Snipe Hunt

Freddie threw his body backward and sprawled to the ground as two bullets shattered the wood door behind him and the third caught him on the nose and connected his two nostrils.  The cartilage was shorn clear of his face and he blew violently out to expel the blood and flesh running into his pharynx like mucus from a bad cold. 

He squeezed both triggers with his eyes wide open, sending the .9mm bullets in the direction of the unseen shooter.  Freddie spun on his back and kicked the riddled wooden door until the bottom half opened wide enough to wiggle his body into as more bullets crashed into the jamb above him. 

He got to his feet and ran down a set of stairs, trying several locked doors on his way. 

“Where the hell am I?”  He grumbled in a voice without the aid of a proper nose and loaded fresh magazines in his twin Kimber semi-autos and blew more blood out of the hole in his face.  It didn’t feel like blowing his nose, because the nose was gone.  It felt more like clearing his throat through a blowhole in the center of his face.

 A door opened to his left and the theme music to some game show echoed in the stairwell.  Freddie jerked both arms up and aimed his pistols at an old man wearing thick glasses.

 

“Where the hell am I?”  Freddie asked.

The old man put a shaky hand to his ear. 

“Huh?” 

“Where the hell…” A bullet tore through the old man’s left temple.  Freddie fell to a squat and aimed but saw no one.  A deep voice, decorated with a caustic Russian accent spoke from somewhere in the stairwell. 

“I have shot fish in barrels before.”  It said.  “I didn’t like it.  Go, snipe.  I count to ten.” 

Freddie ran into the old man’s apartment, shut and locked the door behind him.  Two shots ended The Wheel of Fortune on the television. 

There was no fire escape out of the single window of the old man’s apartment.  The view was moss covered brick. 

He rolled an upright piano away from the wall and hid behind it, both guns pointing at the front door. All was quiet and he strained to detect some movement, some sound from outside.  He brushed the spot where his nose had been and screamed aloud in pain.  He found a paisley tea towel and pressed it against his face.  It stuck. 

Someone chuckled just beyond the door.  He emptied all ten rounds of one pistol, the bullets ripping large holes in the cheap wood.  One bullet tore through the doorknob, wrecking the lock and allowing the door to creep open. 

The entrance was barren. 

Freddie dropped the empty gun and held the other in both hands.  The pain pulsated through his face into his skull, and made the spot behind his eyes feel full of stinging wasps. 

When the phone rang in the pocket of his cargo pants he near panicked and almost shot himself in the thigh.  He clenched his eyes tight, expecting a bomb and gripped the Kimber until his fingers ached. 

As his wits came back to him he put his focus on the door.  A shot rang out and the piano keys shattered into a black and white haze of piano particles and splinters.  A second shot hit something deep in the instrument and a loud “Bong” like a great grandfather clock filled the room after the echo of the shots dissipated. 

   Freddie rolled to his left and fired back twice before diving into a pass through and landing on a kitchen floor.   Another shot from beyond took out an eyehook holding a cast iron skillet above his head.  It crashed onto his shoulder and he cursed out loud in pain.  His collar bone was probably broken. 

He fired back with his good hand, but there was no one at the door, the bullets sailed on to insignificance.

“Where…”  He started, but couldn’t finish, his words shocked out of him.

A pump-action Benelli shotgun appeared on the floor next to the oven.  It was simply… there.

The phone continued to ring. 

He fumbled around in his pocket.  At the single touch of the “talk” button everything went still, and a white “PAUSE” appeared in front of his vision.  He blinked to make it go away.  It remained. 

“Hello Fred Bambera.  To hear this message in Spanish, press one followed by the pound key.” 

A small moment of silence passed.

“Fred Bambera, thank you for participating in this Snipe Hunt.   You are no doubt experiencing some memory loss.  This is normal.  You may put your weapon down, no harm will come to you in this mode.“

The voice on the phone told him who he was, his date of birth and social security number.   A picture of a gaunt man with an eye patch appeared in his vision.  Underneath his picture was the name, “Igor Brotnick.”  Igor flashed away and a map of the building lay before him, superimposed in backlit white over the old man’s apartment. 

“I’ll be damned…”  Freddie said. 

He picked up the shotgun and pumped it with one arm. 

12 guage. 

Fully loaded.

 Its heft was superbly balanced, and he felt like he’d been using it his entire life. 

“For a hint, press three, followed by the pound sign.” 

He did.  After a moment he smiled. 

Freddie pushed the “end” button and opened the refrigerator door.  He grabbed a glowing green bottle and downed the contents. 

He could feel an itch in the middle of his face as his nose grew back.  He took a long, deep breath into his nose and felt a rush in his brain that extended to his arms.  The tea towel fell, the round blood stain stuck to the floor. 

“I see you Snipe.”  The Russian voice said.  It was close.  So close. 

