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CounterPunch
October
12, 2002
Concerned Citizen:
a serialized novel
Episode 3: Good Neighbor Policy
by ANTHONY GANCARSKI
SCRIPT AND SUMMATIVE COMMENTS [0:30 COLOR]
[Opens with standard procession of sedans,
gleaming, tailfinned, gliding over federally-funded blacktop.
Then the obligatory shots of people on evenings out; caucasians
conversing in bistros with unsullied white tablecloths and deferential
brown waitpeople. The opening theme, the jazz-fusion "Horehound's
Groove", chikka-chikkaing mid-tempo and mid- range as the
familiar deadpan voice of TV's Brock Horehound intones gravelly,
secure in his poses as omniscient oracular figure, director,
and producer of the series.]
Horehound: This...
is the city. Los Angeles, California. A good place to live, to
raise a family, to start a life.
[The show starts off with a shot of a
roadmap. Let's say for argument's sake that it's the "Southern
California" page in a road atlas contemporaneous with the
airing of this episode of Concerned Citizen. First we get the
long view of the southern part of the Golden State--its valleys,
deserts, and seaside regions. Then the focus on the Los Angeles
area.]
Horehound: Los
Angeles, a larger city made up of smaller cities. Covina. West
Hollywood. Watts. Cities as diverse as they are plentiful.
[A shot of buildings, anonymous, a few
stories tall but certainly no skyscrapers. Buildings that serve
as badges for the vision Grant Cameron, the triple-threat star/director/producer
behind Concerned Citizen, had for America.]
[In a 1973 interview with Conservative Review, Cameron reflected
on the lack of commercial appeal of Concerned Citizen with the
following statement. "My America--the America of good people
living good lives-- wasn't reflected in the network's failure
to get behind the show. Nor was it reflected in the cowardice
of the LAPD in not backing my efforts. My America is reflected
in the fan letters, in the efforts of hard-working people to
live decent lives. I feel no need to apologize for any of my
work, though I do deeply regret our society's failure to understand
that art can be a moral compass."
It doesn't take a scholar of Cultural
Studies to notice how Cameron sounds like no one so much as
the main character of his show. However, one of the aims of
my project vis a vis this show is to probe into the essential
connections between auteur, product, and the cultures that spawn
all of the aforementioned. With that in mind, the similarities
between character and actor are most germane.]
Horehound: Most
of these cities have residents who aspire to the good things
in life. Family. Church. Belief.
[A bride and groom, anonymous enough
to be atop a wedding cake, with rice being flung on them by
well-wishers. The church, like the people, is white and without
blemish. The scene, like so many others in this series, willfully
embraces cliche in a vain quest for the archetypal.]
Horehound: Sometimes,
some residents don't aspire to the good things in life. Some
are driven to commit crimes, to disrupt the delicate root systems
that society grows from.
[A brick house with a window being jimmied
by a crowbar enthusiast with a black ski mask and matching crewneck
sweater. The scene, like so many others in the series.]
Horehound: When
that happens, I do what I can. I'm a concerned citizen.
[The scene shifts from anonymity to Horehound's familiar domestic
sedan pulling into the driveway of his modest home. The music
underneath his voice here and throughout the preceding monologue
is suffused with a cool, swaying arrangement for strings and
horns. The first intimation of rhythm is featured just as he
says the words "concerned citizen", suggesting the
show's first forward motion.
A serious student of 70s cop shows would
add here that this lack of forward motion is at odds with prevailing
currents in the genre. As the 70s progressed, there was a motion
toward increased realism in shows like Baretta and Hawaii Five-O.
Furthermore, these programs were rooted in an urbane wit and
in an understanding that cops can be sexy and even dangerous.
This understanding, in my view as well as many from the Sistrunk
School, bled over into how Americans came to understand their
leaders, their structures, and, ultimately, themselves.]
Horehound: Tuesday,
October 18th. The air was cool in Los Angeles, and my bank account
was cold. So I did what I had to do. I got a part-time job housesitting
for a friend, who was called away for an extended period on business.
[Business. Some would have you think
that business wouldn't be conducted, or would be conducted differently,
by me if I hadn't been embarrassed by events such as those I
described in the Episode 2 commentary. Those folks would be
wrong.
The fact is that I recovered nicely from
the bait-and-switch angle Angie pulled on me at that benighted
franchised family eating establishment. I knew enough to carry
myself with decorum and to continue in as professional a manner
as I had started my educational career.
I believed I had amassed enough goodwill,
despite having been beaten out by Matthias Carlos (or, as I
suspected our boss of calling him, Matt or even Mattie) for
the position I deserved, to be able to ward off any attempts
by certain parties--read: Angie--to attempt to weaken my emergent
standing in the department.]
