Luke lowered the blade a few degrees. Brendan could hear Allison breathing through her teeth, directly behind him.
“I need you to let go of Jonah. I need him to help with Buzz. If you want to hang onto the knife, that’s your business. But we could get out of here faster if you help us.”
Allison edged past Brendan, into the room. “I’m going over to Buzz now,” she said.
“Mom?”
“Okay.” Luke relaxed his hold on Jonah, but only slightly. “Okay. No 9-1-1 from my phone. They’ll trace it.”
“Buzz. Buzz!” Allison knelt next to the boy’s limp body, listening for breath without taking her eyes off Luke and Jonah.
“Let him go,” Brendan repeated. “No calls from your phone.”
“Jonah, I need you to help,” Allison said firmly.
Brendan nodded. Tentatively at first, Jonah withdrew, sidling toward an elaborate stereo setup opposite the windows. Brendan took a careful step into the room, allowing Jonah to circle behind him. Not for a second did he look away from Luke.
“Other side,” Allison said as Jonah approached the sofa. “Help me move him, flat on his back.”
“Like this?”
A siren’s wail floated in through the open window.
“Lift … yes … ease him away from the sofa.”
As Allison began rescue breathing the siren drew closer, ratcheting up from distant city noise to a piercing blast. The ambulance turned into Belvedere Street and sounded a deep, window-rattling horn. Allison knelt, breathing and counting, breathing again.
“Shit!” Luke cried out as the ambulance went quiet. He lurched toward the three by the sofa.
Brendan stepped in to intercept the boy, grabbing Luke’s left arm and yanking him off course. Luke’s sneaker caught the edge of the table and he was suddenly airborne. Brendan brought his free hand up the hefty kid’s side, aiming to control his knife arm, and struck hard between elbow and shoulder. Luke released the santoku.
“Duck!” Brendan yelled, but everything happened way too fast. Stainless steel bit into painted wooden wainscoting. Luke hit the wall and fell heavily onto his side.
Nobody moved. Then the knife, jarred loose by the boy’s impact, clattered to the floor between Buzz’s high tops and Luke’s green velour Vans. Luke struggled to sit up.
“Steady …” Brendan scooped up the weapon and sent it sliding across the floorboards, under the sofa and out of Luke’s reach. Heart slamming in his rib cage, he checked his arms for blood. There was a fresh slit in the sleeve of his jacket, and he was suddenly aware of a warm, wet sting. He wiggled the fingers of his left hand, then pressed his right against the cut, not prepared yet to look. “That’s an ambulance, not police,” he said, giving Luke a once-over. “Jonah, run downstairs, bring ’em up here quick as you can.”
Jonah hugged the wall, keeping away from Luke and Brendan. Allison returned to keeping Buzz in oxygen. Luke was trying to stand. “But you said—”
“Listen to me.” Brendan leaned right up in the boy’s face. “It’s too late for that. I got rid of the knife. But if there’s anything else you need to hide, pull yourself together now.”
A cadence of heavy boots came clomping up the stairs.
“We’re here,” Brendan called out. “In the front.”
Luke staggered over to the table and scooped up the bong and a sandwich bag. He was jamming them behind the stereo cabinet when the first paramedic stepped into the room. Allison scooted aside as the professionals took charge.
—
Hovering over Buzz, one of the paramedics adjusted an oxygen tank while the second radioed med-speak back to their dispatcher. Brendan stood with Luke and Jonah in the hallway. “You can hate my guts if you like,” he said, noting a bruise blooming under Luke’s skewed t-shirt. “But the cops are going to show up any minute. If you need to keep them out of here, there’s things we can do. Are you up for it?”
“Up for what?”
“Stalling. Keeping them from coming upstairs while the paramedics are here.”
“You can’t stall the cops,” Luke said.
“Yeah, you can. You tell them what happened, and you tell it all mixed-up and slow so they have to keep going over your story. First thing, though, I need a clean cloth to wrap around my arm.” Brendan shrugged out of his jacket. His shirtsleeve was soaked red. Both boys paled. Brendan stepped into a bathroom off the hall and ran water into the tub. “Hurry it up, Luke, no time to waste.” Brendan winced as the cold stream sluiced over his forearm.
