End Vision, page 20
“Did she seem angry?”
“Andrew...honey. Of course she was angry. Who wouldn’t be? But you are missing the point. She was more worried than upset. She didn’t know what to do.”
“Did you give her the phone?”
“What? I just gave you the phone. Ramon called it. I answered it. He said you were with him. I picked you up at his place this morning and here we are.”
“Here we are...”
The waitress returned and laid a large black tray on an empty table beside them. “Alright, who do I hand these off to?” she asked. “Who had the Pile-On Nachos and who had the Move-The-Chains Meatloaf?”
The two picked at their meals. Patrick found the meatloaf to be a bit overworked, yet both agreed that the nachos were spot on. The chips remained crispy under the mountain of grilled chicken, cheddar, guacamole, black beans, sour cream, and pico de gallo.
“Generally, the downfall of the nacho is the soggy chip,” stated Patrick. “Once the chips get soggy, the integrity of the nacho disappears.”
Andrew agreed. He ate the nachos like a wild animal. Had it been two days since his last real meal? His body groaned at the introduction.
“As a Texan, I want your honest opinion: Is it still a nacho if you don’t eat with your hands?” asked Patrick.
“I would say yes. But eating nachos with a fork would be frowned upon, for sure.”
“How would you do it, then?”
“Do what?”
“Eat soggy nachos if you couldn’t use a fork.”
“Well, I guess I’d just take a chunk from the plate and roll it onto itself...like a quesadilla. Eat it that way.”
“Oh! That’s a good idea. I don’t think I would have thought of that.”
They ate and continued sipping their drinks. The grease from the nachos churned Andrew’s stomach like a slushie machine. In no way did he want to get diarrhea on the plane.
“This place looks a lot nicer than it tastes,” said Patrick, making a face.
“You know who John Elway is, right?”
“I’ve certainly heard the name. There seems a lot of football swag on the walls here. Was he a football player?”
“Quarterback. For a lot of years he was the quarterback.”
“And he played for Denver?”
“Yes. He is a goddamn legend in this city.”
“And so now he has restaurants. Interesting.”
“And he also owned — maybe still does — some auto dealerships. Dude is probably worth a hundred million dollars.”
Patrick’s eyes grew wide. “You see. That is how you market. Take a sports legend and get him to sell middle-aged men steaks and cars. Leverage that desire every man has to be the quarterback. Finding in this guy —John Elway— what they wanted in themselves, and projecting those hopes onto him and seeing him succeed.”
“You wanted to be quarterback? I figured you for a tight-end.”
Patrick smiled. “And you probably wanted to study comedy. But look at the point here. When his quarterback wins, the guy logging in at his nine-to-five gets to win, too. He feels as if he too succeeded. His guy is a winner, and it makes him feel good. Everybody wants to back a winner. But what happens after the quarterback’s career ends? A lot of guys grew up idolizing this guy, Elway. To them the name evokes a winner. It reminds the fan of winning. When they were winning. Then what do you get? Huh? A steakhouse. A place to buy cars. Places to reconnect with that past experience, that feeling of winning. The Good Ole’ Days. Did you look at that menu? Did you really see the menu? Elway’s Favorite Steak. John’s Salad. I’d bet you the next round of drinks that if you buy a truck from his car lot, you are driving out with a sticker on that truck that says Elway on it somewhere. Then, alright, maybe my life sucks...maybe I didn’t get all the things I wanted... maybe my kids are spoiled little assholes and my wife got fat and we don’t screw like we used to, but, by God...by The Hand of Elway! I can eat a steak with his name on it. Or say my blood pressure is too high now or my cholesterol is off-the-charts, so I order the salad. Elway eats it. Elway likes it. It says so right here on the menu — John’s Salad. I’m driving a truck a quarterback sold me. ‘Where did you get that truck?’ ‘Oh, I got it from John Elway’s.’ I get to drive around and eat like the man I could have been. The man I should have been if I’d had a shot, caught some better breaks. I want to keep him successful because his image has become a part of me. I’m tied to it in so many unseen ways I don’t even know I’m part of it. I just know it makes me feel good. At the end of the day that’s all I really want: To Feel Good about myself and where I ended up. It’s all very powerful stuff.”
