by Kris Ripper
“Thank you, my lady.” I bowed.
Then I opened the doors so we could get inside. Fat drops pounded on the roof of the car and my headlights cut indistinct columns into the sheeting rain as we headed downtown toward the waterfront. Alisha held her sleeves up to the heater vents, trying in vain to dry them out before we got to QYP.
“This is so incredible. God, I love weather like this, don’t you? It’s so exhilarating.”
“I guess I never thought about it like that.” I reached for one of her hands. “So if we were on an adventure right now, what would we be doing?”
“Walking! We’d be dodging between buildings, ducking under awnings, searching for a little hole in the wall where we could find a cup of coffee, or maybe a bowl of soup. Maybe you’d press me into a doorway and kiss me until both of us were breathless.”
“Sounds wonderful. Where would we be?”
“Anywhere. Maybe we’d be in Damascus or Tokyo. Or maybe we’d be in Queensland.”
“Is that Australia? I’ve always wanted to go to Australia.”
“We should go! That would be so much fun. Baby, there’s no hope for this dress. I hope it doesn’t offend you that we’re arriving at this do and my dress is plastered to me like I entered a white T-shirt contest and forgot my T-shirt.”
“Put a pin in that.”
She hit me. Both of us laughed.
The warehouse looked bigger than it had when I last saw it, even though it had furniture now, and a percentage of La Vista was packed in under the rafters. They’d painted the top third of the walls gray, and gone with the vibrant colors I’d seen before for the lower two-thirds, which somehow both made the room feel less cavernous and gave the impression of expanded space, like it didn’t end at the ceiling.
Conversational nooks, bookcases, tables, chairs, groupings of clean-lined Ikea furniture everywhere, suggesting possible uses for each area.
“Oh my god, I want this kitchen,” Alisha said as we slowly made our way through the crowd. “Ed, look at it.”
Right off the showroom floor, an industrial design, including a long island with sturdy-looking stools lined up at it, where people were sitting, nursing glasses of . . . soda? I didn’t think anyone would put wine in those glasses.
I glanced around, but no one appeared to be drinking booze at all. “I think this might be a dry event.”
“I assume the center will be dry. I think I like the idea they’re not even offering it tonight. Plus, there are definitely actual queer youth here right now.”
“True.” Not exactly droves of them, but some of the folks milling around were teenagers. “Cameron’s got a movie tonight, and Zane said she’d be late, but there are a lot of people here I don’t recognize.”
“You thought it’d be Club Fred’s, but with better clothes?”
“I kind of did. Oh, there’s Jaq and her girlfriend.”
“Hannah.”
“Right, Hannah. I always forget her name.”
“I know, babe. There’s this awkward thing you do when you remember you don’t know her name and hesitate while you’re talking to her.”
“Hey!”
She grinned unrepentantly. “What? I’m helping!”
We went over to talk to Jaq (and Hannah), who were standing with a few kids Jaq introduced as members of the Gay-Straight Alliance.
“I didn’t even know that club was still going,” Alisha said. “I was one of the founding members.”
“You’re like the third person who’s said that tonight,” the white boy (whose name I’d already forgotten) said. “I kind of can’t believe so many people are still in La Vista. I can’t wait to get out.”
“I went to college and came back,” I said.
Alisha waved a hand. “I just slacked off and worked a lot of stupid jobs.”
The black girl (whose name I’d also forgotten) said, “I’m leaving in the fall. Just to San Francisco, but at least it’s a little bit of distance.”
“You keep saying ‘in the fall’ like that’s the future,” the boy teased, elbowing her. “Isn’t orientation like next week?”
“Don’t rush LaTasha,” Jaq told him. “Oh, that reminds me. Ed, LaTasha remembers Steven Costello.”
My pulse sped up.
“Not really.” LaTasha turned to me. “You’re a journalist?”
“I work at the Times-Record.” Which technically made me a journalist, even if my beat was blind cats at the senior center.
“Cool. I didn’t know Steven Costello. I had PE with him, because he failed it when he was a frosh, so he was stuck in it senior year.”
