“Hey, wait!” Danny says. “We can find twenty grand. Twenty and not a penny more.”
“What are you doing, man?” I pull on his sleeve.
“Twenty cash and that’s it.” He shakes my hand off. “Who’s gonna drive me to my place?” The three Arabs/Persians exchange glances and mumble something. Pig Man nods to one of the blue Adidas boys and he zips up his jacket. A key chain with a BMW emblem and a small soccer ball jingles in his hand. He and Danny leave. I’m left with the other two Arabs. I pull up a chair by the greasy back, sit in it, and curse them with dirty looks for the next hour or so.
*
Danny works as an assistant to one of the most famous names in New York fashion photography, Hito. Hito (Yasuhito Kabayashi) immigrated to America from Japan in early sixties. He was eighteen at the time and worked in the Osaka subway as a train-pusher, shoving in passengers during the morning and evening rush hours and closing the doors of the train car. One day—Hito told Danny—he saw two men getting off the train. They looked different from the people whom he usually pushed and spoke a strange, but beautiful, language. Hito followed them. He kept following them all day long, wherever they went—to restaurants, office buildings, and shops—trying to understand who they were, what they were saying. He was fascinated. From the reception desk of the hotel they were staying in, he learned that they were American businessmen. Ten months later Yasuhito Kabayashi arrived in New York to study at the Institute of Photography. Three years later, he became an assistant to the great Avedon. Later, he started shooting for Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, and other fashion magazines. In the seventies, he opened his own studio in Manhattan; in the eighties, he did the ad campaigns for Gucci, Rolex, Dolce & Gabbana, Lincoln, Hugo Boss, and others. On top of this, he did gallery shows. His images are famous for their unbelievable detail, which he achieves with a large format camera on 8x10 negatives, specially ordered from NASA. He’s also known for the mathematical accuracy of his work. When he shoots in black and white, he uses extremely low-grain film, which Kodak makes especially for him. When he shoots in color, he does it in saturated, electric, bright colors on Fuji negatives, again special ordered. In Hito’s frame, everything is in focus, from the green nail polish of the female model in the foreground, to the delicate scales of the black molinesia in the fish tank somewhere in the background. In his photo sessions, Hito uses tons of light and countless make-up artists, designers, and art directors. Hito’s trick is that he manipulates things in a mind-blowing way in his lab, creating his own new, surrealistic world. Hito captures reality with militaristic mercilessness, then plays with its elements and rearranges them the way he likes. Hito has several assistants. One of them is Danny. He helps in the lab, primarily. And he has a key to it.
*
“Thank you, brother!” I say as I unload my things from the car. “Thank you.” I want to believe that I would have done the same for him.
“You would have done the same for me,” Danny sniffles. “I’m getting a cold or something. You’ll pay me back tomorrow when we sell this. Let me carry the bag, you take your shit and let’s get the fuck outta here.” The Arab-Persians bring two large trash bags. I put my stuff in the first one and the grass in the other. Pig Man is now outside, on the steps under the amber lamp, smoking a cigarette. He looks at us with a peaceful smile, as if seeing some relatives from another city to the door. I take my camera and point it at him. I know that it’s too dark for a good picture, but I take it anyway. He places the cigarette in his mouth, laughs through it, grabs his crotch through the fabric of his sweat pants, and shakes it vigorously. I’ll bet he hasn’t seen his penis in years.
*
The cab pulls up in front of a tall, red brick building. Danny points to a building on the other side of the street.
“Do you remember Bernard Foucault, the French guy I introduced you to several years ago?”
“How could I forget him?! The Artist?”
“Yeah. He moved here with his partner a few months ago. They rent the top two floors on that building on the corner.”
“Is she . . .” The knot in my stomach, again that damn knot in my stomach. “Is she an artist, too?”
Danny starts laughing. “Are you for real?”
“Why?”
“She? Really?”
“Yeah. Is she . . .”
“She is a six-foot-seven dude. A sculptor. With a mustache and a beard this long.”
“No. Are you . . . ? So you’re saying that . . . Bernard is . . .” I start breathing harder.
