TWO

Jacques Seltzer was a large man, tall and intimidating. He weighed an easy three hundred, and was swollen with money and good living. He was a man of insatiable appetites. He loved good food, fine wines, beautiful women and all kinds of extreme experiences. He pursued each and every one of his vices hungrily. At forty-three he remained a confirmed bachelor, and paid a handsome amount to each of the four children he had – up until this point – sired around the globe. He was balding, his remaining hair pulled back into a black, greasy ponytail. His left eye, which had been injured in a fencing accident when he was seventeen, hid behind an eye-patch that Jacques wore as a tribute to the director Nicholas Ray. Although he could not be called a handsome man by any means, his face carried the relaxed air of a man who had never had to deal with the daily shit of the real world.

His father was the notorious multi-billionaire shipping magnate Jean-Noel Seltzer II. Unlike his older brother Javier, he did not follow his father into the lucrative world of importing and exporting. The younger Seltzer had always been a dreamy child, artistic and temperamental, and easily his mother’s favourite. Rootless and shiftless, he’d dabbled in oil painting, homosexuality, petty crime, poetry, drug use and the stock market with varying degrees of success. It was in the mid-nineteen-eighties, following a short-lived but intense love affair with the renowned fashion photographer Francoise Purcell, that Jacques Seltzer finally found his true calling: photography.

Jacques’s success in this field was swift and lucrative. His first book was a collection of portraits of Dutch amputee prostitutes entitled Wide Eyed and Legless. It was a runaway success in Europe. Soon the infamy of the younger Seltzer surpassed even that of his well-connected and obscenely wealthy family. His images of Palestinian refugees – published in France as An Auschwitz of Their Own – won several awards and cemented his reputation as an enfant terrible, a provocateur and a lightning rod for controversy.

However it was Seltzer’s lone foray into cinema, directing and writing the cult masterpiece Dead Flowers that briefly made him a household name. The film, made on a shoestring budget, was condemned and praised in equal measure. The New York Times declared it, “A masterpiece – brave, harrowing and repulsive, but at its core a truly groundbreaking piece of Art.” In one of her final reviews, Pauline Kael – writing in the New Yorker – described Dead Flowers as, “Vile, scabrous, an assault on the senses that leaves the viewer feeling utterly violated.” Soon after its release, Dead Flowers sat proudly alongside The Birth Of A Nation and Pink Flamingos as one of the highest grossing independent movies of all time.

Although it earned him millions, Jacques Seltzer never made another movie. Some blamed this on the car crash in St Tropez a few weeks after the release of Dead Flowers. His passenger was killed and Jacques spent a small fortune dodging drunk-driving charges. The resulting scandal forever tainted his reputation in Europe. The proposed follow up, which Jacques had talked of occasionally in the press, was known only by the title Black Neon. Apart from the title, little else seemed to exist of the movie outside of Jacques’ mind. Obscenely wealthy, and disgusted by the notion that he should have to be productive, Seltzer was content to instead spend his days travelling, taking photographs, and consuming vast quantities of exotic drugs. As the months turned into years, and the years into over a decade, his agent’s pleas for Jacques to come out of his “retirement” and start work on Black Neon grew more desperate. The answer was always the same: “The time is not right yet.” With no actual need to make money, Jacques was content to pursue his photography and enjoy the lifestyle his wealth afforded him. He had no hunger for the kind of commitments and deadlines that another film would entail. As time went on his legend as a filmmaker – and the legend of Black Neon – continued to grow among hardcore movie aficionados. The title was bandied about endlessly on message boards and Internet forums, a subject of seemingly endless speculation. Black Neon often made the top ten “Most Legendary” lists of movie magazines and websites despite the fact that nobody – with the possible exception of Jacques – knew anything about it. All anybody had to go on was that vague, ambiguous title.

Unable to survive on fifteen per cent of the earnings of a legendary director who no longer made movies but preferred to occasionally produce photography books for three thousand dollar advances for obscure European publishing houses, Jacques’ agent – Gibby Getnor – was pushed to the brink of penury. Today he was in Paris to make one final, desperate attempt to get his wayward client back into the directing chair.

Jacques was wearing a powder blue three-piece vintage suit by Dior, and custom-made snakeskin Chelsea boots. He was devouring a plate of Sevruga caviar, toast and sour cream, and was already on his second bottle of a fine vintage red at his usual table at Les Deux Magots, in Paris’ Saint-Germain-des- Prés. Across from him, in a wrinkled Banana Republic suit, was Gibby Getnor. Getnor was hung over, pale and unshaven. He was bald and his once sparkling eyes now hid behind drooping lids. They had heavy, dark bags underneath them. He had once been considered a handsome man, but life had taken a heavy toll on his face. He was often mistaken for being a decade or more older than his forty-nine years. Neither the warm April sun that bathed Paris today, nor the sight of the countless beautiful French women strolling around the streets in their summer dresses, sleek and unobtainable as gold-plated Cadillacs, could improve Getnor’s mood. He had drunk with his client until three this morning, ostensibly celebrating Seltzer’s latest masterpiece, a dark collection of images showing the squalid lives of working class youths in stagnant Northern English mill towns. Now Getnor’s bleary eyes hid painfully behind dark sunglasses. He waited patiently for Jacques to finish jabbering about his new book, so he could hit him with his latest proposal. He avoided looking directly at the man who had once been his highest earning client, as Seltzer hungrily heaped piles of slimy black fish eggs on his toast and talked incessantly through a mouthful of food.

“The kids in those little towns… they were fucked, Gibby. Nineteen, twenty years old and they looked like… the walking dead. Already two, three babies crawling around their council houses with runny noses and shitty asses. Pale, wrinkled, bloated, all the life sucked out of them!”

“I know the feeling,” Gibby said, weakly.

