Days before the Woodstock music festival is set to begin, Elizabeth Reed faces a bigger problem than whether to run away with her boyfriend to an unknown future in New York state. U.S. Marshals begin to forcibly remove squatters from a spot on the Delaware River the government has claimed for a dam, a spot very near Elizabeth’s home, which has also been scheduled for flooding.
Working as a stringer for the local newspaper, Elizabeth agrees to photograph the assault. Despite her fears—her parents face eviction and the confiscation of their land—and her discomfort around a far-too-forward reporter, she accompanies him to cover the eviction. Confronted by a wall of armed marshals, her fantasy of making it to Woodstock looks wishful at best.
This chapter, which occurs near the end of the book, marks a turning point for Elizabeth, as well as the country.
Although Born Under a Bad Sign is a novel, it is based on events I witnessed as a journalist. Note the eviction and possible internment of the squatters by the marshals. It raises a question may struggle with today: Have we learned anything from that decade of peace and love?
33.
STEPHEN DUFFY PULLED the car onto the shoulder near the roadblock where the U.S. Marshals had established as base camp and patted Elizabeth’s knee. His fingers were plump and pale, with dark red hair that looked as if it had been sewn between the knuckles. She brushed away the hand and produced what she hoped was a stern look, one that seemed lost on him, since he was staring through the windshield.
“Don’t be intimidated by the guns,” he said and gave her knee another tap. “They almost never shoot photographers.”
She followed his gaze. There were at least a dozen state police officers and five times as many marshals, the latter dressed in battle gear—blue jumpsuits with pistols strapped to their waists, gasmasks hanging from their belts, shotguns at the ready. As she and Stephen stepped from the car, heads turned. No one looked happy to see them.
Elizabeth felt excited and nervous. She’d been up half the night, worrying about the raid on the river people as the locals called the squatters. Yet Stephen had forbidden her from contacting them. Given the complete lack of information, she’d prepared as best she could, dressing in work boots and shirt over military fatigues she’d purchased at the army navy store. Her father’s fishing vest provided enough pockets for lenses, film, and a notebook for jotting the names of the people she photographed—“collecting IDs,” as Stephen had described the process. She’d strung both Nikons over her neck, one in front, the other on the side, fresh batteries in the motor drives. With no camera bag to intrude, she could move quickly.
Stepping from the car, she felt she might have to. The marshals formed a wall in front of the roadblock. They were backed not only by the state police but a half-dozen construction workers, probably the same ones who had crushed the buildings in the village. They stood beside their backhoes and bulldozers and drank from Styrofoam cups that steamed in the predawn air. It had rained overnight and now, at a quarter to six—an ungodly hour for them but late for Elizabeth—the mist hung in the trees like tent caterpillars, the marshals hovering above the roadway like ghosts.
Behind her, doors slammed, and a half-dozen cars disgorged the competition, readily identifiable by their clutter of notebooks, tape recorders, cameras, and lights. Fedoras with press cards attached would have made for a better photo.
Stephen approached the roadblock. “Do what they say, but don’t let them push you around. Be aggressive. You’ve got as much right to be here as they do.”
Elizabeth thumbed the film advance lever until she thought it would snap. “In case you hadn’t noticed, I am the very opposite of aggressive.”
“Then stay back. Use a long lens. Duck if you hear gunfire.”
She felt a chill unrelated to the temperature of the air, which had to be over sixty by now. “Thanks for the warning.”
“Go for emotion—weeping mothers, crying babies, any sign of violence against the squatters. Treat them like they’re the Israelites fleeing Egypt, with pharaoh and his chariots hot on their trail.”
He didn’t wait for a reply but moved steadily toward the front line.
Elizabeth hurried to catch up. “I guess the photo essay didn’t do any good.”
Her photo spread of the valley’s destruction had hit the newsstands days ago and she hadn’t heard a reaction from anyone.
“Our Harrisburg bureau chief walked a copy to the governor’s office. You should be proud.”
“It didn’t stop this.”
“One small hole in the dam,” he said. “Keep poking away.”
“I thought that was ‘plugging away?’”
“Only if you’re a little Dutch boy with a lot of digits.”
“You have the strangest sense of humor.”
He gave her the full-bearded smile. “You’ll get used to it.”
Journalists flanked their sides, the group moving toward the barricade in a wave.
“Why are there so many reporters here?” she asked.
“We’ve got friends in high places.”
“The attorney general called you personally?”
“He’s running for governor on a law-and-order platform and wants a head start. That’s him over there, the short guy with the salt-and-pepper hair and beard. Make sure you get him in a shot.”
Elizabeth spotted a man wearing a navy windbreaker with US MARSHALS imprinted on the back. He said something to one of the state troopers and laughed.
She felt appalled. “This isn’t theater. People’s lives are at stake.”
“Politics as usual. You’ll get used to it.”
She thought she wouldn’t but didn’t have time to speak, because the marshals moved out, walking River Road until they reached the dirt lane that led toward the river and the squatters’ camp. The reporters tried to follow but were stopped by the state police.
“Let ’em through!” the man in the windbreaker shouted and led the way.
Stephen trotted next to him, talking and writing as he plowed through the undergrowth. Elizabeth grabbed a shot of the pair. Then, hoping to stay ahead of the marshals, she slipped through the woods, climbing over stone rows and broken patches of barbed wire to emerge in the field where she’d first spotted the camp. She was in position when the invading army arrived. They were methodical, breaking into teams of two, banging on doors, checking every house, barn, outbuilding, lean-to, wigwam, and tent. The message was always the same: the inhabitants had thirty minutes to evacuate.
The river people poured into the field, shirtless men and barefoot women cradling babies and half-naked children running like refugees from a village in Vietnam, frightened, crying, fleeing the occupying force. Not everyone gave up their homes. One man shouted down the marshals from a rooftop. Another climbed a tree and refused to leave. A third held a baby aloft, as a shield or sacrifice, Elizabeth couldn’t tell.
She photographed everything that moved, took a knee to reload, and kept firing. When she got closer, she gathered the names, ages, and addresses of the places where the river people had lived, always expressing her sorrow at the evictions. Despite Stephen’s warning, she asked permission to take their pictures, shooting portraiture in the middle of the skirmish, marveling at the beauty and strength of their faces. If the marshals waved her off, she rounded the buildings and approached from a different angle, silhouetting the law as it marched the squatters toward the road. The exodus was almost Biblical.
When the heavy equipment arrived, Elizabeth retreated, using a longer lens to document the destruction as the bulldozers demolished houses and barns, scraping into heaps the tents, mattresses, bicycles, and belongings left behind. The sound was pitiless, dogging her as she moved from house to house in an attempt to stay a step ahead.
The thought of all those homeless people made her stomach turn. Were they under arrest? Would the marshals separate the adults from their children? Where were they being taken? Where would they live? And when the law was done with the camp, would it come for her family, and anyone else who stood in the way of the dam?