“Do you remember anything about him?”
She shook her head. “Sorry. I’m not a good witness. I know he was always super quiet, and kept his head down. And that Coach Pinedo used to mess with him for being the oldest kid in the class, but always a little meanly.”
“Pinedo’s a dick,” the other kid said.
“I know. It’s probably why I remember Steven Costello at all, because Pinedo made it his mission to bully him. Sorry I don’t know more.”
“No problem. Thanks for talking to me.”
“Do you like being a journalist?”
“Uh. It has its ups and downs, I guess.”
Jaq sent me a look that said I wasn’t fooling her. “Anyway, where’s Merin? I want to see this suit.”
Hannah smiled. “You just want to scope the competition. I’m sure Merin doesn’t look as dashing as you do, Jaq.”
“I’d argue that,” LaTasha said. “No offense, Ms. C.”
“None taken. Oh damn. Carlos and Tom are here.”
In the moments after she said it, I noticed the traffic patterns in the room subtly shifting. They made the kind of pair you visually had to stop yourself from staring at, between Carlos’s low stature and Tom’s height. But tonight it seemed like everyone was determined to pretend the couple was invisible; backs turned and voices hushed as they passed.
“Jesus,” Hannah murmured, her voice even lower.
Jaq strode forward, unstoppably, and embraced both of them. Jaq really did look good in a suit. If I had been born a lesbian, I’d want to wear clothes like Jaq did, all pinstripes and straight lines. She led them back to our little group and I felt immediately bad for suspecting Tom for a second; he had dark rings around bloodshot eyes and didn’t look anything like a guy who blithely beat people to death.
“How’re you guys holding up?” Hannah asked, taking her turn with hugs.
“As you’d expect.” Carlos’s gaze never stopped moving around the crowd, as if he was searching for attackers from all quarters. “Some people don’t know the meaning of the word ‘loyalty.’”
“They’re afraid,” Tom murmured. “You can’t blame them.”
“Like hell I can’t. We’re all afraid, and none of them spent the weekend in jail.”
Tom’s jaw tightened. “Can we not talk about jail? I’d appreciate it.”
“Carlos! Tom!” Josh’s voice didn’t exactly boom, but he clearly intended it to carry. People made room for him to walk. “I’m so glad you could make it tonight.” He shook hands with both of them before turning to the rest of us. “I’m glad you’re all here as well, and LaTasha, I’m on strict orders not to tell you that Merin is in dry storage rearranging canned vegetables right now.”
“I knew it. All that ‘Oh no, I’m not nervous, like I care about the open house’ was a front. I’m going to—”
“Knock twice, wait, then knock three more times on the main door. That’s our signal.”
“Got it. Thanks, Josh.”
“Anything to coax my assistant out from dry storage. So good to see you guys. Ed, anything you need from us for your article?”
That would be the article I hadn’t pitched to Potter. Damn. “No, but I’ll let you know if I think of something.”
“Great.” Josh lifted his head, already moving on. “And Tom, if anyone gives you shit, we’ll take care of it.”
Tom
swallowed, eyes immediately dropping. “Thank you,” he mumbled gruffly.
“Keep the faith, brother.” Josh squeezed his shoulder. “Keith’s working the other side of the room, but either one of us will be around if anyone needs . . . anything.”
It was a little hard to imagine Keith, who looked like he was about seventeen, playing bouncer and kicking people out of the open house, but Tom shuffled his feet and thanked Josh again, so I was grateful he’d made the offer.
“Dick-bags, all of them,” Jaq muttered.
“Ms. C, it’s not nice to call people dick-bags.”
“You are so right, Sammy,” Hannah said. “These people are all disloyal pricks reeking of fermented smegma.”
Sammy choked on his soda. Hannah patted his back amiably and smiled at the rest of us as if nothing were up.
“I love you,” Alisha said to her. “Like so, so much right now.”
“Back off my girlfriend.”
“Sorry, Jaq, but it’s true. ‘Fermented smegma’!”
“You have a way with words, Hannah. Maybe I can get you a job at the Times-Record. How good would you be at writing human-interest pieces about blind cats?”
