Nine Lives Last Forever (16 page)

“So, where are we going?” I asked weakly, my stomach already protesting from the roughness of the ride.

Monty smiled, preening in his knowledge advantage. “The Castro, of course.”

“The Castro?” I repeated, thinking back to my conversation with Miranda. “Does this relate to the slain Supervisor, Harvey Milk?” I asked, trying to make the connection.

Monty nodded his head. “The members of the Vigilance Committee were big supporters of Harvey. He was a perfect fit for them, really. He epitomized many of the goals they were trying to accomplish.”

Monty threw his right arm casually over the back of his bench seat. “You see, when the VC first got together, they focused their efforts on helping pass a grassroots initiative that was aimed at changing the seat allocations for the city’s Board of Supervisors—from citywide to district-by-district. The VC felt that district seating would give cash-poor candidates a better chance of winning since they would have a much smaller area to canvass and solicit voters. The VC reasoned that Supervisors elected under a district-by-district system would be more connected to the concerns of their respective neighborhoods and less likely to be influenced by the political power of the pro-growth real estate interests.”

Monty spread his hands wide. “It was a huge coup when the referendum passed. San Francisco’s political power-houses were completely blindsided. The VC had their appetite whetted by that first taste of success, so they set about picking Supervisor candidates to support in the newly outlined districts. There were several contenders that caught the VC’s attention, but Harvey Milk stood out from the crowd.”

I stared up at the exposed metal roof of the bus as I listened to Monty’s speech, desperately trying to calm the queasiness in my stomach. My aversion to public bus transport was growing by the second. I must not have been alone in my dim opinion of the city’s bus system. We’d made only one stop since Monty and I got on, and no other passengers remained on board.

“Harvey had run several times for a citywide Supervisor seat, but he’d never garnered enough votes to make the cutoff,” Monty chattered on. “Even after the switch to district seating, no one took him seriously. He was even shunned by the established leaders within the gay community. They saw him as an upstart, someone who was pushing too hard and who hadn’t yet paid his dues. Harvey ruffled a lot of feathers when he signed up to run for the Castro district’s new Supervisor seat.”

I was trying to listen to Monty’s discourse, but our bus driver seemed bent on plowing through each and every bumper-scraping pothole he came across. Each dipping whomp caused a jarring recoil in the back end of the bus. The spring beneath my seat, I was convinced, had been permanently rearranged to its most uncomfortable conformation.

“Harvey refused to listen to the naysayers,” Monty continued. “He was relentless. He canvassed street corners, bus stops, anywhere he might get ten seconds with a potential voter. He campaigned nonstop during the day, and then returned to his camera shop on Castro Street—his campaign headquarters—to work late into the night on fliers, posters, all of the nuts and bolts that a political campaign needs to get its message out.”

Monty clamped his hand back down on the seat as we rode out another roller-coaster bump.

“More importantly, Harvey’s political message began to resonate across the city. In addition to promoting gay rights, Harvey had a broad populist agenda. He talked about promoting small businesses and protecting San Francisco’s eclectic neighborhoods from rampant real estate development.” Monty tilted his head toward me. “And, of course, it didn’t hurt that Harvey was extremely charismatic. The way I hear it, he could charm the wool socks off of an Eskimo.”

Monty grinned, waiting for me to appreciate his joke. I was too green to offer more than a weak smile.

“As Harvey’s campaign took off, his volunteer base expanded. He gained the support of the city’s unions and the Chinese American community, both of whom sent workers to his campaign headquarters. The Vigilance Committee easily slipped themselves—and their money—into the mix.”

Monty pulled the black-and-white photo I’d found in the basement wardrobe out of his back pocket and handed it to me. “This picture was taken outside of Milk’s camera shop, 575 Castro Street, the site of the Harvey Milk campaign headquarters.”

I slipped the photo into my jacket pocket, pondering Monty’s VC story. Both he and Miranda had mentioned the importance of the VC’s money to its political endeavors, I reflected, but it struck me as odd that neither one had said where that money had come from. Before I could ask Monty about the source of the VC’s financing, he switched topics.

