Author's Note: This fic was is a sort of twisted, uber intellectual version of the 'Rent' song, 'On The Street', and is inspired by Mark's adorable compassion for hobos.
-------------------------------------------------------------
April and I walk hurriedly down 13th Street, bundling our coats closer around our necks, trying desperately to conserve any body heat that hasn't been badgered out by the ensuing blizzard.
I don't know about April, but I'm in a rather petulant mood. I have a good reason though: it's Christmas Eve and neither of us have anything to give Roger. And I'm particularly bad-tempered because I have no excuse. I've spent my remaining savings balance on myself. A new lens, I'm guessing. I don't even remember. The thing wasn't even broken for once, but I still had to dry up the bank. And now it's the 24th and I haven't even received a holiday check from my parents. Not that I was anticipating one or anything…
All in all I'm in a hypocritical funk. This is Christmas. The season for giving. I haven't purchased a present in the first place, and it's really a double-edged sword because now I'm relying on someone else's money to be given to me, so I can give to someone else! For lack of a better word, it's annoying.
So as we scurry down this back street I quietly reprimand myself. How did this happen? What was I doing since Thanksgiving? Spacing out?
-Enormous pine branch garlands draped with gigantic shimmering bulbs leap from lamppost to lamppost. A thirty-foot conifer ablaze with golden glitter and scarlet beads springs up in Rockefeller Center, a barbed and dazzling metallic star radiates angelically from the top. The quintessential orgy of snowmen and reindeer blares festively from behind Macy's frocked plexiglas. Carolers bleat tidings, steaming mugs of hot chocolate in hand, from the frosted doors of Gimbels. Hoards of people bustle around from window to window, staring open-mouthed at the ornaments and fake presents and adorably-posed mannequins on sleds and colossal red and green signs that practically yell, 'holiday sales here!' Decked-out Santas big and small jangle the shit out of their little silver bells on every. fucking. corner.
Had I been in a coma?
Hi, Mark? It's Christmas.
--
I'd been daydreaming for a month and a half. That was my excuse. And now I hadn't a penny to my name.
I indignantly check my pockets one last time.
Empty.
It's almost midnight too… All the banks closed hours ago, and none of the pawnshops I knew of remained open past ten. What was I going to trade anyway? My coat? It's too damn cold to be that selfless this Christmas.
Out of the corner of my eye I catch April staring at me and she giggles.
"Mark- what are you thinking about?"
I shake my head to break my trance. "Huh?"
"No- uh…I was just wondering what on earth you could've been thinking about so hard just now! Your face looked like it was going to melt off!"
I laugh, craning my head back and staring up into the rambunctious ambush of flakes driving into my hatless head.
"Oh. I was just wondering what the hell I'm going to do about Roger's present…"
"Yeah… we are kinda screwed, aren't we?"
"Just a little."
I snort. Well, maybe April is. I imagine she'd spent her Christmas money on heroin, and I refused to group myself into that serious of a category. 'Kinda screwed' can't even touch that…
Oh well. She got something, at least for a few minutes, out of this whole 'giving season.' And I'm sure if Roger didn't get a present from her, he'd understand…
My smile is wiped off my face instantly with that thought, and I sink even further into my funk. Now I feel like it's my duty to do something extra heartfelt to append the little morality and resolve that remained in a 'Roger Davis Christmas season.' I can reprove- if his own girlfriend has nothing to bring to the table, at least his best friend has the decency to.
"You have any money?"
The nerve of that girl to ask for money, especially now!
I turn to April, ready to fire a 'what do you think?' at her, when I realize it wasn't her who had asked.
She's staring down into a crumbling doorway, turning her pockets inside out and shaking her head. One of the bums she is standing over curses quietly and gives me a withdrawn, pouty face. I flip on the camera and film her.
"What about you, boy? You have some change to spare an old lady on Christmas?"
Oh for the love of Roger! I do like April and show her the insides of my bankrupt pockets in my pants and jacket.
"No m'am. I'm sorry. I'm hardly better off than you are…"
"C'mon Mark, let's get home…" April urges, staring warily at the hobos' blotchy, moth-eaten rags and frostbitten ears. The think there are alarms going off in April's head. This homeless couple reminds her too much of someone she knows, and I agree, their difference is only slightly debatable. Even Roger admitted the homeless made him uncomfortable.
