suck and fat

suck and fat

by chris.


prologue

this is not a story about marijuana.


part one - he smokes a joint and pulls out his cds

i can't do this with all that sound.

do you even hear that? it's in my head. my ears. it's not conducive to the present situation. very dangerous. you can't grasp it unless you are here. it's getting very dangerous.

the night had all started fine, sunshine and fake flowers planted in the ground outside the car. all around, really. but you had to look for them. japanese farmgirls running all around planting them, turning into men, then boys, then women. they brought tea and teacups, always wanting extra sugar in their tea. always wanting their tea.

it's gotten a little better. the cd has changed and the music is much more calm. less dangerous. no bad vibrations. except the man with the banjo. is it a banjo? it looks like a banjo. it's got all the sound and visual characteristics of a violin, but i really think it's a banjo.

"it's time we all get on the train," jack said. i realized then how important it is for others to have names. i made this mental note here, a hint to my future self that i need to think about adding this characteristic to my work. i cannot make it any more clear.

"it leaves in an hour," i told him, looking at my watch. him. jack.

"seats. SEATS!" he said, shaking his fists in the air. "do you want to get bad SEATS?" his eyes had started glowing oddly. were the vibrations back? i looked away from him and sulked.

i couldn't take any more of this. it's ridiculous. but surprisingly the soundtrack is still in a good condition. it's running without us and that is good. it needs to learn sometime. we won't be here forever, you know.

[halfway through this i regretted that i had not been typing it in microsoft word. i wouldn't have to do so much work if this were in word. maybe microsoft could write it for me. all of it. it's getting far too difficult at this point. i also need to say, if i haven't already figured it out, i need to think about adding names to others in my stories]

it keeps playing, massaging my head with fingers and strings, picking. indians, real indians from india, dancing around everywhere, glitching to the music and confused by all the japanese. i sometimes am too. earl grey fountains coming from their orifices.

"what the hell are you looking at?" jack said.

"shutup, nothing. let's get on the train."

we boarded and he immediately went to the washroom.

"this is really grabbing hold of me," i told an old woman as i got on the train. she frowned at me and clutched her purse to her chest. i smiled. "the vibrations are coming," i said. then i went to my seat and closed my eyes.

part two - the library

it's a week later and he is clean. waking up with the sun he pours cereal and orange juice. (panning shot of sunrise, everything wet from dew, cut to orange juice pouring into calcium stained glass)

his car door opens and a paper flies out. it isn't really his car, and it isn't really his paper. the car and the paper belong to the owner of the house, who is still asleep on this saturday. he jumps on it before the wind has a chance to take it away (pan up from paper on the ground underneath his foot to down the street, where fifty other people are stepping on fifty other papers that just flew out of their cars. cut to his face -- sullen, realization of the fact that he is not unique)

he pulls up to the library and gets out of the car. it's getting hot, and the humidity that was cooling him thirty minutes ago is now sticking to him and making him self-conscious. (close-up of his underarm)

the library is two stories. the first story is mostly children's books. there are two children's computers there too, with porn blockers that don't really work. (shot from behind child sitting in chair in front of a monitor displaying -)

he walks up the stairs to find two closed doors leading into the main area of the library. since coming here for the past week he has never seen the two doors closed, so something must be wrong. he stands in front of them, looking at them, debating whether he should open them or not. he doesn't feel good about the idea of going in, but if he doesn't, what has he come all this way for?(panning shot up from between his legs until doors are in full view)

the doors open. he gasps silently. he hadn't heard any footsteps. who could this be? (freeze frame of door halfway open)

it's just a man, who is also startled. he nods and puts his head down and walks down the stairs. (close-up of the man's feet as he walks down the creaking stairs)

he watches the door close and now realizes why they are shut. hot air had blown through the door when it was opened. they are keeping the hot air from infecting the cool air from downstairs. (slow motion from side, door opening, wind blowing in his face, gasp, startled old man, sheepish look, nod, head down, door closed)

he opens the door and enters the room. all the windows are opened and there are about eight people in the room. one of them is an employee of the library, sitting at her desk. she is reading a book. (close-up on the name on the cover: - -)

he walks to her desk and waits for her to look up at him. she does not. he continues. "why is it so hot in here?" he asks her. she never looks up from her book, just points at the thermostat next to her desk. (slow zoom to thermostat, hunting knife stuck into it, obviously stabbed repeatedly, a few blood splatters on the wall)

he looks at her for a while. she keeps reading. (ten second shot, behind library employee, she in bottom right hand, he in center focus, he continues to stare, she continues to read)

he walks around the room a little bit. sweat is already starting to gather in the small of his back. there are people reading in the cloth chairs in the corners. sweat is pouring from their bodies and dripping off the chairs' arms and seats. (cut to drip pans underneath the chairs half full of sweat)

he cannot take this anymore. beads of sweat have formed all over his face, and he turns and leaves the room, being hit by cold air as he opens the door. (camera follows behind him down the stairs, through the lobby, long shot of giggling children looking at a woman's - on the computer, stop at entrance of library, long shot as he walks to his car, gets in, drives away)


part three - pre wreckage

it was cloudy that night but there must have been a full moon, or something close to it, behind the clouds, because when he looked out his window at the fields he drove past he could make out vague shapes in the night: a house, barn maybe, something like a well, a telephone pole. the telephone pole stood next to the building, and through the dark he could see it standing erect pointing toward the sky. his next turn wasn't completely thought out, it just felt good to him. felt right. the turn wasn't negotiated very well either. the speed he was travelling, about seventy, was not conducive whatsoever to the almost ninety degree turn. the car slid on the highway and hit the ditch and went into the air a little, crashing into the fence and tearing it down. he swerved back and forth, trying to keep from spinning. it didn't work and he spun a couple of times, but he regained control and again caught sight of the telephone pole in his headlights. he made the necessary angular adjustments so it was straight in front of him while pushing the accelerator down as far as it would go.


part four - post wreckage

suck and fat met in the grass. suck had stolen the bottle of canadian whiskey from his dad's cabinet. it was in his backpack.

"bring it out," said fat. it was one in the morning and fat shone his flashlight into suck's face.

suck pulled the bottle from his bag and dropped it on the ground. fat opened it and started downing it, then passed it to suck.

they didn't talk very much. as the whiskey took hold they both laid down and looked at the cloudy sky.

an hour had passed. suck was asleep but fat was woken by a loud grinding noise. he raised his head and the world spun around him. he dropped his head back onto the grass, and realized with glee, forgetting the grinding noise, that he could not feel his head hitting the ground. he kept hitting it, harder and harder, on the ground. then the car came, barbed wire wrapped around its front bumper. it hit suck and fat, rolling over them and breaking them, and sent the car veering to the left, barely missing the telephone pole. the car also rolled over the three-quarters empty bottle of whiskey and it exploded, covering the drunken corpses in dehydrated piss-colored liquor.


part five - train station

he called jack, waking him up. he was calling from a payphone in the city. he told jack everything that had happened. jack woke himself up and got dressed, trying to calm him down over the phone. "meet me at the train station in thirty minutes," jack told him. he hung up, stuffed the bag of weed into his backpack, and left his house.



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