The next night, after a long day of being hungover and trying to get my mind off the previous night by watching baking shows on Netflix, Jax calls all the active Stags together. “Time to show the Herons their reign is over,” he says. He takes a sip of his beer and gives me a wink. “Plus it’s time you met everyone else.”
After last night, I’m not really ready for any more Stag business, but this is what I signed up for, so I man up and am in the kitchen at the appointed time.
Kurt arrives first with two more Stags, Juliet and Cameron. Juliet is heavyset with a long braid of black hair; she keeps her arms folded as she leans against the wall. “Half Filipino, half Chinese,” she tells me when I ask. Her eyes smile from beneath long, thick lines of eyeliner. She throws some punches into the air with practiced motions and says, “Fighter on both sides.”
“Me, too,” I reply, relieved to have something in common. “Well, half Filipino.”
She cocks her head to the side. “Really? You don’t look it.”
“Yeah,” I say. “My mom’s side is pretty light skinned for Filipinos as is. And since my other half is white, it’s super hard to tell.”
“Gotcha.” She puts her arm around my shoulder. “I’m just glad there’s going to be someone else to back me up when I argue halo halo is the best dessert of all time.”
“Ooh,” I reply, salivating at the thought of the red bean, shaved ice, and purple ube ice cream concoction that is halo halo. “A hundred percent will back you up. Have you ever been there? To the Philippines?”
“Yeah, a few times. My grandma and cousins are there.”
“Wow,” I say. “I’ve always wanted to go.”
“Why haven’t you?”
I hesitate. “Just never got around to it, I guess. My mom hasn’t been since she came to the U.S., and it’s not a big deal to her. So we never did.”
“Dude, you should go, at least once,” Juliet replies. “It’s pretty cool.”
Cameron shakes my hand when I offer it, but doesn’t say anything else. He lives and breathes monotone—gray hat with black pants and shoes. The side of his head and face is tattooed with a series of interlocking gears. A dagger entangled in barbed wire rides up his forearm.
“Where’s your Stag tattoo?” I ask, going with the safest bit of small talk I have.
“My back,” he replies flatly. Then he turns and greets Jax, who’d just stomped down the stairs. An amused laugh sounds from behind me.
“Don’t worry about Cameron,” Nianna says. “He tries to look all tough, but he’s scared shitless around girls.”
The three of them stay and we have a feast of enchiladas, rice, beans, and everything in between. Juliet tells a story about a guy who tried to hit on her by talking about bird hunting, which makes Nianna laugh so hard she cries.
Once we’ve all eaten, Jax tells us to leave the plates and gather in the living room.
“As you all know,” he says, “we’re partnering with the Boars to take on the Herons once and for all. And thanks to Theresa, I know exactly where we’re going to hit ’em.”
I frown and sip my water. I always found it bizarre when people refer to their parents by their first names.
“There’s a corner store in the Lower Haight that’s been owned by the same family for three generations. The Herons want to tear it down as part of a redevelopment plan. This store is the last holdout on the block. Now there are plans to build an apartment complex there.”
“Of course,” Juliet mutters.
“The company building the complex isn’t publicly associated with her Herons. Theresa says the Herons are trying to fund the building through a San Francisco-based company to avoid backlash. They won’t reveal they’re with the Herons until after everything’s done.”
“Sneaky,” Kate murmurs.
Jax continues. “Anyway, demolition is scheduled for next week. Media will be there, and probably some city officials keeping people away from the area. We’re going to make sure that the building remains standing by flooding the streets with people protesting.”
“What do the Boars need us for?” Nianna asks, swirling the last of her beer.
“To make it two against one. I agree with the move. Everyone’s going to pitch in getting the word out, and getting people there,” Jax replies. Taking a hair tie from his wrist, he pulls his hair back into a man bun. It’s like freakin’ Thor is in our living room, I think, laughing inwardly.
“Jules and I will hit up bars in the area and feel out people’s moods,” Jax continues. “Nianna and Micah, I’ll need you to use your Oakland connections to see if we can get support from the other side of the bay.”
