ckboddy

[ckboddy]

Replicas

So, there's a new one, huh?

A new one, yeah. I guess.

She cool?

She's cool.

But is she, like, cool? You know.

What do you mean?

Is she "cool"?

Yeah, she's cool. You'll see.

Okay, man.

Jack left the words at the bottoms of bottles, and hated yet that he even described it that way. Such hack, he thought, and Patty agreed. But Patty hadn't been there in a while and Jack was left to make the best of a better situation, that situation being Patty not being there. It goes and goes around, should you be interested to know, the ideals and thoughts of Jack and Patty. Wasn't it always better to be together and handle the worst like teammates? We knew, but then we didn't. Patty moved away.

In the interim Jack made do with what he had and got good and tossed and spun himself about and managed to find a fine face, a known face, all in the interim. Patty was in Portland, soaking up the independence and donut nonsense that afforded his newfound northern territory. He was good. Jack managed. All was to suffice.

Remember Kern?

Fuck you.

What?!

How could I forget?!

You didn't forget??

FUCK YOU!

YES!

I remembered.

Jesus, you're talking like a fucking fool.

Fuck you.

Okay.

There was a cold night in August, when the wind blew and the boughs coughed and all of us thought of better metaphors for a longing night - cussing at foolishness - these goddamn fools. There was a night. The moon called like a falling star and Patty, in his Portland proper bungalow, sent that text to tell me - the sky is falling. Look while I am looking. We looked. And time traveled.

You shouldn't have left.

I'm sorry.

It's cool. But still, you shouldn't have left.

I know.

We need you here.

I know.

No, you don't.

I had a full scale model of the Millenium Falcon one time. It was the best full scale model of the Millenium Falcon that I ever had. It was unique and amazing and it couldn't be replicated. It was a full scale model of the Millenium Falcon, and it had no comparable thing to it. It was unique and the best, and I miss it.

[ckboddy]

Jack was tired and made up long and slow from all the things of the fading year. Tired, so tired, and doing the best to be unfaded. Colored, most times, in the face and in the heart, but that was going, too. Going fast. But it was so close to a new year and so it was also close to a new beginning, or foolishly thought, at least. But it was a point in time nonetheless, to be starting fresh and new and maybe not so faded. Not so tired and not so long. Remade, maybe. That's what Jack was waiting for - to be remade and new and fresh at the start of a new year...

[ckboddy]

Tunnels

Remember seeing that fam almost drown, the mother and the three little ones, up there at Tunnels Beach - North shore of Kauai. Kilauea, I think, was the proper name. Can't remember. Summers ago. We were there visiting my Grandpops, Papa. He was working that day so me and my girl at the time took his truck for an adventure. We ended up first at my uncle's place. He made necklace art out of Opihi shells. Made them look like turtles or starfish or dolphins. Anything, he could make it. He wasn't really my uncle, not by blood, but that's what you called your elders then, and now. Everyone is Auntie or Uncle or Grandma or Grandpa, depending on the generation. That is the way of our culture. So then we took off to Tunnels, the place in the Kauai guide that was four stars, also talked of by the cousins. Tunnels Beach was prime for snorkeling. Coral sat three feet below the crest, float around with a snorkel and a mask and you could see where the marine life lived and you didn't expend any of that energy. Just float there. The thing about Tunnels was that there was a drop, a cavern, in the middle of the coral bed. It was deep, and ominous, and scary. Don't swim there, the guide said. Swim there and you're swept out into the ocean deep. And you're gone. Sayonara. Don't swim there.

Can you guess what the fam did, what they didn't know?

On the shore, that's where we were, me and my girl at the time, bathing on the shore and enjoying the light of a good day. Laying there when we heard the screams. We looked out along the water, where the coral lay and the edge of the bed met the horizon of the ocean, looking for the calls of a fam lost. This mother and her lot of three, sucked into that cavernous hole, pulled out to sea - the feeling it is to think you'll see a fam drown to death.

I was not a good swimmer and, still, am not a good swimmer, and was not about to play the hero. There was another couple there. The man, he donned his flippers, planned to save the fam. I looked at my girl at the time, shook my head. We're going to see a death today, I told her. The man, he dove in, swam out, left his girl at the shore.