Freddie balled up his fist and put the thumb end to his mouth and made a snipe call.

“Snipe this.” 

He whipped around and let fly with the shotgun. 

. 

The End 

Sons of Anarchy

The Whole Gang 

Leave The Tribe 

Television is all about manipulation, more so than any other medium.  Film, before sound, was forced to rely heavily on art, you had to see the world in black and white and gray and not hear any of it so even when it was trying to be manipulative, there was a distance.  Television, funded by corporations from the get go, has no such distinction. 

I just finished the fourth season of Sons Of Anarchy and, more than any show I’ve seen in a long time, it had something to say without the manipulation.  Its message is clear and complex, and more essential than any number of “important” shows that pass off as “art”.  The only entities being manipulated here are the characters on the show and we, as the audience, get to draw our own conclusions.  It’s not a perfect show, but it far surpasses its genre expectations.

After four seasons, I have a conclusion.  It ain’t pretty. 

Before I continue, go here and read the essay.  It captures my own feelings about the first season of SOA and builds a unique lens with which to view the rest of it or gain some important perspective for the three seasons following if you already have.  I don’t agree with all of it, but it shows why Sons Of Anarchy is one of the smartest shows on TV.

A great quote from the site:

“Sons Of Anarchy is a series that explores the question of family loyalty by asking whether the family is an institution that demands the loyalty of its members as a matter of principle, or whether families are institutions that deserve the loyalty of their members because they are supportive and loving environments. The series explores this idea by examining what happens when a family begins to act in a manner that is neither loving or supportive, and it does this by looking at the relationships that make up both the Sons and the 'royal family' at the heart of the organization.”

I would replace “family” there with the word “tribe” or maybe in this case, “club”.  Family is “a loving, supportive environment” and ceases to be family when the love and support leaves.  The family gets bulldozed by the tribe.  There is no family in the Sons Of Anarchy, there is only the group, the gang, the club.

First off, I admit, I was drawn to the show because I wanted to see a bunch of tough biker dudes act crazy and look cool riding bikes in scenic Northern California.  And they do. 

The main character, Jax, a Brad Pitt clone of all things, pulls off the “girls love me, men fear me” attitude so engrained in the male psyche.  His best friend, the giant “Opie”, looks like a huge, brooding caveman, quiet and sensitive in one moment, focused and deadly on the hunt.

   Add to that Bobby, a fat, Elvis impersonator who somehow manages to cut a striking, deadly figure.  A goofy, mo-hawked computer dude named Juice who begins as something akin to comic relief and develops into something much more serious as the seasons continue.  Chibbs: A scarred Scotsmen with a deep burr in his voice.  A psychotic, kill-happy biker whose name is… Happy. 

Clay, the leader, portrayed by Ron Perlman, makes up for his arthritis and lack of good looks with arms twice the size of my legs and a deep, commanding voice.

The women on the show may be less than equals to their biker counterparts, but no less essential.  Nothing on Married With Children can prepare you for Gemma Teller, a somehow beautiful, scarred force of nature every bit as commanding of attention as any hulking biker with heart tattoos that can kill you.  Her motherly power is as authoritative as her manipulation is destructive. 

Tara, as Jax’s “old lady”, is probably the most conflicted of them all, trying to look out for her family and escape the poisonous environment she’s in.  She’s smart, resourceful and even when she falls apart there is an elegant toughness that comes with her desperation.  She grows with the show, changes and not for the better. 

Gemma and Tara 

But when “Tig”, a violent sociopathic “Sergeant at Arms” is riding on his hog bellowing along at elevated speed and volume away from some atrocity, wearing dark sunglasses with the sun behind him and a look of pure focus and power on his face, I can’t help but feel the pull. It looks like freedom. It’s the defining image of the series. 

The show succeeds most when it paints a picture of our society as a series of tribes looking out for their own, run by self-centered shoguns of terror and held together by an invisible glue of extreme, baffling loyalty. 

Witness:

The Sons of Anarchy: a mostly white band of bikers who run guns for the IRA and operate a mechanic shop.  The Nords: a Neo-Nazi  group of bikers who cook meth. The Mayans: a much larger Hispanic Biker gang running heroin and other narcotics.  The Lin Triad: Asian gangsters with Chinese food restaurants, money laundering and prostitution.  The One-Niners: a black gang in Oakland who buys guns from the SOA and uses them in a heroin war with the Mayans.  The Aryans:  a prison gang who operate against anything not white.  The Grim Bastards: a black motorcycle gang out of Lodi who ally themselves with the Sons.

The relationships change as the business changes, with only customary nods to long-term consequences.  A big leather bound hug one day, a knife through the back of your skull the next. 