“Done,” she replies. Micah nods.
“Kate and Val, you’re on social. Micah will draw a logo for you to use and give you the logins for the accounts we have already. You’ll use burner phones to call media to draw attention to our cause, emphasizing that it’s now two against one. With us united with the Boars, the Herons look like the big bad wolf.”
Make calls and organize a protest. I think I can handle that. “Okay,” I say affirmatively. I nudge Kate’s shoulder. “We got it.”
She flinches, like she’s suddenly paying attention. “Oh. Definitely.”
Jax runs through the rest of the roles—Mako and Kurt are on recon about the demolition itself. Cameron will dig into the right forums on Reddit and other sites to get people to the rally.
“Remember the cause,” says Jax. “But be smart about it. If we all go in guns blazing, saying how this is all part of a plan, then no one will come. We have to make them care. Make them feel like this is their chance to have their voices heard. This is the march for our city, to protect the San Francisco that people know and love. Make them remember the decisions they disagreed with, the places they miss—”
“And streets without all those fucking scooters laying around,” says Mako, getting all of us to laugh.
Jax raises his beer. “Appeal to their hearts. Injustice is a rallying cry.”
“Amen,” says Nianna, and we all raise a glass. Over in the papasan, Micah lifts his cup, too, but later than the rest of us. While the others kick off a round of Call of Duty, I catch Micah’s eye and motion back over to the kitchen. I wait until the noise from the TV is loud enough to say anything.
“You okay?” I ask.
He tucks his hand into his sweatshirt. “Yeah, sure.”
“You don’t look it.”
“I’m nervous about working with the Boars. It’s been a while, but even the newbies would know that Jax left them. They might want to get back at him.”
The plate I’m holding slips out of my grasp and clangs around the sink. “You think?”
“Maybe. The Boars are unpredictable. Always have been.”
“Are you gonna tell Jax?”
He shrugs. “He knows how I feel.” Micah grabs another pair of plates from the table and scoots me out of the way. I relinquish the sink but hop up on the counter. I’m not sure what else to say, so I just hang out as he finishes up the dishes, then starts the washer.
“You wanna split a beer?” he asks me, and I nod. He goes and grabs it, then sits up on the counter next to me.
“Don’t tell Jax what I said, okay?” he says quietly, handing me the beer.
I take it. “I thought you said he knew how you felt.”
“He does. But he probably doesn’t want me corrupting your opinions.”
I think, take a sip, and hold out the bottle for him to take back. “I don’t exactly disagree though.”
He sighs. “Best not tell Jax that either.”
The next morning, I trudge upstairs and head straight for the kitchen. After staying up late last night, I’m desperate for coffee. Nianna’s at the table reading the newspaper.
“Good morning,” I say. “Anything interesting in there?”
“Morning,” she replies. “And kinda, yeah. Says here that the San Francisco police chief John Kilmer is in talks with private security companies about getting help on a new public safety campaign.”
Kilmer. That name. Nianna has her eyes back on the page—she doesn’t see my shock. It can’t be the same person.
She takes a sip of her coffee. “Kilmer’s plans appear effective. There have been just two gang-related murders since December of last year and over a dozen arrests.” Her voice rises at the last part, like she’s asking a question. “Do you think that’s true?”
“What? Sorry.”
“The arrests. Do you think that’s true?”
“Oh. Um, Jax would’ve said something if it was,” I say. “Isn’t that what he’s working on with Ty, or part of it at least?”
“Yeah, maybe,” she replies. “Still…”
“Yeah.”
I grab a pan to fry up an egg, praying food will distract me from my memories. I didn’t know Deputy Kilmer had become chief of police, but I guess it has been two years since he worked on Leo’s case. Would he recognize me if he saw me now?
I push the thought out of my mind, finish cooking, then sit down at the table to eat. One thing at a time, Valerie. And right now that thing is planning a damn protest.
Kate’s never used Twitter, and I have an account that I barely use, so that makes me the Twitter expert. She and I sit next to each other at the table, laptops side by side.
