Kids with a Knife: scene for “my bad side”

Posted on October 14, 2013 by McPhedran

An excerpt of a new scene for my bad side, with Dee and Crystal as kids:

“You have to help me, okay?” Crystal pulled her shirt over her head and twisted her back to me. “You see that?”

“What?”

“That.” She pulled at the side of her ribs where there was a red smudge, scabbed and raw. “You see it?” “Your mole thing?”

“You have to cut it off.”

“Like…cut it?”

She handed me an X-Acto knife from the table. “Cut it off.” “No way. I can’t do that.”

“You have to, Dee. I think’s cancer.”

“You should go to a doctor.”

“I’m not going to a doctor. I’m not.” She pressed the knife into my hand. “You owe me. I saved your life, right? Didn’t I?”

“Crystal, you have to go to a hospital or something.”

“I can’t reach it.” She looked crazy in the light coming from the floor, the shadow of her nose going up on her cheek into her eye. “I need you to do it.”“But I don’t know how.”

“Look.” She grabbed my fist in her hand and twisted it to her back. “You just cut around it. Make a cut down one side and then the other and then cut it from underneath, okay? It should take like a minute.”

I hunched over and stared, frozen. “I can’t.”

Being Las Vegas – Extract from “my bad side”

Posted on October 7, 2013 by McPhedran

I wanted to lose all of my money and played craps.* I was Big Tyree. Everybody loved that. I watched the dice snap up against the wall, knowing they would be like that, not gambling, winning money, trying to win, but more of a story in my head, the numbers one after the other, each into the next – 4, 6, 12, 11, 3, 6, 8, 9, 4, 7, 7, 9, 8, 6, 5, 4, 9, 9, 7 – a sequence meaning something I didn’t know but wanted to see how it would turn out, and played each one and took my money and had a stack of chips, so many of them. It was funny, but I had to get rid of a guy and went up to my room and thought about how I loved being in Vegas where it was just numbers and chips and money and nothing else but that. *extract from my bad side

International Talk Like a Pirate Day

Posted on September 19, 2013 by McPhedran

September 19 is International Talk Like a Pirate Day. It is a day that Uncle Ralph (from my bad side) would have loved.

Uncle Ralph’s had seats eight rows behind the Pirates dugout. “Herre we go!”

“Are you still doing that?”

“What arre you talking about therre?”

“Arr to you.” The sun had set behind the outfield, the light cold and yellow. The Pirates were ahead.

“You want a beerrr, picaroon?”

“Thanks.”

The cup bent in my hand, spilling in cool stickiness.

“She got an ID?” The vendor demanded.

“She’s my niece, Willie. Back from college.”

“I need an ID.”

“She’s going to Desert Storm in a week. Is that enough for you?”

He trudged back up the stairs.

“Desert Storm?” I said. “Summer school is more like it.”

“You’re tough. Nobody messes with you.” He raised his beer. “Ray would have killed you.”

“What about mother?”

“I don’t know. She would have been upset, but I think she would have taken your side. She was always family first.” He jumped out of his seat, yelling. “Come on, run it out! Arriba! Arriba! You’re a hell of a hitter, Van Slyke! But you’re lazy as a dog! Flojo! You’ll be in the nine spot if you don’t wake up! Come on, Andy!” We watched Van Slyke jog back toward us, take his batting helmet off and lob it into the dugout. Uncle Ralph nodded at the next batter. “You know this guy? Parrish. He’s a Marooner from the Tigers. Probably his last season. He’s supposed to be helping out Van Slyke and Merced. Good luck on that.”

“What do you mean family first?”

“And he swings at the first pitch. Take the money and run, Lance. Take the money and run.”

Apollo Film, Scene 3 (Part Two)

Posted on August 28, 2013 by McPhedran

Part two of another potential Apollo film: Dee stays at her sister Crystal’s apartment where Crystal’s boyfriend, Derek, is over for dinner. DEE goes into the bedroom after APOLLO.