Another lot swam out. Nudists. Homebodies. Natives. They knew the score, the game. They swam out.

Into the deep they go to save this fam. We stood at the shore, watching that current take them further into the blue. The man with the fins, he had an advantage. He had fins. The natives, they just knew the ocean. And they were naked.

They catch the fam. They catch the fam! Way out there in the blue beyond, save them - the mother, the daughter, the two boys - kids who could only be of ten at the most. They saved them.

And the only thing I ever think to really remember is watching this native man, this nudist, walk across the coral with this kid by his side, trying to swim him back, and I thought, Man, what a drag for that kid to swim next to this old dude's dong just floating right by his face. But it could have been worse, and I hope he - they - realized it. They could have died. So, what really is a dong in the face?

[ckboddy]

I need to write of my Grandmother, the way I wrote of my Grandfather, when he passed. When she passed. And I don't know how to do it. I love my Grandmother, the way she cooked Spam and made chicken salad sandwiches, and Oh how she made those chicken salad sandwiches, the things of my childhood. 

I don't want to write of her...

The story she loved the most, the story I think we loved sharing together, was the story of me, as a kid. I was a child and we lived next to a Vietnamese family. And I don't know what it is about this story, the way she loved it, but, as a child of three or four, stood up on the toilet seat, because that is what young children are wont to do, apparently, that's what we do. So, I stand there, on the toilet seat, I stand there all alone. 

And I just unload what I think is their language, the Vietnamese of the neighbors. I spit nonsense atop a toilet, next to their place, I talk jibberish next to these people I do not know. 

And my Grandmother comes - Aye! CK! (she was the one that only ever called me CK - Charles Kevin - that was her's to me) she comes as I am slipping the tastiest morsels into the Vietnamese families thing, she comes and scoops me off the toilet. 

She comes and saves me from being a fool.

And so what do I tell you of my grandmother?

Gloria Jean lived in the the hearts on family. She shaped the way I, and the cousins are and will be, she is in our hearts. 

Gloria Jean Largusa loved her grandkids, and we loved watching Iron Chef with her, and putting Rollie Pollie's in her hair, because that is what we did. She is us. 

[ckboddy]

Heated palms leaving imprints on the marble, warm and lonely, the places we wish we were. A spilled mess, she said, parts of a man scattered about. Regarded, you thought, and how perfectly it seemed. Dry heaving behind the auditorium, blood in the saliva, blood from the nose, four days straight. Mal said it was just a phase and you tried to think so just the same. Passing, she said. It’ll pass. But you were a vapid sort and remained uncalmed by the claim. But she persisted.

How do you manage?

What do you mean?

As a person, a human. How do you manage it?

I don’t. You’ve seen me.

Yes, but still.

I don’t know.

That makes sense.

Does it? I’m not so sure.

Have you ever listened to yourself?

Sometimes.

So?

I couldn’t tell you.

You mesh all the things together, all the loosened ends frayed by your missteps. In the bathroom there is a tumbler half-full of whiskey keeping the aromas of the moment but you will not drink it, not just yet. It is stale and your skin is dry. Everything is dry and pale and dead in the light and your pillow is tired of being your friend, suffocated in your arms. The phone rings twice but you silence it and turn it off. There is a dream within a dream, an escape that lasts until the sun heats your limbs. They are asleep but you are not.

A month passes and suddenly every friend is married, starting lives devoid of you. A child appears and then another. You are an uncle, but not by blood. You are welcomed back into the lives of those you hadn’t been parts of for some time. There is a party, several, but you miss a number of them because conversations have become frightening to a point that you hide from them, avoid them. Jack calls. Calls again. You answer finally after a week of not.

Hello?

Where are you?

Here.

Where?

Around.

What’s the word?

Scordatura.

What?

Look it up.

Losing it?

As always.

Come by.

Maybe.

Just come by.

Okay.

All of a sudden it is April and you and Jack and Sal are dyeing eggs with Sam, the son. He is three now and your hairs are starting to gray, Jack’s too. Sal is pretty as ever, aging with grace. Sam is a hassle, a curious little boy with dark hair and a nose like Jack’s. He asks you what you do. You tell him it’s a secret and if he knew you would have to kill him. The humor, the joke, it is lost on him. After all, he is only three. Sal slaps your arm and you tell him the truth. I work in investments, you say. Sounds boring. Kid, you don’t know the half of it.

