Burn My Shadow

by Tyler Knight

  Tracy comes. I roll off her, get dressed, and drive home.

  • • •

  Amanda should be back from work already but the house is dark and the only sound is the ticking of the kitchen clock. I can still smell her perfume, though. I grab a bottled water from the fridge and sit on the bed and kick off my shoes. I strip down and listen to time, the betrayer of lives, tick away from the kitchen.

  And tick…

  I’m standing before a desk with a Newton’s cradle, conservation of momentum manifested as steel balls in constant conflict with one another, crashing time…

  Click-click-click…

  Behind the desk hangs a mirror in a gilded frame. On the right side of the desk, a window with vertical blinds runs the length of the wall. The only light radiates through the blinds from the setting sun outside, which casts deep shadows, like long fingers reaching across the room.

  A painting, also in a gilded frame, hangs on the wall to the left of the desk. It shows a man wearing medieval battle armor, mounted on a rearing horse with flaring nostrils. Tiny skulls piled at its feet. Plumes of smoke swirl around in a crimson sky. A plaque on the frame’s bottom says: Gilles de Rais.

  Click-click-click…

  A laptop sits open on the desk. I walk around the desk’s front to see its screen. There’s a video camera embedded into the laptop screen’s lip. The screen itself displays a document file…a contract. Scrolling down as I read, I learn the contract is an exclusive performing deal, and along with the performance contract is an agreement to have my body parts, specifically my genitals, cast and molded and mass produced into sex toys. My pulse quickens as I scroll down to the compensation section.

  Click-click-click…

  I read… My mouth dries and I have to reread it to be sure the numbers are right. The cardboard I stuffed into my shoes as inserts to cover the holes in the soles have long since worn through, so I can fondle the soft carpet with my toes. I read my compensation again. I’m on the edge of losing it, maybe even dancing, until I remember the camera in my face. I wipe my face and type my name on the space designated signature and click the send button, executing the contract. The contract on the screen dissolves into a real-time image of me from the video camera’s point of view. The shadows cascading across my face from the window’s blinds give the appearance of bars. The combined effect of seeing myself simultaneously in the screen in front of me, as well as reflected in the mirror behind me, renders the effect of two opposing mirrors angled in such a way that both the front and back of my head are cast into infinite regress. I swallow.

  Click-click-click…

  Amanda’s perfume bottle sits on the desk. It wasn’t there before, but now it is. There’s a sensation that whoever was watching me from the other side of the video feed is no longer watching me…It’s as though their presence is in the room with me.

  Amanda’s voice calls me from somewhere…I stand. My feet trod in hushed footfalls across the carpet and the world shakes…

  “Papi, wake up!”

  My bed…an empty water bottle in my hand. The kitchen clock ticks… Was I asleep? Amanda stops shaking me by the shoulders. She stands over me, dressed for work. She waves something in front of my face.

  She says, “Whose red hair is this?”

  I take it from her. Tracy’s.

  “I dunno…”

  “How can you not know?”

  I take my time sitting up and I rub my eyes to buy time.

  “Jesus,” I say, “It’s from work. One of the girls from—”

  I look out the window. Sunlight.

  “—yesterday?”

  “Why are you yelling, Erik? Don’t yell at me. Never yell at me. People only yell when their guilty of something.”

  “I’m not yelling, damn it. I’m just sick of these questions the first thing when I wake up, fucking up my mood for the day. You know damn well I go to work and—”

  “How many times do I have to tell you to shower those putas off of you before you get into our bed? You smell like pussy, and you bring those…those bitches into my bed—”

  “I’m sorry, okay. Christ, I sat down and I must have fallen asleep or…”

  Amanda moves the water bottle and sits on the bed beside me. She says, “Remember, the exit date from porn is coming up.”

  “I know.”

  “When are you going to marry me? Are you ever going to marry me?”

  “I uh…I can’t…not while I’m still working…”

  The silence. It’s a third person in our bedroom.

  She says, “I already told you we can’t go on like this forever, Erik.”

