Brownie Points (23 page)

Maya laughed and nudged Logan in the ribs. “Wait till they get a load of you.”

Jason and I looked at each other with trepidation. “They’re going to come, aren’t they?” I asked Jason softly. He nodded. “What’s going to happen when they
do
get a load of Logan?”

“You think they’ll be able to tell?” Jason asked.

“Probably not unless he starts with the show tunes.”

O’Mally charged on. “If we had more guys ready to stand up and stick it to the femi-nazis like this, our county wouldn’t be in the sorry-ass shape it is. Back in a minute.”

Fade out.

“Recent medical research by the top 1% of doctors now proves you may actually be allergic to another person,” the commercial began. Jason turned off the TV.

“How ya doin’, buddy?” Jason asked as he saw Logan’s look of concern.

“Well,” Logan hedged, “I’m a little nervous. What if these guys show up for my hearing and see that I’m not what they think I am?”

Chapter Twenty-Five

March

Jason suggested we drive to the courthouse in one of the fire department vehicles. After seven months in Los Corderos, our family was pretty identifiable as the only ones who owned a Prius. The department had several black SUVs, and borrowing one would mean blending in on the roads and avoiding any potential harassment from media.

As it turned out, El Camino Real was jammed with a diverse array of vehicles, from VW vans with Oregon license plates to luxury cars from Arizona. Judging from the bumper stickers, everyone from the San Francisco National Organization for Women to the Washington State University Campus Republicans was in town. “Are they all here for us?” Maya asked.

“It’s not the Million Man March,” Jason replied wearily.

“Vegans for Peace,” Logan read. “Goddess on board.”

“Keep your rosaries off my ovaries,” Maya added.

“Support our Girl Scout troops!” I read. “Looks like they made some bumper stickers especially for today. “Just say no to Do-Si-Do … Let Logan Tagalong!”

“This is so much better than I Spy,” Logan said.

Jason shook his head at the stagnant traffic. Despite the green light, no one was moving more than a few inches every few minutes. “I hate to do this, but Wax said we can’t be late to this thing,” he said. Reaching under his seat, Jason pulled out a siren, opened his window and stuck it on the roof.

Whew, whew, whew
, the siren blared. Like the waters of the Red Sea, cars on El Camino Real parted and our Ford Storm Trooper was on its way.

™˜

“Oh my God,” I gasped as we got within a block of the courthouse. I expected dozens, maybe a hundred people to show up for the hearing. My eyeballs lunged forward with horror at the sight of thousands crowding the courthouse plaza and overflowing onto the sidewalks and streets. People were standing shoulder-to-shoulder and so tight that a ray of light couldn’t shine between their heads. I felt like I was heading into Monster Park for a Niners game during the playoffs.

Television cameras and reporters fought for space, testing to make sure their microphones could record their voices over the chanting crowd and hovering helicopters. A few dozen women held purple NOW placards that demanded everything from passage of the ERA to abortion rights.

The largest group represented was the Girl Scouts of America. Grown women in green uniforms stood quietly with their right hands lifted overhead bearing the three-finger sign of Girl Scouts. About 400 women stared ahead militantly as cameras filmed their vigil.

The second largest group in attendance was Bob O’Mally supporters. O’Mally himself was there in the center of a group of about three hundred men, apparently all hot under the collar. They held white men’s shirts glued onto three-foot wooden sticks with “flames” lapping up from the collars.

Logan nodded his head. “All of those shirts died for
this
?”

“What the hell are they doing now?” Jason asked, looking at the O’Mally crowd. “What’s that blue thing they’re hoisting up?”

We all stared for a few seconds as the Collar guys began struggling with what looked like a large stuffed animal, flopping from one side to the other. Finally, they raised an enormous Cookie Monster wearing a Girl Scout uniform. The Muppet’s sash read, “Landau is a monster!”

“Landau?” I asked.

“Julia Landau. She’s the president of Girl Scouts,” Logan informed me.

“They’re lynching it!” Jason said as we watched in horror as the men slipped a noose around the Cookie Monster’s neck.

“Now that shit ain’t funny,” Maya said, her head moving from side to side. “This black woman has just lost her sense of humor entirely,” she proclaimed.

“I agree,” Logan said. “Look how nice the Girl Scouts are acting. My people are a lynch mob!”

Jason quietly turned his head away.

Others in attendance were a hodgepodge of activists with handmade signs touting their positions on Logan’s case and others. We learned that “Meat is Murder,” “Rush is Right” and John 3:16 is a must-read. As we pulled into the parking lot, we saw one last group, a dozen crazies from Reverend Phelps’ anti-gay congregation, holding five-foot signs that screamed almost as loudly as they did.

“God hates fags,” Logan said, reading the signs. “He does?”

Jason’s voice was booming and angry, but I could hear a slight quiver of fear as my husband glared through the window at the imbecilic disciples. “He most certainly does not, Logan. God doesn’t hate anyone, not even idiots like these.”

Maya pressed her nose to the window in disbelief. “Matthew Shepard is burning in hell,” she read. “Who’s Matthew Shepard?”

Jason and I looked at each other, knowing that this was not the time to tell the kids about the gay college student in Wyoming who was beaten, crucified and left to die on a fence by hateful barbarians. “Another time,” Jason answered solemnly, staring at his fingers curled around the steering wheel. He glanced at me with eyes slightly glazed, and placed his hand on my knee. Jason sighed loudly, then whispered my name.

“I know, Jason,” I said, placing my hand over his and squeezing it.

