Some would be beaten right there, some tossed into the jeep
to be taken to the station and beaten. Some would be charged
for various offenses, some would be released.
I said to the boys; "Why do you stand at Murphy's Wall?"
Angrily they proclaimed they had a Right to Stand Anywhere.
The "cost" of that right was physical abuse, denial of
liberty, sometimes charges for various crimes which would
occupy their lives for a few months or years.
This wasn't a demonstration where people, demanding a right,
are willing to die for it. This wasn't an issue or cause,
for there was no particular cache about Murphy's Wall.
They could of gone down the road to the bar, to the corn
shop, even stayed on the verandas of the houses in which
they lived. But they chose to stand at Murphy's Wall.
Murphy, who lived in the house behind the wall didn't like
the boys standing there. They talked loud and rude, and
smoked, and as he went to bed early, they annoyed him.
He had spoken to the police, once. And from that first
expression of annoyance, the police took it as a nightly
run to pass Murphy's Wall and collect the boys who stood
there.
One would have thought that after the first time, the boys
would move to somewhere else. By the fourth time, the police
realised it was one of those ridiculous situations in which
stubbornness took over from sense.
Eventually, after how many examples of police brutality,
how many examples of abuse of process, how many examples
of being innocently charged, the boys stopped standing by
Murphy's Wall.
Some boys were harassed once, and never were found anywhere
near Murphy's Wall when the sun went down.
Some boys have permanent scars from their "Right" to stand
by Murphy's Wall.
Others have made it a quest to report to Murphy's Wall each
night as if they had something to prove.
Eventually, Murphy died, the police who had made the nightly
visits to Murphy's Wall were transferred.
And the boys no longer stood there, because there was no
'point', as if there ever was.
