I find it heartening that, at the age of 64, I can still have new experiences.
Earlier today, I lost my Troublemakers cap. Aside from the obvious message, it had a lot of meaning for me. The Troublemakers are a band made up of indigenous people fronted by the great actor Gary Farmer. (If you haven’t seen Powwow Highway, you owe it to yourself to watch it. I actually first saw him perform in a play called Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing, which was also awesome.) I got the cap at a concert the band gave in Toronto. I’m not sure I’ll ever have that opportunity again.
The hat fell off my head when I was justled by some police officers while outside a building. When I bent down to grab it, my eyes started stinging fiercely – I immediately realized that I had been hit with pepper spray. I had to be led – wait, what? Did you think this was the first time I lost a cap? I’ve been losing headgear since I was a baby! I can’t begin to count how many hats, caps and berets I’ve lost over the years! No, being hit with pepper spray – that was the first for me today.
I…may have buried the lede, there.
I had to be led away from the line of police by people I was with because whenever I opened my eyes, they burned like a motherf – they burned a lot. Several attempts at rinsing the pepper spray out of my eyes left the clothes I was wearing a sopping mess, but it did manage to get most of the poison weapon out of my eyes. For several hours after, I would feel an occasional slight burn; I figure it was a stray flake of pepper spray dropping into my eye.
Thinking about what happened afterwards, I considered myself lucky. For one thing, I’m pretty sure I wasn’t sprayed directly in the face, that I was caught in a mist of the stuff (although the more I think about it, the less sure I become). More importantly, I was wearing a mask when I was hit with the pepper spray, so I didn’t breath any in. I can only imagine the excruciating pain I would have been in if any had got into my lungs. Or, given my history of heart problems, it may have triggered something truly horrible.
When cops tell you they use non-lethal means of controlling crowds, they should heed Douglas Adams’ example and label them “mostly non-lethal.” And since I’m peppering this post with cultural references, let me say that The Pukka Orchestra really had 52 Division’s number!
Helluva week it’s been. One hell of a week!