It Chooses You

  Pam: My job was waitress, service, cashier — talk to the people, you know.

  Miranda: Do you have a computer?

  Pam: No. I don’t know computer. I wish to know it, but I don’t know.

  Pam opened another album, and as we looked at pictures of the rich, white strangers on a boat, I had the queasy feeling that I was Pam, in reverse. She’d invented all kinds of happiness for these people who seemed boring to me, while her immigrant story struck me as inherently poignant and profound. And probably neither of us was entirely wrong; it’s just that we were, more than anything, sick of our own problems.

  Miranda: Have you ever run another ad in the PennySaver?

  Pam: No.

  Miranda: And why do you think you decided to do this now?

  Pam: Because you know what, I need the room.

  Miranda: And has anyone called about the albums to buy them?

  Pam: Yeah, a lot of people, but —

  Miranda: But they don’t buy them.

  Pam: Yeah. But I can’t throw them out. I used to have one customer in the restaurant, she was like ninety-five years old. Her name was Meg. She was so sweet. She come in every day at eleven o’clock and she eat. And this lady, she’s doing a job kind of like your job, she goes to people and takes pictures and talks to somebody. And then after she’s like sixty-five years old, you know what she does? She takes pictures of herself every day. And she goes home, and she puts them in the scrap album. She was so careful — three rooms like this high, thick, thick with albums. And then one day she passed away. And the son-in-law, he take all the albums and put everything in the dumpster. It’s so sad. That’s why I took these albums, so they wouldn’t get thrown in a dumpster, you know? That’s sad to me.

  At age sixty-five, an age so far past young as to be almost unfeminine, a woman had decided to photograph herself every single day. It was immediately one of my favorite works of art, all the more significant because she wasn’t Sophie Calle or Tracey Emin. She knew no one would clamor for the three rooms’ worth of albums; their value was entirely self-defined. And though of course I wished I had somehow saved the albums, the performance had to end with her dying and the collection being thrown into the dumpster. It was the ending that really made you think.

  I bought a few of Pam’s albums, and when I got home I forced myself to look at the pictures of the couple posing at alumni functions and tourist attractions. The moral of these people was clear to me: if you spend your life endlessly cruising around the world, never stopping to plant children on dry land, then when you die some Greek woman you don’t even know will become the steward of your legacy. And when she wants more room in her house, she sells your legacy in the PennySaver. And no one wants it.

  I’d been waiting for the perfect movie title, but finally I decided to just name it. It had to be short, a very familiar, short word. I looked up the most commonly used nouns. The number one most common noun was time. Which made me feel less alone; everyone else was thinking about it too. Number two was person. Number three was year. Number 320 was future. The Future.

  I didn’t set out planning to write a script about time, but the longer I took to write it and get it made, the more time became a protagonist in my life. At first my boyfriend and I thought we’d get married after our movies were made, but after about six months of trying to get the films financed we thought better of this plan and set a date, come what may. Nothing came, we got married. And then, right around the time I started blindly meeting PennySaver sellers, it began to dawn on me that not only was I now old enough to have a baby, I was almost old enough to be too old to have a baby. Five years left. Which is not very long if an independent movie takes at least one year to finance, one year to make, and throw in a year or two for unforeseen disasters. (And I couldn’t make the movie while pregnant, even if I wanted to, because I was in it.)

  So all my time was spent measuring time. While I listened to strangers and tried to patiently have faith in the unknown, I was also wondering how long this would take, and if any of it really mattered compared to having a baby. Word on the street was that it did not. Nothing mattered compared to having a baby.

  And now that I had vowed to hang out with this man until I died, I also thought a lot about dying. It seemed I had not only married him but also married my eventual death. Before the vows, I might have lived alone, but forever; now I would definitely not be alone and I would definitely die. I had agreed to die, in front of all my family and friends. Brigitte had taken a picture of the very moment: I was smiling and, understandably, crying. The only thing between me and death was this child. If I delayed having the child, then I could also delay death, sort of. So I was in a hurry to step across the void so I could make the movie so I could have a child before it was too late — and I was also, secretly, not in a hurry.

