by Arjun Basu
Both Ends Burning
I had short dreams. I wasn’t sleeping well. I was on my front steps and I slept about as well as could be expected. Sometimes my dreams ended abruptly. The Man would get up and leave. And when he did, I knew I was awake.
In one dream we’re on an airplane. The Man is a flight attendant. Who smells like a clean horse and wears a floppy straw hat. And he comes over to me and hands me a cup of water. I like you, he says. And then the seatbelt sign comes on. And the plane rapidly loses altitude.
The story took up more and more space. Literally. The Post gave it four hundred words. It was closer to the front, not a column buried with comics and clairvoyants. And because the story was more prominent, better positioned, more people came to watch me, more eyes waiting for the moment. For a climax. For news. I felt as if I should entertain them somehow, sing perhaps, catch a stack of quarters resting on my elbow, something, over and over until they could feel their time had not been wasted. “No news is bad news,” a voice called out from the crowd.
“No news is boring,” another yelled.
“Bad news is good news,” came the reply. And there was applause.
“You’re a very odd, very local celebrity to a very small demographic,” Dan said, impressed by the growing success of his little story.
“I’m a niche product,” I said.
If nothing else, I understood the compulsion of celebrities to punch certain members of the paparazzi. The intrusion is immense. It is an odd thought to know that when you get up and walk into your own apartment because you have to go to the washroom, others are watching, knowing what it is you need to do; some of them imagining it even. I was a story in the paper that could very conveniently be tracked down and verified, an object of curiosity, a noun. I could have been made of wax, really. I was online. I was the object of blogs. I was not a person. There was a temporal quality to me now. I had become an event.
And no one in that crowd, that growing mass, spoke to me. There was little conversation or interaction. This might have made the intrusion feel less invasive. I would have welcomed conversation. Anything. But they couldn’t. Speaking to me would have broken the invisible wall between us. It would have confused subject and object, like web-generated translations from German. Instead, every once in a while they shouted something out at me. Or for the benefit of the crowd. And one shout bred more. And then it would die out and you could hear someone’s cell phone ring. And someone would comment about that.
I spoke on the phone from time to time. Usually it was with my mother and explaining this to her was almost comical. She wasn’t happy. And that got tiresome. And I turned the ringer off. I was afraid of what my father thought. I kept my phone on vibrate. I like your mother, the Man said. He was sitting next to me. And then he wasn’t.
Dan left and returned an hour later with some pizza and a photographer. He told me the newspaper had been receiving calls. People wanted to see what I looked like. As if they couldn’t find an image online. His editors didn’t want to lose their lead on me. They clued in to the posting on the internet. That others had gone places they had not. An editor brought up the idea of a photo essay, some kind of day in the life feature. “This is becoming something,” Dan said, the proud papa, lording over his strange creation. “A photo essay. A whole page. This brings you to another level.”
“Just what I’ve been begging for,” I said.
“And we’re talking about the web,” he said. “Creating a presence for you. Pushing the story on the web in a meaningful way.”
“I’m not keeping a blog,” I said.
Dan shrugged and handed me a slice of pizza. “This is Dick.” He gestured in the direction of a small, bald, dark-skinned Asian man. His left eye was fused shut, or so it seemed. I imagined him in a war somewhere in southeast Asia. I saw a jungle, rice paddies, water buffalo. “We’re just going to take a picture of you, maybe place some of the kids behind you, and you have to hold a slice of pizza. You don’t have to eat it if you’re not hungry but hold on to it.”
I was hungry but biting the pizza for the camera seemed crass. “I thought mentioning the pizza was enough,” I said. “What’s next, T-shirts?” To me everything in the world that was possible and laudable and not laudable and smart and not smart culminated in a T-shirt.
Dan thought about this, storing the idea.