CRYSTAL: Don’t let him back out! Don’t.

DEE: We’ll go for a walk in a minute.

CRYSTAL (Staring out the window): What makes fire fighters so full of shit? DEREK: The witching hour is upon us.

CRYSTAL: I couldn’t hear you. Too much cackling.

DERK: (Turning on the television): Have another glass. CRYSTAL: Like I need your permission.

DEREK: What about not getting totally fucked up?

DEE: (To CRYSTAL): Walk Apollo with me.

CRYSTAL: I can get as fucked up as I want, baby, because I know you and your friends are here to make the save.

DEE: (Standing): Come on. Let’s go.CRYSTAL: (Refilling her glass, looking into it and then drinking everything): Acting like you’re at the center of the universe when you’re just a fat old woman watching it on TV.

DEREK: Ease up, will you?

CRYSTAL: My mother, that’s who you remind me of, my fucking mother, staring at the fucking TV, not shutting up, blah, blah, fucking blah.

DEE gets Apollo out of the bedroom and goes down the hall after him. CRYSTAL (Walking behind her): Your legs look good.

DEE (Letting APOLLO out): Thanks..

CRYSTAL: You working out?

DEE: Where are your shoes?

CRYSTAL checks her phone for messages. DEE: Hey, is everything okay?

CRYSTAL: (Not looking up):Super duper.

DEE: You’re sure you’re all right with me being in your place?

CRYSTAL: I don’t like it when you get passive on me. It’s not cool.

DEE: I don’t want to get in your space.

CRYSTAL: You were born in my space. I have to live with that. (Looking up, snapping her phone closed) You have to live with that too.

DEE: I know Apollo can be a pain.

CRYSTAL: I don’t give a shit about the dog. Why would I give a shit about the dog, except that it smells and pisses on the floor?

DEE: I’ll move as soon as I can find a place.

CRYSTAL gets her phone out again and struggles to focus on the screen. She laughs to herself and sends a reply.

DEE: What was that about mom?

CRYSTAL (Yelling back to DEREK): You passed out, baby?

DEE: What did you mean?

CRYSTAL (Looking back blankly): What?

DEE: You said something about mom. CRYSTAL: Mother?

DEE: You think about her like that?

CRYSTAL (Pushing DEE out and closing the door).: Try not to get raped, okay?

Apollo Film, Scene 3 (Part One)

Posted on August 27, 2013 by McPhedran

Another potential Apollo film: Dee stays at her sister Crystal’s apartment where Crystal’s boyfriend, Derek, is over for dinner.

DEREK: Want to hear my cop down story? (Puts down his hamburger): I mean, just seeing a cop on his little bicycle is enough, isn’t it? Anyway, he’s going along, Dum de dum, right? And he sees something up ahead, and this car door opens up right in front of him. Bam! Cop goes flying, head over heels, and lands right on his ass. (Laughs, food coming out of his mouth) He’s just lying there and the guy in the car is looking down at him like he’s committed assault, right? He’s thinking he’s going to jail, and the cop pulls the radio off his shoulder and yells, ‘Officer down! Officer down!’ The driver jumps back like this, right? He looks like he’s going to take off now. Holy shit, I couldn’t stop laughing. Those guys are fucking babies.

CRYSTAL: You’re such a pig. (She suddenly gets up, goes through the piles of papers and garbage on the table and television, and opens a fresh packet of cigarettes.) DEREK He had his little ticket book out before he was even off the ground. That’s fucking New York.

CRYSTAL: New Yorkers are so full of shit. If you tell them to beat somebody, they’d do it. Everyone will. They’ll say they do it because they’re afraid. That’s bullshit. They do it because they have the permission. They want to. They want to do it before it’s done to them.

DEREK: Be good, babe. (He picks at a scar on the back of his bicep and shrugs at DEE when he catches her looking) It’s just an old burn.

DEE: I couldn’t do that.

DEREK: What?

DEE: Be a fireman.