“You didn’t know?! You couldn’t tell? The guy was so . . . Zack, Zack, Zack . . .”
His paintings run through my head now. The first one I saw—those enormous monochromatic canvases with male bodies, reclining male bodies, naked male bodies, naked but deprived of sexuality. Actually, that’s what repelled me in his work—the total lack of sensitivity and eroticism. Perhaps in trying to conceal his own homosexuality, the Artist had preferred to deny sexuality all together. Why did he have to hide his queerness, God damn it? His patient smile, with which he welcomed my furious attacks on high art, runs through my mind, his kiss goodbye, his wet lips, which I naively took for a French farewell, the card he put in the palm of my hand, and my fingers, which he tenderly closed over his name.
How did I miss all that?
On one of the doorbells, there is a sign reading BUTTERFLY ENTERPRISES—Hito’s lab. The name comes from one of his passions, Danny told me. Hito likes to photograph butterflies in the act of mating. In the thirty-five years of his photographic career, he has amassed a rich collection of mating butterflies. Black and white and color photographs, captured during his countless travels all over the world, carefully cataloged and dated with all the necessary technical information.
We drag the large bag to the elevator and go up to the top floor, which belongs to Hito entirely. Danny turns the lights on in one of the rooms in the lab, quickly shows me where he works and what he does, we hide the bag in a storage place that no one uses, and Danny pushes me towards the front door. The next two days nobody will be working here, it’s absolutely safe. Now let’s go.
“Danny.” I say. “I want to stay here.”
“What?”
“I want to spend the night here. Please. Leave me here for the night. Show me the chemicals and the paper and give me just one night here. Only one. Please!” I pull out my negatives, turn on one of the light tables, lay them on it, find a magnifier, and bend over them. I have never, ever been in a lab like this. And this is everything I used to dream about. The perfect working conditions. Why did I come to America, why did I move to California?
“Hey!” Danny exclaims. “What’s this?”
“Some stuff.”
“You didn’t tell me you’ve been taking pictures.”
“I forgot.”
“When did you take them?”
“Over the last couple of days.”
“What are you going to do here?”
“Make a mess.”
“Make sure it’s not a big one.”
“I can’t promise.”
“Zack?”
“Yes.”
“Everything will be OK, brother.”
“You think?” Danny leaves the keys, shows me where the chemicals are, and we say good night. I am alone. One of the faucets in this enormous lab is not completely closed and is dripping. I don’t know why, but this sound makes me feel indescribably alive. I get to work.
*
Stella hated the hassles of departures and arrivals. She had packed her luggage two days earlier; she was dressed and ready to go. Now we just sipped coffee.
“You have some gray hair,” she said suddenly, while trimming the stems of a dozen freesias she had just picked from the garden.
“Thank you,” I said half-sarcastically and got up to refill my cup. I wasn’t offended, but her remark sounded almost like reproach.
“Don’t mention it.” She ignored my tone. “I like you this way.”<
br />
“What way?” I secretly glanced at her.
“This way.” She smiled as if there was someone else in the room besides the two of us, with whom she was communicating silently.
“You like me this way, with . . . gray hair?” Opening the refrigerator door to grab the milk, I managed to steal another glimpse of her under my arm.
“The gray has nothing to do with whether I like you or not. We should be over the gray already, shouldn’t we?” She arranged the freesias in the small vase with fresh water.
“I’m still not over it.” I said. “Do you want more coffee?”
“No, thank you. But could you bring the sugar, please?” I went to the sofa and sat next to her. She put three spoonfuls of sugar in the vase.
“They’ll last longer this way.”
“Can I drive you to the airport?” I knew what the answer would be, but offered anyway.
“I don’t want you to.”
“It’s on my way to work.”
“Please,” she said firmly.
“I’ll miss you,” I say after a pause. I knew I shouldn’t have said it, but I did.
“You need to be alone. You need to decide what to do with your life.” And with that, she ended the conversation, got up, and tapped the tip of my nose with her index finger as if turning something on. She smiled that smile of hers again, wrapped the long, blue, sequined scarf around her neck, and tossed her favorite black bag with the little skulls over her shoulder.
