Crash

Crash? More... Like... Tuh-- Trash! (that's clever; that's good Paul; keep going).

Bad introductory sentences aside, I didn't find this to be a great movie.

Good? Sure. You could you argue for good. There's a few moments so intense and spellbinding (the fiery car wreck, or the police stand off) that comfortably make this uncomfortable film worth watching. It's good for you; an emotional multivitamin: we shouldn't judge people by their skin! Racism is bad! Etcetera! But Crash as great? Oscar worthy? Really?

I don't have a thing for gay cowboys. I'm not a gay cowboy aficionado; I don't widdle away my conscious moments painstakingly collecting and filling my favorite issues of Country Beefcake magazine (Alphabetical by cover article, then chronological) into moisture-proof Mylar bags to the gypsy kings pumping from my stereo system; It's just something I don't do-- I'm not gay--, but it seems hard to fathom how this won best picture over Brokeback Mountain, over Jake Gyllenhaal's watery blue eyes... Rock hard abs... Mmmm.

The Review! Right:

I didn't hate it, like I do with-- you know, Mexicans, but it didn't strike me as a movie worthy of the praise so liberally slathered upon it by the press. Yeah, I get racism is wrong-- and I get that we're all guilty or prejudice-- and that even the most enlightened and liberal minded of us is predisposed by our nature as human beings (due to an inherent biologically-driven preference towards the familiar) to bigotry-- I know all of this! Having this told to me in movie form doesn't make for good story telling. The format irked me too. While I loved the way they shot the film and the music that went with the stark imagery of the Los Angeles winter, I loathed the "have a buncha awful shit happen to all these people" concept. It renders the movie's message as unsubtle as a tomahawk to the sternum.

Admittedly, I live in a world almost entirely free of overt racial hostility. Everyone around me, my friends, my family, is white. But when I do come across Blacks/Arabs/Persians/Mexicans/whatevers, it's just never that fraught with tension. It could very well be that I'm living in the wrong place for me to relate fully to this film. I don't think that's what it is, though.

Crash could captivate me entirely, but was capable of reinstating my disbelief in equal portions. So officer Hanson will, full of disgust at his racist sexual predator partner, report him and seek a new one? He will risk his career and possibly life to deescalate a near shoot out with the an obviously irate and ready-to-blow black man? But he'll shoot another black man, the one whom he offered a ride, to death for reaching into his pocket after laughing? Police are trained not to be trigger-happy or short-fused. I know it's fiction; that shooting still took me entirely out of the film and back into my community college seat. The exact opposite of how you want to feel at a theater.


Also, I hate Sandra Bullock. God, Remember Speed Two? With the boat? And like, Jason Patrick? Oh man. I hate her so much.

Sunday

Sunday means church. Sunday means my mother sighing at me in my pajamas, from the open doorway to my room, over and over until I'm roused from mild shame at my sloth. Sunday means being packed into mildly undersized corduroy pants and a third-hand gray formal jacket originally belonging to my (second) oldest brother, Jared. Sunday means sitting on a hard wooden pew next to my family at some ungodly hour-- always around nine o'clock-- and passing notes to my siblings consisting of silly drawings or non-sequitors etched into the back of donation envelopes with those little golf pencils next to the hymnals. Sunday means release at 10:30; an entire day to do or play with who or what I like.

This sunday I find myself half-awake in dress shoes; an adult hand tip pressed gently in between my shoulder blades herding me into the blue minivan with red stripes flaking off the sides. Once seated and buckled I rub at my eyes, at my face, forcefully, to will away the last clinging's of sleep. When I'm finished, I notice the shade of aspen and oak leaves whipping past in a carousel of black dots over my little sister Jennifer's pale-placid face and her sky-blue dress-- It's the one with those lacy white ruffles framing the hem. I remember the sound a 1986 Chevy Astro engine makes and realize that sound is being generated. We are moving. I feel for the armrest with my head.

*Sleeeeeeeeep*, I think.