Jonah stood at the bathroom door. “Is it—”
“Just a flesh wound,” he said, not that he really knew.
When Luke returned with an old shirt and a pair of scissors, Brendan talked him through cutting a makeshift bandage.
“What about me?” Jonah asked as Brendan bound his wound.
“Stay here with your mom,” Brendan said. “When they bring Buzz down, grab any medical stuff they leave behind. Bring it out to the ambulance. Luke’s going to lock himself inside, and your job is to make sure there’s no reason for the paramedics to come back.”
Brendan worked back into his jacket as he and Luke descended the stairs. “Once Buzz is out, you slip back in and shut the door,” Brendan said. “You’re going to have to block it with a chair or a piece of wood.” He showed Luke where he’d busted the deadbolt on the way in. “Don’t open when they knock. Say your dad doesn’t allow you to open the door for strangers. If they hassle you, say you have to call your parents first.”
Clusters of neighbors had gathered to see what was up. Brendan and Luke huddled at the foot of the stairs and refined their plan.
“What’s going on?” a jowly man in sweats called over.
“Medical problem,” Brendan said. “Nothing serious.”
It didn’t take long for a police cruiser to pull up and double-park behind the ambulance. “Remember,” Brendan said quietly. “Make him ask twice.”
Luke grunted. A burly, clean-shaven cop stepped out of the car and spoke into a microphone strapped to his epaulet. Ebony-skinned and stern, he approached.
“The problem’s here,” Brendan said, stepping up to meet him. “A kid passed out.”
“Is this your residence, sir?” the policeman asked. His name tag identified him as T. R. Williams.
“No, Officer. If I got the story right, the kid showed up at this young man’s door, drunk or high or whatever. Showed up with his friend, who lives in the house I’m staying at—over by Market Street? I’m just visiting. Anyway, the kids know each other from school. What school is it again, Luke?”
“Dorothy Day.”
“Right. Dorothy Day Middle School. So anyway, the one kid started to pass out, and they called the house I’m staying at? They didn’t know what to do. The parents weren’t home and we didn’t want to take any chances. So we called 9-1-1 and rushed over.”
“Where’s the kid now? The one who passed out.”
“Oh, he’s with the paramedics,” Brendan said. “They had it under control, so we just got out of the way.”
“They radioed in a heroin overdose, white male adolescent.”
“Heroin?” Brendan echoed, giving surprised-and-distressed his best shot. “Luke, does Buzz do that shit?”
“I don’t know.”
Brendan winked encouragement, then turned back to the cop. “Heroin, jeez. These kids are thirteen years old, Officer.”
“What happened to your arm?” The officer gestured to the bloodied rip in Brendan’s sleeve.
“Oh, Christ—yeah—I nicked that moving furniture aside, getting to where Buzz passed out.”
“I need some names,” Williams said, pulling out a notebook. “Who’s Buzz?”
The two talked over each other, backtracked, answered vaguely, and otherwise occupied SFPD’s finest. Another police cruiser pulled up. Luke elbowed Brendan; Brendan held the boy’s shoulder lightly to keep him from bolting too soon. Gently, he steered Luke into position, putting himself b
etween Officer Williams and the Conners’ front door. When the ambulance crew emerged with Buzz, Luke slipped inside. Allison followed the paramedics; then Jonah, lugging the oxygen tank.
“Where are they taking him?” Brendan asked.
“SF General,” Allison said. “We’ll ride along. I called Zac, he’ll meet us there.”
Brendan gestured in the police officer’s direction. “I’ll come after I finish with Officer Williams.”
“Can I get your name, ma’am?” Williams asked.
“Allison Rayle.”
“Are you the boy’s mother?”
“I am this young man’s mother,” she said, holding Jonah close. “The boy they’re putting in the ambulance is a school friend and a friend of our family. I was breathing for him until the paramedics got here.”
