furrows her brow, combs through her downy and uneven hair. Turns back, tilts her chin up. Her head is a camera, her eyes lenses. She tilts up, pans right, and zooms in on his face. He smiles. His colorless lips are horizontal, expressionless, not different than before when he was not smiling, but he is smiling nonetheless. Nonetheless he smiles at her knowingly. She sees this and realizes she will not win by leaving. At least not in his mind. In his mind he has won by making her want to leave. He thinks her leaving proves what he knows: she is not fit to meddle in man’s work; she’s leaving the office to go back home to cook his food in the kitchen and iron his collared shirts and slacks in the laundry room. “You’re wrong,” she says to him. Her eyes lock on his lack of eyes and she says: “I haven’t lost your game. I’ve quit yours to start my own. This room, this fucking room, this clean white room where both silence and sound deafens me, this room is a glacier, and it will melt someday.” His grin spreads wider without him even moving his lips. “You don’t see and you don’t think. You only know.” She sees her own reflection in his glasses. “I’m done with your knowledge. Finished. I will never know because I think, and I think that is the only right way.” He knows she is wrong. “I think that’s right,” she says, “but I’ll never know. And I never intend to know. I’ll leave knowing to you.” He doesn’t even blink. How can he? He doesn’t have eyes. II “Mmmm,” says the driver. A cloud of smoke swirls around him. He wears a brown leather jacket, strategically torn jeans, and aviator sunglasses rimmed with gold frames. In the driver seat of his car, navigating the snaky country highway, he is an ethereal being. He is a cherub in the heavens, no less than two thousand meters above ground. He’d like to think he feels that good. He rubs the frayed right knee of his jeans. It feels good, like money. He loves himself. “Mmm.” “What are you ‘mmming’ about?” says his friend in the front passenger seat. “You act like you’re eating when you smoke.” “Mmm,” says the driver, who takes another hearty drag, looks right, and blows it all in his friend’s face. “I’m sorry, bra. Parliaments are delicious.” “That so? I gotta disagree with you there, mein Freund. I think they smell like shit. Like dirt, actually. Like burnt dirt, or something.” “Burnt dirt?” “Yeah, I think so.” “You can’t burn dirt,” says the driver. “Can you?” “Well,” says his friend. “I don’t really know. Maybe you can. Probably not, though. What I mean is it has a smell that reminds me of dirt but also of burnt stuff.” “What kinda burnt stuff?” “I dunno. Just the usual kind of burnt stuff. Leaves, paper, chemicals.” “Yeah, well, all of those things are in all cigarettes.” “Shit,” says the passenger. He scratches his head, leans back in his seat. “I guess that’s true. Well I guess Parliaments just smell earthy, like a rotting compost heap. But also, you know, has the usual cigarette smoke smell, too.” “Then why didn’t you just say that?” “Dude,” says the passenger. “What?” says the driver. “You just missed the turn. Pay attention to the road. Quit looking at me.” “I’m sorry,” says the driver. He steers the car left, into a long gravel driveway. He glances back at the road, reverses, and shoots forward back toward the turn. His cigarette is only half-smoked, and he feels good. “I like to look at people when I talk to them. My career counselor told me looking at people when they talk shows more interest and proves that I’m paying attention to what they’re saying.” “Fuck your career counselor. You’re driving.” “Fine, fine,” he says. He doesn’t want to argue. He wants to get to the camp site, pop open a longneck and smoke Parliaments by the fireside. Wants a crack at the leggy bleach blonde with an attitude. He’s heard a lot of stories about her. He heard the other day that she got a tongue piercing, and he wonders if she knows how to use it. She’s a friend of a friend, and he knows she’ll be there. She’s been cheeky with him in the past, very quick to belittle him in a playful kind of way. He’d tease her about being blonde; she’d tease him about his small hands, his little baby bear paws, and say that his small hands indicate his smallness in other places. They’d both laugh.
MONTAGE 5