The women were young and they were very well put together. Nylons, foundation, rouge, shadow, nails teased by file and by lacquer into thoroughly useless ornaments, their white teeth flickering in the twilight like dissociate advertisements on a projection screen. The women were all brunettes with their hair done up in the same way, and though I could not see all their eyes from where I sat, what eyes I did see were of a such an accomplished blackness that I had to furnish the pupils by induction. The uniforms were all high skirts and low necks and long leggings setting off lush expanses of taut, disciplined and possibly fraudulent flesh. I looked at the girl next to me and asked what kind of production we were in for.
"Oh, it's for an airline. We're shooting a safety video."
"Ah. Now I get it. You gals are flight attendants."
"Not quite," she said. "We're models dressed as flight attendants."
"Even better than the real thing, huh?" She smiled.
I turned and looked out the window. Our burgundy boat was slowing. There was a break in the fence. The driver took the turn and the traffic spikes at speed and the vehicle wallowed as it started down the access road. At first it looked like it was going to be more of the same, just the barren clearing and a straight road running down it. Gradually a series of low, long buildings came into view through the windscreen. They must have been several miles down from the access gate. Suddenly, as if born of a hallucination, I could also see a great many indistinct forms strewn over the wide and flat land. It was hard to make out what they were in the deepening gloom, but they suggested machinery reverted to their more primitive constituents by destruction.
As we neared the buildings a sudden wind gusted off the plain and shivered over the car, trailing behind it a great wake of dust that blotted out the plain and the forms on it, the buildings and the sky; blotted out everything, in fact, but the coarse neck of the driver, the dapper neck of the man in the suit, and the lovely progression of slender necks and shoulders ranged along the bench in front of me. The driver did not slow, nor did the women cease speaking in low voices. By the time the veil of dust had lifted we had pulled up in front of a gray prefabricated building and it was almost night.
The man in the suit got out of the vehicle and we piled out in turn. He looked first at the sky, then out over the darkness of the plain, and then at his watch.
"All right girls. It may take a long time to get this right. Now follow me in." He turned on his heel and went for the door, which stood unlocked. There was no lettering or signage of any kind on the building. He ducked in, trailed by the girls. I remained with the driver and the wide emptiness and the cold. The working man was leaning against the hood smoking a cigarette. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a flask. I looked at him and could feel my lips working. He turned his back to me and spat contemptuously before I'd worked up something to say. I turned to take in the scene before following up the crew. Just beyond the building was a hulking black form like the one I'd seen on the cover of the old newspaper, uncommunicative in its gloom, a dead end.
Aside from a small lobby area with two bathrooms and a pantry, the interior of the building was a single cavernous space. In the middle of it stood a raised platform supporting a section of aircraft fuselage that was surrounded by cameras and lighting equipment. The man in the suit had taken off his jacket and draped it over one of the seats. He was pacing up and down the aisle counting steps and muttering to himself. The women had taken up positions against a wall on a deracinated row of airplane seats, their crossed legs composed into a helix of platonic loins. The uniforms, the hair color, black eyes framed in the white skin that sleeved those delicate cheekbones. It would be hard, I thought--down to the shapes of the points made by their kneecaps--it would be hard to find six women anywhere who looked so much alike.
"You," the man said. "Grip." I turned. "What's your name?"
"Benjamin," I said. "Benjamin Hornugrad."
"All right, all right. Ben. Your last name doesn't concern me. I'm Rick Riddeking, director, producer and what have you. And we are making a film here. I normally deal in arthouse films, but I'm not a one-trick pony, and I see this as an opportunity to get into something both more and less real. I gather you've gathered we're making an on-board safety video, and that's so. At first I was just going to have you move things around and hand us water when we're parched, but there's something about your face and your frame that's...how to put this? You have something downright reassuring about you, something just so. So I think we're going to have you play pilot as well, how does that sound? You don't need to say more than a line or two. Other than that it's just a matter of sitting there and being what you are. You're wondering what's in it for you, I can tell. I'll tell you what. A couple of meals and a couple of bucks. Maybe even a beer. Which is a lot better than you would have done out on that road, am I right?"
