Everybody Knows Your Name
Page 27
Magnolia looks out, then silently mouths Whoa at me. The backing band is already in place. A crew member starts to hand me the guitar I was using on the show, but Magnolia gives him the case with the Telecaster. She’s been watching over it this whole time. I take it out and let the tech guys plug it into the wireless system and tune it up.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been so nervous. What if my voice won’t work?” I say, trying to shake the nerves out of my fingers.
“Don’t try to figure out what it all means. Just do the next thing.” Maggie looks steadily into my eyes, her dark eyes radiating calm steadiness. I take a deep breath.
“I love you,” I say.
She kisses me. Then they’re doing an introduction over the sound system. I look out at the stage. It seems like someone should go out there and perform. Oh yeah, I guess that would be me.
Someone hands me the Telecaster.
56
I walk onto the stage, pulling the guitar strap over my neck. The noise from the crowd rises up and floods over me. As I take my place at the edge, I see Sissy in the front row, howling and whistling. There are other familiar faces, including Janet from the jail and even my ex-girlfriend, the Mattress Princess, who’s found her way up close. She’s accompanied by the Mattress King himself, and he’s pumping his fist in the air.
“Thank you for coming out, Calumet!” I say into the microphone. “I’m Ford Buckley.” The crowd roars, and hearing my amplified voice pulls me back into my own body. I’m in this moment, where I belong. I look behind me to check on the backing band and do a double take because Leander’s on the bass, which must be Catherine’s doing. He flashes a peace sign, and I smile at him. I wait a few seconds, trying to settle into a feeling for once.
Then I begin strumming the opening E chord of “In the New Year” by the Walkmen.
The first verse the band doesn’t play along, so it’s just my slightly distorted, steady guitar chords, and my voice. I start singing, my voice subdued, lyrics about living at the same old address, waiting on bad weather to pass.
Now bass and drums drop in (duh-duh-duh-thump-duh-duh), and I can feel the force of them in the monitors. I take a deep breath. Dueling emotions of fear and hope start to rise in my voice. The cameramen get closer. The keyboard climbs along with me, sounding like a church pipe organ, soaring higher and higher.
My performance is about clinging to the hope in these lyrics that it’s finally going to be a good year. The hope starts to rise above the fear, but it can’t seem to erase it. They can’t be separated. They’re joined together.
The emotion swelling in my chest almost breaks my voice as I sing the lyric about my heart being in such a strange new place. I look over at Magnolia, standing on the side of the stage, eyes shining.
These lyrics paint scenes of great victories over all our troubles, fears, and failures. The song gives me this image of a dark frozen landscape, where nothing ever changes. Then, something new: a flower grows in the snow, a lightning bolt out of the dark sets a dead tree on fire, something is finally different than it was, and then you know if something can change, maybe everything can.
The crowd sways, a sea of faces and waving hands in a street that’s been empty my whole life.
But I know the song’s dark side too. It’s foolishly optimistic, only wanting to see the good outcomes, ignore the bad. I know I might lose. I don’t know how Magnolia and I are going to stay physically close to each other; win or lose, we’ll still have to be in different places. Calumet might slowly sink and disappear into the mud around it; and one day, when I look back, this might have been the high point of an ever-shrinking life.
But today it feels like even something as small as a rock song can set in motion changes that no one can stop.
I sense the vibrations moving specks of air and light around me, pushing between the bodies in the crowd, reverberating through the town, shaking the old brick buildings, echoing across the rooftops, ringing off the silver water tower, and out over the farmland where my grandparents are buried. I imagine the sound waves rolling on until they’re rattling the boarded-up windows of dying towns all across the country.
I look again at Magnolia. Here’s to hope.
Appendices
To: Hayes.Sarno@UnitedProductions.com
From: Magnoliahere@gmail.com
Subject: ships
hey hayes,
per our discussion, i revised the last scene of ep. 8 of ships--please see attached.
and to answer your question about that “access hollywood” interview:
sorry, still can’t do it.
hope all’s well, though!
magnolia
To: Lalalucien@gmail.com
From: Hayes.Sarno@UnitedProductions.com
Subject: Help managing Magnolia
Lucien,
We can’t get through to Magnolia about this interview. Can you PLEASE tell her it will be great??? They just want to spend an afternoon with her over at Ford’s new house. The conceit is that she’s helping him decorate because he has terrible taste in furnishing. Cute, right? The exec producer Angie has sworn to me they’ll let Magnolia talk about Ships for at least a minute of the segment. It’s a win-win!