  I had shortened my life in another way too, by marrying a man who was eight years older than me, meaning he would die exactly eight years before me, rendering the last eight years of my life useless. I would just spend it crying.

  RON

  —

  SIXTY-SEVEN-PIECE ART SET $65

  —

  WOODLAND HILLS

  —

  Around this time it was kindly suggested to me that what I really needed was not a two-hundredth draft of The Future, but a movie star in a lead role to reassure potential investors. This was troubling because I already had people in mind for Jason and for Marshall, the man my character has an affair with. They were incredible actors who had had small parts in big movies and big parts in movies no one had seen. I tried to point out that I hadn’t cast stars in my first movie either, and that had worked out fine. But it didn’t matter, because that was 2005. You wouldn’t be able to make your first movie now, they said ominously. Which made me feel like the recession might be able to go back in time and take apart Me and You and Everyone We Know, un-finance it, un-shoot it, un-edit it.

  I began trying to think of middle-aged TV and movie stars to play Marshall. I felt most comfortable with the thought of a “comeback,” so I tried to remember who the leading men were when I was a child, and then I looked them up to see where they were now. Generally speaking, it was a motley demographic. These men had swelled up; often they had abused their wives or drugs, many had mug shots, and very few of them seemed like they would “get me.” Which was appealing, because it was what the role called for — someone unlikely, almost unthinkable. And meanwhile I continued calling PennySaver sellers; in fact, I became more resolute about my interviews, more rebelliously determined to continue them now that I had “real” meetings, with actors.

  Ron tried to convince me to interview him over the phone; he said he had his reasons for not wanting me to come over. But then he suddenly changed his mind and gave me his address. As I knocked on the door I braced myself for facelessness, or no head, or a head but no body, a head on wheels. But Ron had a body with a head and even a baseball hat. He was the most average person I’d ever seen. In preparation for our meeting, he had laid out items all over the bed and floor, brand-new books and DVDs and a sixty-seven-piece art set. They were mostly for children — Mrs. Doubtfire was in attendance, as was Hop on Pop — and they all seemed vaguely ill-gotten. The apartment was small, and he sauntered around setting up chairs for us.

  Ron: I went through a little bit of trouble to take some stuff out of my closet and throw it on here for you.

  Miranda: Yeah, thank you.

  Ron: Not much trouble. Just a little.

  Miranda: Well, I really appreciate it. Thanks for taking the time. What did you say you do for a living?

  Ron: I’m a corporate owner.

  Miranda: Okay. Can you elaborate on that?

  Ron: I run a financial-investment corporation. I use margin — I use the money from the banks, and then I take the money from the brokerage room at eight or nine percent only for each day that I use it. If you borrow it for a day and you sell the stock the same day — this is what people don’t know ?
?? if you have ten thousand dollars, you can borrow ten thousand dollars from the brokerage firm, and then that’s twenty thousand dollars. You can use that twenty thousand dollars that day and sell it the same day, and the ten thousand dollars you borrowed from the brokerage firm, you don’t pay any interest.

  Miranda: Okay.

  I’m not especially terrific with numbers, so it was as if he’d just thrown some confetti in the air and called it words. I tried to listen harder — maybe I would really learn something here. Maybe he could explain taxes to me later.

  Ron: If you hold it overnight, you owe them that money for one day, nine percent interest for just a day divided by three hundred sixty-five. So it’s almost like pennies.

  Miranda: Right.

  Ron: It adds up if you hold it for weeks and months.

  Miranda: Right, I see.

  Ron: You see what I’m saying?

  Miranda: Yeah.

