The closer I got to the group, the more I heard … not sniffling, not even really crying, but … laughter. Not loud, but still, identifiable chuckles could be heard. As I circled the group, I caught several snippets of dialogue: “Do you remember the time she …” “Oh God, I can’t believe we didn’t wind up in jail …” “Never met someone so giving …”
“You’re not supposed to be here,” said a receding voice. I turned around and saw, ten feet away, a young woman of twenty or so leaning against a headstone, her palms gripping the top of the weathered rock. She was dressed in a form-fitting black dress with long dyed-black hair that covered her eyes and fell down the front of her chest.
I walked toward her. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”
“You’re not supposed to be here,” she said again. “This isn’t your family.”
“No,” I said, “it’s not.”
“Then what are you doing here?”
I could have lied – I could have walked her away from the group, cracked her head on a concrete cross, picked up a jagged branch or piece of stone and split open and slipped into her skin before any of her grieving family members even knew she was gone. She had the type of porcelain skin that would show a single stitch; if I wanted to hide inside her, she’d have to be taken whole.
I could’ve finished my work and slid inside her skin, and then gone back to the rest of them thirty minutes, maybe an hour later, and acted the part of their daughter or niece or cousin or grandchild, and not one of them would have been the wiser.
“I’m here,” I said, choosing the truth less taken, “because I was walking by the cemetery and I saw a lot of love on display. And I wanted to know about the sort of person who could pull so many people together in one spot.”
“It’s a funeral,” she said, glibly. “People crawl out of the woodwork for shows like these.”
“Not like this,” I said, staring back at the rather impressive gathering.
“Been to a lot of funerals, have you?”
“I’ve seen my share.”
The girl squinted at me as if deciding whether or not I was telling the truth – or worth telling the truth to. “She was my great-grandmother,” she said at last. “She was one hundred and seven when she died.”
Just think about that number: one hundred and seven. It’s a digit few of us can ever hope to reach. I suppose, all things being equal, the better question would be whether or not we deserve to live that long.
Instead of saying something comforting or introspective, I whistled and said, “Wow.”
“Yeah … wow.” Her disinterest in me was palpable.
“I didn’t mean … It’s just impressive, that’s all.”
“I guess. Gran-Gran met a lot of people in her time. She made a lot of friends.” The young woman in black proceeded to tell me about her great-grandmother – Sheilagh Watson – and how she lived her life, how she built the family and legacy that surrounded her grave, huddled arm in arm, sharing memories of their time with the deceased. As it was, Sheilagh had led a life of some notoriety. She’d been a flirt, she’d even done some time – for grand theft auto, no less, when she was just a teenager – but she’d had fun, and she’d always been as open about the skeletons in her closet as she’d been about the love she had for her husband of sixty-three years and their seven daughters, all matriarchs in their own right. From an early age Sheilagh taught her daughters the two most important things she knew: to be yourself and to lead a life of inclusion, not exclusion – to make sure that when they write the summary of your life’s experiences, every individual chapter is the size of a goddamn book. Do those two things and you will die without an ounce of regret, without thinking, “if only I did this,” or “if only I’d done that.”
As it is, life is a game of final sums – of years lived, lives touched, dreams pursued and goals met, the net result of which can be seen by counting the bowed heads at one’s funeral. Sheilagh’s final sum was 112. That’s how many people showed up that day at Evergreen Memorial. It’s a legacy by which even the biggest stars would feel honoured, if only their histories were as genuine.
D____ called me transient once. I rejected it; the very notion of it was detestable. But now I see it, his terrible, prophetic tendencies at work. My own final sum is fast approaching and the math isn’t pretty.
“You look like hell,” the young woman in black said after she’d finished telling me about her great-grandmother’s life.
“What?”
She pointed a narrow, ghostly finger at my face. “Your skin, it’s all gross and chalky. Like it’s ready to come away from your bones. You should probably see a doctor about that.”
“Yeah.” I reached up and put two fingers to the side of my face, rubbing the sleeveless skin, feeling like I could puncture my brittle cheek with very little force. The honesty of my appearance was revolting. “I probably should.”
25. Bonnie and Clyde Redux
Posted: 04/05/2014
INT: RIDE 'EM HARD BAR AND GRILL -- NIGHT
PATRICK (29-year-old White male) and his pregnant bride SHARON (27-year-old Black female) sit across a picnic bench-style table from CLAUD (44-year-old White male) and BONITA (30-year-old Latino female). There are three beers on the table, and a glass of water in front of SHARON.
PATRICK stares at CLAUD, dumbfounded, while SHARON and BONITA look on in surprise.
SHARON
(Disbelief)
Come again?
CLAUD grins charismatically.
CLAUD
We rob banks.
SHARON
You … you rob banks.
CLAUD nods.
CLAUD
Yes, Ma'am.
CLAUD wraps his arm around BONITA'S waist, affectionately pinches the skin of the sleeve.