That would be enough for some riveting action right?  But then you have to add corrupt small town police forces, corporate controlled local governments looking for “progress” and big money, and even more corrupt FBI agents to create a sense of complete disorganization and chaos: a world that is always out to get you from every angle.  There is no rock under which someone isn’t going to jump out and kill you.

But all of that still operates on the level of “cool crime fiction” in which we are manipulated into rooting for the small time Sons of Anarchy against the impossibly large and growing forces around them as they protect their “Charming” little town.  The Sons are underdogs and their tribe is shrinking while other tribes are growing.  Times are getting desperate. 

Where the show truly shows its heart is not during the well staged shootouts, displays of badassery or even in the complex plots as the various forces conspire and act out against each other.  It’s about the family that exists within the tribe and the picture of how all this mess will perpetuate itself like a series of dividing bacteria.

Jax Teller

Jax is torn between his actual family and his tribal family.  He knows his tribe is toxic and despite his proclivity for violence, he is a terribly self-aware human being.  His mother is a master at keeping her thumb on him.  His stepfather is charismatic.  His real father, dead for a long time, only pops up in fits and bursts from old letters and diaries.  And, of course, there is the club and its members: a tribe he’s invested his whole life up this point, like a platoon huddling together for support in a jungle full of hostiles. 

His overdeveloped sense of responsibility to his club infantilizes as much as it protects and Jax’s leadership skills, intelligence and violent acumen prove to undo his desire to leave the criminal life.  He can’t leave it, because he’s too good at it and he won’t know who he is without it.  

He thinks he’s helping his club, but in fact he’s prepping it for destruction.

I hear Jimmy Smits is going to portray a drug dealer who is going to “mentor” Jax.  Yeah, can’t see that one blowing up in everybody’s face.  No way will Jimmy Smits play a harbinger of hope. 

These criminals, all of them with likeable qualities, will never change because they don’t have to.  Either they will be mothered by an “Old Lady” or led by an autocrat.  Even jail is no deterrent; it actually makes them more loyal as shown by “Uncle Otto’s” heart breaking campaign of violence in jail.  When Otto finally breaks in season 4 and turns against his club, and sends Bobby to jail, it’s twice as shocking as any murder he’s committed up that point. 

What SOA doesn’t show is Jax’s actual family: his children.  They are simply formless, characterless entities.  How much can a writer develop a baby, right?  But even that is symbolic because they are empty vessels ready to be filled with a lifetime of tribal manipulation.

Season 4 is loaded with tension because Jax has an elaborate plan of escape, a legitimate shot at leaving the Sons and saving his wife and children, and breaking a vicious cycle.  I know him leaving the Sons ends the show, but I want it anyway.  I yearn for it.  Leave the tribe. 

Also from the aforementioned website:

“At root, Sons Of Anarchy is a series about the violation of the natural order. This order, represented by the utopian noble savagery of the founding father's vision is violated not only by Clay's brutal authoritarianism but also by the savagery of the series female characters..”

Where I take a difference in opinion is when the writer says “At root, Sons Of Anarchy is a series about the violation of the natural order.”   Sons of Anarchy is showing what the natural order is.  As human beings we find a group, get our identity and fight like hell to protect it.  That is natural.  Breaking from our groups, breaking from who are groups tell us we are, is unnatural. 

Who are we without our tribes? 

It’s long been the American way to find our identity and purpose in our occupations and possessions.  Why should criminals be any different?

I look at my own life.  I am a teacher, I see students doing this every day.  They form groups and gangs and cliques and exist in a feudal state of mild war (except in the case of gangs where it is actual war and not mild). 

Teachers are not immune either.  How many teachers get their sense of identity because they work “for the children” or believe so idealistically in the power of education that they are willing to do “whatever it takes” to accomplish their agendas, even if it means doing the wrong thing. 

And the corporations, the ones funding our television experience, are the ultimate tribes: vast, militaristic machines of money as crushing and heartless as any criminal gang. 

This brings me back to the image of Tig, riding his bike and hitting the throttle with one hand and reaching behind with the other as he unloads a .45 at a rival.  His “brothers” surround him in a throng of thunderous motorcycles. But there’s no freedom in it.  He may as well be tied to his hog.

 All it takes is one misstep, one stupid rock in the road or one millisecond of inattention and he turns into a body at the end of a thirty foot blood streak cooking on the hot pavement.

 And for what? 

Break free.  Leave the tribe.  

Something Terrible Will Happen

By

jOhn

The fat man wearing the Fez dropped his heavy silver ware to the ground on purpose, bent under the table to pick them up, to get a brief reprieve from his malodorous company. 

Keith, the company in question, knew the fat man would feel this way about him like he knew the sun would come up tomorrow, even if he wished both were untrue.  His first instinct was to kick the table on top of the fez-wearing mongrel and kick his Middle Eastern ass off the white roof of his own restaurant. 