  She’s right. This isn’t fair to her…she deserves a lot better than me.

  I say, “I know.”

  “I trust you.”

  …my hands knead another woman’s flesh… “Yeah.”

  “Well?”

  “…Amanda…”

  “Asshole!”

  She cries. Heels click down the hall. Keys jingle. The front door slams. A car starts.

  But I’m not really alone…her perfume lingers.

  And that clock ticks.

  I sit in bed wishing for a do-over, but I don’t know if that would do any good. I always repeat the same mistakes, three girlfriends running. I’m not any more clever today than I was yesterday.

  I get dressed in my wardrobe for this morning’s scene—a suit—and I drive to the Valley.

  • • •

  I check my cell phone. It’s time, so I walk along the sidewalk. I can still hear Amanda crying in my ears, which makes me tear up, and when I wipe my nose I smell her perfume on my hand… I’m losing my girl and I’m working twice as hard for half the money I made the year before… Diminishing returns all around… Screw this, Erik, you can turn around right now! Your car is right behind you. Get in it. Go!

  A van skids to a stop next to me. The door swings open and a blonde and a redhead, skirts hiked-up, show me their pussies.

  I drop my briefcase and I get in.

  The door slams shut behind me.

  Quietus

  I continue my four-month-long search on Craigslist for a job. Amanda and I agreed upon an exit date for when I’m to leave porn. That date is still a ways off, but I’m getting an early start because we’re realistic about this current job market. Economists say this is the worst job market since the Great Depression. Even janitor gigs want five years of work experience. Verifiable, with references.

  Porn has been waning for years. Porn people who were making $10,00 or $20,000 a month are getting evicted and their cars repossessed. Porn Valley is quiet. With the advent of bit torrent piracy, many studios have closed and the business has changed and will never be the same again. Unlike the music industry, the government won’t intervene to save porn. Why should they? The Chinese saying goes, “When your enemy is destroying himself, get out of the way.”

  After nine interviews with no job offers, I see a posting for a financial services firm.

  • • •

  The woman lingers in the door’s threshold. Bifocals hang from a chain around her neck. She’s engaged in conversation with someone inside the office.

  “—and I know all the tax codes.” she says, “And—”

  “Thank you, Mildred.”

  “Oh, I see. Okay…so, I shall expect your call then, sir?”

  “Probably not.”

  Her lips move, stop, and move again to a series of stillborn thoughts.

  “That will be all,” the voice inside the office says. “Close the door behind you.”

  The woman shuffles in a daze across the reception room, where she passes my chair. A run streaks down one leg of her hosiery and her shoe leather is scuffed. The woman stops, walks back to the office, and knocks on the closed door.

  “May I
come in?” she asks.

  She waits. Video cameras loom from the ceiling, peering down on her.

  She says to the closed door, “I don’t know if you can hear me, but if you hire me I will work extra hours…off the clock…every day.”

  No answer.

  “You see,” she continues, “Jim…that’s my husband, we have custody of our grandchildren, but he…well, Jim passed away…And the bank sends these letters, so I’m afraid to open the mailbox anymore…”

  She stands by the door, straining to hear a response. Silence.

  Her shoulders slump, and she crosses the reception area once again to the front door and to the waiting elevator. It opens and she steps inside. The doors shut, swallowing her whole, and speeds her down into the bowels of the building.

  At that moment, the office door opens a crack. A voice says, “Next.”

  • • •

  I enter and close the door behind me, sealing out the buzz of the sales floor. A man with an expensive looking haircut sits behind the desk, finishing a conversation with a businesswoman. There are two chairs in front of the desk, but I don’t sit. I stop my hands from fidgeting so I don’t crush the document I’m holding.

  I scan the office for any clues I can use to establish common ground. Framed antique currency and gold certificates line the walls. Behind the desk, a photo of men screaming at each other in the Chicago Board of Trade trading pit…no diplomas or degrees or indication of his alma matter…no pics of a wife or kids. A keyboard and a bank of monitors. A tray labeled “RÉSUMÉS” on it, a stack as thick as a Sunday newspaper. A coffee mug rests on top of the stack of resumes, staining through the documents on the top with a brown ring.