The sun goes down and you and Jack are drinking beers in the backyard as the nostalgia of years of friendship washes over you with a fierceness of shining stars. You admire his life and think maybe, someday, just maybe something like this will suit you. It will be some time before a settling finally becomes you. You drink and then you leave and as you drive the streetlights flicker and fade with your wandering mind. Some things, you think. Some things.

[ckboddy]

Directions

Out on the porch Andy kills one cigarette and lights another, offers to me. I'm not one for chain smoking, I say, but really it's in the spirit of the night, and so I have another. The smoke rises against the dark night of the mountain sky. We drink beer and celebrate the 30th year of an old friend. The 30th year - the first of our lot - a good guy and long friend. We spend the weekend in Big Bear, endulging and reminiscing and trying not to be the first to get lost in the woods.

But, as is our fashion on the kind of nights like these, we get lost in the woods. Good and lost for some time, but the group is heavy in number and heavy in spirits and the moon is high and full so our way isn't all that lost, really. Unfamiliar, yes, and cold. The stars glow fierce and clear and I think of a friend and that's where it all begins - the unraveling of me - deep in the woods and wanting to share something special with some one, the way everyone else is doing just the same. It is foolish, of course, and she is not here and has never been here, so it is clearly foolish to tell her to be here, look at stars. Or not, I could not say anything. Not, and then just wonder. I suppose that's what stars are made for.

We do make it back eventually, the half of the group that stayed now scattered about the cabin - playing pool or talking tunes or just soaking in the spa, trying like every mighty thing just to stay awake. I think of another friend.

And it was Pat that was always there, convincing me it was Portland I should turn boots to, and not Austin or Chicago or any other kind of place East of the Grand Canyon. It was something I wanted to believe made sense, going on about the west coast as most of us did, and so it was hard to think of being any place that the ocean wasn't at my side, or a forest, or a creek, or Mike and David and Adam and the rest of them - it was difficult considering being not here, and not now.

Now Mike is getting hitched and Adam is on his way there, too, and every one else is already tied at the fingers and expecting, expecting, expecting. Andy says not to fret, the right situation will come around and that's good and fine, but I was never good at waiting or, should I say, never good at reading the situations on whether to wait or to act. Maybe I was just never good at these kinds a things, period. But we've made it this far and I am happy for my friends who have those that they have. I am happy for a full moon and for a cabin and for the stars. I am happy to wonder.

[ckboddy]

The last two nights I've been able to remember my dreams. They've included the following plot points in, if I can remember clearly, order of occurrence:

- A super secret organization appears, employing many spies. Their mission is to disrupt terrorist activity occurring on US soil, specifically a terrorist agency making civilians into "suicide bombers", but they don't just blow up. They, kind of, bounce around and shoot what's like super crazy buckshot from their backs.

- One of the secret spies is Kevin Costner who, for some reason, is in this inter-departmental war with Ryan Reynolds. But pretty much all they do is jump from building to building and shoot harpoon guns w/nets on the ends at each other. 

- The bad guy of the terrorist group is that dude from Criminal Minds, the white guy boss, not the guy who does Fat Tony's voice. His two henchmen are Key & Peele. Peele is more like Bruce Willis from The Jackal and Key is like this super human Nosferatu looking dude.

- Anyway, we're battling and there's some treasure hidden in this New York style loft. Like, you gotta Spider-man your way up to it.

- Okay, so that's pretty much it, and then I wake up in a room and I've got crazy back problems where I can't even stand up straight to open the blinds. 

- So we go to my grandparents house and, of course, it's Emily and Richard from Gilmore Girls and they're REALLY concerned about my back issues. And it's concerning to me because WHY AM I DREAMING OF HAVING BACK ISSUES?!

- So then we're at this dance-like thing in Stars Hollow but it's not all super-fictiony. Like, I know I'm in a show and so do Rory and Dean and Jess but I'm excited to tell them I already know what's gonna happen.

- And so I start telling them and they're like, whoa! That's crazy! You're a time-traveler?! But I'm like, naw, I think I'm just from another dimension.

