in itself is deeply troubling. But she can add one and one.
So when the “artists’ collective” is done, she follows Manbun to the door. It’s close enough to the end of the day. She’ll lock up early, give the staff a break after this. But first she says to Manbun, as he’s walking out, “Who are you working for?”
She expects him to dissemble. He seems the type. Instead he only smirks and says, “Oh, don’t worry. You’re going to meet her soon. Face-to-face, she said. Without a bathroom door to protect you.”
Bronca presses her lips together. It’s like that, then. “Ask her how that turned out last time,” she snaps, and shuts the door in his face. It’s a glass door, which makes the gesture less of a fuck-you because she can’t slam it without risking the glass, but it still feels good to see his smirk fade.
And then they’re gone.
Bronca locks the door behind them and watches until they’ve gotten into their cars—one an enormous Hummer, the other a Tesla, both worth more than she makes in a year—and driven off into the trafficset. Then Bronca exhales and turns to face the others. They look shades of mad to worried. “Yeah, so that happened.”
“I know some guys,” Yijing says immediately. “I say I make some phone calls. Fuck those dudes up.”
Bronca raises her eyebrows. “You. Know people about that life.”
“Not unless that means a whole lot of lawyers.” She folds her arms. “That was harassment with a side of intimidation. You can’t tell me it wasn’t. Bunch of fascist dudebros or whatever they are, coming into a place run by women of color, with that ‘art’?” She puts her fingers up to make air quotes around the last word. “Fuck those motherfuckers.”
Damn. Not that Bronca disagrees. Jess is quiet, though, so Bronca prompts her. “Jess?”
Jess blinks, then frowns. “I think we need to tell the people using the workshops upstairs that we’re shutting down tonight, even for keyholders. Make sure the building is empty.”
Bronca rocks back on her heels, floored, while Veneza goes, “Whaaaaaaaa?” Yijing immediately starts to complain, but Jess raises her voice enough to talk over all of them. “Just as a precaution,” she says, but it’s as sharp as a shout. “I’m just saying. Because I don’t know if you ladies got a brownshirt vibe off those dudes like I did, but I’ve got two grandparents who would smack me sideways if I didn’t say this. The others died in a concentration camp. Capisce?”
Bronca capisces, nodding slowly in grim agreement. Because, well. She grew up missing a few elders, too—and contemporaries, for that matter. It’s not paranoia when people are actually setting fires and shooting up nightclubs.
But. “Not the keyholders,” Bronca says. “I’ll warn them, but some of them have nowhere else to go.”
Several of the Center’s artists in residence are literal manifestations of the term—kids kicked out by their families for being queer or neuroatypical or saying no, adult artists priced out of rooms of one’s own, even one woman Bronca’s age who recently left her husband. She makes the most amazing glass sculptures. He beat the shit out of her and destroyed one of her best sets before she started sleeping on a beanbag in her Center workshop.
The working spaces aren’t really designed for habitation, so the Center doesn’t run afoul of any housing regulations… technically. Bronca gets around it by periodically reminding the keyholders that the space is to be used only temporarily. She’s been saying that to some of them for years.
Veneza, her expression grim, moves behind the desk and sits down at the reception computer, doing something Bronca can’t discern. Jess sighs, but says, “Yeah, okay. Not the keyholders. But warn them, at least. And… you’d better call the board. Get them ready.”
Bronca tilts her head, trying to follow where Jess is running. “For what, a protest or something?”
“Yeah,” Veneza interjects. “Thought so. C’mere, I wanna show you guys something.”
They all move behind the desk to see the monitor. Veneza has a browser window open to YouTube, and she’s done some kind of search that’s brought up a bunch of videos with lurid title cards and leering faces. Bronca’s about to ask what she’s supposed to be seeing when abruptly she recognizes one of those smirks. “Hey!” She points at the screen. It’s Strawberry Manbun.
“Are you fucking kidding me,” Jess mutters, before turning away with a groan. “Oh, of course.”
“What?” Bronca frowns after her, then at Veneza. “What?”
“Yeah, so, I just