So we made plans to film in Mr. McCarthy’s room after school, and reluctantly told a couple of teachers about it, and with disturbing speed all teachers had found out about it, and told their students, and also it made the morning announcements every day in a row for like a week.
So yeah. This was possibly the death blow to the invisibility I had been cultivating throughout high school, and then gradually losing since becoming friends with Rachel. I used to be just normal Greg Gaines. Then I was Greg Gaines, Rachel’s Friend and Possibly Boyfriend.
That was bad enough. But now I was Greg Gaines, Filmmaker. Greg Gaines, Guy with a Camera, Following People Around. Greg Gaines, Perhaps He Is Creepily Filming You Right Now Without Your Knowledge or Consent.
Fuckbiscuit.
Second Problem: The footage was not very good. The teachers all ran way too long, first of all. None of them said anything that could be edited down. A lot of them started talking about tragedies that had happened in their lives, which besides being unusable made things fairly awkward in the room after they were done recording.
As for the students, 92 percent said some combination of these things:
• “Get better.”
• “I have to say I don’t know you that well.”
• “I know we never hung out very much.”
• “You’re in my class, but we’ve never really talked.”
• “I actually don’t know anything about you.”
• “But I do know that you have the inner strength to get better.”
• “You have a beautiful smile.”
• “You have a beautiful laugh.”
• “You have really beautiful eyes.”
• “I think your hair is beautiful.”
• “I know you’re Jewish, but I’d like to just say something from the Bible.”
And then the other 8 percent tried to be funny or creative, and that was even worse.
• “In eighth period, I wrote a song that I want to sing you. Are we ready? Can I just sing it? OK. Rachel Kushner / Don’t you push her / She’s got leukemia / and she probably wants to scream-ia / But she’s everybody’s friend! / You know her life’s not gonna end!!!”
• “Even if you do die, I was thinking today, it’s really only on the arbitrary human scale that a human life seems short, or long, or whatever, and, like, from the perspective of eternal time, the human life is vanishingly small, like it’s really equivalent whether you live to be 17 or 94 or even 20,000 years old, which is obviously impossible, and then, on the other hand, from the perspective of an ultra-nanoinstant, which is the smallest measurable unit of time, a human life is almost infinite even if you die when you’re, like, a toddler. So either way it doesn’t even matter how long you live. So I don’t know if that makes you feel better, but it’s just something to think about.”
• “Greg’s a fag. I guess he’s in love with you, so that makes him bisexual or whatever. I hope you feel better.”
Third Problem: Madison had already made get-well cards for Rachel. So we weren’t really doing anything new, for one. We were just doing a get-well card in video form.
Also—this took a little longer to realize—there was nothing specifically Gaines/Jackson about the get-well video. It was something anyone could do. So was it really that great of a gesture? No.
We’d been making films for seven years. We needed to do something better.
Ken Burns has done a bunch of documentaries about things, like the Civil War. He wasn’t around for the Civil War, just like we weren’t really around for most of Rachel’s life. I mean, we were, but we weren’t paying attention. That sounds horrible, but you know what I mean. Or, maybe it’s just horrible. I don’t know.
Look: We haven’t been following Rachel around with a camera for her entire life in order to get footage for an eventual documentary. You can’t really get mad at me for that.
Anyway, the Ken Burns style is to show a bunch of photos and old footage taken by other people, along with voiceovers and interviews and stuff. It’s a very easy style to copy, so this was our designated Plan B after the get-well video idea failed. Unfortunately, we really only had one person to interview: Denise. And Denise was going through a rough time. Her only child had cancer, and Rachel’s father—I probably forgot to mention this earlier—was estranged from the family.
Interviewing this woman was a total nightmare.
INT. KUSHNER LIVING ROOM — DAY
GREG
offscreen
So, Denise. Can you tell me a bit about Rachel’s birth?
DENISE
distractedly
Oh, Rachel’s birth.
GREG
offscreen
Yes.
DENISE
Rachel’s birth. What an ordeal.
inexplicably loudly
She was never much of a fighter. She’s always been a quiet girl, just so sweet, never wanting to fight, and now I don’t know what to do. I can’t make her fight, Greg.
GREG
offscreen
Uh, right.
DENISE
I raised a girl who’s sweet, and . . . and lovely, but not tough.
GREG
offscreen
So what was she like as a baby? Did she have a favorite toy?
DENISE
distractedly
She used to read . . . books.
uncomfortable pause
Greg, I’m a good mother. But I don’t know how to get her through this. It’s like, God forbid, she doesn’t want to live anymore.
GREG
offscreen
So, as a baby, she liked to . . . read books.
DENISE
firmly, sort of robotically
I’m a good mother. I’ve been a good mother to her.
We made an attempt to interview Rachel’s grandparents over the phone, but that was possibly an even more depressing failure.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Mr. Lubov—this is Greg, a friend of Rachel’s.”
“Who?”
“A friend of your granddaughter, Rachel.”
“Whose friend?”
“Your granddaughter. Rachel.”
“Hang on. (Janice. It’s for you. I said it’s for you. The phone. No, I don’t know where it is. The phone, Janice.)”
“. . .”
“Who is this?”
“Hi, my name is Greg. I’m a friend of your granddaughter, Rachel.”
“Rachel lives . . . Rachel lives with her mother.”
“I know—I’m doing a documentary? About Rachel?”
“You’re doing a—oh.”
“I was wondering if I could ask you some questions?”
“What?”
“Can I ask you some questions about Rachel?”
“Ask her mother. Denise.”
“It’s for a film, to make her happy.”
“OK, I don’t know who you are, and I don’t know how to help you. But if you’re looking for Rachel, she lives with her mother, Denise.”
“Um . . . OK, thanks.”
I hung up because it sounded like Rachel’s grandma was about to cry. But sometimes grandmas just sound like that. Either way: excruciating.
There wasn’t much footage lying around for us to use, either. There was one vacation video that Denise let us look at, but we were really hesitant to use it.