“I noticed.”
“I don’t know why anyone would want to go back to Tucson voluntarily. I’m pretty sure Arizona is the closest thing to fascism that America still has.”
“It’s home,” she says. “Or as much of a home as it can be. I do miss it sometimes. But I miss the people there more. I had a lot of help when I was a poor, confused little bigender. One friend in particular.”
“But you’re okay now.” I don’t mean it as a question. I reach out and take her hand, curling her fingers in mine.
“Of course,” she says, giving me a beautiful smile. “But he talked some sense into rebellious seventeen-year-old me that I needed to hear at the time. I got everything back on track and am the stunning vision you see before you today because of it.”
I know Kori and Corey had a rough go of it for a while, but I didn’t know how big of a part her friend played in it. She’ll tell me when she’s ready. “And he’s a drag queen? Your friend?”
“Yes, she is. One of the best, even. And that’s saying a lot….”
“I should have been a drag queen,” I sigh. “But then pride happened sophomore year and well… you remember that disaster.” Let’s just say I do not make an attractive woman. There are many gorgeous queens in the world. I ended up look
ing like duckbilled platypus in a dress and heels.
“It was certainly… interesting.”
“‘Catastrophe’ is a better description, I think.”
Kori squeezes my hand. “The world is definitely lacking without a Minerva Fox. You’ll get to meet her one day, though. And when you see her perform, you’ll be in the presence of a true queen. You guys would really get along, I think. Hell, her friend Paul reminds me of Bear. Same type of open-mouth-what-the-hell-did-you-just-say kind of thing, so you’ll at least be able to commiserate together.”
The idea of another person in the world like Bear is surely a sign of the coming apocalypse, so I try not to dwell on it too much. “What’s her drag name?” I ask, trying to match the pronouns like Kori does. It’s important to her. And therefore to me. Kori keeps things close to the vest, and if this is the first time I’m hearing about an old friend, I need to make sure I don’t screw anything up.
“You’ll love it,” she says as she looks back out to the sea. “It’s Helena Handbasket.”
That’s so much better than Minerva Fox. “Epic,” I say.
“Indeed,” she says. “Oh, and Ty?”
“Yeah?”
“You know how you’re forcing me to protest even though I don’t believe in this?”
“I’m saving your soul. But sure.”
She grins evilly at me. “Just remember not to be nervous when you’re getting interviewed by the reporter today. I’m pretty sure you won’t screw up all your words on live TV and get put onto YouTube for all the world to see and make fun of you. Too much, anyway.”
Oh, goddammit.
IT STARTS out well. Or, at least as well as a last-minute, slap-dash protest of a chain restaurant initiated by a nineteen-year-old ecoterrorist, assisted by his bigender best friend, who seems to be doing her best to channel Marilyn Monroe today, and a group of five hippies who I think live in some kind of compound thing on one of the beaches, can get. And since they live in a compound, I’m pretty sure they probably belong to some kind of cult and dance naked every full moon and then go back to their drum circle and have orgies so Mother Gaia renews them with vigor or some such thing. I’m not judging, especially when it comes to these kinds of protests. The greater the numbers, the louder the voices, and rah-rah-rah. To each their own. I just don’t want to be in a hippie orgy.
But the cult aside, at least they show up in force. Five of them, with their own signs—LOVE YOUR ANIMAL BROTHERS AND SISTERS and HOW CAN YOU EAT SOMETHING THAT HAS EYES? and WHEN THE ANIMALS ARE ALL GONE, WILL WE EAT EACH OTHER? It’s a start.
The restaurant, BJ’s, has some very shady meat-procuring practices and prides itself on quadruple-decker hamburgers it calls the “HeartSlammer.” It’s as grotesque as it sounds. The fact that one of the restaurants in Connecticut was found to be using horse meat only made things worse.
All I want to do is bring attention to the good people of Seafare what kind of businesses are opening in our city. I just want to make sure everyone knows the kind of food they are putting into their bodies. All I want to do is exercise my right to assemble peacefully. A local news reporter shows up (though I invited at least four more—I guess they were all busy with the fast-paced news world that is the coast of Oregon). I planned on giving an interview. We would protest for a while. Then we would leave. That’s all. Sounds fine and dandy, right? Sounds easy as pie.
And it is!
At first.
But it devolves, very, very quickly.
Later, I’ll see myself on the ten o’clock news and think, Never trust beach hippies ever again for the rest of your life. For anything. Beach hippies ruin everything. Goddamn beach hippies! But this will be thought in a daze, as it will end in such a way that all else will be driven from my mind.
Yeah. This is about to get ugly. Sorry.