I remember my second year at university. All of my friends wanted to go down to the field and initiate the freshmen, cover them with whipped cream and blue dye, make them do stupid things, just humiliate them and get them horribly drunk. I looked at these people – my friends, good friends – and they were practically foaming at the mouth, intimidating these kids.I don’t know. It was like rape.
Dazed and Confused (Linklater, 1993)
These kids were only a year younger than us, just a year, but we had had it done to us, and so it was our turn. It was our turn to be bullies. That’s what we were trained to do. We called it a rite of passage or some bullshit about growing up, but it was just rape. And it doesn’t stop there. It’s in everything we do, in school, at work, buying groceries, getting on a plane, walking in the street.
Occupy Wall Street
We learn to accept it. We learn to give it back. Worse than that, we learn to derive pleasure from giving it back. We feel justified in giving it back.That’s why I don’t have faith in us. We’re more infantile than when we were kids.
It was that plane – that was it – vanishing, a plane into a building and then that smoke billowing out, that sideways hole, and the other, turning as it hit, nose out perfectly and fireballs, screaming on the ground and crap everywhere and watching and watching, the building coming down, its radio antennae like a hat, a boy’s hat, and puffing out, all of it sinking, the dust of it, bits sticking up.And then everyone saying childish things because that’s all they had and listening and waiting for better angles and thinking it might mean something, to give it meaning, something like this, this thing, impossible and obvious, and not doing anything, just watching, footage, pictures, and thinking that it must be something. 9-11. A phone number, nothing. * (*From All In)
Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin wrote in his autobiography Return to Earth: I am a very direct person: when I have a goal, it is stated.He underlined this point of view with a right to the jaw of a conspiracy crackpot who wouldn’t stop badgering him with a bible in 2009. No charges were filed as it was determined that Aldrin was provoked.
Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin wrote in his autobiography that, “there is no haze (in space). Delineations are quite sharp.” In other words, with no atmosphere in space, there is nothing to obscure. This begs the question: Does a story set in space also lose its atmosphere? And the characters? What happens to them without any haziness?
Dling stayed still, making himself as small as he could.
“Little bunny?”
Dling dashed from his oil barrel trap, straight through Maggie’s wobbly legs.
“There he goes!” Abraham charged after him, his breath coming out in burps and phlegm. Dling darted through the Arctic Willow and Bearberry, spun through the boulders along a long ridge and to another great beach. He leaped between ice chunks, his paws slipping and skidding, and caught the edge of a small iceberg and climbed to its tiny shoulder. Abraham steamed into the water, old and stumbling, and pulled himself onto the iceberg; he had a gun. “Rabbit!” Dling knew that he was in trouble and that shrinking himself down wouldn’t be enough. He sprang onto the open ice, exposed to the vastness, and seeing Abraham barreling after him, collapsed and feigned death. “Careful out there, Abraham!” Maggie screeched. “That ice is no good.”
“I know what I’m doing!” Abraham slid his feet out, creeping along the edge, wheezing and burping, and was right there.
“Watch that bunny! He’s a sneaky little bastard!”
“I know it.” Abraham reached out to grab Dling, the hairy crooked fingers just touching his paw, when the ice broke. Abraham was in the water, thrashing and gasping. Dling jumped away and clicked his teeth in excitement; that was his hare laugh.
“You little bastard! You little rotten bunny!” Maggie waved her white wobbly arms. “I’ll get you!”
The water stayed dark. Abraham never came up. And Maggie cried after him. “Abraham! Don’t leave me here!”
Dling hopped along the open ice, balanced himself across the gaps and climbed to the next iceberg to consider his happiness once again.
Dling, the Arctic Hare, drifted on his iceberg for days and days. It was always light.He was happy tucked alone into his icy alcove, watching the world drift past, but thought too much about what happiness really was and that made him less happy than when he had started thinking about it. The iceberg became caught on the rocky bottom and so Dling got off. The beach was long and rocky. Pieces of ice lined the sand. He sat in the sun, thinking, and the whole issue of happiness came up again, and so he ran up the steep sandy slopes to get his head to shut up. He scurried up through the Arctic Willow and Bearberry. He climbed and ran around the boulders and darted through a long line of oil barrels that went and found himself face to face with a wobbly looking old woman. “Hello, little bunny.” Dling shrunk himself down.
“You’re a funny bunny. A funny bunny! Don’t be scared, funny bunny. I’m your friend.. My name’s Maggie. What’s yours?”
“What you got there?” A scratchy squeaky voice asked behind her.
“It’s a bunny! A funny bunny.”
“Get him in here.”
“He’s scared.” She turned back to Dling. “Aren’t you?”
“It’s okay, funny bunny. You can come join us when you like. You can have some nice warm willow soup.”
Dling didn’t move. He didn’t even like willow soup. Maggie’s big face vanished. But Dling could still hear her whisper. “He’s scared.”
“Of course he’s scared, Margaret. He’s a rabbit. He knows we’re going to eat him.”
“Shh. You have to be quiet, Abraham.”
“I am being quiet.”
Dling backed straight slowly away and then realized he was trapped. The oil barrels were everywhere.
Part two of another potential Apollofilm: 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?
Another potential Apollofilm: 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.
One hopes and prays and bashes his head against the wall. But it knows. It can bide its time. It knows that all the errors, all the detours, all the failures and frustrations will be turned to account.To be born a writer, one must learn to live privation, suffering, humiliation. Above all, one must live apart. The writer clings to his limb while beneath him life surges by steady, persistent, tumultuous. (Henry Miller on Writing, 73)
