(Maybe she’ll be working today.)
(But I don’t care.)
(But maybe.)
After all, one cannot find a single Slammy’s north of Dock Junction. Maybe with my eventual newfound fame and fortune, I could introduce Slammy’s to the tristate area. Although I will not be seeking said fame and fortune until such time as I know for certain that I do not in any way want it. Only then will I seek it.
And if that ever happens, it might impress her. Perhaps I could even bring her up north as a regional manager. I could introduce her to my African American girlfriend and we could all hang out on weekends.
I maneuver my rental truck into the lot and park it at the far end in the weeds, since it won’t fit within the painted lines of the spaces and I am not a rude person. I am a good person. I am good.
Maybe she’s looking out the window and sees that I am good.
My trek on foot from the far end of the lot to the restaurant is brutal. My shoes stick to the melted tar. It has to be well over one hundred degrees out, and by the time I reach the door, I am dripping with sweat. Not the best way to make a second impression.
She’s there, behind the counter, same outfit, same expression. But I am different now, and I think she notices. I approach her with a spring in my step and a playful glint in my eyes.
“Hello!” I say.
“Welcome to Slammy’s. May I help you?”
“It’s good to see you again!” I say.
The restaurant is still empty or empty again (perhaps between this time and last time it had many, many customers). The same young man pokes his head out from the back, eyes me with the same suspicion, then disappears similarly.
“May I help you?” she says.
“Do you remember me? I’m the fellow who needed the water and paper towels three or so months ago.”
“May I take your order?”
“The fellow who needed to wipe the bugs off his windshield?”
“May I help you?”
“Yes,” I say and scan the menu behind her for new items, specials, soups du jour. There are none today. “I’ll have a Slammy’s Original Boardwalk Cola—”
“What si—”
“Biggy. And a … How is the Slammy’s Double El Mexicano Taco Burger?”
She punches some buttons on her cash register.
“Anything else?”
“My apologies. I was asking what you thought of the taco burger. I hadn’t yet order—”
“So, what, you don’t want El Mex?”
“I don’t know. I just wanted … Listen, are you a fan of movies?”
“I’m not going to no movies with you, mister.”
“No, I just … That’s my truck out there—well, it’s a rental—and it’s filled with a movie I discovered, made by an African American gentleman from St. Augustine. Perhaps you knew him. It’s animated.”
Blank stare.
“Like a cartoon?” I say.
“I know what animated is.”
“Of course. I didn’t mean to suggest—anyway, the man died and I’m taking his movie up to New York to study it further. All his puppets and props and sets are in the truck as well. It’s fully packed but I can pull some items out if you want to see. The craftsmanship is extraordinary. He was African American. As is my girlfriend. As are you.”
“The movie about fire?”
She’s interested!
“Yes, actually. Funny you should ask. There is a major conflagration at the end. You like movies about fire, do you?”
“Not really.”
“Oh. Then why did you ask that question?”
I’m suddenly a bit testy.
“I just figured since there’s smoke, maybe you were hauling the movie fire or something.”
“I’m sorry, there’s—?”
I turn to see smoke billowing out of the truck.
“Jesus!”
I run for the door.
“I figured it might be like Cocteau,” she says. “They once asked him what he would take from a burning house—”
“I know the quote!”
“His answer was, I would take the fire. That’s what made me think maybe you were taking the fire. Like Cocteau.”
I’m in love with her, but there is no time.
I try to tear across the parking lot, having to pull my feet free of the tar with each step, and attempt to open the back, but the handle is extraordinarily hot and I must jerk my hand away. I rip off my shirt, wrap my hand in it, and try again. I manage to open it, but the air rushing in causes a backdraft (also a dismal movie, by the way, directed by Ronson Howard, which somehow manages to make fighting fires both tedious and inexplicably colorless) and throws me hard against the windshield of my hitched automobile. My head pounds against it and I am reminded again of the splattered bugs. I look back and see a spot of blood where my head hit in the very same northwest quadrant that the mysterious drone bug hit. I, too, have left my essence on the windshield. But there is little or no time for waxing philosophical now.
I force myself toward the noxious, billowing smoke in an attempt to save what I can of Ingo’s film. It fills my eyes, my mouth, my lungs. I can’t see. I can’t think. As the remainder of my clothes burn from my body, I am reminded of the 1911 film version of Dante’s L’Inferno by Bertolini, Padovan, and de Liguoro, especially because of the naked writhing figures, which are similar to what I have now become, but also because of the hellfire. It was an extraordinary film for its time and the first feature-length film to come out of Italy. My beard is singed. I can see nothing but smoke. I am further reminded of the fortune-tellers in Dante’s Inferno who must walk forward with heads facing backward as punishment for their divinations in the world of the living. Truly, the experience in its entirety puts me in mind of hell. I fear I am dying, and as I become faint from the blistering heat and oxygen starvation, a strange thing happens. Something flashes before my eyes, but, no, it is not my life. It is Ingo’s film. I watch it again, perfectly remembered, every detail, every camera angle, every facial tic, every line of dialogue, every musical cue, every extended dance number. It’s almost as if I am being informed that his film is my true life and that this life is now over. Still, miraculously, I push forward, courageous in ways I never before imagined myself (I have imagined myself to be courageous in certain ways, especially in speaking truth to power and on certain carnival rides). For Ingo’s film is now my baby, and as its mother, I must do the impossible to save it. I must lift, with superhuman strength, this metaphorical truck under which my metaphorical baby is trapped, even though in this case, the truck is on fire and the baby is inside it, so it’s not a perfect analogy. My baby, my baby, my baby is the chant in my head as I pull myself up into this towing inferno. Then nothing. It is an indescribable nothingness that can perhaps be best described as nothing. Just as the concept of zero was revolutionary in the history of mathematics, so must the concept of nothing be understood by future humans sometime in the future. I am experiencing nothing, which on the surface might seem oxymoronic: the notion of experiencing the negation of experience. But I am indeed, and I shall attempt to communicate it. Imagine a vast room with nothing in it. Go on. Now subtract the room. Now take away yourself imagining it. Now take away yourself imagining