CLAUD (Cont.)
Just the two of us. We've been doing it for going on seven years now.
SHARON
I … I don't even know what to …
(Beat)
How many have you robbed?
CLAUD turns and looks at BONITA.
CLAUD
What is it now, sweetheart, thirty, give or take?
BONITA
(Quietly)
Give or take.
BONITA (V.O.)
I said, in my best English-as-a-second-language stutter.
(Beat)
Sharon was genuinely taken aback by what you'd said. Or maybe just taken in -- the two wide-eyed stares are often indistinguishable from one another.
SHARON
Isn't that dangerous? In this day and age, aren't you more likely to be caught or killed than anything else?
CLAUD shrugs nonchalantly.
CLAUD
We need the money. We don't harm anyone, and the government will cover the bank's ass. It's totally victimless. Easy in, easy out.
BONITA (V.O.)
I almost felt bad for Patrick and Sharon. It was five days from Halloween and we were down near the Mexican border where you'd been working as a former bank robber turned drug runner crossing the border with a busload of tourists and an assload of tightly wrapped plastic baggies of joy and happiness at seven-fifty a gram. You'd wrapped earlier that afternoon, gunned down sprinting from the border police while the two men you'd been travelling with remained on the ground, their knees in the sand with their hands locked, fingers interlaced behind their heads, and rifles pressed up against their spines. You'd been given fair warning but you didn't listen.
(Beat)
They shot you twice -- first in your leg, and then, when that barely slowed you down, they fired again. The bullet went straight through your heart, and you tumbled to the ground, came down hard on your left side, and bled out into the dirt and dust of the New Mexican desert.
(Beat)
We de
cided to celebrate that night at a dive you'd spotted fifty miles from the middle of nowhere. Patrick and Sharon were there on their first night as husband and wife following a shotgun wedding. When you saw them cuddling up to one another, Patrick's hand on his new wife's blossoming stomach, you smiled at me, devilishly, signalling you were ready to play. Eyes on them as they danced, you waited for just the right moment, between kisses that looked like one drunken mother bird feeding another, and swept in, taking her by the arms. Both were so inebriated with joy that neither felt offended. Patrick fun-punched you in the arm, warning you to stay away from his bride of precisely six hours and twenty-five minutes. With that happy pronouncement, you offered to buy a round for the group and we migrated to a table, where, when prodded by Patrick, investment portfolio guru for one of the nation's three largest banks, as to what you did for a living, you immediately revealed your scripted and very illegal past.
PATRICK leans forward, elbows on the table, cradling the beer in front of him with both hands.
PATRICK
(Disbelief)
So … you're saying you rob banks. Like, really rob them.
CLAUD
And we do it with style.
SHARON
You're pulling our legs.
CLAUD sips from his beer and puts it down again.
CLAUD
Nothin' doin', ma'am.
PATRICK pushes his beer to the centre of the table.
PATRICK
This is horseshit. You're just some clown trying to get a rise out of us.
CLAUD'S smile grows.
BONITA takes a drink.
BONITA (V.O.)
I thought maybe I should say something, but then I saw your smile -- full Cheshire cat -- and realized I didn't know my cues. So I held back and waited to see where you were taking us.
CLAUD
My friend, no horse has ever shit so sweet. But I am enjoying how much this is getting to you, if the truth must be told.
SHARON leans forward with her elbows on the table and her head resting in her palms.
SHARON
(Fascinated)
Why take such a risk?
(Beat)
Aren't you the least bit afraid of what might happen?
CLAUD
Whatever happens happens, and there ain't one thing we can do 'bout it.
BONITA (V.O.)
The cockier you got, the more you let your Southern swagger fly. For a moment I feared you were about to lose control and go full-blown Dukes of Hazzard on our poor, unsuspecting company.
CLAUD
There's simply too much fun to be had for us to hang up our spurs and walk away.
PATRICK slides out of his seat and stands up. He holds his hand out for SHARON.
PATRICK
(Angrily)
Come on. We need to get out of here.
SHARON
In a minute -- I want to hear more.
PATRICK
No.
PATRICK grabs SHARON'S hand and starts to pull her out of her seat. She resists.
PATRICK
We can't be listening to this. If anyone from my work were to find out … We can't risk getting implicated in … whatever this is. We have to go and we have to go now.
CLAUD stands up and moves between PATRICK and SHARON, his arms up, palms out peacefully.
CLAUD
Now wait just a minute here. If the lady wants to stay, you've got no right to --
PATRICK
(Furious)
I've got every damn right in the world and then some. Come on, Sharon. Let's get out of here. Now.
PATRICK pushes CLAUD out of the way. He tugs harder on SHARON'S hand. She WINCES uncomfortably.
SHARON
Pat, stop it, you're hurting me.
CLAUD steps between them again.
CLAUD
Hold up, now just think about this for a --
PATRICK releases SHARON'S hand. He makes a FIST and PUNCHES CLAUD in the face.
