Monkey Wrench

by Terri Thayer

  He held up a hand for me to be quiet. “Hold up. Wyatt’s going to speak,” he said.

  Wyatt? I looked again and recognized the kid I’d seen with Pearl. Was Vangie here somewhere? I tried to look for her but saw only a wall of protesters. I grabbed my purse strap and held it close to my body. These might be peaceful people but it wouldn’t take much for it to turn into a mob.

  More kids were streaming in from Fountain Alley and from Almaden Way. I saw a news crew walking briskly. I pitied the guy carrying the heavy camera. They must have had to park blocks away.

  Wyatt raised his bullhorn high. Had he been waiting for the news crew?

  The crowd quieted. At Wyatt’s hand direction, they sat. I could see clearly.

  Vangie was standing next to Wyatt.

  Four

  “We don’t want the feds on our campus,” Wyatt shouted into the bullhorn. “We don’t need no stinking task force to tell us how to live our lives.”

  The crowd roared their approval. Next to him, Vangie raised a fist. What was Vangie doing up there? She looked too much like pictures of SLA Patty Hearst to suit me.

  Vangie was a hard-working kid who didn’t have time for civil disobedience. It took all of her energy to do her schoolwork, work at QP, and look after her family. She was not an activist.

  Besides that, she was still on probation from a juvenile arrest for marijuana possession. I could smell weed in the air. Vangie could not afford a night in jail.

  I climbed down the steps of the museum and skirted the edge of the crowd. I slipped through between people with hand-lettered signs. “Don’t Whack Our Weed” one read. Clever. Another said. “Jonesing for a Toke.” These sentiments weren’t likely to get a serious hearing from anyone.

  Wyatt’s voice rang through the plaza. “Today our campus was taken over by thugs. Thugs with guns, tear gas, and battering rams. Thugs who violated our human rights.”

  Another cheer. Vangie looked up at Wyatt, her face solemn and serious. I knew that look. Adoration.

  If she stuck with Wyatt, she was likely to get arrested. The cops would want to take out the leaders. Getting booked into the county jail would probably be a feather in Wyatt’s organizing cap.

  But for Vangie, getting arrested would be a disaster. She’d promised to stay clean for at least ten years. Vangie still saw a probation officer once a month. Any violation of the law could rescind her parole.

  She could go to jail.

  Her entire school career was on the line.

  I couldn’t let her do that. I put my head down and pushed through a line of frat boys carrying 32-ounce beers.

  Two mounted San Jose policeman picked their way through the edges of the crowd on the far side, near the Tech Museum. I was glad to see them. I’d thought budget cuts had gotten rid of that division. Buster told me the horses often had a calming effect on crowds.

  I cut through the deserted Fairmont Hotel portico, usually filled with luxury cars and uniformed doormen. I could see well-dressed women hanging back in the lobby. Their dinner plans were on hold.

  Wyatt turned so he was facing the north end of the square. It was nearly as crowded. “The pigs are going to find out we don’t take kindly to narcs on our campus.”

  He was interrupted by a roar from the crowd. Everyone was back on their feet again, fists pumping.

  “It’s none of their business if we smoke a little weed now and again. They’ve got no right to come in our dorms and search our rooms. No right at all to bust us.”

  I was pretty sure that the police had every right to arrest students for illegal activity.

  My phone beeped. There was a message from Buster. “Stay away from downtown. Riot going on.”

  I put my phone in my pocket. I would get out of here, but not without Vangie. After several minutes of pushing and shoving, I got close enough to tap on her foot. She was standing on the bench with Wyatt, holding two cell phones.

  “Vangie,” I yelled, as the crowd bellowed its approval at Wyatt’s rantings. She looked down, startled to see me.

  “What?” She jumped off the bench.

  “What are you doing here? Come with me.”

  She shook her head. “We’re making history, Dewey.” She held up one of the cell phones. I could see a Twitter feed, the screen seeming to twitch as more entries were posted as I watched.