- And then this bitchy PA in a shamrock shirt is like, go get in that scene, go do a dance. And so I do.

- And then I briefly wake up and realize I'm doing some kind of Pulp Fiction dance in my actual, real person bed.

- So then I fall back asleep and the people in Stars Hollow are cheering for the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Maple Leafs have Peter Forsberg on their team which is just bizarre and stupid but, like, whatever.

- Then I go back home and I'm dating either Charlize Theron or Ms. Marvel, or maybe it's Charlize Theron AS Ms. Marvel. And I can't really tell if we're dating or just living together, but with a couple other people.

- And then there's this super shady drug deal that goes down and me & ms. whoever are like, what's up? And our best friend/roommate is just like, dude chill. Just trust me. But I can't because then my aunt comes in and is like, your cousin bounced. We can't find him. So, okay cool.

- So we go outside, but it's like this beach exterior. Like what I would imagine a nice cliffside mixed with that scene in the Matrix trilogy, that dance-y, it's the end-of-the-world-but-we're-all-wet-so-fuck-it scene. You know the one.

And then that's it. So, yeah. 

[ckboddy]

I lied when I told Em that everything was fine, just like I lied to Jay that night at the house, before the car and the accident and the IV drips – food for poisoned veins – I said, everything is fine. And I smiled. And then I left, drove my car up a hill and into a pole. A couple, actually. That was something. That was after Jay’s. Em, I just left without another word. We’ve yet to speak again. I hated lying, but I was good at it. I was good at a thing that was terrible, but when you do a terrible thing, and you do it over and over, the rottenness of it all falls to the side and it is then just a ‘thing’. Lying was just the thing that I did, defined of and wrecked by, until it became trouble.

What I had meant to tell Em was that, in fact, everything was not fine. Everything is not fine, Em, and I am telling you this now because I don’t know that it will ever be fine again. And I am so tired of thinking that it will never be fine again and, isn’t this just as annoying to you as it is to me? Annoying and tired and the same damn thing, over and over! Everything is not fine but I am telling you that it is because, you know what, I am not going to tell you why, either. But I am sure you can assume, Em. You know. Just like I know. This goddamn thing again.

And so that’s how it went with us, in the end. There isn’t much else to say about Em. Just like any other woman, really, that’s played this “part” in my world – this role.

I don’t know. I set out to write some kind of story, but lately I’ve had the worst grasp on anything and I guess this is what comes out. I told that to Jay. He says it’s time to get out, up the highway, into the woods – anyplace. He’s probably right. There’s more of a story here, surely. But I don’t care enough. Maybe that’s the problem. It’s all the same, feels the same. I don’t know.

[ckboddy]

Lying in bed, to the wall, I whispered, "Yes. Always yes," and hoped that something small and magical would happen.

[ckboddy]

You turn everything off, and everything gets real quiet and stops, and you're not so much laughing anymore and you're not really doing anything at all. It's just quiet again, and you can hear the dog across the street and the slight drip-drip-drip of the faucet, but everything else is just still, still and quiet and low again, like fog in the night.

[ckboddy]

Doc's office calls the day before to remind me of my appointment so that when it becomes night I remember to set my alarm for the next morning and am able to make it on time and without issue. And so when the alarm goes off I put on my pants and my boots and a button shirt because I do not like having to lift my shirt up for the Doc when he has to check for my breathing. I much rather prefer to unbutton two or three buttons instead of sitting there with my arms up and my belly out. This is not an appointment for blood, at least I do not think, but even still I forego eating breakfast because if it becomes such an appointment it seems best, and easier, to get it out of the way at the same time instead of having to make another appointment when there is no food or sugar inside of me to mess with the results of my blood. But it is early and I do not think that coffee will muddle the numbers so I have some coffee and I drink my coffee black because that is how I always drink it, like my father and like my grandfather and like his father who was on the shipyards the day after the Japanese took to bombing Pearl Harbor, and it is better that way anyhow because there is no cream and no sugar that could still cause my blood to be muddy.

