56 THENEWYORKER,M AY18, 2020
have written the words down they’d
make epic mediocre poetry, or per-
haps lyrics for a post-punk band. Here,
now, on the floor, was a man who ap-
peared to be doing just that, writing
on a scroll-like piece of paper, but
when R. knelt beside him he saw that
the page was blank, and what he’d
taken for a scribbling pen was only a
moving finger. The man had a beard
and glasses—he at least resembled
a poet. Having gained the man’s
attention by joining him on the floor,
forming a little haven in the sea
of motion, R. thought to salvage the
encounter.
“It doesn’t add up to very much,
does it?” R. said, with a shrug and
a smile.
“It doesn’t add up to anything at
all!” the man said. “Not unless you saw
the sequel.”
“The sequel?”
“‘Avengers: Endgame’!”4.
R. understood, barely. The fathomless
movie, its fathomless sequel, panoplies
of superhuman characters dying and
being reborn. A passion for those who
cared. R. didn’t, or hadn’t.
“I’m afraid I missed my chance—”
“Of course. You’re like me, you haven’t
a clue! I need someone much younger.”
Did the man really mean younger?
Perhaps, R. thought, he only meant
someone who’d arrived at this place
more recently than him. Or had they
all arrived here at once? R. couldn’t know.Such thoughts only confused him. What
he found sad was the drab common de-
nominator, the franchise film. R. would
have liked to discuss something more
exalted with the distinguished-looking
man. Real cinema, like Welles Orth-
man’s “The Munificent Unpersons,” say.
Or the choreography of Katrina Rausch.
That unforgettable long-ago evening at
the Boerum Arts Museum, before Trina
Mausch had died. But now this all
seemed wrong, the signifiers jumbled,
and receding into irrelevancy. Knowing
the plot of “Revengers: Spendblame”
might be the only social capital broad
enough to signify here. Even that might
be laughably parochial. Yet R. found
himself wishing not to disappoint.
“Come, there must be someone.” He
offered a hand, drew the man to his
feet, back into the game. “Someone
must know.”
The density of bodies had increased
even since R. knelt. Now the obsta-
cle to communication was less the ra-
pidity with which others moved than
the cumbersome nearness of those to
whom one spoke. Still, R. worked on
the man’s behalf.
“Have you—did you happen to
see—” R. found that he arrested no one’s
attention whatsoever. He tried leading
instead with the hook, calling to the
ceiling, rather than to anyone in par-
ticular, “‘Avoiders: Shamegame’—any-
one know how it turns out?”
No reply came, only the rich incom-
prehensible babble and murmur of other
voices, other priorities. When R. turned
fully around he saw that he’d lost the
bearded man in the movement of bod-
ies. It wasn’t important, after all. He’d
wished only to help, but it was a thing
that couldn’t be helped.
A middle-aged woman in a sari ad-
dressed him. In indirect reply to his
query? He wasn’t certain.
“I’m sorry?” he said, cupping his hand
to his ear. “Could you...I missed—”
She smiled, seeming to relish the
scrap of continuity, an actual exchange.
“I was just saying how hard this must
be for Westerners like yourself.”
“Oh,” R. said. “Yes. Thank you. I
mean—”
She was gone before he could ask
her to define her terms: what was “this,”
really? Then again, didn’t R. know what
it was? Had his certainty wavered? Yet“ You’re wrong, Ted, this is absolutely the right time
to organize three decades of photos.”