DEREK: Fire fighter. We fight them. We don’t make them.

DEE: Fire fighter then.

DEREK: It’s not for women. CRYSTAL: Only misogynists.

DEREK (Answers his phone) Yeah? (Pause) Who? (Pause) No. (Pause) Where? Where you at? (Pause) Call Ricky. He’ll get you. (Nodding anxiously) Yeah, call Ricky. He’ll be there.

CRYSTAL: Missing a party?

DEREK: A couple of the boys got off the wagon. (Scrolls through his messages) They’re good.

CRYSTAL: My fire fighter hero.

DEREK: Let me tell you something…there is nothing like making a save. Nothing in this life, there is nothing like that.

CRYSTAL: So you’ve said.

DEREK: You go into a place where people die. You bring them out of that. It’s the best thing a man can do.

DEREK throws the empty ketchup packets at the garbage and misses. APOLLO jumps after them, banging into Crystal’s legs. CRYSTAL: Fucking dog! (Kicks at him) Move! Fucking move!

APOLLO jumps back and darts into the bedroom.

CRYSTAL: That thing belongs in the zoo.

DEE: He was just playing.

DEREK: You know who the boys ran into? Fucking Stevie Wright.

CRYSTAL: Who’s fucking Stevie Wright?

DEREK: From Woodside. Spring Match.

CRYSTAL: The guy you beat up?

DEREK: It’s boxing, babe. I didn’t beat anyone up.

CRYSTAL (To DEE) It’s the annual punch-up between the police and fire departments. Real high-brow stuff. Derek won last year. DEREK: Beat the crap out of him.

CRYSTAL (Pulls her sweater sleeves over her palms, spreading them out): But you love making the saves, right, baby?

DEREK: Don’t get all pissy because of a fucking dog.

Ancient Ice: my bad side excerpt

Posted on August 22, 2013 by McPhedran

I was cold and afraid. It was too big or I was. I leaned forward to get my sense back and banged my cast against the gunwale. The sound echoed back, low, like the closing of a door, and the white wall went out of focus and I blinked to make it clear and it was broken, the spires gone, what looked so small and distant, and dissolved like a monster into the water, splintering in a massive rush, dissolved like snow. Part of the other side slipped off too and another shelf, each part vanishing into the water. It spat back up in a lurch of bright blue and ice, rushing out of the darkness right at us. My head was empty, my hands balled tight. Ray ran in a short heavy stride to the cabin.

“Take that, b’ys.” Charlie slid the oars to Fitz and Tommy, and they dug them through the water, hardly moving the boat. Another section of the iceberg rose up out of the water, dripping, and collapsed. The vibration of it came up through the water into the boat’s floorboards, a humming, hollow and deep, a pure force, and then a rising in the water, a vast dark thing, coming toward the boat. Ray couldn’t get the boat to start, and as much as everyone was doing, scrambling and pushing and turning, banging, no one spoke. The silence was louder as the wave rolled up to the bow, Apollo and I there, and pulled us up, higher, steadily to the top and back down again. The second wave was bigger. We couldn’t see what was left of the iceberg now, everything gone, and I was almost panicked, thinking it was too high and we would go under. We rose up, the stern coming up past us, shards of ice at the bottom of the next wave. I stepped back with it, thinking it was easy now, and lost my balance as the third wave came, almost as big, and my foot was sliding out and I was fine with that, and would have hit my head against the bench if Fitz hadn’t caught my arm and put me back on the bench. “That’s 10,000 years old,” he said. “It was snowing 10,000 years back and then it got all packed and floated down here. 10,000 years of history that is, before the Vikings, before the Romans, before the Greeks, the Egyptians, the Incas, the Mayans, everybody. People had just got out of the caves and begun the farming then.”

