my favourite moments of the May Day march

Written by Cathoel Jorss, published 10 years ago

The people dancing on bus stop rooves.

The leggy punk marching in ugg boots.

The giant skinhead I followed for several blocks who had a gentle face, was six foot eight or nine, and had a dolphin tattoo round the back of his skull.

The raddled Australian surfer turning steaks on his roadside barbecue and serving, in Strine, with ginger hair falling all over his face. Hours later I saw him propping up the corner of a pub, huge beer in his hand, giant smile on his face; he toasted us wildly, no splashing.

The fact that 25,000 people marched and the roar from the crowd that went up when this was announced.

The fast pace! Australian marches are often rather leisurely. At March in March last year we spent much of the route actually dancing. This was like 12,000 people running for a bus, for miles: actually three hours. A kind of political marathon.

The old dude, late into his seventies, who had modified a bicycle trailer with boombox speakers and was blaring the deepest, darkest old school hip hop for everybody’s edification.

The young guy who having accidentally kicked over a bottle someone had left standing in the street scooped up all the broken pieces and carried them to the side of the road to stash neatly under an overflowing bin.

The fact that people were marching with beers in their hands but there was very little broken glass.

The line of police officers blackened and bulky in head to toe riot gear, boots tapping to the music as they stood otherwise impassive with arms folded.

The smart punk who was combining politics with business by dragging a very narrow steel apparatus on wheels, strung with four large stripey airport bags, into which he harvested other people’s discarded bottles, choosing those with the highest deposit.

The stupid punk sitting in the middle of the road with his mates who refused to get up when an ambulance came sweeping towards him, and the ambulance driver who simply sped round him without bothering to swerve.

The pink blossoms fallen like tissues all along the centre strip of Kottbusserdam.

The blue, blue sky and the green, green trees and the river of black in between.

The people watching and waving from their windows along the route.

The bumper stickers people seemed to have clapped onto parked cars as they marched by, or which perhaps drove in on them, like: Sure. You can be a Nazi. It just makes you really crapola.

The hand painted sign two well-dressed women were carrying which said Out of the way, capitalism, the next decisions will be made by all of us.

The City rubbish collectors clad in hi-vis orange who were dancing as they swept up, dragging a wheeled trash can.

The piles of rubbish people had built after the bins were filled, in planter pots and around the bases of trees.

The intense conversations later that night sitting outside our friend’s photography studio and the various people who kept trying to come in because in Kreuzberg, a wide-open living room resembles a bar.

The songs that kept dragging me at a run back down to the milling square just when I got settled, for more dancing.

The raised cobbled square at the end of the march were everybody was dancing to a really good DJ. The silent disco that transpired when it came time to switch the music off and the DJ started handing out headphones for a 20 quid deposit.

The moon that came up as the sun finally went down.

The headphones, and the song whose name I didn’t know that pierced my waters as I skated under the fizzing trees in silence.

The dancing.