Suddenly I remember that he's home, freezing his ass off, alone (Well, not alone. Maureen's with him, which, depending on how you look at it, is considerably worse than being alone.) on Christmas Eve, and my feet pull me in April's direction, but I'm too overcome with sympathy for this unfortunate nomad that I can't bring myself to leave just yet.
"Don't you guys have anywhere to go? To get out of this storm? The weatherman says it's supposed to drop severely tonight…"
April regains her place at my side and shivers.
The lady hobo scoffs and kicks at my shoe. "Nah…" She whines. "Just this stoop. Two fucking walls are better than four though. And unless you're offering to buy me two more, you can get outta my face now kid. You don't have any money. So I don't have any reason to look at you anymore."
"Are- are you sure you don't- no fire or anything?" I stutter.
"Or anything." The hobo harrumphs. She eyes my camera and waves her mittened hand. "…except, if you wanna give me that camera...? I could pass that off as an antique to some tourist and make a couple of bucks, if you catch my drift…" She laughs heartily.
I yank the camera to my chest defensively, condemning even her eyes from touching it.
"Uh… no. No, sorry. This is my- it's mine."
April snickers knowingly at my compromised reaction.
"Are you sure?" The hobo opens one crusty eye wider than the other, glaring creepily through the sheets of snow. "I'll give you half! I really can con somebody into believing it's a collector's item…"
"But- well…it is a collector's item…" The second hobo, who I was convinced was dead, perks up his ears at this statement.
I step up from the curb, closer to my audience, and stick out my chest robustly. I can feel myself shifting into non-cloistered, 'I'm-talking-about-my-camera' mode. I don't know why I'm wasting my lecture on some hobos, but they seem interested, and I'm more than overjoyed with anyone who'll share my passion. I can't help myself.
April groans.
"Well, it's actually a 1962 8MM Sears190xl. So it's more than a little vintage, if you want to refer to it that way. They don't make these anymore. Practically all the creditable cameras went automatic after the early 1980's, but this little baby has Reflex Zoom, so it's perfectly capable of doing what anything with a cord can do. There's more of an artistic element to manual cameras. It's more a part of me- I can focus it so therefore the camera is my eyes. It's not like I'm lugging a robot around in front of my face. It's tangible, it's here." I grip the handle and tenderly wiggle the wind. "It's really…I don't know… organic. It just feels old-fashioned. It feels…right, filming with this. Fortunato, Burnett, Kurosawa, Noe', all my idols…all the great documentaries were filmed with cameras like this. I feel like I'm negotiating my integrity- like I'm going mainstream or something if I use some stupid, clunky, battery-powered camcorder… I'm an artist, not a member of some production team!"
By the end of this speech, I'm yelling.
Despite my volume, I seem to have lost the bums somewhere.
"So… it's valuable?" Asks the male.
"So…do you make films for money?" Asks the woman, pushing the brim of her woolen cap out of her eyes.
I choose to answer the bum with more veracity.
"Well, yes and no…"
"Mark!" Whines April. She tugs my jacket and shudders. "Come on. I promise you can tell me all about your camera when we're snuggled up in the loft, under some blankets, with a fire going, opening presents… Please, let's just get home to Roger… I think we're the best presents we can give- for tonight anyway…"
I sigh and look from April to the bums to the cascade of snow.
"You can go ahead…" I decide. "I'll catch up later."
April's mouth drops open and even the male bum looks a little thrown.
"Mark." April puts her hands on her hips. "You're telling me you're going to stand out here, three blocks from home, in the middle of a blizzard, on Christmas Eve and tell a pile of bums about your camera?"
"Well, but… I… but they're… yeah." I mumble.
April looks absolutely offended, but turns on her heel, shaking her head and calling over her shoulder. "I'll…I'll just tell the rest of the gang you're out giving the gift of gab." She laughs at her own stupid joke and soon rounds the corner and is out of sight.
"So it's valuable?" The guy repeats.
The woman kicks him in his heavily-clothed thigh and asks her question in a different context. I'm a bit amazed that they're this absorbed in what I have to say, but I also must admit I'm a bit amazed that I'm still standing here.
"You're a filmmaker?"
"Uh. Well, like I said. Yes and no…"
"Well pick one boy! Either you make the films or you don't! I've just been captured by that hunk a junk- I'd like to know whether or not my pretty face is going to be in a movie! And if it is, I want some fucking money!"
She bears her two yellowed front teeth and bats her eyelashes. I pretty certain she's being sarcastic.
