Monkeytown by Chris Vola

Author:Chris Vola
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3
Publisher: S A M Publishing
Published: 2012-11-09T00:00:00+00:00

WE SHOOT FIFTEEN, maybe twenty scenes in about half as many days. Most of them are short, five minutes or less, one or two men in ski masks, me standing in the center of the rug under the floodlights, reading from the yellow paper. Sometimes dressed as a soldier, sometimes as a journalist (which means wearing the same white tee shirt and sweats) – “My name is Eli Patterson. My father’s name is Eric. My mother’s name is Allison. I live in Wissinoming, Pennsylvania. I am an employee of the Philadelphia Inquirer…” “My name is Rodney Percival. I am asking for help because my life is in danger. I am an American citizen from New York and have worked with the Coalition forces…” – sometimes as tourists from Canada or Europe. The worst is I’m forced to the ground or slapped around a little while someone reads something in Arabic or in a practiced Middle Eastern accent. Sami Allahu liman hamidah…You will receive no help from your president because of his selfishness and indifference to those he has flung into this Jahannum, this hell…

Our clothes, uniforms, artificial facial hair, wigs, Adidas flip-flops, fanny packs out of a bad ’80s soda commercial – whatever I need for the day’s shoot – are carefully folded and placed on the morning tray next to breakfast, with the instructions. The Canadians do all the filming, manning the cameras, directions in slurry English, finding the right lighting. No Titus directorial cameos so far. Harry is in bed except for when I help him to the bathroom, wash him, force him to empty his bladder until he can walk on his own. Billy’s bed – stripped and vacant in the far corner. Sleep is heavy, still dreamless in the soft sheets. Maybe he was wrong about the drugs. His memory was never that great.

This is life, life in a discernable rhythm for the first time in a long time. Wake, eat, film, eat, Harry, bed. We don’t talk. He’s a cellmate, another number in the floodlight internment, an unfortunate and constant presence in the routine that is beginning to define a sprouting identity. He won’t get close.

The instinct for self-preservation is strong now, but it’s blind to cries for help, blind to the off-white, blind to what might be happening to Billy.

Life.

Underneath my mattress, the vague hump of the BlackBerry.

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