The next day Danny suggested we go to a French painter’s opening reception. The invitation read:
BERNARD FOUCAULT
THE BEGINNING OF THE END
Contemporary French Painting
It was hot and humid. We wandered the streets all day long, visiting galleries, tourist spots, coffee shops, and bars. I was fascinated by the city in an inexplicable way. I had never thought that something like this—being captivated by a place—even existed. I always look skeptically at people who are in awe of San Francisco, London, Paris, Rome, and Venice. Why?
In Manhattan, I took photos of streets, displays, sky, buildings, trees, people. I tried to capture the entire afternoon. Fourteen rolls of black-and-white film later, we stopped back at Danny’s place, showered, and went to the opening. The gallery was in Chelsea. It was crowded. The wine wasn’t bad; there were fruit and cheese platters, cocktail napkins, toothpicks, grapes, and crackers. His paintings. Oh, his paintings were huge. Saturated, thick layers of oil paint with almost no imagery—only distant, cold colors—as if extracted from the intestines of extinct reptiles. Here and there, the eye managed—with great difficulty—to discern silhouettes of reclining men. A sense of something monumental, or rather minimally monumental (is there such a thing?), emanated mostly from the enormous size of the canvases. The paintings, however, hovered over me in a way I didn’t quite like. The feeling deep down in my gut—the one that always jumped whenever I came across real art—was now dormant, leaving me indifferent. I shared that with Stella. She gave me a look as if I had farted in a church.
I continued with wine and cheese until, eventually, things started falling into place. At some point, Danny introduced The Artist—I had already labeled him that, because of his pretentious beard and his manner of speaking, that consistently annoying “u-u-uh” before uttering the most banal thought. I had my Leica with me. I photographed him. I photographed him and his paintings, him against a gigantic self-portrait as a background. He was very open to the idea of being photographed. He wasn’t posing, yet he didn’t give off that careless attitude toward the camera I have noticed in some artists. He just looked at the camera, his dark eyes hiding nothing and saying nothing. I remember that Stella moved slowly and pensively, as if in a trance. On our way out, I noticed tears in her eyes. After the show, Danny, the Artist, his manager, Stella, and I dove into a nearby bar. He was painfully sensitive each time the conversation shifted to his art, but the terminology he used to describe it was pathetic. And it wasn’t because he didn’t have a good command of the language—he had studied and lived in America much longer than I had and spoke excellent English with a slight French accent—but simply because everything he said was completely unoriginal. I aggravated him ceaselessly, assaulting him when he least expected it, mocking the clichés with which he shielded himself. I didn’t stop fucking with his idea of high art, which I loathed and in which he believed. From time to time, my eyes would catch Stella’s and I read such astonishment in them—as if she had caught me playing with a lamb with a knife in my hand.
We stayed in the bar until they closed and kicked us out. We said goodbye to Bernard Foucault and his manager, promising that we’d see each other again. He kissed me, slipped his card in my palm, and insisted that we give him a call if we were ever in Paris. Stella and I stayed in New York for three more days, seeing anything and everything we could in the galleries and museums, We went out in the evenings, ate pizza slices for $1.50 by the metro stations, and spent all our money on jazz clubs, CDs, and books.
The last day in Manhattan, we walked and walked and walked, and Danny followed us everywhere with his camcorder, filming. At Penn Station we said goodbye, parted ways, and Stella and I got on the train and left New York.
*
I step on the gas and open the window.
I am in San Bernardino around eight. I decide to stop and grab something to eat before I hit the desert.
I see a mall in the middle of nowhere. The billboards have been erected into the blue sky, each taller than the next and each more annoying than the previous one. Gas stations, fast-food restaurants, auto dealers, shops all raise their hands so you spot them first. I park in front of Henry’s. The strong desert wind chases empty shopping carts around the half-empty parking lot. I grab one and enter the store. I fill the cart with nuts, chips, Toblerones, and some other stuff. I pay and get out. At the other end of the lot, I see a Bank of America branch—the bank where Stella and I have our checking account. I go in, say “Hi” to the girl behind the counter, and withdraw a thousand in new twenty-dollar bills.
