OLD FILMMAKERS NEVER DIE
By
Dan Thomas and Bertram S. Cherry
THEY DON’T FADE AWAY EITHER. THEY JUST GET SO SIDE TRACKED BY MEDICAL CONDITIONS AND GROCERY STORE CLERKS THAT IT TAKES THEM AT LEAST A DECADE TO FINISH WHATEVER THEY’RE WORKING ON; EVERYBODY JUST THINKS THEY’RE DEAD.
CASE IN POINT:
Since I've been living alone in the converted carport under my house (I had to rent-out the upstairs after the divorce) I've gotten into the habit of talking to myself -- which is really boring because I hear everything twice; once in my head and once out loud. If my union benefits hadn’t run out I’d see a therapist, but not having that option I’ve had to improvise. I find that a shot of whiskey every 5 to 6 hours keeps me fairly ‘even’ and prevents me from talking to myself in public (well, most of the time anyway).
At any given moment I have at least twenty story ideas buzzing around in my head (and no, the buzzing doesn’t have anything to do with my chronic tinnitus which is not so slowly driving me mad). So I’m hearing this whole ‘poop bucket’ full of dialogue every day and the ensuing mental cacophony is really hard to turn off at bedtime. This situation tends to give me insomnia, so Dr. ‘Me’ has prescribed a couple of Tylenol P.M.s with my last shot of whiskey. Yeah, yeah, I know “DON’T TAKE WITH ALCOHOL.” I can read. It’s just how I interpret what I read that seems to irritate people… I’ll have to think about that later and see if it has anything to do with me being divorced and living in a carport.
I’ve been working on this low budget script for a while now… a while? Talk about denial …FOREVER….I’ve been working on it FOR…EVER. The script’s good, very good. I’m really stoked about how much I’ve written so far. I just can’t seem to get the damn thing done and I don’t know why. Well, I do know why; there always seems to be some unforeseen circumstance that eats up a big chunk of each day.
Anyway, I write best in the early a. m. which is fortunate because that’s when my very special alarm wakes me up. The special alarm, of course is the goddamn tinnitus! And yeess…. I still fumble around on the night stand every morning searching for the ‘off’ button that doesn’t exist on an alarm clock that doesn’t exist.
This morning, after going through the ‘alarm clock thing’, I nuked half a cup of coffee that I’m pretty sure was left over from last night and re-read what I wrote yesterday. Judging my efforts to be a full notch above ‘first draft’ quality I figured I could indulge in a decent breakfast before I dove back into it.
I pulled out the cardboard box I use as a kitchen cabinet to retrieve a can of my favorite breakfast food – Campbell’s pork and beans. When I came up empty I remembered I ran out yesterday and had decided to restock today when the ‘6 Can Special’ started at Long’s… Bummer… I considered making myself some eggs but I really had a taste for those pork & beans so I threw on some ratty old ‘sweats’ and headed for the car. When I turned in the seat to back out of the driveway I caught sight of myself in the rear view mirror; and what a sight I was. My wiry gray hair was sticking out in seven different directions. I literally looked like I was wearing a clown wig. So I grabbed my old straw hat off the back seat, stuffed as much of my hair as I could under it, and pulled it down tight. Of course then I just looked like a clown with a straw hat on.
I should mention that I live on the Big Island of Hawaii and as unacceptable as my attire would be in public on the ‘Mainland’ it wouldn’t raise any eyebrows over here. We’re about as laid-back as you can get. Then again I wouldn’t have cared if I was in Beverly Hills. I was on a ‘pork and bean gathering mission’! I figured I could be back ‘pounding keys’ with a full belly in less than an hour.
I made it to the shopping center in less time than usual, found a parking place right up front (very unusual), and discovered the store to be practically empty. The morning seemed to be progressing quite nicely. I waltzed to the back of the store, scooped up seven cans of my ‘booty’, and headed for the register. Ah…ok… before I continue I guess I ought to address the question, “Why seven cans at a ‘Six Can Special’?”… Well…before my ‘medical’ ran out I did see a therapist, but we really only got as far as my Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder. Not having a lot of experience with mental health care professionals it wasn’t until our second session that I asked, “What the Hell is OCPD and do I need a referral to a regular doctor for that?” Anyway, it seems I have an inordinate fear of ‘even’ numbers. I can talk about them okay, but I get incredibility uncomfortable being around even numbered ‘things’. This morning I intended to eat two cans of pork and beans so I’d be left with five. And, yes, I intended to put the two empties in different trash cans. I have three.
