People murmured to each other.
Then the first Millings Kiosk. They began in condominium lobbies for the convenience of the wealthy. Someone had the idea to put them in poor neighborhoods, where there were no grocery stores or department stores stocked with premium detergents and branded socks. A shot of the Millings people making excursions to the South Side, pre-pacification, to install library and pharmacy kiosks.
Stock footage, diversity, smiling.
Millings Senior with a young, built, mustached Uncle Al circa the establishment of the Hub. A wolf whistle in the crowd. They were handing out kiosk cards to guests.
I convinced Jonson to promote the nosy intern at the Slaw to junior editor. The staff indignant. I told Jonson she was a savant and would make his content aggregator a nationwide destination. The young woman wanted an editorship at the Slaw in return for her help adding my edits to the Millings Kiosk promotional film we were watching.
She said, Because I could go to jail for tampering with these corporate servers, although that’s unlikely, I need something more than money. I want to have a legitimate career.
I said, Millings Kiosk won’t be able to tell who hacked into their server. I was over at their offices a few months ago, to see Millings’s wife, and there are less than five employees, legacies of the good old days.
While the intern was looking for Uncle Al at the beginning of last month, she patched into the security cameras on the insurance tower across from the Millings Kiosk office. Although it is illegal to do so, it transpired that, by accident or by design, one of the cameras looked into Millings’s private residence, on the floor above the office. Since nobody in the insurance tower was actively monitoring its hundreds of cameras, this had gone unnoticed.
I spliced in the security camera footage where the narrator was explaining Millings Kiosk moved to its present location seventeen years ago. The family tower filmed by a drone flying in a rising corkscrew. At Millings’s window, I cut to the security footage, but left the voice-over.
The narrator said, The baton was passed to Rolf Millings, the third generation of the Millings family, to move the company into the modern era.
Millings in a robe, looking through a telescope at the street. The telescope moved a little to track people as they walked. Although one couldn’t see his bottom half because of the angle, it became clear after a few seconds that he was masturbating.
The narrator said, The Millings Kiosk Tower is a marvel of its era. It has been singled out for historical preservation. The apartments afford the privacy of the country in the heart of the Hub.
A collective intake of breath. Someone behind me dropped a glass. Where was Millings? I had cut the footage into a loop. Maybe eight seconds had passed. Stifled giggles growing. The party had been going some time, people had been drinking. The giggles spreading, unfolding, amplifying into laughter. A series of thuds and crashes as various Millings functionaries tried to shut off the video. The whole room shaking with chuckles. A judgment on Millings. Some going for the door, some savoring an intense merriment. The video was turned off.
There was Millings, bent over a little to be less conspicuous, slipping out the fire door. Before he sent the video of Osvald attacking Uncle Al to Dr. Lisa, I had considered his voyeurism beneath mention, not within the realm of our business, but he had crossed the line first, as he had when he ordered Uncle Al to attack me.
Noises of disgust as the ramifications of Millings’s behavior became clear. He could be prosecuted, although he wouldn’t be convicted, because it wasn’t explicit what he was doing beneath the frame of the shot. It only suggested an activity. The lights were left off for almost two minutes, until someone thought to flip the switch.
When the lights came on, and the party guests saw one another’s faces, another gust of laughter swept through the room, and it kept whipping through the crowd, snapping in my ears, taking from Millings what he held dear. It is hard to keep from laughing when others are. I was not laughing. It would be cruel to poke fun.
72.
NONPROFITS SUPPORTED BY THE JONSON FOUNDATION
DIR. F. F. RIBBONS
3 MINUTES
Kids Craft, an organization dedicated to passing on traditional regional techniques of distillation to at-risk inner-city youth. The Akhenaten Society. The Destitute Columnist’s Electricity Fund. Beans for Bums, dedicated to serving the finest pour-over single-origin fair-trade coffee to the homeless. The Ancient Grains Reconciliation Fund, for healing the schism between the proponents of freekeh and the partisans of sorghum. Appleholics Anonymous. Wabi Sabi Club. The League of Asexual Voters. The Fund for Erotic Antiquities. Sister Joan’s Sanctuary for Private Rest, a home for people who have suffered adverse effects from cosmetic procedures. Task Force for Awareness of Calorie Intolerance. The Center for the Honest Depiction of Yoga. Gardens Not Garters. The Poutine Society. Better Bistro Bureau. Noli Me Tangerine, an organization opposing the crossbreeding of citrus fruits. Citizens for the Reinstatement of Quiet Libraries. Mothers Against Disingenuous Decorators.
