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theatrically were women in tie dye, men with Crisco’d Mohawks, girls with hair every shade food color will provide, guys in turbans, berets, fedoras, and one with six snakeskin belts encircling his chest and a snake over his shoulder. Across the aisle close-clipped scowling men in black looked anything but righteous. The angels they resembled were Hell’s Angels. They sat as if they were straddling hogs, legs apart, hands poised to rev up and mow down anyone in their way. Patience and forbearance looked like virgin ground for these guys.
    Bryant Hemming’s brow tightened. There’d never been a free-for-all on the show, but his expression said: There’s always a first time.

CHAPTER 3
    W ITH WHAT MUST HAVE been practiced effort, Bryant Hemming relaxed his face back into an encouraging half smile. But his voice was tight as he said, “And who is it that Serenity Kaetz says infringed on her rights?” He let the question hang long enough for the unknowing viewer to consider Telegraph Avenue’s usual suspects: students, street people, environmentalists, the old radicals, and, of course, us—the police. Then, turning his attention to his left, he said, “Demanding freedom of speech and freedom of religion, we have with us Brother Cyril of the Angels of Righteousness.”
    Howard and Pereira shook their heads. The first time I had seen Brother Cyril, I’d laughed. What I’d expected was a street thug who’d been cleaned up for trial—big near-shaven head, round face, and muscles that screamed steroids. But Brother Cyril was a slight middle-aged man with thinning light brown hair. Seen on the Avenue, he’d have been taken for an undergraduate’s father, the type who would hesitate before suggesting his son change majors and the before asking his daughter about birth control. He looked like a man who would wait at the end of the line forever. Now I could see his pale eyes were a bit too close together, his nose a bit too narrow, lips thin, chin falling too quickly back toward his neck.
    He looked like a man his half of the audience would have kicked out of the way. They were the street thug models I had expected Cyril to be: young, muscled, surly, with black pants and shirts and bulbous arms that sported tattoos.
    “How does Cyril keep ’em in line? Fire and brimstone?”
    “More likely drugs and sex, Howard,” Pereira said. “Maybe hypnosis. I can see him with candles and a swinging watch.”
    “More likely a computer password or a delete key,” I said. Cyril reminded me of the nerds I’d known in school before nerds became stylish. Then they were just bright, pimply guys, seething at the ludicrous unfairness of being shunned by brawny guys, pretty girls, all clearly their inferiors. And when they got even, they dished out excruciating humiliations that echoed loud and long.
    Howard gave my shoulder a squeeze. “I hope ol’ Bryant’s got plenty of security off camera. If the Righteous leap the aisle, they’ll pound the vendors into parchment before he can call nine-one-one.”
    Bryant Hemming must have had a similar thought. His clean-cut smile looked brittle, and when he spoke, his voice had lost that easy, hopeful tone. He patted Cyril’s chair. “In one sentence, Brother Cyril, tell me what you want.”
    But Cyril didn’t sit. He looked directly at the camera almost shyly, as if he were surprised a nerd like him was allowed to speak. His voice was soft, his tone thoughtful. “They seem so innocent, these out-of-time hippies with their feather necklaces and their peace symbols, but what do we know about them? Let me tell you”—his words were coming faster, his voice higher—“they are money changers. They allow drugs, licentiousness, baby killing. They are money changers. And what did Jesus do when he saw them in the temple? He cast out all them that sold and bought and overthrew their tables and”—he glared at the vendors with an intensity nothing in his bland face had foreshadowed—“he