“Oh for fuck’s sake, Gibby. You rotten Americans cannot handle your drink. Now those kids in England – they know how to drink. Up there, in those little mill towns in Lancashire and Yorkshire, they stay solidly drunk from the age of twelve until the time comes that they inevitably die in a pool of their own urine. They smoke revolting low-grade hash, sniff glue and guzzle cheap lager from morning to night. On weekends, the girls stagger around these nowhere towns in miniskirts and high heels despite the fact that it is zero degrees outside, raining and snowing… and they puke, and piss, and fuck right there in the streets. They were doomed Gibby. Apathetic, bored, addled by alcohol, and totally inspiring. Imagine! I was with them for six weeks, drinking with them, observing them, and photographing them.” Jacques lit an unfiltered Gitanes Brunes, took a long drag, and blew the smoke up into the cloudless blue sky. “What a trip!” he grinned.

Gibby’s nose wrinkled at the smell of the strong French tobacco. One thing he could not get used to in this country was the smell of cigarette smoke wafting out from every fucking direction. Since smoking had been practically outlawed in public back in California, the sight of someone openly sucking on a cigarette at the lunch table was as disconcerting to Gibby as seeing someone injecting heroin while waiting for their croque-monsieur. Plus, ever since he’d quit smoking a decade ago the smell of tobacco revolted him. “It’s an incredible set of images, Jacques.” Gibby spluttered, “Undoubtedly your best work yet.”

Jacques nodded, smiling broadly. He filled his glass again, topping off his agent’s glass as well, and then took a thirsty gulp. He wiped his moist red lips with the back of his hand. Gibby took another sip from his own glass, hoping that by pouring more wine onto his hangover he might feel somewhat human in time for his flight back to LAX in a few hours. At this particular moment the very idea of getting onto an airplane was terrifying. He couldn’t decide whether his most pressing urge was to vomit, shit, or pass out. Instead of doing any of those, he said: “Jacques, I have something I want to talk to you about.”

“Ah-hah!” Jacques exclaimed, blowing a great cloud of grey smoke in Gibby’s face, “Here it comes! Your ulterior motive, Gibby… as plain as the broken blood vessels on your nose!”

“Please Jacques, this is serious.”

Gibby took a hard slug of his wine to steady himself.

“Are you going to ask me about this fucking movie merde again?” Jacques demanded, deflating Gibby expertly.

“Hear me out!” Gibby whined.

“Oh JESUS!”

“Wait! Just listen. An offer came through, I just wanna relate it to you, and that’s it. No pressure from me, okay?”

Jacques rolled his eyes. Sullenly he shrugged and waved a dismissive hand toward Gibby as if to say Go ahead. Gibby cleared his throat.

“Have you heard of Kenny Azura?”

“Non.”

“He’s the new head of Chainsaw Pictures, a brand new subdivision of Dreamscape Studios. This guy is the hottest shit in Hollywood right now. He’s only twenty-eight fucking years old, but he’s already got a résumé to die for. Everything this bastard touches turns to gold. Did you ever see Endless Black?”

“No.”

“The Piano Tuner?”

“No.”

“The Seventeen Wives of Zachary Turner?”

“No.”

Gibby sighed and rubbed his throbbing temples dejectedly.

“Well Jacques, all of them are critically successful and high grossing movies with one thing in common. They were all produced by Kenny Azura. Hollywood Reporter calls him “The Boy King of Hollywood”. Now he has his own production company the first thing he wants to do – the VERY first thing, Jacques – is to bankroll Black Neon, which he envisions as your triumphant return to cinema. Dead Flowers is his all-time, number one, favourite movie. He’s offering deep pockets, the support of one of the biggest studios in the business, and complete artistic control. He’s exact words to me were, “Whatever Jacques wants to do with Black Neon, I want to make it possible.” Jacques – nobody gets offered this kind of deal in Hollywood anymore. It’s totally unheard of. And all you have to do… is say YES.”

There was a frozen moment at the table, as Jacques seemed to actually consider Gibby’s pitch. Then Seltzer sighed, reached under the table, and produced a manila envelope.

“Gibby,” he said emphatically, “How can I do this movie when the time is still not right yet? Tell them thanks… but no thanks. Now, back to the book. Take a look at this. I have an idea for the title. Tell me what you think, okay? Imagine the cover.”

Gibby choked back his disappointment as Jacques opened the envelope and slid out a glossy, black and white A4 image. He held it up to Gibby. Gibby had of course seen the image before. It was one of the standouts of the new collection. At first glance it looked like a simple enough nighttime shot of one of those typical featureless, suburban English chain pubs. However, soon the eye was drawn to the alleyway, next to the pub itself. A row of overflowing rubbish bins. A ‘dead end’ sign at the mouth of the alley. Illuminated by the harsh street light was a couple, fucking. The man had his back to the camera, pants around his ankles and a long white dress shirt covering his bare ass. He was thrusting into a girl, who was sitting on one of the bins. Her legs were wrapped around him. Her panties hung from one of her ankles like a flag of surrender. She had her hand on his ass, pushing him deeper into her. The other was holding a bottle of booze, which she sucked on as they screwed. The heart of the image – when you peered close enough – was the girl’s face. She was bleached blonde, overweight, some indeterminate age between sixteen and forty, and heavily made-up. Her painted lips were wrapped round the neck of the bottle. Her eyes looked at the viewer – through the viewer, really – with a haunting expression that floated somewhere in between despair and utter boredom.

“Teenage Hole:” Jacques announced in a voice trembling with pride, “Snapshots from the Void.”

Gibby sat in silence, regarding the picture intently. Then he removed his glasses, and rubbed his red eyes. He smiled and muttered weakly, “Yeah, I like it Jacques...” He replaced the sunglasses and muttered, “Sounds great.”