Future
San Francisco Chronicle
ECCENTRIC GROUP OF TEENS FIND LOCAL BURIED TREASURE
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 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 multistep challenge 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.
6 million. 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 that has 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 across the 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?”
“Probably not,” Julia says. “I’ve barely had any time to dive into the other treasure hunts. But it’s crazy.” She holds up her phone and shows us her email inbox. “I keep getting all these donations for when I do eventually travel. Everyone wants me to come to their city to help them look.”
“Where do you think you’ll want to go first?” I ask. “Like, once you have an idea of where to look, I mean.”
“Hmm.” She scrunches her mouth. “New Orleans, probably. There’s just something about those old houses and trees. Ooh, and the Mardi Gras parade routes! Old necklaces dripping off magnolia branches, sparkling in the sunlight. It almost seems—”
“Magical?” I offer.
We grin at each other.
Julia nods. “Exactly.”
Cam squeezes my hand.
“So, what about you two?” Sunny asks from the opposite table. She kicks her foot out so it nudges my shoe. “The paper made it sound like you guys have something exciting going on.”
I look at Cam. “Not really,” I say. “No Paris trips. No solving mysteries in New Orleans. No curating exhibitions at the Chong-Moon Lee.”
“Just worldwide fame as treasure finders.” Sunny shakes her head in mock sadness. She clicks her tongue at us. “Poor you.”
“Hey! You asked!”
We raise our cups all together for Gabriel and toast to an amazing trip filled with hotties and lattes. And hopefully some good grades in his digital art classes or whatever.
Sunny and Beiye are the first to leave. Off to a club meeting at the art museum. Gabriel says he needs to start thinking about what he’ll pack. Especially since, in his words, he’ll need a whole new wardrobe if he wants to be the new “Emilio in Paris.”
“Want me to close up?” I ask Julia when it’s just the three of us.
“Nah,” Julia says. She sets down her cup and parks herself at her desktop computer. “I kind of want to work on the New Orleans chapter a bit.”
I toss her my custodian key to the side door and start up the stairs. Cam nods and joins me.
“Wait.” Julia spins around in her swivel chair.
Cam and I pause. “Yeah?” we say in unison.
“If I find any leads…you two will still help me, right? I seriously don’t think I could do one of these alone.”
“You could,” Cam says encouragingly. He smiles. “But, yeah, we’re definitely down to help. You know where to find us.”
Julia sighs in relief. “Okay, good.”
She starts typing away at her computer.
Cam and I climb up the stairs and onto Sixth Avenue.
We turn west and snake through the neighborhood as it shifts from straight grid lines into gentle curves.
It leads us up and up, above the rest of the city, until we’ve scaled the final rickety wooden staircase of Grandview Park.
Cam sits on our bench first, making barely enough room, so I have to press my hips into his to sit down next to him.
I tilt my head and rest it on his shoulder as we look out at the skyline.
“What should we do next?” I ask after a while.
Cam leans back to look at me. “What should we do?”
I think about the version of myself I used to picture at Chez Moi.
The future me bustling into the restaurant, filled with stories and news about my exciting life in Paris.
The part that stands out the most, weirdly, isn’t even the art school thing.
I used to think I had to go to school in France to be interesting enough for my mom to want to hang out with me.
But the unease between us was never about me.
It was about her and her own past. For me…
I just want to have a future where I’m happy.
I turn to Cam.
“Point,” I say. “Point to a spot somewhere out there. And we’ll go find it.”
“For what?” he asks, smiling.
“For an adventure.”
He laughs and tips his head into mine, kissing me gently. He looks around at the empty park, then leans in and kisses me harder, one hand cradling the back of my head, bringing it closer to his. I get completely lost in him, in the newness and oldness of us mixed together.
As we kiss, Cam picks up one of my hands and stretches it out toward the city. He pulls back, his eyes deep and dilated, then looks at my hand in his.
“There,” he says, as I turn and look to see where we’re pointing.
Together, we mark the spot.