And so when the few of us began our attempt to climb from Michigan to our car at Franklin St., it was 8:40 p.m. When, with hands in the air to show the Chicago Police we had no weapons, we left in single file, it was about 11:30 p.m. I have never been so close to being accosted by, let alone arrested by, a policemen. I leave it to the taller people to tell how the mass arrests began and continued, because my body was pressed too tightly by the police-fenced crowd for me to jump up and see. But I know how the march itself began, and how it ended.

The events yesterday began with a subdued rally and an uninspired march. "Peace Now" was the predominant chant, and I think the 12 of us who managed to stick together didn't feel as though this action was going to be any different than the ones we've previously participated in.

At some point, the evening turned sublime. Taking over Lakeshore Drive, we waded through hundreds of cars and several medians. The drive from Federal Plaza to Navy Pier was a blur, but the course from Navy Pier back into Chicago was a differentiated circus. If I can say I've ever tasted the unexpected, then I tasted it then. CTA bus drivers gave beat to our chants by honking their horns, shoppers and business people returning from work rolled down their windows and even got out of their cars to swing at us relics of the Vietnam era - finger peace signs and car banging noise - and somehow a sentiment that has seemed fringe appeared to be overwhelmingly widespread. 

Our march was not an assault on Lakeshore's traffic (we halted the movement so long that most people turned off their cars and settled into cell phone conversations, with some turning the mouthpiece to the crowd as if in testament to the unbelievable). Instead, it almost seemed like trick-or-treating. Our crowd of thousands interacted with "the public," which was not the distant mass that usually peers at rallies from the periphery. No, the bystanders became collaborators who hailed us with some strange jubilee. Our crowd of thousands swelled at every cross street as bystanders joined the march. Soon, the monotonous but clear chant "Peace Now" gave way to the scoffed-at, smirked-at chanting we are usually too self-effacing to pursue: Who's streets? Our streets. Tell us what democracy looks like - this is what democracy looks like. And even the tongue twister I could never before master -ain't no power like the power of the people because the power of the people don't stop. 

That we could sincerely raise hoarse voices with these words is amazing to me. That Jake Werner answered "this is what democracy looks like" to the question that was unrelentingly posed is stunning. When I saw an anarchy flag being raised at a streetlight to applause, I laughed. It was absurd. It was theatre-like. But "the world is watching" was a chant in our sea that I actually believed for a few minutes.

By 8:40, energy was diffusing. Roadblocked by several hundred police, our crowd had been divided several times. The gas masks of the Chicago police hinted at tear gas, and as a 20-year-old rich kid from the suburbs, I couldn't differentiate between the incense wafting through the crowd and the smell of teargas that I've never come close to encountering. Hysteria coupled with a sense of disempowerment turned the crowd back from Michigan Avenue. Spent from our bizarre encounter with agency, many people left.

So a few more than a thousand remained to see how the night would end. I wanted to be part of the thousand, but I had tickets to the Godspeed You Black Emperor show that had already begun. With reluctance, I followed my friends to what I thought was the protest’s exit.

We were turned away from one side of the crowd by a wall of police in riot gear. At the other side, we were turned away again. In swift minutes, my limited view took in a full-on square of police. We were blocked in, with no way out.

As white buses identified only by the word "sheriff" arrived in a disciplined succession, and policemen bandied about bunches of plastic hand restraints, it became clear to us that our arrest was imminent. With a black sharpie, we scribbled our cell phone numbers onto each others’ arms. We formulated and reformulated plans in anticipation of our separation. We called roommates, but not parents. When a tuna sandwich was passed around, vegetarians took bites at it because they feared it would be the last food for a while.  

I was frenzied but I still did not believe what was happening. How can people be arrested for trespassing when they are begging to leave? That is my remnant of naiveté. Only two human rows in front of us, protestors were being divided by gender and sent, in white plastic wristbands, to even whiter buses. So we pushed back. Our plan: get to the back of the crowd. Maybe they'll grow sick of arresting us. Exhausted, I sat on the muddy sidewalk. Dozens of us were dropping -- either onto the floor like myself, or onto the floor in civil disobedience, or onto the seats of buses that were going, the rumor was, to a location far outside the city. One of my fellow NU students clad in a purple Northwestern sweatshirt turned squeamish and parted from us. Another became paralyzed with fear because as a foreign student, she could only ponder whether or not this arrest would end her academic career. We were all alighted with some buzz. Joking about missing our Godspeed show, singing Disney songs, paraphrasing West Side Story, the genders joined hands and rehearsed the plan: we’ll meet up afterwards, will call each other, we’ll make sure everyone gets home all right.

The question was never whether or not we’d get home. We were permitted to leave but not to wait for our friends, and we’ll never know why some of the protestors were arrested but we weren’t.

We knew that as mostly privileged university kids with clean records, we’d have been “all right” even if we hadn’t gotten out. The frenzy was from the unexpected. The fear was from the unforeseen. We never expected to takeover Lakeshore Drive among the drizzle, or dream up plans for escaping arrest. Shocked and awed by our own experience, we giggled at listening to Johnny Cash on the car stereo only half an hour after our slow descent. Heading to the Pick Me Up café, we teased about being terrified. Then we ate, and went home. Several rounds of drop-offs: Goodbyes for sleeping, sleeping for dreaming. Nothing more to do.