Must Be Like A Movie

     This story starts with the beginning of the end.   Where the end is just beginning and the future is out there.   Waiting.   It is the point where our hero is flying through the sky, with no hope of redemption, but with a future.   Our hero, which has always been a strange phrase for me; because one person's hero is another person's jailer.   But there is no need for philosophy right now.   But yes, our hero is both metaphorically and literally flying through the air.   The motorcycle that he was riding has been kicked away and suspended in nothingness, truly flying for the first time.   He waits to hit the water and the future, however long or short it might be.  

     So how far back do you need to go to write a story?   To our hero's birth?   To his first Birthday?   Or maybe the first kiss, or the first break up.   Maybe his first fear of money, or maybe we should go back and psychoanalyze his parents, and how they brought him up and how their two personalities melded together and made this person.  

     But I think that is all a little too much.   Useless for our little story today.   Because it is just a story of a moment in time.   Oh yes there are flashbacks.   And there are moments of what could happen in the future.   But we are in the here and now.   Hovering over the ocean waiting for it to break his fall.  

     Now for one of those literary moments.   One of those moments in between lines of conversation in a story.   Where time is stretched between a portion of a second.   Between two lines in a conversation there can be infinity.   While life keeps moving, in a story time can be suspended.   That is the beauty of writing stories.   It can be paused at any moment, the moment of action, as they say, and we can stop and look around and find out how he got to this point.  

     There is a reason for this literary technique, and it is because the beginning of a story is usually boring.   There is no significant action.   But to grab you, start you with a cliffhanger, a piece where you need to see more, want to read more.  

     So now we have you hooked, we will go backward in time, to the beginning, the beginning of this story, to a small apartment in Hollywood.    

     Our hero, who does not have a name, is a failed actor who works as a bartender.   He is a failed actor because he has given up.   He has realized that at the age of thirty five, after seven years in Hollywood and only a couple walk on pieces, there no hope in the future of a major role.   And he has given up.

     On one shoulder is a selection of friends.   They tell him not to give up, to keep following his dream.   It can happen and will happen if you try hard enough.   And on the other shoulder, there are friends who tell him to give up and do something with his life before it is too late.   Before he ends up another statistic on a government chart.   Before he truly becomes an alcoholic and cannot turn back.

     There is a part of his brain that loves the bar, loves the people, loves the noise and the drink and the life and the hate and the here and now all the time.   Loves are found and lost every night, dreams float in bubbles above heads, to be popped just before heading home, sometimes for good and sometimes for evil.

     And there is the part of his brain that hates that he drinks every night during and after work, and it is that part of his brain that hates that, that makes him feel horrendous about that, that is part of the reason he drinks every night.   So that he does not have to think about that.  

     But drinking is such a good thing.   Enjoy the moment.   Isn't that what all those damn gurus and advertising campaigns tell him to do.   Live in the here and now.   Carpe Diem.   Seize the day.   Just do it.   Well, that is what he is doing while drinking.  

     Noise and people and love and sweat and laughter and fear and life are all there, all there waiting for him at the bar every night, they are sitting on the stools and they are curled up in a bottle waiting to be unleashed and they are walking in the door throwing money around and they smile and love him, their drug dealer.

     But when not drinking he is curled up in a ball, sometimes realistically and sometimes metaphorically.   And he sits and wonders about what is wrong with him and what is wrong with the world and what is wrong with him in the world and wonders why it is that he knows that everyone is laughing behind his back and why it is that he cannot do anything successful and he knows that everyone is taking each word that he says and analyzing all the little details and he knows that they hate him and he knows that they only put up with him because they cannot figure out a good way to get rid of him and he knows that, and in his mind he knows that.   He knows they laugh at him.  

     But now it is time for work and he must be happy and wonderful and he must smile for the people and he arrives and grumbles and throws sarcasm around, and then a drink, and another drink, and then the people are good, and they are loving and wonderful and he talks and laughs and flirts and the night continues and the drinking continues and finally the night ends comatose in bed again.

     But then there is the nagging little thing in the back of his brain that tells him he must do something.   Be something big.   Do something big.   It must be something worthy of a movie.   Life works out, even if it does not work out.   Stealing cars is not a problem, flying around the world is not a problem.   Explosions cannot hurt you.   Beautiful women just walk out of the water towards you.   And they smile when you smile and they are single and childless and free and rich and go home with you.

     In the movies they never end up drinking in a bar, alone and depressed unless they are about to kill themselves.   And that is not going to happen.   That is what wanders through his brain all the time.   And that is the thing that propels his life.   It is strange, because he is not someone who thrives on drama, but his life must be grand.

