HERB CAEN
Cherchez la Fawn
YOU WOULDN’T think our well-known radical, Jimmy O’Shea, would have to hunt for a girl these days, when you can’t tell antiwar leaders from rock stars. But this girl could keep him out of jail. He says he rescued her from the ham-handed Oakland police during last fall’s imbroglio-in-the-streets around the Army Induction Center. The Oakland cops, who ham-handed a coupla my reporter friends in the fray, say he attacked one of their own in hot blood. Trouble is, the Mystery Woman can’t be found to tell her tale. According to Jimmy, she’s a green-eyed blonde. Who wouldn’t come to her rescue?
MEANWHILE, down at the Peking Paradise (a Chinese restaurant on 18th St. near Castro, not a political slogan), Jimmy and his comrades (radicals have comrades, Democrats have henchmen, Republicans have aides) huddled over pot stickers and chow mein. What? You thought activists ate fresh cracked crab at Jack’s? Not for $2.95 they don’t. Disagreeing about everything, as the opposition is wont to do. A VERY minority position says Jimmy should stand up like a man, say, “I hit the cop and I’m proud of it” and go to jail. And I thought martyrdom —like latrine duty — was not something one volunteered for.
HIS FEMALE accomplice, Cathy Cohen (they share an address), objects to this line of reasoning so fervently the nice Chinese man behind the cash register had to ask her to hold it down. She thinks chasing the blonde is Jimmy’s political duty. The Real Issue — claim Cohen and her legal friends, lefty lawyer Beverly Absalom and the eminent Charles Garry, Esq. (defender of Huey Newton and other Bay Area oppressed) — is police use of excessive and unnecessary force
. . . The excessive and unnecessary bruise on the face of my Channel 5 buddy Phil Harbinger (journalists have buddies) has faded by now, but he hasn’t forgotten the cop who put it there. Phil and Channel 5 aren’t suing, since reporters and police do need a certain rapport after all.
HUNCHED OVER the shrimp fried rice (99¢ special), Casimir Volodich, clown prince of the underground press, suggested Jimmy might want to hoof it to Canada. Cosmo, as his readers know him, was, heavens forfend! of course not recommending flight to avoid prosecution. Just temporary resettlement till the Revolution comes. Jimmy turned down the travel plan, though he was heard to say, “I’d be better off in Canada than doing hard time in Q.” Cosmo’s suggestion does seem odd, since Cosmo’s parents’ summer home is the collateral for Jimmy’s bond.