Every night, at around ten thirty, the police would swoop down to Murphy’s wall and grab up every boy they saw.

Some would be beaten right there, some tossed into the jeep to be taken to the station and beaten. Some would be charged for various offenses, some would be released.

I said to the boys;
“Why do you stand at Murphy’s Wall?”

Angrily they proclaimed they had a Right to Stand Anywhere.

The “cost” of that right was physical abuse, denial of liberty, sometimes charges for various crimes which would occupy their lives for a few months or years.

This wasn’t a demonstration where people, demanding a right, are willing to die for it. This wasn’t an issue or cause, for there was no particular cache about Murphy’s Wall. They could of gone down the road to the bar, to the corn shop, even stayed on the verandas of the houses in which they lived. But they chose to stand at Murphy’s Wall.

Murphy, who lived in the house behind the wall didn’t like the boys standing there. They talked loud and rude, and smoked, and as he went to bed early, they annoyed him. He had spoken to the police, once. And from that first expression of annoyance, the police took it as a nightly run to pass Murphy’s Wall and collect the boys who stood there.

One would have thought that after the first police incursion, the boys would move to somewhere else. By the fourth occasion, the police realised it was one of those ridiculous situations in which stubbornness took over from sense.

Eventually, after how many examples of police brutality, how many examples of abuse of process, how many examples of innocent convictions, the boys stopped standing by Murphy’s Wall.

Yes, there were a few boys who experieced the police performance once, and never were found anywhere near Murphy’s Wall when the sun went down.  There are also more than a few who have permanent scars from their “Right” to stand by Murphy’s Wall. Others made it a quest to report to Murphy’s Wall each night as if they had something to prove.

Eventually, Murphy died, the police who had made the nightly visits to Murphy’s Wall were transferred. And the boys no longer stood there, because there was no ‘point’, as if there ever was.