Oh, you don’t?
It happens every time he watches Giant or Rebel Without a
Cause. He walks around all day in a red windbreaker and mumbles lines from
movies of the 1950s. On this day, I had about one nerve left and it was waiting
for him to get on it. It was raining and we had been locked up with him for
more than 48 hours. My wife had chased him out of the kitchen with a knife, so
he escaped to where I was trying to read.
“Can I have some dirt too?”
“Why don’t you read a book?”
“You are the boss.”
“Yes.”
“You know it too, don’t you?”
“C.W., you are not James Dean. He was an actor, and he is
dead. You are an alien. Why don’t you come back to earth?”
“I’m rich, Big Dope,” he said. “I’m richer than all you sons
of b…”
“Do you want to go outside in the rain and play? You have
the whole farm.”
With that, the James Dean, or Jett Rink, or whatever,
persona, left him and he sat. “Tell me,” he said, “what is thing your species
has with actors?”
I looked up. “What thing?”
“The way you worship them and all.”
“What do you mean worship them?”
“You hang on their every word,” he said. “Even when they
aren’t acting.”
“They are popular,” I said.
“Some of them are incredibly dumb, too,” he said, “when they
aren’t on script. Have you ever heard one during a meeting or conversation in
which a writer or reporter asks questions of a person from whom material is
sought for a story?”
“They are about as good at interviews as political
candidates,” I said, not knowing why I would choose to defend either
politicians or actors.
“What about Mrs. Big Dope?”
This got my attention. “What about my wife, and don’t let her
hear you call her that.”
“She worships them too.”
“Who?”
“Actors, at least one of them.”
“What makes you think that?”
“When you’re not here,” he said, “she puts a framed
photograph of that actor ‘Matthew what’s his name’ on the counter while she
cooks.”
“Maybe his picture makes her think of me.”
“And who does that picture of Big Bang’s Penny on your
desktop remind you of?”
I changed the subject. “We just appreciate actors for their
talent, that’s all.”
“So why does Mrs. Big Dope want us to become actors?”
This took me by surprise. “What makes you think she wants us
to be actors?”
Now this fellow would turn a straight man gay in a New York second. - C.W. |
“How many times have I heard her tell you to try and act
your age?”
“Well …”
“To act like you’ve got some (expletive deleted) sense?”
“Uh …”
“To at least act like you care.”
“I …”
“To act like an adult.”
“Well what about you?”
“Haven’t you heard her ask me to act like I fell off a space
ship instead of a watermelon truck?”
“Oh yeah,” I said.
“But do you want to guess what the most confusing one is?”
“No.”
“It’s when she tells you to stop acting like a damned
alien.”
“Come on,” I said. “It’s quit raining. Let’s go ‘Jett RinkWalking’ around the farm. You like doing that. And if we’re lucky, a deer
hunter won’t shoot us.”
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