Chapter 23 #2
In Jewish tradition, we honor the dead with pebbles instead of flowers, but I don’t have a pebble. I have a button that isn’t
worth its weight in paper, let alone stone. The button is banned because it is an insult to the institution, but the institution
is an insult to the man.
I wasn’t trying to stick it to the man; I just want to be seen as one.
Whispering a blessing under my breath, I set my pronoun button on Kane’s headstone, and I head back to work.
“I can solve that mystery for you.”
I blink into the harsh afternoon sunlight. I’ve just dropped off my last tour outside the barn. I was planning on loitering here for a few minutes—no one can accuse me of hiding in broad daylight, right? Besides, it’s not working if Eden from curatorial can track me down.
“What mystery?” I ask, straightening up.
“The screenplay draft,” she answers. “I caught part of your tour. It was great, by the way.”
I sincerely doubt it was great given my mental state, but Eden looks perfectly sincere. The light bounces off her gold glasses
frames and the matching, glimmering cuffs interspersed through her braids as she fiddles with the strap of her messenger bag.
“I was heading downstairs when you were in the farmhouse. I wasn’t planning on tagging along, but I liked hearing your take.
I hope that’s okay.” Eden bites her lip like she really cares about whether she has my approval to join an open tour.
“Sure. Follow along whenever you want. What were you saying about the screenplay?”
She grins. “That was the reason I stopped. You were talking about the theories behind the ‘Artie’ annotation?”
“What about it?”
“Everything in red pen? It’s Sam Schatz’s handwriting. He always used the double-story ‘a’ but never dotted his i’s.”
“That’s impossible.” My brain’s been on the fritz all day, so it shouldn’t be a surprise when it short-circuits. “I’ve seen
his signature a thousand times . . .”
“His cursive signature,” Eden rebuts. “He usually stuck to print handwriting, especially in his letters.”
“I didn’t think we had any of his letters.”
“The museum has hundreds, just not on display.”
Strange. Sam died in 1989 and didn’t leave behind much of an estate—whatever wealth he’d acquired from acting went to the
hospital bills he racked up while dying young of AIDS. He didn’t have family or a serious long-term partner who might’ve kept
his belongings long enough to donate them to the museum a decade later.
What I do understand, however, is that I, a lowly guest services associate, am not privy to the inner workings of this museum.
There are thousands of artifacts I’ll never see, even if I manage to get the junior curatorial internship—and fuck. I hadn’t even gotten around to considering what today means for my internship chances.
Before I succumb to the full-blown panic spiral, Eden says, “After reading hundreds of Sam’s letters, trust me when I say
I know his handwriting. He’s the one who wrote ‘Artie.’ ”
“That means Kane showed him the first draft.” My brain has rebooted with surprising alacrity, firing on all cylinders. “I
thought Kane didn’t show anyone his scripts until he was on at least the fifth draft. Remember that story about how he kept reworking the script for ‘Citizen Egan’ until like two days before filming?
Judy was begging him to let her help.”
Eden’s worrying her lip between her teeth again, but I have no idea what she could possibly be worried about saying now.
Then she says, “Speaking of help, TJ said something to me in the break room earlier about, well, this.” She angles her messenger bag to reveal a teal “she/her” button pinned to the flap.
I don’t know whether to point out that that can’t be good for the leather or that everyone should know better than to talk
about baby socialist fight club in the break room by now.
“He said the people who made the buttons have been discussing what to do about the ban.”
The official button ban came down via email early this afternoon, just one bullet point in our weekly guest services bulletin—a
“friendly reminder” that the dress code prohibits “personal accessories” as well as “items containing or pertaining to political
speech.”
“Everyone was really worked up about it,” Eden says. “Dan was asking for Blake’s opinion on whether his anti-establishment
punk band tees count as political speech. Blake was worried about her piercings and Jaime’s tattoos, too. TJ was reassuring
them and giving me a little backstory, and . . .” Self-consciously, she tucks a braid behind her ear. “I suggested an email
zap.”
“What?”
