The Boss opens it, goes over to the fireplace, pulls out a fistful of marijuana, rubs it between his fingers, squints, and smells it. Then he throws it into the fire.
“Like I said, it’s no good.” He takes another fistful, and another, and another—they all end up in the flames. I have no idea how this night will continue, but I want it to end right here and now. I wonder if there’s a way for these windows to open. I look up at the night sky where the deus ex machina will not be arriving from. Where are the planes now, when I need them? “Cannabis, cannabis,” the Boss keeps throwing fistful after fistful in the fire. “why does mankind have problems with you of all things?” This is a trick; a desperate thought crosses my mind suddenly. It’s a dumb trick. A set up. They must have switched the bags. It’s impossible that I damaged the stuff—it’s not like Jack London’s one thousand dozen eggs. The smell of burning marijuana fills the loft. At this moment I turn my attention to the Invisible Man, or rather the Mummy Man in the wheelchair.
“Hey,” I say. “How you doing there, Mummy Man?” I grin. Sometimes I laugh at my own stupid jokes. No one else in the loft reacts to my joke, though. “For the first time,” I go on. “I’m seeing a mummy in a wheelchair. Clever.”
“This is Billy,” says the Boss. “I wanted to properly introduce you, but I got carried away. Anyhow. You’ve actually seen each other before.”
“No way, we’ve seen each other before!” I continue grinning even more stupidly, george-bush stupidly. “Isn’t that the Invisible Man?” I’m funny when I want to be funny. Damn it, I’m hilarious.
“Billy is my son. He saw you in Mexico.”
“In Mexico?” My mouth goes dry.
“Tijuana. When you showed up, two Mexicans were kicking him.” The Boss takes a remote, points it, and a few screens light up on one of the bookshelves. Danny, shaking the table with his nervous knee, can be seen, looking around. Then the Boss rewinds the tape to a moment in which I down a martini and grin at the waitress. I’m unshaven, I’ve got a black eye, a small-town policeman hairdo, and my nose is big and crooked. “About a month ago, I sent Billy and one of my associates to take care of some business down in Tijuana. The Mexicans, however, had a different plan—they decided to kidnap them and hold them for ransom. We’re talking about money, of course, a big chunk of money. One night, my boys managed to take care of the guards and snuck out with one of the vans, in which there was a bag of grass. The Mexicans, though, caught up with them before they reached the border. They shot my other guy dead. They crushed Billy’s legs and arms and beat him senseless. And then you showed up.” The Boss refills our glasses. “Billy’s alive now.” He shakes ashes from his cigar. “I flew to the West Coast, of course, and took care of things. While I was at the hospital with Billy, I asked around. One of my partners in Santa Monica, Chris, mentioned that someone . . .” the Boss emphasizes the next few words with his intense eyes, “someone with a black eye and a thick accent was inquiring about selling a large bag of marijuana without getting caught.” Pause. “Then Danny asked me if I wanted to buy a bag of Mexican grass, and I put two and two together and said, yes, of course.” He gently kicks the bag. “I don’t actually need this. But come to think of it, it’s mine, in any case.” The Boss places his cigar in the ashtray, opens a small safe, takes out one, two, three, four, five stacks of money and extends his hand. I don’t reach out, he holds them for a while, then shrugs and piles them up next to the scotch decanter. “I wanted to see you, Zack. I just wanted to see your face and what were you made of. Here’s fifty thousand.” He takes a pen out and writes something on a yellow piece of paper. “Here’s the phone number of one of my associates. Call if you need anything. Anything.” I slowly walk to the coffee table, touch the money, pile the stacks on top of each other, pour some more whiskey into my glass, and drink up. I walk to Billy’s wheelchair, put my arm on his shoulder, look for his eyes through the bandages, and nod. I think he nods, too. Then I squat down and touch my forehead to his bandaged head. I close my eyes and, for a moment, we stay like this. I hear the cold wind outside, the crackling of the fire in the fireplace, and the labored breathing of the man next to me. I open my eyes, get up, go back to the table, put the stacks one by one in the pockets of my jacket, and finish up whatever is left in my glass. The city lights outside sway back and forth.
