What is Real (12 page)

Jiggle, jiggle
.

And then I can breathe again.

I walk home. Slowly. Scuffing my shoes through the gravelly shoulder of the road that broadens to four lanes. The highway that cuts through the town. The trucks roar by and try to pull me into their slipstream.

Our Joe's farm is yellow in the sun. Green. It rolls around for miles. His ugly new house is up at the front, topping the gravel driveway like a bad, seriously-not-funny joke. A suburban palace, columns and glass. And he has no idea how ugly it is. He thinks people stare because it's amazing. Joe himself is on his front steps, and I'm relieved that he's dressed. He raises his hand in greeting and shouts, “TOUCHÉ!”

I have no idea what he means by that, but it pisses me off.

“Shut up,” I shout back, and he laughs like I'm the funny kid I used to be. Did he know me then? I can't remember. I want so bad to hit him. I've never wanted to hit someone like I want to hit that old, pathetic, fucked-up, weird man.

Goddamn it.

My legs feel wobbly. I need to lie down.

I veer away, left, right. I stumble. I spin around. Then I'm there, in the corn.

Again.

Lost.

I like the way it feels, the randomness of a row. Like diving into the water from a different place each time and always ending up the same. T-dot once told me that diving into the water felt like coming home.

In the corn, I know what he means. I walk and walk.

And maybe the part that is so familiar is the fact that I can't see my way, and a part of me is scared. The corn is high and thick. I turn in circles like a little kid, around and around and around, and way above my head a plane passes on its way to Vancouver. No one can see me. I spin until the corn tilts and then I fall, hitting my head on a stalk that doesn't give, the stalk leaving a claw mark on my cheek. I want it to puncture. I want it to go right through me. Threaded like a needle.

The dirt catches me. It's cool and damp. I lie still and the world tilts and swirls above me. The corn moves and bends. I light up and close my eyes and then open them again and pull all that sweet smoke deeper inside of me than anything ever goes.

And hold it.

If I could hold it forever, I would.

But eventually I have to exhale.

I wait.

And wait.

And wait.

And then.

chapter 10

EXT.—CORNFIELD—EARLY EVENING, SUNNY WITH CLOUDS
GATHERING

And…

SCENE:

Dex Pratt is on his back in the cornfield.

He is alone.

No, scratch that. He is not alone. Maybe.

Dex Pratt is on his back in the cornfield. He is waiting.
While he is waiting, he is smoking a joint from Gary's
batch. Wheelchair weed, it's called. (Spot the irony.) It's strong. Somehow show that it's strong. Impossible. Never mind.

Show the wheelchair.

Show the plants.

Show that it's strong. How?

Dex is forgetting how to use the camera to show things.

Show Dex forgetting.

CUT TO:
INT.—X-RAY LAB

Show a picture of Dex's brain. Show how areas are being
blurred out. Somehow connect that to this. Zoom in close
to his whorls of gray matter and show that very close up
they look like clouds. Show that very close up they look
like smoke. Show that very close up they look like paths
cut into the field of corn. Show that closer they are a map
of the maze.

A kid in the middle. Tanis in the middle.

Crying.

She wants help. She is holding up a sign. The sign says,
Help me, Dex Pratt
.

Show Dex running away or running in place or
squinting maybe like there is something too bright to look
at in his path.

FLASHBACK TO:
INT.—LIVING ROOM

Show the stained couch. The way Dad hovers in the
entryway, his wheelchair nearly too big for the space. The
fireplace, filled with garbage that spills out onto the floor.
Chinese food boxes on the coffee table. Empty. Disgusting.

DAD
I got good news, kid. You'll like these.

Show Dad throwing the bag of seeds at Dex. Dex startled,
drops them. The bag of seeds looks like a…bag of seeds.

DEX
Whoopee.

DAD
This could make us rich, son. This is the stuff.
You don't know what I had to do to get this.

DEX
Make some calls?

DAD
Yeah, something like that.

DEX
So, big whoop. I'll plant them, okay? I'll do it.
Fine.

DAD
Yes, you will.

Show how Dad looked like he wanted to say more. Show
how Dex picked up the remote, turned the volume up on a
show just when the laugh track came on and for a minute the
room was filled with laughter.

CUT BACK TO PRESENT:

DEX
This stuff tastes like shit.

Hold the camera above him and spin it.

Make the movie better. More artsy. This needs to be an
artsy one. Consider the soundtrack carefully. Speed up the
film and slow it down. Blur it and then make it so sharp that
the edges glow.

Show the sky, filling slowly with dark clouds, black
smudges of them, coal smears on the fake happiness of the
blue. Because that's true. The clouds are gathering. People
like weather in their movies. Weather sets the mood. Think of
The Ice Storm
. Move the weather faster across the screen and
then slower and then at hyperspeed.

Show some wasps. Flying slowly.

Show the corn parting and someone is standing in front
of Dex. The sun is shining in his eyes though. Still. Again.
Show how he can't see who it is.

OLIVIA
I've been looking for you.

DEX
What?

OLIVIA
I'm here.

DEX
Who are you?

