Sensation Machines

by Adam Wilson

  22.

  The shoot’s at Le Bain, the roof bar at the Standard, a favorite during Wendy’s brief nightlife phase, when there was no thrill so great as lingering among the digerati after industry events, sipping sprig-garnished cocktails and allowing men to lightly flirt before they noticed her ring, which she would wave, pretending to fan air from her face. The bar’s no longer the epicenter of Meatpacking chic, but it’s close to the office, and the Gansevoort was booked, and the Zone was ruled out for obvious reasons. Besides, you can’t argue its view of the High Line and vista of Hudson, velvet and sun-glossed, an ad unto itself.

  She’s being sentimental. Wendy hasn’t spent time on set in forever, and she’d forgotten how lively these scenes can be with their walkie hum and buzzing PAs, their overall sense of cooperative urgency. In the early years of Communitiv.ly, Lillian sent Wendy to shoots as a company stooge to make sure their freelancers stayed under budget and didn’t do anything that might get them sued. Wendy wasn’t good at it—too young and timid to manifest the authority required—but she loved being there beneath the towering light rigs, among the bustling crew.

  As the years passed, Wendy’s role changed, and the company’s focus shifted from TV and print to the digital sphere. These days, even when there are large-scale shoots for a project of this nature, she oversees from afar. Today’s an exception. The concept was Wendy’s idea, and Lucas insisted that her presence was important, that she must make sure her vision is accurately captured. How she might go about this remains to be seen.

  Wendy swirls her coffee like it’s wine and watches the models emerge from Makeup with contoured cheekbones and halos of hairspray, musk rising off the men who cross in silent formation like hunky monks or spa-bound angels wearing robes that shine white against tan and brown skin. It feels godly to know that she’s conjured all this, these cameras and yards of electrical cable; these humans who rose before sunrise and rode in from outer boroughs for the purpose of constructing something born in Wendy’s head.

  She looks for Lucas, who doesn’t appear to have arrived. Lillian, she knows, is manning the office, and she hasn’t heard from Greg since yesterday. She wants someone to talk to and share in this moment, someone like Michael who’d swoon and be impressed. She ends up back at craft service, pouring hot coffee into another cup of ice cubes. She loves this minor alchemy, watching the cubes pop and disappear, like a school science project gone inexplicably right. She’s less hungover than she worried she would be, but her head still pounds, and her legs feel heavy, and she hopes that another caffeine infusion will alleviate these symptoms.

  The craft service guy says, “Round two already?”

  He wears a khaki vest adorned with fishhooks, and sits in a rainbow beach chair. If Michael were here he’d suss this man’s story—dead wife, daughter with cystic fibrosis, Ninth Ward apartment destroyed in Katrina—and offer a series of compassionate nods. Michael would mention a summer spent gallivanting NOLA, and what a beautiful city it was and still is. Not a lie of omission so much as blatant untruth, unless three days counts as a summer, and spending most of that time doing Jagër bombs in a Tulane dorm room could be called a gallivant. The craft service guy would humor him, pretending to ignore Michael’s shift into Cajun dialect or the reference to his grandpappy’s gumbo. Michael would feel good about the interaction, proud to have a new person of a different race and socio-economic background that he could refer to, in future conversations, as his friend.

  There’s nothing Wendy dislikes more than when her husband does this, so she curtly says, “Yup.”

  With his bossy and militaristic style, Yoav Levé lives up to all the clichés about both Israelis and fashion directors. He’s wearing a cape, and his even tan, the color of chestnuts, extends to the stubble-shaved toes of his sandal-shod feet.

  Wendy worries the director doesn’t get the tone of her directive, doesn’t quite understand what they’re trying to sell. Not completely his fault, as Wendy, herself, is still in the dark on the product, but the big-picture message—work will set you free and get you laid; no, work will set you free by getting you laid—should be clear. And yet, Yoav keeps trying to ruin the shot by inserting ridiculous props like oversized wrenches and unnaturally yellow bananas into the models’ hands and mouths. Wendy’s twice pulled him aside to clarify the mood she has in mind, but the director still seems confused about most things, including who Wendy is and why her input should be heeded. As bulbs flash and cameras click, and Yoav instructs a male model in accented English, Wendy looks again for Lucas, hoping the client can step in with the authority that comes from wearing twenty-thousand-dollar loafers and signing the checks, and explain to the director that Wendy’s in charge. She’s on her third coffee now and it feels like a swarm of bees has invaded her veins and is clogged in her arterial pipeline.

