The Love Machine & Other Contraptions by Nir Yaniv Read Free Book Online

We, for starters, burned Mr. Kalmanson’s flat—including two fine leather chairs, forks and knives (two dozen pairs), a life-sized (ugly) wooden horse, and Kalmanson himself, of course.
    “Oy,” said Huey, “add a little six kilohertz, I can’t hear the bedroom.” I heard the bedroom just fine, and also the kitchen, the living-room and the toilets. Mikes and earphones of the highest quality, and an SLR camera, black and white real film, as it should be. Louie gave it more six K, and just then Kalmanson’s stupid wife chose to take her leave of this world with a deafening cry.
    “Shit!” roared Huey and tore away the earphones.
    “I thought she’d scream higher,” said Louie. “It sounded like, I don’t know, B Flat?”
    “About a K and a half, with annoying overtones. I hope we can take it out in the editing.”
    “We’ll see,” said Louie, and Huey put on the earphones again. In the flat, the shuddering bodies fell still, as did one of the mikes in the kitchen, burned to a crisp despite its thermal casing. Annoying, but what can you do. The fire began to die as the gas filling the house was consumed. One kilometer to the north I saw the lights of the fire-engine whirling in desperation. Nails on the road. The firemen are our brothers, but the siren would ruin our recording.
    Later, equipped with backpacks, sleeping-bags, a grenade-launcher and much good will, we lay in wait under cover of a giant Sony billboard by the highway announcing that “This Is Not Television – This Is Reality.”
    It was like a school math problem: Drexler’s tanker leaves Ashdod at one hundred kilometers per hour towards Haifa. Half an hour later Schwartz’s truck exits Chedera towards Tel Aviv at ninety kilometers per hour. Drexler carries cooking gas, and Schwartz – detergents. When and where will they meet? And how?
    Boom.
    Huey didn’t let me film in 8mm. Noise. In my opinion there is nothing like the grainy look of real film, but sometimes you have to make allowances. I used an 8K professional vidcam, and Dewey had to take care of the sound equipment by himself. A clean recording, aside from the part where the burning Schwartz, flying out of the truck’s window, landed on one of the mikes and smashed it. Well, nobody’s perfect.
    ~
    Louie disappeared in the middle of dinner. One moment he was there, absent-mindedly playing with his broccoli while examining the flame-thrower for tomorrow’s job—and the next his plate was orphaned.
    “Do you think he’d mind if I ate it?” asked Dewey.
    “Eat,” I said. “It’s good for you.” I never understood those vegetarians. I passed him the plate.
    “Say,” said Dewey with his mouth full. “Doesn’t it strike you as odd...”
    “What?”
    “That he, like, disappeared?”
    “Who?”
    “What do you mean who ? Where’s your brain?”
    “Listen,” I said, “Let’s not play games. If you want to ask me something, be specific.”
    Dewey knows me and knows there is no point arguing.
    “Louie. He disappeared. Don’t you think something here doesn’t add up?”
    I thought about it. “No,” I said. “He probably took a break. He’ll be back soon.”
    “Look,” said Dewey. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he had disappeared at any other time, but in the middle of dinner?”
    You can say that much for Dewey—occasionally there is something to his twisted logic.
    “There is something to your twisted logic,” I said, “But I don’t think we can do anything about it, anyway.”
    “He’s not right,” said Dewey.
    “Don’t exaggerate,” I said. “He did a nice job with the trucks today. Doing is everything, the rest is nothing.”
    “No—yes—that is... sure. But that’s not what I meant.”
    “Don’t be a pain,” I said. “Why don’t you finish here instead?”
    And I went away.
    ~
    When I came back, I found Louie leaning over building plans and writing comments in a little notebook. Huey was looking over his shoulder.
    “What’s that?”