     There was something poetic and beautiful about a failed actor jumping off the Hollywood sign to their death.   It was the end of a tragedy.   It is how they are supposed to end.   There is the foreshadowing, there are the hints that he will end in depression and suicide.   And he has watched many tragedies and many romantic comedies and many heist movies.   And he knows that he must be one of those.   He must, go out with style.   How is one supposed to pull off a romantic death?   He could meet Elizabeth Shue in Vegas.   How is one to find a romantic partner to fall in love with?   There does not seem to be a Holly Golightly living downstairs.   But it must be easy to pull off a heist.

     And one night an idea came to our hero.   A small little dot that caught his eye.   And he had the whole play before he stumbled home for the evening.   And even better, our hero remembered his plan in the morning.

     It would be the perfect heist movie, a heist movie where the thief walks away into the sunset, wondering what he are going to do with the money.

     Now is the part of the story that is the montage.   The part that is the actual work.   The part that movies glaze over because they take time and have no interest to the screen.   They make the viewers yawn.   But it is the part that needs to be done, to prove that our hero works hard.   What kind of music does our montage have?   Something that flows up and down, fast and slow.

     The fast parts are when he is buying the motorcycle and teaching himself to ride it through the streets in Santa Monica.   Cutting around corners and splitting lanes.   And the music slows down and our hero is buying scuba gear, and he is floating in liquid space watching the fish swim and the waves crash overhead.  

     And the music picks up while he is taking out his new twenty five foot sailboat, and the wind is whipping through his hair and the waves break over the boat and the stormy sea beats upon him and our hero smiles and laughs at the world.  

     But the music slows, and our hero stands across the street from a bank and watches an armored car arrive and checks his watch.

     And the scene fades to black.

     Our hero stands in an empty apartment, and he is dressed in black motorcycle gear, and he has two backpacks, one on the back and one on the front.   And there is a black helmet in his hand with a smoked visor.   The helmet slides down upon his head and he heads out of the apartment, closing the door for the last time.

     At the first bank shots are fired in the air and the people hit the ground and our hero tells no one to be a hero, looking at the security guard.   One hundred dollar bills are the only denomination he stuffs in his front backpack and this is done till they are spilling out onto the floor.   Zipping up the bag upon his chest and waves to the people in the bank and heads out the door.  

     It is a short ride across town to the other bank.   Before entering, the backpacks are switched and he now has an empty one on his chest.   The same scenario happens in the second bank.   It would bore you to recite it, so now we are on the motorcycle heading through Santa Monica.   The police have found him and follow at a respectful distance.

     That is perfect, just like the movies.   And our hero, when the traffic stops on the busy summer day, splits lanes and follows the prearranged roads and rides down upon the pier.   The carnival rides and cotton candy flash past his eyes and while he beeps his horn and the people part the way for him.   The wooden boards bumps rhythmically in the musical soundtrack and up ahead is the end of the pier and the break in the railing for the steps down to the fishing platform.

     This part has been measured and timed perfectly.   With a hard twist of the throttle and a burst of speed the bike leaps into space.   The camera looks up from below, from the water line, and the bike leaps from the pier, the sky is blue with small clouds and our hero and his bike are silhouetted in the sky.  

     The camera angel changes and now we are looking from the ocean toward the pier.   And time slows.   To the right and left are shimmering beaches with umbrellas scattered about, in front is the end of the pier and people looking in his direction.   And or hero is center stage, and in the same slow motion kicks away the bike and flies through the air.

     The music pauses and the camera angel changes.   Now we see our hero from the side, and the film speed jumps back to reality and the inevitable jarring splash and harsh noise as man and motorcycle hit the water.  

     We watch the bike slowly sink under the water, and it pans to the pier, to see the hundreds of heads silhouetted over the edge of the railing.   Looking down upon the water and our sinking hero.

     Underwater now, and the helmet comes off and out of the jacket a small tube is pulled and our hero starts to breathe through the tube.   Looking around there is a small mound on the ocean floor with a read flag.   Under the red flag is a selection of SCUBA gear.  

     And now this story is over.   Our hero has flown, launched himself into tomorrow.   And the only tomorrow that we know is the one in his head.   The dreams that he has.   The dreams from the movies the propel him forward.  

     And his dreams go something like this:   Swim to the harbor, and sail away in his unpaid sailing boat.   Sell the boat somewhere in Central or South America.   Whatever place feels right for the sale.   Purchase a new boat, and head west.   West toward the islands, the islands of Tahiti, Bora Bora and romance between the breaking waves and the soft sand.   And out there, there might even be a girl waiting for him, and his life might become the ending of most of those movies.   Happily ever after.

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