  At least the dressings and sets adhere to her vision. The male model in question currently leans on a piece of faux scaffolding that’s like a lost Cy Twombly, scaled up and aimed, Viagrafied, toward the sky. Muscles bulge from the sleeves of his white tee and there’s the right amount of dirt on his helmet and jeans. Knee bent, work boot at rest on a tin lunch pail, he looks a bit like George Washington crossing the Delaware. To Wendy’s satisfaction, he looks more than a bit like Eminem. The day’s next set features Le Bain’s indoor lounge reimagined as an auto plant. She hopes Lucas will be here by then.

  The model’s female counterpart saunters up. Why she’d be in lingerie at a construction site is beyond Wendy, but whatever, it works. The models edge toward each other, then rotate clockwise once they’re about an inch apart. None of this demands instruction; it’s something models know to do. They turn away from the horizon so they’re facing the camera and the female bends to place her ass in his lap. If you can call it an ass. More like two yarmulkes sewn onto butt bones. Still, Wendy’s pleased with the overall effect. The model may be blond and statuesque; she may not have Brittany Murphy’s nickel-sized pupils or air of imminent ruin, but she stares past the cameras with an expression that says: in this short life, in this shit world, at least one real man remains.

  “Great,” yells Yoav. “Now put on his hard hat.”

  The female model snaps her chin to the sky and gravity pulls her voluminous locks behind her ears, a gesture likely honed during screen tests for shampoo commercials. The male fits the hard hat on her head like he’s crowning her queen of this construction site. The too-large item falls over her eyes. The male cracks an accidental smile. The female breaks character and smiles back.

  “Love it,” yells Yoav. “You’ve been to the dentist, and what’s that? No cavities? Show us those sparkling teeth!”

  The models remain open-mouthed for an awkward length of time. What began as a spontaneous instance of human connection has become forced and stiff. They shouldn’t be smiling. Their teeth are too white, and the mood is meant to be erotically sober, like an art-house film or a perfume ad. This image must speak to the men eating microwaved burritos on America’s futons, sex organs folded in on themselves like toy water snakes. It must speak to the women who sit beside these men and yearn for different husbands. More so, it must speak to Yelena the Trust-Funded Yoga Instructor, reminding her that work is a sexy life force and inalienable American right. The fact that most construction sites are manned by small crews of industrial robots doesn’t matter; it’s a metaphor. Wendy imagines this aspirational moment soundtracked by Jimi Hendrix’s star-spangled pyrotechnics, or Ray Charles’s evocation of the Midwestern plains, or a bass-heavy mashup of both. She imagines men and women getting up from their couches, fists raised, chanting: Work will set us free!

  Yoav shouts, “Now kiss his cheek like your daddy just bought you an ice cream.”

  The female places her lips on the male’s face. Under the director’s further encouragement, the male holds a long wink.

  “Beautiful,” cries Yoav.

  Wendy looks one last
time for Lucas. When she still can’t find him, she reminds herself that she’s the senior-most executive on set, that she’s been doing this shit for more than twenty years, that Yoav the director was still learning the aleph-bet when Wendy wrote the copy for her first TV spot, a toothpaste ad featuring cartoon sharks complaining about plaque. She reminds herself that her own livelihood is on the line with this campaign, that it’s no one’s responsibility but hers to make sure it turns out right, that the 8 Mile–inspired set was her idea, and that this caped Israeli is screwing it up. She yells “Cut.”

  Instantly, the crew unfreezes into action. PAs rush across set, delivering lenses and walkie batteries. Tabs are popped on cans of Diet Coke. Half-smoked Parliaments are relit and speed-smoked. Hair and Makeup move in for touchups. The hard hat is removed from the female model. Her once-immaculate mane is now a fluffy mess. Someone says, “Oh, honey.”