Then the cab arrived. The driver was chewing gum and smelled like aftershave. While he was fitting one of her suitcases in the trunk, one of his shoes came untied. He bent over to tie it and I loaded the second suitcase. It wasn’t heavy.
Then we kissed and she slammed the door on the end of her blue scarf. I went to knock on the window, but then stopped as a warm feeling came over me. I smiled, watching the car pull away, with the blue scarf with its tiny sequins waving good-bye, like in a melodrama.
*
—what happened, zack? it was supposed to be short. i’m cold, and hungry
—just stay like this, this is the last shot
—how many times have i heard you say that!
—last one
—zack?
—yes
—i have something very important to tell you . . .
—can you wait ‘til after this shot?
*
Buzzing, buzzing, buzzing. Ring. Ringing. Doorbell. I lift my head up. I had fallen asleep sitting in a chair, with my head buried between a tray of Dektol developer and a tray of Ilford fixing solution.
Ringing, buzzing, ringing. I get up, stretch my numb body, my head hurts from the chemical fumes, the messed-up doorbell half-buzzes, half-rings. I find the button and push it. I hear the elevator, I open the door. Danny seems pale. Upset.
“Hey, where’s the fire?” I try to joke. He doesn’t answer. He comes inside. He fusses about, looks very upset, more upset than ever, he can hardly stay in one place.
“We’ve got go.” He stops in front of one of the photos I’ve left to dry.
“Danny,” I say. “I’m starving.”
“What have you done?” Danny’s eyes start moving from picture to picture, the whole space is now filled with images—from 5-by-7s to gigantic 36-by-50-inch enlargements as big as the posters in a teenager’s room—the desolate places, the highways, Melody, empty streets, mailboxes, faces, diners, people, desert, trailers, raindrops on the windshield, skies, woods, barns, buildings, people, faces, people . . . Danny looks at them carefully, touching the drying paper with the back of his hand. “You took all these? With what?”
“Is it that bad?”
“It’s as if you were taking photos for the last time!” Danny squints, standing in front of the sheets of paper curled by the dry air.
“As if for the first time or for the last?” The truth is that I got ecstatic last night when I discovered the huge quantities of Lumina—my favorite fiber-based photo paper that’s been out of production since the end of the nineties. Obviously, Hito had supplied himself with this high-quality paper, made of nothing but natural ingredients. You can pull the best medium values out of it, the most vibrant nuances of gray. I notice, however, that Danny is very, very upset.
He suddenly grabs me by the wrists and tries to look into my eyes. “I know everything.”
That said about medium values, the shades of gray and life, I’m thinking about the iconic images of stars—Marilyn Monroe, Che Guevara, Levsky, Elvis. “You know everything?” The truth about stars is that they don’t need medium values. The best way to create a star is to get rid of the medium values, to increase the contrast and to reduce the face to its characteristic eyes, lips, hair, mustache. To dark and light.
“Everything. I know everything.” Danny is worrying me, he’s digging his nails into my wrists, his knuckles are white.
“Chill, man. Of course you know everything. We all know everything we need to know.” Danny tries to say something. I guess he’s trying to tell me something important. All of a sudden he bursts into tears like a baby. He lets go of my wrists and embraces me.
“I know everything about . . . Stella. About you and Stella.”
“What do you know about Stella?” I say and feel the knot.
“I know. I’m sorry, Zack. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry about Stella.” Suddenly, Danny hits me on the chest, and then again and again on the chest. “But why didn’t you tell me? Why the hell didn’t you tell me?
“What did you need to know?”
“Why didn’t you tell me that she’s gone?! She’s gone? She’s . . .”
“Dead?”
“Dead.”
“You didn’t ask. But now that you mention it—yes, it’s true, Stella has been dead to me since . . . uh . . . for almost two weeks.”