  “Wyatt sent out a tweet asking kids against the drug raid to come to the park. Look what happened,” she said, sweeping her hand at the gathering. “It’s just like Libya or Russia. People answering the call.”

  She looked away from me, clapping as Wyatt finished another rhetorical question.

  I hissed at her, “What are you thinking? What if you get booted out of school? You’ll have to pay back your student loans whether or not you flunk out.”

  Wyatt yelled into his megaphone again. I was too close—his words were garbled. He reached down for Vangie.

  I grabbed Vangie’s elbow as she was about to join him again.

  “Are you really here so that kids can use drugs? Is that important to you?”

  Vangie’s eyes narrowed. “Dewey, you weren’t on campus today when the bust went down. It was frightening. Seeing armed men on campus, wearing bulletproof vests. It was like an army rolled in. We heard there were going to be tanks. Felt like Kent State all over again.”

  That was pure Vangie. She’d been born a few decades too late.

  “Vang, I’m sure it was scary. But it’s over and the kids who were breaking the law have been arrested. The school will be a safer place now that the drug dealers are gone.”

  Vangie wasn’t moved. “We don’t know that. We don’t know who the FBI was targeting.”

  Wyatt held a hand out for her to grab.

  “Vangie, this isn’t your fight. You’ve got work, and your scholarship to think of.”

  She frowned at me. “This is exactly my fight. I know how easy it is to be brought up on bogus charges.”

  I pointed at a duo passing a joint. “These kids don’t look like they care about civil rights.”

  “Not everyone has to believe, Dewey.”

  “What about your mother? Your grandmother? What about their dream of having a family member graduate college? Are you going to deprive them of that?”

  Wyatt wiggled his fingers. Someone had put a stack of pallets alongside him. The top one was higher than the bench he was standing on. He jumped up onto the pallets and reached down for Vangie.

  Vangie’s eyes narrowed and I knew I had gone too far. Her family was sacred.

  “I will never disappoint my family,” she said. “My college education will mean nothing if we don’t have basic freedoms.”

  Vangie raised a fist. Her eyes widened as she caught sight of something behind me. She climbed up on the pallets and tugged on Wyatt’s sleeve and pointed. I looked over my shoulder.

  A police car made its way slowly, poking its nose into the crowd that moved apart only long enough to surround the car from the back. The car was equipped with a loudspeaker.

  “Please leave this area. This is an unauthorized gathering. As such, your presence here is illegal. You have five minutes to clear the square. Move slowly in an orderly fashion.”

  Wyatt yelled, “Everyone stand their ground!”

  I grabbed Vangie’s hand, forcing her to lean down and listen to me. Wyatt glanced over but returned to his crowd when someone called his name. He was a rock star.

  I hissed, “You can’t go to jail, Vangie. Your future …”

  I was bumped from behind by a surge in the crowd. People were moving forward, trying to get closer to Wyatt.

  Vangie wrested her hand from me and linked arms with Wyatt. He jumped down, helping Vangie down. They linked arms with the kids in front of them.

  He began singing, leading the crowd in “We Shall Overcome.” Vangie sang with conviction, swaying, squashed between Wyatt and a tall black kid in a kente hat. The police car stayed on the edge, ignored by everyone.

  An ar
m landed in the middle of my back and I stumbled, losing my breath and my footing. Someone put a hand out to steady me. I took it gratefully. I tried to thank my rescuer but I was pushed forward, on my feet but caught up in the tide of protesters.

  A second police car poked through the periphery, going south this time. His loudspeaker blared its pre-recorded imprecations. “Please disburse. Clear the area.”

  A ripple went through the crowd. I wanted out. There was no place to go. I was in gridlock with a thousand protesters. Instead of disbursing, the edges of the crowd were moving forward, as if drawn to Wyatt’s flame. In the middle, where I was, we were being squeezed from both sides.

  My stomach ached. This was bad. If the true believers kept trying to get to Wyatt, it wouldn’t take much for things to get out of hand.

  I stepped on something.

  “Ow!” Someone yelped.