  The conversation between the man and the woman ends with a command from the man, then she nods to before disappearing through a side door. The man turns to me. With his slicked-back hair, he reminds me of a snake. He rears up in his chair like a cobra poised to leap across the desk and sink his venomous fangs into my face, and offers me his hand. We shake hands and I sit.

  He says, “Do you have something for me?”

  “Sure.”

  I hand him the single greatest work of fiction known to man: my résumé.

  Snakehead skims the résumé, then says, “So you were a stockbroker, but that was a long time ago. I want relevant work experience that’s more recent, and for the last eight years you worked for…” He glances at the document,“…Continuum, Inc. Films?”

  “Correct,” I say.

  He waits for me to continue. When I don’t, he says, “Care to elaborate on your duties?”

  I stand in the eye of the orgy. An Asian girl vortex of flesh swirls around me, and I’m buffeted with the scent of assholes and cunt, and sloppy fuck sounds as skin slaps on skin. Through the tempest, I spot Alicia. I tackle her.

  “Sure,” I say. “Human resources.”

  He says, “If I were to call them right now, what would they tell me about your performance?”

  “I’m a consistent worker.”

  He regards me for a moment, tosses my resume on his desk, and folds his arms across his chest. I mirror him, folding my arms across my chest.

  “Give me a reason to hire you over the people that came in before you, and the people I’ll interview the rest of the week.”

  He leans back in his chair. I lean back in my chair.

  “When I was a broker,” I say, “I raised millions of dollars in assets under my control. I’m a closer, and that’s a skill set that never goes away and is always in demand.”

  That’s actually all true. Next, I do what salesmen call the take away. It takes balls, because there’s always a chance your bluff will be called: “Three other firms put offers on the table for me. I’m making my decision today.”

  “You’re full of shit,” he chuckles. “Jesus…the take away? Really?” He hands my resume back to me and stands. “You start training Monday.”

  • • •

  It doesn’t take long to settle into a routine. Aside from the other black guy in the office who cornered me at the coffee machine one day with a You look familiar…do you go to my church? Everything is swell. Although it feels good to earn a check from an honest day’s work, I stare at the clock until it’s time to leave every day, and Friday never comes fast enough.

  I’m leaving the office when I get a few text messages from my non-porn civilian friends asking me if I’m okay because of the new HIV scare in porn. What HIV scare? I use my phone’s web browser and search for answers…

  Another male talent, Chet Cheeks, who crosses over and goes back and forth from gay porn to straight, has exposed the straight porn talent pool to HIV. M.A.I.M, following the 2004 incident, will not release the names of the exposed (not even to the at-risk talent pool or any other members of the industry). This furthers the confusion. This is the second HIV-related event in porn since HIV was brought back from Brazil in 2004.

  Out of all the porn studios, only a few decide that it may be a good idea to stop shooting until there is a sense of who may have infected or exposed whom. For the rest of the studios, it’s business as usual. They keep shooting.

  • • •

  The end of another workday. After ten hours of collecting “fuck you, take me off your list,” and “Bob is dead” while cold calling, it’s time for the sales manager’s propaganda meeting.

  Everyone on the floor prairie dogs it from their cubicles to give him their attention. He paces back and forth in front of the flat screen TV as he speaks. The TV, on mute, is tuned to CNBC, where Jim Cramer is wrapped in foil like the Tin Man, arms waving in silence as he goes about his shtick touting Alcoa Aluminum.

  The sales manager drones on about the importance of enthusiasm when the program on the CNBC changes to an investigative program about the state of the porn industry, trying to ride the ratings wave due to the newest HIV event. Of course, nobody is paying attention to the manager.

