Empire of Light (11 page)

The assistant brushed himself off and decided it was time for him to go home. He walked through the golden wheat field with the old Brownie camera tucked under his arm. He packed it safely in the backseat of his car and drove home to California where he had a brilliant career of his own as a cinematographer.

As for the photo he had taken at the moment of the Cinematographer’s disappearance, no one is quite sure what the actual photo looks like. Legend has it that the assistant donated the picture to the cameraman’s old orphanage, where it magically glows and never dims with the passage of time.

It illuminates every darkened corner of the orphanage with a cozy radiance; and it mysteriously gives the children the feeling of security, happiness, and most importantly, the warmth of family.

9 

A Clevelander in Paris

MY FOOTING AIN’T SO 
solid right now, lit with a potent mixture of Ambien, champagne, jet lag and Edgerton mind-fucking me 36,000 feet over the Atlantic Ocean.

Okay. I figure that Edge was the apprentice and that the Brownie camera underneath my arm is the very one in the story. It’s probably all bullshit, but I still catch myself cradling the Brownie a bit more gingerly than before.

I spend the entire train ride from the airport in to Paris studying the camera’s housing. For what, I don’t know. It’s killing me to not just crack open the back and peer inside, but if I ruin the film I’ll be crushed, and Edge will crush me. My mind drifts back to Andy at the museum, trying to tie that encounter, the camera and the article all into some sort of neat knot.

The thought of this camera being
enchanted
somehow…

If it is, why the hell would Edgerton give this to
me
, of all people? There were twenty-nine more deserving Cinematography Fellows to gift this thing to other than me.

My train screeches to a stop. This is where I get off, so it’s time to release the strings of this giant goddamn Salvador Dali balloon and let it float the hell away. I crawl up from the underground depot and my first sight of Paris is at dusk on a chilly winter day.

Let’s say you digitized a record collection onto your computer—I mean a cool collection of vintage warm vinyl, Django Reinhardt, Edith Piaf and Miles Davis—then say you ran some software that designed a city based on the rhythms and tones of that music. The result would give you something damn close to modern Paris. It is a cool city, in every sense of the Jack Kerouac definition of the word. And it’s a place where everybody seems to be aware of the collective decorative scheme. From the architect who designed the church on the corner to the bureaucrat who selected the design of the street dumpsters, everyone seems to be aware that their choices must fit within the civic template.

This apparently includes the wardrobe.

Everybody here, at least in the winter, is wearing nothing but black or brown. It looks like a goddamn Anne Rice convention up in this joint.

Of course, I left my cool vintage black overcoat back in Cleveland, probably laying on my bed next to my current issue of
American Cinematographer
. I picture my mom standing in my room and staring at all the shit I forgot to pack. She thinks about how she should’ve treated me like a child and packed my bags for me.

Strolling through the streets of this elegant city while wearing a canary yellow jacket, I wish she had, too.

But my ass is warm, so screw you, Paris.

I reach for my iPhone and punch up the directions to my hotel. I don’t speak the language, so my only comfort is my trusty smart phone with its Google map app.

The address burns bright on my iPhone.

The Hotel Bernadette, 89 Boulevard de Strasbourg
.

I pull my luggage behind me, the wheels awkwardly bouncing atop the cobblestone streets. I suddenly become aware that this ancient piece of road that I’m stumbling across just might be the oldest manmade thing I’ve ever touched. They should cover European streets with Plexiglas so that morons like me won’t scuff history with cheap overloaded luggage.

The iPhone app navigates me expertly to the entrance of the hotel. I pull my bag through the front door and walk to the desk where the manager, in his smart red and black striped tie and grey blazer,waits.

“Mr. Laurent?” I say.

“Mr. Jason Tisse. We’ve been expecting you.”

Thanks to email, Mr. Laurent and I greet each other as if I habitually spend my holiday in Paris. I actually feel comfortable enough to ask a silly question.

“Say, um, is there a restaurant nearby where I could order in English and it wouldn’t piss anybody off?”

You know, the funny thing about laughter is how its tone changes with duration.

For two seconds both Mr. Laurent and I laugh together.

At the ten second mark the laughter seems a bit uncomfortable, but I continue out of courtesy.

At fifteen seconds I stop laughing and Laurent is wiping a tear from his eye.

At the thirty second mark I realize that Mr. Laurent is a big fat dick.

“Yes, of course,” he says, still chuckling. “The restaurant across the street is very good, and a great deal of our English speaking clientele frequent it.”

I get to my room and throw my shit to the floor. I only have 24 hours in Paris, so I’m going to grab a bite and then check out the Eiffel Tower at night.

I down a Coke to help shake the sleepiness and hit the streets.

Screw that restaurant Mr. Laurent recommended. I opt for a bag of steaming hot pralines from the lunch truck parked in front of the hotel. I dig into the bag of nuts, get my bearings with my trusty iPhone navigation, and head in the direction of the Eiffel Tower.

I’m not five feet from the dinner truck before this chick approaches me out of nowhere. A cute little Asian girl, hooded under a dark red raincoat.

“You speak English?” she asks hurriedly.

I feel a bit ambushed. When did this girl hear me speak? I didn’t see her at the food truck. My neighbor from back home, Graziella, pops into my head, along with her dire warnings of not looking like a tourist.

“No,” I blurt out, not bothering to stop walking.

“But you
are
an American, aren’t you?” she asks, already certain of the answer.

“No,” I quickly repeat, hoping she doesn’t nail down my accent.

