Three Days Before the Shooting ... (56 page)

I had it stolen back East, I said. I had pawned it in Newark.

Look, Donelson said, What’s the plot of this thing?

We won’t plot it, I said, we’ll make it up as we go along. It depends upon
how much dough they can raise. I’ll think of something. Just shoot anything interesting you see.

Play it by ear, you mean? Karp said, with this little film we have?

That’s right. By ear and by nose, by cheek and by jowl, by the foresight and the hindsight, by the foreskin and the rear skin, by the hair of my chinny chin chin and my happy nappy!

We stood in the street beneath a huge cottonwood tree, the camera resting on a tripod near the curb. For once there was no crowd. Sunlight, clear and unhazed, flooded the asphalt and the odor of apple blossoms drifted to us from a pair of trees in a yard across the street. I could hear the bounce-rattle-scrape as a pair of little girls tossed jacks on the porch of a small house that sat behind a shallow lawn in which a bed of red poppies made bright red blobs in the sun. Beside me Donelson was rolling a Bull Durham cigarette and I fought my irritation under control. He was arrogant and impatient and he had no discipline. If I didn’t guide him every minute he’d waste the film and antagonize the people. I’d look at the day’s shooting and there would be nothing more than a jumble of scenes, as though the rambling impressions of an idiot’s day had been photographed. With Donelson it was gelly, gelly, gelatine—all day long and all images ran to chaos, as though Sherman’s Army had traumatized his sense of order forever. Once there was a sequence of a man whitewashing the walls of the slaughterhouse which stood at the edge of the town near the river, and this followed by a flock of birds strung out skimming over a stretch of field; then came shots of the courthouse clock at those moments when the enormous hands leaped across the gaps of time to take new positions but ever the same on the bird-fouled face, then a reversed flight of birds, and this followed by the clock hands whirling in swift reversal. Donelson ached to reverse time, I yearned to master it, or so I told myself. I edited a series of shots, killing time. The darkness between the frames longer than what was projected. Once there was a series consisting of a man and a boy and a boar hog, a cat and a great hairy spider—all shot in flight as they sought to escape, to run away from some unseen pursuer. And as I sat in the darkened hotel room watching the rushes, the day’s takes, on the portable screen, the man seemed to change into the boy and the boy, changing his form as he ran, becoming swiftly boar and cat and tarantula, moving ever desperately away, until at the end he seemed, this boar-boy-spider-cat, to change into an old man riding serenely on an old white mule as he puffed a corncob pipe. I watched it several times and each time I broke into a sweat, shaking as with a fever. Why these images, and what was their power?

And Donelson had sung, “Oh, while I sit on my ass on the ass of my ass a curious paradox comes to my mind, While three-fourths of my ass is in front of my ass the whole of my ass is behind.” Oh, Donelson, that impossible
Donelson. That bad boy with his toy. Sometimes I wondered if any of it had meaning for him beyond the joy of denying the reality of all that which he turned his lenses upon….

From the walk I was listening to the dry, rhythmical, bounce-scrape-scrape-bounce of the knucklebone jacks and ball of the two little girls continuing—when suddenly from behind us a dark old fellow wearing a black Cordoba hat, blue denim jacket, and a scarf of fuchsia silk wrapped around his throat moved stiffly past on a fine black seven-gaited mare. Small and dry, he sat her with the stylized and monumental dignity of an equestrian statue and in the sun-slant the street became quite dream-like. His leathery hands held the gathered reins upon the polished horn of a gleaming cowboy saddle and his black, high-heeled boots, topped by the neat, deep cuff of short tan cowhide riding chaps, rested easy and spurless in the stirrups as he moved slowly past in meditation, his narrowed eyes bright glints in the shadow of his hard-brimmed hat. Donelson started to speak but I silenced him as I watched with whirling mind, filled with the sight and listening now to the mare’s hooves beating with measured gait through the bright suspense of the afternoon—when suddenly a little boy in blue overalls exploded from between two small houses across the street and ran after the horseman, propelled by an explosion of joy.

Hi, there, Mister Love, he yelled. Make her dance, Mister Love, I’ll sing the music. Will you, Mister Love? Won’t you please, Mister Love? Please,
please
, Mister Love? Clapping his hands as he ran pleading beside the mare’s flank.

Dance her, Mister Love, he called, and I’ll call the others and we’ll all sing for you, Mister Love.

Well, I’ll be goddam, Donelson said beside me. What does the little bastard mean, he’ll sing the music?

He means what he says, I guess, I said.

And who the hell is that, the Pied Piper on a gaited mare?

The children were singing now, following alongside the arch-necked mare as she moved, the old fellow holding his seat as though he were off somewhere in an elder’s chair on a church platform—or on the air itself—watching the kids impassively as he stroked the horse’s mane in time to its circus-horse waltzing.

There, I said, Now
there’s
something we can use. We could use that man, I said.

Donelson looked at me. So write a part for the nag and the kids, he said. You decided all of a sudden to make it a horse opera? He laughed. Now, by God, I’ve seen everything, he said.

No, I said, I was looking at the children move, some were waltzing in a whirl along the sidewalk, their arms outstretched, shouting and singing.
They went past the houses, whirling in circles as they followed the dancing mare. A dog barked along a fence and I could hear through it all the first little boy’s pure treble sounding high above the rest.

Suddenly I looked at Donelson. Why the hell aren’t you shooting, I said, and saw his mouth drop open in surprise.

No film in the camera, he said. You told me to shoot exteriors of that mansion up in the north section of town. I forgot to reload. Besides, you know we’re short of film.

And all this happening right before our eyes, I said.

