This is Champagne Song, one of the Prairieland defendants. Please visit prairielanddefendants.com. This is part two of “The Runners.”
Guards follow, chasing, shouting. Three guards run up to the inside of the fence. Spaced out, they start slamming heavy white sandbags tied off on one end into the fence. The fence bulges out at the runner as she flies past, and then guards are chasing her on the inside and the outside. Before I know what’s happening, they’re gone. As if on cue, a herd of 20 to 30 runners wearing the same runner’s clothing stampede along the fence. Their bodies and faces paint a Monet of blurred colors and shapes and sizes. Big smiles bounce above their cloud of dust.
As they pass by, they throw flyers and pamphlets and stickers and newspapers through the fence. First in ones and twos and threes, and then someone turns over a shallow block milk crate, and a flurry of papers cascade out in waterfalls. I recognize a few of the runners’ faces as they pass. It is so glorious. I whoop and holler and shout, although my throat is hoarse and dry. The tall runner from before runs back to take a triumphant lap and rejoin the herd, and then the whole group is gone. Flyers and pamphlets and stickers and newspapers cover the ground in reds and yellows and greens, with smiling faces and titles and flowery, bubbly fonts so deep that you can’t see the dust.
That was part two of “The Runners.” This is Champagne Song sentenced to 100 years for anti-fascism.
These commentaries are recorded by Prison Radio.