Damn! I must stick out like a sore thumb, walking through this city in a piss colored coat. I’m the epitome of the easy mark, ripe for the grift by the local con artist. This chick targeted my ass as soon as I hit the streets. Instead of answering anymore of her questions, I shove the entire bag of pralines in my mouth, shake my head “no” and run away like a little bitch!

After a few yards, I stop jogging and think about how fitting it is that I’m wearing yellow. What an exceptional depiction of cowardlyness.

Goddamn it. What if she was just looking for help? I didn’t even take the time to really catch her accent. What if she were American and in trouble? What if she just wanted to have dinner with somebody who spoke English, in this Ugly-American-hating town.

I whip back around.

“Hey!”

She’s gone, ghost, like Casper.

Oh, well.

I feel worse than when I allowed Pan to almost electrocute himself because I was too afraid to perform the tie-in. Next fight or flight situation, I fight. I’m tired of this bullshit.

I turn a corner and it comes into view. The Eiffel Tower, beautifully illuminated by three hundred and thirty six sodium vapor lamps. I have to admit that I’m taken aback by it. There’s something about walking underneath this magnificent monument that is damn humbling, especially at night.

Suddenly my heart skips a beat as the lights illuminating the tower all at once go dead.Somebody didn’t pay the electric man?

PHOOM!

“Oh, shit!” I scream to nobody as lights explode to life all over the tower.

Like a rock concert, the structure detonates with thousands of spectacular white strobe lights. I half expect to see Bono descend from the center, screaming into a microphone.

“
Hello, Jason Tisse! Welcome to Paris!”

The light show finishes, and I’m suddenly hit with post 9/11 reality. The military is everywhere. It feels Apocalyptic. Soldiers, patrolling in pairs, heads on a swivel, wearing black berets and slung heavy n’ hard with automatic assault weapons. These guys are not messing around.

I think it best to focus back on the tower. These clowns are killing my buzz.

When I was a kid, my mom used to complain how I always wanted to touch everything, which is especially annoying for a mother who likes to frequent jewelry shops. I guess I never grew up, ‘cause it’s all I can do to stop myself from climbing the concrete base and touch the steel of the tower. Who knows when’s the next time I’m going to be in Paris, and I already punked out on talking to that chick in the red rain coat.

Time to man up. I’m going for it.

I scale the concrete base in seconds like a nine-year-old on a jungle gym. I reach up and grip a handful of steel, ice cold and smooth. I think about the French metal workers who riveted the slab into place. They touched it, and now me.

I leap to the ground, but I’m now too wired to go back to the hotel. To hell with it. I’m taking the elevator to the top! I buy my ticket and scamper onto the lift, which is bigger than my studio apartment was back in Los Angeles. I’m going to see Paris at night from thousands of feet up in the air. This is going to be the bomb!

“Stop!” somebody screams from outside the lift entrance.

Two armed soldiers strapped with automatic weapons block the elevator doors from closing.

One of them points at me, aggressively.

He screams something in French.

I don’t understand what the hell he is saying, but I get that he means business. I slowly walk across the giant elevator, the other tourists now hugging the sides of the lift. As if being the only black guy, the only single guy, and the only person wearing a bright, piss yellow jacket didn’t make me self-conscious enough. Now everybody thinks I’m a terrorist.

Damn it.

The two soldiers each grab an arm and practically carry me off the elevator and down the stairs. When we hit the ground, I reach into my jacket for my—

“
Arrête!”
the soldier orders.

“Cool it, fellas. Just getting my passport.”

He reaches in my pocket for me and snatches out my wallet and passport. As he examines my papers, the other one starts to give me a wholehearted pat down. Yesterday, I was in Cleveland watching
The Andy Griffith Show
and eating a box of Chic-Fil-A nuggets. Now I’m in Paris, and a soldier is running his hands through my crotch looking for a weapon. He’s going places no girl has ever gone before. I don’t know who this fool is, but he seriously owes me a dinner.

“Do you speak English?” I ask as he digs his hand into the crack of my ass.

“No.”

“
Parla l’Italiano?”

“No.”

“Well, damn. I know this is Paris, but you folks do know tourists frequent this location, right? Maybe you boys should speak more than the local dialect, for Christ sake.”

I can talk shit because I know he doesn’t understand me.

The soldier stops feeling me up and finally looks me in the eye (I now know your pain, ladies). He reads the frustration on my face and decides to try to explain what exactly their problem is with me. He squeezes out some painful English, as if he was talking while pushing out a rock-hard, constipated shit.

"Coloom forbiiiiddeeen,” he says

Coloom forbiideen?

“Oh! Column forbidden!” I respond.

“
Oui!”

Oh, shit. When I touched the steel base these jokers actually thought that I was planting a bomb on the Eiffel Tower.

The other soldier hands my papers back.

“Do
you
speak English?” I ask.

“Yes. What were you doing on the base?”

I try to explain to him my motives, but I don’t really know myself. I tell him how my mom told me I always have to touch shit.

It’s only after they dial back the aggression that I realize how scared I actually was. No way I’m gonna tell Mom how guns were aimed at her baby. She’ll probably wanna fly to Paris just to give these jerks a piece of her mind.

I cover my face thinking maybe I’m about to cry. But then, unexpectedly even to me, I start laughing like an idiot. When I remove my hands, I see the soldiers are smiling along with me. Their content smiles betray their age, and I quickly recognize that I’m older than both these idiots. They were probably scared shitless, too.

As I head back to the hotel, I can’t help but think about how much I kind of dug the adrenaline rush. I can see how some thugs can get used to such a thing. Fight is better than flight, even when you almost get shot.