Cactus Eater

*2020 Kenyon Review Short Fiction Contest Runner-up

They told the old man to smile, so he did. The makeup girl said, Stay like that, and she looked at me to translate into Spanish. His face froze like a mask.

I clipped a lapel microphone onto his shirt collar, making sure not to poke myself on the little potted cactus he held on his lap. His shirt pocket had an embroidery of a man riding horseback, playing polo. My mom used to love dressing me up in Ralph Lauren as a kid. She also kept a fruit bowl in our house filled with apples, even though we never ate them. When I asked why she kept buying them, she said that when she was a little girl back home, apples used to cost one colón — which would be like paying eight US dollars for an apple. She asked me if I understood what she meant. I said yes. And she kept filling up the bowl, and they spoiled every time.

Very handsome, I said to the old man. And he looked at me like I offended him.

I finished rigging the lights. The old man could barely walk, so the station decided to film it all inside his room at a retirement complex. I made sure the lights were far away from his plastic-wrapped couch. My mom did this, too — everyone in my family. Furniture in plastic, jeans with price tags. My dad bought these tall floor lamps and kept the shrink-wrap on them, and the lightbulbs melted right through and burned his whole house down literally.

We started rolling live in five, so I looked at the display monitor to see what the old man would look like on-screen. But something was wrong. In person, the old man’s makeup looked fine, a smooth and clean brown. But the camera made his face look yellowish-white, like it was getting bleached. I could see where the makeup ended at his neck, where his actual brown-red skin started.

The host and the AD came inside and greeted the old man. The AD introduced himself as the assistant director; the show’s host said nothing; the old man already wanted her autograph.

I waved the AD over to look at the screen.

Is he in whiteface? he said. Did he do that? Is this like a social message?

I told him no.

OK. So we fix it, he said. Run makeup again.

I waved the makeup girl over.

That is not my work, she said, looking at the screen.

It might be, we said.

Maybe it’s the camera, she shot back.

Or the lighting? the AD said.

It is not because of me, I said.

We looked at the monitor, then the old man. White, then brown.

The AD sighed. Just do what you can with makeup.

She cussed under her breath and grabbed brushes and pencils from her purse.

We watched her work through the monitor. In person, his face turned smoother, but on the screen it was whiter.

Shit, the AD said. It’s the camera.

I laughed a little. Did you know Technicolor was only colorgraded for white skin at first?

Hmm, he said. Old piece of fuck camera.

Too late to change that, huh.

Well. Nothing else to do. Roll in two.

He waved the makeup girl back as I got the camera ready, getting the focus right. There was a crucifix up on the wall behind the old man, and I told the AD to take it down real quick. The old man did not protest. Our station didn’t want stuff like that on our program.

The host patted the old man’s knee with just her manicured nails, like good luck. The old man smiled big. The AD had said, Nothing else to do.

We could cancel the show. In college my film thesis was about an estranged migrant laborer father buying his son a dog for his birthday. But the dog runs away the day of the birthday, and the father spends the film looking for it until he...