“Okay, so the Stags have an account already, right?” I say. Before the Wars, I would read it from time to time, but they barely posted. “What’s the login?”
She doesn’t know, so I ask Micah. After digging around, he finds a crumpled piece of paper with some passwords, one of which works. There’s a meager following of eight hundred or so people, but it’s something, at least. We start with the basics—when and where, what we’re protesting, and how to help.
“Nonviolent protest,” I say as we read through our copy.
“Nonviolent, peaceful protest,” echoes Kate as she types. “Should people wear any particular thing? Like the pink hats for the Women’s March.”
“Hmm,” I respond. “It’s kinda short notice for anyone to get anything.”
“I dunno. People are really resourceful. Maybe red hats? For the Red Bridge Wars.”
“Oh, maybe,” I reply. “Let’s come back to that. We need a hashtag.”
“Oooh, yes.”
As Kate and I bounce ideas around, I fight the urge to ask if she feels like Micah and I feel—that the Boars are dangerous, and we shouldn’t be working with them. They could have planned a protest on their own—is it really that much of a benefit to work together?
“Well?” says Kate.
“Sorry, kinda spaced. What did you say?”
“I said what about ‘Halt the Herons’? As a tagline?”
“Oh! Yeah, that’s perfect.”
She beams and gets back to typing the copy for the event website. She’s in a good mood today, which I’m glad about. Kate’s moods remind me of a girl in my class at school, Ella. She sat next to Lyla in history and would hang out with our group here and there. She was friendly but reserved. Some days she’d be silent, and other days she’d hop into the conversation like she was born ready.
When she stopped showing up to lunches, Lyla told me in confidence that Ella was seeing the school counselor during that time. “Her parents are getting divorced and putting her in the middle of everything,” Lyla had said. “It’s super fucked up. I told her she should talk to someone about it. I miss eating lunch with her, but I’m glad she’s getting help.”
If only Kate could get help. I don’t know her well enough to say anything to her face, but I decide then to talk to Mako about it, no matter how awkward that convo might be.
I switch gears back to my role—spreading the word on Twitter. Tweeting out pieces of Kate’s website copy, I start tacking on all the hashtags I can think of, including #HaltTheHerons. Next, I click around until I find the accounts of groups already fighting the gang violence. After I message them in private, I start commenting on their posts. My notifications tick up and up. For good measure, I do a quick search for “top Twitter tips for hosting an event” just to make sure I’m not forgetting anything.
“You should tweet a picture of the corner store,” says Kate. “Here, this one has the owner right in front. He’s such a sweet old guy.”
She sends me the picture, and a few tweets later, I shut the laptop. “God I hope this works.”
Kate shrugs. “Well, we did what Jax wanted us to.”
“What if it’s not enough?”
“Then you figure out ways to make it enough,” Jax says from behind us. Kate and I both turn and see him leaning against the post in the foyer.
“You two keep working. I’ll be back after last call.”
When the door shuts behind them, Kate huffs. “Some work he and Jules have to do. Drink and schmooze with people while asking them about our protest.”
“Hopefully it gains some traction by the time bars start getting busy,” I say, glancing at the microwave clock. It’s 4:14 P.M. “Let’s keep working.”
“Fine,” she replies, reopening her laptop. “You want to email KTVU, and I’ll take KPIX 5?”
We divide up the news stations, and then email a few smaller outlets like the Wars fansite I know. I answer the hits we get off Twitter—what we need, how they can help. I email the fair housing and activist sites, explaining what we’re trying to do with our protest and asking that they sound the rallying cry, too.
We’re up against the clock, but with everyone on board, I start to have hope that we can really pull this off. It’d be one step closer to showing Jax I’m loyal to the Stags, and therefore one step closer to finding out who Leo’s killer is.
Besides, despite my intentions or even the Stags’, I believe in this. We truly are giving people a platform. And that’s all a person needs—someplace to spark the tinder of change, and an audience to watch the flames.