BACK ON THE street, I feel relieved there seems to be some recollection of the movie, but also oddly dispirited, both to be so quickly out of the story and back in this awful life of mine, but also to feel at the mercy of Barassini’s control in order to recover it. And why is he suddenly so desperate to hear about it? I think about the scene I just watched. Is that even in the movie? How can I know? Nothing is knowable. First of all, it feels so complete, down to precise dialogue and extraordinary comic timing. Is that possible? I have, in the past, claimed an eidetic memory, but have I ever tested it in this way? I don’t remember. I try now to recall a single scene of dialogue in Moutarde, a movie I have, by a conservative estimate, seen five hundred times, and I cannot. I remember snippets, important lines, brilliant lines, but not every line, not every look, every breath. Granted, the film is in French, and although I am fluent in French and five other languages, conversant in six more, it is not my first language. I attempt to think of a film in English I know as well as I know Moutarde. It is a difficult task. I do not expend much energy on American films, as they are generally not worth the effort. I consider the work of Apatow, the Great Exception, as he is known among we enlightened few. There is one scene in This Is 40 that jumps out and smacks one in the face, even in that veritable sea of Apatow brilliance. I’ve deconstructed this scene. I’ve written about it at length. I’ve performed the Paul Rudd part in my acting for critics classes. I know it. So I attempt to play it back in my mind, just to see if I can.
PETE: We’re turning forty and we’ve been married a long time and there’s no passion anymore.
DEBBIE: And we have two kids. I hope they don’t hear us fighting.
PETE: No, you shut up!
DEBBIE: I’m turning thirty-eight.
PETE: But you lie about your age, so you’re really turning older than that.
DEBBIE: We’re Simon and Garfunkel!
PETE: Look at my anus through a magnifying glass!
DEBBIE: Did you get me a present?
PETE: Shut up or I’ll kill you!
Amazing. That is indeed forty. It is as if Apatow had a camera in my house when I was that age. Even though I know I did not get the scene verbatim, it’s a testament to the power of the writing (and the performances of Ruddmann, as I have dubbed Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann, so organic and believable are they as a couple!) that I still find myself simultaneously laughing and crying as I recall the scene. The raw human emotionality is palpable. But, no, it is not as well-formed a memory as the Abbott and Costello murder plot scene from a movie I have seen only once, and that viewing in Nameless Ape mode. I weep some more. And then I laugh, because the humanity Apatow shows us is also very funny. This is where his gift lies, his ability to reveal to us the tragedy and comedy that is our lives.
AT HOME, DRINKING myself into oblivion with a bright and tangy yet inexpensive cab—a 2015 Agnès et René Mosse Anjou Rouge, to be precise, which is well-priced at twenty-two dollars (but borrowed from my brother’s wine cellar)—I receive an email from Tsai containing nothing but a link to the website of the laundromat across the street from her apartment, which I see has a wash/dry/fold drop-off service. And a note that reads: Every other Sunday.
Huzzah!
I stop by the laundromat to see if part-time help is needed, preferably Sundays, preferably every other one. It is not. And after a violent exchange in which the manager and I argue whether this Sunday or next Sunday is the first other Sunday, I leave my name and number, saying, “Oh, and if anything opens up, I would really love to work here.”
All the way back to Barassini’s, fantasies of sorting, washing, and folding Tsai’s clothes dance in my head. The level of frustration I feel is extraordinarily high. I kick a garbage can, and an apartment manager chases me for three blocks. Barassini is in his office with a client, so I have time to masturbate inside the antique armoire in the waiting room. I can’t get hard but have an explosive and satisfying orgasm nonetheless. The humiliation of not being able to form an erection adds to the humiliation of my fantasy, which adds to the orgasm. Something terrible is happening to me.
THE ROAD IS dark, and I am again digging, digging, this time with no success. Hundreds of holes illuminated by soft moonlight pepper this surreal landscape.
“Nothing?” squawks the radio.
“Nothing,” I tell it.
“Is the environment the same as last time?”
I look around. There’s now a break in the canopy of trees.
“I can see the moon,” I say.
