Thwack! Bang! Soup?

A Split-Pea Hero Unites a Community in Conflict

This story is more about San Francisco than it is about disability, because even I need a break from writing about migraines all the time. I hope you enjoy it! Also, welcome to the 23 new Brainees that have joined us since my last post. I share long essays like this at most once per month, so as not to overwhelm your inbox.

A street in east Bernal during lockdown, shortly after being decorated by a local balloon artist.

The first neighborhood where my husband Cory and I lived in San Francisco was west Bernal Heights. Some neighbors there once got in a yelling match over whether or not building a fence around a yard would inhibit the migratory patterns of birds. So, when we moved to the other side of Bernal Hill in 2017, our expectations were rather low for our new neighborly relationships. But even still, we were surprised by how difficult it was to meet most of our new neighbors. For many years, everyone seemed to prefer keeping to themselves, leaving us feeling a little lonely. And then the pandemic hit, and suddenly, east Bernal felt like one of the friendliest neighborhoods in the entire world.

One neighbor, Kate¹, a middle-aged chef with a short, functional haircut and bright blue eyes, started a food pantry out of her garage. Another neighbor distributed hand-sewn face masks. And everyone, including me, started using the neighborhood email list. “Could I borrow a cup of milk?” “Extra loaf of homemade sourdough!” “Does anyone have hair clippers?” I loved reading these emails—it was a fun way to connect with the many neighbors who had felt like strangers for so long. 

I most enjoyed helping out with Kate’s food pantry, because I enjoyed Kate. She was a very sweet, empathetic woman who often asked me how I was feeling. She was also the only neighbor whom I’d told about my chronic migraines, which, at that point, had disabled me from my job at Facebook for an entire year. (Back then, I largely kept my struggle with pain to myself, because there was, you know, a pandemic going on and it felt selfish to complain about my circumstances.) Kate even gave me the key code to her garage, so that I could borrow eggs or butter out of her fridge when she was at work. 

It wasn’t until early 2021, when our street suddenly became a hotspot for crime, that the pandemic-era neighborhood camaraderie took a turn. During this time, many people from other parts of the country asked me what was going on in San Francisco, as I guess certain news outlets (not naming any names) reported that crime in the city had reached a fever pitch. I usually told these people that while there had been a noticeable increase in crime, it wasn’t as bad as they’d heard, and certain neighborhoods changed very little. Our street, however, was close to the highway and near San Francisco’s only industrial zone, so it was an easy target. Over the course of the pandemic, our upstairs neighbor’s car got totaled, ours was severely damaged in a hit-and-run, and our license plates got stolen. Based on the emails to the neighborhood list, we weren’t the only ones dealing with petty theft, or worse.

Susan and her husband, both Google employees, bore the brunt of the crime spike in our neighborhood. In the summer of 2021, Susan’s garage was broken into twice, and then her home was broken into by two armed robbers. Susan and her husband were ok, because their dogs barked and scared the thieves away from their bedroom door, but they lost thousands of dollars worth of property: bikes, laptops, TVs, etc. Needless to say, Susan had had enough. 

But the San Francisco DA at the time, Chesa Boudin, declined to prosecute the people who’d broken into Susan’s home. Boudin had a reputation for not prosecuting “victimless” and non-violent crimes. I’d even heard stories of police officers making arrests, only to see the same people back on the streets the next day. Though many claimed these stories were exaggerated, and that Boudin was actually doing a great job, for those witnessing the San Francisco crime spikes firsthand, it was hard to tell what was what. 

Susan called in reporters to do a story on the robbery, which ended up on a national news outlet alongside articles about how San Francisco had become indistinguishable from the fiery pits of hell. The bad press caused the DA to cave, and Susan to prevail. Soon after, Susan started emailing everyone about setting up a neighborhood watch program, and asking people to install security cameras outside of their houses. But there was one problem Susan failed to take into account in her relentless pursuit of justice: her neighbors. Susan’s actions and suggestions infuriated Kate in particular. Kate sent emails protesting Susan’s proposals for increased security measures, and then did something drastic: she scheduled a neighborhood-wide Zoom call.

“I would never put a security camera in front of my home! Surely you all realize that security cameras are discriminatory devices that unfairly target Black and brown people?!” This was Kate, toward the beginning of the meeting. Many of the people dialed in weren’t on the email list, so this was the first they’d heard of the home break-in, and most of them hadn’t even met Kate or Susan. They had just received fliers in their mailboxes (printed by me) about a neighborhood safety meeting with no further explanation. So, even though Kate attempted to express her misgivings calmly, her remarks surprised many people, and sent the conversation sideways. 

“How do cameras target Black and brown people?” asked another neighbor, Josh, when Kate stopped to take a breath. “It’s not like they make security cameras that only see Black and brown people. And besides, I have young kids. If someone breaks into my house, I’m calling the cops, regardless of the color of their skin.”

