"What Was Mine" 14

The “armory” turned out to be nothing more than a big closet located toward the back of the main building.  There wasn’t even a guard posted there.  Bledder unlocked the door, which was metal at least, and inside I saw a whole lot of old rifles and pistols and knives and bayonets.  They were mostly repurposed war surplus, and from the look of things they hadn’t seen a lot of action since that conflict.  “Confiscated weapons are kept on that upper shelf,” said Bledder, pointing upward.

My eyes followed his finger, and there it was: my gun-belt.  I reached up, and the second I touched the well-worn black leather, I felt like a fully free man for the first time.  The second feeling was anger, as I noticed that there were no bullets in the ammo-loops sewn into the back of the belt.  I brought it down and held it up with irritation for Bledder to see.

He immediately understood the problem.  “It is not this facility’s policy to provide paroled prisoners with loaded weapons.”

Frowning, I buckled the belt around my waist, then tied the holster down to my right thigh and the knife-sheath that hung from the other side to my left one.  I drew, and Bledder, despite himself, flinched.  I swung the cylinder out and looked down the empty chambers, slapped it back in and worked the action, thumbing the hammer, pulling the trigger.  “It’s a little stiff,” I observed.  “You couldn’t have taken ‘er out and worked some ammo through it once in awhile?  Keep it limber?  Oil it up?”  Bledder just looked at me and sighed.  “I had a full pistol, full belt, and maybe 30-odd rounds in my duffel.  I suppose that’s all gone?”

“They’re still digging the hole for Frante.  I’ll be damned if I’ll put more lives at risk.”

“You think I’m that crazy?”

“I think you’re capable of anything.”

I looked deep into his pudgy face.  “Maybe you were right about Peyd.  He was a basically decent but weak man, given to petty pride and fear and lustful impulses.  But you, Bledder…you’re a prime asshole, and you know it, and you like it.”

“Are you challenging me to a duel, now?”  I couldn’t tell if the notion scared or excited him.

I shook my head.  “Peyd knew it was his time to go at the end, but you’re planning on living forever, I think.”  I stepped out of the armory.  “Feed me.  Something other than that fucking soup.  I deserve at least that much before you send me off on your old gray mare.”

I ate.  It filled me up, I’ll say that much, and any more description is more than the meal deserves.  I went by the stables and found Byson shovelling feed into troughs for the animals, horses and cells alike, to eat from.  Byson was wearing the same clothes I’d ever seen him in.  They just had more shit on them than last time.  “You’re supposed to loan me a horse.”

Byson looked up and nodded.  He spit in the dirt.  “Yep.  Bledder wants me to give you a real nag, but…”   He looked around to make sure nobody was listening.  We were alone but for the beasts.  “Truth be told, he doesn’t know squat about the stables.  He leaves me to it.  So did Peyd.  They don’t like coming out here unless they have to.  So…”

“Don’t get yourself in trouble on my account.”

He waved a beefy hand.  “Not a chance.”  He nodded toward the back of the stables.  “Follow me.”

I tromped after him.  He stopped at the last stall and gestured me close.  “Are you familiar with Adlandinan steeds?”

“That’s a place in Araby, isn’t it?”  My father had drilled me about a great many things when I was young, including geography.  I could probably scratch out a map of the globe freehand, but sometimes it was convenient to play a little ignorant.

“Yes, it is.”  I stood in front of the stall gate, and Byson snapped his fingers and clicked with his mouth.  A beautiful animal emerged from the dingy shadows of the rear of the stall.  It was tall, silver, mottled with black, and it had a body built for leaving posses in the dust.  It obviously wasn’t from around here, and in any open auction it would fetch far more than my stolen 18 champs.  “This is Cuss.”

I frowned.  “You named at animal like this Cuss?”

Byson smiled and shrugged.  “My way of keeping him anonymous, I think.  He scratched the horse behind an ear and produced a sugar cube from his pocket, which Cuss licked from his palm.  “It was in my interests to convince people around here that Cuss was too ornery to handle.  I’ve been hiding him in here for a few months, taking him out on rides after lights out.”

I looked from Cuss to Byson, sort of in awe.  “Are you giving me this horse, Byson?”

He shrugged.

“This isn’t the sort of solid duty-horse I was expecting you to hand over, friend.”  I looked into Cuss’s eyes.  “This fella’s a prince!  How could you do this?  You don’t even know if I’m good with animals.”

“I know your reputation, Gunniver.  You know that.  Word is, you’re a hard man, but a good one.  You don’t abuse drink, women or animals.”  He grinned.  “Well, sometimes the drink.  You’ve killed men, that’s the truth.  I’ve seen you in action.  But…I just have this feeling about you, I guess.  Besides…”  He chucked Cuss under the chin.  “I figure you deserve a strong, fast horse to ride out on in style, if you’re gonna be riding with my daughter.”  He stared at me seriously.  “You’re gonna treat Suelanne right.”