"Well, um…I… write screenplays. I've turned those in to many, many production companies, hoping for some interest. But they've all been short. And they've all been pointless and I haven't had enough… drama or excitement in my life to write a commendable script. The producers say they aren't 'real' enough. I live in New York. Fuck! How much more real do they want me to get?"
I realize I'm loudly baring my soul to the bums again and quiet down.
"So then I realized I wasn't a writer. Especially not fiction. I like real. The only time I write now is if the characters are based on something in my life. Like my friends. Or somebody I meet. But film and observation has always been, and will always be my crowning glory and my number one passion, and so I've turned into somewhat of a documentary filmmaker. By accident. And not so much for those brainless producers… I already told you I don't want to sell out. They want real, yeah, so what? So do I. And that's why when you ask if I make films for money I can't decide. I film because it's what I do with my life. When I saw you… laying there… it was kind of instinctual to film you because you're… real? A film for the sake of reality."
"Ars gratia artis." Says the woman.
"What?"
"It's Latin. 'Art for art's sake.' That's what you're doin'?"
I back up. "No! I think you misunderstood me… and how do…"
"How do I know Latin?"
"Uh-"
"I wasn't always in this doorstep boy! I think I know a little more than you're giving me credit for! What's your name anyway?"
"Uh, Mark." I set my camera bag in a spot that looks the least snow-covered and sit down.
"Okay then Mark, that's what it sounds like to me. And I'm not just interested because I think you have some potential to make some moola off of my face. I've seen a lot like you. Where are you going with this?"
"What?" I repeat.
"Are you making films just to make films?"
"Well, sorta…"
"I used to teach. Liberal arts and humanities. Edgar Allen Poe- I'm sure you've heard of him- argued that people create art just to have something to claim to their name, and that- the completed work in the artist's possession- itself is beautiful. Art for art's sake. Are you making these films because you can? Just because I don't have enough money to sue myself out of the negatives doesn't mean you have the artistic license to keep it there. I was an 'artiste' once too. I don't want my pathetic existence all over the megaplexes because I'm some frame in a documentary. When I used to…make art, I'd do it for shock value. Something to show my students that would really open their eyes to what an artist can and can't get away with. Tell me Mark, what are you going to do with the finished project?"
"I…I…" I was not expecting this much feedback from a fucking hobo. "I really think you're missing the true point of your 'ars gratia artis." I sneer.
"Oh really?" The woman asks cockily, pulling the burlap sack that her male counterpart had been laying on around her feet. He has risen to walk away, maybe wander somewhere or listen in on another conversation that offered more… money.
"Yes really. Poe didn't originate that saying. For a former liberal arts teacher I'm surprised you didn't know that. It was actually some French guy. Gautier. I don't remember- it was from a 19th century philosophy class I took at Brown. But that expression stuck with me, and it pissed me off too, until I heard this rendition. I thought it was insincere, not to mention vain to make art just to have art to point at and say- 'That's mine!'. It's senseless! But this guy- this Gautier, he was a literary critic, so he had some credit in the department of analyzing other people's art. And he was a revolutionary. And he said, along with all his distinguished buddies in the French Academy, that art should be made with a purpose. That it shouldn't merely entertain and… shock… to exist, but it should have some moral value and some deep connection with its creator. Art- film- my films, don't need justification for existing. Half my films aren't finished, and way more than half of them never made me a dime. But that's because the people I'm showing them to don't understand. They tell me they want real and that's what I'm giving them. I'm… documenting real life. My life. My films are what I live. They have all the emotional and moral value I can think of! But they- the producers- all take the saying your way and say I'm just shooting scenes of my life to have something to my name, hoping I can make a living off of it. But I don't make it off my life- I make it off yours. You don't need to sue me to get yourself edited out of this movie. You can just ask me and I'll delete you as a film subject. But I'd appreciate if you'd contribute to the noble cause of art for life's sake."
The hobo laughs. "Ooh, well damn. You got me there. That's why I don't teach anymore. I'm losing my smarts or something. No, no, you can keep me in there. On one condition. You've gotta promise you'll do something worthwhile with it. Really show your audience life. And what happens when you lose control of it."
She sweeps her hand over her pile of rags.
"I followed my version and all I have to claim to my name is a dumpster to dive in on Fifty-Fourth. Merry fucking Christmas."