“People often wonder why San Francisco became so closely associated with the gay movement,” Monty said conversationally, his stomach apparently unaffected by the nonstop bouncing of the bus.

“It goes back to the city’s history as a naval port. Throughout most of the nineteenth century, if a sailor were suspected of being a homosexual, he would be kicked out of the Navy and decommissioned, usually here in San Francisco. Many men decided to stay in California rather than return to their hometowns and face the stigma of that label. It’s not that San Francisco was all that amenable to the gay lifestyle—many citizens were openly hostile to gays, and the police were constantly conducting late-night raids targeted at homosexuals—but gay life here was better than, say, small-town America.”

Monty paused briefly to look out his window as the bus slowed to a halt in front of the 17th Street stoplight, cueing up for the sweeping left-hand turn from Market onto Castro. Seeing our location, Monty pulled down on the signal rope by his window, indicating we would be getting off at the next stop. The driver’s head nodded, acknowledging receipt of our request. Monty leaned back in his seat and resumed his history lesson.

“Just as San Francisco’s gay movement began to build, the historically Irish Catholic, blue-collar neighborhood of the Castro fell into decline. The area was filled with rotting, peeling Victorians. The local grocery store was falling into bankruptcy, and a crime syndicate had taken over the streets. The few working-class families that remained were horrified when the city’s growing gay population began to move in. Many of the older residents sold their property at a discount; they were convinced that the presence of gays in the neighborhood would cause property values to tank further.”

Monty waved his hands at the busy street-life surrounding the intersection where the bus idled, waiting for the light to change. “What happened, of course, was just the opposite. Gay men from across the country began flocking to the Castro. They bought many of the old, rundown Victorians and began fixing them up. Property values sky-rocketed, increasing four or fivefold over the next ten to twenty years.”

The light turned, releasing the bus for its wide left turn. The gentle down slope of Castro Street spread out below us as the iconic Castro Movie Theater sign loomed into view. The bus began to pick up speed as it accelerated down the crowded street—and barreled straight past the next bus stop.

Waiting passengers yelled, angrily waving their hands in the air as the bus zoomed past.

“Hey!” Monty yelled at the driver, but he merely hunched deeper into his seat. “Well, that
was
Milk’s old place,” Monty said, annoyed as he pointed at the storefront of one of the many renovated Victorians we were now zipping by.

Irate car horns honked from every direction as the bus blasted through the next intersection. We hit Castro’s valley floor and began driving up the ascent of a steep, city-topping hill. Monty lifted himself off of his bench seat and staggered up the aisle toward the driver.

I could hear the gears grinding in the engine beneath me as the bus sped up the incline. The driver had committed the full resources of the gas pedal to the climb.

Monty was striding forward now, gripping the metal handles that hung down from the ceiling. He was working against gravity and momentum, but he would soon reach the front of the bus.

In the rearview mirror, I saw the top half of the driver’s face as he glanced back at the carriage. The driver’s hat was pulled down low over his forehead, nearly obscuring his eyes, but the reflected image struck me cold.

I’d seen those eyes just moments earlier—in the black-and-white photo tucked into my coat pocket—and, a few months ago, on a face that wore a feathery orange mustache.

“Monty!” I called out, trying to warn him, but the sound of the bus’s roaring engine drowned out my voice.

The two visible slits of the driver’s eyes flicked once more to the mirror, honing in on Monty’s advancing figure.

“Monty!” I yelled again, but he didn’t hear me. He had almost reached the front of the bus.

I rose out of my seat as the bus slowed slightly at the top of the hill to navigate a left-hand turn. Tires squealed as the bus tilted, nearly toppling over as it screeched across the intersection. I crawled back into my seat, bruised and nauseous, and caught sight of Monty’s curly head poking up from the floor.

Ten seconds later, midway down the next block, the bus lurched to a sudden stop, throwing me chin first against the bench back of the seat in front of me.

Rubbing my jaw, I looked up the aisle toward the driver’s windshield. The road dropped off in front of us, rolling down toward the flatlands of the Mission. We were at the top of 22nd Street, at the crest of one of the steepest hills in the city.

