––We’ve just heard that the Bank of America has been broken into. Some reports are saying that fires have been started inside . . .

           
            I wasn’t expecting an attack on the bank. I grabbed the camera and bolted for the door with part of the sandwich in my mouth.

             ––I’m going out there. If they’re breaking into the bank, I need photos.

            Matt provided the voice of reason.

            ––Don’t do it, man. You’ll just get busted.          
            ––Thanks, see you later.

        Now past seven o’clock, darkness had fallen and it was more difficult to see. Nearing the top of the loop, I heard angry yells and rocks bouncing off the pavement. At the Enco gas station on the corner, I came up behind a group that had just retreated from the direction of the bank. The police were in the middle of the park. Another group of rioters were gathered off to my left. Several from the group in front of me picked up stones from behind the gas station. I stopped beside a few others who stood motionless in the background along the curb of El Embarcadero--watching and waiting.

       Suddenly a separate group of rioters surprised everyone—especially the police—and charged from the direction of the Magic Lantern Theater. Throwing rocks and projectiles of every description, whooping, hollering, and howling like villagers in pursuit of a Frankenstein, this coiled mass thrust itself onto one side of the police line, breaking it apart and forcing a rapid retreat of its dismembered parts west across the park. The instant this group attacked, the group that had dispersed to my left reversed direction and joined the onslaught with matching war cries and rock volleys. I froze, stupefied by the din they raised—banging sticks on metal garbage can lids, screaming like savages, and slinging bottles and rocks in javelin-throwing form across the park. I could see in their expressions and wild movements they were holding nothing back. The cops, no doubt, sensed the same.

            Within seconds the combined attack of these two groups completely routed the police, driving them into a full speed retreat across the park to Embarcadero del Mar. I noticed one cop knocked unconscious by a brick. Two others shouldered and dragged him along, straining to keep their shields toward in-coming volleys of debris. Sensing weakness, the rioters intensified the attack. Several cops had by now received serious blows from the rocks. They limped on, retreating as fast as they could down Seville Road.

         The rioters didn’t let up. Here and there two or three stopped to pick up something to throw. Busting apart pieces of split-rail fence, tearing up loose chunks of asphalt, chipping off pieces of concrete from the curbs—anything they could rip apart and lay their hands on got thrown at the cops as they retreated down the street.

            In numb disbelief I stumbled after them, spellbound like a witness to a train wreck. Following the riot as it coursed further down Seville, I saw where the crowd had broken out windows in two realty offices on the south side of the street. Further down I paused to attempt a photo of a few rioters passing under a streetlamp. My hands shook as adrenalin jacked my nerve endings. Over the blood thundering in my ears I heard another sound, an odd, out of place sound coming from my left. It was music. Barely audible, I couldn’t make out what it was. Then the volume got louder, much louder. Now the sound was unmistakable. The Rolling Stones’ “Street Fightin’ Man” blasted from an open window filling the night air up and down the street. Some of the rioters began cheering. The cops kept running and were now out of view. Then the pursuing rioters turned the corner and disappeared.

            Everyone was out of range now so I put down the camera. I felt fastened to the middle of the street, hands shaking, listening to sounds of the pursuit from beyond the street corner. Finally I stood up and slowly walked in the direction the rioters had gone. But at the corner I turned away from the rioting and went along Camino Pescadero toward the ocean. I needed to cool down. A current swarmed all around. In the air. In the rioters. In the cops. I felt it moving inside me.

            After wandering the back blocks of Isla Vista for awhile I came out at the top of the loop again and approached the front of the bank where a hundred or more people were gathered. Smoke rose from between two pillars supporting the overhanging roof. Recessed lamps along the overhang emitted dim cones of light through the smoke leaving the entrance in a hazy, diffused glow. Remembering the camera, I snapped a picture, taking in most of the crowd and the bank.

        Moving closer, I came to the edge of a bonfire fueled by an assortment of chairs, table tops, cartons, plywood, papers, and other paraphernalia taken from inside the bank and now mostly charred beyond recognition. Continuing left, I knelt down and worked the light meter. Tri X Pan was fast film but with no flash the shutter would be too slow to get definition. The light from the fire would help. I set the shutter at 1/30th, rested the camera on my knee, and pressed off a shot. I reset the speed at 1/15th and aimed the camera a little more to the left across the flames and pressed off another. As I stood up to get a better look, someone spoke from the left.

