Читать книгу Antkind: A Novel - Charlie Kaufman - Страница 19

I LOAD THE GIANT truck, excitedly imagining myself at the presentation soon to occur in my publisher’s office. There I will be, smack dab in the center of New York’s famed Film Criticism District (7th between 25th and the middle of the block, facing uptown, east side of the street). It’s not unheard of to spot Davin Plum or Amodell Kingsley on the street here wandering, pens in hand, deep in lofty thought. Soon I, too, will be wandering thusly, unaware that I am being gawked at by some ambitious unknown upstart. Plum, Kingsley, Rosenberg. A respectful nod as we pass each other on that bustling thoroughfare.

The drive to New York is different from the drive down here. As I haul this massive U-Haul filled with Ingo’s masterpiece and all the extant props and sets including the retrieved Unseen, I think only of the movie. In a very real sense, I am a different person now and am continuing to evolve as the film dances in my head. The Slammy’s cashier is no longer a concern. Let her think I’m Jewish or old or any of a number of other terrible things. I am with purpose now. I am immune. Ingo’s movie is my inoculation. It is my manna from heaven. I feast on it, my mind a pinball machine: Wait, what about this scene? What about that moment? Who was that character? A second viewing is in order. A third. Backward and upside down as well. It will take a year, maybe longer (time is of no importance, for it does not exist in the way the former B. thought). I will know this film. I will become its advocate, its adherent, its foremost priest. Those who want to submit to it—and they will be legion—will submit to my interpretation. There will be pretenders to my throne, but I welcome their attempts at overthrow. Have at me, fellas. I will always win. I am the only one who knew Ingo. I was his best friend, when you come down to it. I took him to the hospital. I was his emergency medical contact. I am the one who attended his funeral. I alone penned his epitaph. I wrote the book. That’s right. Literally, I wrote the book on Ingo. Have at me.

As I near Slammy’s, I am put in mind of the insects that had splattered my windshield. Oddly, troublingly even, there are no insects now. Has the world changed so much during the several months I’ve been in Florida? That we are in the midst of an environmental crisis, a mass extinction, is of no surprise to any thinking person, but what occurs to me at this moment in an epiphanic burst is that there is a mass cultural extinction as well. The pesticides in this case are ego and ambition and greed. One wants one’s seed to grow at the expense of others, and so one destroys the ecosystem of ideas. As much as one wants to be able to see through one’s windshield, if the insects are gone, the entire ecosystem collapses. So it is in the world of ideas in which I travel. I am not entirely clear on this train of thought, but it feels profound. Perhaps it is this: Perhaps I have been influenced by Ingo’s intense privacy, his resistance to the trappings of fame. I consider my own dual nature. The art is of paramount importance to me, of course, but perhaps on some level I do covet celebrity. Clearly it is not a primary mover in my psyche, but I suspect it is there, buried, lurking. The movie has lain bare those needs and the damage they may cause. Do I truly want to make this movie known in defiance of the artist’s wishes? Am I serving a crass god (goddess, thonness) here? The windshield is clean because the insects have been killed for our convenience, for our profit margins. No. If I am to share this film with the world, it must only happen once my own motives are clear to me. Until I know with certainty I am not motivated by self-aggrandizement, I must protect the world from my self-interest.

I consider the following:

Let’s face it, animals make noise. They demand attention. They make more noise than vegetables, which in turn make more noise than minerals. So the animals, especially the humans, are inherently dramatic. They are not more important but believe they are. This is something one learns almost immediately when one studies Linnaeus. Classification is just that. There is no hierarchy. Every element is weighted exactly the same, exactly. A simple analogy would be to try to determine which part of a ball is most important. There is no answer because the question makes no sense. You might think it is unfair that humans get the most attention, rewarding the screamers, the squeaky wheel getting the grease, but then you have to ask, unfair to whom? The human is the part of the ball that gets the attention: The human is the part of the ball that hits the ground first in a bounce, but it is the whole ball that deforms.—DEBECCA DEMARCUS, Solving for X

And just like that, a burden is lifted from my soul. God bless Debecca. I am serene. I am happy. I call my girlfriend to tell her of my thoughts. She does not pick up. I pound on the truck horn.

SLAMMY’S BY DAY is a whole different creature: a bright, cheerful roadside beacon. Its mascot, a smiling and proud bipedal hammer donning a red superhero cape and blue unitard with a big “Slammy’s” emblazoned across his chest and holding a hamburger and a spatula and seemingly being chased by an unseen assailant, appears welcoming from atop the establishment’s fluorescent signage. I should stop, maybe order one of their famous Slammy’s Original Boardwalk Colas, Biggy-size, as a treat, as sustenance, as a tip of the hat goodbye to the region.

(Maybe she’ll be working today.)

(But I don’t care.)

(But maybe.)

After all, one cannot find a single Slammy’s north of Dock Junction. Maybe with my eventual newfound fame and fortune, I could introduce Slammy’s to the tristate area. Although I will not be seeking said fame and fortune until such time as I know for certain that I do not in any way want it. Only then will I seek it.

And if that ever happens, it might impress her. Perhaps I could even bring her up north as a regional manager. I could introduce her to my African American girlfriend and we could all hang out on weekends.

I maneuver my rental truck into the lot and park it at the far end in the weeds, since it won’t fit within the painted lines of the spaces and I am not a rude person. I am a good person. I am good.

Maybe she’s looking out the window and sees that I am good.

