RNC 2008: He Lost The Finger Somewhere Else

Photo By John Hoff, September 4

So here is "Marshall Jim," who I didn't know before RNC 2008 but I kept running into him, including using the exact same strategy of "now I'm a McDonald's customer, really" to escape from the mass arrests...

I asked Jim, "What happened to your HAND?" He told me the cuts were from police arresting him after he was "blindfolded by (his) friends and put in front of a police line."

"Why were you BLINDFOLDED?" I asked. Keep in mind we're having this conversation in a low tone of voice, hoping to sit out the mass arrests and gassing happening a few blocks away to the bulk of the protesters (and journalists!) who DIDN'T manage to bail so successfully.

Jim said the blindfold was to keep pepper spray out of his eyes, and also to present the ultimate form of passivity to the police line. It didn't work, of course. I found some video on YouTube which shows police applying a chemical agent directly to Jim's face, click here.

That'll teach him to try to avoid gas with a TRICKY BLINDFOLD.

I told Jim, "Well, I figured those cuts were from your arrest, but when I asked about your hand..."

"Oh," he said, wriggling his fingers. "You mean the whole four-fingered thing?"

I thought he was going to tell me some far out anarchist story about mixing up explosive chemicals and mistaking one chemical for another, but Jim said he'd been in a car accident when he was only a year old. His mom was driving. Legally, it was her fault but he doesn't blame her, since the intersection in question was a notoriously bad one and, besides, it's not like he can REMEMBER.

Jim's account of how he lost his pinkie when he was only a baby made my chest feel constricted, thinking of my own son. I spoke to Jim in the role of a father, saying his mother must feel terrible about what happened, even if she doesn't talk about it all the time and, really, what was the last time he CALLED her?

Jim shrugged and said he was on his own, but on friendly terms with his mom, really.

I told Jim, "She probably knows you're in this RNC mess, and she's worried about you. You should give her a call."