Instead, he lit a cigarette and held it between his middle and index finger of his right hand, showing off his most hideous non- feature: a missing thumb and pinkie finger.

The fat man rose up, still looking like he may lose his falafel at any second.  He ran a plump hand over the mosaic surface of the dining table: some type of multi-colored monkey wearing a crown. 

“There are over five hundred thousand tiles in this building….”  He said.  “All of them baked in my own grandfathers oven.  Each piece… each piece treated like a gold coin, some great artistic currency…” 

He sighed. 

“All of it worthless.” 

Keith took a long drag on the cigarette and nodded.  He took his sunglasses off and the fat man winced when the two made eye contact. 

“I apologize, Mr. McKay…”  The fat man said.  “I do not feel well for some reason.”

“Don’t.”  Keith said.  “No use in it.” 

“Can you help me?”  The fat man asked. 

“That depends.  I assume this talk of artistic currency means you need the real kind, yes?” 

“Business is not what it once was.  My country is no longer… hospitable.” 

“Yeah, the bullet holes in the downstairs menu board kinda gave that away.”  Keith said. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a boy with a tray approaching them.  

“I need only forty thousand dollars…”  the fat man said, “…forty thousand dollars goes a long way here, until times are better… as they once were…” 

The boy dropped the tray on the table, covering the monkey save for a single monkey hand.  A black cloth covered something lying on the tray. 

“OK…” Keith said, and lit another cigarette.  “But you need to do everything I tell you to and do it right.  You will feel like an idiot, but you have to do it.”

The fat man seemed to choke on something, and Keith paused. 

“What?”  He asked. 

“I am sorry, Mr. McKay… it is just that you… you…” 

“You don’t like me.  I get it.  I make you feel sick.  But do you see anybody else out here willing to help you?” 

The fat man was quiet. 

“Here’s what we’re going to do…”  Keith produced a dark green metal box with stenciled yellow numbers on the side: a rare military safe from World War II his grandfather had left him. 

And then, like a strange alarm, something under the black cloth began to vibrate.  Keith pushed himself away from the table, expecting it to explode.   The fat man pulled away the cloth and revealed a simple black cell phone. 

He answered.   Keith waited. 

The fat man nodded, stood up and held his hand above his eyes as if he were looking for something far away.  

“A recording is telling me not to trust you, and to not go near your… ornament?”  He said this last word like he had no idea what it meant.  “And it tells me to do this.” 

He tossed the phone into the air.  Somewhere far off, a tiny pop like a burst beer cap, and a few seconds later the phone disintegrates as if hit with a death ray. 

Keith put his sunglasses back on and turned around and saw nothing but rooftops, laundry lines, dirty streets and dusty alleys.  He cursed.  When he turned back the fat man glared at him with nothing but pure hatred. 

“I could feel it… you are wrong, Mr. McKay… wrong…”  He spat on the floor.  “Get out.”

Locked up tight in his hotel room across town, Keith spread out pictures of his last ten clients and recalled each individual situation to see who could possibly be out to get him.   His metal box lay beneath his bed amidst the dust.

The jew from Long Island who wanted an Aston Martin was dead.  The old lady who wanted to wear 150,000 dollars worth of jewelry before she died got her wish exactly as stated: after a thirty second look in the mirror, she went blind and then succumbed to diabetic shock. 

The kid from the ghetto got a BMW with a trunk full of guns, cash and blow.  As far as Keith knew, the kid was still alive but with that wish combo, how long could he last? 

And that was only the most recent batch.  How far back would he have to go? Of course, he had files on everybody but it would take forever to comb through the mountains of wishes he had granted over the years. 

He checked his watch, and realized he was going to be late for his next appointment. 

Al-Sela Mohammed Jonsou was a white man living in a tent with four wives and nine children under ten.  His birth name was Bill Smith and he grew up in Alabama, the son of career military parents.  Bill changed his religion and name only two years prior, and vowed to start his own jihad in the desert. 

Keith cringed at the very idea of what a man like him might wish for.

Ultimately it didn’t matter, because Al-Sela and his brood were nowhere to be found. Keith let himself in the tent and saw a beautiful woman sitting on the floor at a low table.

“Evening, handsome.  Come sit down.”  She said. 

Keith did, not taking his eyes off hers, which were golden and enormous and almond-shaped, like that of a woman from some exotic island, with perfect tanned skin and gorgeous auburn hair flowing behind.  She wore a white tank top, and she was long and lean. 

“What’s a nice-looking man like you doing out in a place like this?”  She asked. 

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that?” 

She shrugged.

“I’m not a man.” 

Keith lit a cigarette and again made a point of showing off his missing digits. 

“What did you do with Al?”  He  asked. 

The woman snorted out a laugh through her perfectly feminine nose.  Keith couldn’t think of a word better than ‘cute’ to describe it. 