  Yoav stomps up to Wendy. His cape waves in the wind. With his sandals, tan, and bowling-ball paunch, he calls to mind a retired superhero who spends his days drinking beer on a Tel Aviv beach.

  “What are you cutting for? We had a moment there.”

  “The wrong moment,” says Wendy. In heels, she has half a foot on the director. Caffeine courses through her body. She pokes Yoav’s chest.

  “Ow,” he says.

  Wendy pokes again, this time with force. The director is caught off-balance, and must steady himself by grabbing hold of a chair.

  “Please stop,” says Yoav. “I easily bruise.”

  “This isn’t a beer commercial,” says Wendy.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “It’s not supposed to be cute.”

  “I don’t understand,” says Yoav again.

  “Make yourself understand,” says Wendy. “Or I’ll find someone who will.”

  She takes three steps away, stops, turns back, and adds, “While you’re at it, take off that fucking cape.”

  23.

  The game room, a monument to obsolete technology, complete with a working Ms. Pac-Man machine, is Stuart Mixner’s pride and joy, and his single contribution to the world since the birth of Rachel. When the transformer plant closed in ’91, Stuart, a mid-level engineer, was laid off. He’s been cooped in this room ever since.

  The room is filled with consoles of nearly every gaming system from Atari on, including 100 percent of Nintendo’s four-decade output—a bright red Virtual Boy holds pride of place atop a pyramid of cardboard boxes—as well as Sega’s, Sony’s, and a host of less-remembered devices like the Neo Geo and the Amiga CD; even earlier stuff like the German-made VC 4000; and, the jewel of the collection, a never-played ’72 Magnavox Odyssey. Not to mention all the cartridges, floppy disks, CD-ROMs, and old issues of Wired and Nintendo Power organized in wobbling stacks that Michael worries might crash at any moment and bury his oblivious father.

  Surrounding the stacks and the father himself is the detritus of a life lived in unforced confinement. Coffee cups and wax sandwich wrappers litter the floor. The blinds are broken and don’t open. Four television screens and three computer monitors are arranged like workstations, the ceiling tiles are covered in soundproofing Styrofoam, and at least ten speakers dangle precariously from various surfaces, all hooked up to a master mixing board which itself connects to the monitors and hardware, a creatively configured surround sound system.

  These days, most of this stuff is for show, or else storage. The house can’t accommodate Stuart’s collection anywhere else, and he refuses to throw things away or sell them for what might be considerable sums because, for the last two years, he’s been playing Shamerican Sykosis. When Michael enters, his father is asleep in an office chair. His hair’s half gone and half static, his eyelids look purple, and his nails are bitten to yellow nubs. His reading glasses, having fallen from his nose, rest in his biblical beard. He wears an SD bracelet.

  Michael nudges his father, who says, “Sail toward the sun,” so Michael nudges him again, and with this Stuart wakes, and before saying hello, clicks into Shamerica to check his holdings. After a moment, he turns his attention to Michael, though he angles the chair to maintain a peripheral view of two screens. The game is played across all devices—cellphones for trading Shamerican stocks and bonds, AR helmets for exploring Shamerica’s cityscapes, laptops and tablets for designing cars, buildings, and avatars—but Stuart likes these giant monitors due to failing eyesight, and also, Michael thinks, because it makes him feel like a real mogul instead of what he is, a senior citizen in sweatpants playing games. For most players, Shamerica’s primary appeal is strapping on a helmet and seeing the cars, avatars, and structures of their making in the 3-D world, but Stuart rarely leaves the house. He’s more interested in playing the in-game markets and attempting to accumulate SD, though he does correspond with other players through in-game messaging. The irony of this bond-trading gamelife, when his own son performs the same task as an actual profession, is lost on Michael’s father.

  “You scared me,” says Stuart. “I’m very on edge these days.”

  “Me too,” says Michael.

  “Your friend,” says Stuart. “Terrible what happened.”

  “Ricky,” says Michael. “You knew him too.”

