The Cutting Room: Dark Reflections of the Silver Screen (27 page)

Stuck around, kept watching; the next film was from 1944, an RKO gangster film, and he was in it too. In the background, until—it was like— he notices me watching him. Turns and smiles at me, raises his eyebrow, starts—coming closer.

I swear to God, I jumped back, physically. All by myself, in my apartment. Because I felt like if Cagney hadn’t been in the way, then maybe the guy standing behind him would’ve come right out of the TV at me.

And then it was Silent Sunday, some all-night Chaplin retrospective, and . . . yeah. There, too.

Everywhere.

So. . . .

D.VALENS: Obviously, it didn’t work. What you did to trap him.

HOLBORN: Obviously not.

(TEN SECOND PAUSE)

HOLBORN: My wife wasn’t asleep, either, by the way. Just in case you were wondering.

D.VALENS: Aw, what the fuck—

D.CORREA: Shut up, Eric. [To HOLBORN] Look, you can’t be serious, that’s all. Are we supposed to believe—

HOLBORN: I don’t give a fuck what you believe. Seriously.

D.CORREA: Okay. So what about the disappearance of Laszlo Hurt?

(FIFTEEN SECOND PAUSE)

HOLBORN: I don’t know anything about that.

D.VALENS: And again: We should believe you on this . . . why?

[FIFTEEN SECOND PAUSE]

D.CORREA: Mister Holborn?

HOLBORN: . . . you know, I don’t know if you guys know this or not, but . . . my wife? Just died. So, in the immortal words of every LAW AND ORDER episode ever filmed—charge me with something, or let me go. Or fuck the fuck off.

From: [email protected]

Date: Saturday, August 16, 9:45 PM

To: Soraya Mousch [email protected]

Subject: RE: LASZLO ANSWER ME

Hi. This is the administrator at [email protected] (00:15:32:A3) Delivery of your message to {[email protected]} failed after <15> attempts. Address not recognized by system.

This is a permanent error; I’ve given up.

>Laszlo, it’s Soraya, would you CALL ME PLEASE? I’ve left

>about twenty messages on your voicemail, Max and I have a big

>problem and we need your HELP! Where the fuck are you?

>Call me
!

>S
.

From: [email protected]

Date: Monday, August 18, 8:55 AM

To: Soraya Mousch [email protected]

Subject: RE: Account Tracking Request

Dear Ms. Mousch,

Sorry it took us so long to get back to you; we get a lot of backlog on weekends. I’m afraid I have to admit we’re stumped on this one. I personally went through our server records day by day over the registration period you specified, and as far as I can tell, we have no record whatsoever of a “Laszlo Hurt” on our roster. I’ve checked under the “lazhurt,” “laszlos labyrinth,” and “hurtmedia” addresses and their variants, as well as with our billing department, and there’s just no indication that this Mr. Hurt was ever a Geocities user.

I realize this may be an unwelcome explanation, but it sounds to me like you may have been a victim of an attempted phishing scam using dummy-mask addresses. I’d get your computer checked for viruses and malware right away.

Again, I’m sorry we couldn’t be more help.

Best regards,

Jamil Chandrasekhar

Geocities.com Tech Support

From: Soraya Mousch [email protected]

Date: Saturday, August 23, 11:01 PM

To: Max Holborn [email protected]

Subject: Blank

Max, I’m just so sorry.

—S.

YOUR COMFORT SOUGHT

IN THIS TIME OF GRIEF

With sorrow we announce the passing of Liat Allyson Meester-Holborn

on August 23, 2008, beloved daughter of Aaron and Rachel Meester and

wife of Maxim Holborn.

Funeral service to be held at St. Mary’s Star of the Sea Catholic Church,

8 Elizabeth Avenue, Port Credit, Mississauga

Tuesday August 26, 11:00 A.M.

