Bridgetown, Issue #1: Arrival (10 page)

Any rules in the seventy-year-old institution
of cinema were due to be stripped off the walls like so much old
paint. The film students, therefore, viewed their professors as a
formality, a minor impediment to be dealt with in the course of
finally getting their hands on cameras, and time in the edit
bays.

Film was spliced, slashed, chopped,
scratched, and burned. Permits were disregarded. Juxtaposing
man-on-the-street interviews with scripted narrative became a trope
trotted out by so many students, eager to do something new, that it
just as quickly became old hat. The shelf life of novelty was
infinitesimal in this cauldron.

It was in this environment that Jesse Cole
began his final year of undergraduate study.

Well, Jesse told people it would be his final
year, though it wasn't the first time he'd made that claim. At
twenty-six, he was beginning to notice his interests diverging from
those of the younger students. They were so engaged in the
aforementioned intellectual dick-measuring contests that they'd
forgotten cinema had a utility beyond the confines of the
department's own screening rooms. They'd neglected to consider that
in these times, if you didn't have something to say, you might as
well just stay home.

This concern was occupying his mind as he sat
in a too-tiny classroom desk chair and watched Kevin Morris' last
project for the semester. Kevin Morris, the irritating,
self-satisfied douchebag whose record producer father had more
money than God.

Kevin's film was a series
of static shots of still photos, titled
Still Life No. Seven
:

A photo of a bird, a potted plant, a girl's
eye, a naked breast.

Then Kevin himself appeared in celluloid
glory, his eyes flitting back and forth.

The last frames of the film ran through the
projector, and abruptly cut to scratchy gray leader film.

"I hope installments one through six weren't
such bullshit," Jesse muttered under his breath, just loud enough
for those around him to hear.

The professor shot Jesse a look. "I encourage
intellectual disagreement in this classroom. But I do expect it to
be intellectual. You're going to have to clarify your thoughts on
Mr. Morris' work."

Jesse considered his words for a moment.
"It's not just you, Kev. Everyone who's screened tonight is trading
in cinematic masturbation."

The professor held up his hands. "Jesse—"

"Humor me," Jesse said. "We're sitting here
in our trust-fund privilege, patting ourselves on the backs for how
much we can fucking talk about Godard, and meanwhile, kids in
Vietnam are getting burned to death with American napalm."

The class was quiet.

"But you sit here and clap, and regurgitate
the same art theory bullshit that's been getting passed around for
twenty years because it's something new and shiny and you've just
discovered it."

The professor huffed. "Alright, alright,
Jesse. I think we all understand what you're saying," he said. "But
don't criticize everyone else for doing what they've been asked to
do—to experiment, to learn to use the language of the form—" He got
up from behind his pedestal and took a few steps forward, to the
center of the floor. "We all have to push the boundaries, we all
have to learn to wield the instruments before us, before we can
hope to make a real difference. And if you feel you are ready—and I
say this with full sincerity—than I look forward to seeing what you
have to show the class."

Jesse could feel the angry glare of the
others upon his back. He shrugged. "Gladly."

"What day are you showing? Thursday?"

"Yeah, Thursday. But, uh, there's going to be
a little sneak preview, if any of you are interested. Tomorrow
night. At the Hard Rock."

They weren't interested.

After the professor dismissed the class that
night, a girl Jesse hadn't met before hurried out to catch up to
him.

"Hey," she said, tapping on his shoulder. He
looked over at her. She was fresh-faced, girlish, with sandy hair.
She wore a long-sleeved lacy white top and a blue skirt that rode
up high, and had a white canvas bag slung over her shoulder. He
liked her already.

"Susanna," she said with a smile.

"Nice to meet you. I'd apologize for
insulting you just now," Jesse said, "But I know you're not
actually in that class."

She laughed. "Oh yeah, how would you know
that?"

"Well, for one thing," he said, "I'd have
noticed you before if you were." He could see her smirking out the
corner of his eye. "But besides that, I know your type."