***

"For god will always give what you ask of him," the minister intones. I know it's important to remember the rest of what he said; that means you're paying attention. I wasn't though; I must've been too antsy, too eager, to get home; to eat food; to sleep on the couch with the sun slowly dispelling the shade over my chest. The organ is playing again-- Oh Come all ye faithful--, but all the people are standing up; I am standing up. We waddle toward the exits as one stretching, tentacled mass. My parents -- like all the adults-- stop to exchange pleasantries with neighbors or business associates on the way out. We are at the exit now; the massive wooden slabs of the cathedral doors propped against the stone walls of it's exterior; they welcome the August morning and it's cloudless blue ceiling. "It was a wonderful service Father Howard," My mom is sincere; she is always sincere.

The crowd disperses through final doorway and begins to flow in random directions. The organ is faint now, receding into the clacking of high heel shoes on pavement and the laughter of children. My three siblings and I are ushered back into the now-broiling confines of the venerable Astro. Windows are rolled down and complaints are issued. "I'm hungry!" Jennifer laments from beside me. Jacob, my oldest-oldest brother cranes his neck backwards, "They'll be pancakes when we get home," he comforts.

I'm itchy; I'm really, really itchy. My corduroys are clinging to my damp underside, glued by sweat and an hour of non-movement. And I'm figidity because we're pulling into the driveway ,but I'm used to getting out last as the youngest male-- I expect it even. We go by age then gender. My parents and Jacob climb out first and start to work on breakfast, followed by Jared, Jennifer, and myself. At seven years, Jennifer is not suited for the task of opening and closing a sliding Van door-- She is a child, after all--, but I am ten; I am world-weary and experienced; I know things. It's more than sensible for me to be irritated when I catch her small fingers fumbling with the plastic knobs controlling whatever levels and gizmos dictate the motion of the Astro's metallic opening: she doesn't have a goddamn clue.

“Jennifer!” I object, “No! Lehme open the door! I'm s'posed tah.”

This is important.

“Nohhh!” She ripostes. I look out the windows and see Jared strolling up the garage stairs into our house. We are alone in the van.

“Jennifer!” She actually got the door open “Jennnyifur!” I grab the door sternly and force it in the opposite direction. She's standing though-- I'm sitting-- she has her entire small body to work with. She leaps out overflowing with confidence, entirely misplaced, with me right behind and now attempts to shut the door-- she can never close it right. My feet are firmly planted on the earth and I loom over her. I wrench control of the cobalt blue handle and slam it shut.

She's screaming.

Is this her crude idea of protest? Whatever. I unlatch the handle and the metal panel slides back open.

There is blood; it rushes out to paint the unscathed portions of her hand and the brighter parts of the asphalt. She is screaming even fiercer now; she is a banshee; I cover my ears and the bite of it does not dull. Tears are pooling the soft brown lobes of her eyes. Her speech is mangled and watery. I put my hands on her shoulders to calm her, but she shrieks and throws up her arms. I back away. I hear frantic footsteps from behind; that same clink-clank of high heels; I can recognize my mother's voice-- It's uncommonly shrill.

“OH! OH! Oh sweetheart!” Mom inhales deeply through clenched teeth as she kneels to inspect the wound. I back up further from the driveway and bump lightly against our rose bush, the one lining our front yard beneath our windows. Jennifer resists any and all attempts for a closer view of the gash.

“Honey – Honey,” My mother gently takes Jennifer by the shoulders, “you need you let me look at it,” she coos.

I hadn't noticed Jacob at my mother's side, but there he is. And there he goes at her instruction, inside to retrieve gauze from that first aid closet we keep.

“Sweety...” My mother's eyes attempt a parley with Jennifer's but she still hasn't calmed down. “Sweety-- Sweety, what happened?”

Jennifer takes a rapid breath in between most words:

“I—I—I---I Wuh---wuh---wuh wanted--- I wanted to--- to-- oh—oh--- open the--- the do—do--- door but Jermanyclosedit---andit-andit--hitmy---hand-and-and-andnow,” Jennifer manages before resuming her outright sobbing.

My mother turns to my sulking frame, clearly enraged, “Jeremy-Rupurt-Fackrell! What did you do?”

I find myself rubbing my hands and staring where the dirt of the rose bush mingles with the sidewalk in light swirly patches of brown-grey.

“She wanted to close the door.” I mumble.