Commemorative reception to be held at the Meester residence,

1132 Walden Road #744, 3:00 P.M.

Confirmations only

From: Max Holborn [email protected]

Date: Tuesday, September 2, 2:31 AM

To: Soraya Mousch [email protected]

Subject: look closer

s.-

hospital released the file on liat to me today. was going over it. couldn’t sleep. found something.

the attached .jpg’s a scan of the last x-ray they took, just before she crashed out. look at the upper right quarter, just up and right of where ribs meet breastbone. then do a b-w negative reverse on the image in your photoshop, and look again.

it’s not a glitch. it’s not me fucking with you. look at it. call me.

-
m.

SURVEILLANCE TRANSCRIPT 14952, CASEFILE #332

9/19/08 2259H-2302H 416-[REDACTED] TO 416-[REDACTED]

WARRANT AUTHORIZED HON. R. BORCHERT 9/9/08

(CONNECTION INITIATED)

MOUSCH: Hello?

HOLBORN: You never answered my e-mail.

MOUSCH: What did you want me to say? I read it, I looked at the scans you sent. That . . . could be anything, Max. A glitch in the machine, some lab tech sticking his hand on the negative—

HOLBORN: Soraya—

MOUSCH: —and even if it’s not, what’s it matter? What difference can it make? (PAUSE) I’m sorry, Max. I didn’t—I’m sorry.

HOLBORN: Uh huh.

(PAUSE)

HOLBORN: So . . . I hear you put your stuff up on eBay. Going Luddite?

MOUSCH: Well, uh . . . no, I’m just switching disciplines. Going nonvisual. Film’s . . . all played out, y’know? I mean, you’ve noticed that.

HOLBORN: Yup. Good luck, I guess. (BEAT) Everything just back to normal, huh?

MOUSCH: . . . hardly . . .

HOLBORN: You really think any of this is gonna help? Dropping anything with a lens like it’s hot, cocooning?

MOUSCH: I don’t. . . .

HOLBORN: You remember what I told you, at the hospital?

(FIVE SECOND PAUSE)

MOUSCH: . . . I remember.

HOLBORN: That guy killed my wife, Soraya. Just because she SAW him—over my shoulder, right? When she didn’t even know what she was looking at. She’s fucking dead.

MOUSCH: Liat’s dead because she had a tumor, Max. Nothing we did made Liat die.

HOLBORN: What do you think he’s going to end up doing to US, Soraya? After he’s fucking well done with everybody else?

MOUSCH: Look . . . look, Max, Christ. Liat, Laszlo, that crazy fucking moron dude who made the clip in the first place, let alone sent it to us. . . . (BEAT) And why would he even do that, anyway? To, what . . . ?

HOLBORN: I don’t know. Spread the disease, maybe. Like he got tired of watching it himself, thought everybody else should have a crack at it, too. . . .

(FIVE SECOND PAUSE)

MOUSCH: I mean . . . it’s not our fault, right? Any of it. We didn’t ask for—

HOLBORN: —uh, no, Soraya. We did. Literally. We asked, threw it out into the ether: Send us your shit. Show us something. We asked . . . and he answered.

MOUSCH: Who, “he”? Clip-making dude?

HOLBORN: You know that’s not who I’m talking about.

(TEN SECOND PAUSE)

HOLBORN: So, anyhow, ’bye. You’re going dark, and I’m dropping off the map. I’d say “see you,” but—

MOUSCH: Oh, Max, goddamn. . . .

HOLBORN: —I’m really hoping . . . not.

(CONNECTION TERMINATED)

OFFICE OF FORENSICS, TORONTO POLICE SERVICE 51 DIVISION EXCERPTED REPORT

Casefile #332

Final analysis of X-ray images taken of Liat Holborn (dcsd) shows no known cause of observed photographic anomaly. Hand-digit comparison was conducted on all possible candidates, including Maxim Holborn, attending physician Dr. Raj Lalwani, attending nurse Yvonne Delacoeur, and X-ray technician John Li Cheng: no match found. Dr. Lalwani maintains statement that cause of death for Liat Holborn was gliomal tumour. Conclusion: Photographic anomaly is spontaneous malfunction, resemblance to intact human hand coincidental.

Following lack of forensic connection between Maxim Holborn and Site of Death 1, and failure to establish viable suspect, this office recommends suspension of Case #332 from active investigation at this time, pending further evidence.

