Chapter 23
Twenty-Three
“And this, right here, is my favorite artifact in the museum. I mean, everything about Kane’s study feels magical. A little musty,
but the Snoopy mug on the credenza is such a great touch. Like Kane just stepped away, but he could come back any second and—oh,
right, my favorite artifact.
“That would be the script—the one under the glass on the desk. It’s the first draft of the final episode, ‘Who’s Afraid of
Wolf Spector?’ If you look closely, you’ll see two sets of notes in the margins. The ones in pencil? That’s Kane’s handwriting.
But these other notes in red pen in someone else’s handwriting? That mystery person crossed out ‘Art’ in Harry’s climactic
monologue and wrote ‘Artie,’ the first evidence of that nickname.
“Here’s the thing: No one has ever claimed responsibility for those annotations.
George Rhodes swears Kane showed him the draft first, with the nickname already there.
In fact, no one remembers seeing this annotated draft until after Kane’s death.
There’s a theory—well, I’ll let you puzzle that out for yourselves.
Take a few minutes to look around. I’ll be here if you want to swap theories.
Otherwise, we’ll regroup in five and head outside. ”
I’m winded, like I was in eighth grade when we ran The Mile, and my asthmatic lungs could never keep up. But now, I’ve got
runner’s high because I’m a full-fledged docent. Yesterday, Stanley was with me all day as mentor, monitor, and moral support.
Dan gave me the green light. So, this is it. Tuesday, Stanley’s day off, is my first solo tour day.
No adult supervision—unless you count the adults on my tour. Which I don’t, because I’m supervising them. You wouldn’t believe how many times you have to tell fully grown adults not to touch even when there are DO NOT TOUCH placards
right there.
“What’s this theory?”
The voice in my ear startles me off balance. It’s purely luck that my hand lands flat on the wall rather than the Polaroid
of Victor Kane with Francois Truffaut on the set of Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
“Sorry?” I face Anya with my most professional, unfazed smile.
“The theory,” Anya says, “about the red pen.”
“Oh. The theory is that Kane must’ve shown the draft to someone else first.”
“Hmm,” Anya hums. “I heard it was a rogue copy editor.”
“But why—” The possibilities ping-pong in my head, every what-if shattering into ten more what-ifs.
“Why indeed. That’s what I like about this place. So full of mystery. The stories are so close here, but so many details we’ll never know. That’s the beauty of it, no?” Anya gestures to the gleaming open-plan gallery
around us. “The Nuclear Seasons Experience is something everyone decides for themselves. We can’t tell them what to think.”
“No, of course not.”
Two strangers from my tour are engaged in an animated debate over by the display case with Kane’s three Purple Hearts about
the old rumor that Kane buried his brass in a coffee can and only dug them up to use as props in Harry’s PTSD allegory episode,
“Apocalypse When.” They’re getting into it, having a grand old time. The story’s more important than the truth.
“You understand, then,” Anya says, “why it isn’t allowed.”
“Pardon?”
“The—” She lowers her voice, so the guests won’t hear her scandalous words. “That pin. It violates the dress code.”
The scandal doesn’t click. Has she been watching the same debate by the medals of valor? Some of them are pins, but what does
that have to do with the dress—
Pin. Pin-back. Button.
This doesn’t make sense. It’s been two days since the buttons made their debut, and this is the first I’ve heard from management.
No one has said anything in the group chat. It’s been all quiet on the western front.
I should’ve known better than to succumb to that siren call of false security.
Anya approaching me alone—that should’ve been the first warning sign.
Anya doesn’t work Tuesdays; she wasn’t at pre-shift.
So why would she approach me when I’m alone, in the middle of a tour?
My first tour. With guests all around us.
Is this supposed to stop me from making a scene?
“I don’t understand,” I admit, bald and blunt. I can’t help if it comes across as blithe or blasé.
“Don’t you?” Anya’s eyes narrow behind her cat-eye glasses.
I’m looking at the room through a very long tunnel. It’s a cheap lens effect; NS used it in episodes for flashbacks and premonitions. This disconnect, the whole world on delay, images and words out of sync, slow buffering and shitty dubbing—I’m dissociating.
I know this. I am Elisha Goldstein. I am at the Nuclear Seasons Experience in Egan’s Creek. It is somewhere between eleven
thirty and noon, and—
Today is a Tuesday. Lola, Naomi, and Stanley all have the day off. Efraín and TJ are in the gift shop. I’m teetering between
a garden-variety panic attack and a nuclear meltdown.