For the record, facial recognition technology is more likely to misidentify people with darker skin tones. Though home-based security systems don’t have facial recognition systems, I think Kate was concerned about people sending footage from their cameras to the police, and the police using it to make wrongful convictions.

“Why don’t we all give these folks the benefit of the doubt?” said Linda, who lived at the far end of the street. In the past, she’d sent emails encouraging people to leave their cars unlocked at night, in case anyone needed a place to sleep. “If I saw someone breaking into our house, I’d invite them in to use the bathroom, and then offer them some milk and cookies.”

Linda’s comment reminded me both of Les Miserables and of another of our old neighbors, James. James once mistook a robber for one of his housemate’s friends. So, when James came home to a stranger in his kitchen, he actually sat down with the thief and poured him a glass of wine. Only after the stranger’s departure did James discover his mistake, and his room ransacked.

“Milk and cookies?!” said Josh in undisguised shock. “You’ve got to be joking.” 

“What?! It’s better than calling the cops!” Linda replied. “Do you really want to be responsible for someone getting arrested and sent headfirst into the abysmal American prison system?”

“Oh please,” said another neighbor, Mike. “We all know Boudin won’t prosecute, so it makes no difference. Not even a murderer goes to prison in San Francisco these days!”

Susan remained quiet for most of the meeting. Since the George Floyd protests, every San Franciscan’s worst fear was being called a racist. Also, Kate and Susan were friends, and I could tell from Susan’s nervous demeanor on the Zoom stream that she was ready to concede in order to salvage their relationship. But now that everyone was arguing about what would happen if you gave a crook a cookie, it was probably too late.

“I, for one,” Kate continued, “think it’s important to hear from our older residents. Carl and Rhonda, do you have anything to say?”

Carl and Rhonda, who lived across from us, were the only long-time residents of the neighborhood on the call, and the only neighbors that had ever invited us over for dinner. Carl and Rhonda, as it turned out, were also the only Black people on the call, because they were the only Black people who lived on our street. This was, ostensibly, not why Kate asked them to speak, but given her earlier remarks, it certainly looked as if she was trying to drum up more opposition to the security camera idea. 

Carl leaned into his laptop, to fumble with the mute button, then cleared his throat. “Hello everyone, I’m Carl. Rhonda and I have lived on this street since the 1980s. Many years ago, I decided to buy a whole-home security monitoring system. We have cameras at the front door, and motion sensors. If anything suspicious happens, an alarm will sound, and the police are automatically called.”

After the safety meeting, things in our neighborhood didn’t feel the same. There were two camps—the Call the Cops Camp, and the Cookie Camp—and most everyone had picked their side. (Susan, me, and a few others were in a third camp, the Conflict Avoidant Camp.) Chesa Boudin, the DA, ended up getting recalled in 2022, but that did little to ease the tension. To make matters worse, most of the neighborhood’s older residents didn’t know how to use reply-all, so email threads quickly descended into chaos. But then, one morning, I woke up to an email from a neighbor named June.

Subject: 232 your catalytic converter was chopped but not stolen

Morning!

I'm a neighborhood car watch up here.

(My bedroom on the second floor overlooks the street.)

232 I just stopped guys from sawing off your converter on your blue prius. They didn’t get it but they may have cut it at one end. They were in a white sedan. I didn’t get the license plate. I was too busy throwing soup cans at them.

Jerry, thanks for the idea to throw cans of soup.  This is the second time I’ve tried it, and it worked! I was also not naked this time, so I was able to act faster. Pajamas really helped! Sorry for the screaming and the split peas in the street. For those walking dogs this morning, there is a yummy treat.

If anyone has extra soup cans they will never use, put them outside my door.

Stay safe, folks! And remember, neighbor June is watching out. 

My neighborhood did not heal from all of its problems overnight, but when June threw the can of soup, the replies to her email indicated that people on both sides of the crime management conflict had a good laugh. June had found a way to prevent crime without installing cameras, and without calling the cops. Though, depending on how accurate June’s aim was, I imagine the would-be thieves were far less entertained by her choice of ammunition. A small can of soup can do a good deal of damage. (Relatedly, Donald Trump has actually decried the use of soup can weaponry by “anarchists.” I wonder if he’d consider June an anarchist?)

Through the following years, though the crime rate in east Bernal remained higher than other neighborhoods in San Francisco, new residents more often commented on how lucky they felt to have found such a close-knit, friendly community. So, when it comes to bringing people together, I guess there’s nothing quite like a soup-er hero who sometimes wears pajamas. 🧠

🏠 🏠 Thanks for reading, Oops, My Brain! If you have any stories of neighborhood shenanigans to share, leave a comment. Or, if you want to share this story with a friend, here’s a handy button for you to use.

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👏 👏 Thanks to Alexius Alldrin, Kat Foley, and Dennis Kageni for editing this post.

1. To protect the people involved, some names and identifying details in this story have been changed.