Free Innocents and Others by Dana Spiotta

they come through?”
    Meadow nodded. “I’ve shot a lot of footage while lying by the tracks as the train passes, filming at ground level. I’ve boarded the train in Amsterdam and stood on the joints between cars as they moved on the tracks. Filmed down through the spaces.”
    â€œHave you climbed on top?”
    â€œNot yet. But I would love that. I’m too scared, though.”
    â€œI’m glad to hear that scares you.”
    â€œI want to strap myself and my tripod onto the cowcatcher of a locomotive and film a phantom ride across the United States in real time. Just the POV of the locomotive eating track as the world unfurls around it. Sixty hours of pure one-shot cinema.”
    â€œIf only it were 1895,” Carrie said.
    â€œIf only,” Meadow said.
    Carrie laughed. Meadow longed to be a barnstormer, a tightrope walker, an escape artist, an inventor. Or maybe she just liked the idea of film as a record of a filmmaker’s feat. The making of the film as the art, and the film itself as merely an artifact of that artistic act, not the art itself. Meadow wanted her inventiveness noticed, which Carrie considered a “showman” style: the dazzling concept that just points back to the filmmaker no matter where the camera is turned. Carrie would like to make a film of Meadow making films. See the girl strapped to a train!
    â€œYou want to watch some of it?” Meadow looked doubtful even as she suggested it.
    â€œSure.”
    â€œOkay,” Meadow said. “Excellent.” But instead of making a move to one of the two projectors, Meadow walked over to a mini-fridge and pulled out two bottles of beer. She banged the bottle caps against the table edge: first one, then the other. She stood there and waited, holding a bottle out. Carrie walked to her and reached for the beer.
    â€œThanks.”
    Meadow took a long swig and smiled. Her hair was cut short, and she looked lean and boyish in her jeans and sleeveless t-shirt. She seemed even more boyish when she pulled a cigarette out of the pack on the table and lit up. She squinted as she took a drag, and her bangs fell in her face. She folded one arm across her chest and braced it under the other arm and hand that held the cigarette, exposing—or showing off—her defined biceps. She looked older and tougher than Carrie did, especially since Carrie had gained weight (12.6 pounds) from eating so much starch in the dorm cafeteria all year.
    The door to the hall pushed open, and a young man stepped through. He looked young, maybe sixteen. His chin-length hair wasblunt cut and dyed black. His dark-lashed eyes stood out against his pale skin. He was wearing eyeliner, which, perhaps because it was smudged, made him look androgynous rather than girlish. He wore the same outfit as Meadow: sleeveless t-shirt and narrow-cut jeans. And like Meadow, he was skinny but muscular. He smiled at Carrie. He was beautiful, Carrie decided, if odd-looking.
    â€œThis is Local Dave,” Meadow said. He shook his head wearily. “Deke! A joke. His name is Deke, really. He’s a son of Gloversville, an outcast, and now he helps me make movies.” At the word outcast , Deke’s eyes widened and he held up his large hands and waved his ringed fingers at Carrie.
    â€œI’m Carrie.”
    â€œHi,” he said. He stood next to Meadow and their shoulders touched. He leaned slightly against her. Leave it to Meadow to find the one gorgeously odd kid in Gloversville and make him her soundman/boyfriend.
    â€œMeadow and I grew up together in LA.”
    â€œHe knows all about you, Carrie,” Meadow said. “I talk about you a lot.”
    â€œYou are best friends,” he said.
    â€œYes,” Carrie said. “We are.” It was nice to hear it. She liked to think Meadow felt that way, even if she never believed that Meadow exactly needed anything from her. That night they ate thickly cheesed delivery pizza,