So I drive to the Doc's office and pull into the parking and go up to the door and enter and check in at the front counter with the nurse who asks for my insurance and my name and to fill out all the information on a worn down clipboard with a foolish pen that looks like a wilted flower. I am the only one in the reception which is odd to me because even though it is too early for me it is never too early for older people and they, at least in every other time I have had an appointment, have been the first and second and third people to be waiting for their appointments before me. But I am the only one here so far. Not even the television that usually hums in a low-droll of talk show nonsense is turned on yet. But that is fine because being the only person waiting for an appointment means that I do not have to wait for very long and am submitted to the back for weighing and checking with quickness.

A nurse different from the one at the front leads me back to the scale which is no surprising thing if you have ever been to an appointment before. And so I stand up on the scale and she fiddles with the weights on the bars and I think, this has to be such an ancient thing at this point, right, because this is the 2000's and even I have an electronic weight at home now. Most every person does, so why still with the iron bars? She says my weight is at 145 which is less than what I was some months ago which was when I was at 165 and I know that it is probably true because of the holes that have had to be made on my belt, with all the looseness and sagging of my clothes recently so I believe the scale and the nurse and we go into the room for my appointment.

In the room it is cold just like the rest of the clinic and this is the part that I hate the most because they make you sit up on the bench that is covered in the same paper that you cover the toilet seat in public places when having to relieve yourself and, even at 28, I am still having to sit on this bench that is making me feel childish and small. At some point, in the history of clinics and places like this, they should implement a different bench for grown people so that they do not have to feel like children when they have their appointments, so that they do not have to delay making them and hate going to them. But I get up on the bench and the paper crunches underneath me but the nurse doesn't say anything while she is checking the inside of my ears and my mouth and wrapping my arm with the hand pump to make sure I have the blood pressure in my body that should match the age that I am at. It is over very quick and when she leaves she says that the Doc will be in soon, and she closes the door behind her and leaves me in the cold room to wait.

[ckboddy]

The little, white envelope – the one with the words and the pictures and the things I said and always wished I could take back – remember that envelope and the paper held within., the letters that made to create something lovely, something worthwhile. Because I am not writing poems on the sides or the back and I am not filling the folds with pictures of giraffes or moons. I am not doing any of these things the way you remembered me to be. Did you keep the first ones? The ones made from heartache and longing? Find the drawer, the dresser, the box under your bed labeled “Things made to be remembered.” Are they there? Tucked away neatly beneath polaroids and ticket stubs and the bracelet I bought you, that one time at a shop in Venice, the one with the bull’s skull fastened to leather. It broke too easily, like many things, but you liked it and I recall the hug that followed. It is etched into me and will not fade. Open the first letter, the one from that first year when we fled in opposite directions, running from nothing. How did it start and did you read it with a heavy heart? The poem, that one time, writ on the insides of the paper that only could be seen if you peeled away the seals and unfolded it to be whole. Was it cheesy? Was it good? Did you travel through time as you read it, remembering the canyon and camping and the fire that took the mountain-side and sitting in the river as the sky went to shades of orange and blue. Dear so-and-so, how is it now that you are so far away and I am still idle in the places I hate to be? I know I am not welcome and you are moving forward through the forest and the trees, but my sun has yet to set and all I want is to see a sky that is clear and good but I am only ever fleeing to places that remind me of eyes that fade in a foggy night, but they are warm and a comfort and I was always made of one-liners and broken promises and you were building and building to something fantastic, something unseen but now those places are gone and that is fine, until the sun goes down and meets the hill and everything disappears into stars. But now it is still the same and I can only converse through the use of passages in books, of places “we weren’t so quickly” or “boats on currents” or anything fixed to be a feeling that I couldn’t quite remember, just gleaned from a place where it was once said in better ways than I could ever produce.

[ckboddy]

Matthew T. Jenson died in his sleep on Christmas morning. His remains lay wrapped in Egyptian cloth and silk upon a rosewood divan. The doctor, upon examining his limp frame, would later conclude that his passing was the result of “severe bronchial hemorrhaging brought upon by a globular roving blood clot,” though none of us really knew what that meant. Up until his sudden death Matthew’s medical records were seldom visited – he had made it of utmost priority that his health be top notch, his physical condition be of a “most superior upkeep”. The fact that Matthew was, at least to us, in peak physical condition made the circumstances of his demise that much more peculiar. We all had our own theories on the matter - Timothy believed his death to be the cause of excessive and blunt force trauma, though there were no bruises or other indications to support this (Timothy was always slightly behind the rest of us as far as smarts went, or as Margaret put it, he seemed to have “one foot off the merry-go-round,” though most of us were convinced she never really had the proper grasp of that saying) but mostly we left the speculation, and ultimate diagnosis, to the physician.