Horehound: Before
I headed to the aforementioned assignment, I returned to my own
residence to tie up a few loose ends before spending a week in
another man's home.
[As jaunty music anchored by fifes and
snare drums skitters through the monophonic speakers of Walla
Walla and Corpus Christi and all points in between, the camera
follows Horehound throughout his home as he ensures his stove
is safely off, that his faucets drip not a bit, that there is
no debris or disorder in the premises.
Likewise, when I arrived at school the
next morning for Day 2 of the Pre-Semester Departmental Meeting,
I made damned sure I was immaculate. Not a speck of dust, nor
a thread of clashing color, nor any other factor that could
limit my appeal to my co-workers. I was determined to stand
out, to be useful. I was determined to be a team player.]
Horehound: I
made sure to pack a suitcase with enough clean clothes for the
entire week. I knew that I could simply consult a local laundry
if circumstances changed, but I figured it was better to be on
the safe side in an unfamiliar locale.
["Being a team player in a collegial
setting is essential to one's personal and professional development.
When given the opportunity to participate in group work, it
behooves one to actively engage with the process. To listen.
To share. To give one's self up to the throes and thrusts of
facilitative communication.
It is sometimes tempting to discount
the hard-won personal experiences of others. Of timeworn veterans,
of spirited rookies, of those whose conclusions don't match
our own. Difference is not a reason for conflict, however, so
much as an opportunity to celebrate learning opportunities."
For those who are curious, I wrote that
during a group brainstorming session. The group leader cooed
over what she termed my "heightened sensitivity",
and then turned the sheet of paper containing those two paragraphs
over to Department Chairperson Sarah Clancy- Allinger. Sarah
then proceeded to read those words to our entire gathering just
before we broke for the day, judging them to be "words that
should stand as inspiration for the next day's activities."
As I left, Sarah patted me on my back.
The final tap found her fingers lingering, as a glance of understanding
passed between our eyes.]
Horehound: After
finishing my tasks at my own home, I drove to the home of retired
LAPD Captain Red Whitehead. Red lived in a beach community and
was a proponent of the good life. Since he retired, he had become
a fancier of travel. He and his wife Dot could often be seen
on one of our nation's highways, in search of the myriad kicks
that could be found in National Parks.
[An almost canonical shot of Horehound
driving through suburban streets, alone, back straight against
the back of his sedan's front bench seat, signalling with flashers
his every intent.]
Horehound: I
drove as quickly as traffic would allow, but still arrived three
to five minutes later than I'd intended.
[Here Horehound pulls into the long,
winding road of the Whitehead driveway as the music chills into
coda. The scene shifts and deposits us in the Whitehead living
room, a large space with minimalistic decor, distinguished by
Dutch portraiture on the walls. The living room, naturally,
is where Horehound is having an animated, if still wordless,
discussion with Red Whitehead. One can assume the discussion
is about the parameters of housesitting. As the music stops,
the voices become audible, and nothing is left to imagination.]
Whitehead: So,
Brock? You think you can handle all those plants? They're a tremendous
responsibility, at least to hear Dot here tells it.
[Whitehead, a ruddy, pudgy man with a
balding white crewcut, here smilingly jabs his thumb in the
direction of his wife Dot, who is likewise rotund, but with
a full, silver bouffant. They sit at opposite ends of the couch,
flanking Horehound. Dot keeps her hands primly in her lap, but
Red periodically nudges Horehound with his elbow.
Horehound, it goes without saying, does
not reciprocate these nudges.]
Horehound: I
wouldn't say I have a green thumb, necessarily, but I can water
them every couple of days.
[Horehound smiles genially as sunlight
fills the room.]
Dot: Look,
honey, the fog is lifting!
[As is so often the case in this series,
and in the oeuvre of Grant Cameron, innocence and naivete are
often conflated with a beatific mindlessness. Cameron scholars
and biographers link this conflation with several events in
his childhood.
Some have speculated that Cameron's misogyny--and
there can be no other word for it, given that women in this
show are often portrayed as vacuous sexpots--is rooted in a
childhood in which Cameron was unable to truly know his father.
The Hollywood-bred Cameron was left to his own devices as his
mother, equal parts harridan and slattern, cavorted and caroused
with jazzsters and sailors, with hopheads, grasshoppers, and
malingerers of every persuasion.