73.
HANGING ISVALD
DIR. NOAH BODY
16 MINUTES
The skirmishes between Isabel and me that were calamitous enough to earn specific nomenclature, including the Cecil’s Bar Campaign and Matt’s Wedding Ambush, can be blamed on Isabel’s fantastical relationship to observed time. I would ask her to arrive twenty, then fifty, then seventy minutes before we were supposed to meet to ensure punctuality. She would sense what time I meant, attempt to compensate, and would be late.
I would huff myself into a fury in advance of arriving at the theater, restaurant, or bar, calculating when she would begin to layer on her maquillage, choose her outfit, gather keys and purse, kiss the cat, remember where she’d parked, charge her Pinger, look up the address, etc.
She would say, Did you want to see me mope around the bar in sweatpants?
I would say, Yes, that was my hope, one hour ago.
Inevitably I surrendered to the apprehension that she wasn’t going to show up. She was in a morgue cooling or tied up in a basement. Banishing my fantasies, I’d resolve to forgive her, test the smile I’d flex when she dashed in, quip how her watch was correct, but when she arrived, my kindness flapped off to roost in another skull.
She said, Aren’t I worth the wait?
I said, Yes, but.
She said, Am I or am I not?
I said, Aren’t I worth respect?
She said, Your timetables are a child’s fantasy.
I said, The hell they are.
She said, Don’t turn our fun into a chore.
Lateness is how the insecure demonstrate power. Osvald’s tardiness was learned from his father. Some avoid and some exaggerate their parents’ flaws. The waiting person was meant to be grateful when Osvald arrived. He sought attention. Through him ran a seam of grandiosity. He moved as slow as was feasible. It took him an hour and a half to move his bowels, as if he were the Sun King. He had to be perpetually fetched.
I made a film to illustrate my position. I screened it for Osvald and Isabel on a tablecloth in the park, after promising fifty dollars apiece if they showed up at the agreed time. Neither did. I didn’t bring the money along.
Hanging Isvald opens in a cell. Isvald, conjoined twins, are sentenced to die at noon. They are not concerned. Isvald contemplates the pond of sunlight rippling on the dirt of their cell. The jailer requests they send a sign from the void. To get the jailer to leave, Isvald agrees to spin their weather vane on the second of October.
The priest enters, myself. I ask Isvald to repent. They decline. The priest describes the torments of hell awaiting Isvald. Isvald knows saying words will not change their destination either way, for they hold no superstitions on the vigor of language. The priest, having delivered his promise of torture, departs.
They say, It is a radiant day t
o give praise.
Back to the puddle of sun. Amazing how it—
Knock, knock. Isvald’s mother. She has come to deliver absolution before they swing on the gallows.
They say, See ya, Mom.
Second to last is Isvald’s lover, also played by myself. Isvald does not speak. Nothing to be said to the person. What is a kiss? What are words? All words have the same price. Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing. The sun has reached Isvald in chains. Isvald will be in light. The door opens and the guard leads Isvald outside, to the cheer of the crowd.
74.
LIGHT TEST IX
DIR. HARRIS JONSON
4 MINUTES
The primary set for Altarpiece is completed. Bellono’s studio sits on an acre fifteen miles southwest of the township of Deer Eye. It’s twenty miles from the nearest node into the Hub. Location scouting took weeks. Before settling on the field, we toured a barn, an asylum, a defunct AlmostPeople service facility. The unattached heads of William and Melinda models shouted encouragement to us from the factory workbench.
William said, A body is the repository of our dreams.
Melinda said, Mobility is the basis of freedom.
William said, Perhaps you could attach me to yonder body, my friend.
Melinda said, No, that model is a woman’s. It’s for me.
