Streetlights
A/N: I don't own. I rent.
Cut scene.
The camera is zoomed in on the knob as it winds back. A hand enters the picture, knuckles in the center of the field of view, and it turns the knob backwards. As the camera begins to pan out, tan khakis and an over worn blue and red sweater come into focus.
Pan out and focus in on the loft.
The air is white against the frigid winter, and the fact that half of the furniture in the room is metal doesn't help. There's a sort of lingering in the room; a knowledge of the way things used to be, kind of like when someone smashes up a puzzle. The pieces are all there, and they all fit…however, the problem is figuring out which pieces go together.
Mark can't help but think that no matter how these pieces work together, they will still paint a distorted picture.
Maybe it will be a picture of Times Square, or maybe the Space, a little scene downtown where most protests were held. The puzzle pieces could shape together a building of NYU or even the picture of the subway lines.
Or, maybe, they could put together the picture of Mark sitting on the cold metal table, eyes accompanied with dark bags and a smell that could scare away deodorant. Maybe they could piece together the picture of Mark holding his camera, staring at his lap, not even bothering to wind the film anymore.
Maybe they could put together the same picture that has been in the loft for four days.
Mark refuses to eat, sleep, or move until Roger gets back. He will not give it. He will not allow the defeat to settle over him. War will be met with war, as what goes around comes around.
Still…there's only so much one can take.
And, for some odd reason, he can't help but wonder…if he closes his eyes and drifts off to sleep, will it all be the same when he wakes up?
See, the protagonist in this story is decaying. He's been sitting on that table for four days, and has yet to even twitch. Mark is something everyone in this world likes to call "dependent." He depends on his camera and film and filming that guy in Central Park with a camera; on New York's orange streetlights and rat infested restaurants and restaurant loaded streets; on the school girls with backpacks and the little old lady whose bag was stolen. Mark captures them all on film and, in doing so, documents real life. He catches every possible minute that ticks by and replays it when the clock has gotten to a particularly bad hour. Every night that Roger stumbles into the loft drunk or high—or both—with a girl draped around his arm or a needle prepared to take her place, he can just shut off from the world and hide. The filmmaker can set up a projector in front of the cracked white walls of his room and be sucked back into the Life Café, when a waitress almost dropped a tray of glasses. Or when that guy in Central Park was filming Mark while Mark was filming him, and it was the funniest thing he had encountered all week. Maybe a month. It doesn't really matter, anyway—Mark hasn't laughed or even cracked a smile since the April's showers brought Roger's cowers.
It's kind of pathetic, how dependent he is on that camera, because fact of the matter is, when all is said and done, Mark will never make it big. He will never film some earth shattering documentary or poignantly moving film that will change lives worldwide. All Mark has is clips of life—clips of people in love and falling in love, clips of people dying and falling victim to disease. Mark has clips of things that everyone knows all too well. But for some reason, Mark continues. He knows he can find the beauty in any situation; he's always known that. Blurred lines and distortions and halflights have always fascinated him with the way they can change a scene and make it everything it's not.
Ever since he was young, the filmmaker has always been very mature. He understood causes and effects, accepted consequences, and quickly adapted to new situations. Even before all of that, though, Mark understood life and death and the difference between being and living. For some reason, halflight has always drawn him into that; the notion that every day acknowledges what was and what should be. Halflight acknowledges existence in a world where the only person that knows one exists is oneself. Halflight was always there to assure Mark that after death, there is always some distortion to one's life. The impoverished poet's work becomes some of the most brilliant of the twentieth century after it is found in the pocket of the jacket covering his dead body in a snow covered alley where he lived. A fourth grade teacher saves dozens of lives by simply teaching her children that everyone has a conscious, even those guys that hold banks for hostage.
So, even though it's only real life, maybe the filmmaker's movies will teach people about life and death and love when it's found in a dusty old box in the closet of a NYU philosophy professor.
Maybe that's the exact reason he's become so attached to Roger.
Both he and the rock star have few things in common, but one of the strangest is the fact that their favorite time of day is exactly 5:46 PM. That's the time when the sun is neither up nor down, life is neither good nor bad, and you are neither alive nor dead. There is a medium to the world's smallest antonyms, and they become what was and what should be.
Mark's fascination with halflight started before Roger, but after Benny and dropping out of Brown. At first, when he and Collins would sit on the roof and look down at the well crafted hell that was Alphabet City, complete with its grid systems and robots, he thought it was an obsession that only the two shared. Then came Roger.