My condition seems to have worsened with age: I have to have someone else re-number the pages of my final drafts because I number the original pages 1a, 3a, 5a, etc. I even pried one of the ‘alt’ keys off my keyboard when, to my horror, I realized there were eighty-eight keys on the board (Why would anybody count the keys on their keyboard? Why would anybody think the number of keys was the reason their writing was progressing so slowly? I don’t know, but I do know that my speed really did pick up after I popped that ‘alt’ key off). Anyway, the list goes on and on and gets really embarrassing so I think I’ll get back to the pork and beans.
I plopped the cans down on the counter. While I was rummaging around in my ‘clown’ pants for my wallet I noticed the clerk had stopped ringing up my order. I looked up. She was a young Japanese girl who looked about twelve years old. I’m sure she was older. She had smiled dutifully when I walked up, but now she was standing ‘stock still’ and staring at the cans as if they were small round creatures from one of Stephen King’s dreams. She looked at me blankly, “There’s seven.”, she said. Not quite sure of the significance of this particular ‘moment’ I slowly and cautiously replied, “Yes… seven.” She shook her head back and forth three times before saying, “The limit is six.” I calmly explained, “I know. I want six cans on the ‘special’ and I’ll pay full price for the seventh can.”
Now, there was a display of stuffed purple ‘BARNEY’ dinosaur dolls next to the register and the biggest, purplist ‘BARNEY’ screamed, “No!... Lim - it -six!”. I must’ve jumped two feet in the air. More than being startled I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why they would put that phrase in a talking doll. Then I started thinking maybe I was a lot worse off mentally than I thought. I looked at the girl. She had obviously heard it too, but was reacting quite differently than I was. She blushed bright red, took two steps back, stared at her shoes and, started trembling. I knew I was in the middle of something, but I didn’t have a clue as to what it might be.
Then a man, who was the ‘spitting image’ of Richard Loo, appeared from behind the display rack (Richard Loo was a Chinese actor who, with fake buck-teeth and thick round glasses, played sadistic Japanese colonels in 1940’s war movies).
First of all I was extremely relieved that he was a human and not an even bigger ‘BARNEY”. As I re-assessed the situation I assumed this guy was the manager so I re-explained my intended ‘Six Plus One Can’ purchase. He was having none of it, “Lim – it – six!”, he loudly exclaimed and grabbed the seventh can. He had it by one end so I grabbed the other end and we started pulling it back and forth;
“I’ll pay full price!”
“No! Lim – it – six!”.
“What if I pay full price for all of them?”
“No! It’s a special!”
“What if I come back in an hour?”
“No!!”.
Now, a can of Campbell’s pork and beans just isn’t that big so our four hands covered the whole can. To anyone passing the store window it must have looked like we were engaged in some sort of male ethnic bonding dance; Greek maybe or Russian. I gave it my last ditch effort, “How about if I come back tomorrow?” He had to stop and think about that for a moment. That moment gave the pre – pubescent looking clerk time to say, “Well, that would be okay.” I could tell by the stunned look on her face that she had had no intention of making that statement out loud. The manager gave her a look that only a truly bad Kabuki dancer could manage.
Well, since I had no idea how ‘Americanized’ these two were, I had no idea what the consequences would be for the girl’s obviously horrendous breech of Asian social conduct (being fairly inept in the social graces of my own culture my imagination tends to run wild when speculating on the more vague points of other cultures). I didn’t want her to have to scrub the floor with a toothbrush, or get fired or something over a can of beans. I figured the best thing I could do at this point was retreat, regroup, and plan my next move.
Now, no matter how unreasonable and silly this sounds (okay, not ‘sounds’ – absolutely, unequivocally ‘is’ ) I had decided I was going to get seven cans of pork and beans out of this store today. I paid for the six cans and left. I climbed into the car, tossed the bag in the back, and started to ‘stew’. But I couldn’t concentrate. The even numbered cans on the back seat were making me nuts. I finally had to get out of the car, grab three cans and throw them in the trunk before I could go back to ‘stewing’.