The aim of this scholarship is not to
issue value judgments on the life of one Grant Cameron. Those
would be exercises in futility, in vainglory. Rather, the aim
of this work is what it has been; namely, to dissect and to
decode the encrypted discourse of this shows, with an eye toward
understanding how this program sought to undermine diversity,
tolerance, and the genuine quest for enlightened thought fomented
by those proud heroes of the 1960s.
It goes without saying that I stand in
league with those pioneers.]
Whitehead: Hey,
you're right! Darling, why don't you go start the car? I'd like
a word alone with Brock.
[All parties stand up. Dot moves with
surprising speed toward the door, as Horehound and Whitehead
move away from the couch, into the geographical center of the
room.]
Horehound: What
is it, boss?
[Horehound looks into the former Captain's
eyes, though his gaze seems to jump like a neglected needle
on a skidded-up record.]
Whitehead: Son,
I know you've had it rough.
[Horehound stares toward the hardwood
floor, as if chastened. Though Whitehead has paused here, it
is clear that Horehound has no intention of responding to his
former superior's reassurances.]
Whitehead: But
you wouldn't be here right now if I didn't believe in you. I
know you were a good cop. I know you're a good man. By God, Brock,
we'll get you back on the force.
[Horehound can only nod here, as Whitehead
takes his leave, as a somber flugelhorn-centric arrangement
sounds. The instruments accompany the couple departing in their
own sedan, Horehound pacing sundry of the rooms and corridors
of the deserted house he has been entrusted with, and the inexorable
fade to black that takes the show into its first commercial
break.]
Horehound: After
the Whiteheads had cleared out of their home, I was left with
a certain amount of time to do some thinking.
[Thinking. I know a thing or two about
that. Specifically, I am thinking about the interregnum between
the second and third days of the conference. While it was certain
that I had made lemonade from lemons, as they say, I knew that
I had "raised the bar" and heightened expectations
for my performance on the third and final day of the conference.
I would have to exhibit more "heightened
sensitivity". I would have to state explicitly my consciousness
of diversity in the classroom setting. I thought of other things
I would have to do as the Tylenol PMs set in, as I checked and
rechecked the locks and windows in my apartment for maximum
security.]
Horehound: One
of the benefits of a job like housesitting--a solitary affair,
one that has a lot of "dead time"--is that it affords
one the chance to consider his weak points, and what he can do
about them.
[A shot of Horehound working through
the difficult middle passage of a crossword puzzle, counterpointed
by my thoughts on what I myself was working through during the
week of the conferences.]
Horehound: I
was about to sit down with a glass of juice and think about just
these things when I heard the doorbell ring.
[Horehound opens the door, as you would
expect, to reveal a bosomy blonde with clothes that left little
to the imagination, clothes that cleaved to her form, to its
recesses of darkest mystery and despair.
It might as well have been Angie. It
certainly was the Angie I saw on the third day of the conference.
Right down to the twinkle in her smile when I walked into the
classroom some minutes early for the proceedings, and saw her--the
only person in there, [im]providentially enough-- seated at a
desk, eating a peach over a coffeepot filter.]
Horehound: Yes,
ma'am. Can I help you?
[I wasn't so kind to my Angie. In fact,
I didn't even say anything to her when I first walked into the
room. I pretended to inspect the walls--the dry-erase board
with its stray red and green markings, the bulletin boards In
corners, the manual pencil sharpener--until I heard her words.
Until she spoke first.]
Millie: I
should hope so. I'm Millie Lawson, and I live across the street,
and I was hoping I could borrow some sugar. I'm making brownies.
[Angie spoke words of conciliation.
Who can remember what they were? Sorry about the other night,
I overreacted; those work as well as any others, in terms of
explaining what happened and what would happen from that point
forward.]
Horehound: I'll
help you out if you help me out.
[I apologized as well. I told her I was
lonely. I told her I needed a friend. Then I went farther. Then
I told her about the humiliation at the hands of Matthias Carlos,
about the bait and switch that got me to uproot myself for a
"verbal commitment" for a salaried position at [University
Name Withheld], only to find that resources were scant, too
scant to bring me on as God and nature intended.
The humiliations of adjuncting, of adjunctification.
Adjunct fiction.]
Millie: People
have said I'm a helper, of sorts.
[I kneeled down by the seated Angie.
I wrapped my arms and my torso around me, as she patted my back,
reminding me that I was perilously close to breaching collegial
ethics. It wasn't my place to notice the flesh of her chest,
pressed full against me. Nor was I justified in noticing the
soft groove of her nipple through her sheer black blouse.]
Horehound: Well, come in the kitchen with me and help
me find the sugar. I'm just housesitting and I have no clue where
women keep things.
[Millie finally steps through the doorway,
brushing against Horehound by way of entry.]