The Boss comes closer and extends his hand. I understand that our meeting has come to an end. I shake his hand. Hardly able to keep my balance, touching the edges of the furniture I pass by, I head toward the elevator. I reach for the door.
“Zack.” I stop. “To the left, Zack.” I hear the Boss’ low voice. “The elevator is to the left. That’s my bedroom. You have no business in there.”
*
Danny is staring at a squeezed out bag of green tea at the bottom of his empty cup. I pat him on the shoulder from behind, he’s startled, and gets up.
“What happened?” I take two stacks of money and hand it to him. He tucks them under his belt, grabs my elbow, starts pushing me toward the exit.
“Wait!” I yell. “Stop!” I look around for the waitress with the platinum hair. “Wait!” A few heads turn. I scan the place until I see her. Then I lose her again. Danny is holding me up. I find her again. I feel like my legs are challenged by the weight of my body, my physical body, I mean. The girl appears again. I smile and try to say good night. That’s all I wanted to say in the first place. I want to say good night to someone, what’s the big deal? I stutter a few words and drop to my knees. The black butler grabs me under the arms and drags me by some red walls and more red walls and hauls me up some stairs.
Before they shove me into the cab, I start to sing. I sit behind the driver. On the fiberglass divider between us is an ID card with a mustachioed photo and a name. I try pronouncing the name but stumble on some Ukrainian clump of consonants, then vomit endlessly and painfully before I pass out.
*
—what difference does it make which direction we live our lives, zack?
—you build your theories and talk about backwards time as if there is a straightforward one
—we live in some kind of time, don’t we?
—where is time in your photographs? what time are the negatives of the film you just finished in? and aren’t you the one who will arrange them the way you want to? you’re done shooting, right. i need to get dressed—could you pass me that T-shirt? thanks
—in real life . . .
—and in real life you try to exchange one kind of linearity with another. you propose that we look at life from the end to the beginning instead of the other way around, from right to left instead of the way we are used to, you switch after and before around, you look for a direction in an infinite 18% gray. when actually the one and only sure thing is the now, which is the beginning and the end, the before and after, 18% gray and 100% now, and nothing else
*
I lie down on the hard mattress for a long time and stare at the ceiling until the room comes into focus. I’m in Danny’s apartment in Brooklyn. Fucking Brooklyn, I don’t want to be in no fucking Brooklyn right now. I jump up, the room gets fuzzy, I lean on the table, stars sting my eyes, my head is going to explode. I go into the kitchen, look for coffee, find coffee in the cabinet over the sink, and turn on the coffee machine. I open the window and inhale the cold November air. I slam the window shut again. I find a cup, pour myself coffee. It smells promising. I return to the room where I woke up.
I bend over to fix the bed up a little, but the effort sends a new surge of pain to my brain. I have to be still. I lean on the wall in front of the bookcase filled with digital video tapes with one hand and hold the cup of steaming coffee in my other hand:
. . . first recordings 1999, may, manhattan, june 16, project 1999, june 1999, brighton beach, atlantic city, december 2000, las vegas, july 2000, the strip, los angeles december 2000, manhattan new year’s eve 2000, Y2K celebration, full moon 2001, october, sozopol, winter 2001, snow over dunes, swans, the b
lack sea, varna, winter 2001, 2001 chelsea, galleries, jazz van der holden . . .
life in Sony video digital zoom lens, diameter 37 mm,
life in Precision CCD chip, recorded on FUJI super 8 film
life digitally translated into 0 and 1, 0 and 1, 0 and 1, 0 and 1, 0 and 1, 0 and 1 . . .
. . . dave matthews band concert in central park, alex’s party, birthday party 2002, jeffrey’s play, opening night, grandma in the garden, summer 2002, gypsies, caravan in the woods, 2002, interviews, bulgaria 2002, silvia’s paintings, pouring rain, new jersey, amsterdam, den haag, amsterdam, my sister in disney land, eva in coronado, zack and stella, new york, penn station, departure . . .