July 26/2009

“BACKGROUND MAN,” Lescroat, strangerthings.net/media (cont’d)

One year later, the crash which brought kerato-oblation.org/cadavrexquis down—melting the server and destroying a seventy-four minute installation cobbled together from random .mpg snippets mailed in from contributors all over the world—has yet to be fully explained, by either Wall of Love founder. While Mousch cited simple overcrowding and editing program fatigue for the project’s collapse, Holborn—already under stress when Kerato-Oblation got underway, due to his wife’s battle with brain cancer—has been quoted as blaming a slightly more supernatural issue: a mysterious figure who appeared first in an anonymously submitted piece of digital footage, then eventually began popping up in the backgrounds of other . . . completely unrelated . . . sections. Background Man? Impossible to confirm or deny, without Holborn’s help.

Still, sightings of a naked man wearing “red” around his neck wandering through the fore-, back-, and midground of perfectly mainstream movies, TV shows, and music videos continue to abound. Recent internet surveys chart at least five major recent blockbusters (besides
Mother of Serpents
) and three primetime television series rumored to have inadvertently showcased the figure.

At the moment, the (highly unlikely) possibility of pan-studio collaboration on a vast alternate-reality game remains unresolved, while at least three genuine missing persons reports are rumored to be connected with a purported Background Man personal encounter IRL. The meme, if meme it is, continues to spread.

Neither Mousch nor Holborn could be reached for comment.

And up they come—

(the dead)

Crawling through the hole with their pale hands bloody from digging, their blind eyes tight-shut and their wide-open mouths full of mud: Nameless, faceless, groping for anything that happens across their path. With no easy end to their numbers. . . .

For once such a door is opened, who will shut it again? Who is there—

—alive—

—that can?

No end to their numbers, or their need: The dead, who are never satisfied. The dead, who cannot be assuaged.

The dead, who only want but no longer know what, or from whom, or why. Or just how much, over just how long—here in their hole, which goes on and down forever, where time itself slows so much it no longer has any real value—

—can ever be enough.

FADE IN. BEETHOVEN'S
Pastoral Symphony Number 6
, slow and sweet. No title bar or opening credits.

It starts with a little girl, running.

She is young—perhaps eight or nine years old—and she is pumping her arms and her legs as she runs along a dirt road. Behind her, fire burns a line along the horizon. Around her, there is scorched and blackened earth and the burnt-out ruins of red brick buildings. The girl is partially naked; her upper body is bare, her lower body is clad in torn rags. Her face is dirty, her cheeks are burnt. Flaps of ruined skin hang off her arms and legs, revealing pale pink patches beneath.

This could be Vietnam, it could be Cambodia; it might be Serbia, Afghanistan, or the West Bank. It could be anywhere, at any time.

But it is England.

It is now.

The girl keeps on running even though the soles of her feet are worn away and bleeding. She feels no pain; she is beyond simple feelings. Her mother and father are dead. Her brothers and sisters have been blown apart by the bombs and bullets of an unknown enemy.

A single gunshot rings out and a bullet takes her down. The hair at the right side of her head puffs out, blood and brain and bone spatters in a vivid arc, spraying the grey ground red.

She falls, limp.

Dead.

The audience leans forward, trying to catch the girl; or they are just desperate to get a better view, a closer look at the blood and the carnage?

The music on the soundtrack soars, triumphant.

You try to close your eyes but you cannot. You have to see—you
need
to see this. There are things that must be endured, sights that cannot be ignored. You owe it to the girl; her lonely death must not go unwitnessed. So you sit there with your eyes forced open, taking it all in.

The screen goes dark. The lights come up.

“And that, ladies and gentlemen,” says a low, cultured voice through a hidden speaker, “is our little war project.”

A ripple of polite applause.

You grit your teeth.

When you glance down, at your hands, you see that you are clapping too, but you don’t know why, or for whom the applause is intended. The lights turn red and it looks like blood on your hands. You start to rub them together, but the stains remain.

When the lights flicker a signal for the end of the performance and the rest of the audience members start to leave, you pick up your bag from underneath your seat, stand, and walk out with them. You feel numb. Your skin is cold.