Millie: I
take it you're a bachelor, Mister...?
[The pause. The pause always signals
something. Like the awkward pause after I released Angie from
my grasp, which spoke volumes about how fully she owned me and
how cheap my price ultimately was.]
Horehound: Call
me Brock.
[ Unlike my nervous, tightlipped grin
to Angie, his smile here is full, with every promise of desire
being fulfilled.
But then again, the situations aren't
analogous directly. Grant Cameron's impossibly stoic, rock-ribbed
erstwhile "peace officer" turned "concerned citizen"
had many innate advantages that enabled him to seduce--indeed,
to womanize--with impunity. Even though it was taken from him,
the badge signalled manhood (as did the gun, as did the handcuffs,
et al.). Badge and gun. Two advantages in and of themselves,
ineluctably removed from distinctions like shelves of obscure
editions, like the ability to parse challenging concepts, like
the knowledge that all I have done to develop that ability has
been so spectacularly futile.]
Millie: Just
as a guess, I would expect that sugar to be in the kitchen.
[A female arm, bare and braceleted, slipped
into the arm of the concerned citizen with intent. Ironic, but
as I knelt by the desk where a "colleague" reduced
a peach to mere shell, I couldn't think of one time I had held
an arm in that way. Even when I'd had sex, serious lovemaking
with serious women, I never was privy to that sensation.
Soft jazz pulses them into the Whitehead
kitchen, a generously- sized room that theoretically could have
been privy to many a coffeeklatsch and such. As their lives
move wordlessly, Horehound's voiceover commences.]
Horehound: As
you might expect, we discussed more than sugar. Over the course
of the conversation, I discovered that Millie had recently divorced
her husband and had come away from the arrangement materially
enriched.
[A shot here of the pair seated at the kitchen table, an unremarkable
slab of wood with four wooden chairs around it and two even
more wooden performers seated in those chairs. The strings that
ushered them into the kitchen eventually fade back into Millie's
voice.]
Millie: Honestly,
no one ever expects a divorce. But as you can see, I had no other
choice.
[Her eyes go limpid as Horehound's lips and eyes lock into a
leer.]
Horehound: No
other choice.
[No other choice, indeed. Those were
the words, more or less, that Angie used after I'd told her
my problems and after she felt safely extricated from my grasp.
We had no other choice but to trust each other. No other choice
but to present a united front, to help each other get some power
in that goddamned department.
Sure, what she said sounded a bit--more
than a bit--soap opera. But as has often been the case throughout
my life, I wasn't bargaining from a position of strength. If
I crossed her, it was all too obvious that she could cross me
with a gimmicked-up account of me "creating a climate of
sexual harassment" or "crossing the lines".
Given what the laws are and have been
for some time now, she wouldn't even have to embellish what
happened very much. But she could, and would, work the truth
for all it was worth, regardless.]
Millie: The
bright side, of course, is that the divorce is final. Final now....
[Millie stretches her hand in front of
Brock's on the table. He then lifts her hand to his lips, kissing
every knuckle except the one with the wedding ring on it. That
knuckle he examines for a second, as if a suburban father examining
his sedan for a scratch.
Angie, God bless her, wasn't nearly so
kind to me, at least not initially. She reached her hand out
to me, yes, but only by way of helping me up to direct me to
the bathroom--you need to wash up, you look like shit, she said.
And as I walked out of the room to "collect" myself,
Concerned Citizen faded to black.
As the show comes back from commercial,
there is a long shot of trees, then the camera focusing in.
A road, a truck barrelling down it, an arm hanging out of the
truck, then dropping a lit cigarette. Then the voiceover.]
Horehound: Friends,
please be careful of forest fires. This beautiful forest--redwood
treasures--won't be long for this world if people aren't more
careful with their flames.
[A shot of a forest in flames--stock
footage, obviously, with its nuanced texture so removed from
the flat vistas of Concerned Citizen--gives way to the whitest
family in America heating up coals on a backyard grill, with
a white plate of raw ground beef on a table beside the table.
These folks have the kind of yard where
exposing flesh to air apparently is not inadvisable. A yard
without chiggers or gnats. A yard where the grass is astroturf,
where the kids aren't allergic to the housepet, where the wife
doesn't pulsate with unreciprocated longings.
And even now, knowing what I know, I
wouldn't need Viagra to take Angie on this quasi-grass, to plant
her like a seed, to settle into her as if her sex itself was
softest earth, as if her pudenda were potting soil.]
Horehound: Be
careful when grilling outdoors! Make sure you're good to nature,
and nature will be good to you!