Brendan stole a backward glance. Luke’s door was shut tight. The kid must have thought through his moves while they were running circles around the cop.
“How did you—”
“Officer, we’re the closest thing Buzz has to family here. We haven’t reached his mom yet. He’s in the seventh grade, and he needs somebody to stay with him. I’m happy to answer questions after we get Buzz to the hospital. Is that okay?”
“Yeah, sure. Now where did Luke get to?”
“You guys better climb on,” Brendan said, shepherding Allison and Jonah toward the ambulance.
“Right,” she said. “C’mon, Jonah, let’s go.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
The spokescouncil’s last meeting before the GeneSynth protest was about to begin. Christopher and Leona huddled with two out-of-town activists in a corridor of the Women’s Building, a community center in the heart of the Mission. “It’s late in the game to pull that kind of shit,” said the woman who had just arrived from Seattle.
The dreadlocked white kid, up from Santa Cruz to represent a cluster of environmentalist affinity groups, agreed. “Bummer to have this crap to deal with.”
“So what’s her angle?”
Christopher sighed. “It’s Celia, right?”
The woman nodded.
“Look,” he said, “I have my theories about Meg Wyneken, but venting isn’t going to get us through tonight’s agenda. She favors strong central organization. Let’s leave it at that.”
“She ain’t the ogre Chris thinks,” Leona said. “She’s hella good at spinning media, and free-for-alls bring on a lot of bad press, not just in San Francisco.”
“Yeah, we seen that up north, for sure,” Celia said, slouching against a mural commemorating the Greensboro sit-ins. “Look at WTO. Media slaughtered us.”
“That would have happened no matter what we did in ’99.” The kid from Santa Cruz brushed back his dreads. “The press wrote those stories before anybody even showed up.”
“Let’s focus on here and now.” Christopher bit back his impatience, wishing Allison had pulled spokescouncil duty, and that he was at the Turnabout Collective helping with the banner. “When Meg pushes the Triangle on its action, I’m going to say flat-out that the plan is nonviolent. We’re not going to destroy property, and we intend to abide by the coalition’s principles of unity. We’re going to handle any reporters who talk to us in full alignment with the media committee’s talking points. There’s zero strategic divergence. If there were we would expect leadership to disavow us. But only if we screw up, and only on principle. End of story.”
“Meg’s heard all that?” Celia asked.
“She heard it,” Leona said.
“And she still needs to thrash it out tonight?”
“I tried to chill her. No dice.”
“So what do y’all want from us?” Celia looked through the double doors at the crowd of activists milling around the meeting room. “This thing’s going to start any minute.”
“I’m hoping you’ll speak up if there’s a problem,” Christopher said. “Advocate for trust in a group of well-known activists. Encourage the spokescouncil to move on.”
“So the goal is to table the issue.”
Christopher shook his head decisively. “The goal is to table the question. It’s not an issue unless the spokes accept that every affinity-group action has to be micromanaged.”
“Right,” Celia said. “And that can’t happen.”
“Tactical leadership stays at a high level,” Leona said. “If we know in advance, we do better at coordinating. What we don’t know happens fresh, and that’s cool.”
“That’s it,” Christopher said, grateful for the quasi-official support.
“One more thing,” Leona said. “The Triangle don’t have a license to hijack coalition plans. If people put out the trust and it ain’t put back, we’re talkin’ cold shoulders, way past next week. We’re talkin’ ice age.”
“Fair enough. And nobody’s going to hijack anything.”
The guy from Santa Cruz had beads in his hair that clicked and clacked when he bobbed his head affirmatively. “I’m in,” he said.
Celia pushed off the wall. “So’s Seattle.”
—
Nora flashed a high sign as Christopher worked his way through the room. While he rounded up support, she’d been fomenting a movement to rearrange the chairs. Meg had corralled tactical leadership into kicking off with a formal presentation, and used that as an excuse to set the room up like a student council meeting: rank and file in docile formation, facing their leaders. “All she’s missing is a throne,” Nora said when they saw the layout, and immediately launched her subversive campaign.