Patrick stopped talking and took a drink, looking pleased with himself.
“You are missing one thing, I think. And I agree with you. I do. But I think you place too much importance on the object as the source of the good feeling,” said Andrew.
“What did I miss?”
They had stopped eating and were focusing now on their drinks. The third drink. The spark of philosophy.
“How do other people view him? How does he look in the eyes of others?”
“And who are these ‘others’ they want to be seen by?”
“Exactly,” Andrew said. “The Community that is created and fueled by these purchases. A pick-up truck with an Elway tag on it isn’t going to evoke the same feelings in L.A. as it does in Denver. You won’t find Elway Steakhouses in Boston. There becomes a collective conscience about the whole thing. And you want to be seen as part of that whole. Civics are involved. Religion. You are giving yourself away to something bigger than yourself. The idea that you just mentioned. An image. It’s about success and feeling good and all that, but also about being seen in a certain way. A certain light. I don’t think, honestly, that most people are concerned with being happy or successful. All that shit takes time. It takes work. What people care about is being seen as happy and successful. A forty dollar steak? A new car? He looks like he is doing well. His wife has gotten fat, but who wouldn’t getting chauffeured around and eating steaks all the time? What do we say when we see a guy saddled-up at the bar getting drunk by himself? Oh, he looks terrible! He looks like things aren’t going well. .How is Andrew doing? Well, I saw him the other day, alone, day-drinking and drunk. He looked like he was in bad shape.” Andrew took a gulp of beer. “Now, say I’m at a bar with Robert. Same thing is happening. It’s daytime. But we are well-dressed as we get drunk on a Wednesday at noon. What do people say? I saw Andrew the other day with Robert Morris! They were getting tore up on a Wednesday afternoon! Morris is head of VerMas Media! Good for Andrew! Things must be going well for Andrew!” He shook his head. “It’s a dance of image and shadow, Patrick. We are all ghosts just trying to project our idea of our best selves.” He shook his head. “No, that’s not right. It’s the projection of my idea of what I think you think my best self should look like.”
“Well, this is depressing.”
“You started it.”
“So, is anyone happy?”
“Nobody is happy, buddy. I’m sure of it.”
“I need another drink. Do you want another drink? Would it look bad to our waitress if I ordered another round of drinks?”
“Who gets to pay for these drinks?”
“VerMas, honey. Look successful.” Patrick studied Andrew. “Well, at least try to look happy. That outfit. Uuffff.” Patrick winked.
“Well, then keep them coming. Only beer, though. I’m not allowed any liquor. No matter what I say later. No liquor. I’m going to tell you I want some liquor, and you are going to say ‘no’.”
Patrick laughed. “Okay.”
“I’ll smile. I’ll drink here with you. But when I ask for liquor, what are you going to tell me?”
“No! Andrew, honey,” Patrick leaned over and placed his hand on Andrew’s forearm. “Honey, you don’t need liquor. We are having such a good time as it is. You are having fun now. Why ruin a good time by drinking liquor? The liquid devil. The beast with two tongues!”
“Oh, I will be fine. I just want a shot. Just one shot!”
“But you are happy now. Look at everyone looking at us. They are jealous of our happiness. They want to know what makes us so happy. Why do we get to be happy and they just have to pretend?” Patrick motioned toward Andrew. “Why does this man, this slovenly dressed beast, this creature of sin and lust get to spend his afternoon drinking with that well-dressed Adonis?” He swept a hand down himself. “Oh my God? Is he wearing Baldese? They pine for your happiness. Don’t ruin that for them, Andrew. Don’t get sloppy and ruin that for them. It’s not fair.” Patrick grinned. “How was that?”
It was fine. It sounded like something a person might say.
Outside in the terminal travelers passed by in droves, hustling to catch a connection to some location that wasn’t there. A different place that they hadn’t just come from. Andrew would be on a flight soon as well. Flying south, back to Amarillo. Back to the place he’d tried so hard to leave.
