Paul Beatty - Tuff

“Oh, God, now the nigger going to start talking about ‘the film.’ ” Fariq said “the film” in one long wispy breath, as if enunciated by a Public Television cinéaste. Then he returned to passing his magnifying glass over the counterfeit money, occasionally scissoring slivers from spools of blue and red thread, arranging them haphazardly on a bill, and dusting the money with a coat of spray-on polyurethane. “ ‘The film.’ ”

Yolanda whisked Jordy from his aimless rounds and sniffed his diaper.

Spencer could see in the sparkle in Winston’s eye and the wry smile a subtle erosion in the rocky landscape that separated them. “What do you mean?” he asked.

“Why do most people go to the movies? To be entertained, right? Maybe to learn something. But most motherfuckers go to guess who the fucking killer is. And it’s always the same person.”

“Who?”

“The motherfucker you least expect, of course.”

“So why do you go? Why waste your money?”

“I don’t even know. I knew when I was little. I went to the show to see some famous movie star’s titties. Now movies is so bad they’ve even ruined that simple pleasure.”

“How?”

“You sit down, popcorn in one hand, soda pop in the other. You wait a bit, look at your watch, and say, ‘Forty-five minutes, and this bitch ain’t showed no titty? This flick sucks.’ If she flash her chichis before forty-five minutes, then the movie really sucks.”

“So any film with a female lead is a bad film?”

“Except for La Femme Nikita . Some of them old Natalie Wood shits is all right too. That bitch was fine.”

“And if the lead is played by a man?”

“If it’s a man, especially if it’s a white man — and it usually is, even if a nigger is the star — then the film has to be about right and wrong. And whiteys is the last motherfuckers on earth to be teaching me about right and wrong. Much less charging me for the lesson.”

“But why do you go?”

“I go for the disappointment, I guess. I’m used to being disappointed, and I know I’ll find it in the movie theater.”

Spencer reached for a unopened beer. Winston didn’t mind.

“Winston, can I ask you something else?”

“Yeah.”

“Why did you call Big Brothers of America?”

“Suppose I knew I’d be disappointed.”

“Maybe subconsciously you did, but that’s not the reason you made the call.”

“True. I guess I really called because I’m looking for someone to explain shit. I don’t understand nothing about life, me — nothing.”

“Kind of like someone to say, ‘Meanwhile, back at the ranch …’ ”

“Yeah.”

“You know, when the Japanese used to show silent films the theater owners paid someone to stand next to the screen and explain the action.”

“For reals? Didn’t they have those cards?”

“Intertitles. I supposed they did, but, you know, sometimes those aren’t enough.”

“That’s true. Whenever I go see one of those silent jammies, Charlie Chaplin or something, I be trying to read the lips. Figure out what’s really going on. So they had a motherfucker lip-reading or some shit?”

“The guy was called a benshi . They’d show Battleship Potemkin and he’d say, ’Note Eisenstein’s simple yet masterful contrapuntal statements in this scene. The rectangular lines of sailors and officers standing on the quarterdeck, bisected by the battleship’s guns — the state’s guns, if you will.”

“I seen that. ‘All for a spoonful of borscht.’ Baby carriage going down the stairs. Good fucking movie. Benshi . That’s deep.” Winston was stalling for time. He was enjoying the conversation. Here in front of him was the only person he’d ever spoken to who’d also seen Battleship Potemkin and was willing to discuss it in detail. But that was no reason to let a dreadlocked Yankee into his life. He asked Spencer why he knew so much about film. The rabbi told him the role of Jews in Hollywood was one of his lecture subjects. He then proceeded to assert that the recent independent film explosion was a Gentile assault on the perceived Jewish domination of Hollywood. This proclamation was followed by a thin segue into the argument that the popularity of the remake was more than a function of the dearth of Tinseltown originality; it was the movie industry’s veiled attempt to recapture its image as art. Moviemaking, once a highbrow craft associated with the creative goyishe genius of Tennessee Williams, Nabokov, Dalí, and Faulkner, was now painting by numbers, dependent on the guile of moguls, computer geniuses erasing the distinction between actor and animation, and a slew of out-of-work nephews.

Winston was having some difficulty following Spencer’s argument — not because he didn’t understand the artistic references or failed to see what Jewishness had to do with what Spencer was saying, but because he was having an epiphany. He interrupted Spencer’s speech. “Hey, Rabbi. Meanwhile, back at the ranch …”

“What?”

“You remember when I told you I was looking for understanding?”

Spencer nodded.

“I now understand that understanding is not something you look for, it’s something that finds you. You understand?”

“What made you think of that?”

“You was talking and for some reason I thought of Fugitive from a Chain Gang . You ever seen it? Paul Moody.”

“Paul Muni.”

“So you seen it?”

“No.”

“Paul Muni down South, running from the police for a murder he didn’t commit. Gets caught and put in prison. Right there, you know I can relate. But one scene fucks me up. It’s late at night, he’s on a wagon with a bunch of white boys coming back from breaking rocks or picking cotton, and as he comes back to the jail, there’s a wagonload of black niggers about to go out to pick cotton, break rocks. And Muni and this pitch black motherfucker catch eyes for about two seconds. Oh, the shit is deep.”

“That’s it?”

“Hell, yeah, that’s it. Muni give that nigger a look like ‘Damn, now I understand the bullshit you black motherfuckers go through. People falsely accusing you of shit you ain’t done. Forced to pick cotton.’ But he don’t start crying. He don’t call nobody ‘brother’ or wish him luck, try to shake his hand, or talk about how they’ve got to unite. He don’t say not one word. Just gives Money a look that says, ‘I feel you, homey, but I gots to get mines.’ That’s real. That’s how it be in jail or in life. Sometimes you catch yourself feeling close to motherfuckers you not supposed to feel close to, but you can’t afford to play the humanitarian role. But I realized I’m waiting for someone to look at me like that or for me to look at someone else like that. I’m not sure which.”

“Didn’t I look at you that way when I came in?”

“No, Rabbi, you looked at me like you felt sorry for me.”

“And what’s wrong with that? I do feel sorry for you.”

“You need to also feel sorry for yourself.”

“You’re saying I’m hollow, shallow, like today’s movies.”

“Nothing wrong with being shallow, just shouldn’t be shallow when you trying act like you about something.”

Spencer felt shamed, but there was no lingering anguish pressing on his shoulders, forcing him to his knees to beg for forgiveness or spiritual guidance. He begged his religion for a sign of contriteness. And his heart began to pound, the hairs on his arms to stand on end, his knees start to shake. “Did you feel that?” Spencer asked.

“Feel what?”

“A buzz, an ethereal presence in the room, like something was passing through.”

“That’s the malt liquor talking to you. You getting fuzzy-faced. Take a piss, you’ll feel better.”