“Dig into the moon with your trowel. But gently, so as not to damage the moon. You must not damage the moon. For the love of all things holy, never damage the moon. It is a thing from which there can be no return.”
“The moon is 237,000 miles away,” I say. “I can’t dig into it, gently or otherwise.”
“Not in your mind it’s not,” the voice says pointedly.
The voice has a point. I reach up, attempt to gently poke my trowel into the moon, and it works. I scoop out a tiny bit, and hundreds of pieces of something fall to the ground around me like piñata candy from a moon-shaped piñata. The moon swings in the sky, as if on a string. It’s creepy.
“Did you do it?”
“I did. There’s a lot of stuff on the ground here now.”
“Examine it.”
I pick up a piece and see myself as a little boy with my father, looking up at the waxing gibbon moon.
“Dad,” I say, “where does the rest of the moon go when it goes away?”
My father laughs, in what seems to me as a child a mocking chortle. Looking at it now, I imagine he was probably affectionately amused, but I can’t remember it that way. I don’t remember it that way. I was humiliated, my face flushed to the color of my port-wine stain and my eyes brimmed with tears.
“It’s OK,” my father says. “I just thought that was adorable.”
My father explains it to me, but I don’t think I ever heard the explanation; I just kept thinking, I’m such an idiot. He thinks I’m an idiot. Fuck me. Fuck me with a chain saw. Why can’t I be smart like my successful, handsome brother with his future wine distributorship or marry into money like my sister one day will?
“Anything?” the radio asks.
“Nothing pertinent,” I say.
“Keep looking.”
So I do.
I see myself a mortified teen as I, on a dare, moon some girls from a slowly moving car. One of the girls says, “Ew, you got dried shit on that pasty ass. Rosendingleberry!” They shriek and laugh.
Now I am savoring a MoonPie in the bushes behind my childhood house. I had swiped it from the pantry even though I was never allowed sweets before dinner. Levy’s “grabby” story momentarily pops into my mind, dissolves.
Now I see the Apollo 11 moon landing on TV.
“Bingo!” cries Barassini.
Grainy video of Michael Collins in the command module. Wait, was there footage of Collins in the module? Am I misremembering? There is no Internet here in my mind to research it.
The image shifts to crisp color. A sad and lonely Collins circles around the dark side of the moon, while Armstrong and Aldrin are off making history. I do notice that Collins is a puppet. This is from Ingo’s film. I have come upon the film. Collins clears his throat and sings to camera:
As I orbit in this ship
While elsewhere history is made,
Around the dark side I do slip as
From my radio NASA’s voice does fade.
And just like that I’m all alone
Cut off from everyone on Earth,
In solitude, profound and deep
I ponder celebrity and what it’s worth.
The world needs men who fly alone
Who seek not the constant adulation,
That walking on the moon commands
From a fawning and obsequious nation.
True heroes live behind the scenes
Hidden by this pockmarked sphere,
Alone, alert, and on the job
With nary a soul to see or cheer.
And though the big show’s on the moon
With the speeches and the leaping fun,
I as well have served mankind
Unsung but still a job well done.
Then, suddenly, in the claustrophobic gloom of Columbia: a shimmer! Collins and I both turn to it. There, floating in this interplanetary realm, two naked male infants appear.
They seem stunned, as does Collins. I am stunned as well, and although I cannot see my own face, I’m certain I share their expressions. We are all of us frozen in our astonishment. Then in an instant we snap back to life, the babies bawling, Collins gaping, and I remembering the scene! The astronaut pushes himself off the wall and glides toward them, gathers them up in his strong, manly arms, calms them. Oh, to have had a father, even though I did.
“There,” he says. “It’s OK. It’s going to be all right.”
And just like that, they are quiet. It’s as if he were made for this job, which, of course, in retrospect, we all now know he was. There are two monkey space suits in the storage bin, having been brought, for good luck, by the prescient Collins in tribute to the pair of fallen comrades Piff and Jambito, who died for their country back in 1958 in the long covered-up, horrifying NASA monkey explosion. The infants, fitted into Urine and Fecal Containment Systems (plenty of diapers for all on that voyage!), are then gently placed into the perfectly fitting monkey space suits. It’s fascinating to watch this story, which has been drummed into our heads since 1969, played out on the screen. There had, of course, been attempts to tell it filmically in the past, but the Collins family always nipped them in the bud.