“It’s when a bunch of people contact a target all at once to put pressure on them to do, well, whatever the objective is.”
“I know what an email zap is, but how do you know?”
“I was a TA in grad school. I wasn’t super active in the TA union, but I participated in an email zap to the dean.
So, when TJ showed me the email, it got me thinking.
I don’t know the whole story here, but an email zap seems like a proportionate response, right?
TJ said he was going to post about it in a group chat. I thought—”
“I haven’t checked the group chat,” I interrupt. It probably sounds rude, given that Eden is offering her help, but I just
feel exposed. It’s been hard enough being vulnerable with the union, and now everyone at the museum knows my business?
I can’t meet Eden’s eyes, so I pull out my phone and check the chat.
Sure enough, the union has developed a rapid strategic response based on Eden’s idea: a barrage of emails expressing disappointment
in management’s decision and showing support for pronoun buttons.
Stanley’s email template is excruciatingly polite, blame-free, and thanks the senior leadership team for their time and consideration like a cover letter. Anyone who’s comfortable can dress it up by noting that LGBTQ people are a protected class with distinct
legal protections.
The plan is to schedule the emails to send at the same time, tomorrow morning. Send to Dagny, CC Anya and Billy, and BCC everyone
in the union. Hopefully by then, Lola and Stanley will have recruited more participants.
“What do you think?” Eden asks.
“It’s a solid plan,” I say, staring at my shoes. I don’t have any constructive criticism. I also don’t have any desire to write an email enumerating all the arguments I’ve already made.
“Do you think it would be okay if I wrote an email?”
“Sorry, what?”
When I finally look, Eden’s not looking at me. She’s looking over her shoulder. “I know I’m sheltered in the farmhouse,” she
says, her knuckles wrapped tight around her shoulder strap. “I mostly work alone, and Winston is the world’s most easygoing
boss. No one in admin has a dress code, not even ‘business casual.’ No one cares if I show up in this”—she gestures down at
her cargo pants and T-shirt, which she’s classed up with a blazer—“and they’ve never said anything about any buttons I’ve
worn. I get that I don’t have a customer-facing position like y’all do, but I hate a double standard.”
“Wait, let me get this straight,” I say. “You want to write an email not because the button ban affects you, but because it
doesn’t affect you?”
“Yep,” Eden says.
Maybe on another day, I’d feel capable of making sense of this, but I’m so damn tired. I don’t just feel frazzled but frayed
at the seams. Pull a single thread, and I’ll unravel completely.
“But why?” I ask.
Eden cocks her head. “It’s not that different from a cis person wearing a pronoun button, is it?”
“Yeah, it really is. Wearing a button when someone hands it to you—when half the staff’s already wearing them—is simple.
It’s not a fashion statement if it’s already trendy.
But sending an email requires intention,” I say, rubbing my palms over my corduroy shorts so I don’t ball them into fists.
“You sign your name, and you’re putting yourself on the line. ”
“You wrote that petition, didn’t you?”
I nod.
“Then you get it,” Eden says, as if I haven’t just said otherwise. “I’ve been here two years, and I never figured out why
this place is so cutthroat. I can’t say anything without feeling . . . There’s a reason I eat lunch in your break room. So
maybe the ban doesn’t affect me personally, but what happens to all of you affects me. Because I care what happens, so, I
figure, yeah, I can put my name on the line, you know?”
Oh, right. Of course. That’s what that creepy-crawly anxiety itch over every inch of my skin is about. I’m afraid to sign
my name to an email.
“Okay,” I tell her. “The more the merrier, right?”
Eden watches me. “You know you don’t have to send an email, right?”
I blink and reassure her, “I know,” though I’m not sure I do.
What I know is that whether I write an email or not, management will hold me accountable for any and all transgender-related
transgressions in this museum. But other people are going to do this with or without me. They’re opening themselves up to
retaliation, too.
And here I am complaining that I’m too tired to write an email for a cause that directly concerns me, for which I will be blamed no matter what I do.
If I’m going to do the time, I might as well do the crime.
Be gay, do crime. Be trans, do organized crime.