“Look, I don’t actually want to be your friend.” Blake could not fathom how that was hard to understand.
“Blake, please listen to me.” Her voice was clingy, desperate even. It revolted him in the same way it had when his step-dad had insisted that they sit down and watch NASCAR together. A pitiful excuse for bonding time was what it boiled down to in the end.395Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2QqmZu8jZd
“No. The protest is tomorrow. I don’t care if you show up. You can do whatever the fuck you want.” It wasn't like his feelings had mattered when it turned out she had been in a relationship the entire time.395Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYEC7sUvynb
“I just think we should talk.”
“I don’t care what you think.” The whining was too much, he couldn't take it.
“I know it was my fault. But neither of us really tried to salvage it.”
“If it’s not clear to you, I don’t want it anymore. I don’t want you again. Ever.”
“Blake, please.”
“No, I’m done being some late night hook up. It’s not what I want.”395Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDghCRt2BeT
“It’s not what I want either.” Like hell it isn't, Blake thought. 395Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTp2GwEwd1Z
“We talked about this. I’m moving back to Paris. I’ve sold my LA apartment. We’re done, Winona.”
“Please.”
“No, Winona. I’m done. Stop calling me.”
His heart was crossed, his veins felt tangled as he struggled to calm his racing pulse. Protestors were already on the streets, and he had yet to finish his briefing with the other organisers. They stood around, a lot less tense than they probably should have been. Susanna, with her dark, gleaming skin that contradicted her being an Angeleno born and raised in downtown LA where less than one in ten people were African American, handed them each a megaphone. He strengthened his grip on the object; they needed to be strong. Lest the campaign comes crashing to the floor under the weight of the protestors’ expectations and the resistance of the oppressors.
As an offer to the people who haven’t already done it, they set up a station with the Bail Fund Project, where protestors queue up to have the BFP’s phone number written on their arm in case they got arrested. Blake wrote the number on the arm of a young, trans woman, mechanically dragging the sharpie across her skin, as though he couldn’t feel the veins that led blood to every cell and made her human. He had decided that it shouldn’t be personal, he had promised himself that the moment he had seen the number of people who had signed up for the protest. To make it personal would be to lose the overview. And if he lost the overview, that was it.
The police were there already, cocooned in bulletproof vests, helmets and shin guards, unlike the last ‘Higher Plane’ protest. Their trucks and cars barricaded the sides of the road, leading to an empty CVS parking lot the police had turned into a beehive of activity, officers watching them with peeled eyes, the National Guard flexing their semi-automatic weapons waiting to impose the curfew they had set for three in the afternoon.
Blake was in charge of the middle-right section. As they started moving, he fell into place amongst the signs and fists being thrown into the air. The crowd was at least double the size of the previous protest last week. His eyes scanned the crowd continuously, like a metal detector at the airport. Susanna’s voice drifted back to them, her strong words infiltrating the crowd, like ribbons of courage being transmitted through airwaves. “Despite our differences, we are strong! Despite our differences, we are united!”
She had always had more of a bond with people of colour, even though he had always gotten top marks in history. On the other hand, he appealed more to the queer community; evident from the outpour of positivity on his social media. That’s why they worked well together; people tended to trust their own, but if you could suddenly convince that group that a certain other group was worth allying with, they could stand stronger and taller. Especially when it came to the overlap, people like Winona who was a queer woman of colour. Ugh shit, stop thinking about her. Like the trade unions that allowed this type of police behaviour to be the norm, that when you collect enough people with the same goal, your collective bargaining power skyrockets and you’re more likely to get what you want.
With every step he took, he could feel the government rulings crumble into every crack in the pavement. He was surrounded by diversity. The collision the big 'us' and 'together' had succeeded. The collision he had created. Men and women. Black and white. Gay and straight. LGBT. Black Lives Matter. The Women’s Movement. He watched them stand up for each other and it was glorious. Their movement was glowing. These personal stories were their Higher Plane. Higher than political divides and cultural differences. Finally, this was their success, and he felt drunk on it. Their protesting chants and yells morphed into euphoria and carried him with fumes, soft like clouds.