OLIVIA
I'm Olivia.

DEX
I know. I just can't think of the exact right thing
to say to you that will make you understand
what is happening here.

OLIVIA
Do you understand what is happening here?

DEX
No. I'm here.

OLIVIA
So am I.

Show Olivia sitting down next to Dex in the dirt. Show Dex
having a fucking heart attack and dying.

DEX
This is stupid. I give up.

Show Dex giving up. Lying in the corn. Smoking. Eyes half
shut. He is alone. Dex is always alone. His phone rings.
Show Dex ignoring the phone. Show someone else standing
in the corn. It's not Olivia; that's a stupid fantasy. It's Our Joe.
He's watching Dex. Show Dex sitting up, becoming aware of
someone staring.

DEX
What?

OUR JOE
That shit'll kill you, you know.

DEX
(lying back down)
Not hardly. It's natural.

Show how he is pretending to not be afraid. Show him taking
off his shoes and using them to beat Our Joe to death. No,
that's stupid. Cut that. Show him getting up and stretching. Show him thinking, pausing. Show him striking. No, cut that
too. Show the truth: Show Dex doing nothing.

OUR JOE
Sometimes old people are wise.

DEX
True. Too bad you're not.

OUR JOE
Hey now.

DEX
What did you do, Our Joe? What did you do to
her?

OUR JOE
(laughing)
She'll never tell.

Show Our Joe laughing. Make the laughter morph into a
hyena's shriek. Show Our Joe turning into a hyena, slowly,
grotesquely. Show him running away through the corn. Show Dex turning into a lion and destroying him. Show Dex
turning into a pussycat and falling asleep. Show Dex turning
to stone. Show how he can't move.

Show Our Joe turning back into an old man wearing a
red Speedo bathing suit and a turtleneck sweater with lurid
yellow stripes. He appears to be carrying a fish. The flash of
red and yellow in between the stalks of corn says that he's
running. Can a man that old really run?

DEX
I just wanted one about Olivia, is that so
wrong? Fuck you. I mean, fuck me. I mean…
oh, forget it. Do I ever get what I want?

OLIVIA
Yes, you do, Dex.

But she isn't there. Was she ever there?

Take back the film. It's your film. It's your not-even-there-imaginary-
camera and you are the director and the star,
Dex Pratt. Take it back.

CUT TO:
INT.—A BEDROOM, ANY BEDROOM, MAYBE A HOTEL ROOM

Show how the room is messy. Show Dex, naked. Show Olivia,
naked. Cut to the sex.

DEX
It's better if there is a story.

OLIVIA
There is always a story. Think about it. Didn't
you make me up?

DEX
Yes. You aren't real.

OLIVIA
But I am. So maybe you're just psychic, maybe
you predicted me.

DEX
Cut to the sex.

Play a lot of loud music. Make it look like a music video. It is a music video. Go back and edit out all the dialogue.
The dialogue is the problem.

CUT TO:
EXT.—CORNFIELD

Show the weather changing. Black clouds clashing together
like cymbals, rain falling, and lightning. (This part is real.) The soggy joint on the ground. Dex Pratt is sitting up, soaking wet, holding his head. Show Dex making his way
through the corn. Show his false starts. Is it right or left?
Which way did he come in?

Dex Pratt is lost in the cornfield. The corn is leaning
under the weight of the sudden rain. Show the rain, falling
so heavily that it becomes impossible to see anything else.
A blur of rain. Play a song here. Maybe the one that was
playing when Feral…

That one.

There is some kind of meaning in that. Show Dex's face.
Show how there is no difference between raindrops and
tears, and if you don't know which is which, what does it
matter? Show him running. Lost. Show him screaming.
Show that part again and again in slow motion.

Then show the dog. Show Glob, the ever-loyal golden,
lumbering through the corn. Barking. Saving another Pratt.

Show Dex following the limping dog back home.

Then show Olivia. Show her. Soaking wet. Show her
nipples in her see-through shirt. Show her face. Show
her walking out of the corn, adjusting her jeans.

Imply something.

Imply everything.

Show Dex's phone. Still ringing. Tanis, it says on the
screen in highlighted letters. Tanis Bowerman. Show Dex not answering, the phone ringing in the dirt, in the rain,
where it will almost certainly be wrecked before he ever
finds it again.

Things get lost that way.

chapter 11
september 14, this year.

It is the second week of school, and for seven days I haven't seen her. The Girl.
Olivia
. I like that name. I hate that name. I made up that name, so I can change it. Now she's Madison. No, she's not.

Olivia.

Anyway, she's gone.

I am starting to relax and then… There.

She is.

Olivia is wearing a motorcycle jacket over a white dress. She is wearing rubber boots. Her hair shines. It moves in slow motion when she walks. Smooth today, not surfer chic. It's longer. That's impossible, but it is. Her dress is translucent enough to kill me.

Do you care about the weather? Really?

Okay.

It's windy, but the sky is mostly clear. White clouds strung out like something sticky stuck to the universe's shoe. The air smells like leaves that are just starting to turn, a damp, cold cloth and the chemical waft of pesticide.