I could imagine posters and T-shirts and desk calendars. I could see pizza cutters. I could see apps for smartphones. I could imagine it all. My life was unfolding in ways I had never expected. Were the reality TV people far behind? Was there a TV producer lurking amidst the crowd, trying to figure out the angle? I could choose someone to wait with me. I could assemble teams of young blonds to mud wrestle and dive into pools of Jell-O. I could have a theme song.
“We have a deal,” Dan said. The cynicism and weariness. The endless pursuit of cheese. The greed of everything we do. Our facility for ignoring what’s best for what’s . . . not so best.
Dan was sexed by the way this whole thing was unfolding.
I understood that he wanted to see how big this would become. He saw the money. A payoff. I understood this for the first time. Maybe he fell asleep every night humming that imaginary theme song.
You should smile, the Man told me. I resisted the urge to look around. I could smell him.
Dan directed his one-eyed photographer to ensure that the pizza appeared in all the shots and that I held it in such a manner so as to avoid being cropped by the photo editors back at the office. He moved people away to give Dick room to frame his shots properly. “Okay, now,” Dick said, his face behind a zoom-lensed black Olympus digital camera. The thing was a monster. With his good eye looking through the lens, the camera became Dick’s eyes. Or eye. It was discomfiting to watch his eye-lens face take the pictures. So I decided to look away. If his face weren’t so eerie, Dick could make the perfect spokesperson for a camera company: “I lost my eye in a war. But with the Olympus Mega Zoom, it’s like having my eye back.” Well, that would have been the first draft. The first idea floated in a meeting that would last into the morning and would include copious amounts of beer and takeout. A campaign for something so major would require a lot of billable hours. Research. Phone calls. Walks. More beer. Arguments about things that were way beyond our mandate. Discussions about Plato’s Cave. Anti-Semitism in Vichy France. The math on Wilt Chamberlain’s claim of bedding 10,000 women. And then the what-ifs: What if we had cameras thousands of years ago? What if the camera had been invented later? What if New York had been founded on Staten Island? Billable hours. Spent arguing about the Mets and how the older guys loved saying “Mookie Wilson” and what is it with that franchise and whether it really is impossible to love the Yankees if you’re from anywhere else but here. We would commission research into the history of photography. We would bring in professional photographers to talk about their craft. We would eat a lot of takeout. We would surf porn on the internet. And then we would present our ideas and the client would say, “I want this,” and we’d do it and charge for everything.
“This way please,” Dick said.
“What’s wrong with your eye?” I asked.
Dick looked at Dan, baffled, as if to say, The thing can talk?
“Just take the shot,” Dan told him. “He asks lots of questions.” He looked at me, exasperated, flushed with energy. “Don’t hassle him.”
“Is Dick incapable of speaking?” I asked.
“I speak,” he said, shooting.
Dan pushed back at the crowd. Their interest in Dick grew. The presence of a professional photographer with an array of lenses added a legitimacy to the proceedings that had been lacking. Anyone can have a decent camera. But Dick was a professional. There were undoubtedly bloggers in the crowd seriously envious while looking forward to putting Dick out of business.
They closed in. “Stay back!” Dan yelled. And the
crowd pushed forward.
Dick was struggling to maintain his position. He really was a small man. I saw him as Vietnamese. I always picture the Vietnamese as being a short people. Or at least slight. I don’t know if that’s true. It may be an impression I have from movies. Or from restaurants.
Dick shot a few more photos. “Okay,” he told Dan.
“Take some more,” Dan ordered.
You can do it, the Man told me. I’ve seen your smile.
“Take pictures of us,” someone from the crowd shouted. “We’ve been waiting as long as him. And we’re on our feet!” The camera changes us instantly, the belief that being caught on film, or on TV, even in the corner of an image, is our only road to recognition. Validation. To the fleeting immortality that is fame. Old media still owns a legitimacy that new media can not possess.
“We’re more interesting than that dumbass!” another voice said.
“And better looking!” added another.