“Al.  Good one.  Only jackass in the world who reads the Koran with an Alabama drawl in his Arabic.”  

Keith laughed.  He almost wanted to hear Al talk. 

“What are you doing here?”  He asked. 

She leaned forward and put her elbows on her knees, and her smell – some floral, moist aroma – wafted through the arid air.  When she spoke, her voice was lower, slower and full of breath.

“I wanted to see it.” 

Keith paused, and maintained eye contact.  She was less than three feet away from his person, and didn’t seem to mind being there. 

“What’s your name?”  He asked.

“Shauna.  And you’re Keith McKay.  Nice to meet you.” 

She let that sink in for a moment before continuing.  Her countenance, once flirtatious, changed with an effort. 

“Ok, let’s cut the crap.” She said.  “I want to see it. I asked nicely once.” 

Keith said nothing.  She responded by reaching under the table pulling a black metal rifle from under the table and pointing it at Keith, the freakishly long barrel just inches from his nose. 

“You’ve seen what I can do from over six hundred yards, and now you get to see from three inches away.  Let me see it.” 

Keith took out the green safe, opened it and lifted a black velvet bag from inside. He reached his depleted hand inside and pinched the gold chain between his middle and index finger.  Then he lifted it out of the bag. 

A shriveled, black monkey’s paw, fingers slightly bent at the top knuckle in unison, hung down from his own three fingered hand. 

“I see.”  Shauna said.  “That’s how you do it isn’t it?” 

“Yeah.”  He said.  “You gonna kill me now?” 

She put the rifle on the floor, and leaned back, relaxing her shoulders. 

“No.  Listen…”  She smiled a little.  “I’m sorry I got all freaked out.  I just…I know about that thing.  What it does…” Her eyes went to his hand, and then her eyebrows lifted questioningly.  “What it did to you?” 

“This?” He asked.  “Lost a couple a bets.” 

She nodded, ran her hands over her bare arms and smiled. 

“I’m going to go now.  There’s a lot more we need to talk about, but I don’t think you’re ready just yet.”

She stood up and walked by him very closely, brushing her hip against him slowly, and then placing a warm hand on his shoulder.  Her grip was light, gentle, and it had been so long since anyone had touched him he wanted to close his eyes and let the moment go on. 

“I’ll see you again.”  She said, and removed her hand. 

And then she was gone. 

Keith felt the aura of her touch for hours afterward, his imagination spinning at the thought.  How long had it been since a woman had touched him without throwing up?  Without holding back a shriek of terror?  

He looked over to the green safe, and felt a strong desire to use its contents, even though he knew better. 

Keith was having breakfast with a client two days later when she showed up again.  He was discussing a several million dollar wish with a young lawyer recently disbarred. Of course, the young lawyer wouldn’t touch his breakfast, and complained of a terrible odor, and a weak stomach. 

Shauna simply sat at the table with them. 

“Why don’t you go away Todd?”

“But I...” 

“But nothing, you were disbarred for good reason.  Go on, get out.” 

Todd tried to look to Keith for help, but each look made him want to run away.  So he did. 

“Didn’t take you long.”  Keith said. 

“I could say the same to you.” 

“I have to make a living, right?” 

The waiter came by and Shauna ordered something, speaking perfect Arabic. When the waiter left, she fixed her golden eyes on his and held them there. 

“You should probably be arrested for wearing that around here.”  Keith said.  Shauna’s white shirt was unbuttoned to the middle of her breasts, showing off a black bra and a few gold chains. 

“Amazing isn’t it?”  She said. “But I asked you a question first.” 

Keith wanted a smoke, but the pack was empty. 

“I find people who need money and let them make an obvious wish.”  He stopped, looking for something on her face, but seeing only her beauty, her curious face glowing at him.  “I assume you know what happens when people wish with the paw right?” 

“Something terrible.”  She said. 

“Right. Something terrible.” 

“And you just come around and clean up the mess and take a little cash for your trouble?” 

He shrugged. 

“Like I said, I have to make a living, right?”

She nodded, spooned some kind of middle-eastern pastry into her mouth and chewed.  Whatever it was, it looked better than what he was eating. 

“Why here?”  She asked. 

“I can’t stay long any one place.  Keep thinking the towns folks will come after me with torches if I linger.  Maybe burn me on a stake.”  

She laughed. 

“They only do that to witches.” 

“Maybe I am a witch.”  He said. 

She gave him a pitying look, leaned forward and put a hand on his cheek and let her fingers brush down the side of his face. 

“Nah, you’re too cute to be a witch…” 

Her face was close enough to his that he could smell the cinnamon and honey from her breakfast and his body went stiff in more ways than one, and his hammering heart threatened to shatter his rigid self from within. 