“What?” She growls.

Dad is supposed to be the mad one.

“I wanted to close the door.”

***

I'm in the cottonwood hospital waiting room now. We had all piled back into the Astro when it became apparent that Jennifer required professional medical attention. I last saw her wearing a single, lumpy, bandage-mitten and sullenly marching off to some doctor's room with my parents in tow. My brothers and I remain uncharacteristically silent for the forty-fiveish minutes they're away. I take a Highlights from a basket of old magazines underneath a nondescript beige lamp and pretend to read it. Mostly though, I alternate between imagining a life of indentured servitude to my sister after they amputate her hand, and studying the other ER patients.

Eventually, they return. Her hand is neatly bandaged now. Her face puffy and red, especially around the eyes, but it is dry and has returned to her default expression of dignified calm. The doctors informed my sister that she would never have normal used of her right hand again. She would have to learn to write differently, and certain every day tasks would blossom into endless frustration. Of course they are wrong. When do you ever hear the soccer-playing spinal cord injury victim, or the recovered cancer patient, tell you the doctor told them they 'would never walk again' or only had 'six months to live' without a note of pride at their health-care provider being so completely wrong. They are never right in these stories. My sister can write fine and I am not her house slave. I ended up providing enough “I'm sorry”s for her to stomach-punch me. I guess I deserved it. It's the type of thing we could laugh about now-- if she hadn't been killed in that grain thresher accident¹.

1. Nah, I'm just fucking with you; she's fine

Freudian Mintiness

Tuesday is my day off from Subway and, this week, my friends and I all share fortuitously similar schedules. We congregate at Larry's house (in truth an apartment) in the early afternoon, pondering how best to spend the gloomy late-spring day. Like every pack of shiftless, disaffected youth, it takes entire episode lengths of 24 for anything to be decided on as a group. To overpower our stagnant inertia, any choice would have to be enthusiastically unanimous, clicking into place with a metallic "Ah-ha!" Such decisiveness is a rare gift.

A haggardly unshaven Jack Bauer is water-boarding some "evil-doer" in a darkened warehouse, nondescript and vacant---

Greg nobly suggests Ice Cream. Andrew purses his lips in agreement and Larry consents with a "that sounds good." Larry's house is near public transport, so we take TRAX a half-mile west without buying tickets, then deposit ourselves a mere twenty yards from the stores entrance.

Three of us take time to collectively assess traffic, tugging our necks right to left, left to right, as Greg trotts his large frame through the busy thoroughfare with genuine nonchalance. We catch up with him loitering in the lobby, slack jawed and examining the menu with an easy concentration. I start to follow suit when my eyes brush across the slender young woman waiting patiently underneath. With every light, rapid glance I attempt, the more exceedingly nervous I become. She's outfitted in a tight goldenrod Pittsburgh Pirates t-shirt and ass-hugging blue jeans. Her face is framed by oddly clean-looking black dreadlocks and a nose piercing. Aside from the jewelry, her face is immaculate, as though that one flaw magnifies every other strength through awesome contrast; I have never seen a prettier human being.

Don't be a shit head, I think as my friends advance towards the counter. Just order your ice cream and leave; escape with as much dignity as you can carry.

Greg is the first to order. "Hi, yeah, uh... I would like... Two scoops of cookies and cream-- please," he says, his eyes still squinting and fixed on the menu text.

What is that music-- I've heard this like a thousand times.

As Larry wraps up his order and Andrew begins his, I realize that the beautiful young woman is pumping to Built To Spill-- a moderately obscure indie band-- through the black speaker boxes parked in the ceiling corners above. I. Love. Built to Spill; I'm shallow enough for this to boost her even higher in my esteem. Now she has gallivanted out of my most lucid fantasies; she is Aphrodite manifest; she is steaming raw love; she is OT8; she is so overwhelmingly pleasant with her dark eyebrows raised.

"And for you?"

I stammer, "Um... Yeah I'd um I'd-d like a cunt of mint choc--, I meanImean aacup-- Aca-ca-cupofmint--"

I am warm; all my exposed skin is redding to pink; I want to jump into a snowbank. She's fast to interrupt:

"What did you say?"