Picture This

Our relative isolation created somewhat of the feeling that we were sealed off, alone, a feeling Lee, noticing everything and saying nothing, tried to decompress by asking about a film I had been rather closely associated with. Making a stern, protective, big brother gesture toward me-placing his right hand flat on the table with a thump-he gave me advice about the film community, which he has been cultivating for 13 years. I reacted to this advice as comfort. And since this comfort had taken so long to establish, I asked him about his. Where did he find it?

His mother, as I knew, had died relatively young, of cancer.

"My mother was responsible for my love of cinema," he said. "She took me to see West Side Story, An American in Paris, Carmen Jones when I was a kid."

"All of those films are about the hope of integration still existing in foreign, hostile environments," I said.

"Yeah, I guess so. I didn't know cinema was about making it back then. I didn't know it was something anyone could do."

Spike seemed enlivened by the memory, the internal picture of this: Spike in the dark, looking at the screen, unaware and then aware of its possibilities.

"For a long time, I didn't know anyone did it, making pictures," he said. He put on his X hat, his X jacket.

"Which way are you going?" I asked.

"Brooklyn!" With a feigned growl that put us both at ease, we were suddenly at the end, in close-up, nervous and expectant.

He said: "Maybe I'll go home and watch one of those movies."