care. I don’t ever want to see you again.”

Just two days before, she and I were gallivanting around Boston, hopping from one record store to another, kissing and hugging and taking photos and laughing and doing all the requisite things couples do when they’re pretending to be in madly love. And just one night before my regrettable incident, we made love to Mazzy Star, a band she really liked. I think I liked it too, but wasn’t entirely sure.

II.

I hung around the cafeteria, which was about to close. Two young men approached me and offered me a soda. How a nice, I thought, a kind gesture. They introduced themselves as Sandip and Bhashkar. Sandip had a kind, round face. Bhashkar on the other hand had a gaunt, permanent scowl but was kind in deed.

The two were carrying copies of a newspaper called The Socialist Worker. They asked me if I was interested in joining their weekly study group. I told them, “That’s very, kind of you, thank you, but I don’t go to school here. I live in Miami and I’m leaving in two days...”

Bhashkar insisted that I join them the following day.

Sandip asked me what my politics were. I said, “I don’t follow politics. I really don’t care, man…”

Bhashkar interjected, “You may not follow politics, but politics will follow you.”

“Now you got my attention,” I said.

Sandip said “Tomorrow, we’ll be discussing Antonio Gramsci and Rosa Luxemburg.”

I was embarrassed to admit that I had no idea who these people were. Bhashkar explained that Gramsci was a brilliant philosopher who died of a cerebral hemorrhage in prison lying in his own piss and shit.

“Jesus Christ!” I said. “What happened to Luxemburg?”

“She was beaten and tortured and thrown in a lake,” said Bhashkar.

“Who would do such a thing?” I asked.

“Proto nazis,” said Sandip.

“Proto nazis?!”