Mat Johnson - Drop

‘You got it, black,’ another voice yelled up to me as a brother as tall as a Sixer stepped forth from the onlookers. His skin was so sweaty, the gold chains around his neck looked dull on his flesh. ‘Come on here,’ he told me. He was someone I would never risk slightly nudging, let alone stepping on, but he stretched out next to me, arms over his head, making a higher stair with his hands for me to walk into. I did, shifting my weight to the next leg. ‘Reach!’ he demanded, and I couldn’t deny him. Grabbing hold of the metal hoof of Washington’s steed, I pulled myself onto the structure. ‘Go, go, go,’ they were chanting below me. Forgetting the consequences of gravity, I rose, stood up, grabbed on to Washington’s oversize left thigh and pulled myself onto the back of his saddle. I had never ridden a horse before. One hand around the president’s waist, I waved in victory as the crowd thundered its pleasure around me.

That noise. The sound of every praise I’d ever been denied bursting forth as the roar of a city. My shirt ruffled in their wind as I reached out for it, feeling myself grow big in places I’d assumed were hard and impenetrable. The main stage was forgotten: the acres of faces were on me now, the crop of arms wagged in my direction. Inflate me with your joy. If they could’ve seen my tears, they would have known they were thank-yous. Together we cheered as the symphony began to play, as the sky finally exploded in my honor.

Lightning pastels shrieked above us, electric rainbows streaked reflections along skyscraper walls, glass becoming canvas, sonic bursts bouncing off the buildings’ bodies like twenty-five-cent pinballs. SKEEZ: shooting up from the ground as a hopeful white light. POW: the drab nomad exploding into a nation of resplendent fires. They are brilliant, each dot its own sun, growing dimmer as they fall, until they arrive back at the surface as mere embers. Ash rained around me as I rode my metal steed, the orange glow eating at charcoaled paper. Above us stars were coming into creation, universes no less significant because of their size or brevity.

The amazing thing: that wasn’t the most stunning sight out here. What was above was brilliant, but what below was divine. Look at how beautiful we were. Faces turned to the sky, illuminated and glowing, screaming into the light. We were there, all of us. South Philly, North Philly, Germantown, West, Chestnut Hill, Main Line. Every culture, every shade, every class we had to offer, unified by eyes that cheered louder than mouths could, allied by the celebration of fire and birth, of destruction and life. All screaming because we understood what it was about: for one hour, on one night, we had beaten the world. For one moment, this was the place where existence raged brightest, where each instant was spent without past or future in consideration. We were the winners. There was no place else to be but here, no other land that could tempt us.

I took lots of pictures that night, several good enough to be used as promotional advertisements. I got them scanned, had the copy and layout planned for them by the time they came back from the processor. They all came out well; they were all work I was proud of, strong additions to pad my portfolio, but there was one in particular that rocked me. It was taken aiming down into the crowd from my statue-sitting vantage, a photo of a throng of faces, their skin and clothes bathed in the powder blue glow of whatever was combusting above them off camera. Mouths open like expecting chicks, retinas ravishing light, hands waving miniature flags as if they were trying to fan the fire. Something about their jawbones or clothes or posture: they were so easy for me to recognize, these people I belonged to. The tag line, bold and right justified at the bottom of the page, was all I wanted to say about it: Philadelphia: Celebrating a Local Holiday . It made everything I ever did before look disposable.

The morning after it was completed, I walked this and the rest of the creations into the Philly tourist board in the municipal building over on Broad, dropping it with the secretary and then heading over to the electric company to pick up phones. By the time I got home the message was on my machine: ‘Can you come in tonight?’ I didn’t make it until nine o’clock. The guy, Saul, was the only one left on the floor; his office was the sole light on.

‘It’s fantastic. It’s absolutely what we want. You don’t know how many freakin’ images of Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell I’ve had to see on this project,’ he told me. ‘This work was done by a real Philadelphian, someone who knows this place. That’s why we opened the bids to local independents in the first place.’ Saul was about the same age as I was, mid-thirties. I recognized him from the schoolyard of Henry H. Houston Elementary, but didn’t tell him so. He had my favorite ad in his hand.

‘There’s love in this piece, y’know?’ he said, nodding at me. ‘There’s love.’

‘So I didn’t get the job.’ Rat poison. Sara Lee. Send my ashes to Brockwell.

‘Chris, relax. They just want to see another example of your work,’ Saul was saying. ‘Listen to me on this. Usually they would just request another look at your portfolio—’

‘They’re overseas. I won’t get one back for a couple of weeks.’

‘Right. I understand that. I explained that to the board; they understand that. That’s why I’m asking you to put together another sample of your concept so they can make sure. We’re a city-funded organization. Money’s tight. We only get so much for the year and they just want to make sure we’re not wasting it. I don’t think we would be, but they just want to know that.’

‘So I invest more money, more time.’

‘This is what’s going to happen: you shoot one of the ideas you submitted in your proposal, how’s that? Then, when the board accepts it, you can just include the expenses in the final budget. That sounds fair, right? You need the money quick — that’s not a problem. I’ll cut the check the second they give the okay. All you have to do is get it in by a week from tomorrow, Friday, and everybody’s happy.’

‘What happens if everybody’s not happy?’ I ask, but Saul doesn’t have that answer. I do. No London job because no plane ticket money and get-settled cash. No electric company job because if I cut another day I wouldn’t have one. No staying in my hovel because getting this done meant blowing the rent and food budget just to pay folks a fractional down payment of what I would owe them later. Searching trashcans for food professionally and arm wrestling bums for corner rights.

I put the red disk that held my Lionskins dreams in a manila envelope and went by Alex’s place, dropping it in her mail slot when I knew she wasn’t home. The disk was broken in two and said ‘Sorry’ in black Magic Marker on both halves. Four days went by. Nothing. I thought of calling, telling her that I had this shoot, that it could be a big gig for her, a portfolio maker, but didn’t. It would just insult her further, me pretending that money was an appropriate enticement for her reappearance. Accepting her absence, I prepared to photograph this sample ad myself.

I scheduled the shoot for Monday, the only sunny day forecasted for the week. We would do it at Love Park, lots of space; if you came early enough there was nobody there but the few homeless dudes who slept in its bushes, and great views: besides the LOVE statue, you had the tower of City Hall behind you, the Parkway’s Fountain of Angels and the Art Museum in front. I found a stylist in the back of Market Edge who gave me a low fee that I could pay later, and he even knew a model I could book through him. They would be coming down from New York together. Minimal risk, maximum potential, that was the idea.