My trek on foot from the far end of the lot to the restaurant is brutal. My shoes stick to the melted tar. It has to be well over one hundred degrees out, and by the time I reach the door, I am dripping with sweat. Not the best way to make a second impression.

She’s there, behind the counter, same outfit, same expression. But I am different now, and I think she notices. I approach her with a spring in my step and a playful glint in my eyes.

“Hello!” I say.

“Welcome to Slammy’s. May I help you?”

“It’s good to see you again!” I say.

The restaurant is still empty or empty again (perhaps between this time and last time it had many, many customers). The same young man pokes his head out from the back, eyes me with the same suspicion, then disappears similarly.

“May I help you?” she says.

“Do you remember me? I’m the fellow who needed the water and paper towels three or so months ago.”

“May I take your order?”

“The fellow who needed to wipe the bugs off his windshield?”

“May I help you?”

“Yes,” I say and scan the menu behind her for new items, specials, soups du jour. There are none today. “I’ll have a Slammy’s Original Boardwalk Cola—”

“What si—”

“Biggy. And a … How is the Slammy’s Double El Mexicano Taco Burger?”

She punches some buttons on her cash register.

“Anything else?”

“My apologies. I was asking what you thought of the taco burger. I hadn’t yet order—”

“So, what, you don’t want El Mex?”

“I don’t know. I just wanted … Listen, are you a fan of movies?”

“I’m not going to no movies with you, mister.”

“No, I just … That’s my truck out there—well, it’s a rental—and it’s filled with a movie I discovered, made by an African American gentleman from St. Augustine. Perhaps you knew him. It’s animated.”

Blank stare.

“Like a cartoon?” I say.

“I know what animated is.”

“Of course. I didn’t mean to suggest—anyway, the man died and I’m taking his movie up to New York to study it further. All his puppets and props and sets are in the truck as well. It’s fully packed but I can pull some items out if you want to see. The craftsmanship is extraordinary. He was African American. As is my girlfriend. As are you.”

“The movie about fire?”

She’s interested!

“Yes, actually. Funny you should ask. There is a major conflagration at the end. You like movies about fire, do you?”

“Not really.”

“Oh. Then why did you ask that question?”

I’m suddenly a bit testy.

“I just figured since there’s smoke, maybe you were hauling the movie fire or something.”

“I’m sorry, there’s—?”

I turn to see smoke billowing out of the truck.

“Jesus!”

I run for the door.

“I figured it might be like Cocteau,” she says. “They once asked him what he would take from a burning house—”

“I know the quote!”

“His answer was, I would take the fire. That’s what made me think maybe you were taking the fire. Like Cocteau.”

I’m in love with her, but there is no time.

I try to tear across the parking lot, having to pull my feet free of the tar with each step, and attempt to open the back, but the handle is extraordinarily hot and I must jerk my hand away. I rip off my shirt, wrap my hand in it, and try again. I manage to open it, but the air rushing in causes a backdraft (also a dismal movie, by the way, directed by Ronson Howard, which somehow manages to make fighting fires both tedious and inexplicably colorless) and throws me hard against the windshield of my hitched automobile. My head pounds against it and I am reminded again of the splattered bugs. I look back and see a spot of blood where my head hit in the very same northwest quadrant that the mysterious drone bug hit. I, too, have left my essence on the windshield. But there is little or no time for waxing philosophical now.

I force myself toward the noxious, billowing smoke in an attempt to save what I can of Ingo’s film. It fills my eyes, my mouth, my lungs. I can’t see. I can’t think. As the remainder of my clothes burn from my body, I am reminded of the 1911 film version of Dante’s L’Inferno by Bertolini, Padovan, and de Liguoro, especially because of the naked writhing figures, which are similar to what I have now become, but also because of the hellfire. It was an extraordinary film for its time and the first feature-length film to come out of Italy. My beard is singed. I can see nothing but smoke. I am further reminded of the fortune-tellers in Dante’s Inferno who must walk forward with heads facing backward as punishment for their divinations in the world of the living. Truly, the experience in its entirety puts me in mind of hell. I fear I am dying, and as I become faint from the blistering heat and oxygen starvation, a strange thing happens. Something flashes before my eyes, but, no, it is not my life. It is Ingo’s film. I watch it again, perfectly remembered, every detail, every camera angle, every facial tic, every line of dialogue, every musical cue, every extended dance number. It’s almost as if I am being informed that his film is my true life and that this life is now over. Still, miraculously, I push forward, courageous in ways I never before imagined myself (I have imagined myself to be courageous in certain ways, especially in speaking truth to power and on certain carnival rides). For Ingo’s film is now my baby, and as its mother, I must do the impossible to save it. I must lift, with superhuman strength, this metaphorical truck under which my metaphorical baby is trapped, even though in this case, the truck is on fire and the baby is inside it, so it’s not a perfect analogy. My baby, my baby, my baby is the chant in my head as I pull myself up into this towing inferno. Then nothing. It is an indescribable nothingness that can perhaps be best described as nothing. Just as the concept of zero was revolutionary in the history of mathematics, so must the concept of nothing be understood by future humans sometime in the future. I am experiencing nothing, which on the surface might seem oxymoronic: the notion of experiencing the negation of experience. But I am indeed, and I shall attempt to communicate it. Imagine a vast room with nothing in it. Go on. Now subtract the room. Now take away yourself imagining it. Now take away yourself imagining you’ve taken away yourself imagining it. Now repeat that process again and again and again. Now take away the concept of time that allows for the notion of “again and again and again.” This is nothing.