Hannah pretended to think about it. “How much can I curse?”
“You can’t.”
“Oh well. Sorry, sugar, guess I’ll have to keep up with the lawyering instead.”
“Our loss,” I said.
“You’re damn right it is.”
“Thank you,” Tom said softly. “This is the least messed up I’ve felt in days.”
Obviously I wasn’t an expert, but that didn’t seem like a very serial killer thing to say.
Before anyone could respond, Zane was dive-bombing the group, and the music was getting lower, and our attention was being hailed by a young man at the far end of the room.
“The kid looks good,” Hannah said.
“Thanks for coming to the open house. Now shut the hell up, Josh wants to say a bunch of inspiring bullshit.”
Merin. I’d recognize the voice—and the style—anywhere, even after only one meeting.
And yeah, Merin definitely gave Jaq a run for her money. I didn’t know who’d gotten that suit, but it was perfect: tailored in all the right places to emphasize flatter planes and fewer curves.
It was only the beginning of the night, but watching Merin stand up there beside the two young queer men who’d started QYP made me feel a little more hopeful than I’d felt before. And I missed Honey more acutely.
“I want to talk a little bit about the nature of mercy,” Josh said. He’d given an elevator pitch about how QYP began, and introduced Keith in entirely ordinary tones that nevertheless made him blush. But now he stepped away, slightly off-center, and everyone in the room shifted to keep him in sight.
“Mercy isn’t just about how we feel when we see people who are less fortunate than we are, people with less money, less food, fewer clothes. People who may not have a home as comfortable or safe as our home. You can see those people and feel compassionate without truly feeling merciful. Mercy, in its purest state, is about how we treat people over whom we have power.”
Josh paused, eyes sweeping the room.
“Children are the most powerless people on earth. Show me any marginalized group, any intersection of class and ethnicity and gender and ability, and I will point to their children as the least powerful among them. There is a popular portrayal of queer adults as people with money and security who can afford to spend their time lobbying their interest groups and redecorating their urban flats or suburban single-family homes, quite possibly adopting puppies and kittens, driving them around in specially appointed Subarus.”
A few people laughed, but Josh didn’t even smile.
“Approximately forty percent of homeless youth identify as LGBT. Forty percent. We make up somewhere between one or three or eight percent of the population, and our children make up almost half of homeless youth. We are failing them. We are failing the next generation of queer adults when we ignore the children on the street who are meant to become them. The kid couch-surfing because their parents don’t like the clothes they wear isn’t looking at a Subaru and a nice house in the suburbs. The kid turning tricks because the only person who takes care of them is their pimp isn’t going to be shopping for a trendy Scandinavian dining room table five years from now. The kids huddled in their bedrooms, desperately trying to be anything but gay, living in fear one day to the next that their parents will kick them out—we are failing them.”
He half turned away and people shuffled their feet uncomfortably. Some cleared their throats. When Josh turned back he looked a little less grim, but no one seemed certain what he’d say next.
“The early feedback on this speech was that it was too much of a downer, that we don’t want to set the tone for QYP with such a depressing theme. But the truth is that these stories keep me up at night. And if they don’t keep you up at night too, then you’re not paying close enough attention. I don’t say that to guilt-trip anyone, or to bring the mood down. We’ll get back to partying in a minute here. But I can’t keep walking through the world thinking giving a couple of bucks to a beggar on the corner is doing my part. Or signing yet another online petition. Or sitting in another well-lit living room, sipping a glass of wine, talking about if only I had the money to help people, or the influence to make a difference. You’ve all heard that line, ‘Be the change you wish to see in the world’?”
People nodded. Someone called, “Gandhi, right?”
“That’s what we all think, but Gandhi didn’t say that. He said, ‘As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change toward him.’ He also said, ‘We need not wait to see what others do,’ which is where a lot of us get tripped up. We think to ourselves that if a problem was so big, so bad, someone would be taking care of it. Someone would be helping. But there are a whole lot of problems in the world, and a whole lot of good people waiting to see if someone else will address them.