Dan grabbed his photographer by the shoulder just as Dick was shooting another picture. It was like he was being pulled out of the streets during the fall of Saigon or something. Dick protested but within seconds they were gone, their jobs done, and the crowd watched the two of them run to a waiting car, jump in, and drive off.
The buzz of Dick’s visit was everywhere. It was a buzz, that’s exactly what it sounded like. It was a noise of a hundred discussions. It was the noise of being the only one at a party with no one to speak to, the noise of my invisibility.
In the morning, I was on page four of the Post. The photo wasn’t large but everyone who read the paper saw it. Page four is not a page most people skip. It implied a kind of prominence. Everyone on the street had copies of the Post. Kids came by with it, opened it to page four, and asked me to sign it. I signed T-shirts and ball caps and pieces of torn-up paper and greasy napkins. More people brought me food. An old Japanese lady brought me a wakame salad, which was a godsend. A hot dog vendor set up shop on the sidewalk across the street. A burger truck parked on the block. And then a dumpling truck. I was creating commerce. People were being drawn to me just to take a look. I was a spot to click into on location-based social networks. A new kind of proper noun. People took their own pictures. They brought their kids, posed them in front of me, took a picture, and left. They brought their guitars and sang, their cases open in front for change. I was creating busking opportunities. They came with sandwich boards proclaiming the Second Coming. They came with their sketchbooks to draw. They came selling balloons. Girls started flashing me. Older people brought lawn chairs.
I awaited the arrival of porta-potties.
All of this happened in one day. All of this the result of a photo in a third-rate newspaper. My musings on the death of print had been overblown. I suspected they always had been. The very thing that makes the web so powerful — its democracy — is the same thing that makes people distrustful of it. And so while we bemoan elitism, we want our leaders.
I awaited the tour buses.
And I wondered where were all these people when the story first appeared in the paper. Does anyone read anymore? I had an idea for a newspaper with no writing. Just photos with captions. Take USA Today to its logical conclusion.
Dan set up webcams. He brought four. Three were focused on me, one on the crowd. “We’re live,” he said and beamed. “Like those eagles with chicks.” The tap-tap of his laptop was permanent now. He had three smartphones. He had two blogs going: one for the Post’s website and one he had created himself. “It’s cool with the editors,” he said. “They can appreciate the possibilities. They see what I see.” Apparently, hits on his Post blog were impressive. Photos of me were all over the web now. There were people in the crowd chronicling this. Debates fired up. Dan also had all the social media angles covered. I had a Twitter account that Dan “curated,” he said. But everything on it would be stuff I’d said. My Facebook page had almost 10,000 fans. Dan came across one website for agnostics that was running a special series of reports about my meaning. “What do you mean?” Dan asked, smiling.
“Agnostics aren’t intellectually honest,” I said.
I saw the Man eating a hot dog. He waved, shrugging. What was he waiting for?
More reporters showed up. Newsday. AP. Some radio stations. A British journalist from the BBC. And finally, almost two weeks after I had started waiting for the Man, even the Times sent someone. But only for the website, not for the print edition. I wasn’t yet fit to print and for that I was thankful. And every reporter who wanted to interview me brought with them a slice of pizza. This was the tragedy. Pizza. Some of it was quite a lot better than Dan’s brother’s, but the implication, the commentary about me that each and every slice implied, was demoralizing. The medical community says it is healthy to eat fruit and when you ask for an apple, people think you’re crazy. I craved an apple. I told people this. Instead, they would hand me another slice of pepperoni, the grease running off the cheese, onto my hands, dripping onto the pavement. My pants especially, were covered in grease stains.
And yet, they still fit. My pants. My shirts felt comfortable. I had put on some weight but not what you’d expect from a diet clogged by pizza. Somehow, this made sense to me: my world had changed and, like some old Tex Avery cartoon, the laws of physics had changed as well. I could get thrown off a cliff and return in the next frame unscathed. That night, I dreamed that the Man gave me an apple. We walked down a path in the middle of a forest. Get ready, he said. For what? I asked. And he laughed. Just be ready, he said again. And then I was awake.