            ––What’s with the camera, man? Taking pictures ain’t cool.
            ––There’s not enough light to get faces.
            ––All the same, point that somewhere else.

           Having attracted unwanted attention, I headed toward the back of the building. On the way I passed several small rectangular windows. Through one I could see flames leaping inside. I stopped, pressed off another shot, and continued around back. To my surprise there were only two people at the back entrance. As I came around the corner, they slipped inside the bank. At the entrance, I saw pieces of the glass door strewn into the lobby floor. There was enough light to see through to the far side of the room. I stood at the doorway and looked in for a few seconds. Then, on impulse, I stepped through the hole in the door and plunged into the smoke-filled interior.

        The two who came in before me stood in the middle of the lobby looking around. When I appeared, they moved toward the door, glanced around, and left—perhaps because they noticed my camera. I was now alone in the room. The smoke was not heavy enough yet to make breathing difficult. But I was too transfixed to breathe—overwhelmed by a churning chaos on the inside that matched what I saw in the room.

            Directly in front of me two large overturned lobby tables sprawled across the floor, one on its side, the other with legs straight up. Toward the far side of the room a large L-shaped desk with a broken leg listed like a sinking ship into a sea of white papers tossed and strewn from ransacked files. Steel cabinets and drawers protruded like buoys through the surface of paper. A single ceiling lamp in the far corner dimly lit the lobby wreckage.

          The main source of light came from the corner beyond the teller windows where something burned too brightly to see what it was. Flames leapt halfway to the ceiling and silhouetted teller windows extending along the lobby to the far corner where it became difficult to see through the haze.

            Alone in the burning room, the strangeness of the scene choked me as much as the pungent odor of smoke. I raised the camera, thinking it would record the unreality of it all. After quickly pressing off three shots at different angles into the room, I was about to take a fourth when two guys emerged through the broken door. They walked past me as if I weren’t there. Surveying the destruction for a few seconds, one then picked up several booklets from among the papers beside a large desk and flung them across the room into the flames. The other did the same with a light-weight chair.

            As they continued throwing debris into the fire, I stared at the flames through the camera lens. The current I had felt earlier came over me again. Moving slowly, I bent down and picked up a bound booklet. I examined it in my hand. “Bank of America Audit Report: 1968.” The current got stronger. I sailed it toward the fire, then picked up another and flung it. I grabbed another. But while raising my arm to throw it an image flashed in my mind. I stood a few feet away taking a picture of me about to throw the book. My arm stopped. I slowly lowered it and looked up to see the other two in the room staring back at me. Tossing the book aside, I turned and, almost running, crossed over the strewn broken glass and out through the doors.

            Several people were now gathered at the back entrance. As I passed them I heard a voice. It was the last voice I wanted to hear at the moment.          

            ––Well, look who’s running out of the bank! I’ll be damned. Is that gasoline I smell?

            Canova grinned, obviously pleased to see me. For a second or two I stared at him with a face that conveyed God knows what. Searching for words, I finally fumbled out a response.

            ––You should get out of here.

            I pushed past him and crossed the park in the direction of the beach. Surf pounded in the distance. I raced toward it until I felt the sand beneath my feet and the salt air on my face. It cleared my head of the fumes, smoke, and bedlam that hung in the air over Isla Vista. Thoughts whirled: What madness! What was I thinking?

            I don’t know how much time went by before I started back, but it was well past midnight. Returning along El Embarcadero, an unusual light radiated from the park area. When I reached the loop what I saw would be etched in memory forever. The bank was engulfed in flames.

            The roof and part of one wall had caved in. People gathered around the park area and along the street in front of the bank to watch. I walked quickly around the loop toward the Magic Lantern Theater. Some in the crowd were standing and quietly staring at the fire. Others were in small groups talking, laughing, and drinking from bottles of wine or beer. A few others were moving around the burning wreckage, occasionally letting out a yell and throwing something into the fire. I sat down on the sidewalk by a brick wall fencing part of a flower bed next to the theater and watched the fire. The pillars in front of the bank were still standing but the front wall had caved inward when the roof had collapsed. The brick walls on each side and in back framed the fire. It took the good part of an hour before the fire gutted and consumed most of the interior.