The reason I didn’t just let this situation ‘go’ stems from issues that my ex-therapist had just touched on: my paranoia, aversion to authority figures, and simple ‘bull headedness’. The incident that seemed to set these personality traits in motion occurred when I was seven years old; I took a short-cut across our German neighbor’s back yard and was run down by his two Dobermans, Auch and Tung. They didn’t really bite me they just snarled and growled and rolled me around the yard like a little round petrified toy (I was a chubby kid – an ‘issue’ I may or may not add to my growing list). Anyway, the German neighbor just sat on his porch drinking beer and laughing his ass off. Since this happened in 1951 I assumed the guy was a Nazi and I guess the store manager (looking and acting like a WWII Japanese colonel) brought back all those old feelings and reactions.
Although I wasn’t fully aware of it yet, the situation at hand had escalated far beyond ‘specials’ and pork and beans. Yea, oh, yea, the Wave of Obsession was cresting.
My mind was working on every angle I could think of. Being able to see the market down the street out of the corner of my eye (where I knew there was a can of pork and beans sitting on a shelf just waiting for me) pushed my spinning brain into overdrive, but no workable solution was presenting itself (at least I crossed shop lifting and armed robbery off the list right away, well maybe not right away, but close to it).
During this ‘Big Think’ in which I was immersed a panhandler kept coming up to the car and bugging me for change. Just as I was about to tell him to go away for the third time ‘The Perfect Plan’ instantly bloomed in my mindscape. It was in Technicolor and everything, “Hey, you want to make five bucks and five cans of pork and beans?”
Peeking through the store window and watching my perfect plan unfold should have been more satisfying, but the dereliction to my script started nagging at me. I knew how stupid it was to waste this much time and energy procuring breakfast when I could be putting those precious commodities into said script. Besides, by now I was starving and wondering if I had a can opener in the car. I needed to eat something – hot or cold. I also realized I needed my first whisky of the day because I was mumbling to myself in public.
The panhandler finished the purchase, exited the store, and walked right past me mumbling to himself. I caught up with him, “Hey! Here’s the five bucks. Gimme the can.” He turned, clutched the bag to his chest, and stared at me suspiciously. I thrust the bill at him, “Here!”. He snatched the five, stuffed it into his pocket, turned, and started walking away. “Yo!”, I yelled. “Gimme my can!”. He turned back and looked me up and down, “I know you ... You’re one of that asshole Joe’s friends. Leave me alone!”. I looked into his eyes and realized he had no idea who I was… Leave it to me to pick a schizophrenic bum.
I suppose if I get old enough and drunk enough I might be able to forget everything that happened this morning, but I doubt it.
When the patrol car rolled by all the cop saw was two bums yelling and screaming and chasing each other around the parking lot fighting over a bag of groceries. My explanation made less sense than the other bum’s explanation. The cop, trying to extricate himself from this stupidity, decided that I should get the one can I wanted and we should all part company. Well, the bum decided to give me the can by throwing it at me. It hit me in the right temple and knocked me out ‘cold’. Perfect… ‘beaned’ by a can of beans.
When I ‘came to’ the bum was in the back of the patrol car and the cop was acting a lot more agitated than he was before I took my ‘nap’. He said he was taking the other guy in for assault and resisting arrest. I gave him all my information and thought it prudent not to ask about the ‘mouse’ that was forming under his left eye.
The paramedics had judged me to be okay, but told me not to drive for a couple of hours and to call my doctor if I started to get dizzy spells. Well, I was having a dizzy spell while they were talking and having me sign release forms.
I got myself over to my car, leaned against it, and watched everybody drive away. The bum twisted around on the back seat of the cop car ‘til he could get his cuffed hands in view and ‘flipped me the bird’. I have no idea what happened to the second purchase of pork and beans. I guess it was confiscated for evidence.
My head was killing me and I felt like I was standing on the deck of a ship. I took a deep breath. Then I calmly consolidated five cans from the trunk and back seat into the shopping bag, stuck the sixth one under my left rear tire, got into the car, backed over it, and drove home.
When I got home I ate two cans of cold pork and beans (leaving me with three), took a shot of whiskey, and sat down at the computer. I tried holding an ice pack to my head with one hand and working the keyboard with the other but that was a less than a satisfactory arrangement. After fumbling around for fifteen minutes I got so pissed off I just ‘duck taped’ the ice pack to my head. I’d worry about the ramifications of that brilliant maneuver later. I sat back down and resolved not to leave the house…carport… until the script was finished. I started pecking away: PAGE 1a.
END
Copyright © 2007 Dan Thomas and Bertram S. Cherry
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