  Ron: I’m a numbers person. I’ve always been good with numbers. Always loved numbers. Very quick with numbers. In elementary school I was an A student up until about fifth grade, when it came to fractions. Then I had a little trouble.

  Miranda: Right.

  Ron: And because of that, I had what you call thousands of hours of blackjack experience when I first started in Atlantic City. Unfortunately, I had beginner’s luck. I wasn’t good but I had beginner’s luck. And so I won. And then after a while, I lost. And I won and I lost and I won and I lost and eventually I lost and I lost more than I won.

  The discussion of blackjack was long and detailed. He tried to explain what card-counting was, why it was illegal, and how what he did was legal, even though, technically speaking, it was card-counting. Asking a question was like merging onto the freeway — I had to accelerate and jump into one of his pauses.

  Miranda: What are your plans for the future?

  Ron: Well, I’ve had a period of several years of my life that was torture and torment. And I didn’t have the option to get married.

  Miranda: Right.

  Ron: Can you read into that?

  Miranda: No.

  Ron: It’s about to be over in a couple of months.

  Miranda: Okay.

  Ron: And it was business-related.

  Miranda: Okay.

  Ron: Business-related Martha Stewart–type —

  He lifted his pants leg a little bit to reveal a house-arrest anklet.

  Miranda: Oh, okay. Okay. Right.

  Ron: It’s just about over.

  Miranda: It’ll be nice to have that off.

  I said this cozily, almost maternally. The important thing was to continue behaving exactly as I had before I’d known he was under house arrest. A lot of people might have flinched, but hopefully he noticed that I had not. He leaned in toward me as if this next thing he was about to say was ultra-classified.

  Ron: I’m going to tell you something that’s fact. An anklet can mean any one of three things. If you’re gang related, you get one on, or if you’re a threat to the community because you have more than one so-called victim, which could be business-related or —

  Miranda: Right.

  Ron: — a sex offense or a drug dealer. Not small-time but what they consider a dealer-dealer.

  Miranda: Right.

  Ron: If you’re any one of those four, you’ll get one of these on. People think because you have that on you’re a sex-offender. Because sex-offenders have to have them on.

  Miranda: Right. Right.

  Ron: But the thing is, so do gang people. So do, like I said, drug dealers. So does anyone who the parole board thinks could be a threat to the community. I did do prison.

  Miranda: Really. Okay. Well, what was the hardest thing about prison?

  Ron: The people. The inmates. Very difficult being around so many people who are so scandalous, that’ll look to take advantage of someone who’s considered weak.

  Miranda: Yeah. Yeah.

  Ron: And to be totally honest with you, I was definitely considered to be weak. I was older. I was mellow. I was laid-back.

  Miranda: Yeah.

  Ron: I put on a little bit of a front the way I walked, just like when I’m outside. I walked with an attitude, so that if there’s gangs or something they kind of pick up an attitude from me, like “Don’t mess with me.”

  Miranda: Right.

  Ron: I don’t walk slow. I don’t walk like an old man. I have a certain walk, a pace and a clip. And I always notice who’s around me, and I always have done that.

  Ron was exactly the kind of man you spend your whole life being careful not to end up in the apartment of. And since I was raised to go out of my way to make such men feel understood, I took extra-special care with his interview. But as he talked on and on (the original transcript was more than fifty pages), I realized that I don’t actually want to understand this kind of man — I just want them to feel understood, because I fear what will happen if I am thought of as yet another person who doesn’t believe them. I want to be the one they spare on the day of reckoning.

  Brigitte had stopped taking pictures and was hanging out near the door with wide eyes. Alfred had become very still and silent somewhere behind me.

  Miranda: What do you love to do?

  Ron: I love to sing.

  Miranda: What do you like to sing?

  Ron: I like — for example, there’s a song called “A Teenager in Love.”

  Miranda: The Everly Brothers?

  Ron: Dion and the Belmonts, or maybe just Dion. Sometimes I really feel like I want to belt it out and just release that tension.

