Chapter 3
Three
When I applied for this job, I was under no illusions that I’d have access to the vault. I knew customer service was a far
cry from the paid junior curatorial assistant internship the museum offers to one golden-ticket-lucky high school student
each school year. But I didn’t anticipate that my clearance would be only one step above that of the average guest.
Apparently, floor staff get the same tour they give to day-trippers. That’s my grand revelation when Dan leads us out of the
farmhouse, the ground floor of which houses biographical galleries about the late showrunner Victor Kane and the show’s production
history.
The only new thing I’ve learned today is that the farmhouse’s second story, home of the admin offices, is verboten—even with the badges Divya from security delivered to the barn break room as we noshed on free pizza during lunch.
Except for Efraín, of course, who scavenged for not-actually-vegan Oreos from the vending machine.
I have a tendency to get ahead of myself, especially when it comes to my special interests, and when it comes to Nuclear Seasons, my interest is just a few steps behind that of the superfans Divya warned us about who try to hide in the bathrooms after
closing. I’m not about to pull a move from Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler’s files, but I can’t help feeling bamboozled.
“This is the original silo used for exterior shots,” Dan says as we loop back toward the barn. Beside it towers a massive
grain bin of gleaming corrugated steel. Twenty-two feet in diameter, three stories high, with a floor plan of approximately
eleven hundred square feet, not that Dan tells us that. I’m tempted to volunteer the information, except I’ve learned the
hard way that teachers don’t like students who know more than they do. I’ve never been a teacher’s pet so much as the yappy
runt at an overcrowded animal shelter of questionable ethics.
“People actually believed this tin can was a real nuclear bunker that could shield the human body from radiation for twenty
minutes, let alone twenty years?”
Then there’s Efraín, who’s never thought twice about saying exactly what’s on his mind, no matter the audience, no matter
whether there’s anything to shield him from the fallout.
Dan has that same lost sheepdog look, but I’m way ahead of him.
“It’s actually a grain bin, not a silo, and made of steel, not tin.
Everyone calls it a silo, though. Kane took some creative and scientific liberties.
On the show, the silo’s insulated with lead and concrete, plus regular insulation for climate control, then finished off with an interior corrugated steel wall.
” I spare a glance at Dan as he swipes his badge at the silo door. “Am I missing anything?”
Yappy mutt. Kill shelter. I know better, except for the part where I really don’t.
“That about covers it,” Dan says as he shepherds us inside.
It doesn’t matter how many times I’ve been to the museum. Each time feels like the first time—like I’m stepping through the
veil of screen static into an Egan’s Creek entirely alien from my own. Eerie, otherworldly lights cast the gallery in pale
blue, simulating the cooling filter employed by the show.
Even though I know the low temperature and dim lighting are optimized to protect the artifacts, they don’t feel like artifacts; nothing is roped off or behind glass. Instead, the grain bin interior is set up as it appears on the show.
A luxury nuclear bunker. Industrial farmhouse meets midcentury modern chic. Canonically designed in the Eisenhower era, hastily
occupied in 1962, and peppered with traces of 1982 that the Spectors acquire over the course of the show, like the Commodore
64 home computer in the living room, which is also the kitchen and comprises the entire ground floor.
The world’s narrowest staircase, coiled against the curved wall, leads to the so-called kids’ room on the second floor and the primary suite on the third.
Tucked under the staircase and concealed by a false panel, the single bathroom is only slightly larger than an airplane lavatory, thanks to the shower that’s roughly the size of an upright coffin.
Definitely not for claustrophobes. Here, the panel’s permanently popped.
I know from my countless visits that fans are inexplicably obsessed with posing for photo ops inside, palms planted on opposite walls.
At first glance, you might mistake this gallery for the actual bunker, but once you blink, the real world reasserts itself.
This is still a museum with explanatory plaques and interactive screens. All closets and cupboards are open displays. The
once-state-of-the-art color TV plays fan-favorite clips on repeat.
It doesn’t quite break the fantasy, but—
“The main thing you need to know,” Dan says as we huddle by the can-lined pantry, “is that this space was never used during
production. The bunker interior sets were all soundstages on the property.
Those came down after the network canceled Nuclear Seasons in 1984 at the end of its first and only season.
