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Short Story
by
Martin Rutley
DEEP SEA DIVING ON SUPER 8
It took twenty minutes to get the guy from his house to the studio. Denny caught the whole trip on high 8, so I'm thinking I might cut some of that in with the final edit--give the piece that rounded feel I missed with 'Dandelion Trails'--maybe a few bars of MC5's 'Motor City is Burning' running over the top of it. I've taken free rein on this one, two hours in which I can do what the hell I like without answering to anyone. I don't mind keeping the boys informed, but they aren't going to bloody well call my shots. They get finished product just like the newspapers.
I left his children locked in with the wife. The kids don't seem too bad, but that wife of his is a real handful--bitch bit me on the fucking hand moving her back into the bedroom. She's going crazy, telling me I can take whatever I want, all the time figuring I'm the kind of guy can be bargained with. That's how it is with these kinds of people--no one's ever had the balls to let them know when they're screwed.
As a rule, we take nothing from the house. Occasionally, we'll find something that takes our eye, something we can drop into a few shots--a photograph, a piece of jewelry, a handwritten letter, something personal like that. Tonight, I'd taken a framed photograph of what must be his father vacationing in the South of France, short-sleeved shirt tucked into maroon colored slacks, broken blood vessels beneath his left eye.
Before we left the house, Frank knocked him about a little, nothing too heavy, a couple of slaps here and there--I've found it pays to show our hand from the word go. Once you've got your duct tape in place, you're ready move him from the house into the car, which isn't always 1-2-3 when you've got his family crawling the ceiling in an upstairs bedroom. Still, we managed it easily enough, and once you've got your man in the trunk of the car, you're on the home straight.
* * *.
"You're #709 on their list, Mr. Rayner."
"What list? Whose?"
"I mean it's not my list; we just oblige them with the films. You're in excellent company --Rod Stewart, Liza Minnelli, Winston Churchill, Marilyn Monroe--they've an eye for originality, Mr. Rayner, for those with something new to say."
"I've nothing new to say, I assure you."
"You're far too modest, Mr. Rayner. Only last year, I was watching one of your shows in which you reunited a prostitute Mother with her runaway daughter, it was one of the most moving moments I've ever seen on a television screen."
"Thank you, but the daughter was dead within three months--shot a lethal dose of methylphenidate mixed with heroin, a 'speedball' I think they call it. "
"You've taken their eye, Mr. Rayner, and that's all there is to it."
"Whose? What do they want with me?"
"Well, let me ask you this, Mr. Rayner--have you ever seen the face of a newborn baby staring back at you from inside the helmet of a deep sea diving suit?"
"I haven't. Could I just go home now?"
"You haven't?"
"Of course, you're speaking purely in metaphorical terms--"
"Shit. Stop, stop" I move towards him, stepping into the shot. "Are you fucking ignorant? I told you not to look into the camera. You looked directly into the fucking camera."
That's the thing with guys like this--they've no idea what it means to work according to a few guidelines. Number one talk show host in the country and he's talking into the goddamned camera. I want him home by six a.m. and that's not likely to happen if I'm waiting around for him to pull his act together.
"I'm sorry, I can do it again," he says, shifting in his seat. "I'm a little nervous, that's all."
"Quit worrying about your fucking family," I tell him, getting right up close into his face. "Just say the lines as they've been given to you without looking into the fucking camera. Can you do that for me?"
It takes a good half hour to get the shots we need. The guy's all over the place, can't sit still in his chair, wants to know what's happening at home all the time. We keep the camera rolling, laying down some of the best 'don't-hurt-my-family' type drivel we've had in a long while.
The next scene is the pivotal point of the entire piece--I don't get this right and I've got the schmuck out of bed for nothing. Denny's switched to Super 8, mounting the camera in a stationary position, which we'll run at eighteen frames per second. We're looking for a static headshot of around two minutes, more if the guy can hack it.
He's shaking all over as we get him into the diving suit. Frank slips the helmet over his head, locking it into position with the lower half of the suit.
"Ok, move him over this way," I tell Frank. "Yeah, just about there. How's that look, Denny?"
"Yeah, I got him, don't let him move from there."
"Ok, I'm ready with the pump."
We'll have to move fast here, even with Frank supporting the lower half of his body, he won't last long standing in the suit.
"Ok, we're rolling."
I flick the switch, starting the pump that'll gradually fill the helmet with water through it's modified air inlet. I'm watching the monitor feed from the Super 8--a direct line from the image I've held in my head for more than three months. All we see now is the eyes, the rest hidden behind the static shell of the baby's smiling face.
Within the first minute, the water has traveled a good halfway up the inside of the helmet. Off camera, I watch Frank struggling to hold the guy still, both arms locked tight around his abdomen. He's throwing his arms about, beating the sides of the helmet with his fists-- reaching down to grab at Frank, at anything he can get his hands on.
I'm glued to the image on the monitor screen, getting big kicks from the way his eyes are shifting violently in their pre-fabricated sockets. I figure he's been without air for around forty seconds, not long enough to drown a man, but enough to have him thinking his number's up.
"A minute thirty, Ray."
"He's looking good, Denny. I need enough to run ol' blue eyes' 'Paper Moon' over this one."
Around two minutes ten, I give Frank the signal to get him out of the helmet. The guy falls to the floor the moment Frank gets him out.
"We've got a problem here," Frank yells, slipping the mask from off the guy's face.
"You're gonna tell me he's dead next, Frank?"
"He's dead, Ray." .
* * *
When the unexpected happens you've got to be ready to improvise, to make a decision and move on it without looking back. You give a guy too much credit and he'll slap you right back in the face, he'll turn his life in just so he can point out your mistake--piece of shit did everything he could to prove he was forty pounds too heavy and pushing fifty, his wife and kids never came into it.
I get Denny over with the super 8, he shoots several slowly revolving shots of our dead talk-show host, ending with a static sixty-second close up of the guy's face--I had to re-open the eyes myself, who the hell drowns with their eyes closed?
Within twenty minutes, we're heading back to the house, our man back in familiar territory, locked in the trunk. As Frank guides the car through the suburbs, I'm running the final scene over in my head. No more of these shorts, these half-assed teases. I tell Frank to save enough film for the upstairs visit--the big ending the boys down at the precinct have been waiting for. As I settle back into my reveries, Denny points the super 8 out through the windshield, its mechanical eye immortalizing all we allow it to see--given free rein, the responsibilities are frightening.
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