There are four gas stations at the four corners of the intersection. The food clientele is torn between McDonald’s, Burger King, Taco Bell, Chinchiladas, Taste of China, and Thai Paradise. I can imagine the confusion of those fat people with their stomachs constantly inflamed by hunger, standing in the center of this enormous parking lot, surrounded by choices they would rather not make. I keep looking around as I get in the car and spot the purple sign of a pawn shop reading JEWELRY WORLD AND LOANS. Underneath, written directly on the window pane in white paint is “We Install Batteries.” There is a picture of two tiny bells. There is also a picture of two white doves carrying a sign in their beaks: GIVE HER DIAMONDS.
*
—will you hold this card in front of you for a second, i have to measure the light?
—what is this?
—a gray card
—i can see that
—eighteen percent gray
—eighteen percent gray?
—it’s a term, eighteen percent gray
—why do you need this eighteen percent gray card?
—i adjust the light meter with it. here, see—i point it at the gray card, like this, and the light meter now “knows” that this gray is eighteen percent gray. so, it can calculate what is darker or lighter than this gray. you see, every light meter, no matter how precise, needs a starting point. the color value of this card here is the universal starting point for all light meters—it’s eighteen percent gray . . .
—eighteen percent?
—gray. just don’t ask me why it’s eighteen percent
—i won’t. it’s a weird number, though
—the half-way point between black and white
—why do they call it black-and-white photography then? why not gray?
—gray photography just doesn’t sound right, i guess. even though it is more fitting, since it reflects everything in nuances of gray.
—do you still want me to hold this card?
—the beauty of every photograph, Stella, is in the development of its middle values, in the gray. black and white are simply extremes without which even the most interesting negative seems to be lacking contrast. the life of photographs is actually in their middle values
—i understand. so we keep going?
—we keep going
*
Ohio was as flat as a parking lot and almost equally as interesting, compared to the sidewalks of New York with which Stella fell in love. I, on the other hand, could not wait to accelerate my life in what I believed was America’s fastest lane: Los Angeles. We said goodbye to our friends in Columbus, rented a U-Haul, packed everything we owned, and set off for California.
If you are debating about whether or not to share your life with someone, try getting in a vehicle and driving together for five days. Had the honeymoon preceded the wedding, how many marriages would never have happened, how many emotions would go unwasted?
The four days during which Stella and I crossed the continent were some of the finest of our lives.
When we arrived in Los Angeles, a murky red sun was setting in the Pacific Ocean at the same time that an impossibly big moon was rising over the hills. We kissed between the two for a long time. It felt like we were on a movie set.
The first couple of weeks, we lived in a hotel. Stella went to nine interviews with reliable employers who were supposed to call her at any moment. The moment
stretched into weeks.
Things did not look much brighter for me, either. A few months after we moved, there was only one place left where I had not shown my portfolio. Two of the art directors I was absolutely sure would employ me did not even return my calls. Three others stood me up about eleven times. In the end, I was happy to be given a chance to show my portfolio to four more people, three of whom were receptionists. In two publishing companies, I was patted on the shoulder with the promise of a call “as soon as something comes up.” Nobody had told me then that this was the way people talk in L.A. I had mistaken their words for truth. I had taken their small talk for promises.
In the waiting room of a small magazine—my last resort—I spent an hour and a half watching people go in and out. I was reading the Employment Opportunities section of a forgotten Sunday paper. In the Photography section, there were five ads altogether—two for school photographers, one for a gig photographing dogs and newborn babies, and one for printing in a large black-and-white lab. Because the ads were in alphabetical order, my eyes were drawn to the previous section—Pharmaceutical—where the job openings were two pages long.
