Chapter 35
Thirty-Five
After another day of fielding hecklers in the parking lot, we regroup at Lou’s.
I’m punch-drunk on the revelation that Efraín with a megaphone might be one of the hottest things I’ve ever seen, despite
my aversion to both megaphones and cheesy strike chants. But Efraín’s passion is just that intoxicating. His fervent participation—refocusing
himself from background to foreground—has morale on the rise, as does the new wave of positive press accompanying Naomi’s
fresh batch of strike photos; the internet agrees with my assessment of megaphone-equipped Efraín.
Thanks to a one-on-one with Lola, Divya’s back, and Eden has brought in our most shocking recruit: Winston, the head curator.
In spite of everything, the atmosphere at the diner is buoyant. The window has been scraped clean, good as new. None of the
patrons mind when we push tables together to accommodate our party.
Once the table’s loaded with drinks and appetizer platters, it’s time for me to share the idea Efraín and I came up with after our heart-to-heart yesterday afternoon.
“Do you guys remember that scene in It’s a Wonderful Life?” I ask.
“Part one or part two?” asks Stanley.
“Sorry, not ‘It’s a Wonderful Half-Life.’ The Frank Capra Christmas movie. Jimmy Stewart as George Bailey, facing down the
slumlord Mr. Potter, who’s basically the Monopoly monocle man?”
Everyone stares at me. Someone drops their fork. Efraín squeezes my knee under the table.
“The Monopoly man didn’t wear a monocle,” Naomi observes.
“Setting aside the Mandela Effect heebie-jeebies for a hot sec . . .” Lola cuts in. “Asking if we remember ‘that scene’ is
kinda vague for a two-hour, eighty-year-old movie, dude.”
“Fair. I mean when George and Mary are about to leave on their honeymoon, but there’s a bank run. Everyone wants to withdraw
their money at once, which is impossible because—it doesn’t matter. George uses all the money he had set aside for his honeymoon
to cover the withdrawals. But he asks everyone to think hard about how much money they really need to get by, and there’s
this one woman who calculates it down to the penny—”
“Is there a point to you butchering the one good Christmas movie?” Blake demands.
“My point,” I say, “is that I have some money saved. So if anyone has an immediate cash flow problem, I can manage a strike fund—”
With equal incredulity, Naomi asks, “You’re planning to do math without supervision?” while Lola protests, “Eli, that’s your top surgery fund.”
And Stanley says, “Please tell me you’re not planning to turn your savings into a strike fund.”
“Not exactly?” I glance at Efraín. “I mean, that was the idea, but then I was informed that my plan would ‘violate the spirit
of mutual aid,’ so—”
Efraín rolls his eyes. “What kind of boyfriend would I be if I let you do something so stupidly, pointlessly self-sacrificing?”
“The hypocritical kind,” I reply, “because your solution was to fund the entire thing yourself, even though your mom would
freeze—” I blink, delayed processing catching up to me. “Wait, did you just call me your boyfriend? I don’t remember agreeing—”
Lola snorts. “After you spend a decade bicker-bantering like an old married couple, you can skip the ‘going steady’ labels
conversation.”
“Sorry,” TJ interrupts, “but what does this have to do with mutual aid?”
“Nothing,” Blake says, “because they both completely missed the point of It’s a Wonderful Life.”
“What Blake means,” Lola says, “is we’re not letting either of you do something so stupidly, pointlessly self-sacrificing alone.
Eli, your top surgery fund is for a medically necessary procedure.
Ef, your mom would literally kill you if you tried to cover everyone’s bills after getting yourself fired. We’re
on strike, yeah? We’re already in this together, so what’s the point of a strike fund if it’s not actually mutual?”
“We should make a spreadsheet,” Naomi says eagerly.
The next few minutes are as chaotic as Capra’s bank run scene as everyone assesses their finances. While Lola bars me from
dipping into my top surgery fund and caps Efraín’s pledge at half his proposed number, no one objects when Winston offers
to contribute four figures. Stanley also insists on contributing a week’s pay, which he argues he can afford in his two-income,
zero-child household with a healthy 401(k).
And that is how the George Bailey Mutual Aid Strike Fund is born.
Then we’re on to our next order of business.
Now that we’re forty-eight hours from the anniversary party, it’s clear Dagny isn’t going to cave. Most registered attendees
still plan to attend, and fans from all over the world are making the pilgrimage to volunteer as scabs.
Efraín and I bring up the other issue we discussed yesterday: The union needs help, though we haven’t figured out what that
means. We need help solving the puzzle.
“Well, we’ve been underutilizing one of our largest resources,” Stanley muses, his hands steepled under his chin. “The museum has done a great job mobilizing fans, but so many fans are on our side. I can’t help feeling we should be reaching out to them.”
“They are really active online,” TJ says. “What else could they be doing?”
“What if we could get them here in person?” Jaime perks up. “There’s nothing like the energy of a crowd to rev you up.”
“But what would we do with them, if we could get our fans here?” Divya asks.
“They wouldn’t fit in the car park,” Gwen replies, clipped.
“Yeah, if the last attendance numbers I saw hold,” Dan says, “the main lot and the overflow lot will both be totally full.”
“What if—” Eden starts, brow furrowed. She whispers something to Winston, who nods along, excited. Eden nods to herself and
proposes, “What if we offered alternative programming? If we could find a venue somewhere else while NSX is celebrating some
sanitized version of history, we could have our own anniversary party celebrating the things we love about Nuclear Seasons and what the museum could be—the stories it could be telling.”
Such as the treasure trove of love letters I’ve read and reread the past few nights instead of sleeping.
