Joshua Mattson - A Short Film About Disappointment

The Hairdresser was playing at the Lakes 4, in the elbow of a strip mall between Hunan Buffet and a hot tub showroom. The salesmen’s polo shirts were too big, and every time we went to the Lakes 4 I would look in the window, confirming this was still true. My mom’s boyfriend bought me a box of Gummy Invertebrates. He wasn’t cheap when he had money. He could spend a twenty like it was forty.

Spurs of keyboard music snagging on our ears. The opening shot of the sorority house. During The Hairdresser , I saw my first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh pairs of breasts. I might have seen more but I closed my eyes for the last third of the film.

The Hairdresser arrives at the Rho Pi Rho Xi house to coif the sisters for the spring formal. It’s a Queen Anne, a barge, with a lawn requiring a salaried gardener. The college is eastern, moneyed. It has gained in prestige since the submersing of institutions nearer to the encroaching coast. She’s on a work release from the Hambrings Institute for the Criminally Insane, where she has been a resident since the age of seven for burning her mother alive. It is the opinion of her doctor, as seen in the first ten minutes, that we all make mistakes.

The fire anniversary, of course. Sorority sisters, unaware she’s eavesdropping, mock her blemished skin, her crooked teeth, her corduroys. An obvious bleeding sunset. Slasher films ought to be set in the afternoon, on Sundays, when the fear of living is heavy on us. The sisters, in their bouffants, in their heels and spangles, their sanitary jewelry, depart in two limousines. None return.

Outside, I had to throw up.

Candy snails, crabs, and sea urchins swam out of my mouth with a tide of cola and bile.

He said, Better out than in.

He said, Lots of nights I’ve had to stick my finger down my throat. Pull the trigger, get on with your life.

For weeks, when I closed my eyes, I saw the Hairdresser coming through our neighborhood, coming for me—past the overfilled dumpsters, the scummy kiddie pools, the rusted cars up on blocks which were illegal to drive even if converted—trowel in her burned fist.

This sequel, lacking the original cast, composer, and director, can’t compare. The new Hairdresser has straight white teeth, enunciates quips, picks up litter. Why isn’t she fat? Her arrival in the leafy native neighborhood isn’t an infiltration but a homecoming and a coronation.

In Altarpiece , Bellono, Beatrice, Gelder, Duke Giovanni, Enrico, and Duchess Andrea will be played by myself. Bellono’s face will be seen but no others. Since the fact that I am playing the remaining roles will not be made obvious, this is a legitimate choice and not a gimmick to get the attention of gawkers and tastemakers. The film will not benefit from a sulking hunk or a strapping rake. I’ve loosened a couple molars for authenticity. I am not yet but will be sallow and bony. Exercise disagrees with me. Only the promise of mischief has endeared me to possible partners with abysses of sympathy for the ill behaved.

As I explained over Jonson’s protests, I have knowledge of the characters that cannot be transmitted to a venial clique of actors.

There is precedent. Business and Blood concerns a real estate developer who believes his twin brothers are imitating him at gentlemen’s clubs. See it at the Runaway Seven tonight, tomorrow, or never. Sprenger, the director, plays the triplets. The three-way fight at the end is an exemplary piece of physical comedy. The lo mein flying. The bees. A programmer might pair our films, with Weide’s Doubles , and Saul Trillado’s Mirror Mirror , for a slow month of Tuesdays.

Jonson said, So then I said, Yeah, I know him well. We’re making a film together. Funny how we ran into each other at Chez Prateek. I never see anyone there. It’s like my spot. I was eating my paneer aligot at the bar and he comes up. Millings says, Hey, thanks for that party. I’ll have you over soon. I say, No problem. He says, How you been? and we get to talking. I say, I’m looking to expand into the arts. He says, How so? I say, I’m making a film. He gets excited. He says, That’s great, tell me about it. I have twenty minutes before I have to go to this thing next door. I say, I’ll work on my pitch with you. So I run it down. When he hears your name, he perks up. He says, I didn’t know he was a filmmaker. I thought he ran films down.

Jonson said, But in a laid-back way, he was laughing.

Jonson said, Millings says, Noah Body came by the other day to say he was sorry, but I was out of the office. I appreciated it, though, that he thought of me. I asked him over to hash it out. I said, That’s not like him. He said, You never know someone, do you?

Jonson said, I brought it back to our film. I told him it’s your passion project and I’ve never seen you so invested or excited. And you know what? He seemed genuinely happy for you. That Millings is a nice guy, I recommended he check out Dust , you know how he likes those hammy, faux-intellectual action movies, the law of the gun as the laws of man. I’m glad you went over there. If you keep networking at this rate, soon you’ll have a whole social circle.

Jonson said, But he had to run after that, and my lunch had gone cold.

Osvald’s possession of my body, light and unobtrusive at first, hardens.

My rooms are icy and dry, but I prefer tropical warmth. Mornings, when I once allowed myself boundless optimism, have become impossible to negotiate. No amount of coffee will hoist my eyelids. I bark at children before noon.

Pencils sharpened and organized by length. A growing collection of watches I do not wear. A hematite paperweight. Diagrams accumulate for an instrument to measure shadows.

I have infected him. Is he acting like me? Has he flung off Isabel’s sheets ready to chew on the day? Can he recite the passions of the executed French kings? Is he able to focus his tenderness on an ugly schnauzer or dumb infant like he’s torturing ants with a magnifying glass? Has he begun to intuit a consciousness enveloping his own? Can he feel my eye?

Franca, of Us, Underground , becomes dependent on her neighbor, Nicole, after her husband is taken away by the police for supplying information to the rebel forces in yonder mountains. That Nicole denounced him does not deter Franca. One must take what is offered.

Osvald’s big words are in me. I never spoke like this before. Osvald’s defection injured my language. It healed wrong, it limps.

Certain events I can’t imagine: what magazines he reads, if he fucks the mirage of women half known while he services Isabel. If he is satisfied with his choice. If he ogles an undulate field of wheat before concluding it might be a good place, when the morning arrives, to spray his brain. To imagine more would be indulgent.

Leaving Dr. Lisa’s bed, by a sagging bookshelf with horticultural and medical texts, biographies of dead generals, comics. On her nightstand, no less than six glasses of water. She must get fined.

She said, Where are you going?

I said, I have to go to Hub Hall and get permits for Altarpiece .

She said, You already know where you’re going to be filming?