Joshua Mattson - A Short Film About Disappointment

She said, Osvald left.

She said, He made suggestions for the improvement of my portfolio.

I said, That’s an awfully formal way to put it.

Rehearsal. After allowing her to grope me, I retreat to the shower. Her face falls. I’m sorry, Isabel. I am not sure what has happened to me.

Isabel moved out, but I did not dispose of the bag. Every day when I climbed the stairs to my door it remained on the landing, the conqueror’s flag.

The middle of the week. The door to the office trailer opened. Jonson behind the blooms of his disappointment. It was a performance. He had to demonstrate to himself his feelings or what he would like his feelings to be. Maybe Seel, maybe not.

He said, Sorry, I had business.

Jonson sucked at a pouch of electrolyte gel.

Trouble with Lucretia. A divorce would end Altarpiece . My film would evaporate while Jonson regathered our funds. I’ve contracts lined up, deliveries of ordnance and ribbon, caterers to sample. Matériel is inbound. Bribing the Transit Authority to get cargo precedence. The lens designers will not fear my displeasure in the future if I bow out now. Costumers are on retainer at a motel two nodes out, threatening to mutiny over the bathrooms and linen. Pings begin, Dear sir.

Jonson has a warehouse east of the Zone that he believes is an ideal space for Bellono’s studio. We’d have to rip off the ceiling. The towers of the financial district hoard the light. Also, the warehouse is far from a commercial rail platform. I don’t know how he proposes to get equipment in and out.

He pinged the designer who lit the sumptuous turd Good Queen Bess . The thought of that idiot fondling my light distresses me. It will be all natural light. We don’t need bulbs and filters. Philistines fake what already exists in perfection. Jonson wants to build the set downtown so he can bring his cronies through. The set will be closed. I will not allow any idiots on the set. Passes will be issued, guards posted. Palms cut and blood mingled. Oaths sworn.

He said, Let’s go eat.

I said, Okay. Flip to choose.

He said, I choose, I pay.

A loud night. Fireworks and shouting. Dependence Day. In the Exceptional Conservationists railcar, filled with vines and ferns, we sat with our legs crossed. Jonson is not an exceptional steward of his power, water, refuse. Someone edited his data bracket to give him access to the EC car. Maybe he donated money to a reclamation project and was awarded it as a perk. Us, plus an old guest woman, who was reading. We had disturbed her privacy, which she had earned and we hadn’t.

I said, When you were gone, I sent back the dolly hardware. I decided I did not want a tracking shot after all. The shots should be stationary, like paintings themselves.

He said, You rented a quarter mile of track. Are they going to return the deposit?

I said, I didn’t rent the track, I bought it. They are reluctant to accept the return of the equipment since we were hard on it when we shot Equipment Test XI . Specifically the scene that was set on the set of a film, when we had to track the tracking shot, and accidentally crushed the rails under the wheels of the crane.

He said, You need to learn to budget if you ever want to make another film.

I said, Who said I wanted to make another film? I might be making this film for a decade.

The argument dragged on like dutiful weeknight sex. My face Dr. Gachet’s.

He said, I don’t want to talk about this any more on an empty stomach. Every conflict in history was initiated before dinner.

Neu Refectory, Jonson’s spot this month. At a low bar of beaten zinc with ten stools, facing an open kitchen. In the shadows, Jonson and I looked like aging heartthrobs.

Because I do not try to pay, I am his valued dining companion. He can be a pedant. Proper xiaolongbao . Soulful bún bò huế . Veritable knishes. Whores’ pasta. The fantasy of authenticity, that there is a place, a culture, that is realer, that one can go there and partake of the realness.

Jonson donates to hunger charities. He wields the word inanition like the threat of blackmail over dessert, and passes the hat. His dining companions think his speeches in poor taste, coming after his tableside presentation of his Madeira and seedcake, or the profiteroles he has flown to Paris to purchase.

An executive for celebrity narrative management I had met at one of Jonson’s dinners, whom Jonson knew from his fussy, secretive club, told me a story when I ran into him on the rail platform. Jonson had given a pitch for his charity at the club meeting the week previous. The man wrote a check. Displeased with the amount, Jonson called him in the morning and chided him until the man agreed to write one for a larger amount. Jonson’s organization cashed both checks.

Over spheres, gels, warm dishes frozen, frozen dishes warmed, foams, marrows, emulsions, infusions, transfusions, eel milt, and bugs, we bickered. Our places were set with jeweler’s loupes to admire each dish. I will have control.

I was forced to exploit his fondness for convivial beverages.

I said, Get a bottle, Jonson. We have much to discuss.

The beverage refreshed Jonson. Conciliatory mumbles passed between us. My theory was, Jonson can’t bear to argue with me and his wife in the same day. He hasn’t the energy to maintain two resentments.

Later, outside a charging station, eating bags of Bunkles and Cheddar Clouds.

I said, Our film could be the catalyst for serious domestic cinema.

Jonson said, We’re looking to make a dream. We are men with dreams.

I said, I’m thinking magazine profiles, invitations to join the academy.

He said, Dreams. We will make dreams.

I said, Picture the little yellow eunuch on your sideboard, for your guests to admire.

He said, Dreams, incorporated.

I said, We’ll build the set in the country.

On the back of the scroll on which our dinner menu was hand-lettered, I diagrammed a studio encased in a glass chassis. With the set, and the natural effects I expected to exacerbate using lenses I’d sent off to have machined, we could light the film as it deserved. The next morning, it was as if this had always been the plan. Jonson is not willing to admit he’s overindulged, so he never breaks a promise made in his revels.

Cotton’s Gold .

Two corsairs, Narbeard and Brackles, learn of a trove buried by Captain Cotton one hundred and forty-one paces from a striking rock near the southeast cove of Pussy Island. The treasure was freebooted off the Spanish ship La Codicia in 1611. La Codicia was laden with gold dug from the hills near Tenochtitlán.

Cotton says, The trunk of a palm is carved with three diamonds. Under lies riches. I can’t spend it in hell. Don’t tell that bastard Yates, because he’ll kill ya.

They say, Aye, sir.

Exit Cotton.

Captain Yates wants to loot the port of Ocho Rios, where a tavernkeep once called him a man of low reputation, so he points Heaven’s Cutlass south. Pussy Island is three hundred miles straight west from Martinique, plus Brackles and Narbeard aren’t too hot on attacking a colony defended by Spanish cannon. They mutiny. Captain Yates, a big man, breaks the plank. He splashes in the turquoise sea without complaint.

Captain Brackles says, We sail for Pussy Island, where equal shares await each man.

The seas are mild. A spat between Narbeard and Brackles results in Narbeard sleeping in the bilge and Brackles shacking up with One Ear the cook. Pussy Island, a paradise, reconciles them. Men on the shore in black silks, poor dentition. It is the crew of the Lemon , helmed by Captain Sniggs, the brother of Cotton, who helped Cotton raid La Codicia , and whose ship, the Pique , was sunk in the raid. Cotton sailed off with the riches of Mesoamerica. Sniggs floated on his mast to Hispaniola.