“These miraculous kids deserve a childhood,” he’d said at press conference after press conference.
And he was right. Of course he was. We all knew it. He was Michael Collins, one of the great dads of all time, much better than I ever was, according to eyewitnesses, although I have a different memory of the incidents than my daughter does. However, Ingo didn’t need the Collins life rights; his was a movie never to be seen. And then as Collins’s adopted children reached adulthood, they made their own choices, as we all know, about the public sphere and their place in it. I do try not to think of what we all know, as I want to be certain the story I’m remembering is from Ingo’s movie and not the news media, gossip columns and obituaries, and religious tracts.
“Houston,” says Collins, “there has been an odd but wonderful development around the dark side. Over.”
“Yes, Apollo 11? Over.”
“Two male human infants have appeared in Columbia. Over.”
“Sounds like a little cabin fever, Lieutenant. No worries. Over.”
“No, Houston. They’re real. Over.”
“Noted, Lieutenant. For now let’s focus on getting Buzz and Neil back safely. Over.”
“Roger that. Over and out.”
“What’s happening now?” asks Barassini’s voice over the radio.
“He’s pushing a bunch of buttons, looking at dials,” I say.
“I’m pushing buttons and checking dials, Houston. Over,” says Collins, seemingly thinking Barassini was Houston.
After a bit, I am jarred as something slams into us. A hatch unscrews and Armstrong and Aldrin enter, laughing and patting each other on the back as they remove their helmets.
“Man, that was fun!” Aldrin says. “And when you said that thing, the giant leap business…Holy moly! Shivers!”
“Hey, Mikey!” says Armstrong. “Miss us?”
“Actually,” says Collins, “I had a pretty interesting time while you guys were gone.”
“I bet,” smirks Aldrin. “I can see how sitting alone in a metal bucket could be interesting. Maybe not as interesting as walking on the goddamn fucking moon, but still…a good time, I’m sure.”
Aldrin and Armstrong laugh, pat each other on the back some more.
“Actually, fellas, two infant children magically appeared in the module while you—”
“That’s cool, Mikey, but you shoulda seen—wait, what?” says Armstrong.
“They just appeared out of thin air. It was a miracle. Perhaps the greatest documented miracle in the history of mankind.”
“Cabin fever, Mikey, but don’t worry about it because—”
Collins holds up the sleeping infants.
“I don’t think Houston believes me,” says Collins, “but of course once they see…So the moon was good?”
“Oh, it was very cool, y’know,” says Armstrong, suddenly subdued, eyeing the babies.
“It was very fun to bounce around all slow motion–like,” adds Aldrin. “So…y’know.”
“I imagine it was,” says Collins. “That sounds fun. Excuse me for one second. I have to mash some space food sticks with water and feed the moonchildren. It’s feeding time. I’m calling them the moonchildren.”
“Can I feed one of ’em?” asks Aldrin.
“I think they’re imprinted on me for right now, Buzz. Maybe once we arrive back home. Once they get acclimated.”
“OK. Cool. That’s cool.”
The scene shifts to a ticker-tape parade down 5th Avenue. I’m among the crowds lining the street; I’m floating down with the confetti; I’m watching from a high window like Oswald; I’m walking alongside the vehicles with the security. Collins is in the first convertible with Castor and Pollux (as they are, of course, soon to be known the world over) in their little monkey space suits. Collins waves to the adoring crowd. Armstrong and Aldrin are three cars back, almost ignored. They don’t even bother waving. Aldrin fumes. Armstrong stares at his hands.
“I was prepared to be in your shadow,” Aldrin says. “Second man on the moon. I get that. But not in the shadow of Collins. That’s just insulting. Collins was the punch line. We all knew that, even back in astronaut school. Michael ‘Footnote’ Collins, we called him. Now look at us. This is unacceptable. Unacceptable.”
“What are you saying, Buzz?”
“I’m saying something needs to be done. Or undone.”
“Like what? Collins won fair and square.”
“Won? This isn’t a competition! And besides, you call magic space babies fair and square? I’m not buying what you’re peddling, Armie.”