  I didn’t look to see whom I’d wounded. My chest constricted as the feeling of being overwhelmed grew.

  The mounted policeman picked his way past me, slowly moving east. People stepped aside to let him pass. I saw a way out. I scooted close to the horse. One giant hoof came close to landing on my foot. With a small cry, I hopped away.

  The horse was conditioned to be immune to human behavior and ignored me. The cop was too busy scanning the crowd to notice one scared woman dogging his footsteps.

  I tucked in against the flank. The horse’s earthy smell filled my nostrils and I choked. I clamped a hand over my nose and stayed close.

  He got me near enough to the edge of the crowd that I could break free on San Fernando Street. I stood outside Original Joe’s and panted, my heart pounding at the thought of what could have happened.

  From here, I couldn’t see Wyatt or Vangie, but the singing had stopped and the crowd was chanting “Freedom Now.”

  I wanted to see what the police had done. I started toward the college.

  I was the only one heading in the direction of the campus. Kids were still making their way to the demonstration, many looking at their phones as they walked.

  My phone chirped with messages. The first was from Freddy. “Will you pick me up some maps when you get yours? I’ll take a hundred.” He sounded so normal.

  The second was from Sonya. “My class has been canceled. I’m in my office if you want to come now.” She gave me directions to her place.

  Perfect. Now I had a real reason to be on campus.

  San Jose State campus was eerily quiet. Whatever the task force had done, it had done swiftly and left behind little evidence. So many of the students were over at the park that the campus felt deserted.

  Now that I was away from the noise, I thought about the Twitter response. Granted my Quilters Crawl customers were not totally wired-in college students, but I didn’t need thousands of participants. Even another fifty would add to our bottom line. The Twitter promotion could be phenomenal.

  I found Sonya’s office in the art department after taking a few wrong turns. The door to the cramped, dark office was open. A wooden desk faced front with a laptop open. Shelves of books filled the two side walls. Drawings and sketches covered every empty space. Ceramics lined the small window in the back.

  There were three names on a small card on the door. I was in the right place. Sonya shared this office with two other teachers. I waited in the hall. She’d said she would be here. With the door open and the laptop in full view, she wouldn’t have gone far.

  A cluttered bulletin board sat to the right of the door. I was surprised to see that some kids still used it to communicate. Seemed pretty old school. Write a message on a piece of paper, pin it to the board, hope the right person sees it. The notices were eclectic, someone looking for a ride to the Inland Empire for Columbus Day, another offered tutoring services. A tortoise for sale. Helpfully, he came with his own tank.

  A bright green paper caught my eye. The brochure was the do-it-yourself kind, printed on 8-1/2x11 paper, folded into thirds. A graphic of a smiling young man behind a lawn mower adorned the front.

  The headline read: Need a GrandSon? I held the brochure open. Inside was the pitch.

  Do you have an extra room in your house? Are you old enough to have a real grandson? Our GrandSon will mow your lawn, run your errands, take out the trash. Give him his own room, and provide one meal a day. He’ll never ask you for money or to bake his favorite pie.

  What an appealing idea. Genius, really. The older women I knew weren’t sick, they didn’t need full-time care. They needed someone to change light bulbs, or clean the fireplace flue. Keep up the honey-do list that had died with their husband. Having someone living in their houses, even a college kid who came and went at odd hours, would be better than living alone.

  Before Buster, I’d lived alone. My house was tiny, so having a roommate had been out of the question. After college and sharing a house with three others, I’d been ready to be on my own, but I hadn’t been prepared for what that really meant. How quiet the house could be. How staggeringly difficult changing the smoke alarm battery could be in the middle of the night. How long the nights were when all of them were spent alone.

  I tried to imagine what it was like for Pearl and others like her. Women who’d been married for decades. Who’d raised kids, and tended to husbands. How empty their houses must feel.

  Pearl might benefit from someone living with her. Vangie visited, but she still lived at home.

  I helped myself to the brochure.