™˜

As we parked the car in the back of the courthouse, we heard more sirens.

“What now?” Jason sighed.

“Probably just a precaution,” I said, trying to calm him. He shook his head at the sad absurdity of it all.

As we ascended the back steps, a security guard shook his head to indicate that we couldn’t enter. I looked at my watch. “We’ve got six minutes to get inside,” I begged the guard.

“Sorry, can’t let you in. Go ’round front,” he said.

“Around front?!” Jason barked. “Listen, man, we’ve got to get in there for a hearing in a few minutes. It’s a zoo out front.”

“Sorry, captain,” the guard said. “I’ve got strict orders not to let you in the employee entrance.”

Jason seemed flustered. “I’ve got my City employee ID right here,” he said, flashing the laminated card.

“Sorry, but today you’re just another civilian.”

Exiting from the back door was a gruff looking man in a grey suit with a red silk tie and a boxy briefcase. Jason referred to him by first name, and asked if he would tell the security guard to let us in.

“You’ve got to be kidding, Taylor,” he replied. Jason looked confused. The man took a step closer to him and grumbled, “Who do you think told him to make you go around front?”

“What?”

“Ever hear the expression ‘don’t shit where you live,’ Taylor?” he asked. “Your little side show is costing the city plenty. You’re suing the taxpayers who pay your salary. Not a real upwardly mobile move,” he scoffed. “It’s too bad too, ’cause a lot of people liked the idea of giving a fellow like you a crack at—”

“Lisa, bring the kids inside,” he instructed me firmly. Logan and Maya exchanged worried glances.

“Now you listen here,” I heard Jason begin. But the moment we rounded the corner of the building, the volume of the crowd in front grew.

“What do we want?” a woman shouted.

“Equal rights!” a group cried back.

“When do we want them?” the leader continued.

“Now!”

“There he is!” a woman from NOW shouted when she saw Logan. This not only alerted her group, but every reporter within twenty yards. Within seconds, we were surrounded by fuzzy microphones and oversized cameras. Disembodied voices shouted at Logan. The frenzied clicking of cameras sounded like a flock of birds taking flight.

“What do you hope to accomplish here today, Logan?”
Click, click, click.

Click, click, click.
“Logan, why does it mean so much for you to become a Girl Scout?”
Click, click, click. Click, click, click.

Click, click, click.
“Tell us, Logan, how do you feel about the cookie boycott?”
Click, click, click.

“Logan, is it true you’ve been offered an endorsement deal by Froot Loops?”
Click, click, click. Click, click, click. Click, click, click.

What? As I scanned the crowd, I realized where the reporters must have gotten that absurd notion. Olivia was standing with her sons Max and Kirk and their friends Jared and Craig. The boys were wearing green Girl Scout vests, holding enormous plastic frogs and a snake while burping the Girl Scout pledge for one of the cameras. Olivia wore a white jump suit with gold rope trim and thick gold hoop earrings, striking a pose for the camera.

Logan gasped. “Quel horror!!”

Jason raced back from his confrontation with the city manager and placed his hand on Logan’s back. “Don’t let those idiots bother you.”

“It’s not them,” Logan said. “It’s Mrs. McDoyle. I can see her panties through that white linen.” We all squinted and saw that he was right. She had pink underpants with red hearts. God I hoped that showed up on TV. Logan looked disgusted. “Who told her it was time for white linen anyway? Hello, it’s still winter.”

Maya asked, “Those guys aren’t really going to join our troop, are they?”

“Why would they?” Jason asked.

Logan’s face fell when the answer came to him. “To mess with us. They’ll take down the whole organization over this, won’t they?”

As we got to the steps of the courthouse, Jason caught his breath and fought his emotion. “Will you look at this?” Creating a gauntlet for our safe passage were two rows of uniformed firefighters. There must have been thirty of them, and as we passed each set, they raised their hands in salute to their captain.

“Thanks, man,” Jason said, as he looked at each of his colleagues.

Moved by the camaraderie, I turned toward the cluster of NOW supporters and saluted them as my family reached the top of the courthouse steps.

A woman with a purple placard shouted, “How can you turn your back on girls?!”

I looked around to see who she was shouting at. Another joined her. “Girls need a room of their own!” I looked around again.

Me? They were heckling me?

Without thinking, I clutched my chest and whispered, “Me?”

“Yeah, you!” the first woman shouted.

“Come on, baby,” Jason said, grabbing my hand. “We haven’t got time for this.”

“Me?!” I shouted back at them.

“Who else’s son is suing to get their boy into Girl Scouts?” she engaged.

“But I’m a
member
of the National Organization for Women!” I bellowed back, hearing reporters murmur to their crews to film the interaction. “You’re the ones who said we needed to kick down the doors of Congress so women could have power. Why is it different for me to advocate for my son when someone closes the door on him?”

“Baby,” Jason said, “we don’t have time.”

I turned my back on the crowd and began walking through the door when I heard a familiar holler. “Li-li! Li-li!” My head whipped around, my body quickly following. Soon I spotted a broad set of shoulders and an enormous mop of red hair standing a foot above the rest of the crowd. It was Finn. But with Jorge’s voice?! Suddenly, beside the Irish linebacker, I saw slick black hair bobbing up and down, and something shiny reflecting light in every direction. It was as if every camera were using a flashbulb, but instead it was coming from Jorge jumping madly and waving his arms in the air. The rhinestones from his western-style collar and cuffs caught the morning sun, nearly blinding everyone in sight. “Li-li!”