Maybe we could get them to run it through some other time, Donelson said. With a few chocolate bars and cones of ice cream you could buy all the pickaninnies in town. Though God knows what the horse and rider would cost. That old bastard looks like weathered iron. D’ya ever see anyone like him?

No, I said, and it’ll never happen like this again. How often do I have to tell you that you have to have film in the camera at all times? We don’t have the dough to make up everything, we have to snatch everything that passes and in places like this anything can happen and
does
.

I cursed our luck.

A woman came out to stand on the porch of one of the houses shaking her head and hugging her body as though she were cold.

That Love, that ole hoss and those chillen, she said. They ought to put them all out in the meadow somewhere.

What is his name? I called.

That’s ole Love, she said. That’s ole Love New.

Then another voice spoke up and I became aware of an old woman sitting in a rocking chair on a porch two houses away down the street.

That’s him all right. He’s just the devil hisself and he’s going to take those chillen off to Torment one of these days. You just mark my words.

She spat into the yard. Calling hisself an Indian and hound-dogging around. The old black tomcat. She spat again and I saw the snuff flash brown through the sunlight, then snake across the bare yard to roll into a ball, like quicksilver across the face of a mirror.

Find out where the old fellow lives, I told Donelson. I watched them dancing on past the big cottonwood tree, the glossy horse moving with ceremonial dignity, its neck beautifully arched, and hearing the children’s bright voices carrying the melody pure and sweet along the air. They were coming to the corner now and suddenly I saw the old man rear the horse, the black Cordoba hat suddenly rising in a brisk salute above his white old head, freezing there for a moment as the mare danced a two-step on her well-shod hooves. Then, as he put her down I could hear the hooves ringing out on the road as he took the corner at a gallop, the children stringing after, cheering.

Damn, Donelson said, where do you think he comes from? Is there a circus in town?

Only you, I said. Only us out here without film.

We found Karp with one of his faith who ran a grocery store. They were discussing politics. We drank a soda and went back to the hotel to discuss the film. So how do we start? Donelson said. With a covered wagon? There must be enough of them rotting away in barns around this town.

Or how about an Indian attack? Karp said. Enough of them look like Indians to make things go fairly well….

I was watching a little boy in blue overalls who had been left by the others. He had suddenly become a centaur, his foreleg arched as he waltzed horse-style to his own
Taaa ta ta ta taaa ta ta
, back between the houses. At that age I preached Job, boils and all, but I didn’t dance, and all his losses my loss of mother….

What about doing the Boston Tea Party, Donelson said, with these coons acting both the British and the Beantowners? That would be a riot. Make some up as Indians, take the rest and Harvard-up their talk. Even the camera would laugh. Too bad we can’t film sound. We could out do the minstrels, ‘Lasses White and all. I understand enough of them around here are named Washington and Jefferson and Franklin—put them in powdered wigs, give them red coats, muskets, carpetbags….

Some are named Donelson too, I said, watching the smile die out on his face.

So why not, he said. I’d feel awful bad if my folks didn’t get their share.

No, I said, it’ll be a modern romance. They’ll have dignity and they’ll play simple Americans. Good, hardworking, kindly ambitious people with a little larceny here and there…. Let’s not expect to take their money and make fools of them while doing it.

What! And how the hell are we going to make these tar babies look like God’s fair chosen creatures?

That’s your problem, Donelson, I said.

God’s going to turn you into a crow for that…. Who? You, that’s who
.

You must think you’re a magician, Donelson said. Sometimes I have the feeling that you think you can do anything with a camera. So what’s the romance all about? What’ll we call it?

The Taming of the West, I said, or The Naming of the Baby, or Who’s Who in Tamarac….

That’s enough, Donelson said, I’ll get it by-and-by.

Donelson, I said, we can shoot the scene right here. See, the lights should shine from above there, at an angle, cutting the shadow. And the leading lady will move through just as the hero comes into the door….

Okay, okay, but who’s going to play the part?

Never mind, there’s bound to be some good-looking young gal in this town who’ll be anxious to play it. There’s bound to be plenty of talent here. I have a hunch.

Donelson looked at his glass. Say, he said, what you say they call this drink?

Black Cow.

You sure it isn’t white mule? From the way you’re talking I’d think so.

You just wait, you’ll see.

I’ll have to wait but we’d better get something going quick, because the dough is going fast. Go West, young man, where the pickings are easy…. That’s still the best idea for us.

We’ll go West, but for the while we’ll linger here.

So we’ll stay, but what about a script?

She smiled, her head back, and I could see the sweet throbbing of her throat. Thinking,
Time—time is all I need to take the mountain
. But now her mind was on the sheerest shadow she hoped to be upon the wall. I looked into the trees, the shadows there. Blossoms fall.

He had called me to him on a bright day….

Bliss, Daddy Hickman said, you keep asking me to take you even though I keep telling you that folks don’t like to see preachers spending too much time around a place they think of as one of the Devil’s hangouts. All right, so now I’m going to take you so you can see for yourself, and you’ll see that it’s just like the world—full of sinners and a few believers, a few good folks and a heap of mixed-up and bad ones. Yes, and beyond the fun of sitting there looking at the marvelous happenings in the dark, there’s all the same old snares and delusions we have to sidestep every day right out here in the bright sunlight. Because you see, Bliss, it’s not so much a matter of where you
are
as what you
see…
.

Yes, sir, I said.

He shook his head. No, don’t go agreeing too quick, Bliss; wait until you understand. Now like old Saint Luke says, “The light of the body is the eye,” so you want to be careful that the light that your eye lets into you isn’t the light of darkness and confusion.

I nodded my head, watching his eyes. I could see him studying the Word as he talked, the way his eyes seemed to look inside in order to look out. He was looking through and beyond me.