Joshua Mattson - A Short Film About Disappointment

It ranks as one of the more successful days in our partnership.

We split up at the rail. Jonson and Xin Hi headed to the outgoing platform. Jonson was struggling to carry her Pendleshim volume. His face reddened as we stood there saying goodbye. Sweat on his brow.

She said, I forgot my purse at the production trailer.

Jonson said, I’ll let you in. It’s not far from my place, anyway.

She said, Thanks. I have to get to a gig tonight and I need it before then.

On the way in to the Zone, I couldn’t get Dr. Lisa on her Pinger. She was not a responsive person. If we made a plan, she remembered it, but she didn’t see the point of pinging when we would see one another in two hours. It wasn’t unusual that I did not hear from her.

Sunset going into the Zone. The platforms headed out were busy. Only a few people, like Dr. Lisa, worked outside the Zone and lived within.

She once said, Actually, I hate living here, but my partner was an anxious person, and he insisted we buy in the Zone. Then, after the split, he moved out of the Zone. I don’t have the energy to move. People who manage to move must not have much on their minds.

My Pinger had permission to access her building. I went up to the fourth floor. The third, left. I knocked. No answer. I knocked again.

I said, Dr. Lisa, are you home?

She said, Go away.

I said, Dr. Lisa, what’s wrong?

She said, I saw the video.

Cold voice.

I said, What video?

She said, The video of you hitting that old man and throwing him in the river.

I said, Oh, that was Osvald. He took over my body.

She said, Go away.

I said, Millings is trying to ruin me.

She said, That man we met at Jonson’s? Are you insane?

I said, Dr. Lisa, please let me explain what has been happening.

She said, There’s no excuse to attack a man like that. Go. Get another doctor.

I said, Dr. Lisa, please.

Osvald twisting my face. His hand on the knob.

She said, I’m calling the police.

I said, Then I’ll get arrested.

She said, If you’re arrested in the Zone, they’ll take away your clearance, or worse.

I said, Okay, Dr. Lisa, I’ll go. But if you ever want to hear me explain what happened, please contact me. I think we have something special.

She didn’t answer.

On my Pinger this morning, the invitation.

You are expected to celebrate fifty years of Millings Kiosk in the Clawford Lounge at the Central Hub Suites on Lockwood this Thursday, the eighth of September.

The ending of Capo , Broder’s trite gangster epic. Joey, whose rise we have witnessed in the preceding, interminable four and a half hours, knows he is going to be murdered for something we saw three hours ago, half his lifetime, that is, murdering the don’s cousin, Bragging Jeff, for beating up his little brother. Joey being a man with impulse control issues. His brother, a gambler, the stain on his reputation. At his estate, the don is throwing a birthday party for his mother. Joey arrives.

A man says, Why don’t you go up to see the don?

Joey says, All right.

The camera follows through the foyer, up the stairs, down the hall. What will it be? Probably piano wire, not to ruin the don’s carpets. Although any form of murder in one’s house is uncouth. The don’s grandchildren play downstairs.

Another man guarding the door. Joey sits to wait. This is worst of all, that they don’t have the decency to get it over with. Hasn’t he served the don these twenty years? Didn’t he spend four years in the Hub Penitentiary rather than turn witness?

On the other side of the door, the gangsters are planning a promotion for Joey. A surprise to thank him for his hard work.

The don says, Joey might be don after I am gone, if you give him good advice.

The don does not know about Joey murdering his cousin.

Joey’s nerve breaks. He enters the room.

The gangsters look up, smiling.

They say, Joey, hey, buddy.

He says, Don Cazzoli, I’m sorry I shot your cousin, but he was going to kill my brother. What was I to do?

The door shuts behind Joey.

The lobby. My tuxedo, Jonson’s spare.

Jonson’s wife said, Let me take a picture for you to send to Dr. Lisa. Stand over there.

Soon they would ask where Dr. Lisa had been. For the first couple of weeks, I let myself believe she would allow me to explain. It was to be a temporary emptiness before reconciliation. This lie did not protect me long.

In the Clawford Lounge, I left the Jonsons. I wanted to avoid Mrs. Rangor—that is, Millings’s wife—who thought I was Danny Chivo, of Chivo Industries. A hundred people or more. The bar to my left. Waiters with trays. A pianist tried to play, was shushed. These people were from the cockroach families who had survived the Confidence Crisis with their wealth. The economic realities of the present, the Zones, the guests, the remediations, were their niche. They had evolved to feed on the crumbs of civilization.

Past knots of people congratulating one another, an ice sculpture of a kiosk, two security guards, a lectern with the Millings Kiosk logo, stood Millings with two middle-aged women. His head visible over the crowd. His temple’s gray stripe spreading. Millings’s social circle was in this room, to celebrate his wife’s business, the gift of his friendship. I caught his eye. He smiled, raised his flute in a toast. I returned the smile and the gesture. Poor Millings. If he hadn’t sent Uncle Al after me, maybe we would have been friends. He understood me better than Jonson.

There sat Uncle Al, in a chair, looking frail, pretending not to see me.

A man strode to the lectern.

He said, Is this on?

He said, Hello.

He said, Thank you for celebrating with us tonight. We’ve been here fifty years now and we’ll be here at least fifty more. If you don’t know me, I am Jack Burles, vice president, Millings Kiosk and Millings Holdings. I worked with Mr. Millings Senior, and I’m happy to continue his work with his daughter-in-law. I’ve been to a few of these parties in my time and I must say the slideshow or historical video is pretty dry, pretty soporific, so instead of droning on about where the first Millings office was, or posting a few sales charts, I thought I would take a different direction. Instead, we’re going to look at what the Hub was like when Millings Kiosk was founded, and how the Hub has changed. Take this journey with me. Please, grab a snack, get a drink, and enjoy yourself. I speak for the Millingses, whom we’ll hear from a little later, when I thank you sincerely for being here with us tonight.

The room darkened. A shiver of pleasure passed through the crowd at the transition into the world of permissions.

Broder’s camera waits outside the door for twenty seconds. What do we wait to hear? Joey begging, a gunshot. Broder hasn’t the courage to end a film with futility, so the door swings open again, Joey exits, roughed up, with three of his old buddies. Joey has broken the code. He has spilled the blood of his sworn brother. The audience yawning, thinking of possible meals. Capo is as close as Broder has come to making a compelling film. If the gangsters were to take Joey out to the pine forest, shoot him in the head, and bury him in a grave, then Broder would have been successful. Starting with the episode in the don’s room, when Joey accidentally gives away his crime, he has our sympathy. Before, he is only a stylish sociopath. Broder’s method, to make us watch Joey’s life for hours, is crude, but it almost works. But then the director falls victim to the attractions of the swelling libretto and the dapper bloodbath. Incorrigible Joey is being marched to the late-model luxury sedan when his loyal employees intervene. At least today, there will be no grave for Joey. Blam. Blam. Not the cake, too. The shot of the flowers in the blood puddle makes me laugh.