Chapter 32
Thirty-Two
Saturday morning, Eden asks me to walk her to her car. I assume she needs help with supplies, but when we get to her hatchback,
she indicates I should get in.
“We’re not going somewhere, are we?”
“No,” Eden says, “but, on second thought—sorry, can you put your phone in here?” She holds up a black pouch. “Faraday bag.
Sorry, I know it’s overkill. I know, rationally, museum surveillance isn’t tapping my phone, but tell that to my anxiety.”
“I get it. Honestly.”
“Also, I’m about to violate my NDA like whoa, so there’s that.”
“You don’t have to—”
“You work for the museum, so I’d have to check with my old college roommate—she’s in law school—but—”
“Am I missing something?”
“Everyone’s missing something,” she says. “NSX is hiding—wait, did you not read the text I sent you? The day Efraín got fired?”
“A few messages fell through the cracks that day.”
“Understandable. Let me just—” She fetches her messenger bag and pulls out a high-res photocopy of a handwritten letter. “This
is the one I sent you.”
The one addressed “Schatz.”
It is, by any metric, a love letter—a lurid one. I read it twice, my heart pounding in advance of the reckoning. It doesn’t
make sense, but I check again. That’s Kane’s handwriting and signature. It’s dated a year after NS was canceled.
Kane asks whether the distance between them is truly an irreconcilable difference, but—Kane was living with his family on the ranch. He refused to take any meetings in LA.
“This is—” I shake my head. “This can’t be—”
“C’mon, Eli. You know what this is.”
In context, the “Schatz” to whom the letter is addressed can only be Sam Schatz, the actor who played Art Spector.
According to this letter, Victor Kane had an affair with Sam Schatz—was, by his own account, in love with Sam Schatz—and yet,
I’ve read everything there is to read about Victor Kane. I work in a museum dedicated to his life, in the house he lived in—where
he presumably wrote this letter about loving another man.
“You know how people have tried to explain away how Kane always called Sam by his last name in public, right?” Eden prods. “Maybe other people called him ‘Schatz.’ Maybe there was another ‘Sam’ on set. But you know better.”
“Kane was born in Germany,” I murmur. “It wasn’t his first language, but his parents spoke it at home even after they immigrated
here. ‘Schatz’ is one of the most common German terms of endearment. The literal translation is ‘treasure,’ but it’s semantically
equivalent to ‘sweetheart’ in American hypocoristic vernacular. My opa used it for my oma.”
“So you understand,” Eden presses, “this letter wasn’t meant for Sigrid or some female lover.”
“He was queer.”
“Hella queer. There are hundreds of letters back and forth. After Sam died, his boyfriend found a shoebox full of these and
sent it to Kane. He kept all of them in a secret compartment in his desk, but if you read all of them, he wasn’t ashamed.
It was Sam who left.
“Kane was willing to leave his wife and follow Sam anywhere, but Sam . . . It’s a fascinating letter, but physically painful
to read? In modern parlance, he’d probably ID as poly, and he believed Kane wanted this ‘one-and-only soulmate’ heteronormative
life. Sam was convinced they’d make each other miserable outside of a showmance.”
“Heilige Schei?e,” I whisper. Everything I thought I knew, up in smoke. I’ve always been envious of Sam Schatz as who I would’ve liked to be in some alternate universe—or maybe it was really Art Spector, nerdy but dapper, socially inept but still repairing his corner of the world.
Sam Schatz, after all, was a party gay. He never came out in words, but it was an open secret, even before he showed up to
the Emmys in a highlighter-pink blazer and a mesh tank. That, and the eventual AIDS diagnosis.
But Victor Kane—
I’ve always respected him, but he was unknowable. His mountain man mystique followed him in death. The closest I could get
was his work—his self-proclaimed televisual opus on alienation. That part I understood all too well.
But this? The mere thought that, under the scraggly beard, the Carhartt flannel collection, and the miasma of gin that was
his constant companion, was a man alienated by his queerness . . .
I flip through Eden’s file, the sheer scope enveloping me. “Why are you telling me this?”
“I knew it would matter to you.”
Tears well up—storm surge, flash flood, pick your fighter. “It does.”
“And I thought you should know because—it’s all connected, you know? Institutional messaging. The reason NSX won’t allow pronoun
buttons, and the reason none of this is on display in the museum.”
“It changes the narrative,” I say.
“It would change everything,” Eden says, “if this went public. Senior management and curatorial have had major arguments. Winston—have you met our head curator? You two would hit it off—he thinks the museum is doing a disservice by hiding this. If our mission is to honor Kane’s legacy—”
“—and his memory—”
“—then this is critical information. Dagny claims she’s protecting her father’s legacy, and that he wouldn’t want this, but—”
“But he wouldn’t have wanted NSX to exist,” I say. “Almost none of his wishes were honored. And we have so much of his correspondence on display? The letters he sent
his mom from Vietnam. Birthday cards from his aunt in East Berlin. That one rude postcard from Truman Capote—”
“Dagny told Winston she couldn’t possibly out her father without his consent.”