[The family--teeth murderously white
and dangerous, like the tennis outfits in which they apparently
barbecue. The family--"relaxing" in the most posed
position imaginable, clueing the viewer into an essential fact
of the show.
That nothing is as it seems. That no
relationship is simple. That every construct exists to serve
the person staked in its construction.]
Horehound: Time
passes slowly when you maintain sentry in another man's home.
Though I by nature keep my own counsel, I was nonetheless happy
to accept Millie's invitation to have coffee in her living room
a couple of days after our initial contact.
[The show disappears into yet another
quasi-impressionistic cul de sac, here, showing Horehound brushing
his teeth and petting a cat for some seconds. He takes his time
sauntering to the Fairlane, only to drive less than a block
to Millie's divorcee pad.
Apparently, Grant Cameron's concern for
the environment is as fleeting as his concern for many other
plot elements or story details that don't promote his character
as being so very central. Incidental music plays incidentally
as Horehound rings the door. The muted jazz finds its end when
Millie opens the door, barefoot in a red minidress.]
Millie: Hi,
Brock. I hope you don't think I'm dressed too young. I just had
a couple of my younger friends over. Proteges, really.
[Divorcee smiles linger, full of portent,
as divorces are always signals of the finiteness of love or
even understanding. Signals like bleak lighthouse beacons, that
nothing matters. That nothing adds up.
I'm not an attractive man, but I'm smart
in the ways of love more often than not. I know that the trick
to scoring, to "getting nookie", to whatever you kids
call it, is to be self-effacing, always. To not come off like
you've already seen the woman naked. To make her think she's
somehow surprising or interesting.]
Horehound: Nonsense,
you look fine.
[You should reassure, but not too much,
not enough to make it clear that you realize you're being solicited
for those reassurances. Enough to tease that a payoff, in theory,
exists, for all the subpar meals in corporate diners, for all
the mind-numbing conversation, for all the unwanted parting
kisses you could either name or think of.
Millie takes Horehound's hand here and
leads him inward, toward a plush red velvet couch straight off
of the cover of a pulp book. CC here maintains its essential
adherence to archetypal recastings of the same played-out fantasies.
Hourglass figures tricking on tricked-out couches. Of missionary
sex. Of the eclipsing of loss.]
Millie: Yeah,
you know how it is. You have to dress so that the kids will trust
you.
[The kids. Trust. There are rules, always
rules. Don't wear all black: it looks funereal, and it exposes
your essential distrust of the process. Shave and shower before
class, even if you don't feel like getting out of bed. Make
sure your fly is zipped. Don't pull on clothes in a rush and
forget to don underwear. Don't teach class in a t-shirt and
sweat pants, unless you aren't interested in tenure's sweet
succor.]
Horehound: The
kids? What's that all about?
[Leave the office door open when conferencing.
Always keep a barrier between yourself and the student. Make
sure your legs don't "accidentally" stretch into the
student's space, and that your eyes don't linger on a body part
or two. No matter how much you want to, don't call them at home,
to ask how they're doing, to see if they need extra help on
a project. Don't take student flirtation seriously. Don't let
your voice crack on that wistful goodbye.]
Millie: You
can say I work as a mentor, of sorts.
[Don't confess doubt in the process.
Doubt in the institution of the university. Don't bitch about
abridgements of academic freedom, don't bitch about the schedule,
your co-workers, the stagnant pool that bears your sustenance.
Don't tell the students that they're slow or dull or pointless,
even if it's true.]
Horehound: Sounds
like interesting work. What does it entail?
[Compromise. Self-abnegation. A litany
of polite nods, of laughter that rattles like cage doors. Handshakes
with unctuous fat men and women in JC Penney business suits,
where you wipe the sweat from the exchange off on your trousers.]
Millie: I
don't do it for money. There's no money in it. I mostly counsel
small groups of adolescents--act as a mother figure of sorts.
It's the way I deal with it.
[Counseling. Every teacher has his "rap"
sessions, in the first few or last few minutes of class, when
he walks into the room trying his hardest not to notice how
erotic female soccer players in t-shirts and Umbro shorts are,
the way their hair glistens, reflecting the overhead light, the
light that is never intended to heighten the beauty of these
somber cellphoned coeds.
There were many students I got to know.
After the dismissal, that knowledge and the power that went
with it was gone.]
Horehound: It?
[It being the knowledge. It being the
outside possibility that you're being smiled at because you're
you, as cliched as that might sound. That someone sees beauty
in your eyes and reacts to that beauty.
But I would always want too much. My
habit was to misread coquettish poses, to overshoot my target.