Dean & DeLuca sent me a box of apples. And they sent out a press release about it. And a PR girl came and instructed me on what to say about the apples — they were organic and came from upstate — and how much this meant to the chain.
And no one asked about the apples.
Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag
Tomas loves the Cubs. He grew up in Wrigleyville. And though his father tried to raise him in some kind of Church of Stan Mikita, Tomas was a Cubbie. That’s what the staff calls him. He lives a half hour south of the ranch in an old barn he had restored by a local husband and wife architect–interior designer team who have since gone on to host a TV show. They moved to L.A., signed a lucrative deal, and are set to become a ludicrously asexual design empire. Their work is Style for People with No Time. It is a kind of Wonder Bread interior decorating, inoffensive until you know there’s more to the world. Tomas is extremely proud of his barn. It’s been featured in magazines and coffee table books. And will be on TV soon, he’s sure of it.
Every morning, Tomas drives to the ranch in his vintage BMW 700 and that’s when our toil kicks in to a higher gear. I work every day from six in the morning to eight at night. Two shifts. Six days a week. I don’t plan on peeling fruits and vegetables for the rest of my days. But I don’t mind it now. It clears my head. It allows me to think. To understand. To once again become a part of the world.
My work station is small but ergonomic. The place is designed in such a way as to prevent excessive bending. Everything I need is within reach. I fill buckets with peeled fruits and vegetables. Apples. Always apples for the godforsaken clafouti. Bananas. Kiwi. Kumquats. Tomas loves kumquats. Apparently this love is seasonal. Potatoes. So many potatoes. But when he’s making his “dirty” mash, my job is to peel the potatoes badly. That is, leave some skin on. Which is what I’m doing.
I hear Tomas walk into the kitchen. Like Norm entering Cheers, his entrance is met with rounds of “Cubbie!” On most days, he walks into his office to change while speaking to the executive chef, an impossibly thin black guy from Phoenix named Carlos. Then the inspections.
Today, he walks over to me. Everyone watches. He stares them down until they return to their tasks. “I’ve been thinking about the clafouti,” he tells me.
I put down a potato. “I didn’t mean anything by it.”
“I was speaking
to Athena last night,” he says. This would be our general manager, a Greek woman from Thessaloniki. Her heavy accent, combined with her love of all things western, makes for an eloquent statement about the benefits of globalization. She is tanned and beautiful with a head of thick dirty-blond hair. Light brown eyes offset her honey-colored skin. She favors white cotton shirts and blue jeans. She could be a Ralph Lauren model. Most staff think that she and Tomas are an item.
“She’s with you on this stupid anti-clafouti thing,” he says. “On our brand.” He shrugs at this, as if I’d been a party to some debate and had won. “She knows you have advertising in your background.”
“How?” I ask.
“How what?”
“How does she know?”
Tomas shrugs again. This is something I hadn’t noticed before. Our chef is a shrugger. He is insecure. Now his shrugging is going to distract me. “I told her.”
Had I ever told him? “And I’ve told you?”
“When you were hired, yes,” he says. “You told me. Well, you told Carlos. I think you told Carlos. You even told him some of the specifics. Like that beer. Berlin? That was yours, right?”
I had also told Carlos about the cat food and the diapers. The relevance my past has to peeling apples and potatoes still mystifies me. “Yes,” I say. “I’m surprised he told you anything.”
“Me, too,” he says. He smiles. “Anyhow, you used the word ‘brand.’ Her ears perked up.”
“Lovely,” I say. There’s too much respect for that word. It has ruined people and products and entire countries and has made a lot of really dumb people very rich. It is a word that has lost meaning. Very few people know what it means, but everyone uses it. The word is the start of every prayer in every agency in the world. Sell the brand, make it indispensible, reap the rewards. Once you have a client talking about brand you know you’ve won.