Cam twists his piece to see the damage. “Yeah…that was my fault.”
“It’s okay,” I say quickly. “I already know how we can fix it.”
I assess the clean break between each of our pieces. I can already imagine the resin filling in the cracks. The gold-leaf kintsugi being painted over the fracture. It’s a celebration of brokenness, of resilience, of things coming together again.
Ranger Merilyn brings an empty bin and two clean towels from the truck. We wrap each piece and set them gently inside the bin. As she loads the bin back into the cab, I step next to Cam and touch his hand.
He looks down at my palm, then lifts it and places it flaton his chest. I take his other hand and place it flat on mine. We study each other for what feels like ages—seeing all our past versions, all the ways we’ve changed in knowing each other. Cam nods slightly, as if I’ve asked him a question and he’s only now said yes. He leans into me and parts his lips. I lean up to meet him in the middle.
If our first kiss marked a fracture in the friendship, and our second a total split between us…then this third kiss is the one that puts us back together.
This one is pure gold.
Future
San Francisco Chronicle
ECCENTRIC GROUP OF TEENS FIND LOCAL BURIED TREASURE
June28
It was a whirlwind afternoon for the Sunset High Yearbook Club—who fondly call themselves “Shovels and REDACTED”—as they approached city hall on a warm Sunday, carrying a giant treasure chest between the five of them.
The day held a weighty significance across the country as the nation celebrated nearly 60years of gay pride and rebellion first ignited by the Stonewall riots that took place in Greenwich Village on June28, 1969. The streets of downtown San Francisco were crowded with color, rainbow flags wavingand drums rap-tap-tapping as the annual Pride parade made its way to city hall. This year the Shovels and REDACTED group were the main and final event.
Inside their giant wooden treasure chest was, curiously, another treasure chest, an intricate and fine piece of art rumored to have been crafted by famed San Franciscan Gilbert Baker, inventor and creator of the rainbow flag. Baker passed away in New York City in 2017. Thirty-four years earlier, he anonymously published and distributed a treasure hunt book based on gay American history, titled “Gay Treasures.” The book details the lives and work of seven key figures throughout the United States who were instrumental in the early gay rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s.
The elaborately carved casque found in San Francisco features portraits of all seven of the chosen gay icons: Harvey Milk of San Francisco, Lorraine Hansberry of Chicago, Stormé DeLarverie of New Orleans, Marsha P. Johnson of New York City, Barbara Gittings of Philadelphia, Jackie Shane of Nashville, and Judy Garland of Grand Rapids, Minnesota. Only the treasures representing Milk, Johnson, and Garland have been recovered thus far.
The Shovels and REDACTED crew is composed of five plucky teens: Cam Leonardo, Ivy Wethington, Sunny Noguchi, Gabriel Velasquez, and Julia Karlsson. When questioned, the group insists that credit for the find is split evenly among them. Baker’s treasure hunt book is filled with a vast array of tricky riddles and confounding codes, presenting a multistepchallenge that required the critical eye and vital role of each player. In particular, the group claims that Leonardo is credited with cracking the first pigpen cipher, Velasquez is credited with digitally editing a set of nearly illegible book cipher code, Noguchi is credited with translating the book cipher, Karlsson is credited with linking the solution to the proper address, and Wethington is credited with locating the stowed “lock and key” that led directly to the buried treasure.
The treasure chest itself has already been restored and appraised, with its estimated value at $2.6million. The teens have decided to forgo a private auction and are willingly relinquishing the chance to split a lottery sum among them in favor of sending the treasure chest on exhibition across the country. The chest will begin its tour here in San Francisco, in the Chong-Moon Lee Center for Asian Art and Culture, where, thanks to the chest’s restoration via gold bonding, it will reside as the centerpiece of the kintsugi gallery.
The teens may not be walking away with a fortune, but they are certainly not ending the hunt empty-handed. Thanks to his diligent work in handling the archived materials, Gabriel Velasquez currently has a scholarship to the Paris College of Art, where he will be attending their highly sought-after digital arts program starting later this summer. Sunny Noguchi has been named as the student ambassador for the Chong-Moon Lee Center, where she will help curate a rotating exhibition of local queer artists. Julia Karlsson is the new head of GAY 4 TREASURE, a previously archived website thathas since been resurrected with a surge of new treasure hunters keen on locating the remaining four treasures.
This leaves Cam Leonardo and Ivy Wethington, the two members of the group deemed the “queer king and queen” of their local school, Sunset High. As the original owners of the “Gay Treasures” book and the book cipher’s key text, respectively, Leonardo and Wethington will earn a small stipend from loaning their materials to the traveling exhibition with the treasure chest. When pressed for further individual developments, the so-called queer royalty remained tight-lipped. But although they are not personally jet-setting to Paris, chairing local art exhibitions, or taking over one of the fastest-growing sites on the internet, the pair seem almost suspiciously content with their own fortunes. Perhaps the mystery of “Gay Treasures” continues on, and these two know something we do not.
“Redacted?!”
Gabriel slams down the paper. “This is absolute bullshit,” he cries. “I was told they would be including our full group name! What’s wrong with the word ‘hoes’? Hoes are a type of tool!”
“You’re a type of tool,” Sunny says cheerily.
Beiye laughs and kisses Sunny’s cheek.
Despite there not being one window into the outside world, the Bat Cave is uncharacteristically bright as we lounge acrossthe tables, sipping on sparkling lemonade. Julia and I dragged about seventeen more twinkle light strands into the room yesterday. We draped streamers down from the ceiling, taped balloons into every corner, and hung a giant banner over the projector screen.
CONGRATULATIONS, GABRIEL!
“Look at it this way,” I tell him. “When you get to Paris next month, everyone will want to know what exact word ‘REDACTED’ was in the articles. This is drumming up interest!”
He rubs his chin, pondering. “Okay, fine. I see it.” He looks up suddenly. “Oh! Is this going to give me a sexy and mysterious edge?”
“Absolutely,” Julia says, beaming. “I bet that on your very first day, a Nico Hiraga look-alike will find you after class and ask you all about it.”
“You’re teasing me now,” Gabriel says, but he’s smiling too.
“What about you, Julia?” Cam asks from beside me. “Will you be traveling before school starts up again?”