Can you help us out and convince her to do this? I know she respects your opinion a ton.
Hayes
This email contains information which may be confidential and privileged. Unless you are the addressee (or authorized to receive communications on behalf of the addressee), you may not use, copy, re-transmit, or disclose to anyone this email or any information contained in or attached to this email. If you have received this email in error, please advise the sender by reply email and immediately delete the email, or you may contact us at security@UnitedProductions.com or call (310) 555-9000.
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To: Hayes.Sarno@UnitedProductions.com
From: Lalalucien@gmail.com
Subject: Re: Help managing Magnolia
Hayes man,
That doesn’t sound that cute. I’ll be honest. I want to get to continue to make money with you in the future, so I say this with peace and love, peace and love:
I can’t help you with Magnolia.
She doesn’t want to parade her relationship around. She doesn’t want to do segments. She just wants to write, and I support her on that.
Good talk!
L
To: Magnoliahere@gmail.com
From: Hayes.Sarno@UnitedProductions.com
Subject: Re: ships
Magnolia, Magnolia, Magnolia,
The people at AH are telling me they’ll pay for Ford’s furnishings, so how does that sound? I know he probably thinks that money will get him his dream everything, seeing as how he’s not from around here. But shit’s expensive in LA!
Ha ha ha.
But seriously. U should want to do this interview. Don’t you want people to care about Ships? Make them care about you. Something to think about.
You’re very young, still. I’m offering guidance. Really think you should take it.
Hayes
This email contains information which may be confidential and privileged. Unless you are the addressee (or authorized to receive communications on behalf of the addressee), you may not use, copy, re-transmit, or disclose to anyone this email or any information contained in or attached to this email. If you have received this email in error, please advise the sender by reply email and immediately delete the email, or you may contact us at security@UnitedProductions.com or call (310) 555-9000.
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To: Hayes.Sarno@UnitedProductions.com
From: Magnoliahere@gmail.com
Subject: Re: re: ships
hayes,
my dad was an investment consultant, and i have to tell you, i understood next to nothing abo
ut what he did. i’m just not a numbers person. when i was really little i’d play with his briefcase and pull out papers and they might as well have been in egyptian. no clue what any of it meant. once i got to elementary school age, my dad started bringing me into his office for “take your daughter to work” day, and this one year i got to sit in on a big meeting. i was around eight. again, i had zero clue what they were talking about. zero. but there came this moment where i could sense that my dad was fighting for some kind of decision that all his colleagues at the table were nervous about. they were saying, “bad idea” and “we can’t see the logic in it.” my dad turned on the projector and this page with all of these calculations and tables came up on the big, glowing screen at the front of the room. to this day, i have no idea what any of those calculations or tables meant. that’s not the point. i’m not talking about math. my dad pointed to his calculations and tables and he said to the other people in the room, “this is all you need to know.” that’s all he said! i was so struck by that move, even as a little kid. he put his work up there for them to see, and he left it at that. no song and dance. he wasn’t trying to hide anything. or trying to tell them to just trust him based on nothing. he was showing them his very best ideas. he was letting them know, “here’s what i have to say.” they could look as deeply into it as they wanted. because the answers were all in the work.
magnolia
To: Magnoliahere@gmail.com
From: Hayes.Sarno@UnitedProductions.com
Subject: Re: re: re: ships
Magnolia, you’re KILLING me here.
I just talked to AH. They’re saying they can get you some free furniture too. I know you’re still living at your mom’s, but what about a new bed set?
Hayes
This email contains information which may be confidential and privileged. Unless you are the addressee (or authorized to receive communications on behalf of the addressee), you may not use, copy, re-transmit, or disclose to anyone this email or any information contained in or attached to this email. If you have received this email in error, please advise the sender by reply email and immediately delete the email, or you may contact us at security@UnitedProductions.com or call (310) 555-9000.
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To: Hayes.Sarno@UnitedProductions.com
From: Magnoliahere@gmail.com
Subject: this is all you need to know
i’m good, thanks.
magnolia
SHIPS IN THE NIGHT SHOOTING SCRIPT EP 1.8
INT. AN OLD HOTEL ROOM IN ARGENTINA—NIGHT
Warren Gettysburg picks up the phone on the desk. Calmly, he dials, watching the snow fall outside. Despite the weather, he’s still only wearing the rumpled undershirt and flannel pants he was taken in.
