FILL THE PEWS

The Antifada

On a crisp October morning, Millard Dripple walked the Harvard quad, backpack jammed with books and laptop, headed for his nine o’clock class in Langdell. Millard’s father was a lawyer. His grandfather had been a lawyer. Both Harvard grads. As Millard approached Holmes Field his way was blocked by hundreds of masked, keffiyeh-wearing men, women and quagles, fists raised, some with bullhorns, shouting FREE PALESTINE! FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA! A contingent of queers for Palestine, faces masked, shouted HEY HEY HO HO! MURDEROUS PEWS HAVE GOT TO GO!

CNN, CBS, MSNBC roamed the perimeter with cameras, keffiyeh-clad reporters speaking to masked activists.

Millard tried working his way around the edge, but his lack of mask and the presence of books marked him as uncommitted. A keffiyeh wearing young man got in his face. “ARE YOU A PEW?”

“I am a Pew.”

The young man shoved him hard. Millard staggered back. “NO PEWS ALLOWED! GET OUT! RETURN TO YOUR THREE MILLION DOLLAR MANSION AND REFLECT ON ON THE GENOCIDE YOU HAVE CAUSED!”

Millard turned around. A tin can bounced off the back of his head. There was no point in fighting his way to the classroom. His instructor, an effete young man from an Asian country, would be on the lines. This was the third time this year the Antifada had taken over the campus. The heckler’s veto. So what if their parents paid sixty thousand dollars for Chad or Jessica to learn computer science. Some things were more important than an education. Millard paused in the street to look for campus police. Cambridge police. Anyone. The cops were on their heels since the plague. They hadn’t fired anyone. Nor had they hired anyone. The population grew, the force remained stagnant. Police were understandably reluctant to get involved.

A federal judge had forbade ICE to search the campus for undocumented dreamers. A federal judge had knocked down a circuit court’s ruling against wearing facial coverings while demonstrating. Federal judges hid rapists. Federal judges hid murderers. The only people Federal judges didn’t protect were citizens protesting Federal judges.

Millard returned to the first floor apartment he shared with his best friend D’artagnan. D’artagnan was from Louisiana. D’artagnan was studying law. D’artagnan played the trumpet.

“I’m a realist,” D’artagnan had said. “For it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a jazz musician to become a millionaire. And I intend to become a millionaire.”

D’artagnan was asleep when Millard got home. Millard shook his shoulder. D’artagnan rolled over. “Who? What?”

“Get up. The Antifada has taken over the campus. No class today.”

“If there’s no class, why did you wake me?”

“I have a plan to get rid of the Antifada. I need your help.”

“Coffee.”

They sat on the deck on Erie Street. The house was an ancient three-decker with students on the first and second floor, and the owner on the third. They looked at the street, parked up and down with beaters. D’artagnan set down his cup. “Spill.”

“We order two hundred red shirts. Large. Maybe XXL. We print FILL THE PEWS in big block letters in white on the front. We hand them out at the next demonstration. The networks will be there. They’ll show it to the world.”

D’artagnan looked at him with a quizzical smile. “‘FILL THE PEWS?’ Isn’t that a little heavy-handed?”

“Let’s cut through the bullshit. That’s what the demonstrations mean. That’s what they all mean. They say stop the holocaust on the poor Palestinians. They say they only want world peace. But what they really want is to fill the pews. Now we gotta find a company willing to print those shirts.”

“I know a company,” D’artagnan said. “They’re in Florida.They’re Russian so they don’t give a shit.”

“I’ll need you to film it with your drone. The networks will refuse to run this footage. Once we post it on Youtube, Tik-Tok and other platforms, it will spread like wildfire. The networks will be forced to respond. Perhaps then Harvard will come to their senses.”

D’artagnan put his palms together and closed his eyes. “Inshallah.”

Antifada announced the next demonstration for Sukkot, also known as the Feast of Tabernacles or Feast of Booths, a Torah-commanded Jewish holiday. Not that any of the invisible Jewish student organizations would dare to observe this holy day.

Millard ordered expedited shipping and had the shirts in a week. Their third roommate was a Sikh. Manraj Singh. He was pursuing a bachelor in science in aerospace engineering at MIT. Last year, Antifada had held numerous demonstrations preventing him from attending class. This year, the university had cracked down. Manraj was happy to hand out shirts.

Millard and Manraj arrived on campus at eight, an hour early, and set up a booth. A sign said, “SUPPORT SELF-DETERMINATION.” Millard wore a mask, a keffiyeh, and a FREE PALESTINE hat pulled low on his forehead. D’artagnan lurked on top of the Harvard Coop across Mass. Ave, waiting to launch the drone. Here they came! By bike, foot, bus, and Uber! Dozens, then hundreds of starry-eyed dreamers, foreign and domestic, yearning for a better world! A world without Pews! Manraj couldn’t hand those shirts out fast enough. Many of the recipients thanked him profusely. Several women peeled off the shirts, some without bras, and changed right there! Two hundred shirts gone in minutes! Disappointed Antifadas groaned when told they were too late. “Don’t worry!” Millard assured them. “We’ll be back at the next demonstration with more shirts!”

Some tried to buy the shirts, approaching anyone in Harvard crimson. The demonstration was underway! Masked keffiheh-clad freedom fighters stood on dairy crates exhorting through their bullhorns! FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA! STOP THE GAZAN HOLOCAUST! The news crews recorded. But a funny thing happened. Word came down from on high to stop recording. No explanation was given. D’artagnan’s drone caugh it all. Harvard police arrived, begged, reasoned, and cajoled the valiant young freedom fighters to leave peacefully. No explanation was given.

The networks were oddly silent that evening. The video D’artagnan released on social media went viral. By seven p.m. it had racked up five million views. Phone calls and emails crashed Harvard’s systems. Many alumni pulled their grants and donations. Some demanded their names be taken off buildings. An independent conservative news source showed a video with a proud Antifada in his red shirt.

“I don’t care what the haters and fascists say! This shirt carries a message of peace and reconciliation for the entire world! Our only path toward freedom and prosperity! The Pews must fly!”

Oddly, that was the last demonstration Harvard tolerated. Likewise Hale, Columbia, Dartmouth, Princeton, and Brown. Likewise the California university system. Likewise Oberlin, McGill, Tufts, and many other schools. From that day on, Millard had no trouble accessing his classes.