I press the button that will take me to the beginning and then press play.
The first was four years ago.
I look around, suddenly ashamed of my snooping. Do I watch it? It’s wrong. I know it’s wrong. But then the little screen in front of me comes to life and there’s a face.
I almost don’t recognize him, that’s how different he looks. He’s skinny, for one. Gaunt. And his face is black and blue. The kind of black and blue you see in police photos after a mugging.
Someone beat the ever-living fuck out of him. And that seals the deal.
I need to know how he got so broken and all I have to do is not turn it off.
“Hey,” JD says from the camera. He stops. Just one word is enough to shut him down. His eyes begin to water and for a moment I think it’s because it’s painful to talk. From the beating.
But then he swallows hard and wipes his eyes. He clears his throat. “Hey,” he repeats. “I just want you to know, I miss you.” Another pause. Tears well up in his eyes. “I got this camera from a guy I met today, baby. And he said I could use it. I know what you’re thinking. Don’t trust anyone bearing gifts. I know. I shouldn’t trust him. But I got no one, Marie. I’ve got no one else.”
JD lies down on something, and from this close-up angle I can’t tell if it’s a bed or the floor. But I suspect it’s the floor because he looks homeless. He looks nothing like the healthy, charming JD I know.
“So I’m gonna take a chance and help him out. He’ll help me if I help him. That’s what he said. He’ll help me look for you. And when I find you, I want you to know that I never gave up. I never stopped looking. So I’m gonna record it all on this camera.” JD stops and his eyes dart back and forth. Like the lens is a pair of eyes. “I love you. I love you, and I love our baby. I’m so sorry and I will never stop looking.”
There’s silence after that. Well, not quite. There’s no more talking, but the film goes on for three more minutes of sadness. Of JD looking into the camera, desperate for his Marie to see him. To see his grief. To believe that he’s gonna save her.
I stop the recording because an overwhelming despair washes over me. He didn’t save her. He lost her. She was killed, or died on her own, or whatever. Ark said so the other day. And there’s no baby here, so obviously there was no happy ending with that either.
I watch the next entry. He’s still a mess. And the next and the next and the next. All of him a mess. There’s plenty of mentions of Ark, but no one else ever appears in the videos. Just JD and his depression. JD and his sadness. JD and his overwhelming problems.
He talks about killing himself at least once a week. Sometimes every entry has a mention. And month by month, he appears to be getting worse instead of better.
But then he explains the business they’re starting and something changes inside him. It’s small on the first day. A pause. It’s a short pause, only a few moments. But in every other video, the pause is so he can cry.
After this pause, he does something different.
He smiles.
All because of Public Fuck America. Ark’s brainchild to a life of luxury.
JD buys into it. Every bit of it. Because after that one smile, there are more smiles. Not every day, but every week. I find myself fast-forwarding the recording until I see the smile before stopping to hear what he has to say. And then… he laughs. Exactly four months after meeting Ark, when he was at his lowest point in life, JD laughs.
From there, his diary is all about business. His acting. The girls. The money. The loft. That Ray guy. Holidays are happy and the entries become less and less frequent. Once a day turns into once a week turns into once every two weeks and on and on. Until there’s a six-month gap in the dates.
And that movie isn’t of JD lying down, like all the others are. A bedtime ritual that cleared his head and set him up for the next good day.
No, the next one is outside and JD never even makes an appearance. Because it’s nothing but one long shot of a headstone. Not the nice kind that stand up, but the flat ones. A marker, really. Just a marker of a girl he used to love. Marie Lagucci. Dead at age twenty-two.
He never talks, but the crying is audible, even over the roar of traffic.
This is the first time Ark ever appears in the diary. He picks JD up and takes him to a waiting car. The whole time the camera is recording. Ark is patient and sympathetic.
JD is a mess.
Ark must figure out the camera in JD’s hand is still recording in the car, because that’s when the footage ends.
There are no other entries for a year.
My mind fills in those dark days after her grave was found. JD is a guy who feels. Not like Ark, who seems to be a guy who watches. JD is a guy who is invested. When he’s in, he’s all in. Heart, soul, mind.
I don’t bother watching the rest of the video. Instead, I fast-forward to the end. And even though it’s more of a breach of privacy to listen to him talk about me, I do anyway.
And I feel like total shit once I’m done. Because he tells Marie I’m good. And pretty. And deserving of a nice life. Like the one Ark gave him. He tells Marie they can save me from whoever—whatever—the problem is.
But the problem is me.
So can he really save me from myself?
JD pays the girl in the alley afterward, while I pack up my lenses and put them in my bag. There’s a small crowd gathered, and since this is not how her contract was written, I’m gonna take the girl home in a cab before heading over to Ray’s.