William said, I have an open mind. Don’t be prescriptive, Melinda. Any body is a good body.
We brought our equipment into the spaces to shoot tests. On film, the light curdled.
The acre outside Deer Eye was different. We liked how the land lay in a depression underneath a lagoon of sunlight. The bronze stalks of wheat covering the field burned at sunset, when I jogged through with a smoldering branch following a route I’d planned so a blimp or a bored god saw, passing overhead at the right moment, my initials scrawled in flame.
Jonson hired a known firm to build the set. He plans to convert it into a distillery when shooting wraps.
He said, This corn should be put to better use.
I said, Like cornbread.
He said, Spirits. I’ll call it Jonson’s Country Reserve.
We inspected the set this morning, as the builders left. The fellow ducking into the town car was Malthus, the architect, who had once nodded to Osvald in the firm’s foyer, believing him to be the kept man of Constantin Grigori.
I am within the set, a glass cube. I am the flaw. The night sky is boysenberry chenille stained with drips of bleach. The cement floor ruined the effect, so I shoveled dirt on top.
Scrub pines hunker across the road, ashamed of their thin limbs. I have books on oil technique. Provender is laid by. The husks of devoured Chocodiles, Nougators, and Carameldo Dragons litter the studio, where Bellono will paint the triptych. One good canvas will buy his freedom from the tedium of painting. He can return to his casseroles and his duvet. I am wearing an itchy wool tunic. On my feet are pointed shoes of inky synth-leather.
Bellono bantered with his god, having no proof of nihility but pain. I wag my brush on the isabelline canvas, practicing the gesture of painting, not ready to commit myself to the oils Jonson has ordered from Perugia. Addressing a god as Bellono might. Bringing up vexing spicules of theology. Petitioning to have my venereal diseases healed. Asking for the power to forgive. Why the platypus?
In me Osvald. I wouldn’t have noticed the eloquence of the steel columns, matching the grace of the mullions, drawing the eye to the ceiling, crisscrossed by thin girders, the appearance of the golden ratio, without Osvald’s help. Yes, he likes this place. Awakening on the mornings when the set inflates with light, he descends the cantilevered slab stairs to dig his toes into the charred soil, and he imagines possibilities for the film, the delicious conflagrations.
75.
THE FLOATING HOUSE
DIR. ANDREW BALTANDERS
86 MINUTES
Osvald identified with Dr. Pinkglass in The Floating House, who, when shown graphs and measurements by Dr. Rousseau proving the house is on the ground, continues to insist it hovers inches above the foundation.
Dr. Pinkglass says, I trust my eyes. My eyes serve me. Logic does not necessarily.
The records of my misbehavior. Osvald had a thick portfolio of complaints to draw on to justify his theft of my wife.
I wasn’t clean, broke dishes. I threw a piano bench in the vicinity of but not at Osvald, ate the Neapolitan, lost his keys. I lost his forks, wallet, pump, jack, stereo cords, chip, Swiss Army knife, sweaters, Pinger, replacement Pinger, loaner Pinger, monogrammed socks, sextant, ballpoint pen, ball-peen hammer, ball cap, ball glove, ball gag, drafting dots, distance meter, bike saddle, tailored trousers, birth certificate, spare tire, electric drill, floss, scarab in resin, waffle iron.
What else? I popped a favored volleyball. I kissed a woman he liked and lied to spare his feelings. I didn’t kiss a woman he liked and lied to hurt his feelings. I did not worship Isabel, made fun of his turtlenecks. I woke him in the middle of the night with the terror of illness. I cooked and forgot dinner, left locks unlocked, derided his paltry tips at restaurants, took contrary positions on principle. I needed and adored Osvald. His romantic, aesthetic, and spiritual aims I was determined to frustrate but not defeat outright.
All this was for his benefit. I was ensuring he remained entertained. We neglect our duty to delight our friends. We treat them as floating ears. To entertain is to torment.
76.
THE REDUCERS
DIR. RAOUL COSTARD
90 MINUTES
Difficulty pruning the ramiform possibilities from Jonson’s conception of Altarpiece. His pings every ten minutes. No wonder he couldn’t get a date before he met Lucretia.
