the bed, his bladder very full, watching Brooks watch the soup movie, which took place entirely in a large, dingy kitchen with checkered tiles.
Off to one side of the kitchen there is a bathtub, and in the bathtub there is the lonely person, a young woman in a one-piece purple bathing suit, persuasively glum with her straight-ahead stare. The chef, though his dubbed patter is as ebullient and seamless as that of any real television chef and his smiles and flourishes are also in keeping with the genre, evinces a criminal dissipation. Half-shaved, he claps around in ragged flip-flops, and wears a dingy unexplained bandage at the side of his neck. After filling a bucket with water, the chef returns to the bathtub and the lonely person, soles snapping against the linoleum, and explains, “I’m using water. But if you would prefer broth, that is fine, too.”
It was February, a new year. Predawn light limned the edges of the sheet hung over the window.
Seated on the rug a few feet away from his open laptop, Brooks stopped rocking back and forth. He swiveled around to squint at Sam with bloodshot eyes. “Oh, like. Like . . . What do you mean?”
Intoxication tended to inflame Sam’s incredulity. “I mean, if I have to listen to this—whoever—warlock, necromancer—person—explain why the miserable soul should be allowed to soak in a quart of vinegar poured from a chipped pitcher, then you might at least tell me why .”
“Why? Uh . . . why not?” Brooks blinked.
“No, Brooks. That is not a satisfactory answer.”
Brooks blinked some more. He scratched at his forehead. “Well, it’s not like anything else, is it?”
“No. Still not satisfactory. Go again.”
“It’s about soup, making soup. What other movie is about making soup, Sam?” The AD scratched his chin and rubbed his nose. For no real reason, he swept a hand through the empty air. “And the main ingredient is a person!” he blurted, as if Sam might have forgotten.
“Let’s add some onion!” The chef dumps a fistful of diced onions into the water at the lonely person’s feet, then makes a show of wiping his hands. “Optimally, the onion should be from the garden of a man who has cancer. At the very least—the very, very least—you should rub your onion on a cancer person.”
Either Brooks was brainless, or he was hiding something, or he was a complete madman. Sam wanted to poke him with a sharp pole for being so unfathomable. “Let’s try this another way, Brooks. Name one normal movie that you like.”
“What do you mean by normal?”
“A movie you saw in a goddamn theater. And not a theater where everyone had their hands inside their raincoats.”
The younger man dropped his head into his hands and made a noise as if a doctor were sticking a tongue depressor down his throat. A minute or two elapsed. The gagging noise continued. Sam reached his arm out from under the blanket to fish around on the floor near Brooks’s bed. He found a balled-up white sock and hurled it at him. The sock sailed over the AD’s head to strike the wall with a soft thud. Sam fished again and came up with a box of kitchen matches.
Brooks glanced up. “I’m sorry. I’m blanking. I mean, you know, like—I like pretty much all of them. You know? Because it’s just—It takes you away. They take you away. The movies do.”
Sam, arm cocked, box of matches in hand, hesitated.
■ ■ ■
In a film theory class, Sam could sit at a seminar table and highlight the intertextual fatuousness of E.T. with the best of them—could chortle at Spielberg’s (frankly colonial) infantilizing of his spaceman, who is dressed and bathed and plied with candy and even jammed into a mound of stuffed animals—but what truly bothered Sam about the movie was that it was simply dishonest . No living being, in this galaxy or any other, was entirely good. E.T. was as fake as Jesus.
His own cinematic predilections began—and nearly ended—with that single
Off to one side of the kitchen there is a bathtub, and in the bathtub there is the lonely person, a young woman in a one-piece purple bathing suit, persuasively glum with her straight-ahead stare. The chef, though his dubbed patter is as ebullient and seamless as that of any real television chef and his smiles and flourishes are also in keeping with the genre, evinces a criminal dissipation. Half-shaved, he claps around in ragged flip-flops, and wears a dingy unexplained bandage at the side of his neck. After filling a bucket with water, the chef returns to the bathtub and the lonely person, soles snapping against the linoleum, and explains, “I’m using water. But if you would prefer broth, that is fine, too.”
It was February, a new year. Predawn light limned the edges of the sheet hung over the window.
Seated on the rug a few feet away from his open laptop, Brooks stopped rocking back and forth. He swiveled around to squint at Sam with bloodshot eyes. “Oh, like. Like . . . What do you mean?”
Intoxication tended to inflame Sam’s incredulity. “I mean, if I have to listen to this—whoever—warlock, necromancer—person—explain why the miserable soul should be allowed to soak in a quart of vinegar poured from a chipped pitcher, then you might at least tell me why .”
“Why? Uh . . . why not?” Brooks blinked.
“No, Brooks. That is not a satisfactory answer.”
Brooks blinked some more. He scratched at his forehead. “Well, it’s not like anything else, is it?”
“No. Still not satisfactory. Go again.”
“It’s about soup, making soup. What other movie is about making soup, Sam?” The AD scratched his chin and rubbed his nose. For no real reason, he swept a hand through the empty air. “And the main ingredient is a person!” he blurted, as if Sam might have forgotten.
“Let’s add some onion!” The chef dumps a fistful of diced onions into the water at the lonely person’s feet, then makes a show of wiping his hands. “Optimally, the onion should be from the garden of a man who has cancer. At the very least—the very, very least—you should rub your onion on a cancer person.”
Either Brooks was brainless, or he was hiding something, or he was a complete madman. Sam wanted to poke him with a sharp pole for being so unfathomable. “Let’s try this another way, Brooks. Name one normal movie that you like.”
“What do you mean by normal?”
“A movie you saw in a goddamn theater. And not a theater where everyone had their hands inside their raincoats.”
The younger man dropped his head into his hands and made a noise as if a doctor were sticking a tongue depressor down his throat. A minute or two elapsed. The gagging noise continued. Sam reached his arm out from under the blanket to fish around on the floor near Brooks’s bed. He found a balled-up white sock and hurled it at him. The sock sailed over the AD’s head to strike the wall with a soft thud. Sam fished again and came up with a box of kitchen matches.
Brooks glanced up. “I’m sorry. I’m blanking. I mean, you know, like—I like pretty much all of them. You know? Because it’s just—It takes you away. They take you away. The movies do.”
Sam, arm cocked, box of matches in hand, hesitated.
■ ■ ■
In a film theory class, Sam could sit at a seminar table and highlight the intertextual fatuousness of E.T. with the best of them—could chortle at Spielberg’s (frankly colonial) infantilizing of his spaceman, who is dressed and bathed and plied with candy and even jammed into a mound of stuffed animals—but what truly bothered Sam about the movie was that it was simply dishonest . No living being, in this galaxy or any other, was entirely good. E.T. was as fake as Jesus.
His own cinematic predilections began—and nearly ended—with that single
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