Dusk was still hours away from setting in as he watched the protestors around him slowly disperse, unnecessarily rushed by the police. About halfway through the march, he had realised that he could no longer hear Susanna in front of him, and similarly, he came back to find that she was not in their organiser’s tent for the debriefing. He asked around, but all just shrugged, suggesting that she had probably gone home and forgot to tell them.
The traffic light turned green and he accelerated, drumming his fingers against the steering wheel. A shrill, siren cut through the air and he quickly looked forward, left, right and checked his mirrors. Seeing no police or ambulance, he continued his purposeful cruise. The last thing he wanted to do was tap the break. He had places to be and deals to make to change the world. His phone rang, the opening chords to Sam Tsui’s “Second To Midnight” filling the silence of the car. He realised he had forgotten to turn on the radio. As soon as he tapped the answering icon on his dashboard, Susanna exclaimed, “Blake?!”
“Yes?” he answered absentmindedly, browsing through dinner options.
“Fuck, Blake, they shot someone!” Her pitch was hysterical, like a horn at a football match. It took him a good second of staring out of the windshield blankly before he realised what she had said.
“What?”
“The police shot a black protester.”
“Shit.” He could almost taste it on his tongue, the tear gas they had used. “Do you know who?”
“I think her name was Scott. Yeah, Winona Scott.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah.” At her response, he went quiet like the night, his mind thundering. “Blake are you there?”
“Yeah, sorry. I’m here.”
“They took her to LAC and USC medical centre.”
“Is she going to make it?”
“I don’t know.” She sighed. “I’m heading there now.”
“I’ll meet you there in ten minutes.” Too late, he realised he might have sounded too eager.
“Blake, that's really kind, but it’s okay. You don’t need to be there.”
“It’s the right thing.” I need to be there.
“Okay, I’ll meet you in the lobby.”
“Thanks for telling me.”
“No worries, I called around to the others too.”
The waiting room was cold, there definitely wasn’t any heating in the floor, but Blake’s sweaty back stuck to the cheap plastic chairs anyway. He had been greeted by Winona’s mother, who had understandably been in tears. He had asked what the doctors had said. She had said she didn’t know anything yet. So much for good news. His knee bounced, a stress mechanism out of his control.
“Winona Scott?” A doctor called.
“Yes?” Mrs Scott got up to follow the doctor down a hallway and Blake felt his heart pick up as he watched them walk away.
The doctor was sombre as he led her into a small, sparse room. “Please, come with me. Sit down.” He motioned to a chair that seemed only marginally more comfortable than those in the waiting room. “Mrs Scott, your daughter was in critical condition coming in. He passed away during the operation. My condolences. The bullet had graced both the heart and the aorta. There was nothing we could do.”
Blake knew it wasn’t good the moment he saw the way Mrs Scott walked back with her chin tucked towards her chest. “What did the doctor say?” His words were feeble.
“She’s dead. My daughter’s dead.”395Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiScfvEIHaD
“Blake.” Susanna approached him with the cup of black coffee he had asked for. He couldn’t fathom getting out of his seat. Maybe if he sat here long enough the doctor would come back and say they had been mistaken, that Winona was okay. She placed a hand on his shoulder, urging him to look at her. “A man called Jakob Webber just called. Do you know him?”
“No. Why did he call?” He chose not to look at her, favouring the straight outlines of the floor tiles that intersected so neatly.
“He’s an independent activist in Pontoise in France.”
“In France?” If this movement was something he wanted to take home with him, he wasn’t sure. And handing it to another person was drastic.395Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRG2dJmC5mP
“Yeah. He wanted to organise a rally under our campaign name. I told him I’d get back to him. What should I tell him?”
“Tell him no.”
“Are you sure?”
“A woman just died. I’m sure.”
“Okay, I’ll call him.”
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