[ckboddy]

And This Is Where I Will Find You (pt. I)

1. Bind your hair with ribbon. Look this way in the mirror. Look that way. Count the lines on your face. Find that same number on your hands, in your eyes, off your words. Light candles in the night-time. Call when the power goes out. You are in the shower. It is dark. Search each and every place. Numbers on a telephone.

2. It is 12:30 in the afternoon and I am already late to meet Deb at the shop. I have 10 minutes to make it there, but I know there will be traffic, especially at this time of day, on this type of day. But I have to go, even if I don’t want to. I told her I would meet her. “We should talk,” she says, but I already know what that means. I don’t want to go.

3. Deb is pretty, long in the legs and slender to boot, like a mermaid at the shore. Like most things, it can be devastating. We were more than friends, once. Now, we struggle to be just friends. Or maybe it is me that struggles. I don’t know. I do, but I don’t know. Saying, “I don’t know,” is like freeing yourself from the truth of the matter when you don’t want to face the truth of the matter. Giving yourself a chance, that’s what it’s like. Giving yourself a chance when you know in your core that there probably isn’t one.

4. Driving down the 5 a song comes on that reminds me of a time in the North when Deb and I rambled down the hillside in search of a glass beach. It was cold and we had no real direction, just the road that lead down the coast and hopefully towards what we were searching for. We didn’t find the glass beach. Instead, we bought snacks and water and logs for a fire. Opening a bag of Chex-Mix, I said, “These are pepperoni’s and they are amazing.” "Those are not pepperoni’s!" "They’re not? What are they?!" "I don’t know!" she said, laughing. "Well they’re damn delicious! Pepperoni. Pepperitzi. Pappamutzzi." "You’re crazy." "Puppapazzi."

5. I am sitting in traffic now. Of course. Of course I am sitting in traffic. Always in a rush and never the time to make it. I think about calling Deb, telling her I can’t make it. I can’t I can’t I can’t, I would say. I’m sorry, but I can’t. Ten years ago I wouldn’t make that decision. Hell, five years ago I wouldn’t. But that is the thing about time and experiences that changes a person. I was brave once, too, like most people, but somewhere along the way bravery fled from me like the breaking of a dam. You can try to fill it again, but it will it be as strong? I don’t know.

6. I don’t know I don’t know I don’t know.

7. Deb calls my phone. "Are you close?" "Almost there." "Traffic." "Always." "I’m near the big tree, ‘round back." "Okay." "Want me to order something for you?" "It’s fine. Thanks." "Okay." Okay.

8. I pull up to the shop a few minutes later. It’s a small, unassuming coffee place on the corner near her apartment. They make pretty decent sandwiches there. This is where she tells me the first time that she is a vegetarian. “But I will eat fish, so don’t worry.” I remember thinking how fortunate I was, that at least she ate fish, that it wouldn’t be so bad, that at least we could still make sushi and grill salmon. One morning she made Lox. I had never had it before. She spent time in New York, and so she had it there, but that was despite the fact that she was already a great cook. But she spent time there and she was cultured and experienced and I had yet to know most every place on the map. This is what happens, what always happens, that I get distracted by where she’s been and where I haven’t and that I was never really good enough - the needling insecurities born from one’s preference in food.

[ckboddy]

They weren't my words, but I felt them all the same, in every single part of me, and I wanted like Hell to have my own, so that I could give them to you.

[ckboddy]

Old "Issue(s)" Teaser...

I found what seems to be some kind of episode that never got shot for Issue(s) almost 3 years ago, or at least that's what the file says. So, welp. Here you go...

in black

boddy(v.o.)

Here we are again, Patty boy. My sweet, sweet mountain lion. Yet again, another year, another day, another quiet, lonesome night. My good friend, it is the time, oh how sweet it is the time. What’s that, you say? Am I eating pizza and drinking at (looks at clock) flashing 12:00 – what the hell kind of time is that. Pat. Pat, guess what? My clock is drunk. I may have to give it a ride home.

cut to:

int. bedroom. webcam. night

BODDY’s face appears on a webcam. It’s another classic, drunken rant from him. He’s sipping a drink and eating pizza as he talks.