“Tell you what.” She said. “Meet me next time.  Here”  She slipped a piece of paper into his breast pocket and held her hand there for a moment before pulling away and leaving him. 

“Bring it with you.”  She said.

When the waiter finally got back, Keith was still in a trance like state.  Not wanting to touch Keith, the waiter slapped the table with a flat palm to get his attention and would later wash his hand profusely with hot, soapy water. 

The address she left was in the market district, a most hated locale for him.  As he made his way through the throngs of people, bodies would part before him like the Red Sea, seeking asylum from his horrible presence.  Vendors ignored him, children ran away from him clutching each other in fear. 

Keith walked up several flights of stairs in a structure with a glassed out façade.  It looked like a spaceship amongst the white stucco huts and tile-walled buildings around it. 

Her door was open, and he could hear music swell as he walked nearer.  The apartment was like nothing he had ever seen in this part of the world and must have cost a fortune. 

“Hey there.”  She said.  Keith gasped.  She wore a simple, little black dress, and she walked to him on those remarkable, long legs and planted a kiss on his lips.  “Missed you today.  Come in and sit.   Are you hungry?”

They ate cured steak with salad greens, almonds and fresh figs and drank a rich red wine.  Talk of the weather, tv shows and movies they missed from back in the states, and favorite songs followed. 

“So when are you going to tell me how you got it?”  She finally asked.    

“Why do we have to talk about that?” 

“Please… it’s killing you and you know it… talk to me.” 

“My father got it when I was fourteen years old.  His first wish got us two hundred grand and got my mother dead.  His second wish was to bring her back.”  

“Oh God.” 

“Yeah… but she was cremated.  Our house, the two of us were… dusty with her for weeks.” 

He stopped, wanting Shauna to come to him, to touch him or he was going to break down and cry and he thought if he did he wouldn’t be able to stop.  She did come, grabbed his hand and led him to the sofa, and sat close, her arm around his shoulders, a cool silver bracelet rubbed against his hot neck. 

“He wouldn’t wish her away.  I don’t even know what his last wish was.  He disappeared.  I wished her to be dead again, but… for whatever reason, the smell of her death still lingers on me.  People can’t stand to be around me, they think they’re going to die, and or that I’m dead or…  I don’t know.  It was my last wish.” 

He went on, told her how he couldn’t stay in school, couldn’t get work and had no relationships to speak of.  All he had was the paw.  The tears came, but they were under control. 

“So how is it you can stand to be near me?”  He asked. 

She sighed deeply and said nothing for a long while. 

“Do you… have it with you?” She asked. 

He took it out of his pocket and held it out to her.  She nodded.

“I hate it too.”

She moved to her marble fireplace and removed an ornate box from the mantle.  When she opened it, the fingers of the monkey’s paw clenched into a tight fist. 

It was a glass bottle full of some cloudy substance, and Keith could see a strange shadow twitch in the whitish fog. 

“This…” She said. “… is the Bottle Imp.” 

“What?” 

“The bottle imp.  I bought it for two centimes on some island in the pacific a few years ago.  I was strung out on heroin and some greasy islander sold it to me. It will grant you anything you want.  I got clean, lots of money, talents I’d always wanted.  Even this body is a wish.  Sometimes there were consequences, like with the paw, sometimes there wasn’t.  You never know.” 

“Oh God.” He said.  “That’s how you can… be with me.  You just asked the… Imp for it.”

“If I don’t sell it, I burn in hell with that imp when I die.  The rule is that I have to sell it for less than what I paid for it.  If I don’t, the bottle will find its way back to me.  I have to find someone to buy it for a single centime.” 

“What the hell is a centime?” 

“Pretty damn close to absolutely nothing.” 

“Oh.” 

The two sat in the room with their wish granters and felt helpless.  

“I guess I thought, I would take a chance on the paw you know?  I mean, I don’t know what else to do.” 

“No…” He said.  “It won’t work. It’s like wishing for more wishes, it would quadruple your trouble.  The disaster would be exponential.” 

“How do you know?” 

“Ask me later.”

“What?” 

“Ask me later.” 

“So what do we do now?”  She asked.  “The thought of having this much longer… thinking I could just get hit by a car one day and wake up burning in hell… I have to do something.” 

Keith fiddled with the brittle palm in his whole hand.  He moved his three fingers over the skin of her upper arm and left them on the ball of her shoulder. 

He gripped the paw harder. 

“I wish for a centime.”  He said.  Reaching behind her ear, he pulls out a tiny, thin coin with a hole in the center.  “I’d like to purchase your Imp.” 

“Oh god… no.”  She tore herself from the couch and stormed away, the bottle imp still in her hand. 

“With all the damage I’ve done to people coming to me for help…”  Keith paused.  “I’m going to hell anyway.  I may as well take these demons with me when I go.” 