"Really, now," she said with raised brows.
"And what's my type?"

"The type who skips out on her actual lecture
just to follow some guy to his class."

"You think I
followed
you
here?"

"No, I didn't say that. I said you followed
some guy."

"Well, who, then?"

Jesse gave her a look-over, as though probing
her physical cues for any hints. "Kevin Morris."

"Kevin Morris," she repeated. "The same Kevin
Morris you just tore into in front of the entire class."

"Yep," Jesse said, with a smug grin. "You
hoped to get in good with him, maybe bring up some small detail
about his project at a party later tonight, you know, ask him some
softball question about visual metaphors."

"Until I heard what you had to say, and
decided to fawn over you instead?"

Jesse stopped up in the middle of the hall.
"Hey, you said it, not me."

Susanna smiled, and looked down at the floor
for just a moment. "So you wanna buy me a drink or something?"

"Sorry, can't. I got work to do. Tell you
what though, you want my attention, give me your number. I could
use some help tomorrow getting set up at the Hard Rock."

"What's that all about, anyway?"

"You'll just have to find out."

Susanna laughed again, and shook her head.
"Alright," she said with a shrug. "What time?"

At six o'clock the following evening, the
West Coast sun had already set behind the December Pacific. Had
Jesse arrived just a few hours earlier to the dingy, Skid Row bar
by the name of the Hard Rock Cafe, he'd have rubbed shoulders with
the Doors while they posed for photos that would show up on their
album release the following year. But he hadn't, and instead heard
the story second-hand from the bartender as he plugged his amp into
the bar's power source. He wasn't into celebrity worship, but it
would have been at least novel to have a run-in with Jim
Morrison.

"You know," Jesse said to the bartender,
dangling a cigarette between his lips, "he graduated from the same
program I'm in right now."

"Oh yeah? What's that?"

"Film," Jesse replied. "At UCLA."

The bartender laughed. "No shit," he said. "I
didn't know they had school for that now. What do you do, watch
movies all day long?"

Jesse forced a laugh, rolling his eyes out of
the bartender's sight. He turned to Susanna, who was sitting on a
stool in the corner. She had opted to wear a bright blue top with a
matching skirt that barely went past her ass. "Hey, Suze," he said.
"Could you grab me the stinger out of the back of my car?"

Susanna got up and went to his car, parked in
front of the bar.

"Jeee-suz," the bartender said, his eyes
tracking the girl. "Say, how old is she, anyway?"

Jesse paused for a moment, and looked up at
the bartender. "I hadn't asked."

The bartender raised his brows. Jesse went
back to work setting up.

Forty minutes later, and the evening crowd
had begun to file in. Drinks were flowing, money was changing
hands, and the room was filling with smoke. Jesse's bandmates were
here, too, sound-checking while Jesse warmed up the crowd.

In the corner of the dive, Jesse wailed on
his yellow Strat, and gave Susanna the signal.

"Alright, everyone," he said into his mic,
his voice fuzzy with low-level analog interference, "Let's start
the show."

Susanna flicked the projector on. A
four-by-three field of halogen white light sprang to life and
framed Jesse onstage like a flickering spotlight. As he launched
into an electric rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner, his film
began to play over him:

He'd cut together found
footage. Newsreels, ephemera of the commercial world, television,
and nightly newscasts alike. Bombs were dropped over Hanoi, atomic
tests disappeared empty homes filled with dummy souls. Rock Hudson
sold you a car, while negroes were fire-hosed in the name of civil
order. It was a mashup of provocation and placating. In retrospect,
was it anything earth-shattering or truly revelatory? Maybe not.
Maybe it
was
just
middle-class navel gazing. But it felt like something
more.

And Susanna was infatuated.

Susanna, in fact, might've been falling in
love.

The attendees were enraptured by the display,
their unexpectant faces glazed over with the harrowing display of
violence and violent cross-cutting. Over the din of Jesse's music
and the chatter of the crowd, Susanna caught Jesse's eye contact
and shouted at him:

"It's fucking amazing! This is great!"