  “Nice kid. A bit fruity for my taste, but these are different times. Now I even have a son who thinks he might be gay.”

  “I don’t think I might be gay.”

  “Not you; Quentin.”

  “Quentin?”

  “Quentin. My son.”

  It takes Michael a moment. “Your son in the game, right. Why do you think he might be gay?”

  “He told me. The other day he said, ‘Dad, I think I might be gay.’”

  “In real life or the game?”

  “Is there a difference?”

  “I’d like to think so, yes.”

  “You’re kidding yourself if you think there’s a difference.”

  Stuart adjusts his glasses, though the pair is so crooked that adjustments create further imbalance, the left lens askew when the right is aligned, and vice versa. Michael’s factory-distressed father has always looked prematurely old, but now he seems ancient.

  “How old is Quentin?” Michael asks.

  “Twelve.”

  “In real life or the game?”

  “Real life,” says Stuart. “In the game he’s a thirty-seven-year-old Oxford grad who designed half the riverboat casinos on the Gulf of Shamexico. I’m very proud.”

  “But you said there was no difference between real life and the game.”

  “You’re taking me literally. It’s always been your problem. So literal. One plus one equals two—that sort of thing.”

  “One plus one does equal . . .”

  “These guys my age, they . . .”

  “In real life or the game?”

  “In the life you consider real, okay. We’re talking about guys my age. Sean Hunter’s dad, say, because Mom saw him at Stop & Shop. Mom saw him, and guess what he told her? He told her he bought a yacht. Like she should be impressed.”

  Stuart checks the stock index again.

  “These guys my age, they’re all buying boats. What they don’t understand is that you don’t need to own a physical boat. You can build a boat in your mind and get on. There’s no difference.”

  It’s a contention Michael’s father has made before, AR as separate but equal dimensional plane. The problem, for Michael, is the body. He says, “What about death?”

  “The end,” Stuart says. “No afterlife.”

  “But in the game, when you die?”

  “Returned to darkness.”

  “And in so-called unaugmented reality?”

  “The Jewish cemetery in West Stockbridge.”

  “It’s a pretty cemetery,” says Michael.

  “I’ve done well,” continues Stuart, indicating
his SD bracelet. “This bracelet represents more money than I’ve seen in a long time. I should buy a home storage vault, but I like to wear it. Who’s gonna rob me out here in the boonies? Your sister’s got armed drones protecting our airspace. You don’t have to worry. Your inheritance is safe.”

  “I wasn’t,” says Michael.

  “It’s not all going to Quentin either. He gets his third, that’s only fair. But you’ve been generous with me over the years. I haven’t forgotten. It’s reflected in my will.”

  “Your will in the game.”

  “I know what you’re thinking: at the rate I’m going, buying TVs and living-room sets, it will all be gone by the time I retire this body at age two hundred and upload myself to the cloud.”

  “That wasn’t what I was thinking,” says Michael.

  “But I’m telling you, the amount I’ve made over the last few months—maybe for a big Wall Street guy like you it wouldn’t seem like much, but I’m a simple man, Michael. I don’t have wants or needs like Dale Hunter. The yacht in my mind will do just fine. If you still want to record that rap album, though, I’d be happy to help. MC Metamucil or whatever it was? The industry’s booming in my realm. None of this free streaming bullshit. In Shamerica it’s pay to play. The licensing alone could send a kid to college.”

  Michael imagines his easy rise to stardom in that meritocratic space. Shamerica is a country without history or context, a place where identity is forged neither by nature or nurture, but only by the breadth of one’s imaginative powers. It’s what the pilgrims dreamed of when they showed up in Plymouth with their buckle shoes and Protestant Bibles. And now, in this TMI culture of online permanence, where search histories remain cryogenically frozen in server-farm cloud storage, ever threatening to, one day, rise from the dead and return to ruin lives, Shamerica offers a viable antidote, the last frontier where a person might achieve a fresh start.

  “You mentioned people trying to rob you,” he says, looking again at his father’s SD bracelet, which hangs loose and looks huge on his thin, hairless wrist. “That’s a real threat?”