Seven students protesting the University’s living wage policy briefly occupied President John Hennessy’s office Thursday, performing a minute long interpretative skit before leaving a deflated volleyball in their wake...(“Student’s occupy Hennessy’s office,” Jan. 22).

The Evening of Jan. 17:

The hour was late, the general feeling miserable. The Headquarters of the Stanford Labor Action Coalition stank of coffee, permanent markers and unrequited justice. A pile of unfinished posters lay scattered across the floor. It was time, all agreed, for a change.

“I just don’t know if I can do this anymore, friends,” said Molly, tears in her freshman eyes, her voice quivering like a timid violin. “Whenever I think about the plight of our workers, I just get so angry, and every time we fail to force the Administration to institute a living wage policy, I just get so sad. And then I get sadder because I’m still so angry.”

“That’s quitting talk, Molly!” said Kip, the handsome young Coxswain with a thirst for social justice. “We all knew when we got into the Labor Action game that it wasn’t going to be easy. Rome wasn’t built in a day. It’s like what Henry David Thoreau writes in his Civil Disobedience...”

Whilst Kip endeavored through passionate soliloquy to convince Molly to stay, there was a rueful laugh from the corner of the room, jaunty, without joy. Max Mumford was the SLAC elder, a sixth-year double-coterm still working on a thesis he had no intention of finishing. Max’s Coalition friends, the few he had left, called him The Old Man; his enemies called him quite a bit more.

Max had seen them come and seen them go. Kip, with his unwashed ponytail and his look-ma-I’m-in-college goatee, reminded Max so much of himself — the glassy-eyed idealism, the naive trust in man’s inherent goodness. When Max was a freshman, he’d really believed he could change things at Stanford. He was out in White Plaza five days a week with a megaphone and a message, exhorting his peers to action, listing the employees’ grievances. Back in 2003, he hadn’t eaten for a week, part of the student fast that led the administration to create PAC, the President Advisory Committee on Workplace Policies (those puppets!). Max spent the early years demanding justice; then he started begging.

“Don’t you guys care about workers’ rights?” he’d asked his friends, after PAC’s living wage recommendations accomplished absolute dick.

“Of course we do, Max, but who’s got the time for social justice?”

“But doesn’t it bother you guys that some workers need two jobs to support kids they never see? Can you imagine that washing dishes is the best you can do for the rest of your life? Or cleaning rich kid vomit out of sinks because stupid frat boys don’t even have the common decency to puke in the toilet? Aren’t you angry that a university that makes a $14 billion endowment claims that it’s ‘unreasonable’ to consider extending a living wage to the people who need it the most? Human Resources? More like Inhuman Cruelty, Diane Peck, you evil wench!”

“Whoa, dude, do you want to play Smash Brothers?”

Max had begun to hate his fellow students for caring so little, and also his fellow Coalitioneers for caring so much that it blinded them to how pointless was their cause. Idealism couldn’t buy Palm Trees.

“To Hell With You, John Hennessy!” he screamed at the constellations one night in 2005, a half-emptied bottle of Jimmy Beam in his hand, the midwinter rain dropping tears that Max was too broken to weep. Later that night, he’d stumbled his way to Hennessy’s house and pissed upon the Presidential petunias. Small victories made for proud defeats.

All for nothing, he ruminated now, staring down the barrel of a life in academia. “All for nothing,” he mumbled aloud. It was the first time he’d spoken at a Coalition meeting in almost two years.

“What’s that, Max?” Barbara Billingston was the Coalition Chair, a pretty face with a schoolteacher’s tone who feared Max nearly as much as she despised him.

“All for nothing,” Max said louder. “All the rallies, all the demonstrations, the sit-ins, the hunger strikes, the flyers. I’ve been at this for longer than anyone, and I still have to explain to people that no, I don’t work at the Goddamned Stanford Linear Douchefuck Accelerator. We’re a joke.”

“There’s no call for that negativity, Max,” said Barbara.

“It’s reality, sister,” said Max.

“Max, you can’t give up!” Kip exclaimed. “You taught me everything I know. You’re an institution!”

“Politicians, ugly buildings and whores all get respectable with age. I just got smart. The administration doesn’t care because they’ve got alumni cash pouring out their ears and the best lawyers in the nation tickling their naughty spots. The students don’t care because they’re too busy, or too selfish, or maybe both, I don’t know.”

“Oh, Max, won’t you please reconsider?” A lone tear was streaming down Molly’s cheek. “Even if we can’t change things for the better, don’t we have to try? Aren’t we the lone voice in the wilderness? Even if there’s no one around, a tree can still hear itself fall!”

“I’m all washed up, Molly doll. There’s no place left for social activism, not on this campus, maybe not in this life. Nobody’s listening. Hell, those ditzy anti-Roe girls with the cute little dead baby crosses get more press than we do. I’ve got a thesis on Shakespearean Tragicomedy that needs finishing. I’ve got my own life to think about, for once. The Stanford Working Man will have to fight for a living wage without me. I sure didn’t help any.”

“Now Max, that’s a bit extreme,” said Barbara diplomatically. Good riddance, she thought to herself, while the rest of the table exploded with hubbub. Last thing she needed was some old has-been activist filling the air with anti-positivity. The worst thing that can happen to an activist is when they start believing the truth.

“Hold the phone, fellas!” Kip cried. “Max is right! We need our own cute little dead baby crosses!”

“That wasn’t my point at all,” Max said.

“We need to create a whole new goshdarned dialectic, something that’ll grab people’s attention and make workers’ rights the big issue on campus! Cut through all the empty cliches of student activism, really speak to the students, make the administration hear us, think outside the box!”

“I’ve got it!” Molly’s little face was wiped free of tears, her cheeks glowing rosy red with naive passion. “How about performing an interpretive skit where we pass around a Volleyball labeled ‘Living Wage Policy’ to represent how the administration keeps on passing the responsibility without doing anything about it?”

“Oh dear god,” Max said.

“Lovely idea, Molly,” Barbara said. “We can all wear printed labels on our shirts. Who wants to be Concerned Students?”

“Me!” “Oh Barbara, pick me!” “I call Human Resources!”

“That’s not enough, Barbara!” Kip bellowed. “We need to really send Hennessy a message that there’s a new SLAC in town, that we’re a force to be reckoned with. A force to be reckoned with...” Kip tapped his head, deep in thoughtful thought. “I know! After we pass the ball for a minute, let’s pop it and leave it there, because a living wage, like a volleyball, doesn’t work if it has holes in it!”

“Genius!” “Brilliant!” “Wondrous metaphor, Kip!”

“Capital idea!” Barbara clapped her hands together once. “The popped volleyball will be an eternal symbol of our solidarity! That way his secretaries will HAVE to pass the word of our brave, terribly true interpretive skit along to President Hennessy, who will almost certainly not be present for the skit itself.”

“We can videotape it and post it on Youtube!” Kip hollered, standing up on his chair. “Kids my age love amateur activist videos on Youtube!”

“OMG, that’s so brilliant!” Molly’s faith in humanity was restored. The Coalition, reenergized, set about the particulars of their crusading interpretive skit, while, unseen by anyone, Max Mumford slinked out the door fishing for a cigarette in the chill January night.

Darren Franich will be interpreting this column in skit form in White Plaza at 3 p.m. Email him for a copy of the exclusive videotape at dfranich@stanford.edu.