I watched in horror as Monty staggered forward and reached out to tap the driver on his shoulder. Just as Monty’s arm swung around, the driver cut the engine, jerked out the key, and leapt up from his seat. Monty stood, stunned, as the driver hurled himself down the steps and out the front door.

Frank Napis glanced back at the bus, a smirking sneer on his flat face, before scuttling away down a side street. As Monty and I stared at his fleeing figure, the bus began to roll, driverless, down the hill.

THE WHEELS BENEATH
the bus rolled faster and faster, picking up speed as we careened down 22nd Street. A block of Victorians flashed by my window, their bright painted colors blurring into a gabled rainbow.

The rear side exit of the bus had opened when Napis fled out the front door. I climbed across the aisle toward it and looked down at the street, measuring the pace of the asphalt. We were already moving far too fast for either one of us to jump out safely.

Monty spun his head back toward me, his mouth dropped open in surprise. “That was—”

“I know! I know!” I yelled, my voice echoing in the eerily silent, motorless bus.

“But what was he—” Monty sputtered.

“Grab the wheel!” I cried, cutting him off. “Pull the emergency brake!”

Monty nodded, acknowledging my advice with a raised finger. He crawled forward as the bus began to weave wildly back and forth. The flat, terraced square of an intersection, filled with crossing traffic, loomed in front of us.

With difficulty, Monty threaded his lanky figure into the driver’s seat. His hands gripped the steering wheel as he frantically searched through the numerous levers, buttons, and switches for the brake.

I watched, heart in mouth, as the bus soared past a red stop sign, its traffic instruction unheeded. There wasn’t enough time, I thought. We were accelerating toward disaster. Fearing the worst, I ducked down behind the nearest seat back and braced myself for the brunt of an inevitable collision.

The bus bottomed out on the intersection’s short stretch of flattened road. The recoil bumped my rear end nearly two feet off of the seat cushion as if I were on a trampoline. From the height of my midair position, I had a brief, unimpeded view of a street full of oncoming traffic, an impenetrable net of metallic-hued mallets whose pounding path we couldn’t possibly avoid.

“Ahhhhh!” Monty hollered from the driver’s seat. The bus swerved as he twisted the steering wheel, and a small sedan, horn wailing in affront, narrowly dodged around us. Miraculously, we made it through the crossing without crashing into any bystanders, but, looking out at the road ahead of us, there was no respite in sight.

As we reached the opposite side of the intersection, the front end of the bus tipped forward, dropping over the edge for the next block’s descent. It felt as if we were driving down the side of a cliff. My stomach sickened as we sped past a yellow sign in the shape of a triangle, warning of the steep grade.

Monty flailed at the implements surrounding the driver’s seat. I could hear his feet pumping, to no avail, against the brake pedal on the floor. None of his actions seemed to be having any effect on our ever-increasing speed.

We were now in a heavily residential area; both sides of the street were lined with houses. In typical San Francisco fashion, every available inch of curb space was occupied by a parked vehicle. Due to the steep slope of the street, the parking spaces were slotted lengthwise, perpendicular to the flow of traffic.

Up ahead on the right, the rear bumper of an SUV began backing out of a narrow parking spot. Given the angle of the road’s upward slope and the added visual impairments of the other parked cars, the driver wouldn’t be able to see us until we were right on top of him.

“Ahhhhh!” Monty yelled again. He laid into the horn as he swerved the bus, trying to avoid the backing SUV. The horn emitted a panicked, tooth-shattering honk that echoed through the otherwise quiet neighborhood. I caught a glimpse of the other driver’s terrified face, cursing us as he scrambled to reverse gears.

The bus swung wildly to the left, nearly sideswiping a line of parked cars. Monty strained against the steering wheel, trying to pull the bus back on course. The rubber treads beneath us skidded across the pavement as the bus careened from left to right, overcorrecting against a painted brick wall on the opposite side of the street. Sparks flew up as the rending sound of metal scraping against brick pierced the air.