Page 9 - NY Waste Fall 2014

New York Waste Rotober issue 2014
9
down trodden section of Bed Sty that was surrounded by crumbling warehouses and bulk beer distributors. It was my kind of landscape, a derelict wasteland.
We walked up the rickety stairs and entered the space where filming was in progress. We froze under the red recording light and after the take was completed we walked through the set. This beautiful man who I just knew must have been Nitzan walked up to Guy and hugged him and planted a huge wet kiss on his lips. Guy said something cute and referred to him as a woman. Nitzan kneed him in the balls and told him his feelings were hurt. Guy retaliated and kneed Nitzan where his balls should be and said he couldn't help himself. He tried to explained that because he knew him as a woman first, old habits die hard. Nitzan told him to be more respectful of who he is now. Guy said he would try.
I was then introduced and I was transfixed and touched by the sensitivity I saw in his eyes and he put his arm through mine and walked us to the rooftop where other crew members, actors, drinks and the snacks were.
As an extra I thought I would just be hanging on the periphery of a couple of scenes but the director called for Nitzan and Nitzan smiled at me and asked if I would be in the scene with him. He dragged me into the action for the next take. Suddenly I was a featured extra and I had only been there for ten minutes. Terror struck as my heart started pounding and my fear of performing in front of a camera kicked in. A feeling so intense that at first it made me want to run away and hide. It brought back memories of the band I created and wrote the songs for but I couldn't go on the stage without being fucked up on dope. They fired me. I was truly an egomaniac in those days with low self esteem but now I felt calm and felt a real trust in this person next to me.
The take was a party scene. There was no script and all we had to do was make conversation, so we did. We tentatively skirted the things that we had in common, cameras, darkrooms, the pungent smell of chemicals, our love for film, the texture of grain, processing tech- niques, so many things. Another reason why I wasn't nervous was because I had been mentally photograph- ing him the whole time, aware of the depth in his eyes, his posture and then the soft touch on my arm when the take was finished.
Guy soon one-upped me, they gave him a couple of lines to speak and he suddenly became what I imagine is called a principle featured extra. Next I suppose he will get a sag card before he gets his green card.
We only planned to stay until 10pm but because we had been featured and they needed continuity we promised to stay until the end of the shoot. So in-be- tween filming we had fun talking, goofing and flirting with the other actors and people on the set.
I started to get a burning desire to photograph Nitzan, get him in front of my camera and bare his soul to me. I wanted to show him how I saw him through my eyes and capture him on film, in stills. Frozen in moments of time.
So in-between takes we spent time talking about the shoot I wanted to do. I told him that I could see both his masculine and feminine sides. He laughed and told me that now he was a man he was comfortable wear- ing stockings and high heels. That brought hundreds of new images into my mind, erotic images of this self fulfilled man/woman. I suppose it didn't help that I had just seen Hedwig and the Angry Inch for the fifth time a few days earlier.
Guy joined the conversation and the three of us talked about our desire to learn how to Tango. I mentioned
this imaginary place, a seedy and dangerous 1930's looking bar in Buenos Aires, full of gangsters, hustlers, pimps, con artists and prostitutes dancing this sleazy dirty erotic dance. They had the same vision in their minds. Nitzan mentioned a place in Chelsea that on Sunday afternoons a crowd of people Tangoed on the Pier as the sun set behind them. The three of us prom- ised to hook up the next Sunday to check it out and maybe take a tentative step or two.
The filming was a wrap and to celebrate Nitzan brought out a chocolate cake he baked. "Shit", I laughed to myself, "there's even a Betty Crocker nest- ing inside of him."
At about 4:30am Guy and myself left the set and walked for a while as the sun came up before catching a cab back to our separate places. In the taxi he asked me how I felt now that I had met Nitzan, I said I was strangely attracted to him and his feminine beauty. An innate beauty that I knew he could never deny or be- tray. He was free to embrace both parts or all four parts of himself, the lesbian, the gay man, the straight man and the woman...
I laid down when I got home and tried to sleep but I was thinking about the permutations. I was going crazy.
We hooked up in the West Village on 10th and 6th av- enue that next Sunday afternoon, Guy was running late so Nitzan and I spent an hour walking and talking while waiting for
him. We sat and
talked about proj-
ects we were
presently working
on and I listened
with fascination as
he told me about
his project. He is
photographing and
documenting him-
self, he is his own
project. It is kind of
like me wanting to
be my own biggest
client. Guy arrived
and so did one of
Nitzan's friends, an
actor from Greece,
and we sat and
watched the people
Tango which was
more like watching
bad ballroom danc-
ing until the sun
dropped and a chill
set in the air. We
walked to a burger
joint and sat outside
ordering greasy food from the menu. We laughed, we talked, they gossiped, I felt honored to be privy to their world. They told me how they were connected and the one man who brought them all together, their catalyst, their crossroads. After we ate we walked a little while and I stopped to say it was time to document this mo- ment, I took out my iPhone and took 'happy snaps' on the street lit by the electric lights from the store front windows. I love window light. We all hugged, kissed cheeks and went our separate ways.
Guy and myself headed east to sit on our favorite stoop back on 9th street. When we got there we smoked a cigarette and he said, "Well?"
I didn't have the words to say how I felt, just a metaphor. I told him that I have always been fright-
ened of swimming in the sea ever since I have nearly drowned a couple of times, caught up in rips and dragged out by the currents and always too proud to put my hand up to be saved. I explained that now I like to feel the the sand underneath my feet and keep my head above water, but this ocean I was prepared to dive in, explore the depths of this complicated man, drown if I must. I was churning in a murky turmoil.
Nitzan and I text each other back and forth trying to set up a time for a photo-shoot, life and commitments kept getting in the way, he was busy on the nights I planned and then I had a surgical procedure to get out of the way. In one of his texts he told me that he had met a man in a club and he was obsessed with him. He wrote that he could be the one, the perfect man for him, but he would probably turn out to be an asshole. He was coy about connecting with him but he was flirting with him, trying to get his attention. We hahaha'd and lol'd each other.
Nitzan's birthday was coming up so I invited wife #3 to accompany Guy and myself to his rooftop party. My growing relationship with Nitzan was worrying her, we already had one of those miscommunication texts where the reply to one text was answered after the next text came in... an out of sequence text. On my shitty phone it read:
She: It's a great day for tango
Me: Yes. it is a beautiful and seductive night
She: Are you going to let him seduce you?
Me: Hahaha
Instead on her phone it read
She: It's a great day for tango
She: Are you going to let him seduce you?
Me: Yes. it is a beautiful and seductive night
Me: Hahaha
Fucking texts... this was not the first time that this as hap- pened to me, where wires have crossed. I had only just reconnected with her and had spent the previous night at her apartment and already she thinks I am fucking her over again. She was using an iPhone and I was texting old school from a government as- sisted geriatric phone, the type you have to push the number keys a certain amount of times to get the letter you need. It's a slow and laborious procedure
and I couldn't call her as I had run out of minutes and I was too flat broke on my ass to re-up. That situation took a few days with resentment to sort out. Anyway she declined the invitation at the last minute so Guy and myself caught the C train to Bed-Sty. It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon and we walked the few blocks from the station to Nitzan's rooftop party.
When we arrived there was a burning candle on the top step by the door. "How sweet", I thought, but it turned out to be a memorial flame for a junky tenant who had overdosed on that very spot that morning. There were little tribute notes taped on the door and next to them was a large note announcing that there was going to be a party on the roof and to respect the
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