I considered what he said and then nodded.
"Chock full of words, aren't we? That's good, that's the pilot type all over. So we have a deal?"
"Sure," I said. "Deal." We clasped hands.
"And listen." He leaned in as if to speak confidentially. "Don't mind Jenks, I mean the driver. He's been with me for a long time. He's got a little temper and a big drinking problem. He also hates just about everyone who doesn't drive for a living. Of course he hates most of them too, to hear him swear at them, but other than that he's all right. So--why don't you start by seeing if the girls have everything they need?"
Friday, July 31, 2009
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Safety Film, Part I
"...a vast work had been constructed for imminent horrors...I did ask here and there about it, but I was given no answer."
G. Vidal
The place was unknown to me, but it was nothing out of the ordinary. I won't say it was entirely familiar, but what place is, really. The roadshoulder was fractured and weedsprung, wavering in its covenant with wheel and tread under the steady push of dereliction. Almost every step had sprouted accidental shrubberies, miniature ecotopes of thistle, camphor and grasses that both padded my footfall and threatened to snare or trip me. My way gleamed secretly with shards of glass and quartz that were brilliant or dim, sharp or dull, and either brown or green or clear. The roadbed was of new black tar. There was no traffic on it, none, not a single car or truck through the hours I'd been wobbling along its cracked margin. Nor had the prospect the road offered changed in the slightest in that time: A perfectly straight, perfectly black run without relief or feature, marching clear to a horizon that winked and dished uneasily with the distance. Theoretical road, ideal thoroughfare. On either side stretched gigantic fields of corn, wheat and other grains. Only rarely could I see the hint of a barn or silo clamped by the vise of field and sky down stretches of what seemed like impossible distance. Far down the fields, too, I could see vaulted irrigation equipment spanning the anonymous bounty like rainbows of steel. At points the work of great machines was marked by standing columns of faint dust and diesel. I did not know where the road was going. I was not in a position to, having awoken with no memory of how I'd come to the little grassy hollow where I'd slept. The road was not signposted, and as I marched hour on hour through the day I looked in vain for any sign that the sameness would abate. The only signage was in the trash that lay windrowed along my passage. Wrappers, bottles, sunbleached bags. Batteries and dessicated fruitrinds. Mufflers, springs, cans, bolts, all of it labeled, branded and promulgated in gaudy language addressed to men possessed of more credence than I. Once I stooped to retrieve a newspaper crucified on a thornbush. The masthead put it five years in the past, printed in a city five hundred miles to the south. Under a headline reading "No Survivors" was a photograph of a mangled wreckage so utterly deformed that it might as well have been an abstraction. I walked on, counting my thistles and shards.
I did not notice when exactly the low farm fence gave way. But given way it had, on the side I was walking on at least, to a high chainlink fence crowned by sinister helices of razorous steel that guarded the threshold to a vast and barren clearing. I could see no buildings on the clearing, no machines, and no activity. It was summer, but the day carried a steely chill that had all but silenced the insistent surge of cricketsong, and I was considering raking together some weeds and papers to sleep on as the sun leveled with the earth and readied to forsake it. I looked about and considered. There was no cover on either side, nor any ditch or gutter, and no easy way past the fence. Just the endless avenue hemmed on either side and redolent of some gantlet to come. I walked on. At some point the sound of a car breached the oceanic monotony of the wind and footfall. I turned around to watch it approach. It was a large sport utility vehicle painted burgundy, and it was going fast. I could not see inside as it rushed by in full solo stampede. I stood sconced in the turbulent dust of its wake when I saw the brakelights come on. The truck stopped and reversed back up the road. I remained in place and looked on as it drew alongside me. The tinted passenger window sucked down into the enormous door and revealed a man in a crisp suit.
"Hey," he said. "You busy?"
"Not particularly."
"How would you like to be an extra and a grip in a film I'm shooting?"
I looked past him into the car. The man at the wheel had the detached air of a professional livery driver. Behind them sat a row of women wearing identical uniforms.
"Sure," I said. "What'll you offer?"
He gave me what I think they call a frank look. "It looks like just about anything we give you would be enough," he said. "Hop in."