  Several edited clips play out in silence. A girl dressed as Little Red Riding Hood prances across the screen. Fuck! That’s one of my scenes…the one I won an award for ass fucking Little Red when I was dressed as the Big Bad Wolf… This can’t be fucking happening to me… My asshole clenches as the girl skips through the foggy woods with her basket swinging, and I recognize my character’s cue is right now, and my face feels hot. Red bangs and bangs on the cottage door…but the program cuts to the news anchor a nanosecond before my pornographic wolf man was to appear on screen. I laugh aloud. People turn and stare.

  • • •

  I’m about to open my email when I notice my cell phone flashing with messages that I missed from the night before. It’s my mother. My uncle—her brother—has passed away. He was born with physical disabilities that prevented him from caring for himself, so my grandmother sacrificed her dreams to take care of him day and night for sixty years. Mom tells me Nana is in a lot of pain, too, and she doesn’t have a lot of time left, either. I call.

  “Hey Grandma, it’s Erik.”

  “Who?”

  “Erik.”

  Silence.

  I say, “Um…hello?”

  “Hello?”

  “Yeah, Nana, this is—”

  “Will you stop calling?” she says, “I paid the bill last week!”

  “—Erik…”

  “Erik!”

  “Yes,” I say, “Erik.”

  She laughs. I smile.

  Nana says, “Oh silly, Erik doesn’t live here. He moved out to Hollywood twenty years ago!”

  “No, this is Erik—”

  “Who?”

  I whisper the rest of the sentence into the phone “—your first grandson…”

  Silence. Then, I hear soft weeping. My grandmother says, “I’m sorry, but my son has passed away… My baby is dead…”

  Click.

  The c
onnection dies, but I keep the cell phone pressed to my ear. After a while, I don’t know how long, I set the cell on my desk. I walk to my bed and sit. I try to cry. But the tears don’t come. I lie back and try to sketch memories of good days growing up in Philly with a younger grandmother. Then, the last conversation I had with either my grandmother or my uncle. But they don’t come, either.

  • • •

  I move through the next few days on autopilot when Amanda gets me out of the house for a Halloween street festival a block from our place.

  It’s a Saturday night. The Ferris wheel spins. Laughter, screams, burnt popcorn, and lights fill the warm night air. Every little girl is a princess. I watch Amanda play with some neighborhood kids. There’s hope and dreams in her eyes, just like the children’s, because she never let life grind her spark down. How does she do it? Without her, I’d have thanked my sponsors and swallowed Drano a long time ago. The only thing that has kept me from doing just that most times was the pain it would cause her.

  Amanda meets a few of her girlfriends from the barrio, and they chat in Spanish. Amanda holds my hand. The girls gossip, and I look at the other idiots tethered to their women’s hands. These men just smile and say nothing as the girls complain about what losers their men are, and I feel as welcome as a roach at the bottom of your milk glass, so I kiss Amanda on the cheek, cut the line, and head for home. As I jostle my way through the crowd, a few college kids dressed as a hotdog, ketchup, and mustard bottles run up to me.

  Mustard says, “Hey, aren’t you Tyler Knight?”

  “Not anymore.”

  Mustard and Hotdog laugh at this, and Ketchup shoves a camera in a passerby’s hand and the pedestrian takes my picture with the comfort food and the condiments. I scribble some lines on a piece of paper that I pass for my autograph and the kids leave.

  When I get home I open my email again. It’s full. Fan mail. Hate mail.

  • • •

  It’s Wednesday morning. I’m standing in front of the elevator with my Starbucks in hand. I’m three minutes late, one elevator isn’t working, one is going up, and the one that’s going down is paused at the tenth floor. I know when I get to the office there will be a confrontation with Snakehead. In his opinion, “You should be bursting at the fucking seams to get here an hour early!” The elevator dings and the door slides open and people don’t wait for the passengers to exit before they pile in. I think about my laptop and the story about a Japanese porn set I need to rewrite. Then I remember my grandmother. The elevator door shuts. I turn around and leave the building. Then, I eat the sandwich out of the brown bag that Amanda made for me as I walk down the street.