Okay? (Short Story)

            “Okay, so here’s what I was thinking—the first shot, the establishing shot, right? We see from his perspective as he’s driving, and it’s kind of dark, you know, we see by streetlight and headlights. Like, you see his hands on the wheel and out the windshield, but you don’t see his head or anything.”

            “How would you get that shot?”

            “I don’t know, man, strap one of those things to his head—a Go-Pro or whatever. That’s not the point. I’m just telling you the concept. Anyway, he’s listening to talk radio, and, you know, it’s real depressing stuff—the economy’s crap, war in the Middle East, that kind of thing, and then we cut to his hand turning the dial, and now it’s a top-forty station cranking out some pop song or whatever.”

            “So it’s like how entertainment is a crutch we use to avoid dealing with the real world?”

            “Well, yeah, dude, but damn it, let it have some subtlety to it. Show, don’t tell, geez.”

            “Sorry, man, but interpretation is the endpoint of all creative endeavor.”

            “Alright, alright, fine. Can I go on, now? So now we’re back to his perspective, and he’s pulling in to some mini-mall, he pulls into a spot, and he parks. He lets the song go on for a few more seconds, and then he shuts off the engine. And as he does that, we cut to a medium shot of him from outside the car, bit of a Dutch angle, right? And this is important, we time it so the sound of the engine shutting off happens exactly when the cut does. We’ve been immersed in his perspective, but now we’re invited to consider him as an object, as external.”

            “Okay, I’m with you so far. I’m thirsty—you want another Coke?”

            “No, come on, man, leave it for, like, five minutes, I’m serious.”

            “Fine, whatever.”

            “So we see him get out of the car, and then we cut to a new shot, behind him, maybe forty-five degrees from his shoulder, right? And he starts walking through the parking lot, he looks both ways, lets a car go by, all that. He’s got his hands in his coat pockets and his head down a little, yeah? Real serious-looking, like he’s deep in thought. We keep following him at that angle like a, what do you call it, a tracking shot, so we never exactly see where he’s headed, until finally he’s pushing through some door. And he’s in a fast food place. We cut back to his point of view, there, too. Looking up at the counter.”

            “That’s to reestablish his subjectivity as the controlling perspective?”

            “Yeah, basically. He looks all profound and high-minded, but he just wants some junk food.”

            “Which fast food place is it?”

            “I don’t know, man. Why’s it matter?”

            “The specificity of it is big. Gives you a sense of concreteness, really fleshes out the sort of ‘horror of banality’ thing you’ve been describing.”

            “Alright, hell. Taco Bell, okay?”

            “Okay.”

            “Wait, wait—no. Del Taco. It’s a regional chain, and it’s like a knock-off Taco Bell. That’s better.”

            “That’s real good. Del Taco’s good.”

            “Yeah, I think so. So we see him order—now we’re shooting from the floor at an angle up, he takes up almost the whole frame. We don’t hear what he says, really, just mumbles, because we have the sound of a ceiling fan or an air conditioner way up high in the mix. This is where we get our first major cut. Now we’re shooting from a booth, you know, one of those ones with the orange benches and the faux-wood tables? The camera’s at a shallow angle to the seat—not tilted, like a Dutch angle, just horizontal. The shot’s closed off to the open side of the booth.”

            “Okay, I think I like that.”

            “Good, right? So we see him slide into the booth with his tray of crap food and then start rustling in his coat pocket. He pulls out a book. I’m thinking either Notes from Underground or, like, Nausea or something.”

“Maybe, like, The Stranger?”

“Whatever, I don’t know. Something like that, anyway. So he pulls out the book and he puts it on the table next to the tray. He opens it and he holds it open with one hand, and with the other he unwraps some of the food. Oh, right, we’ve cut again, wider angle and a few feet further out. We shoot a quick top-down shot first to show the book, and then we’re going again.”

“I was about to say.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m sorry, but I’m just sort of in the flow of it, you know? He’s got the book out and we see him turn his head to look at it, but he can’t keep it that way for long. He can’t really focus, even for a minute. He lets the book close, and he sighs. We never hear him talk, by the way. This is as close as we get.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, no dialogue from him.”

“Interesting.”

“Anyway, he closes the book and he pulls out a phone. He fiddles with it for a minute, then he takes a bite of the food. Then we start doing a series of cuts where we work around like a clock, each new shot showing time passing by the amount of food eaten and the discarded wrappers and stuff, right? And when we get to behind the other side of the booth again, we hold that shot, it’s a longer shot than the others. We see another guy walking into frame from behind the camera—first his head, then the rest of him. He walks up to our main character and he says something like, ‘Hey, brother, listen, I’m out of cash and my card got declined at the gas station. I need eight bucks or so to get enough fuel to get out of here, man, can you help out at all?’”

“Happened to you before?”

“Yeah, it has—details a little different, but basically, yeah. So our guy looks up from his phone and gives the dude a long look. Cold, you know? And a little hostile. Then he fishes out his wallet and hands the guy some bills. That dude counts it up in his head, he realizes it’s the full amount, eight bucks. He says, ‘Thank you so much, for real, man, God bless.’ And he holds out his hand for our man to shake. We cut to a close-up of his face and shoulders, we see he has this sort of tight, almost pained expression. After a beat, the shoulder moves, he’s shaking the guy’s hand. We hear the other guy walking away. And then our man looks back down at his phone and we dolly out and see his right hand on the table, clenched tight.”

“Huh. Okay, so it’s like—”

“Hold on, let me finish, I’m almost done. We linger on that image for a while, and he starts breathing deeper, audible and visible breathing. We see his chest and shoulders rise and fall. And now we get another major cut to the exterior, the parking lot again. We’re shooting from in front of his car, facing the building, but the background’s out of focus. Our man is walking up, eventually getting in focus. He gets into the car, and we watch him back out of the spot, then drive off out of frame. We refocus on the building. Then we cut again, now we’re looking up and over at him from the passenger seat. His face goes from dark to light as he drives through the streetlights. The radio is still on the pop station. After a few beats, he turns off the radio, and the motion is a little bit violent, he sort of stabs at the button. A few more beats and we just watch his face—light, dark, light, dark—and only hear the sound of the road. And then we gently fade to black. So? What do you think?”

I tipped my cup and chewed on a chunk of ice.

“Well,” I began.