She said nothing, only looked out the window.   He walked up behind her and put a hand timidly around her, resting his palm on her belly and kissed the back of her neck.  She turned to kiss him on the mouth and the two embraced for a long while. 

“Please…” he whispered into her mouth.  “Let me do this for you.” 

Moments later, she let him. 

He left her while she was sleeping with a note and signed an “I love you” at the bottom.  Her admission of being strung out on heroin gave her away.  Once, a long time ago, her junkie self had wished for it and he had granted it with the paw. 

And now his punishment was in his pocket and he had assurance of hell. 

“Let’s see how far we can push it…”  He said out loud to the night. 

Keith didn’t go home, but went to an old burned out warehouse, one hit with a rocket years ago.  He dug a hole in a far corner and, four feet down, he hit the box.  He hefted it out of the hole and opened it. 

He rubbed the object inside three times, and a genie appeared. 

“Howdy there.”  Keith said. 

“Good evening master.”  The genie said.  “Your wish is my command…” 

The end.  

THE AVENGERS: No One Is Insignificant

The Avengers is the best movie I've seen since Inception in 2010.

OK.  So I’m in the midst of compiling a list of comic book movies and ranking them.  As I re-watch some old standby’s I find myself more often underwhelmed by the mediocrity of even some of my favorites.  Without giving anything away too early, movies I thought were fantastic don’t hold up so well under scrutiny.  In making my list, there are only two or three films consistently getting better with repeated viewing.

Some, like early Batman movies, get a LOT worse. 

But then along came The Avengers and it hit the reset button in my brain and wow, when the processor kicked back on (after the movie ended) I was filled with levels of awe yet to be tapped.  I don’t even know where to begin.  Perhaps another five or six viewings? 

The key to great entertainment is to start well and keep getting better until a satisfying ending, and director Joss Whedon handles it with aplomb.  Imagine you’re handed a movie like this, you’re given six characters with a movie history of a combined 7 previous films, who knows how many cartoon series, fifty years of comic books, a 200 million dollar plus budget and the anticipation of the Second Coming of Christ. 

How do you NOT screw that up? 

He didn’t screw it up because he took the job seriously, treated his material with respect, didn’t insult his audience, and recognized that none of the characters were unimportant.  He sacrificed an overly complex plot (thank God) and gave all the screen time to developing characters and showing them interact. 

Which is why Whedon is perfect for this movie.  If you’ve read my The Cabin in the Woods thoughts the other week, I complained a little that the movie was too tongue in cheek to be really affecting, and the characters ,while entertaining, didn’t do much for me.   It was good for the horror fanboy in me, not so much for anything deeper.  It was a movie about a movie.  Or hundreds of movies. 

Yeah, that’s not The Avengers.  It’s about the characters.  As a fiction writer I’ve heard countless times, “create real people and let them shape the plot” but I don’t think I’ve ever seen it until this movie.

Take Iron Man.  Yes, Robert Downey Jr. is very funny and Whedon was literally born to write lines for him.  What might be a throwaway line for another character comes off as Shakespeare for Iron Man.  His first movie was the standard for Marvel superhero films but without going into much detail (another blog post, another time) I enjoyed Iron Man, but didn’t think it went deep enough, the ending was lame, and Tony Stark’s character arc wasn’t terribly believable or inspiring. 

He is believable in this movie because he is so well-balanced by the others.  Take the initial meeting with Thor.  Thor is the opposite of Iron Man.  He may have charisma and twice the power (Iron MAN, Thor, GOD of Thunder), but lacks the wit and the charm.  He is emotionally invested in the plot because his brother is the villain.  Stark doesn’t have ANY emotional investment in anything except himself.  The two come together and you have a terrific fight scene with some real horsepower behind it. 

Then you add Captain America.  If Joss Whedon was born to write lines for Stark, than he was born to write a mockery of Captain America.  And, thank God, he doesn’t.  Captain America may be a giant American Flag, but he is portrayed as a true blue soldier, willing to fight and sacrifice.  You get the feeling he doesn’t measure up to the extreme power of his allies, but doesn’t allow any jealousy or fear to well up within him.  He feels it, but fights it off for the good of the cause.  You know, saving lives and the planet and such. 

I wasn’t expecting to like Captain America as much as I did and he was the biggest surprise of the movie for me.  He is the beating heart of the team, the guy who is the most emotionally invested in the outcome.  Of course he and Tony Stark would clash and he holds his own against the merciless arrogance of Iron Man. 

When he starts calling out orders before the climactic ending battle, you feel like he’s the guy who is truly reaching his potential and doing the best he can with what he has.  He doesn’t have the intellect of Stark or the extreme power of Thor, but he is going to go down fighting one way or the other.  