      They had done it. They had really done it—whoever “they” were. Now everyone—the people of Isla Vista and the students of the University—we were all sailing together, like it or not, into smoke-slickened, uncharted waters.

            Tired and unable to take any more of it, I stood up and started to walk off. Then I noticed three guys doing something near the front of the building where part of the fire smoldered. I approached to within a few yards to one side of them. Taking the lens cap off the camera, I framed, focused, and pressed the shutter. They held refashioned coat hangers over what was left of the fire along the remains of the front wall. On the end of the hangers were several marshmallows. The one closest to me raised his hanger from the coals and with thumb and forefinger gingerly pulled at the end marshmallow. It had gotten a little too blackened and oozed off the hanger, slipping from his hand. He caught it before it hit the ground and raised it over his head. Then it disappeared into his mouth.

        Seeing the bank in the bright daylight the following morning felt like stepping into a war zone in some other part of the world. It looked like a bomb had hit the building. Only parts of two walls and the concrete vault were left standing.

Steel beams and cross supports tilted into the charred and unrecognizable ruins piled in the center of what had been the lobby. In some areas ribbons of smoke still wafted into the air.

Two fire trucks were parked in front and several firemen rummaged through the center of the ruins apparently looking for something. To one side, near the vault area, a portly middle-aged man, hat in hand as if in church, scanned the ruins in obvious disbelief. I learned later he was the bank manager.

       Continually taking photos, I worked my way to the rear of the structure. A small crowd had gathered there, a mix of adult locals and students engaged in heated talk about the bank burning. A middle-aged woman in sun glasses complained to one of the students.

        Appearing officially counter-cultural in shoulder-length long hair, the student didn’t shrink from her or defense of the wreckage lying behind him.

      ––It’s not senseless. Listen to me! The bank was targeted. It stands for everything wrong with this country and the damn war we’re fighting. It’s the only American bank with a branch in Vietnam. It’s in bed with defense contractors. Litton, Douglas Aircraft, Stanford Research Institute—they all share board of directors with the bank. On top of that the bank’s lawyers back the growers against the United Farm Workers . . .

            An old man standing next to her entered the fray.

           ––They tried to stop it. But they got the shit kicked out of ‘em. There weren’t enough of ‘em. The damnedest skirmish I’ve seen outside of real war. But you can bet every cop in the state’ll be showin’ up here tonight. They’ll have a score to settle with those rioters.      

           The old man was right. In the face of the bank disaster Sheriff Webster and his deputies had a lot at stake, including what was left of their pride. And no doubt they wanted to extract a price for their humiliation in the streets. Law and order had to be reaffirmed and no amount of talking would get that done.

            The city and county of Santa Barbara combined did not have enough police to stem riots in Isla Vista. Sheriff Webster had been shorthanded even for the Bill Allen demonstrations. Taking control of Isla Vista required reinforcements from every county around Santa Barbara—from San Luis Obispo and south to Ventura and all the way to Los Angeles. Rumors circulated that these reinforcements would include the Los Angeles County Special Enforcement Bureau—a swat team of hard core “storm troopers,” as radicals referred to them, trained for every contingency from riots to hostage situations. A little before noon Webster announced through local radio stations there would be a dusk-to-dawn curfew imposed throughout Isla Vista.

     The burning of the bank had moved the momentum of the Bill Allen demonstrations into the streets, beyond campus issues and into community, state, and national issues—especially the war and the financing of the war. The burning of the bank had upped the ante from demonstrations over the firing of a professor in a relatively obscure anthropology department to active resistance toward war policy and everything associated with it. No one knew exactly what was coming, but everyone saw the rising barometer that told them a bad storm was blowing in.

        Well aware of the general mood of confrontation, the limits of which no one could guess, I took up the camera and headed into the streets before sunset that evening. I had gotten too far into making a photo record of these events to stop now. The police were coming to enforce a curfew and the mood in Isla Vista left no doubt that a good number of its residents would be saying “to hell with your curfew.”