Chapter 17
Seventeen
“But what are Stanley’s grievances?” Efraín asks me for the tenth time.
It’s another slow Tuesday afternoon. We’re riding the beginning of a heatwave, and vacationers would rather take their chances
at the state parks while it’s this side of one hundred degrees and wait until later this week to take advantage of the museum’s
spotty AC when it’s truly scorching outside.
Come to think of it, “spotty AC coverage” probably belongs on the grievance list.
“I told you. We didn’t get that far.” I don’t want to admit that Stanley’s approach was ninety percent pity and ten percent
concern. “But I get the impression that Stanley has a lot of grievances.”
“Yeah, no shit.”
“He just had an interesting perspective. I bet if you asked his thoughts on how ‘alienation of labor’ applies here—”
Before Efraín can give me gluten-free brownie points for the Marx reference, the barn doors screech open. I overhear the tail end of the presumptive guests’ raunchy story about their escapades last night at the Brass Ass Saloon before I see them.
Three middle-aged white guys approach the ticketing counter with classic MAGA hat swagger, except only one of them is actually
wearing a hat, and it’s John Deere.
Dread curdles in my gut. My customer service mask is as clunky as a hazmat suit.
They’re probably paying separately, so it makes sense, really, that they fan out along the counter in some display of passive-aggressive
psychosocial manspreading.
I don’t know how Efraín wants to play this—if he wants to tag-team the spiel or divide and conquer. I should say something.
Greeting the guest is step one. Why haven’t I done it yet?
I make direct visual contact with the closest man. Sunburned skin, regulation crew cut, and a frayed denim vest, embroidered
patches worn as proudly as an Eagle Scout’s merit badges. The snake-on-yellow “Don’t Tread on Me” is trite but no more threatening
than a gopher snake in the backyard. “I Plead the Second” rattles me to my bones. California isn’t an open carry state, but
when has that ever stopped anyone?
“Welcome to the Nuclear Seasons Experience,” Efraín says. He isn’t smiling—isn’t effervescent or roguishly urbane in the way he usually is when he applies a soupcon of charisma. “Three tickets?”
“Hey there, hold your horses, hermano,” the man in the middle drawls. He’s the most clean-cut, more vintage alt-right than
hillbilly elegy. He’s still wearing his Oakley wraparound sunglasses indoors. “Buy a guy some dinner first. Maybe a chimichanga.”
“You know I love me some nachos,” Mr. Second Amendment says.
“Y’all got Taco Bell out here?” John Deere asks.
Efraín’s hands are splayed flat on the counter, his veins etched in stark relief. His middle finger is twitching. Then he
puts on the most shit-eating, facetious customer service grin. “There are half a dozen Taco Bells in Santa Rosa alone, but
the best food is here in Egan’s Creek: Lou’s Deluxe Diner, right on the square.”
“There’s Korean BBQ–inspired nachos on special,” I chime in. Here I am wondering if I should feel grateful or spiteful that
Efraín’s sending the intimidating, possibly-gun-toting probably-bigots my moms’ way, when I should be debating the merits
of drawing those same men’s attention my way.
“Korean nachos,” Oakleys marvels. “Can’t believe the shit they think of.”
I don’t dare ask who he means by “they,” but it seems ironic given that the fine people of Taco Bell gave the world Doritos
Locos Tacos and KitKat Chocodillas.
I needn’t have wondered. John Deere asks his buddy, using two racist, xenophobic slurs that went out of fashion before the Hays Code.
The storm drenches me in dread, chill in my bones and salt on my tongue. I take shelter inside myself, measure the distance,
count the seconds between the lightning strike and the thunderclap, but—
The clapback never comes.
Efraín is a live wire, tension drawn in every line of his body, from his jaw to his biceps. He’s preternaturally still and
deadly silent.
This doesn’t make sense. If anyone else said something half as noxious, he’d have them canceled five ways to Sunday by now.
Why isn’t Efraín saying anything?
Unless he’s as intimidated by Mr. Second Amendment as I am, but that doesn’t track. Because Efraín Juarez Reyna wears his
convictions like Kevlar. On his worst day, he’s braver than I’ll ever be.
Oakleys’ response makes John Deere’s diction seem quaint, and the way he looks at Efraín when he says it . . .
The wrongness is a visceral thing, a shiver and a lurch and every hair on end. It isn’t just the words that are wrong—though they are,
vile, venom to the heart—but it’s their effect. It doesn’t make sense that Efraín, who fights windmills for sport, isn’t fighting back. Anything that triggers a prey response in Efraín is wrong.
