«Sit-In At The Alamo» by William F Wu

Jimmy
Mok lives in the Golden Day Sunset Home, in a powered wheelchair. Most of his
enjoyment comes from watching old television reruns and movies, but this
futuristic facility can be brutal. When the residents rebel and take over, they
face hostile police action and Jimmy has to choose his own future between the attack on the home and the assault on the Alamo in the movie he’s watching.


~~~~~
Excerpt ~~~~~


Jimmy sat in his wheelchair
in the main hallway, looking around. Every time he turned his head, the tail on his coonskin cap tickled his back. He liked that.


He shifted Ol' Betsy on his
lap. Everybody had gone their separate ways for the moment. He wasn't sure what
to do.


“Here, Jimmy,” said
Pauline, walking out of a room down the hall. She was a short, brisk woman with
curly gray hair. “Have you seen this?” She handed him a flyer from a
stack she was carrying. “We just had these printed up in the main
office.”


“Mm?” Jimmy
accepted it, but he didn't feel up to reading the fine print.


“Oh. Here, I'll show
you.” She leaned over his chair, pointing to the paragraphs. “These
are the demands we're going to make from Fleming. No more orderlies; they're to be replaced by nurses without prod rings. More flexibility in choosing our activities and changing our minds about them. We set our own visitation and curfew hours and we end the segregation of the men's and women's wings.”


Jimmy nodded. He liked that
part about the prod rings.


“Dinner time,” said
Barbie, coming down the hall with a big smile. She wore one of the cafeteria
staff aprons over her own dress. “You know, Pauline, those demands sound
awfully familiar.”


“I noticed that,”
said Pauline. “I think we made a lot of these demands for the dormitories
in Ann Arbor once a long time ago.”


“You were in Ann
Arbor?” Barbie brushed a strand of white hair from her eyes with a dainty
little finger. “I was in Berkeley for People's Park. We must be about the
same age.”


“I guess so.”
Pauline looked back at her with an amused smile.


“Woodstock,” Jimmy
muttered, on impulse.


“What?” Pauline
turned in surprise. “Were you at Woodstock?”


A tall, stooped man carrying
a big piece of posterboard. “Remember this?” He held it up.


Jimmy squinted at it. It was
a freshly stenciled red painting of a clenched fist.