And the sound of Willoubhby’s snoring came out the window and down the street and went on and on and we were wondereing when it was ever going to stop when it did stop.
“He’s alive,” Clark said.
“Or he just died.”
Monthly Archives: December 2005
The Sandwich Idea
“why don’t we have a beer and talk about it?” Clark said.
“Because it’s breakfast,” I told him.
“It’s only weird if you’ve slept,” he said. “I’ve been up all night. I haven’t slept in days.”
“I’m not having beer with you at nine in the morning,” I informed him.
“Well then at lunch,” he said. “We’ll have lunch at the pub and we’ll order every sandwich on the menu and a pint of every beer they’ve got on tap and we’ll discuss the movie.”
“I’m not going to do that,” I said.
“Why not?”
“There’s seventeen sandwiches on the menu and over thirty beers on tap.”
“I’m buying.”
“It’s too much.”
“I’ve got money.”
“It’s too much beer and too many sandwiches.”
“Well, we’ve got to try them some time,” he said.
“Why?”
“Catering.”
Tales Of The Late Late Late Show
We ignored Willoughby’s snoring and lit another cigarette and Clark started to tell me the story of some movie he’d stayed up late watching on his mother’s ancient RCA television. It was a movie about a bunch of guys making a movie and it had given Clark the idea that he should really make a movie himself and that the way to do it was to string a video camera up on every streetlight on the block and then you could just act out the story on the street and it would be like a big sound stage with all angles covered.
“I’ve figured the whole thing out,” he said. “They’ve got these radio mikes so that you can capture the sound from anyone anywhere on the street and mix it all together like a d.j.”
“But what’s the story,” I asked.
“I don’t know, you tell me,” he said, but it sure would be cool and cheap to film and, “Isn’t there the guy at the bar who works at CBS, or ABC, or one of them? We could tell him about it, I bet he’d want to work on it too.”
“I think he drives a truck for them.”
“He must know people,” Clark said and he got very excited about the idea of doing a movie on the street and suddenly I was in charge of the story idea, because he’d already come up with the master plan of cameras and the street lights and after all I had to contribute something if I wanted in on the ground floor of the whole production.
“It’ll be Like surveillance,” He said
“Who’d want to watch it,” I asked. “Unemployed security guards?”
“That’s not a bad idea,” he said.
“What isn’t?”
“Shoot the whole show from an ATM machine camera… it all takes place in that little glass cage… money, sex, danger.”
Then he was off on the ATM movie and forget the streetlights and we’d pitch it to CBS, or
ABC, or whatever.
Back in the Street
We were in the street and we could hear him now snoring in poetic fart-like noises.
“He’s driving me fucking crazy,” said Clark.
And I said, “Why do you let it get to you?”
“I don’t want to die,” Clark said. “What does that mean?”
“It’s fairly self explanitory,”I said. “He doesn’t want to die.”
“Well who does?” Clark asked. “I mean really? Who does? What is he saying?”
“I don’t want to die.”
“Is he saying that you DO want to die? That I WANT to die? That what? That my mother wanted to die? What is he saying?”
“I don’t want to die.”
King Clark
Clark said.
Rose Colored Willoughby
“No,” said Clark. “I’m getting a little sick of hearing that.”
“Hearing what?”
“I don’t want to die,” said Clark.
“Has he been saying it long?”
“A few days,” he said.
“I thought I was the only one who’d noticed. It’s more like a couple of weeks.”
“But he’s getting louder now and I ain’t seen him in days.”
“Yes,” I said.
“What the fuck is wrong with fucking Willoughby?”
“He doesn’t want to die,” I said.
Willoughby Will Dream
If Willoughby gets back in bed, Willoughby will sleep.
If Willoughby sleeps, Willoughby will dream.
If Willoughby dreams… no one knows what he dreams about…
That’s what he does. He gets back in bed and slowly drifts in and out of sleep.
Sinking Feeling
We heard his voice grow louder and repeat over and over again:
Willoughby Says
Willoughby wakes up and Willoughby says, “I don’t want to die.”
He sits on the edge of his bed and repeats it and repeats it like a mantra. Five words counted on the fingers of his right hand.
We couldn’t hear a radio or t.v. coming from any of the apratments on the block, but we could hear Willoughby.
We could hear him all the way out in the street.
Willoughby Wakes Up
Our voices rise up from the street and he enjoys them at first like the singining of birds. He is in and out of dreams and some how it is like we are all talking together only we are not talking in the street. We are way up on the top of a mountain and talking in the clouds, but then Clark gets loud and Willoughby opens his eyes and he is back in his bed and in the apartment and Clark is going on and on and Willoughby can’t sleep and so he can’t dream and so he is out of the clouds.
Willoughby gets out of bed and goes to the window and closes it. Maybe he gets back in bed, or maybe he just stands there for a while behind the blinds. It’s hard to know with the window closed.