“She’s not dead to you, stupid! She’s not dead only to you! Stella is dead, dead, dead, dead, dead! To you, to me, to herself, to everybody. She’s dead, gone!” Danny is crying. “Wake up!” Danny is trying to stop crying. “I called friends in California. I called Tony. He told me how it happened.” Danny grabs my shoulders. “Stella died in a car accident on her way to the airport! Stella died in an accident, Zack! Stella is dead. She died there, on the freeway. Tony said you went crazy, you turned off your phone, and you wouldn’t talk to anybody. Not a single one of your friends could reach you. I found out that you’d disappeared. They told me about the fire, about your house. You need help, brother. You need help . . .” The cell phone in Danny’s pocket rings. “You need . . .” He sniffles, rubs his eyes. “Let’s go. We have to . . . We’ll come back later. We have to go, we have to . . .” His cell keeps ringing. “We have to get the bag, to take it to . . .” Danny is confused, the cell phone is ringing. Danny is more confused than me. His Adam’s apple jumps up and down. Danny reaches into his pocket, pulls out a Nokia, takes a deep breath, and wipes his eyes on his sleeve. “Yes. When? But, Boss, it’s too . . .” Danny looks at his watch. “What? No, I’m OK. I just got a cold, a flu, that’s all. Yes. I got it. We’ll be there.”
*
Taxi cab.
It’s getting dark.
It’s Halloween.
I didn’t know.
I knew that Halloween was coming but I didn’t know that today was Halloween.
Today is Halloween.
People in masks all over the streets.
We have to wear masks, too.
I tug on Danny’s sleeve.
“We have to wear masks, Danny.”
Danny gives me that look. The look I couldn’t stand in California when Stella . . . after Stella, which was the reason I ran away and came here. Nobody is supposed to look at me like that.
I open the cab door. Not that I want to jump out while it’s moving, but I simply can’t stay in a car where people look at me with that look.
The taxi driver gets mad and kicks us out somewhere around 36th and Lexington. Why?
All around us there are people in c
ostumes—nurses, vampires, witches, bitches, Neanderthals, cowboys, Darth Vaders, Gene Simonses, angels, devils, Grim Reapers, maids, Batmans . . . It’s getting cold.
A traffic light with a red figure reads: DON’T WALK.
We walk, then stop.
On the other side, a guy dressed as a huge yellow telephone is handing out fliers.
In a puddle on the asphalt I see the star of Empire Sate Building trembling. I’ve never been in the Empire State Building. Stella used to call it Vampire State Building. Stella liked playing with names. I want to go into the Empire State Building. I have to go up the Empire State Building before they destroy it, too. I tell Danny that I just saw the Empire State Building in a puddle. He isn’t paying attention to what I’m saying.
“I want us to go up in the Empire State Building!”
“No.”
“OK then. Hey everybody-y-y-y-y-y-y-y-y-y-y, this big bag here is full of marijuana-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a!!!” I start yelling. Danny turns to me and gives me a look as if I’m insane. “Pe-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-ople! Here.” I point to the bag over my friend’s shoulder. “This is gandja-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a.”
Danny puts his hand over my mouth. Not that anyone’s paying attention to us, but still, he shuts me up.
We get in line at the entrance to the Empire State Building.
*
There had been a fatal accident on the freeway and traffic had stopped. After that, they probably drove too fast to get to the airport on time. At Laurel Avenue and Cass Street, a floral-shop van made a left turn on red. The cab driver hit the brakes, honked his horn, managed to avoid a collision, spun ninety degrees, and came to a stop. Stella’s body, with no seat belt on, hit the divider behind the front seat from the momentum. The Yellow Cab had stopped sideways in the middle of the road. Passersby and people witnessing the accident sighed with relief—thank God, nothing had happened. The driver turned to see if Stella was all right. She gave him an OK sign, smiled, and put her seat belt on. She pulled out her cell phone. Then a black semi doing sixty miles an hour and carrying a platform with layers of totaled cars hit the side she was on. The intersection cameras captured the moment when the taxi driver flew out of the car as in a Chagall painting. He got away with two fractured ribs. They managed to pull out Stella’s severed body half an hour later, only after cutting the car.
18% Gray Page 23