Out in the foyer a fat man in a black suit and John Lennon spectacles is shaking people’s hands, answering questions, and posing to have his photograph taken. He is the director, the creative mind behind the brief decontextualised images you have just seen.

“Thank you, thank you,” he says, soaking up the kudos, filling up with misplaced pride.

“When will the finished film be available to screen in full?” A local reporter jabs a digital tape recorder into the director’s fat face.

“Soon,” says the director. “Very soon.”

“What will it be called?”

The director opens his arms, lifts his head. “
Cinder Images
,” he says in a loud voice, making sure that everyone can hear. His eyes are bright behind the lenses of his glasses.

You consider approaching him to ask why you were invited to the screening, but then think better of such a rash move. It might draw attention to your discomfort. They might stare at you and see the fear that lies beneath your shell.

So you walk outside, into the cold night air, and try to breathe again. The glassed-in posters on the multiplex walls advertise action movies, romantic comedies, films about comic-book superheroes. There is no mention of the teaser footage you have just seen; this was a private show, for members of the press and a few lucky winners of competitions. You got hold of your ticket at the underground station, when a publicity man in a fake hazmat suit pushed it into your hand, smiling and nodding his pale, bald head.

“Free show,” he’d whispered, as if it were a secret. “Just for you. It must be your lucky day.”

Curiosity brought you here, and disgust sends you away. It was not your kind of film. Those images were not something you like to see. Or were they? The film has summoned questions about yourself that you’d rather not answer, not right now.

“How was the movie?”

You turn to see a woman leaning against the boot of a red car. She is smoking a cigarette. Her tiny hands move quickly through the air; her face is delicate, like that of an exquisite china doll.

“Excuse me?” You stop walking but wish you hadn’t. You should have just carried on out of the car park.

“The film. Any good? I tried to get in but they wouldn’t let me. I didn’t have a ticket.”

“If I’d have known, you could have had mine.”

“That bad, eh?” She blows out smoke. It hangs in a small white cloud before her small dark eyes.

“Just . . . disturbing.”

“Yes, he’s known for that—the director. It’s his specialty.”

You shrug and begin to move away, unable to think of anything else to say.

“Hang on a minute.” She stubs out her cigarette on the car bumper and follows you. Her long, dark coat hangs open to reveal a tight-fitting midnight-blue blouse; she has on either leggings or skin-tight jeans and a pair of ankle boots with long, spiked heels. She looks alternative; not your type at all.

“It’s dark,” she says, as if that explains everything. “I’m cold.”

Somehow you end up going for a drink in a pub near the cinema. It’s busy but not packed; the customers all seem in good cheer. You order a pint of beer for yourself and vodka for the woman. She hasn’t told you her name and you don’t feel much like asking. She’s attractive, but you sense trouble. Maybe even outright danger.

“Thanks,” she says, accepting the drink. She takes off her coat and grabs a table just as a group of people get up to leave. Once you are both seated, she undoes the top two buttons of her blouse. The skin on her breastbone is red, livid. Her fingernails are painted black.

“Cheers,” you say, lifting your glass to your mouth.

She smiles. Takes a tiny sip of vodka, and brushes her foot against your leg under the table. Just when you convince yourself that it was accidental, she does it again.

You feel your cheeks go hot. You start to blink uncontrollably.

“Don’t be shy,” she says. “I do this all the time.”

You have no idea what she means. Or you do and you are unwilling to admit it.

Several drinks later and you’re both sitting in the back of a taxi heading out of town, to her place. She licks the side of your neck and her hand strays into your lap. This is not the kind of thing that ever happens to you—you’re either lucky or have walked head-first into some kind of disaster. Only time will tell.

She lives in a ground-floor flat opposite a row of shops and an Italian restaurant. The restaurant is empty; most of the shops are boarded up. You have no idea where you are. The streets are unfamiliar and you were too caught up in the moment to look out of the window and follow the route.

The skin on the side of your neck is still damp from her tongue.

She grabs your hand and pulls you out of the car. She waits at the kerb while you pay the fare. The taxi driver doesn’t even look up at you as he accepts the money. Then he drives away without thanking you for the tip.