My heart starts pounding. I finish the coffee and go looking for something to kill this headache—aspirin, Advil, Tylenol, anything will do. Where’s Danny now when I need help, really need help. I can’t find any pills. I find half a gallon of milk in the fridge and drink, drink, drink . . . I go back to the tapes, pull out zack and stella, new york, Penn Station, departure . . .
I remember that day. What I had forgotten was that Danny was taping.
I find cables, plug the camera into the TV, and play the tape. I sit on the floor, hug my knees, and try to calm my breathing.
FADE IN:
Close up on an old record player thrown onto the side walk. The camera pulls back, points to a ONE WAY sign and the dome of a church. We are somewhere in Greenwich Village. Then I see myself and Stella. Her hair is long and light brown. She is wearing a brown suede blazer with a belt hanging at the back, light-blue jeans and high-heeled black shoes with hippie soles. Over her shoulder is her black leather bag with the little white skulls. The wall we walk by is covered in graffiti and the camera turns to see it.
In a moment, we see Stella and Danny, which means I have taken the camera now. A flock of pigeons fly in the blue sky, the camera follows them, then pans down to a chocolate-brown Manhattan, passes through the naked tree crowns with fluttering plastic bags on the branches, goes back to the street, and finds Stella again, who is walking away.
“Stella-a-a!” My voice booms near the camera microphone. We pass the fence of a school yard, the voices of kids playing basketball fill the air. Stella doesn’t turn back, she keeps walking.
“Stella-a-a-a!” I hear my voice again, the camera stops, she keeps walking. From the entrance of a building she passes a little girl steps out, carrying a rag doll in her hand. A little girl with thick brown hair and big beautiful eyes, who from this distance could pass for her daughter, for our daughter.
Stella smiles, stops, and turns around, looking at the little girl. The camera zooms in on the girl, who furrows her brow and moves her lips, perhaps scolding the doll, then the camera jumps and cuts to Stella’s face, which . . .
Suddenly, something knocks the camera aside, Stella disappears, trees and buildings turn a cartwheel, the blue sky revolves, and Manhattan stands on its head. Before the unblinking eye of the camera, lying on the sidewalk, the wind blows a few pieces of paper.
“Oops, sorry.” A child’s voice comes from somewhere, and then the camera is up off the sidewalk. I see myself and a ten-year-old boy walking away with a basketball in his hand. I see Stella laughing and waving her hand.
FADE OUT.
Wide angle on Manhattan late afternoon, almost evening. Central Park—the lake, lilies, reflected clouds.
Medium shot of Stella and me, holding hands, walking away from the camera.
Close up on Stella, who throws her hair back.
Close up on a crane in the lake, a beautiful crane, emanating calmness.
CUT TO:
Street merchants have come out on the sidewalks with the falling of evening, Police sirens are heard more often. The neon nightlights take over Manhattan. Stella walks down Fifth Avenue, which looks exactly the way it should, since Stella is walking down it.
Suddenly, I hear a key in the key hole, the apartment door opens, and Danny walks in. I say good morning, take a sip of coffee without diverting my eyes from Stella, who walks down the busy sidewalk of the most beautiful city in the world.
“Zack, we need to talk,” Danny says.
The camera is now on one side of the street and Stella and I are at the other. We pass a black guy in Adidas sweat pants and a white hoodie, selling bootlegged CDs on the sidewalk. I stop to take a look at his collection, Stella keeps walking. Danny’s camera follows her. Vehicles, yellow cabs, bums, bicycle riders pass between the camera and Stella.
“Zack . . . did you hear me? I have something to tell you.”
The camera zooms in on a saxophone player with a gray beard and yellow hat, who is playing a slow and breathy jazz tune. The sax case is wide open with some dollar bills and change in it.
“Hito called this morning.”
Stella tosses the leather bag with the skulls over her other shoulder, striding forward alone, while I slow down to put a dollar in the sax case.
“Hito went to the lab and found your photographs, all of your photographs.”
The camera follows me as I make my way through the crowd to catch up with Stella.
