On Monday as the conventioneers massed for the opening session, a shrieking mob lay down in front of a city bus, then ripped open the gas tank, gushing fuel down the main drag, Collins Avenue. A kid tried to light a rag. Old ladies on the bus started keening and weeping. The mob started vandalizing limousines: “Cars don’t bleed!” “You kill Vietnamese people!” A sixty-year-old food vendor who had the misfortune of wearing a convention tag tried to dash to the safety of the hall. Before he could, he collapsed of a heart attack. A North Carolina delegate observed, “I think next time they should issue every delegate and alternate a submachine gun.”