Inside Tyler and Alex’ ‘Post No Bills’ ‘zine I was privileged to publish a shortened version of this article.
You can browse it over, but below is the full-fledged, extended, original version.

Vendors of Violence

East 9th Street in New York’s Lower East Side is a vortex. It feels a bit like a sitcom, and we should sell you the movie rights.

Yesterday, we were called ‘VENDORS OF VIOLENCE.’ It was written n watercolors and red capital letters on cardboard signs tied to my store; among others, some f-words accompanied the pro-acclaimed activists’ social media posts. NOT HERE, NOT NOW. The protest was random but tightly organized. It’s a ‘Christian Coalition, ‘ says the lady checking out the store, and the pastor had endorsed the protest, then she righteously stomped out. When they find themselves with idle time, one can see them handing out free food that has been donated to the church or, in this case, protecting us from Chinese gun companies. their IG spells ‘CommUnity’ with a capital “U.”

I run a graphic design studio in the back part of the store. The front third is a store opening onto a quiet neighborhood street. Sometimes, I have pop-up stores use the space for a month or two because I don’t have the time or energy to run both the studio and the store. The latest of these vendors is a Chinese company. They hired a girl called Sisi to find a suitable store in New York to introduce their products to the US market. Sisi said it was a line of bags. The company didn’t have a website then, but Sisi showed me pictures of bags and gear used for paintball games, camping, and hunting. It’s not my style, but it’s not illegal, no weapons, no drugs, and no loud parties; what could go wrong? Some people like camouflage. The girls running the pop-up store, Sunjian and Sisi, are lovely, unintimidating, and polite. Before their promotional event for the company’s website relaunch, they left brownies on my desk to apologize for any inconvenience.

As pop-up shops, we had people selling costumes with polyester tassels and a street wear guy who thought he was oh so cool but couldn’t read the room on how the rest of the studio was annoyed by his ten songs of gangster rap on an infinitely looped playlist. The winter before that, there was a guy selling coats, a smooth-talking salesman over a shot from the magnum Henney, and anti-gun violence rappers selling out a fashion line at an event commemorating a friend who was shot; their mom brought cookies; dad made burgers for everyone. We had fanzine releases and car crash picture paintings in a more sophisticated gallery, an Australian influencer with a million followers. Still, let’s get back to this pop-up store. The company is based in China, and its new website looks intimidating, with pictures of people carrying fake assault rifles playing paintball, I have been told. I don’t like games that include shooting anyone, even with rays of sunshine, but I am also indifferent to people who enjoy this. The Chinese company’s perception of the US market might be more suitable to Texas than New York.

“That’s a cool gun” is a sentence I never said.

This is how the protest unfolded, featuring a central figure named Lenny. He often stopped by the store, giving us free lunch from the church donations. We are friends through the local community garden. A few days before, Sunjian came to a typography design event we organize every month called TypeThursday. Lenny knows a lot of people, so when our original venue got canceled, I reached out to him. He straightaway offered us the public area of a co-working space where he works. It was a great success –Sunjian was inspired to show her own project about a language only Chinese women speak. Sunjian also met Lenny; they talked and became friends, and he was excited to promote neighborhood stores and their website launch event, with 50 free tactical gear bags, one for him. Lenny and his neighborhood friends like the tactical gear look. He shared a video of Sunjian announcing the free bags, and it became the talk of the town.

Lenny also partners with the “CommUnity.” He aspires to be a local politician, and his post startled some of his ‘CommUnity’ friends because, besides paintball and hunting gear, the new website features dudes crawling around in the mud in military gear with replica assault rifles playing war games. On their Instagram, the hunters pose in militia outfits like right-wing cosplayers mimicking combat scenarios. It does look scary; the bags have halters for hand grenades. The images triggered the “CommUnity” so strongly that they organized this protest around Sunjian’s store.

EV Grieve, a popular Lower East Side blog, ran a story on the protest titled Community members speak out against a tactical gear pop-up shop on 9th Street. It mentioned that the store lied and broke its bargain not to hold the free bag giveaway event. We are even more confused. What do they mean by that? Luckily, the “CommUnity” is not the mafia, and protection money doesn’t have to be paid. To Lenny, to his dubious other goFundMe campaigns? The store simply closed because the company wanted to avoid conflict. The article is linked to the company’s website. Since the protest, the homepage had this statement posted: “At 1TG Tactical, we offer a range of products and services designed to promote safety, education, and responsible gun use.”