BODDY

(slightly sauced)

It’s a new year, amigo! New year…new cheer new…(looks at drink) beer! But, but! No new reindeer. Ha, get it! Because it’s not Christmas.

jump cut to:

a few moments later

boddy

(more sauced)

Seriously! It’s like, how hard can it be?! Oh, uh, I’m gonna give you the power of flight, or I’m gonna kill off every male, or, you know, I’m gonna, you know…uh, I mean it’s no that hard, right? Right! So let’s just-

jump cut to:

later

boddy

(Drunk)

Oh, God. Who wears short shorts?! Ba-na-na-da-na-na-na. I wear shlort shorts!

jump cut to:

later

boddy

(half-asleep)

Pat. Paaaaaat. You must go to the Dagobah system.

jump cut to:

int. bedroom. webcam. morning.

BODDY is hunched over on his desk, remnants of pizza around him. from the angle of the webcam WE SEE:

pat enter

The shot no longer looks like a WEBCAM but AN ACTUAL SCENE. PAT tries to wake BODDY

pat

Boddy. Boddy. Hey. Wake up, man.

boddy

(waking)

Ughhh…what? Pat. That you?

pat

Jesus. What the Hell did you do last night?

boddy

Last night? What time is it?

pat

It’s almost noon.

boddy

The clock…Pat. The clock, there’s something wrong with time. The time, Pat.

pat

C’mon man. You’re talking nonsense.

boddy

Pat. I ate the pizza. I ate all the pizza.

pat

You sure did, bud. Now get up, get dressed. We’re supposed to film today.

boddy

Film? Like the film on the sink?

pat

What? No, you dummy. Film like film “Issues”.

boddy

What’s Issues?

Both PAT and BODDY have a, “Well, I’m glad you asked!” moment, possibly even looking right at the camera, when we hear the familiar intro to Issue(s) hit and on the “Uh-oh-Uh” we-

smash cut to:

fake trailer beginning

(NOTE: The next several scenes will be of random events cutting along to the theme song “Infinity Guitars”. No dialogue. Just made up events and shots that probably won’t even be a part of any real episode

Also, the order of scenes is not necessarily the final order. Scenes may be changed for look or flow.)

int. apt. day

BODDY standing up next to a wall COVERED in INDEX CARDS with random comic book ideas.

Pat in the foreground NODDING along as BODDY GESTURES and MOVES as if he is explaining what the hell is on them.

cut to:

int. car. day

PAT and BODDY drive around singing at the top of their lungs and looking like fools.

cut to:

ext. street. day

PAT and BODDY SPRINTING for their lives from something, nothing in particular. Both look TERRIFIED. BODDY trails PAT who has a BURRITO in his hand.

cut to:

int. bathroom. night

PAT and BODDY sharing a sink and SHAVING together.

cut to:

int. apartment. night

PAT and BODDY squaring off in a NERF shootout. Maybe they’re having an all-out battle, maybe it’s just a duel. The MAIN POINT is to get some really cool HERO SHOTS (e.g. tracking shot from face to extended arm and end of gun)

cut to:

int. apt. day.

PAT and BODDY at a table working on THE PUZZLE.

(NOTE: This is a “maybe” scene, but if we decide to bring the PUZZLE back then this scene will be the only one in which the music DROPS OUT, leaving an awkward silence.)

cut to:

int/ext. tbd

¡OBLIGATORY DANCE PARTY SCENE!

And on the last scene, on the “Uh-oh-uh” WE WILL:

smash cut to:

title cards – issue(s)

[ckboddy]

Three years had passed before Joel had heard from Callie again. It was close to midnight and was sitting at his computer when a sound like a bell came through his speakers. It was an email from Callie:

Joel,

How are you? Been a while, huh? I’m in town for a week or so. We should get coffee. What do you think?

-Cal

Joel sat staring at the screen for several minutes. They hadn’t spoken for so long and yet his brain was already working toward finding its hidden meaning. The ice in his whiskey cracked under the light of his desk lamp, stringing Joel out of his focus. His palms were damp and his heartbeat quick. He put his hands to the keys and started to type.