Upstairs, her flat is like a showroom: minimal furniture, zero clutter, no photos, no pictures on the white walls. There is not even a stereo or a television to keep her company.

“I live alone,” she whispers. “I don’t like to keep a lot of stuff around me.”

She pours two glasses of whisky without asking and smiles as you swallow yours in one mouthful. She tops up the glasses and smiles again. There’s something different about her; on her own turf, she seems less aggressive, more passive.

“I don’t usually do this . . . it’s not my style.”

“Don’t worry,” she says. “I’ve had a lot of practice.” She slips off her blouse and takes off her bra. Then she unpeels the leggings and stands there in just her panties, sipping her drink and watching you, waiting to see what you will do.

She has a lot of tattoos. Thin black lines curl around her upper arms, purple flowers erupt on her stomach, and a thick dragon is wrapped around her right thigh.

“You’re beautiful.” Your voice sounds strange, as if it’s a struggle to speak.

“I know,” she says. “That’s why I got the role.”

She turns away and walks lightly across the carpet. You stare at the stylised tattoos of thick black medical stitches down her spine, her tight little backside, the back of her well-toned legs. You finish your second whisky and start to feel drunk. Not just on the alcohol—but on the situation, too. Years ago, you might have dreamed of this moment, but now it is actually happening you are unsure of how to act.

She opens a door, stops, glances over her bare shoulder. Her smile is as wide as the heavens. It’s obvious what she wants you to do.

You wait until the door closes behind her before following her across the room. You don’t want to seem too keen in case she changes her mind. The thought makes you smile; the fear drops away.

You approach the door and stop, reaching out to touch the handle. You play your fingers across the brass knob, teasing yourself with the proximity of her body on the other side. Then, feeling silly, you turn the handle and open the door.

When you enter the room she is face down on the bed. She is naked. Her panties are balled up on the floor at the foot of the bed. She is lying on her stomach, with her backside raised up in the air. She turns her head and stares at you. Her eyes are dark; her skin is pale; her teeth are bright.

“Why me?” You have wanted to ask the question since she first approached you.

“Why not?” she says, and gives you one of her self-satisfied smiles.

You move slowly across the room and stand at the side of the bed, realising that you should be taking off your clothes and climbing onto the mattress beside her. But something is holding you back—images from the film clip you saw earlier are stirring inside your head.

“That’s right,” she says. “Just let it come.” Her legs tremble. She clenches her fists and raises her arms above her head, grabbing the headboard. The muscles in her forearms tense, becoming rigid. She is preparing for something.

You realise that there is somebody else in the room with you. When you turn your head to the side, you see the little girl from the film. She is crouching down in the corner of the room, large flaps of skin hanging like a ruined flag around her shoulders, and she’s covering her face with her battered hands. She is crying but there is no sound.

“Shall I turn it up?” The woman on the bed sits up and turns around. She grabs a remote control handset from a cabinet at the side of the bed and points it at the girl. The sound leaks gradually into the room, the volume rising steadily. The girl’s sobs are heartbreaking, and underscored with a soft classical music score. You wonder if she knows that you are there and that you can hear her weeping.

You can do nothing but stand and stare, and after a short while it becomes uncomfortable. You experience the same feelings of shame and sadness as you did while watching the film, but this time the emotions are real. They have context.

“What is this?” You take a step forward and then stop, unable to continue. “What’s happening here?”

“This is the footage you never got to see.” Her voice is like a song; it holds a tune, but one you can barely recognise. “This is what happens when the cameras are turned off and the film crew go home. This is what’s left behind, the outtakes.”

The girl is still crying. Her shoulders are hitching up and down; she is pulling at her hair with her small, dirty hands. She lowers her arms and looks up, staring right at you, right through you.

Where her eyes should be, there are only burnt and blackened holes, the edges crisped. Deep inside the holes that take up most of the upper part of her face, you can see flickering yellow flames. There’s a fire inside the girl, but you aren’t sure if it’s one that was started by the things she has seen or if it was already there, smouldering quietly.