“Fred, where are we going for lunch?” I was startled when I heard the familiar voice of the art director with whom I had had several very promising conversations when I was harmlessly far away in Ohio. I realized that I had been sitting there the whole morning. A slender, dark-haired man wearing an Armani blazer walked energetically out the door. We finally “met in person.”
Steven.
He held my hand a beat longer than normal. His palm was small, dry, and a few degrees softer than mine. He looked me in the eye with a stare in which there was nothing even remotely resembling anything but indifference. We were in the hallway. I started telling him how long I had worked on this and that, and how we had just moved, and how I could not wait to . . .
“Zack,” he interrupted me. “Do you have a web site?”
“No, but I have my portfolio right here.”
“Zack, do me a favor. Leave it with Jennifer, will you? When I come back from lunch, I’ll look at it and I’ll call you later this week.” Australian accent? South African?
Steven’s cell phone rang, he picked it up, his face lit up, he dug in his blazer pocket, and waved goodbye to me, holding car keys on a BMW key chain. He turned around, and walked down the hallway, joyfully rushing toward his lunch with Fred. I watched his Armani getting smaller and smaller in the gray hallway. I wanted to be naïve then. I wanted to be able to trust people. Even people with soft palms, Armani suits, fake British accents, and empty blue eyes . . . oh, how I wanted that! I so knew that the phony would never call me. And he didn’t.
*
Since I was a kid, I’ve always liked to look in pawn shops to see what people have left there to earn a few bucks. Now, however, I’m only interested in this place’s music collection. The owner has just opened the shop. It’s dim, with that typical stale smell mixed with the odor of carpet-cleaning products. I start digging through a bunch of tapes and CDs of jazz, soul, rock and roll. My trip will be long and—I hope—uneventful, so instead of searching the radio stations, I want to listen to music I choose myself. The owner looks at me with a blend of suspicion and suppressed curiosity. Perhaps he is waiting for me to start looking over my shoulder toward the door before reaching into my back pocket and pulling out a golden ring for sale. Instead, I grab a few albums by Sting, Louis Armstrong, Joey di Francesco, Al Di Meola, U2, Thelonious Monk, Tupac Shakur, and Paganini. I had just pulled out a twenty dollar bill to pay when I notice the camera display. Cheap, two or three pixel digital cameras, old broken film junk, Polaroids, cracked flashes, scratched, odd-sized filters . . . What catches my eye, though, is a deeply scarred Nikon FM body with a crooked prism and a worn-out 50 mm lens. What has this guy been through? Who’s left it here? I ask if I can take a closer look. The owner unlocks the display and hands it to me. Up close, it looks even worse. Sad, lonely, and distrustful is this Nikon. As if he understands that he doesn’t belong here. But even if he had not been in this prison, he would not have found a place for himself in this silicon-operated, digital photo-universe with countless automatic functions. He is one aging analog model with an ordinary lens and a manual focus—too much of past, a sad present. No future.
I try its shutter speeds one by one—they seem just fine. It even has a working battery in the light meter. I point it outside and it seems to measure the light accurately—f 8 at 1/16 of a second. At this time of day, with 100 film, that’s what I would expect. The shutter blades sound like they should—with that barely perceptible metallic ring. The manual focus is not that great, but still, it’s OK. How much? One hundred and fifteen dollars. I don’t even try to negotiate. The owner swiftly grabs the crisp bills from my hand before I change my mind. I ask where the closest photo store is. He steps outside to show me which way to go and how many blocks to drive south before turning right. I find it easily. The store clerk is an old-timer with thick prescription glasses. By the register, there is a large bin full with out-of-date film stock on sale—seventy-five cents a piece. I buy a few color Fuji’s and twenty-five black-and-white, long-expired rolls of Ilford and Kodak. I ask if the store carries developing chemicals. The clerk laughs—who deals with developing nowadays? Everybody shoots digital. Why don’t I buy a digital camera? These right here, for example, are on sale.
No, thanks.
