“What’s your name, little man?”
“I’m Will, even though I shouldn’t be telling you my name.”
“Is it a secret?”
“It isn’t a secret, it’s just you never know. That’s what Tyler’s mom says. You never know. But she needs to worry less about other people’s influence on Tyler and more about her own.”
Adjusting to the dimness, I saw that the hostess of the imminent cocktail party was Arthur’s wife, Penelope — at the moment handing Will several sloshing ziplock bags of marinated meat. She was short, not much taller than her son, with chopped black hair and a small upturned nose, through one nostril a silver loop that glinted orange. She had cherubic cheeks and full red lips. She was wearing jeans and a black tank top that exposed a sleeve of tattoos the length of her arm. “Hold them by the tops,” she said, “like this. Give me the gun, thank you very much. Here’s the flashlight. Go ahead. I’ll meet you up there.”
Sri Lanka and I helped the editor empty his fridge of its beer and frozen dinners, and we felt our way back down the hall. On our way up to the roof, Sri Lanka riffed on the submarine, red-lit stairwell — its creative possibilities as an opening location for a low-budget short. “That’s what we need to shake things up,” he was saying to us. “Get back to basics. Just the three of us and a camcorder. Forget all that other crap. Cut it in camera.” He was squinting, framing with his fingers as we made our way upstairs.
The editor and I arched eyebrows at each other. A playful eye roll. A grin.
(How can I describe that feeling, jogging up the stairs after this wordless exchange — that welling up inside? It doesn’t come too often as I am a natural wallflower, closing off the petals of myself to people instinctively, a tendency that has become more pronounced the older I get. But as a child the feeling came to me quite often: the simple desire to be someone’s friend — and the simple hope that this someone felt the same way, too.)
A sign on the roof door read NO PUBLIC ACCESS! yet the door was propped wide by a rusty beige folding chair. Gravel crunched underfoot and the tar floor beneath had a springiness that made it feel, with each step, like you were about to break through somebody’s ceiling. Clouds of grill smoke and the smell of charcoal and lighter fluid. The rising swell of horns from down below, a massive island-long traffic jam. There were no railings — it was just roof and thin air. A water tower loomed in the center of the space, an everywhere city thing rarely seen this close up — a giant homage to the water towers of New York. Already plenty of people were up here, looking out over the roof, bodies tense and rooted, marveling at the sight of a city without power, eerie even in the light of day.
I considered calling my ex-girlfriend, who still worried over me. An and I met during freshman orientation and immediately settled into a domestic bliss that lasted until the day we received our diplomas. After the breakup, she insisted on our continued acquaintance, checking in weekly. Our most-sought-after bassoonist at school, An had afterward gone abroad to study Byzantine frescoes; like so many others at conservatory, myself included, she had shed the habit of music upon graduation. But she had taken the high road, gunning for a master’s at the most prestigious institution that would have her. An was horrified to learn I had taken up the movies and was doing everything in her power to dissuade me. It was, she said, an aesthetic and intellectual ghetto.
“Aren’t you interested in art anymore? That quintet, oh! I could see it entering the repertoire.” She was referring to my senior thesis, and I knew An well enough to know her praise was meant only for rhetorical effect: she wasn’t pointing out how good a student composer I’d been but rather how little potential there was for me in film. I told her that I was having fun, which was more than I could say for the time spent in the practice room, sweating over that quintet.
“Fun,” she said.
“Sure,” I said. “Fun.”
Arthur arrived with his work colleagues, two men who looked like they might be twins. His wife greeted them, his son circling as Arthur droned on to his colleagues. I approached but was forced to wait alongside Arthur’s wife as he wrapped up his train of thought.
She gave me a sympathetic look, as did the twins, who seemed to be looking for a way out of this conversation. “It’s the fundamental mistake with the reader-oriented model,” Arthur was saying. “Just because a readership wants a certain kind of literature doesn’t mean it’s a literature that should be written — a literature that literature wants, so to speak. The reader model assumes the reader knows what’s best. But this just encourages fad chasing. And it reinforces existing tastes, which in turn ensures the same kinds of stories get written over and over. Readers can’t be trusted with that kind of responsibility.”
One of the men Arthur was with, upon closer inspection, was a woman. She had on the same outfit as her colleague — plaid short-sleeved shirt with jeans and Day-Glo sneakers. They both wore crew cuts and horn-rimmed glasses. Penelope introduced us and, having just met them herself, messed up their names.
“I’m Leslie,” the man said, “and she’s Lucien.” It was unclear if they were related in any way other than their place of employment. Leslie toyed with the strap of his canvas tote like he was adjusting a seat belt.
Lucien said, “You can call me Lucy.”
I was looking to chat some more with Arthur, but he was already being pulled away by Will (“You’ve got to come look at this, trust me, it’s really cool”), leaving me alone with his work colleagues and his wife. I excused myself to find Sri Lanka and the editor, who were sitting in a folding-chair semicircle with a half-dozen others.
“Geography,” the editor said, “Entertainment, Literature, Science, or Sports and Leisure.” He was holding a deck of Trivial Pursuit cards.
“Entertainment,” someone across from him said.
“Make sure you’re rotating them.”
Sri Lanka, when I sat down, said, “So I’ve been on this website lately? And it’s given me some really good ideas for our next project. Why-Frame-the-Juice-Dot-Org.”
The editor read from the card in his hand. “Here’s your question. What actor played immigrant Latka Gravas on the television series Taxi?”
“There’s a theory circulating that the murders of Nicole Brown and Ronald Goldman were masterminded by Andy Kaufman to help O.J.’s flagging career.”
“Andy Kaufman!” someone said. “That’s his name.”
“That’s a wild coincidence,” I said.
Sri Lanka, deadpan, “There are no coincidences.”
“Anyway, isn’t he dead?”
“He faked his death, dude. Everybody knows that.” Then hushed, “Listen. Are you ready to head out?”
“We’re just settling in.”
“But these are adults. If you want to have fun, I know a couple of places we can go.” He took a pull on his beer and belched. “Plus I’m kind of hungry.”
“Why don’t you go ahead then,” I said. “I’m going to stay here awhile.”
Leslie and Lucy joined the circle.
“Okay, this one’s up for grabs,” the editor called. “Entertainment, of course: How many Rocky movies were made by 1990?”
“Who on earth would admit to knowing that,” said Lucy.
“Oh, here we go,” Leslie said. “Let’s hear it.”
“What,” Lucy said.
“It’s such familiar ground you’re covering. Generations of old people have been there before you, kvetching about what heathens we’ve all become.”
Sri Lanka said, “Five! That’s easy.”
I watched Penelope some yards away cuff a small brown paper bag and set it down on the ground. Will was helping. He held the bag steady while she filled it with dried beans from a large bin and set a small candle inside. Will lit it for her and then handed her another bag from the stack he was holding. By the time they were done, the place looked like a proper roof garden.