“Hey!” the Cambodian porter Thi yelled.

Accidentally I had stepped into a pile of condoms, Kleenex and tiny squeezed out tubes of KY-Jel. Thi had marshalled the garbage together with the blowing machine, which was strapped to his back. Quickly he shovelled the pile into a black multi-plied garbage bag and sealed it. In the office I found Miguel chatting with a bunch of skinheads. He greeted me with a lapse of silence. I felt compelled to say something managerial, so I asked, “How’s business?”

He pointed thumbs down. “It must be the nice weather.”

I nodded and left the office; I didn’t mention that I had just seen enough gays exiting to start a gondolier’s union; he had to be stealing money. I decided to keep hushed and wait. Soon, Miguel left his office, the skinheads scattered, and he joined me in the lobby. The crowd was now entering, and as the guests filed past the box office, Hans and Grett handed everyone a plastic cup filled with champagne.

“They sure must’ve put a lot of money into this,” I mumbled to Miguel.

“No,” Miguel confided, “a generic case of Astor Home Champagne on sale from the New Year’s Eve surplus. Anyway you got to be a little zonked in order to truly relate to the full cinematic reality.” He wasn’t smiling, so I guess he was serious.

After all had entered, I started mingling with the crowd. There were several cute intellectual-type girls flapping about, but to judge the semiology of their then-pop semiology books, I feared an insincere impregnability One girl, who came alone and also seemed to know nobody, seemed to be pretty prey. As I approached her, I noticed something that might give me some leverage; there was a green booger just above her nostril. I discreetly whispered this into her ear, feeling assured that she’d feel forever indebted for saving her much embarrassment.

“It’s a jade nose ring, asshole!” And she marched into the theater, out of my life forever.

Slowly after all the free champagne was gone, all gravitated into the theater where they assumed seats. Even though all were ready, certain crucial professors and daring small independent producers had not yet arrived, so the boys were still delaying the screening.

Not knowing anyone and sensing that most people preferred it that way, I retreated up to the projectionist booth. Miguel was up there explaining to our projectionist the few idiosyncrasies that this screening would require; at certain moments the volume had to be turned up all the way, and on three occasions she had to sneak into the theater and whack cymbals together. He then gave her an envelope of money, which she quickly counted. Since our theater hours were what the projectionist union termed an “eleven hour” booth, and since Miguel didn’t want Ox to detect the undesignated overtime on the payroll, Hans and Grett had to bear the projectionist’s fee themselves. When all the details were ironed out, Miguel turned to me with a wide and mysterious grin asking, “So?”

“So what?”

“So how was it?”

“How was what?”

“I don’t want to violate your space,” he replied, “but last night you went home with one of the prize trophies off Muscle Beach.”

All of last night fell back into my lap and accordingly I snickered and said, “I don’t kiss and tell.”

“It’s not the kissing I want to hear about.”

“Let me put it this way. I didn’t get any sleep last night.” That much I could say on any polygraph machine.

Suddenly the intercom buzzed. Grett announced that cinema history could no longer be delayed. The lights dimmed, the projector was started, and Miguel and I took seats among Han’s and Grett’s alumni. After the credits, which were thunderously applauded, a muddle of images and colors flooded the poor screen. Racing down the sound track came metallic screeches and oblong howls, and then an interjection of urgent radio news broadcast started crackling out of a wall of static, which was overlaid with quasi-images of the tumultuous and the tranquil. It was all carefully disjointed and painfully abstract. It ushered in a host of whispered yet supportive clichés, of which I could hear a couple behind me whispering: “Post-expressionistic…prehensile…atonal…”

Peeking about, I noticed Miguel was nowhere to be seen. Discreetly I abandoned my seat and slipped off to the office; maybe there’d be something painless on TV.

Opening the door, I saw Miguel seated at the desk, talking with two older guys. The air was thick with smoke. A cup that was torn into a makeshift ashtray was filled with Gitanes cigarette stubs.

“No, I don’t think it’s fair,” said the more dashingly dressed NYU student. “You charged Hans a fraction of what you’re charging me.”

Miguel threw me a quick glance, and putting down the pizza he was eating, he replied, “Look, me and my partner simply don’t feel that staying here for that length of time is profitable for any less than a hundred a piece.” I was an instant partner in some leery deal.

“Well”—the young filmmaker arose—“I have only a hundred dollars budgeted to this screening. Beyond that I’ll just have to look elsewhere.”

Before he left, Miguel replied, “When you find that it gets no cheaper, swallow your pride and come back.”

The young director left the office, and his sidekick closed the door behind him.

“Hungry?” Miguel took an angle of pizza from a cardboard box that was sitting on canisters behind him. “It has a whole wheat crust.”

“What’s going on?” I asked, and then bit into the slice.

“I’m supplementing our income a bit, is all.”

“Well,” I said as I gorged myself, “I don’t want to play the devil’s advocate, but can’t you settle for a hundred less? I mean, a poor student like that can’t have much more to spare.”

“Trust me when I say that I know what I’m doing. I’m a sweetheart. In fact, I didn’t charge Hans and Grett a cent. I just said that so I could get money out of this guy.”

“What’ve you got against this kid? His film has got to be better than that…cinematic havoc now on the screen.”

“Did you ever hear of the Owensfield Complex?” It sounded at first like a Freudian term, but I remembered reading about it. The Owensfield Complex was a glamorous group of midtown co-ops that had been in the news recently because they had remarkably reinterpreted certain building codes and zoning laws.

“Who is that guy?”

“Nigel Owensfield, grand-nephew to the tycoon-founder Clarel.”

“The guy that just left here?” I inquired.

“Yep. Do you know the Harrington Quarterly!”

“I’ve heard about it.” Helmsley had gotten stuff accepted there.

“What did you hear?”

“That it recently gained a lot of prestige, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

“Prestige came with a cost. The only thing that separates mainstream culture from subculture is a budget. Owensfield bought an editor position and at the same time pulled the quarterly from the level of the Sleazoid Express and put it on rank with The Hudson Review.”

“How do you know all this?”

“I heard,” Miguel replied, lighting up another cigarette. “In short, he could spare another hundred bucks.”

“Am I really your partner?”

“Oh, sure. I’ve been meaning to talk to you about it. I have a lot of connections and I need your help.”

“Fifty-fifty split?”

“Well, sure,” he replied benevolently, only to add, “but half of nothing is nothing, isn’t it?”

“What exactly does Owensfield do at this magazine?”

“Part owner and some kind of editor. Why?”

“Just curious. You wouldn’t mind if I talk to him alone, would you?”

“What are you going to say to him?”

“I’m not sure, but I promise I won’t ask for a cent less than you want.” Miguel smiled and jumped out of his chair. He dashed through the theater, hunting for the heir-editor. I sat in the swivel chair and in another moment the heir was sitting alone with me in the office.