Kane personally salvaged as much furniture and costumes as he could and stored everything here at Mondo Kane Ranch.
He became obsessed with finding another network to pick up the show.
” Dan’s expression darkens. “You, uh, you all know what happened to Victor Kane.”
“He shot himself in the mouth on May 8, 1989,” I answer reflexively.
“Pretty sure that was rhetorical,” Efraín mutters.
“Um, yeah. Kane eventually realized there was never going to be another season. The show didn’t have fans back then the way
it does now. Between his PTSD and depression—” Dan clears his throat. “Anyway, when his daughter, Dagny, founded the museum
in 2001, she re-created the Spectors’ bunker inside the old silo—uh, grain bin—for authenticity, you know? Once you’ve been here for few weeks, Anya might ask a couple of you to lead tours. Stanley and
Ford—you’ll meet them tomorrow—handle tours in the offseason, but tourist season can get . . . rough.”
I jam my hand into my pocket before I volunteer. Because I could tell guests everything that Dan isn’t telling us—everything
that makes Nuclear Seasons special. That’s where I’ll shine.
My customer service acumen will come out on the museum floor, not behind the ticketing counter. That’s how I’ll prove I’m
worthy of that paid internship, which I need if I want to save up for top surgery beyond the down payment. And if I want to
earn docent duties, I have to prove my passion for the show and all its quirky idiosyncrasies any chance I get.
Now Dan’s shepherding everyone up the staircase and into the “kids’ room,” which is another misnomer.
Yes, Arthur and Rebecca were children—nine and seven, respectively—when Wolf Spector locked his family in the bunker on October 23, 1962.
Viewers, however, only know Art and Rebecca as the rebellious, clueless na?fs who emerge from the bunker twenty years later.
The bedroom was designed with an adult sensibility, not as a luxury playroom to rear children in the wake of a nuclear attack.
There are two twin beds—Art’s neatly made, Rebecca’s sheets haphazardly rucked. A closet bursting with neon leg warmers and
sequin dresses. A shadowbox of patterned bow ties. A chest brimming with Art’s Golden Age sci-fi paperbacks and outdated science
textbooks. A desk covered with synth-pop cassettes and Rebecca’s most treasured acquisition: a Sony Walkman.
Cinematic stills from the show and production photos adorn the walls, along with plaques nobody reads. No, guests flock to
the mannequins artfully posed around the room, wearing Art’s and Rebecca’s most iconic outfits.
“There’s always a security rover in the silo,” Dan says, “and cameras on every level. But guests still touch the costumes.
They want to feel things Sam Schatz and Judy Medina touched.”
Each mannequin has an impossible-to-miss DO NOT TOUCH sign. It’s also part of the spiel given at ticketing: no food or drink, no flash photography, and no touching the artifacts.
“Especially that one, with the tassels.” Dan nods toward the Platonic ideal of the little black dress—slinky, sleeveless,
and cut just below the knee—by the closet mirror, as if Rebecca were looking at herself, except the mannequin’s facing the
gallery. “All the costumes on display were really worn on the show. Mostly designer, early sixties—stuff the Spectors would’ve
had in their closets. People always ask that. So, that black Chanel dress”—he cocks his head back at the fringe dress—“is
the one Rebecca wears when they open the bunker hatch and—”
“No, it’s not,” I blurt, on autopilot. I am a self-driving car, running a red light. “Rebecca didn’t wear this in the pilot.
It was episode three, ‘Guess Who’s Coming to Barbecue,’ when the Davises invite the Spectors to dinner, which the Spectors
assume will be a formal dinner party but is actually a barbecue. Art, Rebecca, and Deborah show up dressed like they’re going
to a night at the opera. Carol Davis fake-compliments Rebecca’s dress, but Deborah rambles about how it’s a reproduction of
a dress that Coco Chanel designed for the French film Last Year at Marienbad—”
I finally hear myself talking. Rambling, just like Deborah about the dress. Dan’s slack-jawed, not angry but baffled. I’m terrible at reading facial
expressions, but even I can tell that not one person looks interested.
This silo has never felt as large as it does now, with this great, gaping chasm of awkward between my coworkers and me.
“Um,” Dan says. “Okay, Eli. Thanks.”
With that ringing endorsement, I’m sure to win Employee of the Month.