And with Roger came Maureen, and with Maureen came April, and with April came heroin.
The rock star's heroine was far too into heroin, and she was too vein about poisoning her veins. Mark could never really understand how one could take a needle in the arm so much, but then again, he was always the little Jewish kid from Scarsdale that feared anything his sheltered life didn't include. Nevertheless, April gilded use, and two months ago, when she offed herself, the note she left left the guild's leader weak for weeks. Days like this, when the light coming through the loft windows is neither that of the sun or the moon, Mark need not be kneaded into a knight for the night. After all, he's used to this—or, at least, he used to be. There was a time when Mark would stay up for four, five days, back when Roger the Rock God ruled with temporary bags of amnesia.
This roommate, junkie, friend, Roger, has wales from nights of wailing and pain and withdrawal, and there are times when Mark thinks it's better to let the rock star slip into a drug induced daze than to have to count the days with him.
The worst thing about filming is that soon, one's brain starts to work as a camera, too. So even though two months have passed since April left, and even though Mark has scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed his memory, the blood-stained letters, "WE'VE GOT AIDS" flicker vibrantly in his mind, the red of the liquid mixing with the red of her hair, both contrasting brightly against the white tile of the bathroom.
The lights in that room combined with the blinding white tile could probably provide the world with enough light in the case that the sun were to go out. There's also a distinct smell to the room—something that makes it special besides the fact that it was practically a crime scene (Stupid slut just had to leave a syringe and spoon behind, Mark thinks bitterly). It is what once was, and Mark's glad he'll never have to go through it again.
Next came the HIV test, and then the AZT. After that, Collins' progression to AIDS and his leave from NYU to MIT. Following that, Benny left Avenue B and Maureen began performing with 8BC.
Mark never hated the alphabet more in his life.
In July, when all of this whirlwind of disaster started and April left them for good, Roger promised he didn't need rehab. But, even when the track marks were gone, the dark circles remained on his too-thin frame and reminded the two what disease was wreaking havoc on the young man, making him so weak that he reeked from weeks of being unable to stand in the shower.
And then, suddenly, that all changed.
Roger tied a knot around his arm and fazed into a phase of rebellion. No more rules. No more "rehab." No more Mark.
Merry Christmas.
What should have happened by now is that Mark should forget about Roger, stop wasting his money trying to help a junkie, and move back to Scarsdale where he can have a real career. Mark should continue to film but also go back to accounting or economics or something of actual value. What should be is Mark in a desk, writing and writing with his blue pen until it stops writing and he gets the ink on his shirt from shaking it too hard.
That future is so dark that, for a second, Mark honestly thinks he's passed out.
But he's not, and that just launches him back into his wait. Waiting for Roger, for his film subject, for his best friend and roommate and whatever else they could possibly be. The strange thing about Roger is that no matter how unpredictable his actions are, his timing is that which you could set a watch to. It's the only reason Mark's bothered staying—he's knows Roger will come home.
In fact, it's only a matter of seconds until Roger reenters the loft, and it's only a few more minutes until halflight begins. Let the countdown commence.
Just as he contemplates moving, the loft door slams open and Roger bursts through. Mark looks up, scared and excited about what he's going to see. Part of him expects the old, dark Roger—the one that's addicted and angry and so torn, and the other part expects a new, starkly bright Roger—one that cleaned himself up and has a job and is HIV free.
However, the person standing in front of him is just normal Roger. Hair that's bleached except for the tips due to his lack of care for it in the past month, shining green eyes that are bloodshot and tired, and cuts and bruises equal to that of a crash dummy. An old leather jacket, old ripped jeans, and an old The Well Hungarians band tee shirt. He plops down on the couch they found in the dumpster that one day in March, and the rock star drops something big and apparently heavy on the floor.
Mark and Roger have spent a lot of days in the loft like this—the two just sitting there, letting so much go unsaid.
They were always too good for words, so back in January, when Mark wanted to know where Roger's guitar had been for the last two weeks, he simply looked at the rocker and held up his hand limply, moving the fingers to animate changing chords on the guitar.
Wanting to do nothing more than give a simple answer, Roger held up his baggies, looked away, and left.
Mark's never hated silence more in his life.
Well, except for now, of course.
