THERE WERE SIX in my audience for the reading of the ninth episode from Dead Air, “The Wall of Happy Diners.” Elaine had returned, and she had brought with her a gray and cuddly couple, Alice and Clark, longtime friends of Lou’s.
PORKY WHITE and I were friends, despite the difference in our ages. Several times a week I dropped in to see Porky and keep an eye on my investment in his clam bar. Often, the clam bar was empty when I arrived, but Porky was always there, scheming and dreaming, trying to find a way to fill it with happy diners.
“Got a great idea!” he said when I walked in one afternoon. “A great idea!” He came out from behind the counter, grabbed me by the shoulder, and tugged me over to the west wall of the building, saying, “Come here, come here.”
We stood in front of the wall, and he asked, “You know what this is?”
“A wall,” I said.
“A wall, yes. A wall. A wall! And in any other clam bar it would be just a wall. But this isn’t any other clam bar. This is the house of hopes and dreams.”
“So this isn’t just a wall,” I said, extrapolating.
“No, no, no, no, no,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s the Wall of Happy Diners.”
“The Wall of Happy Diners,” I said.
“Here’s the idea. We’re going to keep a camera behind the counter, see?”
“Yeah . . .”
“And we’re going to take candid photographs of people eating. Then we’ll put them up here, on the Wall of Happy Diners.”
“That is a great idea,” I said. “I’ll take the pictures.”
“And we can use your camera,” said Porky.
I launched into the project with gusto. For a week or so, I spent every spare hour at the clam bar, lurking, stalking, spying, and — whenever I saw someone who looked like a happy diner — snapping pictures. I shot a couple of rolls.
When the pictures came back from Himmelfarb’s Photography Shop, Porky and I looked through them.
“We’ll put the really happy ones in a pile of their own,” he said. “Those are the ones I want on the wall.”
After the first pass, we had only one unambiguously happy diner. His girlfriend was tickling him. We started through again.
“Is this lady smiling?” Porky asked.
“She could be,” I said.
“Yeah, could be. Could be. It’s like when people say a baby is smiling and it’s really just gas. These aren’t happy diners. They’re just people with gas.”
“Don’t get discouraged,” I said. “Remember — this is the house of hopes and dreams.”
“Yeah, but some dreams are just illusions,” he said. He shoved the pictures away.
“Maybe we could hire somebody to — ”
“No, no, no,” he said at once, reaching over to give me a pat on the shoulder. “We don’t need a professional. You’re doing a fine job. So, the pictures are a little out of focus — that’s okay. It makes them look more natural! It’s not the photographer, it’s — ”
“I meant hire somebody to be in the pictures.”
“What?”
“We could get some nice-looking people to pose. They could be sitting in a booth, eating fried clams. They could be happy diners.”
“You mean they could act like happy diners.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m surprised at you. Really surprised at you. In fact, I’m shocked. You’re talking about faking these pictures.”
“Not faking.”
“What would you call it?”
“Posing.”
“And that’s not faking?”
“I guess you’re right,” I said. “I’ll keep taking the candid shots. Eventually we’ll fill that wall with happy diners. You’ll see.”
I asked just about everybody I knew to play the part of a happy diner. Some of them were willing to do it. My friends Raskol and Marvin and Matthew and Spike played a bunch of kids having fun at lunch. I had to buy the lunch, but it was worth it. Mrs. Jerrold, a neighbor of mine, brought her husband and another couple, and the four of them played grown-ups on the town, whooping it up. Porky played the part of someone who didn’t know what was going on.
Within a week, the Wall of Happy Diners began to fill with pictures of diners who appeared to be happy. There were Raskol, Marvin, Matthew, and Spike, clowning around, throwing fried clams at one another, and there were Mr. and Mrs. Jerrold leaning together, smiling, feeding each other clam chowder, apparently a happy, loving couple. The pictures made an attractive display. You couldn’t tell that they were fakes.
[to be continued]
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