  “Smart, right?” A petite woman came up next to me. I could see a door down the hall swing shut and heard the flushing of a toilet. “Some grad student came up with the idea. I think it was his thesis. He has a stable of young men needing to rent a room near the school. For reduced rent, they do light chores and keep the owner company.”

  “What an appealing idea. Genius, really. I know a lot of older women,” I said. I pointed to my chest. “Quilt shop owner.”

  “Ahh. Sonya Salazar. I think you’re looking for me,” she said, holding out her hand to shake.

  I took it. “Dewey Pellicano, from QP.”

  Sonya led me into her office. Her waist-length black hair swayed, nearly overwhelming her frame. She was dressed in complicated layered pieces. Green cabled tights peeked out beneath her long black paisley skirt and were tucked into short tan boots. Up top, an asymmetrical yellow sweater was belted at the waist with several skinny belts. She hitched up a lacy cream shawl over her shoulders. She looked like she shopped in antique shops and boutiques equally. None of her clothes should have worked together.

  Oh right, art teacher.

  “Find your way okay? The campus was shut down earlier today. Big drug bust.”

  “I heard,” I said. “In fact, I’m still a bit frazzled. I got caught up in a big protest downtown. I was on my way to the First Friday at the quilt museum, but I never made it.”

  “Oh, First Fridays. I love those. I know a lot of the people who show their work.”

  She reached into a tote bag behind her desk and handed me a stack of Quilters Crawl maps. I opened one of them.

  “Thanks for helping us this year with the map. I really like the new design,” I said. “You did a great job.”

  I pointed at the logo she’d designed. It was a convertible, speeding down the highway, filled with three attractive women and a grinning sea otter.

  “I liked that you gave us some quilters with attitude. Those women look more like my customers. My crowd doesn’t relate to the stereotype of the pudgy, gray-haired quilter. It turns them off. They don’t recognize themselves.”

  Sonya shrugged. “I just tried to imagine what kind of women would drive hundreds of miles to twelve shops in one weekend. Someone fun, obviously.”

  “Are you a quilter?” I asked.

  Sonya shook her head. “I’d never set foot in a quilt shop before I did the brochure. I’m interested, though.”

  “Are you an artist?” I asked, kicking myself as it came out. Of course she was. She taught art for a liv
ing. “What’s your medium?” I said, trying to recover.

  She smiled. “In a perfect world, oils. I’m fascinated by the old Italian masters. Some day I’m going to go to Florence. In the meantime, I supplement my income with graphic design jobs and web design. I did that work for the Quilters Crawl to try and find more work.”

  Surprise must have shown on my face. She flipped her hair back, gathering the long locks in one hand and shifting her entire body to accommodate. “You wouldn’t believe how little money I make. The schools only hire part-timers, so that they don’t have to put out for pensions and benefits. In addition to State, I teach classes at Mission, Foothill, and DeAnza.”

  Those schools were all over the map. Fremont, Cupertino, Los Altos. Literally.

  “Yikes, that’s a lot of driving.”

  “Like your shop hop,” Sonya said. “Only I do it every week.”

  Talk of driving brought me back to the Crawl. “Let me have another hundred maps,” I said. “I’ll bring them to Freddy Roman’s.”

  I took the second pile from her awkwardly, adding them to the ones already in my hand.

  “You’ll need something to carry them in,” Sonya said. She dumped the rest of the maps out and handed the tote bag to me. “Here, use this.”

  The bag was canvas, like the kind readily available at the craft stores for a few dollars. But it was no longer the boring beige generic canvas. Every inch of it had been decorated. Brightly colored swirls, paisleys, flowers made the bag look like it was made from wonderful fabric.

  “Your handiwork?” I asked.

  Sonya nodded. “I was doodling, testing out some fabric pens.”

  Some doodles. My most careful drawings didn’t look as good. “I’d love to know which ones you use. I’d like to carry them in my store, but am never sure which ones to order. I don’t want to disappoint my customers.”

  Sonya reached into a mug on the desk and handed me a pen. “I love this brand. Take it.”