During a battle scene at the end of the movie, you can see Captain wearing down, feeling pain.  You’re not going to see that in Thor and if you see it in Iron Man he’s just going to crack a joke about it and move on.   They appear unaffected.  Captain America jokes about it, and there’s no mistaking he is feeling the hurt. 

Hawkeye is a dude who shoots arrows.  In this group, that’s like Lance Armstrong telling Mike Tyson he can kick his butt because he can ride his bicycle faster.  It works here though because again, everybody is important.  Everybody has a story.  By making Hawkeye a slave to Loki in the beginning of the film, it adds a dimension to his character he wouldn’t have had otherwise.   That his archery is actually AWESOME is almost not important.

Even better is linking him to Black Widow (who gets the award for best fight scene while tied to a chair).  As S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, they have a complicated history that is more hinted at than shown, but you feel it anyway.  As two of the least powerful heroes, they don’t come across as unnecessary for the survival of the world.

As for Black Widow, she is a complete hero package: slick, intelligent and deadly.  It helps that she’s the only female member.  If Iron Man is the arrogant alpha, Thor the powerful God, Captain America the ultimate soldier, than Black Widow is the ultimate spy.  You can easily see how she would be even more valuable in future adventures.  Who else is going to get information?  Thor?  I doubt it. 

Yes, I leave Bruce Banner last. Yes, because he is the best.  All the characters are wonderful, but Bruce is the only complicated one.  The tortured one.  The one you don’t know how to feel about other than to just feel bad for him.  After two decent but forgettable films, Whedon finally figures out the Hulk and it is a glorious discovery. 

Mark Ruffalo is beyond perfect for Bruce Banner, getting to the exact mix of anxiety, compassion, angst and anger simmering beneath his meek appearance.  His presence alone creates something so many comic book movies (including the other Hulk movies) lack: dramatic tension.  Banner’s extreme polarity is the pitch perfect symbol of assembling a superhero team with such enormous powers and egos. 

Beyond that, Hulk steals every scene he is in and even if you haven’t seen the film, you probably know about the best scene in the movie.  I won’t get into it… you need to see it. 

If there’s a character that gets short-changed in the film, I would think it’s Nick Fury.  I always thought of Nick Fury as an eye-patched Hannibal Smith from the A-team with a much badder attitude, a world weary soldier/spy/leader with some mean scars.  What I got was Sam Jackson.  As much as I love Jackson, he is such a strong character he never appears as anything other than himself, so much so I expected him to yell “”I’m sorry, did I break your concentration?” to Loki inside his cage.  It would have been a unique way to interrupt another of Loki’s insufferable monologues. 

But Jackson is a powerful presence regardless, and it’s difficult to find fault when his character is written so well and is so integral to the movie.  He is the man spinning this story of earth’s salvation and he’s doing it with one eye and bosses he doesn’t like.  Good on him, then. 

As the villain, Loki is perfect.  What other villain in the current marvel film universe could compare to him?  Jeff Bridges (Iron Man ) is too human. The military would be dull (Hulk).  The Red Skull (Captain America) is an intriguing choice, but ultimately not a threat to the universe.  For that, you need a false God with a massive inferiority complex and a source of endless power.  And Loki snatches that up and somehow manages to be both powerfully evil and cringe-fully pathetic at the same time. 

All this to say that Joss Whedon is truly the hero of this movie.  His strengths have always been HEROES, from Buffy to the Browncoats to the Avengers.  Imagine, for a moment, what it would be like for The Avengers to become a series he controls.  He obviously handles long story arcs well and the interplay of characters is something he seems to be able to consistently handle over time.  Even if you don’t like everything he’s done (I don’t, Buffy still makes me cringe) It’s uncanny how so few filmmakers get this stuff right.  

He makes it a habit in this movie to provide a consistent series of build-ups and pay-offs, from a simple ten dollar bet between Nick Fury and Captain America to the promise of a climactic battle.  Every moment is either building up or paying off, throwing us forward into the plot with a constant promise that the next scene will be even more awesome than the last. 

 Trying to make a list of the best comic book movies seems silly after watching The Avengers. It’s the glorious amalgamation of the entire Marvel universe (minus Spiderman, who is bound to guest star at some point).

Folks are talking about The Dark Knight Rises, but it’s difficult for me to think of the newest Batman movies as “comic book” movies, when they’re more like “bizarre crime movies”.  Batman is a crime fighter, not a superhero.  There is a difference. 

So what movie is best compared to this?  There is one, a movie so good that I’m glad The Avengers came out so there would be something to compare it to.  The Avengers breaks the old standards to join the only other superhero film worthy to be called FRIGGING AWESOME by both fanboys and casual fans alike.  By action craving kids to mooks like me who want to overthink everything. 

Yes, there is one hero movie as good as this.  But I’m not saying today.  Look for that post later….

…but feel to free to post some guesses, I’m sure somebody HAS to know besides just me.