Thus, my pockets would brim with scraps of paper with mismatched
names and phone numbers, and I would strip, shower, and feel
broken in ways I never hoped to imagine.]
Millie: Children.
I can't have children.
[By the same token, I shouldn't have
children. Since the firing, I find myself engaging children
as if they're on my level. As if they've already been corrupted.
When I go to the movies and sit by groups of them, for example,
and attempt to strike conversations up about the subject of the
day--the movies of Freddie Prinze--I am greeted with laughter.
With cold stares. With abuse of all manner.]
Horehound: Count
your blessings. You're doing something you want to do. That's
a good thing.
[More phone numbers that ring false,
as stated above. More conversations with the scab-ridden long
arm of the law, manifested in the existence of movie theater
security, teen club bouncers, of all aspirant jackboot thugs
who equate an overamped walkie-talkie and a snug blue polyester
outfit with authority, with the power to finally transcend their
upbringings in cramped pre-fab apartments and "mobile homes".
]
Millie: I
suppose it is. Tell me, Brock. What do you do?
[The events alluded to above don't bother
me so much. They do, however, poison the groundwater. I see
the looks I get when I buy my popcorn and soft drinks, or when
I enter skating rinks on teen nights, only to be shot acid looks
when I tell the box office girl that "I'm only making sure
my daughter is okay."
Whatever allegations--scurrillous, unfounded,
career-damaging-- have been laid forth in the claustrophobic
"break rooms" and "manager's offices", these
have no bearing on me as a scholar. On my proficiency in the
classroom as a molder of young minds.
Or on my proficiency as a navigator of
the turbulent waters of academic politics.]
Horehound: Right
now, I'm just a citizen.
[Millie smiles, here. "Excuses"
herself to mosey to the wet bar, to make the confines of her
former conjugal home more friendly with libations, with spirits,
with the dull thud of alcohol.
Likewise, I found myself smiling often
during that third day of the conference. I was able to formulate
witty answers for all sorts of educational conundrums, indicating
to all in attendance that I understood our "educational
mission" as well as any departmental veteran
And as I established myself, I came to
notice something most interesting about the conviviality my
presence occasioned. The only person not laughing, not getting
into the spirit of things, as it were, was Matthias Carlos.
Even as my colleagues embraced me as one of their own in a manner
uncannily similar to the Brady Bunch embracing Oliver, I noticed
Matthias rolling his eyes and checking his watch each and every
time I would speak.
And there were other things I noticed
about Matthias as well. Don't think I didn't make note of them.
At the end of the day, when Angie grabbed my arm and whispered
in my ear, when we took separate cars to her apartment.]
Horehound: After
preparing drinks for the two of us--martinis, extremely dry--we
returned to her living room, and found ourselves embroiled in
conversation.
[Yes, we drank more than we should, and
we developed a plan. It wasn't hard. It wasn't even explicit.
We just knew that we had to find an embarrassment--an "unfortunate
incident", of sorts--in the past of Matthias Carlos. With
that knowledge would come leverage.
One thing that confused me at that point,
though. Despite the drinks we drank--martinis, providentially
enough--and all the laughter and the collegial confessionals,
she wouldn't tell me what drove her to attempt to, in her words,
"cut that fucker's balls off." After all, she had her
gig--a salaried position, an office of her own, a key to the
photocopier. What was she hoping to accomplish? Why did she
want my help? What did she think about me? Did I matter, at
all, to her?
Some of those questions, at least, were
answered eventually.]
Millie: I
just don't see why there are certain laws, Brock. I feel like
the police are more interested in knowing what people are doing
than in helping them. It's no crime for me to put something in
my own body.
[Her eyes flutter as she makes her points.
The implication is that she's "under the weather",
that she's "wrestling her demons", that she's "not
herself today".
The shot flashes back to the impassive
visage of Brock Horehound, as you'd expect.]
Brock: The
police department in LA, like all others in this country, are
interested in making sure that citizens live productive, safe
lives. Lives free of vice and corruption. Certainly, you wouldn't
want to interfere with that work, now, would you?
[The shot flashes back to Millie, smiling
insipidly, mouthbreathing. The foreshadowing here is explicit.]
Millie: Now,
I like the work the police do, mind you. But some of their actions
are unreasonable....
[Millie slumps in a straight-backed chair,
slurring under the accumulation of what one might call her "pick-me-ups".
Then she pulls herself into a somewhat more posture-perfect
position.
You could say Angie slumped likewise.
You could say she unbuttoned a button or two, in the teasing
way of Catholic schoolgirls whose breasts are only beginning
to bud. You could say she smiled when she noticed my eyes not
quite meeting her own.]