The Sense of Being Stared At
The Z-Gallery was located in a small and unassuming red brick building in the community of Oxnard. It’s signage said simply, Z-Gallery. Across the street, the Pacific Ocean came in from the west. It was here, at a metered parking space on Mandalay Beach Rd, that Shelly parked the black S-Class Maybach. For Shelly, the drive up the coast had been comforting. The women hadn’t spoken of work or men. Instead, Shelly had talked freely about her childhood in Seattle. About the comfort of waking up to the low, guttural sounds of ships coming into harbor on Elliott Bay. San Francisco got the reputation for being hilly, and Seattle was left with the rain; but, from her home on Queen Anne, Shelly had been able to see that her city was also made up of many hills, and she knew that each one was a neighborhood containing everything a person needed. To see the city as a whole, in all its parts, had made a great impression on her as a child. She told Cara she wasn’t sure why that was the case. Why that image had always stuck out in her memory.
Cara fed the meter, and the two women gave each other a once-over before proceeding to the front door of the Z-Gallery.
“Do I look O.K.?” asked Shelly.
“You look perfect,” replied Cara. “I will say, this can be an interesting crowd.”
“Interesting how?”
“Lets just say that they are passionate about what Judy does. Very hanger-on types. They can be intense and very protective of Judy and her work.”
“Ummm… O.K. Now I’m a little freaked out about going in. Should I be worried?”
Cara laughed. “No. I’m sorry. That wasn’t meant to scare you. I just wanted to give you a heads up. If they are being assholes, which they can be at times, just don’t take it personally. Most of the time they are perfectly fine.”
“Wow. Okay. Well that didn’t help me any, but thanks for the heads up, I guess.”
Cara entered the front door of the Z-Gallery with Shelly following behind. The lighting inside was dim, like a movie theater while the previews played. It took a few seconds for Shelly’s eyes to adjust to the scene. A picture booth sat nearby. A woman in her mid-twenties with short black hair parted from the left side of the head and wearing a tuxedo greeted them and asked if they would kindly sit and pose for a picture. She held a clicker in her hand. Cara agreed, and the woman opened a curtain that led into the booth and invited Cara to sit. Cara smiled at Shelly and stepped inside. Shelly watched and waited as the woman spoke to Cara from the outside of the booth.
“I am going to snap your picture,” she said. “Are you ready?”
“Yes,” said Cara.
“On three: one, two, three.”
The woman pressed the clicker. A sound that Shelly associated with old cameras came from the booth. Immediately, a Polaroid printed and ejected from a machine next to the woman. Cara exited the booth, and the woman handed her the developing picture.
“Here is your image,” she said.
The woman invited Shelly to sit for her image as well. Inside the booth, Shelly sat on a small black stool and faced the camera. Above the lens, two phrases were written in black lettering on the cream-colored wall. The first said, ‘You Have the Power.’ The second, ‘Smile, You’re On Camera.’ The woman outside asked if Shelly was ready. She was.
The woman began to count, and when she reached the number two, Shelly smiled her best smile. A flash went off. She exited the booth. After a moment, the woman gave her the developing photo.
“Here is your image,” she said, handing the picture to Shelly. “I’d like to welcome you both to ‘The Sense of Being Stared At’ by Judy Bloom.”
Shelly followed Cara past the photo booth and into the gallery’s main room where a group of five women stood around a table littered with finger foods and glasses of red and white wine. A woman wearing a black tux similar to the picture taker’s spoke from the group’s center as they approached.
“Culture manipulates the social being, the woman especially, who is proven to be infinitely flexible. There is no such thing as change in our culture. There is only capricious, despotic change, determined by the dominant class for its own purposes.” The other women nodded in agreement.
Cara lifted two glasses of white wine from the table and offered one to Shelly. She took it and sipped. The wine was dry and cool.