INTERCUT—INT. HOTEL ROOM/BART GETTYSBURG’S STUDY—CONTINUOUS
Bart, sitting at his desk, looks at newspaper clippings about Warren’s kidnapping. He answers the phone.
BART
Bart Gettysburg here.
WARREN
(casually)
Hey, Dad. Happy birthday to me.
Bart instantly sits up straighter, his mind racing.
BART
But how are you—
(catches himself)
Where are you? Thank God you’re all right.
WARREN
Not as good at acting as you were at gymnastics, huh, dad?
Bart eyes his collegiate gymnastics trophies on the shelf, one of which still bears the cigarette burn that Warren gave it.
BART
I was so distraught about—
WARREN
Well, your acting is bad, but turns out what you’re really bad at is staging your own kid’s abduction.
Bart has gone white.
WARREN (CONT’D)
Just wanted to call to say I’ll be seeing you soon. And don’t worry about the million dollars you paid those goons—I took that off their hands too.
Warren presses down the switch hook on the cradle. Then he dials again.
INTERCUT—INT. HOTEL ROOM/WICKHAM BOARDING ACADEMY FOR GIRLS—CONTINUOUS
The phone rings at the lobby desk of the Wickham Boarding Academy for Girls.
Mrs. Cale answers.
MRS. CALE
Wickham Boarding Academy for Girls.
WARREN
I need to speak to Jacinta Yarmouth.
Mrs. Cale’s face ices over. She knows who it is.
MRS. CALE
You are not able to do that.
She glances over at Jacinta, who has been reading a book in an armchair by the fire. But now Jacinta watches Mrs. Cale speak on the phone. It’s as if she knows who’s on the phone too. Her face has a quiet hope.
WARREN
Is she reading in that chair she likes right across the room?
Now Mrs. Cale looks alarmed, as if Warren is somewhere close.
MRS. CALE
What game are you—
WARREN
Good. Then you can tell her that I’m on my way to come see her.
He hangs up the phone.
INT. WICKHAM BOARDING ACADEMY FOR GIRLS—VERY LATE NIGHT
Mrs. Cale sits at the lobby desk after bedtime, by herself now. The academy is dark except for her small lamp.
She gets up and checks that the front doors are locked. She’s wary. On edge. Then she sits again, returning to her watch.
INT. WICKHAM DORMITORY—SIMULTANEOUS
Jacinta, coat over her nightgown, picks a lock on the dormitory sill with a bobby pin and swings the window open. She climbs out.
EXT. WICKHAM ACADEMY GROUNDS—MOMENTS LATER
As Jacinta sneaks across the lawn, we can see the tiny light of Mrs. Cale’s lamp through the glass of the front doors in the distance.
EXT. JUDY’S PIZZA—LATE NIGHT
Jacinta has made it to town. She walks up to Judy’s Pizza, which is a divey parlor with a neon sign. She opens the root beer colored front door.
INT. JUDY’S PIZZA—MOMENTS LATER
There’s a small arcade inside, and Jacinta approaches. She stops in front of an old machine with a plastic chicken sitting above a bunch of bright eggs.
Pulling a quarter from her coat pocket, she puts it in the machine. The chicken spins around CLUCKING, then drops a half-red, half-blue egg.
Jacinta bends to retrieve her prize from the small door. She opens the egg, and inside is a cheap but simple chain necklace. A gold-tone robot charm hangs from it.
Pleased, Jacinta puts the necklace on. Then the root beer colored door opens behind her, and she turns.
Warren Gettysburg, in his pajamas too, is standing there, the wind blowing outside behind him.
Jacinta smiles without smiling.
Acknowledgments
We’d like to thank both our families for standing behind us as we avoided normal jobs. Doug Stewart for believing in this book from the beginning. Leila Sales for making it so much better. Nicolle and Rob for a certain crazy-eyed Easter dinner years ago. Trish Reda for letting us use her great photo. David Hernandez for not getting super annoyed with Andrea for never learning Photoshop. Pie’n Burger for having the counter where we first thought up this idea. Maria Felix for watching our daughter in the afternoons so we could write. And thank you to Winona, of course, because Winona is the best, forever.
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