Cal,

Wow. Hey. Kind of surprised to hear from you. Yeah, coffee sounds good. Let’s do that. I’m free the next couple days. Just let me know what’s good for you. Talk to you soon.

-Joel

He clicked “send” before he could change his mind, approving his decision by finishing off his drink with a wince. He thought about Callie, about their relationship and what, or lack thereof. They had known each other for a year before they stopped talking. He always had a thing for her, a sort of unrequited affection, though in her case it was more of a situational, unpermitted compassion. She shared similar feelings, sure, but she was, at the time, spoken for and he a man that can only take denial for so long.

Joel sat there for a moment and let his thoughts take over. There was a knock on his door followed by another bell sound. He looked toward the computer screen. It was another message from Callie. That was fast, he thought. There was a second knock and then a voice. “Joel. You awake?”

            “Come on in, Deb.”

Deb opened the door. She was his roommate. She had short hair and brown eyes, kind of Italian but not really. She was pretty. They had known each other for a few years, met in college and hit it off well enough that they now share a place. She walked into his room and sat on the bed. “Still awake, huh?” she asked.

            “Yeah. Cal emailed me.”

            “Who?” She sat there cross-legged.

            “Callie.”

            “Oh. Wow. Why?”

            “I don’t know, but I think we’re getting coffee.”

            “Alright. That seems like a good idea.” He could tolerate her sarcasm.

            “I think so. It’s been a while now anyway.” Joel spun back around to face his computer. He clicked the new message on the screen and it opened.

            “That from her?” Deb asked.

            “Yeah. We’re going tomorrow apparently.”

            “Perfect. And, just so we’re clear, you’re meeting because…?”

            “Because she asked. I don’t know. It should be fine.”

            “Let’s hope so.”

            “I’m sorry but did you need something?” he asked, spinning back toward her.

            “Are you going to Dan’s thing tomorrow night?”

            “Dan’s thing?”

            “His party. For his birthday.”

            “Oh, shit. That is tomorrow, isn’t it?”

            “Yeah. Are you going to go?”

            “I planned on it. It’s just at his apartment, right?” He was back to facing the computer again. “I don’t know when I’ll be there if that’s what you’re wondering.”

            “Because of Callie now?”

            “Well, yeah. I don’t know how long we’re going to be getting coffee.”

            “Oh, geez,” Deb stood up and moved toward the door. “Hey, don’t -” she paused for a moment and leaned on the wall. “Just keep your head about you. Don’t get your hopes up, huh?”

            Joel took a slight offense to this. Did she think he couldn’t handle his shit? As if the past three years of practicing a complete emotional detachment from Cal would come unraveled at the first sight? She has no faith in me, he thought. But he knew better. He knew it wouldn’t be a problem. It was just coffee after all. Fixed to the screen he said, “I’ll let you know about Dan’s.”

            “Okay. Sleep sweet.” Deb walked out, closing the door behind her.

            Joel sat there for a moment more, staring at the screen, at the words on the screen. They seemed to bleed together. Small characters of black mixing with the others, forming large pools of electronic ink on the screen. He imagined immersing himself in them, in the black, these words that, even now, already, were taking their hold on him. Deb said keep your head about you, man. He saw himself swimming in the hopes, the possibilities tomorrow was going to bring. But he was cautious. He had to be. Joel snapped out of his daze and shook the glass that once held a drink. It was a little more than small cubes of ice now. He thought about refilling it, if only to help him fall asleep. This night, however, he decided against it.

            Clicking the desk light off, Joel shut down his computer and went into the bathroom. One of the light bulbs was out above his mirror and had been dead for some time. He brushed his teeth and washed his face, avoiding the chore taking a shower brought on. It was two in the morning now, the typical time that Joel would usually pass out. He got into bed. He thought about Callie again, about what might happen once they met. Was she going to call him? Was he supposed to call her? Details they hadn’t decided. It would be fine, he thought. Someone will call someone. We’ll talk tomorrow, have coffee, and have a fine time. As he fell into a dream he could hear the sound of a siren fading in the distance. A dog barked and then there was a bang and then there was Joel, unmoving, locked in a reverie.