“Well, anyway, there’s nothing to be done.”
“I say we disappear the kids.”
“What? How?”
“You heard of Lindbergh?”
“Of course. He’s our predecessor in the field of aviation.”
“Well, he had a kid called the Lindbergh Baby.”
“What of it?”
“The kid was kidnapped,” says Aldrin.
“Terrible! Those poor parents!”
“Terrible or great?”
“Terrible?”
“I say we do the Lindbergh kidnapping times two.”
“But that’s kidnapping!”
“Times two! And the Lindbergh Baby never came home.”
“Dead?”
“You tell me.”
“This is the first I’m hearing of the story, so—”
“Dead. The point is, Neil, we disappear the monkey-suited Space Kiddos and all of a sudden Papa Collins is back to being Footnote Collins. Maybe people think they never even existed, if we play our cards right. Maybe it was all space illusion. Mass space hypnosis.”
“Is that a thing?”
“Who knows? Could be. The point is no one knows at this point. This is all brand-new territory.”
“I’m no criminal, Buzz. I just made a giant leap for mankind.”
“Did you, Neil? Anyone throwing roses at you? Any broads spreading their legs for you? Seems all the trim out there has daddy issues, if the goo-goo eyes they’re making at Collins is any indication.”
Armstrong looks out at the women in the crowd, then at Aldrin, and sighs.
As I pull back, a camera taking in this expansive, elaborate scene—falling ticker tape, puppet crowds, a letter-perfect 1969 5th Avenue set—I marvel, not only at Ingo’s extraordinary skill in animating this complex moment, but also how he had been able to predict this impossibly unlikely scenario, for it has come back to me that Ingo told me he animated this sequence in 1942. How was he able to predict the Castor and Pollux story, the kidnapping attempt by Aldrin and Armstrong? I guess this is his “rememorying” of the future. Perhaps I’ll visit Aldrin in prison, ask him how accurate that ticker-tape parade conversation was? It all makes me wonder: Are there other truths buried in this movie, things I don’t yet remember, things that have maybe not yet occurred? Rememories of my future? I feel unsettled. The movie has receded and left me once again in darkness. I am alone in here and I am desolate.
“Tell me,” says the voice, now coming from nowhere and everywhere.
“It’s black.”
“Is that part of the film?”
“It’s just black. Maybe it’s the leader.”
“Who’s the leader? Pollux?”
“What are you talking about? No, leader is the black film at the head of a movie.”
“Maybe this part of the movie is black?”
Barassini’s voice sounds panicky.
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“Could this be part of the film? Like a black part of the film?”
“No. Why do you keep asking that?”
“No reason! Keep searching!”
I look, for what feels like a long time, months, it seems, wandering this darkness, which is punctuated only by an occasional and urgent “Anything now?!” from Barassini’s voice. It’s a terrifying experience.
“The hour’s up,” it finally says, followed by the angriest of finger snaps.
I am in Barassini’s office. He paces.
“Well, that turned to shit,” he says.
“Yeah.”
“Look, Castor Collins is a client of mine,” he says. “OK?”
“Oh, wait,” I say. “I think I knew that.”
“So I’m wondering if I’m in the movie. I’m just wondering is all. That’s all.”
“I don’t recall. Maybe you—”
“Don’t think about it now. Only in the trance. It’s the only way to be accurate. Outside of this controlled environment, you will misremember, conflate. Your recollection will be useless to me.”
“To you?”
“By useless to me, I meant to you, of course. Useless to you in your goal of re-creating an accurate novelization of Ingo’s film.”
“Novelization,” I say. “I never thought of it that way.”
“Yes, you have.”
“Have I? The novelization is a discredited form, an inferior form, although there have been novelizations that have been vastly superior to the films on which they were based. Updike’s novelization of Fun in Balloon Land is devastating, beautiful, haunting. The film itself is a masterpiece of mid-sixties family gothic, but Updike got deep inside the balloons, inside with the helium and the regret.”
“So we’re not calling it a novelization now?”
“Transubstantiation? I like that. Almost a sacred connotation.”
“Almost,” he repeats.
And I suspect I am being mocked.