Shelly appraised the exhibition. The three walls of the rectangular space held only three pieces. Eight people, all women, milled about. Shelly noted that the sleek, deliberate manner of their dress seemed to say, ‘I Don’t Care About the Way I Dress.’ No music played in the gallery, but Shelly heard the familiar sound of a movie and noticed a screen on the room’s back wall. She also heard a woman ask about ‘pictorial intertextuality.’ Before the tuxedoed woman with a 1950’s beehive hairstyle could answer, she locked eyes on Cara, who was studying the food and pastry spread out across a wooden table.
“Cara Carson!” said the woman, breaking away from the huddle of women around her.
“Hello, Judy,” replied Cara. “Congratulations on all this.” Clutching a wine glass, she swept the room with her hand.
At sixty years old, Judy Bloom was a product and pioneer of the 1970s postmodernist photography movement. In second and now third-wave feminist circles, she was most famous for her quote, “The words ‘women’ and ‘woman’ are a fabrication. The words are only an image created by ideology and are named such by a society and culture that benefits from the image manufactured.” Beneath Ms. Bloom’s beehive, her make-up was comically exaggerated, almost clownlike. Paired with her tuxedo and high heels, Shelly thought Judy looked very odd indeed.
“Oh, it’s nothing. But thank you nonetheless,” said Judy to Cara. “How long have you been here?”
“Not five minutes.” Cara turned to Shelly. “This is my friend Judy Bloom — world famous photographer. Judy, this is my colleague and friend Shelly Quinn.”
“It is a pleasure to have your acquaintance, Shelly,” said Judy.
“The pleasure is mine,” replied Shelly. “I’m excited to see your photographs. I’m not familiar with your work.”
“And I am looking forward to showing it to you. In fact, you are holding some of it right now,” Judy said, pointing to the photo in Shelly’s hand. “May I see it?”
Shelly had forgotten that she still held the picture. She handed it to Judy, who studied it and smiled.
“A beautiful image of you,” she said. “You have a fantastic smile.”
“Oh, thank you.”
“I think that you will see,” said Cara laughing, “that Judy isn’t your typical photographer, are you Judy?”
Judy shrugged. “I suppose not. I’ve moved away from behind the camera lense these days. I’m more interested in mediums capturing their own images. I simply curate the space necessary to create the sort of images I hope for. Whether or not I get them is another matter altogether.”
“Judy thinks there’s no longer any truth in traditional modernist photographic techniques,” added Cara.
“I don’t know if I would say that, necessarily,” countered Judy. “I don’t believe there is Truth in the spectacle of simulacra, in the idea that an image captured by a photographer can really represent an object or person any longer, that is correct. But that image is still true in the sense that you see it and can hold onto it like you are doing now. That the Polaroid you hold in your hand is real cannot be denied. I simply find that Truth in photography is no longer valid. There is too much hidden underneath. I believe the role the medium plays in a modernist sense fostered the construction and creation of a particular kind of society — one of spectacle and complacent citizens. ‘Sit here.’ ‘Look this way.’ ‘Smile for the camera.’ Being conscious of the fact that you are placed in a position where you are being manipulated to act and look a certain way so that the image you wish to create, how you wish to be perceived, comes out correctly. There is an extreme form of self-consciousness involved in photography, especially for the person posing. Mediums receive validation only when their image emerges in a certain way. Maybe a man wants to seem masculine. Like a hunter, say. So this man poses with an animal, and he looks at the camera in a certain way. He dresses a certain way. He creates a certain kind of environment that says ‘Hunter.’ Why does he do this? Why does a young girl feel the need to sexualize herself in the images she posts to her social media? Don’t even get me started on pornography and sex. The posers know what it should look like to be a woman or a hunter because they have seen the images of people posing as women and hunters. Look at punks. Punks dress and act as they do not because that is what a punk is, it is because that is how regular society isn’t. So there is a validation in the image that you create. People see themselves and create an image of themselves based on the photographs of others who have done so before them. Gender, image, sexuality...it’s all constructed by culture and mass media. This, in turn, creates the nostalgic veneer of our buying — what we wear, how we look, how we wish to be perceived, looked at; it all disguises the fact that we are living in a milieu of intense pain.”