I feel another twinge of sympathy. "You… should teach again! Why did you stop? Damn, you had me engaged! They should make you coach of a debate team! Ha ha, you should meet my friend Collins. He's a professor. You remind me a lot of him. He's dirt broke and dirty, but he's an accomplished professor at M.I.T. Him and I might have a fire and some friends to go home to this Christmas, but I'm not that much better off than you- I think I said that already. Don't… just… lie in the gutter and feel sorry for yourself! I could've done that a million times. Sometimes I spend all my money on camera equipment instead of food ("…or Roger's present…" I think to myself.) but I get right back up and find a way to do something worthwhile."
The woman looks uneasy and waves her hand in a gesture for me to get up.
"Yeah, yeah, same old bullshit. At least your persuasion was a little more intellectual than those damn cops or Mormans or motivational speakers that come around here preaching at me. Maybe I wanna lie in a stoop! Maybe I just wanna bitch at others to make something with their life! I'm an example, that's what I am. Have I inspired you yet? Have I scared you into giving me a dollar? This is my ploy, okay? The jig is up. I've been found out. So Mark? It's been nice talkin' to ya. Really, Merry Christmas and a happy new year. You hereby have my permission to take a hike for a hike's sake."
I stand up and brush the snow off my butt, bracing myself from the biting wind that hits me now that the building isn't blocking it. I suppose this is what I get for talking to a bum on Christmas Eve instead of being at home with my friends. Very disappointedly, I reach down to pick up my camera and leave this pathetic, convincing liar in the gutter where she belongs.
But my camera is gone.
"Shit!" I spin crazily in a circle, brushing piles of snow off the sidewalk. Maybe it was buried in the snowstorm…
I leap into the street, scanning the avenue for crushed pieces, but there's only white, white, white. Where is my camera!
I panic, searching madly again in the area I was sitting, peering under the parked car behind me, dusting snow from beneath the wheel wells. The camera is gone.
Suddenly I stop dead and turn slowly to the woman, seething.
"You." I growl. "What did you do with my camera?"
She laughs nervously and holds up both her hands. "What? I didn't do anything with it. I was just sitting here and talking to you this whole time…" She grins.
Oh fuck.
"You stole it! What the fuck lady! You'd better fucking give it back, oh my God, you stole my fucking camera!" My voice cracks and I can't conceal my total rage. I tower over this wretched woman, this failure, this… thief, and I'm overcome by some missing- camera induced strength that normal, isolated Mark normally would not possess.
I raise my foot, ready to drive it into some part of her thieving body, when I'm hit from behind. There's a blunt blow to the back of my head that knocks my glasses off kilter my vision swims and distorts. I fall forward, grabbing at the corner of the doorway, trying unsuccessfully to turn and face my attacker.
I manage to blink back the pain in my eyes long enough to see the male hobo raising my camera to bring down on my head a second time.
"No!" Shrieks the woman from beneath me. "Don't use that you fucking moron! If you break it we can't sell it! Punch him, kick him, hurry!"
I duck away just in time as my enemy's punch misses my jaw and goes sailing into the frozen brick of the building. His hand is sliced open and he nearly drops the camera- my camera- before taking off down the street.
The woman scrambles after him, and my head is pounding too hard for me to catch either of them. I run clumsily in their tracks, but I can't match their speed. They're getting away and they've taken my camera!
The guy laughs triumphantly and the woman glances over her shoulder quickly before shoving him forward. "Faster! Hurry!"
Suddenly there's a 'thunk!' and the man trips, arms splaying frantically in the air before sliding chin-first through the snow, blood shooting from his nose.
The woman cannot stop running quickly enough, and careens down on top of him. He is pinned, and the camera skids safely to a stop a few feet in front of them.
Looking absolutely pissed, and there's no other way to put it, Roger steps out from behind the building, wiping his knuckles on his shirtsleeve.
He shuffles forward, reaching down and grabbing the man by his tattered collar.
Yanking him to his feet, he throws the guy up against the hood of a parked car, and quite frankly, beats the living crap out of him for a few minutes before shoving him, defeated, into a snow bank. The woman just watches in terror before skittering away in submission.
Roger walks to the camera, lifting it gently off the ground.
"Weird…" He heaves. "With a mother like yours, you'd think she'd teach you not to talk to strangers…"
He shoves the frozen camera to my chest.
"Merry Christmas." He grumbles. "Will you come home now? I've been waiting all fucking night to open presents..."