But he only shrugged while he continued to
wail on the guitar, and mouthed the words, "I. Can't. Hear.
You."

Susanna laughed, and took
the opportunity to have some fun. "Guess what? I
was
there for Kevin's
stupid movie!"

He shrugged again.

"And I'm still in high school!"

She was getting nothing from him.

"I'm seventeen!"

Jesse continued to play, and just gave her a
cursory smile, completely ignorant of anything she'd just said. He
turned back to the crowd. Susanna glanced to either side to see if
anyone had heard her. Nobody was paying attention. She downed the
rest of her drink and rested her chin on her hand, satisfied in
just how fucking cool she felt.

Then, the performance turned on its head.
Jesse's band abandoned their rendition of the patriotic song in
favor of a droning, dissonant, psychedelic piece that may or may
not have been improvised on the spot. Strobing frames of white were
spliced between images that became less abstractly violent and more
explicitly graphic. The bodies of soldiers lying in muddy fields.
Burnt children, crying in the smoldering ruins of their villages.
And all of this, collision-cut against hypersaturated footage of
sensual, fleshy bodies pressed against one another. Porno
shots.

The crowd was silenced quickly. They weren't
sure how to react to any of this now.

Susanna was fascinated. Enthralled, even, the
brazen display turning up the hairs on her neck.

Then the projector abruptly cut out.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," Susanna muttered to
herself. She checked the projector, flicked it on and off. Nothing.
"Sorry! Sorry."

She followed the trail of the power cord back
to the bar, all the way to the hand of a man in a black uniform.
The man was standing next to another stern-faced intruder.

They were LAPD.

Susanna gave a nervous smile.

The officer did not return the smile. "Don't
go anywhere," he told Susanna.

"That's enough," the second officer announced
to the whole room. "Clear out, everyone, show's over. Except for
the band, and the staff."

As it turned out, public display of illicit
pornography was frowned upon by the LAPD, and they didn't much want
to hear about First Amendment repurposing for the sake of social
commentary. Jesse and the band members were booked on obscenity
charges and sent to jail for the night. The owner of the bar let
Jesse know he wouldn't have his car towed—but also that, in no
uncertain terms, he couldn't have Jesse playing the Hard Rock in
the future.

Susanna explained to the cops that she hadn't
seen the film before and didn't know what it contained, and
thankfully, the officers believed her. She convinced them she'd
call a cab to take her "back to the dorms" at UCLA, and they let
her go with only a stern admonishment. Then she bailed Jesse and
his bandmates out with the previous week's coffee shop paycheck;
her spending money was in tips, anyway.

She led them back to her dad's car in the
vacant parking lot in front of the jailhouse. "Just cram in the
back," she said. "I'll take you back to Jesse's Jeep."

Before getting into the car, Jesse tugged on
Susanna's arm to get her attention. She looked up at him, and
realized she could soon find herself counting on having those
strangely intense gray eyes around. She cupped his head with her
hands, and gave him a kiss. A long, deep kiss. He tugged on her
lower lip with his teeth, playfully, and pulled away, smiling.

"Thanks," he said.

"No problem."

* * * *

Seventy years away, a version of Susanna five
years less naive stood on the back porch of her ranch house and
stared at Jesse as he watched the stars glimmer overhead.

"Hey."

Jesse turned to face her voice.

Standing on the porch, she could make out
only his silhouette. What expression was he wearing?

She realized she'd opened
her mouth to speak, but a gremlin had siphoned the statement from
her lips and her mind.
Radio
silence
.

Were it not for the desert's muted cry, she'd
have heard the creaks and pops of tiny muscle movements as her body
fought off the crosswinds.

Instead, she heard only the howling.

She took one step forward, then another,
towards Jesse.

Jesse's eyes were on her open her mouth. But
she did not speak.

The moonlight bounced off her silk nightgown
and gave her a faint, otherworldly glow.