Horehound: Sorry
to interrupt, Millie, but what police actions do you find objectionable.
Citizens often make this claim, but rarely can they back it up.
[Whatever alcoholic bonhomie our stalwart
male lead has amassed has diffused into the seaside air of the
room. For this is about business. For Horehound, more significantly,
it will always be about business. Even if it's not his business
anymore.
I managed to convince Angie to dance
with me. We turned on some Soft Favorites radio station, and
I pulled her close to me even as we both laughed and pretended
we were beyond the pulse spike of initial discovery. I felt
her arms slacken as her body relaxed into mine.]
Millie: Whoo!
Hold on one second, Officer McHinkle. Little Millie's gotta tinkle!
[Millie bolts up from her reclined position
and bounds coltishly toward the bathroom. Horehound picks up
his glass to sip from it, then, just before it touches his lips,
he sets the glass back down again.]
Horehound: A
lot goes through my mind before I get involved with a skirt.
It just has to. I know my position in the community. What I mean
and what I have meant to countless people.
[Horehound stands up and checks his cragged
reflection in the glass of the door of a curio cabinet. I remember
taking similar action toward the end of my time with Angie,
after she shook my hand in parting. After she went inside, I
spent minutes in my car, the motor idling a treacherous, low
rumble, inspecting the sorry inventory of my countenance's flaws
in a makeup mirror. Nosehair like standing grass. Wrinkles like
rivulets bled dry. ]
Horehound: There
are times when things go a bit hinky. There are times when things
just don't add up.
[The way a lingering stare can be denied,
or reversed, in a moment. The way she would be permitted a glancing
touch on my skin--oops, sorry-- even as I never could count on
the same consideration. The way she could wrinkle her nose at
me when I told her how beautiful she looked, and expect me not
to take the wrinkling as encouragement.]
Horehound: Trips
to the bathroom. The constant mood swings, even within minutes
of each other. The silliness. The giddiness.
[Horehound reaches toward the ashtray
on the coffee table to pick up his cigarette. He takes an epic
drag off the stick, and puts it back in its resting place. Providentially,
since this is a thirty minute show, Millie returns from the
bathroom. Rather than sitting in the chair she was in before,
she plants herself flush against Horehound on the sofa.]
Millie: Tea
for two! Sorry I took so long, Brockie. I was powdering... my
nose!
[Millie sways forward, then back toward
Horehound, who wraps his right arm around her. Providing stability,
perhaps.
Of course, it makes no sense for me to
wonder why he's taking this action. Unlike my situation with
Angie, there's no "professional relationship." Just
cock and trim, just buyer and seller. Simple enough. ]
Horehound: Millie,
are you feeling okay?
[Millie pushes off of Horehound, an aggrieved
expression on her face. It is clear, of course, that she is
not feeling okay. After pushing off Horehound, she slumps to
the floor. Horehound leans down and checks her pulse.]
Horehound: Weak,
but still going....
[Horehound stands up and walks to the
bathroom, a pizzicato string arrangement soundtracking his movements.
He makes a beeline for the medicine cabinet, which he opens
up. The camera settles on his face for a second--here Grant
Cameron gives us "shocked"--then lingers in the interior
of the medicine cabinet.
Pill bottles, prescription stuff. A bag
loaded with powder, stuffed full like all bags of drugs on cop
shows. And in the center of the cabinet, centered and solitary
on a shelf, the nemesis of our Concerned Citizen, of all concerned
citizens and self-styled moral arbiters everywhere.
Horehound reaches for it, almost tentatively,
though he's certainly seen it countless times. He presses it
between his fingers, and in the pressing there is a certain
undeniable tenderness. Then he breaks it in two, and lifts the
right half to his left nostril, taking in the scent as if smelling
the lingerie of his secret love. Much as I took in Angie's scent
as we danced, and she whispered in my ear--as if we were being
bugged-- that she would tell me when and how our plan was to
be set in motion. I nodded, and I concentrated, not on her words
so much as what her fingers felt like on my lower back. For
a moment, I was sixteen, full of potential and promise, with
all my best years and my conquests ahead of me.]
Horehound: Marijuana.
[Spliff. Reefer. Joint. Horehound's herbal
nemesis, organic, wildgrowing. Organic like all evil, like all
transgression, like the human weakness as structural and as
much a given as toxins in school lunches.
Horehound casts his eyes downward, as
if standing solitary vigil, or serving a solitary penance. The
strings lose their pizzicato pluck and enter a melancholy sliding,
like that of breakup sex, as our protagonist liberates the powder
from its insidious pouch into the American Standard porcelain.
