Scenes not for the novel

The screen pans back on a shark of a man. Upper middle but living in an apartment, seperated from his ex-wife because he's sure she can find someone better but the audience knows different.

Irony.

He's wearing a shoulder holster but its not clear why. Is this a cop movie? An FBI thriller? Something to do with some foreign spy agency that always seems a bit more shady than our own. As if their torture were byzantine, ours derived from the boyscouts. Who knows?

He's had three o'clock shadow through the whole film and a hair cut like skull cap in Buck Rogers. Something that would go well with spiked shoulder pads. Dinner apparel for the apocalypse. In actuality (not the right word--it's just an actor) he's wearing a dark gray wool blazer and a white button up. He's got one foot set on the precipice which he looks over onto the town below.

Just a few feet lower his new partner, a man in cowboy boots and hat to match, stares over the precipice as well with a match ticking between his teeth. He says things like, "not on my watch," "maybe this here town's podunk, and that might make me a podunk sherrif, but I'm still a sherrif and this here's still my town."

Not now.

Now he has a confused look on his face as if he's pondering a scam he succumbed to three days prior. -But, where are you intending to find that many retards at this time of day?-

Bobby, watching the screen, mumbles the words noiselessly with his mouth. Movies like these, put on around two in the afternoon, are an anaethma to the delirious. He's trying his best to act as if his head is straight, trying to make his consternation a symptom of machismo (and being a hundred and fifty pounds, not quite pulling that off), but when suddenly the films he watches pull games with reality above and on top of the halucinations pressed upon him by the hard drugs, there's really nothing he can quite do to parcel out reality from reality from reality.

Did that character, the sherrif-type-guy really just ask about retards, and finding retards, and what could the time of day have to do with something like that? Or is all this part of a halucination too? Is he watching some western or buddy cop movie and he just heard a line wrong? My God, what is he watching?

The shark doesn't take his eye off the town. -I've got a plan.-

Switch shot. New location. Hollywood magic.

First. Close up on drool. Then another mouth licking lips. A smile with bad teeth pulling back to the vacant eyes of a simpleton--slightly crossed. Another face. Another. Same toothy grin. Same smiling and shallow eyes. A caricature of devlopmental disabilities. It fills Bobby with certainty. He can't have halucinated such a thing. It is too far afield from his own sensibilities.

He calls to Slam. -Dude you've got to see this. It's like that midget western from the other day.-

As the camera pulls back, the audience sees that they all wear the same uniforms, all stand in the same way at the end of the cash registers. They are the bagger army at the local grocery outlet.

-Like child labor.- Slam has cracked a beer but as per usual has forgotten about it in his hand. He stares at the television screen through his dark glasses that are never removed. He plops down on the seat next to Bobby without ever taking his eyes on the screen. Bobby searches for the word.

Transfixed.

-What's like child labor?-
-You're supposed to feel good for them because they've got a job. Like that's the epitome of salvation, bagging groceries for three dollars over minimum wage.-
Bobby looks back at the screen. Hadn't thought of that. -I don't think I've ever made three dollars over minimum wage.-
-Well, maybe if you apply yourself.- Slam remembers his beer, takes a swig, but by now it's warm.
-Have you ever seen this movie before?-
-Sure. Shit it was up for best picture a couple of years ago.-
-This was?-
-Yeah. It's all about empowerment. You know. All the best movies are about empowerment.-
-What's it called?-
-Siamese and Conditional or some shit like that. Movies have titles now that don't make much sense. Wait...Twilight of the Cankerdort. No wait, I'm thinking of A Good Day for Edmund Spenser. I don't remember. You've seen this shit haven't you?-
-No.- Bobby's fairly sure he'd remember.
-The aliens have landed and they want to talk to the retarded guys and everyone figures that, you know, there's no harm.-
-Because they're good natured.-
-Yeah, and they're always spitting out life wisdom, or winning college football games, shit like that. In any case, the retarded guys convince the aliens to blow up everyone else. It's all about, you know, coming into your own I think. To tell you the truth, I never get these artsy films.-
-That's horrible. Dude, that's horrible, right? I mean I'm all fucked up so it's hard to figure but that's...horrible, right?-
-Oh I don't know. They're showing, you know, dilligence, hard work, that kind of crap.-
-That's horrible. They kill everyone? Really?-
-Who are you to critique, sitting around here sucking down acid and washing it down with beer. Like you've got a right to judge.- Slam pauses and then fills in the thought. -What do you have against retards anyway.-
-Stop calling them retards.-
Slam, having forgotten, takes another swig of beer. -Denying them their diversity. Sometimes Bobby I forget how closed minded you can be.-

The movie continues. The apocalypse proceeds just as Slam had predicted, and in the afterglow of the destroyed cities, Bobby can't quite figure out who he should be rooting for.