Zachary Karabashliev - 18% Gray

*

I lie down on the hard mattress for a long time and stare at the ceiling until the room comes into focus. I’m in Danny’s apartment in Brooklyn. Fucking Brooklyn, I don’t want to be in no fucking Brooklyn right now. I jump up, the room gets fuzzy, I lean on the table, stars sting my eyes, my head is going to explode. I go into the kitchen, look for coffee, find coffee in the cabinet over the sink, and turn on the coffee machine. I open the window and inhale the cold November air. I slam the window shut again. I find a cup, pour myself coffee. It smells promising. I return to the room where I woke up.

I bend over to fix the bed up a little, but the effort sends a new surge of pain to my brain. I have to be still. I lean on the wall in front of the bookcase filled with digital video tapes with one hand and hold the cup of steaming coffee in my other hand:

. . first recordings 1999, may, manhattan, june 16, project 1999, june 1999, brighton beach, atlantic city, december 2000, las vegas, july 2000, the strip, los angeles december 2000, manhattan new year’s eve 2000, Y2K celebration, full moon 2001, october, sozopol, winter 2001, snow over dunes, swans, the black sea, varna, winter 2001, 2001 chelsea, galleries, jazz van der holden. .

life in Sony video digital zoom lens, diameter 37 mm,

life in Precision CCD chip, recorded on FUJI super 8 film

life digitally translated into 0 and 1, 0 and 1, 0 and 1, 0 and 1, 0 and 1, 0 and 1. .

. . dave matthews band concert in central park, alex’s party, birthday party 2002, jeffrey’s play, opening night, grandma in the garden, summer 2002, gypsies, caravan in the woods, 2002, interviews, bulgaria 2002, silvia’s paintings, pouring rain, new jersey, amsterdam, den haag, amsterdam, my sister in disney land, eva in coronado, zack and stella, new york, penn station, departure. .

My heart starts pounding. I finish the coffee and go looking for something to kill this headache — aspirin, Advil, Tylenol, anything will do. Where’s Danny now when I need help, really need help. I can’t find any pills. I find half a gallon of milk in the fridge and drink, drink, drink. . I go back to the tapes, pull out zack and stella, new york, Penn Station, departure. .

I remember that day. What I had forgotten was that Danny was taping.

I find cables, plug the camera into the TV, and play the tape. I sit on the floor, hug my knees, and try to calm my breathing.

FADE IN:

Close up on an old record player thrown onto the side walk. The camera pulls back, points to a ONE WAY sign and the dome of a church. We are somewhere in Greenwich Village. Then I see myself and Stella. Her hair is long and light brown. She is wearing a brown suede blazer with a belt hanging at the back, light-blue jeans and high-heeled black shoes with hippie soles. Over her shoulder is her black leather bag with the little white skulls. The wall we walk by is covered in graffiti and the camera turns to see it.

In a moment, we see Stella and Danny, which means I have taken the camera now. A flock of pigeons fly in the blue sky, the camera follows them, then pans down to a chocolate-brown Manhattan, passes through the naked tree crowns with fluttering plastic bags on the branches, goes back to the street, and finds Stella again, who is walking away.

“Stella-a-a!” My voice booms near the camera microphone. We pass the fence of a school yard, the voices of kids playing basketball fill the air. Stella doesn’t turn back, she keeps walking.

“Stella-a-a-a!” I hear my voice again, the camera stops, she keeps walking. From the entrance of a building she passes a little girl steps out, carrying a rag doll in her hand. A little girl with thick brown hair and big beautiful eyes, who from this distance could pass for her daughter, for our daughter.

Stella smiles, stops, and turns around, looking at the little girl. The camera zooms in on the girl, who furrows her brow and moves her lips, perhaps scolding the doll, then the camera jumps and cuts to Stella’s face, which. .

Suddenly, something knocks the camera aside, Stella disappears, trees and buildings turn a cartwheel, the blue sky revolves, and Manhattan stands on its head. Before the unblinking eye of the camera, lying on the sidewalk, the wind blows a few pieces of paper.

“Oops, sorry.” A child’s voice comes from somewhere, and then the camera is up off the sidewalk. I see myself and a ten-year-old boy walking away with a basketball in his hand. I see Stella laughing and waving her hand.

FADE OUT.

Wide angle on Manhattan late afternoon, almost evening. Central Park — the lake, lilies, reflected clouds.

Medium shot of Stella and me, holding hands, walking away from the camera.

Close up on Stella, who throws her hair back.

Close up on a crane in the lake, a beautiful crane, emanating calmness.

CUT TO:

Street merchants have come out on the sidewalks with the falling of evening, Police sirens are heard more often. The neon nightlights take over Manhattan. Stella walks down Fifth Avenue, which looks exactly the way it should, since Stella is walking down it.

Suddenly, I hear a key in the key hole, the apartment door opens, and Danny walks in. I say good morning, take a sip of coffee without diverting my eyes from Stella, who walks down the busy sidewalk of the most beautiful city in the world.

“Zack, we need to talk,” Danny says.

The camera is now on one side of the street and Stella and I are at the other. We pass a black guy in Adidas sweat pants and a white hoodie, selling bootlegged CDs on the sidewalk. I stop to take a look at his collection, Stella keeps walking. Danny’s camera follows her. Vehicles, yellow cabs, bums, bicycle riders pass between the camera and Stella.

“Zack. . did you hear me? I have something to tell you.”

The camera zooms in on a saxophone player with a gray beard and yellow hat, who is playing a slow and breathy jazz tune. The sax case is wide open with some dollar bills and change in it.

“Hito called this morning.”

Stella tosses the leather bag with the skulls over her other shoulder, striding forward alone, while I slow down to put a dollar in the sax case.

“Hito went to the lab and found your photographs, all of your photographs.”

The camera follows me as I make my way through the crowd to catch up with Stella.

“So check this out. Hito was like”—Danny mimics a Japanese accent—“‘Who took this pictures? They look like ol’ pictures. I use to take this kind of picture back when I was young. I like the shadows and people, see?’” Danny laughs. “He wants to use a whole series of your images for a new ad campaign for Benzin, New York!”

Close up of my face in profile.

“Zack, I can’t imagine what you are feeling at this moment, but. . goddamn it, turn off that video. I want you to listen to me.”

Wide shot — Madison Square Garden — evening.

“You have a chance! A real chance! The ad campaign is. . You know what I’m talking about, man. Benzin, New York. . Your stuff will be in magazines, on fucking billboards, you’ll be all over. If Hito liked your work. . and he loved it. . Everything fits, dude. Your photos are unbelievably strong and true. What you captured on that trip, man — faces, roads, buildings, nature — everything is raw and real. You’ve captured America as if you were seeing it for the first time, as if you didn’t know how to take photographs. You’ve captured her the way she no longer is — real. And at the same time, everything is. . somehow calculated, everything fits. You have. . I’m struggling to find the word. . synchronicity, yes. You’ve achieved synchronicity. Believe me, you’ve succeeded. You have!”

Penn Station. Stella goes down the stairs. I catch up with her, pull on her bag like a thief, she is startled, lifts her hand instinctively, sees me, relaxes, kisses me on the ear, takes my hand, places it over her shoulder, cuddles me, and we continue walking through the crowd, embracing and walking down more stairs. The camera loses us for a while, then finds us again. It zooms in on us, drops us, then we are in focus again.