“Get out.” The words come out utterly flat, as robotic as the machines that will soon automate this very job out of existence.
It doesn’t register that those words came out of my mouth until two sets of eyes and a pair of Oakleys lock on me, heat-seeking missiles: target acquired.
“What’d you just say?” Oakleys asks.
Red-orange polarized lenses mirror my face back at me. I can’t read my own expression. “You need to leave. Now.”
“But we ain’t bought the tickets yet,” John Deere says.
“We’re not going to sell them to you,” I say, steady and sure but hoping Efraín backs me up sometime soon. “The museum reserves
the right to refuse service. You’re not welcome here. Not today, not ever.”
“What kind of Cali commie coastal elite bullshit is this?” Mr. Second Amendment asks.
“This is what happens when they indoctrinate children with critical race theory in kindergarten,” Oakleys observes.
“Don’t we have the right to consult a manager?” John Deere asks.
Any manager would agree that other museum guests shouldn’t have to listen to this, but I, personally, have no compunction
about reading them the riot act if Anya, Billy, or Dagny tries to tell me that Efraín or any member of our staff should have
to endure this.
I stare them down with authority I don’t have, just the strength of these few paltry convictions. “The Nuclear Seasons Experience aims to curate an experience that represents the best of the show. Hate speech ruins that experience for other guests.”
The three big bad bigots huff, and they puff, but they don’t blow the barn down. Mr. Second Amendment doesn’t whip out a concealed
firearm. I’m the one standing my ground. On their way out, Oakleys says to expect a letter from his lawyer, and John Deere
declares he’ll be leaving us a one-star review on Yelp.
When they’re gone, just as the adrenaline’s burning out, Efraín whirls on me, a hurricane of torrential, blustering anger.
“What the fuck was that?”
I don’t know what I was expecting—a five-star review and a twenty-five percent tip?—but it wasn’t this. The rage I expected
from Efraín five minutes ago that never quite materialized? Here it is.
“I was—” With the adrenaline gone, there’s a vacuum where my false confidence was. I didn’t expect him to thank me, but I didn’t expect the riot act read to me. “I was trying to help.”
“I didn’t need your help,” Efraín snaps as he pulls a grubby rubber band out of the caddy. “I didn’t ask for your help.” He wrangles his hair up, and all I can think is how much it’s going to hurt when he takes it off. “I can
handle garden-variety racists myself. Like any invasive species, there are other ways to kill them than brute-force weeding.
Vinegar, boiling water, salt—take your pick.”
“Pretty sure weeding’s the fastest, but I know, okay?” After all, how many times has he pulled this savior routine with me? He knows how much I hate being the damsel. “I know you could’ve totally obliterated those guys. But you hadn’t yet, and I just wanted them gone.”
My confession sucks the wind out of his indignation. His jaw goes slack, stress sluices off his shoulders, and he slumps.
His expression reverts to something I can’t read. “I thought you were supposed to call a supervisor for ‘problem guests.’ ”
“Or push the panic button, yes.”
“I thought you believed in upholding the sacred handbook to the best of your ability, Mr. Goody Two-Shoes.”
“No.” I blink up at him. “Despite what you may think, I’m not an automaton. A strict interpretation of the handbook doesn’t
make sense when someone might get hurt. Those guys just now? They would’ve heard me radioing for a supervisor. They might’ve
gotten angry—angrier. They could’ve done more violence than words alone. It made more sense to get rid of them immediately.”
Efraín looks at me, unblinking, and I do my best not to flinch. “You’re seriously telling me you protected me because it was the rational thing to do?” he huffs. “It’s like you take it for granted that the rational thing is the right thing. Why do you always
expect the world to make sense? It doesn’t.” He doesn’t say it unkindly; there’s no cruel intent lurking behind his eyes.
Earnest curiosity should be met with honesty, so I admit, “I need the world to make sense.”
“Why?” His voice is calm, placid—almost as if he understands that this isn’t the casual statement it might be from someone else.
“Because.” I swallow, the words gummy in my throat. “Because I don’t know how to live in this world. I don’t understand it.
Every time I think I’m close, something proves me wrong, like what happened just now.”
I don’t understand how three bigots walked into a museum, said what they said, and no one’s the wiser. It’s just Efraín looking
at me, both of us trying to make sense of the ugly ethical paradoxes that define the human condition.
“It terrifies me—not understanding,” I say. “Not knowing what could happen. I’m scared all the time. And I don’t know how—” My voice cracks. “I don’t know how to exist in this constant state
of fear.”
Efraín’s still looking at me, and I don’t understand this, either. Then he says, “So you admit the world doesn’t make sense.”