“So check this out. Hito was like”—Danny mimics a Japanese accent—“‘Who took this pictures? They look like ol’ pictures. I use to take this kind of picture back when I was young. I like the shadows and people, see?’” Danny laughs. “He wants to use a whole series of your images for a new ad campaign for Benzin, New York!”
Close up of my face in profile.
“Zack, I can’t imagine what you are feeling at this moment, but . . . goddamn it, turn off that video. I want you to listen to me.”
Wide shot—Madison Square Garden—evening.
“You have a chance! A real chance! The ad campaign is . . . You know what I’m talking about, man. Benzin, New York . . . Your stuff will be in magazines, on fucking billboards, you’ll be all over. If Hito liked your work . . . and he loved it . . . Everything fits, dude. Your photos are unbelievably strong and true. What you captured on that trip, man—faces, roads, buildings, nature—everything is raw and real. You’ve captured America as if you were seeing it for the first time, as if you didn’t know how to take photographs. You’ve captured her the way she no longer is—real. And at the same time, everything is . . . somehow calculated, everything fits. You have . . . I’m struggling to find the word . . . synchronicity, yes. You’ve achieved synchronicity. Believe me, you’ve succeeded. You have!”
Penn Station. Stella goes down the stairs. I catch up with her, pull on her bag like a thief, she is startled, lifts her hand instinctively, sees me, relaxes, kisses me on the ear, takes my hand, places it over her shoulder, cuddles me, and we continue walking through the crowd, embracing and walking down more stairs. The camera loses us for a while, then finds us again. It zooms in on us, drops us, then we are in focus again.
“Hito wants to meet with you this afternoon. We have to go to the lab. I think I know what he is going to offer you, Zack. Pull yourself together. You have to pull yourself together, man. This is important. You start in New York. You start up so high. You start your life over. You’ll work with Benzin, you bastard. This is a one-in-a-million chance. Life goes on, Zack.”
The camera runs through ads and posters on the walls of the station. It’s nice that they have classical music playing as a background, a violin and orchestra. Classical music should play in every train station and every airport, damn it. Every departure needs a soundtrack.
There’s a poster advertising an Italian movie entitled Life Is Beautiful.
Our train arrives. Stella gets in first.
“Zack, do you hear me!?” Danny blocks my view. “Do you hear me?”
It’s hard to ignore his presence now. And I should not ignore Danny. Danny is a friend. I get up, pain pulsates in my head, life is beautiful. I press the left arrow on the remote and rewind a little. There it is—Life Is Beautiful. I push pause. The frame Life Is Beautiful freezes on the screen in one trembling digital pause.
“I can hear you, Danny, my friend! Hito, Benzin, photography, advertisement, success, dreams, success. Life is beautiful, Danny.”
“Excuse me?” Danny doesn’t understand what’s going on. Danny doesn’t understand that life is beautiful.
“Where is my money, Danny? Bring the money. And do you have something for a headache?” Danny goes to the kitchen. I hear cabinet doors slamming and water running; Danny comes back with my three stacks of bills, two pills in one hand, and a glass of water in the other. I chew the bitter aspirins, caress my money, push pause again, and the film starts.
I get on the train after Stella. On the upper step, before I go in, I turn around and gesture to the camera to come closer. The camera jumps to Stella, who waves goodbye, then returns to me. I impatiently gesture to Danny, who is holding the camera, to come closer. He does.
Do I need help?
“Nichts,” I say and shove the three stacks in his hands.
He panics and pushes them back at me. Am I out of my mind?
Nichts! No. I don’t touch the money.
Danny tries to hand it back.
I don’t care.
He refuses to take the money.
I laugh.
He thrusts the stacks back in my lap.
I tell him that if he doesn’t take it, I’ll throw it on the rails.
What rails?
The rails.
The rails?!
The rails, Danny. The rails.
Danny throws his arms in the air and almost starts crying. Zack, there are no rails in here.
It’s falling, Danny, it’s falling, the money’s falling, I’m dropping it, it’s falling onto the rails.
Danny shakes his head, he doesn’t understand.
I reach out and am about to drop the money between the train and the rails. It’s falling, Danny.
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