As he dumps both ends of the disjuncted joint into the chemical-blue
water that is mourning made liquid, really. As the pills leave
their bottles--no child-safety caps here, luckily--and find
a final resting place in the water. Horehound is wordless here,
even as the flushing overwhelms the mawkish strings on the soundtrack.]
Horehound: I've
seen this before. This escapism into drugs and the oblivion they
spawn. I've seen kids no older than ten lost in a world of pills
and sadness that they can't recover from. The acid freaks. The
grasshoppers. The hopheads. The sinners, keening toward an angry
fix....
[Horehound rinses residue from the bags
and the bottles in a scene that would ring eerily domestic,
if it weren't for the obvious reference to the work of Beat
Poet Allen Ginsburg. Not to editorialize, but it's a crying
shame indeed when our popular culture is reduced to pilfering
serious art for commercial purposes.]
Horehound: And
I knew what my obligation was. Sure. But I also had a feeling
that, well...
[His voice trails off, back under the
"epiphany" strings used at the end of 50s family sitcoms.
He reaches into an interior jacket pocket for his memo pad and
a pen. Then he writes a note, walks into the livingroom, and
sits the note on the coffee table where his cigarette has burned
to the end. We hear Horehound's voice "reading" us
the note, fronting an ersatz intimacy, as he turns off the living
room light and takes leave of Millie, kissing her full on the
lips, as the screen cuts to a pre-commercial black.]
Horehound: Dear
Millie. Tonight was a close call, and you got lucky. You don't
need the drugs. When you can say no to them, you know where I
am. Brock.
[And Angie, despite what I have said,
despite what I might say, you know where I am as well.]
[When the show returns from the ad break, we see a flag waving
over a statue of soldiers leaning forward, shooting rifles,
immersed in a "combat situation." As the Battle Hymn
of the Republic bounces forth on martial drums, Brock's voice
begins anew.]
Horehound: 1776.
1812. 1917. 1942. In every generation, we have a need for our
fighting men to settle the score in some far-off land. No matter
how unfashionable it might be, please, take some time to support
your armed forces.
[The shot switches to two uniformed
men--one white, one Filipino-- engaged in grin-ridden chatter.
The implication is clear. This camaraderie is the reward for
socialization, organization, conformity.
And not just in the army, either. Even
in academia--and I write this at the risk of offending future
employers--there are cliques that linger, or malinger, depending
on your perspective on the matter. One man's defender is another
man's oppressor.
After all that I've described and what
I will describe, you will know that I understand what I just
said from both ends.]
Horehound: Say
thank you when you see a man in uniform. Express your thanks
by volunteering for veteran's associations. Keep that yellow
ribbon flying. Show the vets you care!
[The closing shot of this sequence a
masterwork of imposition. A blue, cloudless sky, framing a flag
waving provocatively in the breeze, framing a yellow ribbon.
Then the whole patriotic melange fades to black, replaced by
the message: Good Luck Boys.
The final scene of the show. A sunny day finds Horehound putting
suitcases in the trunk of his Fairlane as upbeat jazz soundtracks.
Just as he's closing the trunk--presumably making peace with
his departure from the housesitting gig, Millie approaches from
behind, bearing a covered plate.]
Millie: Brock!
Hey, Brock!
[The spring in her step, the mischief
in her voice, the plate in her hand. All these evoke the clearly-delineated
gender roles of the Donna Reeds and the I Married Joans that
were so obviously superceded even before the genesis of Concerned
Citizen.]
Brock: Millie.
[Brock turns around, squints, nods. The
implication, I guess, is that he's been burned by junkies before.]
Millie: I
know you're leaving today, so I've brought you a goodbye present.
[Millie, within arm's reach of Brock
by now, proffers the plate. Brock takes the plate with minimal
hesitation, as if two parts romantic comedy beau and one part
cynical cop.]
Brock: Thanks
a lot, Millie. What's in here, anyway?
[A shot of Millie, souped-up, it is clear,
on Valium or Halcion. But there are drugs and then there are
drugs, one supposes.]
Millie: Brownies!
Don't worry about the plate... unless you want to run it by some
time....
[Millie works a coquettish pose, knowing
that women like her and men like Horehound always find "some
time." That's how cologne, cars, and subdivisions are marketed.
The idea is to have a perfect life, if you maintain your figure,
if you get your degree. If you pay your dues.]
Brock: I
might just do that. You never can tell, Millie. You never can
tell.
[The credits roll.]
THE
END
Anthony Gancarski makes his home currently in Spokane, WA. He can
be emailed at Anthony.Gancarski@attbi.com.
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