Zachary Karabashliev - 18% Gray

*

— c’mon, please, you make it better

— i’m busy taking pictures

— and i’m posing for you, so you make the coffee

— OK then, when we finish I’ll make coffee and you’ll fix the bed

— if you do the dishes first, ’cause the sink is full

— right, we had company last night, i forgot

— well, you got drunk

— i didn’t get drunk!

— yes, you did

— i did not

— who fell asleep on the floor?

— i wasn’t sleeping. i was listening to your conversation

— what did we talk about?

— you talked about a-a-a-. . art

— you were snoring, zack

— i was pretending

— is that why you farted?

— me?!

— loudly

— shit! what would. . how am i gonna look those people in

the eye?!

— we had a lot of fun last night

— yeah?

— you were really funny

— really?

— they were dying of laughter

— what were they laughing about so much?

— your stories

— well, i’m a clown

— you were so funny. . and when you jumped and started up dancing with the coat rack. .

— i honestly don’t remember that at all

— funny!

— tsk, tsk, tsk. . how could you let me sleep on the floor

— you’re funny even when you sleep

— but of course! especially when i happen to fart. . jesus, how humiliating!

— well, it’s human

— all too human

— m-m-m-m-m. . baby. . i love you

— farts and all?

— i was kidding, zack, you didn’t fart

— i didn’t? really?

— really

— phew, thank god!

— now go make some coffee, will you?

— you little fox, you. . wait, hold it right there. just like this, half-turned

— zack. .

— yes, stella. .

— if you ever stop making me laugh, i’ll leave you

— you’ll go looking for another clown?

— no. i’ll just leave you

*

I’ve no idea how long I was sitting there at the plastic table at Packard’s, but I am pulled out of my daydream by the loud noise of a backfiring exhaust pipe. The noisiest and shiniest cheap motorcycle I’ve ever seen parks a few feet away from me. A tall, skinny man dressed in black leather dismounts. He is wearing a military helmet with a swastika on it, a sparkly chain in place of a belt, and big leather riding boots. In his right boot, the handle of a knife. The eyes of this rider are hidden behind mirrored, deep-purple shades reflecting the emptiness of the whole street. When he takes them off at last, I realize that he can’t be more than nineteen years old. He has a goatee and a slow stride, with which he arrogantly walks past me and enters the trailer coffee shop.

From the drugstore across the street two girls come out and head toward the coffee shop. They cross the street and sit at a table on the corner. The first one is blonde and pretty — pony tail, cut-off jeans, a little red tank top revealing her navel, blue flip-flops, oversized sunglasses, sucking a milkshake from a large plastic cup with a straw. The other one, chubby, also wearing sunglasses, starts reading something aloud from a fashion magazine. The biker in black reappears from the shop with a Coca-Cola in hand and slowly approaches his motorbike. I now notice that he has a knife stuck in his other boot as well. The chubby girl lifts her greenish-yellow mirrored glasses from the magazine and looks toward the biker. I can’t see his response because he is already in front of the bike with his back toward me. He just stands there sipping his Coke. Then, in the middle of the scorching intersection, another kid appears. He crosses the street unhurriedly and stops at an empty table. His hair is fair, parted in the middle, his face covered with red, agitated pimples. He is wearing an Iron Maiden T-shirt, camouflage pants, and white sneakers. He drags up a chair, sits down, and starts monitoring the intersection carefully, without ordering anything.

For one much extended moment, all of these figures are still and silent. I have the feeling that I am in someone else’s bad dream. I choose to leave it and get into my car. From there, I manage to snap a few shots of the still-unmoving figures and head back toward the freeway which will take me away from here.

*

My training with Scott lasted a week. I knew most of the stuff in theory and wherever the theory came up short, I shrugged my shoulders and said that we had done things differently at ALPHA-PHARMA. I asked Scott how he wanted certain procedures done and he was glad to explain everything. Scott liked being asked. After the training, I was assigned to assist a senior monitor whose wife had died not long ago, and who had bad stomach problems. He was silent, sighing, swallowing pill after pill. I learned a lot from him. Three months later, I was given a laptop with several programs installed and was attached to a guy named Mike. Mike and I clicked instantly. Mike was easy to talk to, funny, and Scott-intolerant. Everything I needed to know to be ready for inspecting on my own, I learned from Mike.

I was handed a list with the hospitals and health centers participating in the clinical research. I was given the contact information of the physicians who received fat paychecks to work with us. What was expected from me in those early days of my new career was to inspect the study documentation. The overly swamped doctors sent their assistants, who were even busier. So after a brief handshake, they slammed thick folders down on my desk, with forms signed by the volunteers participating in the clinical trial, and disappeared. I retired into some empty office and compared the data. Had the patients filled out the questionnaire properly? Did their symptoms match? Were they the right age? Were the drugs taken as prescribed? Were there any complications after they were taken? All I needed to do was compare data. Data, data, data. . endless strings of data.

*

On one of the cross streets, just before the exit sign for Ramona, I see something picturesque. It’s a dirt road lined with more than fifty mailboxes; they’re attached to wooden posts and stuck in sand-filled paint, cat food, detergent, fertilizer, and other such tin or plastic containers. Some of these mailboxes are old and rusty, some brand new, others painted over, some crooked and with holes in them. Every one is different from the next one. And, where the dirt lane meets Main Street, there is a large empty space that recent rain has turned into a muddy puddle. The street sign reads HOPE. I take a few quick, wide shots of this crossroads. Then I go over to the mailboxes and shoot vertically and horizontally, getting the name of the street in the picture. Now I squat down and carefully compose the shot. I focus on one with a weathered American flag on it (Mr. and Mrs. Miller), which is next to the Hansens (orange hippie sign). I open the aperture, to get the shallow depth of field I need, and I click the shutter. Now, again, the same shot, but only this time, I close down three stops to include HOPE reflecting in the puddle. One, two, three, four clicks. Great. And then, just when I think I’m done, I hear the sound of an approaching vehicle behind me. A white pickup truck splattered with mud enters my frame, goes through the puddle, exits and stops abruptly in a cloud of dust by the mailboxes. A white cowboy hat emerges from the window and an arm wrapped in bandages like a wounded soldier’s head reaches out to open a mailbox. Now I realize how much was actually missing in my shot. This is it. The mud-splattered truck bed, the cloud of dust, the red stop lights, the cowboy hat, the American flag, the street named “Hope,” the mailboxes, the intersection, and the hand grabbing the fat pile of mail puts all of this together. I squat a little more, looking for a lower angle and just then the cowboy hat pokes out of the cab, turns my way, and shoots me a disapproving look. O-o-o-o-p-s. I get it. I’ve got no business here, holding a camera, crouching by a puddle. I bend over and pretend I’m tying my shoes. Brilliant. The cowboy hat slowly retracts; only the elbow remains sticking out. The pickup truck pulls away.