The door behind his opened and I saw that there were in fact two rows of women in uniform. Those in the back were arranging themselves to make room for me. They inspired a feeling of tranquility. I gave the man a nod before climbing in and taking my place among the hindmost.
The driver fixed me with a look from the rearview. "Wouldye look what the cat dragged in."
G. Vidal
The place was unknown to me, but it was nothing out of the ordinary. I won't say it was entirely familiar, but what place is, really. The roadshoulder was fractured and weedsprung, wavering in its covenant with wheel and tread under the steady push of dereliction. Almost every step had sprouted accidental shrubberies, miniature ecotopes of thistle, camphor and grasses that both padded my footfall and threatened to snare or trip me. My way gleamed secretly with shards of glass and quartz that were brilliant or dim, sharp or dull, and either brown or green or clear. The roadbed was of new black tar. There was no traffic on it, none, not a single car or truck through the hours I'd been wobbling along its cracked margin. Nor had the prospect the road offered changed in the slightest in that time: A perfectly straight, perfectly black run without relief or feature, marching clear to a horizon that winked and dished uneasily with the distance. Theoretical road, ideal thoroughfare. On either side stretched gigantic fields of corn, wheat and other grains. Only rarely could I see the hint of a barn or silo clamped by the vise of field and sky down stretches of what seemed like impossible distance. Far down the fields, too, I could see vaulted irrigation equipment spanning the anonymous bounty like rainbows of steel. At points the work of great machines was marked by standing columns of faint dust and diesel. I did not know where the road was going. I was not in a position to, having awoken with no memory of how I'd come to the little grassy hollow where I'd slept. The road was not signposted, and as I marched hour on hour through the day I looked in vain for any sign that the sameness would abate. The only signage was in the trash that lay windrowed along my passage. Wrappers, bottles, sunbleached bags. Batteries and dessicated fruitrinds. Mufflers, springs, cans, bolts, all of it labeled, branded and promulgated in gaudy language addressed to men possessed of more credence than I. Once I stooped to retrieve a newspaper crucified on a thornbush. The masthead put it five years in the past, printed in a city five hundred miles to the south. Under a headline reading "No Survivors" was a photograph of a mangled wreckage so utterly deformed that it might as well have been an abstraction. I walked on, counting my thistles and shards.
I did not notice when exactly the low farm fence gave way. But given way it had, on the side I was walking on at least, to a high chainlink fence crowned by sinister helices of razorous steel that guarded the threshold to a vast and barren clearing. I could see no buildings on the clearing, no machines, and no activity. It was summer, but the day carried a steely chill that had all but silenced the insistent surge of cricketsong, and I was considering raking together some weeds and papers to sleep on as the sun leveled with the earth and readied to forsake it. I looked about and considered. There was no cover on either side, nor any ditch or gutter, and no easy way past the fence. Just the endless avenue hemmed on either side and redolent of some gantlet to come. I walked on. At some point the sound of a car breached the oceanic monotony of the wind and footfall. I turned around to watch it approach. It was a large sport utility vehicle painted burgundy, and it was going fast. I could not see inside as it rushed by in full solo stampede. I stood sconced in the turbulent dust of its wake when I saw the brakelights come on. The truck stopped and reversed back up the road. I remained in place and looked on as it drew alongside me. The tinted passenger window sucked down into the enormous door and revealed a man in a crisp suit.
"Hey," he said. "You busy?"
"Not particularly."
"How would you like to be an extra and a grip in a film I'm shooting?"
I looked past him into the car. The man at the wheel had the detached air of a professional livery driver. Behind them sat a row of women wearing identical uniforms.
"Sure," I said. "What'll you offer?"
He gave me what I think they call a frank look. "It looks like just about anything we give you would be enough," he said. "Hop in."
The door behind his opened and I saw that there were in fact two rows of women in uniform. Those in the back were arranging themselves to make room for me. They inspired a feeling of tranquility. I gave the man a nod before climbing in and taking my place among the hindmost.
The driver fixed me with a look from the rearview. "Wouldye look what the cat dragged in."
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