  Miranda: Yeah — people who sing, it’s like they can pour out emotion in a way that other people can’t.

  Ron: Well, I tell you — here’s the bottom line of what people have always told me. They said I’ve always been good with kids. I worked in Reseda through a court-order monitor — when the husband had a court order for the wife that required somebody to be there for the kids, or the wife had an order, I was the one there. So that shows you how risky of a person I am, okay?

  Miranda: Yeah. Yeah.

  Ron: The court checked my background out. I did that in the ’80s part-time. And I actually had a problem because a lot of the kids were requesting me and the agency says, “Hey, Ron. There’s too many people requesting you.”

  Miranda: Yeah.

  Ron: I’m good with kids. I know how to get down on their level and enjoy myself with them. Not a Michael Jackson type, but —

  Miranda: No, I understand. What’s been the happiest time in your life so far?

  Ron: A happy time was when I had a three-year relationship with a younger girl when I was twenty-six, a girl that I truly, truly loved. But she was too young to marry. And I told her, “In a couple of years, when you’re eighteen, if you feel that way, let me know then.” But I knew she would spread her wings and see what life was all about. I was smart enough to know that.

  Miranda: So that was a happy time?

  Ron: That was a really happy time. Another good time was being with a woman out here that was much older than me. Until she had to go into a home. I actually had to call her two sons that were about my age to let them know that she was going to hurt herself.

  Miranda: That must have been hard.

  Ron: I mean, it was like a steady, very steady thing with her and I. And she was much, much, much older than me.

  Miranda: How old was she?

  Ron: I’ll just say she was well into her seventies. But she was slender. She was clean. She was soft-spoken. She was warm. She was the love of my life.

  After a long time I began to understand that he would never let us leave. We just had to go. I silently counted to three and stood up. I brushed off my thighs as people do and made thank-you sounds and gestures. As we said goodbye and walked toward the door, Ron stopped me.

  Ron: Miranda, quick question.

  Miranda: Yeah.

  Ron: Do you have family?

  Miranda: Mm-hmm.

  Ron: Kids?


  Miranda: No kids. I just got married.

  Ron: Oh, you just got married.

  Miranda: Yeah.

  Ron: I was going to say, somebody as adorable as you can’t be single. I’ve really opened up to you about who and what I am. And part of the company I have, I do marketing research. I do a lot of things where — well, I can show you better than tell you.

  Miranda: We have to go, because we’re —

  Ron: Okay, well, I was just going to simply grab something right here and show you.

  Miranda: Okay, okay.

  Ron: These are Starbucks cards. There’s twenty of them there. Do you see them?

  He fanned them out like million-dollar bills, like our minds were going to be blown by these twenty Starbucks cards.

  Miranda: Uh-huh.

  Ron: I also have Exxon Mobil cards. I have more than twenty of them. I have wallets up there that are full of Wal-Mart gift cards, okay?

  Miranda: Wow.

  He was showing me his dowry. His nest egg.

  Ron: These didn’t come because I stole them. These took a lot of time. They took a lot of patience, a lot of discipline, a lot of keeping track. But with that, with that comes the benefit of, well —

  Miranda: Well, thank you. I wish —

  Ron: Thank you.

  Miranda: — we didn’t have another interview after this.

  Ron: Yes. Okay.

  Miranda: We could stick around.

  Ron: That’s okay. I took so much of your time.

  Miranda: Yeah, well, it was really great.

  Ron: It’s been a pleasure.

  We silently walk-ran to the elevator and Alfred hit the down button repeatedly until the elevator doors opened. Ron couldn’t help but remind me a little of Franko, my prison pen pal — or at least I was reminded of how much I gave Franko the benefit of the doubt. I focused on what was charming and tender about him and I never thought very hard about the person he killed. Who was I to judge? I was so young then that I couldn’t presume murder wasn’t in my future too. It seemed unlikely, but so did everything.