“One hole,” the official clarifies.
Cam looks at me. “You didn’t even bring a shovel,” he says.
I point to the roller bag by my side. “I brought a whole set of gardening tools. Which includes trowels.”
“But no shovels.” He looks back to the official. “I feel like only people with actual shovels should get to dig.”
She sighs and writes something down on her clipboard. Great—we’re already annoying her.
“You get one hole,” she says again. “I’m sure your combined shovel and gardening kit will suffice.”
I don’t love the way she said “gardening kit.”
She asks us to leave all tools in her vehicle and open our manuals to page four. From there, we take off on foot in between the trees.
It’s funny that this is called a Nature Safety course, which would seem to suggest staying safe while out in nature. But really, it’s a course about keeping their nature safe from us. The “safety” isn’t our safety but the park’s. Any plant life will need to be cleared by an official before disturbance. If we encounter a PVC pipe, we are to stop digging immediately, as it protects the irrigation lines. If we encounter any signs of animal life, we are to stop digging immediately. If we encounter any signs of archeological significance, we are to stop digging immediately.
Cam raises his hand. “But what if we’re specifically out here to dig up something of archeological significance?”
The Park official squints at a line on our forms. “The applications specified a burial date of 1983.”
“Correct,” I say.
She waves her hand dismissively. “That’s not something we would deem significant.”
Cam and I both turn to each other and share a combined look of exasperation.
“The treasure was buried by Gilbert Baker,” I say. “He invented and created the first LGBTQ+ rainbow flag. He’s a pretty significant figure.”
“Is that right?” the official asks. She looks the slightest bit intrigued. “Is that what’s supposed to be buried? The first flag?”
Cam and I both laugh.
“No,” Cam says. “The first flag was humongous. Yards and yards of fabric. But Gilbert hid seven treasures to celebrate gay icons around the country. Two of the treasures have already been found.”
The official does a small double take. “Really?”
“Really,” I say. “One in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, and one in New York City. And San Francisco’s is supposed to be the big one.”
“Huh.” She scratches the back of her head and flips through the last two pages on her clipboard. “Well…I think that about covers it for the Nature Safety course. Are you both ready to dig?”
Cam looks over at me. “Don’t we have to agree on the same place first?”
“You already did,” the woman says. She holds up a photo of my hill, but this photo was taken more recently. As I lean in closer to the photo, I see the pile of sticks I came across the other day. Except here they’ve specifically been arranged to form anX.
I look over at Cam. “You did this?”
He shrugs and nods. I want to be annoyed, but I can’t help cracking a smile. “Now look who’s the ex marking the spot,” I say.
Cam smiles, frozen for a moment. I wonder if he remembers saying the same thing to me, back when we were kneeling in front of the pipe in the Chong-Moon Lee Center.
But then Cam blinks, and suddenly the smile’s gone. He heads to the minitruck and grabs his shovel while I hoist my roller bag up and out of the truck bed. It clanks loudly as I drag it over the dirt path toward the hill. Cam carries his shovel up ahead.
He looks back at me. “You sure that thing is supposed to go off-roading?”
“Obviously not,” I groan.
Cam sighs and swings the shovel down next to him. He offers it to me. I take hold of it tentatively.
