Joshua Mattson - A Short Film About Disappointment

Rolf said, That’s harsh and misleading. His films get raves, as far as I’ve seen.

Phil Seel said, One man’s pyrite is another’s treasure.

Seel was paging through a catalogue of tapestries. He wasn’t interested in our conversation but had been storing this quip too long and needed to air it out before it was eaten by moths. Bespectacled, sickly, with hair the shade of instant coffee. Phil laid rail. He had been in charge of establishing the Southwestern Hub and was somewhat responsible for that region’s recent cultural supremacy. Rumors that he was in charge of opening another Hub in Canada, another in the remains of Seattle. His passions were Grecian olisbos, flight, faking an accent that couldn’t be placed.

He said, The mythologies of copulation are the true history of our species.

During dinner parties, it was inevitable he say this in the wilderness between the dessert and the digestif. It is easier for a busy person to have a few aphorisms than to reinvent their plastic self for every conversation.

Phil was tan from twenty years in the Aegean sun, negotiating the purchase of antiquities for his private collection. They no longer keep tabs on their old stuff. Anyone can print their own copies now. What is the utility of the original? Seel looks like he is smiling especially when he isn’t. Every year his happiness compounding. To walk in his private museum, to look at the beautiful objects wrought by the dead, was his afterlife. There could be nothing better. Seel’s life growing in and over those objects. The earth turning over and pushing up what was buried. The pale scar slaloming over his forehead was punishment for cheating on his second wife.

The way Jonson told it, Seel’s wife hired guys to castrate Seel. The guys thought her request in poor taste. Beneath her.

One goon said, What’s wrong with her?

The other goon said, We aren’t animals.

The first goon said, I have two master’s degrees.

The other goon said, I’m learning Mandarin.

In the diner where they scheduled their collections, robberies, anniversaries.

On the day of the beating Seel was buying his girlfriend orthodontia. Outside the clinic they gave him a beating, paid for with his own money. Ten thousand dollars buys a lot of violence. It was not rarefied violence but the portions were ample. Seel’s girlfriend finished her appointment, and left the clinic to witness the guys beat Seel up. Seeing the pink rubber bands in her braces, the guys laid off. Laughing. One of the guys did the gash on Seel’s forehead with his thumbnail. It was for brand recognition, nothing personal. Seel is grateful. Intense experiences justify us. He can go places he couldn’t go in comfort before: the garage, the track, certain charging stations.

From the dining room, I heard Jonson pounding out a clumsy rhythm on his mealtime djembe . We took our seats around the table. Jonson placed placards indicating where the guests should sit.

During the part of the meal I was present for, Lucretia and Seel did not converse for more than a few minutes, made strong eye contact, and sat apart at the table. What I would say in her position if I were accused is: nothing. I would laugh and make an incredulous face, if Osvald was feeling cooperative. Seel has such a lecherous air of scholarship about him it’s hard to imagine any woman, much less a specimen like Lucretia Jonson, taking him seriously. Although Lucretia could be tired of taking Jonson seriously. Her husband was like a strict diet. Seel the person she enjoys without intentions. We sponge whatever puddles of attention we discover.

Earlier in the night. Jonson with his punch and fist of crudités. His wife walked by. He made a rude noise of appreciation, she smiled over her shoulder, a private smile, with promises.

Jonson said, That poor Seel. He must be a real bore to go on a date with. Can you imagine him laying on that phony thick Greek and talking about his sailboat while you try to enjoy dinner? He’s from Dakota. Telling you how they used to eat pussy on Crete? Quoting the Odyssey ? I don’t get it. The women seem to like him, though, or it’s safe to pretend they like him, because he isn’t threatening. I think it’s his sleaze. You and me, we hide it, he unbuttons his shirt further. Every year it’s another button.

I had the poor fortune to sit next to Rolf Millings. He returned to Broder. He would not shut up about the greatness of Plunder , Broder’s heist opus about the theft of the World Seed Bank.

Millings said, Plunder is like those Russian dolls. There’s a story within a story within a story. You keep prying the dolls open. Every time I watch it, there’s a smaller and more intricate doll. All the dolls have different faces. I never had this conception of film until Broder. To find the infinite point, like the universe before the Big Bang, in these great films, where all matter is concentrated. Whenever I go to the movies, because of Broder, I’m looking for that singularity, in which nothing can be seen and nothing understood.

I do not brag to Dr. Lisa of correct diagnoses I have made. Rail operators are not accustomed to hearing what I think are the best stops. I don’t tell lawyers which are the most profound statutes. To musicians, I do not insist on the preeminence of a favorite chord. Each person is allowed one topic to be both mystical and smug about, and ought to choose it with care.

Lucretia explained the function of Tut’s fake beard. His tomb had been printed last month at the Facsimile Museum, across from the Bangladeshi Quarter. Seel futzed with his Pinger during her lecture. Maybe he had heard it already. He was waiting to deliver his lines. Dinner may be a rehearsal for their privacy. I have grown to detest the word maybe .

A mortician or a professor of dance complained about how long he had to wait for his domestic help to arrive this morning to fix his breakfast. A woman remarked to nobody in particular that dinner parties seemed to be longer when she was young, now they were so brief, it was sit down, eat, goodbye. Nobody spoke of children. The Jonsons do not invite parents to their table. Lucretia lost a child early in pregnancy.

Jonson went into the kitchen to speak with the caterer, a moody man to whom his relationship was akin to confessor and priest. When he returned, his face was red. Broder’s knight leaned over. Lapping us with his wineglass twice, three times.

Millings said, Come on, admit Plunder is good.

I said, No.

Millings said, Don’t be pretentious.

I said, I am giving you my honest opinion. I don’t think Plunder is a good film. I think it is a dangerous film.

He said, A film can’t be dangerous. Picking a contrary position for the sake of coolness is the opposite of cool. I know what cool is. See me? Cool. I’m an Antarctic cucumber. I rode here on a beautiful refurbished bike, with a brand-new solar cell. How did you get here? Walk?

I said, Yes, I walked from the rail station.

He said, When you say that Plunder isn’t a great film, you’re saying that it is a film for the masses, and you think you’re too good to be one of us. Because, you know, cool isn’t your shit, the obscure shit, the shit you’d use to impress people, cool is what the cool people like, cool is what the masses are into, cool is another demographic, it isn’t whatever shit you were watching all alone on Friday night fifteen years ago. Cool is consensus. Cool brings us together rather than separates us into a shitty hierarchy of taste.

Mashing his bolinhos with pewter teeth. He ought to brush. We were talking out of the corners of our mouths, at a low volume. Jonson saw my face. He shook his head. I spoke a little louder.