The old razzle dazzle

by David Benjamin

“‘I think that livestreaming this attack gives me some motivation in the way that I know that some people will be cheering for me,’” 

― Payton Gendron

MADISON, Wis. — An  unencrypted smartphone dialog intercepted by an undisclosed federal agency after white-panic gunman Payton Gendron murdered ten Black Americans at the Tops market in Buffalo. It begins with this exchange:

“H’lo?”

“Hey there, young fella! Am I talkin’ to Vern Wayne Higgs of [location redacted].

The conversation then ensues as follows, with the speakers identified:

HIGGS: “Yeah. Who you?”

DIXON: “Hey, I’m really glad, thrilled, really!, to talk with you, man. My name’s Ricky Dixon. I’m what they used to call a talent scout. And, son, you got talent coming out of your ears. I found your manifesto posted on blood+soil.com. I read all 488 pages, and hot damn! I gotta tell ya. I was blown away!”

HIGGS: “Hunh?”

DIXON: “This plan of yours, wow. I mean, shazam! What a property!”

HIGGS: “Mister, I don’t own no property. I’m eighteen years old.”

DIXON: “I’m talking about rights, my man.”

HIGGS: “Well, yeah. That’s what it’s all about. The rights of white people. The right to bear arms, the right to not be replaced by a lot of Jews and—

DIXON: “No no no, Vern. I’m interested in bigger rights. Rights to the premise. Rights to the visual property, film rights, serial rights, subsidiary rights. And merchandising, son! T-shirts, ball caps, coffee mugs, life-size cutouts—

HIGGS: “Shee-it! I don’t wanna buy nothin’.”

DIXON: “No no no. You don’t buy, kid. We buy! I got people in Hollywood, France, China—hell, there are three guys in Hungary—who’re ready to start the bidding with six figures.” 

HIGGS: “Bidding? Bidding for what?”

DIXON: “Okay, look, Vern. This massacre you’ve been blogging about. I assume you’re planning to livestream the spectacle. Living color and all that?”

HIGGS: “Well, yeah. Course! I bought this mini-cam over to Walmart I’m gonna strap onto my MAGA hat—”

DIXON: “No no no, Vern. Look, dude, you’ve seen the video that this putz, Payton Gendron, streamed in Buffalo?”

HIGGS: “Oh yeah! Man, I was, like, inspired, y’know? I wanted t’go right out and—”

DIXON: “Jesus, kid, stifle, will ya. Take another look. Whaddya got? A lot of bounce and blur, fuzzy images and shots of the sky, the ground, the shooter’s feet. It’s all a waste of pixels! Son, when you’re planning a mass murder nowadays, you’ve got to think innovation! New angles. You’ve got to plan your aesthetics!”

HIGGS: “Anesthetics? What anesthetics?”

DIXON: “Think about it, Vern. You’re a psychotic bigot. You’re going out with your AR-15 to slaughter as many Black people as you can cross-hair before your clip runs dry and the cops show up, right?”

HIGGS: “Well, yeah. But I got grenades, too.”

DIXON: “Grenades, shmenades, kid! Come on, think about it. By now, this is all been-there done-that, dude. Everybody on earth has watched this scene a hundred times. Vern, you gotta to ask yourself: How am I gonna give the viewers something fresh? How’re you gonna get new eyeballs, a million eyeballs? Son, remember what Billy Flynn said: ‘Give ’em the old razzle dazzle!’”

HIGGS: “Billy who?”

DIXON: “You gotta upgrade, kid. Think about production values. All that iPhone shaky-cam cinema verité crap with the blurs and the grainy images jerking and wobbling? Out-of-focus bloodshed? Fuggedaboudit! Think Red Dawn, Vern! Think Cruise in Mission: Impossible. And visual effects, makeup, costuming. Think Heath Ledger—God rest his soul—in The Dark Knight!”

HIGGS: “I don’t quite understand—”

DIXON: “Course you don’t, ace! Not yet. Picture this. You need real camera gear, hand-held but stable-image! Soon as you sign over the advance pre-massacre rights, you got three—THREE!— cameramen filming, one so close to you, as you shoot your little gun, the viewer will think, whoa! This camera’s attached to the effin’ machine gun. Cool! Camera two covers the big picture, the whole sickening scene as it unfolds. There you are! Striding into combat against the invading mongrels from Africa and Mexico! Vern at the heart of the action, smoke curling from your gun barrel, bodies flying, panic in the streets! Beautiful, right?”

HIGGS: “Gosh.”

DIXON: And camera three, this one’s the Oscar-winner. Hand-held, hip-high in the middle of the scrum, capturing the victims as you mow ’em down. Screaming Negroes in a state of total panic, tripping and falling, pushing and running, clutching their wounds, glass shattering, bullets hitting, teeth flying, blood splattering. And pow! We zoom into a woman’s face—an ECU—staring straight into her eyes as she breathes her last and bubbles up blood. And look there! Another woman caught with a round in her back as she pushes a baby-stroller into oncoming traffic. It’s Potemkin all over again, dude!”

HIGGS: “What’s a Potemkin?”

DIXON: “And sound! I guarantee the best soundman south of the Picketwire! Bullets cracking, moms screaming, sirens wailing, windows exploding, feet trampling… and your script? You’ll be raving away—the last great orator of crime. Think of a cross between the Gettysburg Address, Mein Kampf and Professor Harold Hill: “We’ve got trouble! Trouble, my friends! Right here at St. Cecilia’s!’ Oh, did I mention? It’s all about location, location, location. We absolutely gotta stage this sucker at a church, just when the congregation’s leaving. The pastor is shaking their hands and chucking the little kids under the chin, ya dig?… No, don’t argue, Vern! It’s gotta be a church. It’s non-negotiable. My set designer? Well, he’s a primadonna, but he’s brilliant. A genius! His name is Maurice. You’ll love him!”

HIGGS: “Maurice?”

DIXON: “Look, I admit. The raw footage? It’s gonna be a mess. All that chaos and confusion. But that’s the beauty part, son, ’cause everything happens in the studio. We edit, we cut, we paste, we dub. No shot longer than two or three seconds! It’s dizzy, it’s dazzling, it’s made for IMAX! Think Bonnie and Clyde. Think Jason Bourne in a knife fight! In a toilet. In Tangiers!”

HIGGS: “Tangiers? What? No! All I wanna do is waste a bunch of nig—”

DIXON: Yes! That’s what we want, too! We’re pulling for you, Vern. All of America wants to see you do it, but they want to be thrilled, shocked, dazzled!”

HIGGS: “Okay, well, if I do this, can I talk? Can I tell people what I believe?”

DIXON: “No no no, Vern. You’re a sick puppy. Nobody’s going to buy your twisted way of thinking because you butchered a few grandmothers, a kindergarten class, three cops and a church deacon. Nobody looks at a pile of dead bodies and starts pondering social philosophy and discussing phrenology. The best you can do, for your holy cause, Vernboy, is to live the moment and love it, while you kick the living precedent out of every previous racist massacre ever promoted and produced. Son, you shouldn’t be aspiring to the work of amateurs like Tim McVeigh and Dylan Roof. Ya dig? Think Butch and Sundance in Bolivia! Think Godard. Think Luis Bunuel! Think Peckinpah, Vern!

HIGGS: “What’s a Peckinpah?”