he said. “I don’t like you being here, I don’t like what you and Sylvia are doing, but this is her call, and whatever makes her happy, you know.” At 12:01 P.M . Jamie started to film, discreetly, he hoped. The coffin would stand as the final shot.
“Me going into the earth,” Sylvia had said.
“You going into the earth,” Jamie had said.
But here he was, six months later, checking for a sprout.
Jamie sat in the minivan, waiting on Myron Doty, who was late, but who could begrudge a man named Myron Doty, particularly when the man resembled the Myron Doty type, unimagined until the moment of introduction. Myron operated a ski lift in the winter and buried bodies in the summer. “I take ’em up. I take ’em down. I’m cold when they go up and I’m warm when they go down.” Jamie liked Myron, but then again Jamie provided favorable weather conditions for people like Myron to thrive, much like the panhandle of Florida. During our sophomore year I remember when Jamie quit painting (he was quite talented) and picked up a video camera instead. Almost instantly his weekly Sunday night Ecce Homo movies attracted a cult following, the screenings migrating from dorm room to coffee shop to midnight showings at the York on Broadway. His piece on Lord God, the New Haven street preacher/celebrity impersonator, created a minor stir around campus. Was this exploitation of a poor deluded black man or a happy vehicle for creative self-expression? Who knew and who cared, because it was funny and it was real and soon after Jamie found a white actor to play Lord God and he did a shot-for-shot remake and spliced the two together, like a Siamese double feature. More outrage followed—this was Yale, after all—but the movie became a hit on the festival circuit and even won an award at Telluride. For a brief moment Jamie Dyer, filmmaker son of the reclusive novelist, was the school’s most famous undergrad, until an actress took his place. During his senior year Jamie began to investigate the rougher neighborhoods around New Haven in search of similar characters sporting hardertruths. He had this vision of a reenacted documentary titled
The Pin Tumblers
, using a Yale lock as his visual metaphor, but somewhere in the process, maybe when he saw that teenager get stabbed or watched that mother stare at her crying baby, stare without doing anything, something in him shifted, something infinitesimal yet essential—a matter of perspective, I suppose—and whatever life Jamie was trying to capture became stuck in his own head. He started to consider himself a professional witness, a type of superhero bystander, powerless yet unblinking. To me it seemed he was overcompensating for his natural optimism, which he distrusted. The films became darker. Fewer and fewer people attended those Sunday night screenings. I remember once telling him I no longer understood the point.
“What do you mean?” he said.
“I just watched ten dogs get euthanized and for what reason?”
“What reason? Maybe because it happens.”
“But to what end? It’s not cathartic, it’s just sad. Toss in some narrative. Interview the ASPCA guy. Give us a sense of his job, his daily routine, his coping in the face of all that death. Denounce the practice. I don’t know, but say something I can hang my hat on.”
“But that’s a lie.”
“No,” I said. “That’s life without the
f
.”
“I know what you can do with that
f
.”
“I’m almost serious,” I said.
“Almost, huh? The safety of qualifiers. So what do you suggest, Philip, that we follow this guy home, that we see him make dinner, feed his kids, walk his own dog, see him wake up the next morning and start his day all over again? Is that what you require, oh audience? Because that feels ridiculous to me, feels like a device, a filter, even worse, a manipulation. Should we also follow the dogs on the street, or in their loving homes, humanize them as well? I’m not looking for art here.
“Me going into the earth,” Sylvia had said.
“You going into the earth,” Jamie had said.
But here he was, six months later, checking for a sprout.
Jamie sat in the minivan, waiting on Myron Doty, who was late, but who could begrudge a man named Myron Doty, particularly when the man resembled the Myron Doty type, unimagined until the moment of introduction. Myron operated a ski lift in the winter and buried bodies in the summer. “I take ’em up. I take ’em down. I’m cold when they go up and I’m warm when they go down.” Jamie liked Myron, but then again Jamie provided favorable weather conditions for people like Myron to thrive, much like the panhandle of Florida. During our sophomore year I remember when Jamie quit painting (he was quite talented) and picked up a video camera instead. Almost instantly his weekly Sunday night Ecce Homo movies attracted a cult following, the screenings migrating from dorm room to coffee shop to midnight showings at the York on Broadway. His piece on Lord God, the New Haven street preacher/celebrity impersonator, created a minor stir around campus. Was this exploitation of a poor deluded black man or a happy vehicle for creative self-expression? Who knew and who cared, because it was funny and it was real and soon after Jamie found a white actor to play Lord God and he did a shot-for-shot remake and spliced the two together, like a Siamese double feature. More outrage followed—this was Yale, after all—but the movie became a hit on the festival circuit and even won an award at Telluride. For a brief moment Jamie Dyer, filmmaker son of the reclusive novelist, was the school’s most famous undergrad, until an actress took his place. During his senior year Jamie began to investigate the rougher neighborhoods around New Haven in search of similar characters sporting hardertruths. He had this vision of a reenacted documentary titled
The Pin Tumblers
, using a Yale lock as his visual metaphor, but somewhere in the process, maybe when he saw that teenager get stabbed or watched that mother stare at her crying baby, stare without doing anything, something in him shifted, something infinitesimal yet essential—a matter of perspective, I suppose—and whatever life Jamie was trying to capture became stuck in his own head. He started to consider himself a professional witness, a type of superhero bystander, powerless yet unblinking. To me it seemed he was overcompensating for his natural optimism, which he distrusted. The films became darker. Fewer and fewer people attended those Sunday night screenings. I remember once telling him I no longer understood the point.
“What do you mean?” he said.
“I just watched ten dogs get euthanized and for what reason?”
“What reason? Maybe because it happens.”
“But to what end? It’s not cathartic, it’s just sad. Toss in some narrative. Interview the ASPCA guy. Give us a sense of his job, his daily routine, his coping in the face of all that death. Denounce the practice. I don’t know, but say something I can hang my hat on.”
“But that’s a lie.”
“No,” I said. “That’s life without the
f
.”
“I know what you can do with that
f
.”
“I’m almost serious,” I said.
“Almost, huh? The safety of qualifiers. So what do you suggest, Philip, that we follow this guy home, that we see him make dinner, feed his kids, walk his own dog, see him wake up the next morning and start his day all over again? Is that what you require, oh audience? Because that feels ridiculous to me, feels like a device, a filter, even worse, a manipulation. Should we also follow the dogs on the street, or in their loving homes, humanize them as well? I’m not looking for art here.
Similar Books