None of this was supposed to happen, not today, not to me. Not again.
“You know you can’t wear that pin,” Anya says. “It’s against museum policy. You need to take it off.”
“I need to finish this tour.”
“You need to take it off right now, Eli.”
“I don’t—” I blink. My vision doesn’t clear, and neither does my head. Why would it make a difference if I took off the button
after this tour? Everyone in this group has already seen my button. If I take it off now, I’ll never be able to put it on
again.
I don’t move. I can’t.
“Don’t make a scene. There are guests here.”
Of course there are guests here. She ambushed me on the museum floor.
“Be reasonable, Eli.”
Anya wants me to be reasonable, but there is no reason here. I’m wearing a button, yes, but so are half the GSAs and three security guards. But I’m the one Anya singled out for
public flagellation. The only plausible reason? I’m the one wearing a button while visibly trans. The one who already complained.
The one who just doesn’t know when to shut up and take it.
I’m only postponing the inevitable.
So I do the only reasonable thing and take off my button.
Anya smiles. “Thank you, Eli. That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
In Jewish tradition, it’s disrespectful to leave flowers at a grave site.
Flowers are living things; flowers die. They are a reminder of our own impermanence, bouquets of memento mori, except no one needs that reminder in a graveyard, least of all the people buried in it.
That’s why Jews leave pebbles on headstones.
That’s why I hate the baroque floral arrangements people leave at Victor Kane’s grave.
Of course, this isn’t a Jewish cemetery. Kane didn’t have a proper Jewish funeral. Not because he had a tattoo or because
he died by suicide—those are just myths, not reasons to deny burial—but rather because of the core commandment that a Jew
should be buried among Jews.
In other words, a person should be buried with their people.
Victor Kane is buried alone. All he wanted, per the postscript on his two-line suicide note, was for his faithful German shepherd,
Mondo Kane, to be buried beside him when the time came, but Victor’s wife cremated Mondo, so Victor remained alone.
Alone, but for the hundreds of museum patrons who visit here, whether to pay their respects or play disaster tourist at the
final resting place of the man-myth-legend.
Here, on my lunch break, am I paying my respects or playing disaster tourist?
The sun beats down on me. The world is too bright, overexposed, and my eyes water through my letterbox squint. I should’ve
grabbed my sunglasses. I shouldn’t have come out here at all.
I don’t know how I made it through the rest of the tour this morning.
It wasn’t muscle memory because it was my first tour, which will not end up in my long-term memory palace’s vaunted hall of proud achievements.
I thought I’d look back on that tour as a defining moment—the time I was entrusted to share my knowledge and love of all things Nuclear Seasons in an official capacity.
I’d curated a sterling set of factoids and anecdotes for guests to wow their friends, but I don’t
know if I shared any of them. I remember worrying Anya would appear around every corner to ensure I didn’t put my button back
on.
Somehow, I made it to my morning break and locked myself in the only gender-neutral bathroom in the lobby. I sent an imprecise
précis to the group chat. I don’t remember what I wrote. I’m afraid to check.
I haven’t read the replies, either.
When I dropped off my last morning tour group in the gift shop, I was worried Efraín might defect from the register to ask
if I’m okay, but I made a quick escape.
Kane’s grave site is outside, away from the barn, remote to all but the most die-hard fans. It’s also morbid and weird, and
everything I’ve ever learned about Victor Kane leads me to believe he never would’ve wanted strangers parading over his grave
like it’s some kind of monument.
But that’s why I ended up here today, isn’t it? I know Kane isn’t the institution, but what is this museum if not a monument
to his reconstituted memory?
I recognize those little scraps of Hebrew on Kane’s tombstone because they’re inscribed on Opa’s tombstone, too. Key among
them is Z”L, the transliterated abbreviation for zichrono livracha: may his memory be a blessing.
I’ve always believed that NSX fulfilled that promise—that it made Kane’s memory something sacred by honoring his gift to the world.
But instead of sacred, the museum has chosen corporate. Instead of a gift freely given, it’s a ticket purchased at a premium rate. Instead of offering community to anyone who feels
alone, the institution has sealed itself shut to anyone who doesn’t conform.
Does this message honor Kane’s memory?
All Kane wanted was to be buried with his dog on a quiet corner of his familial ranch. Instead, I’m standing here as a cog
in the cheap amusement park built over his home. Just being here is a violation of his memory.