This morning’s:
what if sets were monochrome /
how about u wear a mask /
dance number /
dream sequence /
i got a logline for you /
let’s rent a fog machine /
pricing bear trainers /
how bout a swordfight /
2nd act could be punchier /
pls respond to ping tuesday 5pm, subj fabric swatches black n white /
feelin rack focusing /
what is duke’s motivation /
What is anyone’s? I nudged The Art of Dramaturgy off of his balcony while he fussed over the espresso service. Formulas won’t save us. Jonson is not a passionate reader. His mind ambulates on crutches. His book is accessorized with a plate of snacks, a pastis tomate, highlighters. Trying to understand the significance of the clothes described, of the invented weather, of the bland dialogue. Trying to induce in himself feelings.
To reject all of Jonson’s suggestions would be undiplomatic.
The Reducers is an adaptation of the Horst-Rundler musical about two friends, Marisha and Janet, who split a scratch-off jackpot and decide to go into the movie business. They buy the rights to the impenetrable metaphysical opera The Mysteries of Tangerine Alpha as Revealed to Follower Sixteen, on Plantain Mountain, January 6, at Sunset, a favorite of Janet’s. A thirteen-hour performance cannot be condensed into ninety minutes without loss. Janet has pretentions of depth. Marisha watches the bottom line to gratify her conception of herself as shrewd. Stock bumbling. Subplot, ardor between Marisha and Amy, actress chosen for Follower Sixteen. Amy was Maquilla’s last role. The film was released posthumously.
Jonson had an idea for the promotion of Altarpiece. He would have oil paintings printed, of me as Bellono, brush in hand. Gilt frames and all. The paintings would be hung on walls throughout the Hub.
I will praise his marketing scheme so I can reject his other ideas with a clear conscience.
77.
ARK OF SUFFERING
DIR. VASILY VASILYEV
127 MINUTES
Jonson has traveled to Seel’s villa in Bologna II, to p
repare the set for Bellono’s visit to the ducal palace. It was understood that I would join him later. I am convinced this scene does not need to exist. Plus, I am afraid of slingshots. It still needs to be set up to occupy Jonson.
On the set, I am rehearsing. The embers of the day.
My body rebels. Limbs ignore the edicts of the nerves, Osvald’s buddies. Before the easel, I will my face to emote.
This morning, eating my porridge on the set, getting into character. Because the painter was prosperous, he had the means to enjoy a handful of raisins in his slop. How my hand resisted, as it hung over the steaming bowl. My fist would not open. Osvald hates raisins. I managed to pry it apart with my right hand. I twisted my left hand, dropping a few of the raisins in the bowl.
Unhappy with this turn of events, Osvald plunged my right hand into the molten porridge. I couldn’t remove my hand for several minutes. The pain ranked with a crotch injury or an eyeball scratch.
Then I overpowered him with a memory of the day Dr. Lisa and I visited the Zone Flower Market. She bought me peonies, which are still on my desk, dried out. The dead petals scattered about.
If you are reading this, Dr. Lisa, please ping me. I am sorry for what I did.
Osvald withdrew, and I yanked my hand from the bowl. The problem was, by that time the porridge had congealed. While I was extricating my hand from the bowl with a strenuous yanking motion, a wad flew from my burned palm to stick to the glass ceiling, where it remains.
Birds fly into the set. The glass will have to be squeegeed between shots.
Seel’s cathouse in Bologna II had to be equipped to my specifications. Jonson pinged me photos. In my Pinger’s editor, I crossed out decor not befitting the ducal palazzo, like anachronistic doorknobs and toilets, then pinged the pictures back, so he could have it removed. I don’t know why I say palazzo. The film does not take place in any real location, not Italy. A sort of Italy but not quite. Bologna II, a passable replica of the original, is the Grand Canyon’s premier printed luxury resort. Walls and ceilings in the Villa Disperazione were to be knocked out, skylights installed. For Ark of Suffering (playing through Sunday at the Runaway Seven), Vasilyev had a whole principality printed. While Jonson was busy printing armoires for shots I would not use, I could work in peace.
A Short Film About Disappointment Page 20