“There are certain artifacts,” Winston elaborates, “that Dagny has withheld from the public, primarily out of concern that
they would alienate certain elements of the fanbase.”
“Victor Kane was queer,” I blurt because, honestly? I have not had sufficient opportunity to celebrate this. “He had an affair with Sam Schatz and pined for him for years.”
While Winston and Eden hit the highlights for the group, Efraín whispers in my ear, “You’ve been holding out on me.”
“Since when do you care?”
“Since you care. Besides, I always thought Sam Schatz was hot.”
The plan crystallizes. We’ll organize our own party. I might even have a line on a venue, though I don’t want to make promises
until I make the call.
“Circling back to the original issue,” Lola says, “about underutilized resources. Eli, remember how I brought up press requests
and you said we could handle it ourselves?”
I wince. “That may have been shortsighted. Do you still have the list?”
Lola reads through the list of publications, journalists, and influencers who have reached out. The list has easily quadrupled,
but one name leaves Efraín starstruck.
“Say that again?”
“Kiera Kim?”
“Are we supposed to know who that is?” Gwen asks.
“They were writing articles about labor issues for Teen Vogue before labor was back in vogue,” Naomi supplies.
“They do impressive work,” Efraín says, “talking to groups of workers who don’t normally get mentioned in labor history or
journalism.”
“Sounds like a good fit,” I reply.
“Who would best represent the union in an interview?” Stanley asks.
Stanley’s worked here the longest. Lola’s the most personable. TJ has the built-in social media following. Jaime has that
unique combination of minor local celebrity and golden retriever energy that viewers would lap up—
“Nothing to decide,” Lola says with a petite snort. “They want you, Eli.”
“What? No. Why? Absolutely not,” I sputter. “Why would anyone assume I represent the union?”
“The strike was your idea,” Naomi points out.
“It’s a ULP strike. In Efraín’s name.” I turn to him, hesitant after all the fears he disclosed yesterday. He may have picked
up the megaphone today, but that doesn’t change the fact that the boy who always rides in on the white horse admitted the
horse is spooked. “The union was your idea, and this is your story.”
“Originally, sure, but now? You’re the leader of the movement. That makes you the hero of this story.” He says it without
any of the sour-mouthed adjectives I would’ve attributed to him two months ago, like he fully expects me to live up to that
moniker.
“Bullshit.”
I’m not a leader of men; I’m a not-so-nice Jewish trans boy conscripted to the cause by spite and misunderstanding.
Efraín lowers his voice, just for me. “You know how this works. Magneto didn’t ask to team up with a motley crew of mutants. Curtis didn’t ask to be the last man alive to make it to the front of the Snowpiercer. Katniss didn’t ask to be the Mockingjay. Frodo didn’t ask to take the ring to Mordor.”
“Actually—”
“Moses didn’t ask to lead the Israelites out of Egypt.”
“Are you telling me God chose me to lead a walkout and part the picket line? Or, okay, I guess it was the opposite of parting, but—”
“You know what I mean, Elisha.”
“Yes, I know how stories go. The hero amasses an army to storm the castle and watches them sacrifice themselves for him all
so he can go on to face the Big Bad alone. But that’s not the story I’m telling. I refuse to feed that story to a reporter.”
This isn’t a crisis of self-confidence or a question of ego. “It shouldn’t be any one of us because this isn’t about any one of us. It’s about all of us, together.”
“Isn’t the point that individual stories humanize the issues in a way collective stories can’t?” Gwen asks.
“Yes,” Eden answers, “but individual stories as collective testimony can be a powerful tool, too.”
“We all came to the picket line for a reason,” I say, looking from one face to the next, “and no one’s story is more important than anyone else’s.
” My gaze locks on Naomi, and my heart clenches when I remember the space between her story as told by me and the version she told me herself.
I was so caught up in the narrative I’d written for myself—that I was completely and utterly alone—that I stopped listening to anyone else’s story.
Now, with her hair up, her green peekaboo highlights are on full display, freshly re-dyed, and now that I know what they mean,
they’re a powerful testament to her identity. Naomi slurps her pistachio almond-milk milkshake and blinks when she realizes
I’ve been staring. She cocks her head, wide-eyed and curious in spite of herself.
“Honestly?” I say, speaking to everyone but only looking at her. “It was just chance that it came to a head over pronoun buttons
instead of something else. If we’d made different choices, we could’ve organized a ULP strike two months ago, the first time
management threatened to fire someone without cause.”
“No, we couldn’t,” Naomi says bluntly. “Change a single variable, and we wouldn’t be sitting here right now. We’re here because
you were the loudest.”
I assume she means Efraín because he is, both figuratively and literally, the loudest person in the room. The boy with the
megaphone, calling out every injustice.
But Naomi is staring at me, making eye contact even though I know it hurts her more than me, and Efraín’s hand is a reassuring
weight on my thigh.
I shake my head, trying to shake loose the objections lodged in my throat before I choke.
I don’t know how to explain to Naomi that I’m not loud on purpose; I’m just too stubborn to know when to shut up.
If I could understand social cues, if I had any skill at masking, I’d be quiet about everything.
Then Naomi smiles at me—wispy, barely there, but positively beatific for a girl with decreased affect. I don’t deserve it,
but I do my best to smile back.
Meanwhile, Efraín’s leaning in, murmuring, “See? You could totally be a social leader.”
I playfully shove his shoulder, and then I turn back to Lola, who’s watching like she doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry—and
might do both. I clear my throat. “Okay. Tell Kiera Kim that we’ll talk to them if they talk to all of us—everyone who wants
to tell their story.”
Lola hesitates. “Eli, I don’t think we’re really in a position to make demands.”
“Funny. That’s what the museum thinks, too.”