There was a time when Roger wasn't constantly stoned and in a bad mood, and when April wouldn't twirling around the loft, singing songs way off pitch and never appreciating anything for what it simply was instead of what it could be. There was a time when the only word to describe the loft was home. The eighth notes and quarter notes would echo from Roger's guitar and provide soundtrack for the room, Mark's voice narrating over the notes with a detailed description of the day. Somewhere in the background would be April's giggling, her voice moving silkily with the notes coming from the Fender. In a way, that Fender was what got them through the times. Forget what was going on and just slip into the sickly sweet notes Roger could create with the move of a finger and allow them to overtake the senses. But soon after, the giggling was replaced with a long sigh of relief and the music replaced with sharp intakes of breath and the sound of heroin crackling in a spoon. All of their problems started when that music stopped.
Now, in the silence, Mark points out the dangers of Roger's heroin use and lack of AZT intake, and informs the rock star that incase he doesn't already know, it'll just kill him faster. Roger argues that he's not dying, he'll never die, he's going to find his one song and become immortal and secure in the world. The two fight about blurred lines and distortions, the difference between what was and what should be, and halflight.
Roger fights about living forever; Mark fights about inspiring forever.
After the silence passes, Roger moves to the window seat and stares at the orangey purple light falling on the trash ridden city.
"It's halflight," Roger states as if Mark didn't know. However, the filmmaker still looks outside and watches the unearthly glow sweep everything in its path. "I didn't do what you think I did, Mark."
"How do you know what I think you did?"
Roger gulps, crossing his arms around his knees. "I went to go see Collins. To talk to him."
Mark can't blame him. The philosopher has always known what to do; it's almost as if Collins holds all of the answers to the world's problems. In that brain of his, where great jokes and witty humor and love and shyness come from, Collins knows the answer to ever question man has ever asked. He's doing man a favor by not sharing them, and in doing so, is living a life that is simply philosophical.
"Mark…I don't want to die."
"Who does?"
Mark knows it's a completely different situation for Roger, but that's something he can't handle right now. Roger has no KS lesions, has no terribly bad bruises or lack of hair, and quite frankly, Mark thinks he'll deal with it when it happens, and only then. He's not ready to loose his film subject. He's not ready to loose his roommate. He's not ready to loose Roger.
There are times when the two are dirt broke and hungry and freezing, but they have each other. They are both there. And with one gone, it throws the entire mathematical equation off.
One part slums, one part poverty multiplied by art supplies bracket guitar picks plus film plus paper plus typewriter plus notebook plus pen close bracket times parenthesis philosophy plus long talks on fire escapes about everything and nothing plus university classrooms and books on metaphysics parenthesis to the best friends of epic proportions power. Fraction bar.
Underneath, one crazy performance artist that is about as loyal as Puccini's Musetta and craves the same amount of attention. Add a fake-red headed heathen that poses in scenes in order to fit in with the crowd, the music, and the lead guitarist. Add another, this time a struggling writer that seems to switch daily: prose, poetry; non-fiction, fiction; bohemian, yuppie.
Multiply by disease, drugs, the Lower East Side, a lack of an income, hunger, and neon and chrome.
The time ticks by as Mark gets sucked into his math problem more and more, working with variables unlike any he's had to work with before. Roger won't look away from the clouds; from the pre-halflight shining in all its glory, and Mark wonders if they'll be stuck in this limbo of sameness forever.
Then, when Roger walks back to the package he dropped earlier and pulls out a Fender guitar, Mark almost drops his camera. Roger hasn't played that guitar since heroin became the string around his life, pulling tight and hard for a year.
It may be a sign of love. Maybe it's a sign of giving up. It doesn't really matter, anyway.
The halflight's streaming in now, some of it spilling on to Mark's pants like liquid gushing out of sink. The loft regains its quietness except for the winding of Mark's camera, and for some reason, even though almost nothing about the situation has changed from anything that it was in the past, Mark feels like everything is back to normal. The sun either rising or setting, life is bad, but in a good way, and both Mark and Roger are not only alive but also doomed, blessed, destined to a life of dependency, starvation, poverty, art, and disease. And for some reason, that knowledge is neither ugly nor beautiful, scary nor hopeful.
The halflight hangs in the air, holding on to what was, what should be, but now, also, a potent amount of what is.
And although there will be many times in the near future Mark Cohen finds himself in this position yet again, he sits on that old, metal table and vows to never sleep unless he absolutely has to.
And why, you ask?
Mark knows that if he closes his eyes and drifts off to sleep, nothing will ever be the same when he wakes up.
That's the entire idea behind halflight.
Roger begins plucking eighth notes, strumming out Musetta's Waltz, and Mark hops off the table, winding the knob back and zooming in on his roommate.
"December 24th, 9 P.M. Eastern Standard Time. From here on in, I shoot without a script..."