Unlike the Lower East Side “CommUnity,” Sisi and Sunjian were surprised and explained that the Chinese are raised to respect, maybe even adore, military personnel, police, and authority. Staging a protest would be highly illegal in China. They had grown to love the neighborhood’s quirky characters frequenting the community garden, predictably sitting on the stoop, wasting time and keeping an eye on things like in the old TV series The A-team. When the protesters came to the store, Sunjian at first thought they were customers, and explained in detail the merits of their products, but their minds were already made that camouflage means guns, which are destroying other peoples’ kids’ futures. Sunjian called the police to explain that none of her gear was military-grade or bulletproof and that she was not selling any weapons as that would be illegal in NYC. Policemen and women love her bags as they are very practical for carrying all their accessories, but they also explained that the protest is within the “CommUnity” ‘s rights as long as they stay three feet from the store. From the pictures I saw on Lenny’s social media, the protest seemed to last briefly, with people standing before the closed store. Lenny wears glasses and crosses his arms like he is in the FBI.

The day before, I returned from teaching and didn’t take all the commotion seriously. I am so confused. I don’t have time for that; they don’t sell guns. Lenny would handle and cancel the protest, so I hoped —until it blew up. Sunjian started crying that day after discovering someone had stolen her food delivery. She didn’t know why she was being targeted while the criminals stole her food. Lenny flipped and didn’t hail the neighborhood store anymore but posted flyers promoting the protest. So, the store girls decided to call off the event and close for the day. I went on a date.

Sisi and Sunjian often consulted a Feng Shui master. That’s how they settled on the location of my store as their pop-up to start with. The key idea behind Feng Shui is dealing with Chi. Chi represents energy. Sisi and the master often communicate and Sisi drew this diagram of the store. Outside and above the drawing, the street acts like a river, but it runs uphill one way. Underneath our road runs an actual river, the old drainage from Tompkins Square Park, flowing in the opposite direction towards the East River. As a foreign company, this counterflow unlocks opportunity. Secondly, across the street looms an empty school building called Charas or EL Bohio, once a bustling community center. Since it is a monument that stands empty, it attracts unwanted energy. However, even negative energy can benefit businesses, further increasing opportunities and profits. Sunjian said: “The 3rd bad thing is the street light, which stands right before our main entrance. The Feng Shui master said that it is a giant poking needle, which means people will talk about and judge us behind our backs.” (The sketch of a Feng Shui diagram shows the three parts of the shop. The front third is the pop-up, the middle is my graphic design studio, and the back is the kitchenette bathroom and printing)

The day after the protest was the most successful sales day since they opened. A dozen of Lenny’s friends showed up in support on their souped-up electrical bikes, asking to buy bags; they love the masks, too. They are the original Puerto Ricans who grew up in this neighborhood. They wanted to protect the girls while keeping a vigilant watch over the WASP ladies. Quite a few were talking about their time in the military and how they served the country, spending half of their lives dressed in camouflage. I met Maureen and her friend June, who grew up in this neighborhood. After this, they plan to sell their clothing line as a pop-up in the shop.

Sunjian says this episode helped her better understand Americans. She had arrived in the United States but had stayed mostly with her Chinese community. She hardly had to speak English anywhere. Now, she has to argue with protesters and defend the company for which she works. She understands that assumptions are not the truth and that truth changes depending on the viewpoint, like a coin having two sides. They also have that expression in China that you need to accept both sides once you take that coin.

A few days later, Lenny asked for the free bag. We thought he was being ironic, but he included his address. There is a bit more dirt on Lenny as well. Rumor has it he embezzled church money. A GoFundMe set up by Linda (another community garden lady) was meant to rent a live camel for the Three Kings’ Day pageant, a big day for Puerto Rican and Dominican Republic Catholics. Now, they are forced to hold it at a much less desirable location –minus the camel, which was really what everybody came to see.

Sisi’s friend has a sideline of raunchy fetish fishnet lingerie. It would be so nice if they would decorate our window as a mesh-up to resolve the issue. Both the gentrifying self-righteous do-gooders and the army gun nuts will be riled up. We’ll do a Christmas market and have an impromptu punk band called “Vendors of Violence.”

*names were changed