“But he wanted to go public with Sam, right? If he was willing to out himself, then is that any different from revealing his
feuds with studio execs?”
“Exactly. Remember that line in Kane’s journal? He said he didn’t care what happened to his things—his work could be burned—and
that’s how Dagny justifies the museum, right? But instead of donating his papers to UCLA or something, she founded NSX so
she could control Victor Kane’s legacy.”
“And she knows the museum would lose business. From all the homophobes and—”
“Exactly.”
“Schei?e,” I mutter. “Institutional messaging strikes again.”
“Technically, we’re the ones on strike.”
I look at Eden, too many thoughts, too little time. “Thank you for showing me this. Seriously.” If it means this much to me, I can’t imagine how much this information would mean to the world. “Is there any way I can read more of these, or—”
Eden hands me an old thumb drive with a rueful smile. “Archaic, I know. Hopefully you have access to a computer with a USB
2.0 port? Turn off your Wi-Fi first. You never know who’s watching.”
“We’re getting interview requests,” Lola announces Sunday afternoon, pulling me away from prospective guests. Engaging with
them in the parking lot makes them rethink crossing the picket line.
“What do you mean?” I ask, sidling up to Efraín, who’s off to one side, organizing the sandwiches Moms delivered by dietary
restrictions. He should be part of this conversation. Also, I missed him. “Like the E-triple-C? Do they want a follow-up comment?”
“They want a lot more than a comment.”
Turns out, TJ is D-list queer internet-famous. Between his posts, Naomi’s photos, and Lola’s snappy slice-of-life reels, we’ve
gone full-on cold-and-flu-season viral. Likes, kind comments, solidarity fist emojis. Shares, retweets, and reblogs. We’re
making waves within the Nuclear Seasons fandom hot spots. Small progressive news outlets have picked up our strike as a minor human-interest story.
Or we were a minor story until George Rhodes, the now-septuagenarian actor who played Harry Davis on Nuclear Seasons, noticed us.
George Rhodes
@georgemrhodes.bsky.social
Deeply troubled by the conditions reported by workers at NSX. I’m supposed to attend Friday’s 25th anniversary party, but
if NSX doesn’t sit down with the union before then, I’ll gladly join them on the picket line.
“Heilige Schei?e.” Now that I’ve let the phrase into my head, I’m doomed to repeat the earworm until I reach semantic satiation.
“I know,” Lola gushes. “Did we know that George was so pro-labor?”
“Sort of?” I hadn’t considered how the shows’ stars would react to our actions, even though I knew George Rhodes and Christine
Holloway, his on-screen wife and off-screen frenemy, would be in attendance. “I think he’s been involved with a lot of SAG
strikes? Especially that one in the nineties, right before Judy died.”
Google delivers the photo I’m envisioning: George Rhodes and Judy Medina-Rhodes in a wheelchair, oxygen tank and a cannula
in her nose, in the streets, hoisting picket signs.
“Do you think we should reach out to him? Aside from reposting and thanking him for his support?” Lola asks. “If we DM him, I bet he’d—”
“No, I don’t think we’re there yet. That’s a big play, and—”
“And you’re mortally terrified of meeting any of your heroes.”
“No comment.”
“About that. People want to hear our story.”
I look out at our group. Spirits are still high, and we’ve got George Rhodes on our side.
Efraín, however, has been conspicuously silent by my side. “What do you think?” I ask. “The letter didn’t go into detail about
your firing because that’s your story to tell, so if you want to . . .”
He frowns at the sandwich piles, already looking for his next task. This is what he’s been like all weekend, brimming with
anxious energy, going from one menial task to the next. He is eminently helpful, but he doesn’t talk to prospective guests.
He has yet to pick up the megaphone. Because I’ve turned down so many protest invites, I can’t definitively say this is abnormal
rally behavior for him, but he’s the one who brought the megaphone. What kind of activist owns a megaphone but never uses it?
Besides, Lola’s been side-eyeing him all weekend. “Yeah, Ef, have you even posted anything on your socials?”
Efraín shrugs. “My firing is the least interesting part of this story.”
“But it’s the most incendiary,” I point out.
“And we should be careful where we’re starting fires.”
Lola and I exchange a glance. I’ve never heard Efraín express caution in metaphorical activist arson. I don’t understand what’s happening here.
But I understand caution and fire safety alike. Lola and TJ have spent more time than they admit reporting hate and playing
whack-a-troll. “Efraín’s right that overexposure might backfire.”
“Or it’ll force Dagny to the bargaining table,” Lola counters.
I look to Efraín, waiting for strategic insight that never comes. He rakes a hand through his hair and looks at me.
I do not feel equipped to make this decision. Efraín has years of experience organizing, so if he thinks something is risky,
I trust his judgment.
I turn to Lola. “I think it’s safer if we keep doing our own thing. It’s working, right? We’re getting attention. Keep posting
photos, reels, whatever. But keep it targeted.”
Lola clucks her tongue. “So what are we supposed to say when asked for comment?”
“Direct them to our letter. That’s our official statement. It should speak for itself, right?”