Activists had come to represent all corners of the greater Bay Area, and beyond. Spokespeople had been sent from groups in Davis, Santa Cruz, Watsonville, and up and down the North Coast—from Bolinas to Fort Bragg, from Eureka and Eugene all the way to the Canadian border. Christopher hadn’t seen Eddie Bourgeaut slip in. “I had no idea you’d be here!” he said once Eddie released him from a bear hug.
“Me neither. I was in Sebastopol on election business.” Eddie chortled from behind his shaggy beard. “I swear, Chris, the whole northern coast is done with genetically modified organisms. Anyway, I was close enough to show up.”
“So what’s the latest tally from up your way?”
“Hundreds,” Eddie said. “There’s four buses booked as of last night, plus people carpooling down on their own.”
Christopher whistled. “All built off the GMO campaigns?”
“In Mendocino County, hell yes. Marin, Napa, Humboldt, there’s all kinds of ferment around the November ballot now. Did you hear Sonoma’s organizing a ban?”
“Just the other day. If I were an optimist I’d call it a movement.”
Eddie clapped him on the back and laughed from deep in his belly. “It’s a movement whether or not you’re an optimist!” he said, then leaned to whisper in Christopher’s ear. “We got another vehicle—”
“Not here,” Christopher said. “Outside, afterwards?”
Eddie nodded.
“Will you stay over at the Triangle?”
“I’ll head up to Fairfax,” Eddie said. “Got an old friend to visit, and I can use the head start tomorrow morning.”
The room settled and Meg took the microphone, slight and sharp-chinned in jeans and a Jamawar shawl. She introduced tactical leadership and quickly laid out the agenda. “So let’s get started with the orientation,” she said brightly. “This is especially for groups who are coming from out of town, but all of us here at the front learned a lot as we prepared it.”
She fiddled with a laptop and projector. Christopher jostled Nora when Meg’s slide deck came up on the screen. “I know,” Nora whispered. “It’s like she’s running a shareholder meeting.”
Meg flipped through the Moscone Center layout and maps of downtown, using a laser pointer to show where conference events would take place, where the attendees would be staying, and choke points where police were likely to set up barricades. She identified staging points for marches, and described the roving-blockade strategy they would use to keep
people out of custody for as long as possible.
“We want to get maximum mileage out of civil disobedience,” she said. “What worked during the antiwar shutdown was to establish a sit-in at an intersection, like we’re going all the way to arrest. The police would respond by moving in the jail buses, and the motorcycle squadrons, and the bundles of plastic handcuffs. Then when they were almost ready to take people away, we’d stand up and march someplace else.”
A few of the spokes whistled their approval.
“Lather, rinse, repeat,” Meg said, and got the laugh she’d aimed for. “It tied downtown up in knots.”
“But it didn’t stop the war,” someone called out.
Christopher winced.
“Not yet,” Meg said. “But nobody’s here because they’ve given up on street protest.”
Next up were “new angle actions,” affinity-group plans outside the blockade-arrest model. The Left Coast Wingnuts out of UC Davis would conduct mutant organism inspections in downtown restaurants, Meg explained. Doctors Who Do The Math would hold a press conference on the steps of the International Public Health Institute to propose ten measures, each promising to improve one hundred times as many lives and cost a hundredth as much as a single bioengineered drug. Local chapters of Raging Grannies would conduct mock hostage-takings along Market Street to call attention to the Percy Schmeiser case.
“Who’s Percy Schmeiser?” whispered a woman to Christopher’s right.
“A Canadian farmer,” he explained. “Monsanto’s suing him for ‘technology fees’ after their seeds blew in from a neighbor’s field.”
The room was buzzing by the time Meg reached the end of her slide deck. In an unscripted moment between agenda items, Nora stood on her chair.
“That was a great overview, Meg,” she said, her voice piercing the hubbub. “But I’d like to see people sit in a circle for the rest of the meeting—that would be a better fit for a coalition of affinity groups.”
“I’m not sure that’s the best—”
Nora turned up her volume as Meg tried to break in. “What do the other spokes think about meeting in a circle?”
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