*
After failing to find work as a photographer, I decided to look for a job in a photo lab. One of the most famous ones on the West Coast was The Black and White. I went there on a hot afternoon with my portfolio in hand. Bob Evans, a disciple and friend of Ansel Adams, had been the owner of the place for fifty years. A bell above my head rang as I entered the store. Bob himself appeared. A gray beard hung down over his blue, rubber apron. He carried an enlarged digital print of a snowy mountain.
“How can I help you?”
“Yes. I’m looking for a job.”
“Fill out an application.”
“Mister Evans, could you, please . . .” I tried to take out my portfolio to show him my work—everything in this folder had gone through my hands—photographing, developing negatives, printing.
“Fill out the application first and we’ll call you if something . . .” He interrupted, without looking at me, carefully placing the snowy mountain against the wall.
“Could you . . . ?” I opened my portfolio and laid it before him. Only a flick of his eyeballs and he would have seen my masterpieces. He, however, didn’t take his eyes off the stupid mountain. He wrinkled his nose, squinted his eyes, and pointed toward a pile of forms in the corner.
“The applications are over there.” I stared at him for a while. What if I had grabbed him by the beard and swept the floor with his old fart ass? The phone rang, he picked it up. I snapped my portfolio shut and slammed the door behind me. The bell kept ringing as I crossed the parking lot.
*
I leave the store with that feeling of a job well-started. I need these kinds of feelings the most now. On my way to the car, I note that I haven’t been sad about Stella for almost an hour. I feel like screaming. I load the Nikon with color film and shoot it quickly, choosing different light situations—as much I can in a San Bernardino parking lot—I need to check how well it works. I pull out the roll of film and go into the closest CVS with a photo center—a big machine which every cashier operates when they are not busy with customers. I leave the film with a lady in a checkered uniform and roam around the store while I wait for the results. Thirty minutes later, I hold the warm pictures in my hands. Wonderful. I smile, jump in the car, pat my new friend, make him comfortable on the passenger’s seat, and head toward the sun.
*
About fifty miles east of Los Angeles, I enter the California desert and my rock station is interrupted by the voice of an evangelical preacher from the airwaves of a local Christian radio station. For a while I drive between the frequencies, U2 in one ear, relig
ion in the other, Stella in the middle. I notice that I’m running out of gas. I realize I have to refuel soon as I adjust the seat to make it more comfortable. There are very few cars on the road, so I fly at over ninety miles per hour. Then I remember what’s in the trunk and slow down—it’s time for me to start taking that into consideration.
. . . your sins, your transgressions, he took upon himself . . . the . . . z-h-z-h-h-z-h-z-h-b-z-z-b-z-b-z-b-z-z-j-j-j-j . . . our sins . . . z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-zd-z-d-z-z-z-zz-z . . . Christ died on the cross for . . . z-b-z-b-z-z-z-z-b-z-b-z-z-b-z-b-b-b-z-z-b-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z . . . let us repent for . . . f-f-f-f-f-ff-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-z-z-z-z-z-f-z-f-z-f-f-f-z-f-f-z-f-f-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-f-z-f-z-f-z-f-sin . . .’s gonna ride your wild hors-e-e-e-e-s? z-s-z-s-z-s-z-s-z-s-z-s-z-s-z-s-z-s-z-z-z-z-z-z . . . enter the Kingdom of Heaven . . . Who’s gonna drown in your blue sea? . . . s-s-s-s-s-s-s-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z . . . hey hey sha la la, hey hey.
*
—hey zack, I know what we have to do
—what?
—i’ll tell you, but first put the camera down and massage my bootie
—with pleasure. so what were you saying?
—we have to conquer the world!
—when?
—right away
—you and me?
—me and you
—why?
—why what?
—conquer the world?
—for . . . fun
—massaging your bootie is fun
—yes, it is fun
—so why conquer a world in which there is no bootie sweeter than yours?
—you’re not conquering the whole world for just one bootie, silly
—then why conquer it?
—because you have to
—i have to?
—hell, yeah!
*
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