my bad side: Manhattan by boat

Posted on August 20, 2013 by McPhedran

The boat circled below the island with the sun setting over the broken horizon, the clouds going after it, pulling each other together in the red and blue. There was a pool with bright blue chlorinated water like in Florida, so square and odd in the back of the boat, the river water gushing past. I sat in the corner looking at Crystal with her back to everyone, looking at the city, her elbows poking out, under the 59th Street Bridge and looking up at the dark mass, the dirt and cables, the shadows of the cars and trucks, and sank into how almost safe and eerie it was. Lisa was in the pool and singing to Chumbawamba, delighted in herself, drinking shots, and laughing convulsively, doubling over and then trying to get out of the pool and throwing up and almost going over, and then crying, Ian holding her and then their mother, and it was sad and worse how separated I was from it and didn’t care. I watched the boat turning the corner, going into the Harlem River and seeing the city, the steep hill up into the Harlem, how green and wild it looked, and then the Bronx on the other side, flat dull and grey, highways and warehouses and nothing else and then Yankee Stadium, as dull and grey as everything else.

Apollo Film posted

Posted on August 19, 2013 by McPhedran

Apollo has just been posted onto vimeo. The 5-minute film follows Dee as she comes home to her New York apartment to find a drunk fire fighter with a knife in his hand and her dog, Apollo, bleeding on the floor. It is begins with an evocative opening shot, followed by a hypnotic sequence in a car. It is a compelling work – acting and technically solid. It’s well worth your time!

Another “Bad Side” film

Posted on August 16, 2013 by McPhedran

I have written the first draft of a second Bad Side script. It follows Dee on the train with Apollo north out of the city.

The train inches past the soot and cables, the decrepit buildings, twisted rust jutting out, bottles and shards, an animal skull on an electrical box, and then is on a bridge. DEE wraps her hand, stiff and fat, in a sweatshirt. The conductor approaches, his hat pushed forward; he is older with a thin face and empty eyes.

CONDUCTOR: Ticket?DEE: I gave it to the other guy, the one before you.

CONDUCTOR (Looking at Dee’s cleavage): Where’s your receipt?DEE: I must have thrown it away.

CONDUCTOR: Which is it? You threw it away or you gave it to the other guy?

DEE pulls her dress out from her legs. There is a stain on the waist. It looks like blood.

DEE: I didn’t think I needed it.

CONDUCTOR: Where are you going?

DEE: Providence.

CONDUCTOR: Got on at Penn? (He looks down the aisle and then back at DEE) I have to write you up,

DEE: What does that mean?

CONDUCTOR (Opening his ticket book): What’s your name?DEE (Pulling a hoodie from her bag): Crystal Sinclair.

There is a long pause as CONDUCTOR writes out the slip and then hands it to DEE.

CONDUCTOR: You mail it back to the address at the bottom.

DEE: Mail it?

CONDUCTOR: The fine.

DEE: Can I get a water from you?

CONDUCTOR (Leaving): The cart will be through.

“my bad side” book jacket

Posted on June 18, 2013 by McPhedran

I’m off to another writing conference this weekend and have put together a first draft for a book jacket blurb on my bad side:

Deirdre Sinclair comes home late one night to find her sister’s drunken boyfriend armed and her prized exotic cat bleeding at his feet. She decides to shoot and asks questions, then fleeing the city to Canada. Dazed and injured, she remembers her tiny legs dangling from a high chair, her infant sister, Crystal, pulling cereal off the counter and their mother dead on the floor, pills scattered about her head. Deirdre’s journey with Apollo to the barren landscape of Newfoundland forces her to confront her fears and loneliness, bringing to mind her isolated childhood, her years at a boarding school and an aborted practice as a veterinarian before moving to New York in an attempt to reconnect with her sister. Immured in alcoholism, Crystal shuns her sister and keeps the world at bay with her boyfriend, Derek, a fire fighter who lost his company in 9/11, and who has developed a chronic obsession from working at the site. Deirdre makes a dramatic turn from working with abandoned animals to the escort industry and performance sex in her attempt to come to terms with her traumatic youth and a moment she cannot remember, a memory she cannot forget.

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