“I want to change my nature. I want to stop waiting for someone else to take action. I want to build a place where taking action, even small action, is the norm. The world is already changing, but we’re gonna keep giving it little nudges, right from this room.” Now Josh smiled, taking a whole beat to look around. “It takes a hell of a lot of work to change your nature, just like it takes a hell of a lot of work to change the world.” He raised his hands, palms open and up. “QYP is a place for hard work and change, and we deeply believe that as we do that work, the world will change as well. Enjoy the open house, feel free to ask questions, give suggestions, and I hope none of you will leave without signing up for our volunteer network. Thank you, everyone, for coming out in the rain tonight.”
Applause hit in a wave, and when Josh went over to Keith and kissed him, another wave (including catcalls) crashed through the room. Keith shoved him away, blushing bright, but both of them turned to work the crowd, striking off in different directions.
“I really like those young men.” Carlos spun on the stool Tom had brought him so he could see Josh speak.
Zane nodded. “And look at them. You’d think they’d been running this place for years.”
Keith made his way over, snagged young Sammy for something, and our group broke up, merging into others. We hung out with Jaq and Hannah awhile longer, until two men I didn’t know walked over with an infant.
“There’s my baby!” Jaq called. “Come here, James, come see your Aunt Jaq.”
“I wish we had one of those little chain of custody sheets for him,” one of the guys said.
“Ha. Where’s Dred?”
The guy gestured vaguely. “Around. Talking to Philpott, the last time I saw her.” He turned to me as Jaq wandered off with the kid. “I’m Obie. I think I remember you from high school.”
I doubted it. Unless he was remembering me as a girl, which made me a little insecure. “I’m Ed. Wait, Obie? Do you make ties?”
“Yes! Yes, I do!”
/>
The guy with him groaned. “Another fan, god help me.”
“And this is Emerson.” Obie leaned forward. “He’s secretly a huge fan of my work.”
“Oh, shut up. Nice to meet you.” Emerson shook my hand, then Alisha’s.
“Wait, I never introduced you to Alisha before? Sorry. Introductions fail.” Obie grinned at Alisha. “Hey, babe. How’re those shoes working out for you?”
“They’re perfect. They are so, so perfect. Obie painted me a globe on a pair of converse. They’re so beautiful I’m afraid to wear them anywhere.”
“You gotta wear them! They are meant to be worn, I promise.” He turned back to me. “Do you have a tie? Sorry, I don’t really remember everyone who orders from me.”
“No, no. My friend Cameron was telling me I should, though.”
“Oh man, Cam inspires me. I just found this reel-to-reel design, which I’m totally making for him.” Rueful smile. “You know, after I’m done with the like two dozen other ties I’m making.”
“Your public is very demanding,” Emerson said. Was he the boyfriend? I couldn’t tell by meeting them. The only real impression I got from Emerson was that he looked like he’d rather be anywhere but at a big party full of people.
“They are! Speaking of which, we should be tweeting right now. Hannah, want to tweet with me?”
“Obie, that’s the best offer I’ve had all night. Let’s do it.”
They walked off arm in arm, and after a minute Emerson followed them.
“That was a really good speech.” Alisha grabbed my hand. “Didn’t you think?”
“Yeah. I wish I’d been recording it.” The article was writing itself in my head as I stood there; if I didn’t have a date, I’d probably be scribbling in a notebook. I squeezed her hand. “Should we mingle?”
“Definitely.”
We stayed late and talked to everyone we knew, and met a lot of people we’d either only known of, or didn’t know at all. Alisha introduced me to Donald Zhu, who was known to pretty much everyone by his first name as if he were Madonna. He was the closest thing to a La Vista queer celebrity, this old Chinese man you’d never guess was at the forefront of the White Night riots, busting open San Francisco City Hall and tangling with cops at Elephant Walk later that night. I’d seen him at Club Fred’s many times—Fredi cleared a table for him—but he was always surrounded by this cadre of stocky admirers who looked like they were still waiting for retaliation for whatever he’d been up to in the seventies and eighties.