CLAUD falls to the ground.
CUT TO BLACK
26. Bonnie and Clyde Redux, Part II
Posted: 04/05/2014
Thirty minutes later we were in a rental car, driving back to LA together for the first time as just us. Actually I should say that I was doing all the driving, as you were busy holding a rapidly melting Ziploc bag full of ice to your right eye. Mile by silent mile you just stared out the passenger window, into the dark.
“So what was all that about?” I asked when the prolonged absence of dialogue had gotten too uncomfortable, like the screenwriter in your head had been struck with sudden writer’s block. “You feel like filling me in? Since when did you start getting off putting a torch to people’s feet?”
And still you said nothing, preferring to pout over your bruised and battered ego.
“Not now,” I said. I cleared my throat of Bonita’s voice. When I spoke, I felt the flesh of her lips rattling against my own, flapping loose. A tremor separated her skin from mine as I continued to drive. “If you want to keep looking blindly away, do it on your own time. You almost got us into a helluva mess back there and I want to know why – I deserve to know why. Talk to me. You-you – Galaxy Drive-In–you.”
That’s when I heard it – a low moan, barely audible over the sound of the car’s engine.
“What was that?”
“Don’t do this,” you said – you said. “Don’t ruin things for us.”
“I just want to know what’s going on, you know. Inside. I want … I need you to give me something to go on. It doesn’t have to be anything huge. Just … more than this silent treatment crap. I’ve earned that much.”
Still you said nothing. I looked over at you and saw, in the subtle glare of the moon, that your face had begun to swell like an overripe fruit. The back of my hand started to itch, so I reached over and massaged the sleeve, scratched, bore a hole right through to the underflesh. The night air was cool on my real skin, soothing, and I wanted to pull over and strip – just rip it all off, completely discard Bonita, leave her by the side of the road.
It wouldn’t matter, though. You wouldn’t have listened any more to me than you would have Bonita. And if you or anyone else were to ask me now, I still don’t know if I could tell you what compelled me to do what I did next.
“… you know, when we started out, I thought we was really goin’ somewhere … but this is it – we’re just goin’, huh?”
“No,” you said, sharply. You caught on immediately. “Don’t do that.”
“Not as long as you care about me,” I said in my very best Faye Dunaway, ignoring the line of dialogue I knew you’d missed because I’d watched the film once a fucking week since Richard Thorn slipped between my sheets and into my life.
“This isn’t yours to fuck around with. Stop it – stop it now.”
“Enough to die with me, baby? ’Cause I think that’s where we’re goin’ … I surely do –”
“Stop it!” you said, and reached for the steering wheel. “Not fucking now – don’t do this now!” Why, I wondered. Because they were yours? Because you weren’t ready to share them after all? Or was it because you’d just been knocked down by someone who didn’t give two shits about our script? I pushed your hands away and you hit me in the shoulder, pressed me up against the driver’s side window until I cried for you to stop. I swerved off the side of the road and we careened down a small embankment. I pumped the brakes.
We crashed to a halt, and you unbuckled your seat belt and reached over, grabbing my chest, squeezing, twisting the skin between your fists into two pale, gnarled roses. I could feel the sleeve stretching beyond its limits, small holes appearing in the surface as cold air slipped into the space between Bonita’s skin and my own, and you stared and you huffed and yo
u let go and snarled at me to get us the fuck back on the road.
We drove the rest of the way in wounded, brittle silence. Only occasionally I glanced over at you, but you never once looked back. You froze me out, like you’re still doing to this day. It doesn’t matter though. It’s done. It happened. And we’re getting to the real meat of things now. We’re getting to the very heart of you.
You know what you done there? you would’ve said if you were half the “him” you wanted to be. You told my story, you told my whole story right there, right there. One time I told you I was gonna make you somebody. That’s what you done for me. You made me somebody they’re gonna remember.
I’m trying. I’m really trying here.
Clyde Barrow you ain’t, and you fucking never will be.
27. That Time You Killed Me and I Didn’t Die
Posted: 04/12/2014
I received a letter in the mail yesterday, with no return postage, no signature, just a single paragraph of text written in neat, precise block letters like those used by a primary schoolteacher when teaching the alphabet for very the first time. The words begged me to stop, pleading for leniency, citing a career on the line. Saying, in closing, Please, listen to your conscience. Do the right thing.
And just when we’re getting to the best part, too.
Immediately, I pictured D____ writing this letter, using the back of a hardcover book, or a prop, or a copy of his latest script as a makeshift desk, delicately crafting each letter so as to remove all traces of self while some special effects grunt he’s probably worked with more than a dozen times already but would never care enough to recognize straps a blood packet to his chest, so that when the jilted ex-lover catches him in bed with her best friend and fires a single bullet through the bedsheet, he’ll bleed a thick line drawing through the white like a felt pen snapped in half. And then I woke up and realized what a fool I was.
The Death Scene Artist Page 15