Anthem of a Reluctant Prophet by Joanne Proulx

Author:Joanne Proulx
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Soho Press
Published: 2008-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

But the day my mom floated into my room, she was anything but miserable. She was practically bouncing as she started blabbing about the peace rally she’d been to in Rolland, how she’d marched down Aberdeen Street with the rest of Lake Erie’s friends. There’d been hordes of people, she guessed well over five thousand, which she thought was impressive for a town the size of Rolland. And what a cross section! When she was in range, she’d punctuate the important bits of information with a squeeze to my shoulder. Students from the arts college, old people, veterans, politicians, businessmen, professors, housewives—you name it, they were there. She’d heard that around the globe there’d been millions, tens of millions, demonstrating! Squeeze. She was feeling optimistic about the possibility of the war being quashed by a global voice, and wouldn’t that be something! Squeeze. Yes, she was definitely full of hope.

“Sounds like a regular Caravan of Love,” I said, referencing an old Housemartins song my mom had played pretty much nonstop since I was a kid. It was a good, happy tune about brotherly love and living in a world of peace and whatnot, and I pretended to hate it just to bug her.

“Yes, it was. It was a caravan of love. You should have come.” She grinned as she plucked her coat from the bed and Tinkerbelled it out the door, saying she wanted to watch the news to see what was happening elsewhere and oh, by the way, Ms. Banks says hi and wants to know how the shirts are coming along.

“The shirts?” I swiveled round in my chair and took a good look at my flushed-faced mother in the doorway. Her short blonde hair was tucked behind her ears and her blue eyes were aglow with a higher purpose and seriously, even though she was something like thirty-eight or thirty-nine, she looked like a kid right then.

“Yes. The shirts, the shirts. For the One Drum festival. It’s in April, you know. You haven’t forgotten about it, have you?”

I reassured her I was totally on it, but when I didn’t turn back to my computer right away, she waved impatiently at me. “Get to work. Get to work,” she said before flitting away. But seriously, I didn’t feel like starting on the Let’s Save Luke project she and Ms. Banks had concocted for me, so I waited a few minutes then headed downstairs and flopped onto the couch beside my mom.

“So, are you a star or what?” I asked.

“The local news isn’t on yet. I’m watching CNN. They just showed London. The rally is already over there, but it looked huge.” Her eyes never left the screen. She had the remote cocked, ready to fire.

The protest in New York was on at the moment, but let me tell you, it didn’t look like a love train chugging through the Big Apple. Instead, the crowd, pressing up against metal barriers and jostling with cops in riot gear, was a whole

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