I was bowled over.  This man…this simple, good-humored, shit-covered, fat and unshaven man…  “How the hell did you produce a good-looking gal like that?”

Byson.smiled wistfully.  “Her mother was even better-looking.”  Byson extended a hand, and I immediately took it.  He held it firmly, and shook it once.  “She’s been wanting to get away since the day she came out, fierce and full of it.  The birth was more than her mother could take…she was born of my wife’s blood, you understand?”

“Yes, I do.”

“You’re leaving this place with my most precious possession in the world, Gunniver…and also a pretty nice horse.”

I looked at Cuss.  I looked at Byson.  “Byson, I hope I meet you again some day.”

“The name’s Walt.”  He sniffed, and he wiped a hand across his nose, his eyes looking a little moist.  He patted Cuss’s head.  “Let’s get him saddled up, then.”  His voice was thick.

You don’t meet a lot of guys in this world like Walt Byson.  I suppose that’s the real bitch of it.

Kevin Analyzes Your Shopping Lists

Today, two people left shopping lists in the store I work in.  You can tell a lot about a person by their shopping lists.  For instance, in this list:

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there are two people making the list, one of which is a far worse speller than the other.  I will translate for you.  The entries in all caps belong to the lousy speller.

LAUNDRY SOAP (HE)
XXXXXX FABRIC SOFNER
Q-TIPS, DEODERANT
Baking soda
Shampoo, conditioner
Yogurt
MILK
WATER, SODA
Cereal
Cereal bowls
Fruit Roll Ups
PMS Maxi-Pads

First of all, “fabric sofner”?  SERIOUSLY?  And what is scratched out?  Did the person misspell “fabric”, realize it, then hideously fuck up “softener”?  We will never know.  Secondly, what does the (he) after “laundry soap” mean?  Is it “heavy duty” laundry soap?

The lister who is not a terrible speller is obviously a woman, and not just because she put maxi-pads and yogurt on there.  She also listed Fruit Roll-Ups, so we can assume that she is a mother.  Plus, she wrote down “cereal”, then apparently remembered that her shitty kids broke all the cereal bowls, necessitating the purchase of more cereal bowls.

The woman is very organized and on top of things.  The man is a lousy speller, of course, probably doesn’t have much in the way of education, and, since he wanted the laundry soap and fabric softener, we can deduce that he doesn’t have a job and does most of the chores around the house.  He probably also broke a few of those cereal bowls.

I predict hard times ahead for this family.

The next one stands out for one reason only:

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Sorry for the blurriness of my phone photos, but if you can see, this woman (yes, it’s a woman) is looking for a few items at Kohl’s, one of which is “Seth’s B-D”, by which I assume she means “Seth’s birthday present”.  What sort of person just wanders around in a Kohl’s until she finds something that will work as a birthday present?  A harried mother, or more likely, a harried aunt.  Whoever Seth is, he’s probably a child, and he probably isn’t this woman’s.  I would hope that her own children would rate above a quick afternoon visit to Kohl’s, but what do I know?  Maybe Seth is her slacker brother-in-law who she can barely tolerate, who’s always sleeping on her sofa when he gets kicked out of his wife’s house (see above) for being unemployed and barely literate.

This conclude’s today’s session.

So, INCEPTION (No Spoilers)

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I used to do these sort of reviews over on this site, but I figure that if this is the new home of I’m So Goddamn Clever, it might as well be for The Pop Ogre as well.

Anyway, I just saw INCEPTION.  It is very smart, exciting, and trippy, and very much the sort of well-crafted, intelligent, easy to admire but difficult to love feature that Christopher Nolan is becoming synonymous with.  I enjoyed every minute of watching it, and I’m glad I saw it theatrically, but I really don’t have any desire to immediately see it again.  I saw it, I liked it, I appreciate it, but the idea of owning it or watching it repeatedly just leaves me fairly depressed and exhausted.

Maybe this feeling will change, but I doubt it.

The performances are all top-notch, Nolan’s directorial hand is as assured as ever, and I highly recommend that everybody see this movie…once.  Nolan is fast becoming the modern age’s greatest crafter of sneakily smart mainstream entertainment that works one time.

I hope that some day he’ll make something worthy of repeated viewings.  I want to love one of his movies.

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You guys should probably see this movie.  It’s on NetFlix instant download.  For those of you who don’t haunt movie nerd sites like I do, it’s a throwback 80’s Satanic panic horror movie, which is actually filmed in such a way to feel like it was made in the 80’s.

I liked it a lot.  Some viewers may find it too “slow”, and I pity those viewers.

I Just Unfollowed...

A couple of people that posted nothing but photos of supermodels having “arty” sex.  I like looking at attractive people as much as the next guy, but look:

I’m…

39.
Out of shape.
With a heart condition.
Tired all the time.

I’m never going to have that sort of black-and-white, bed-and-floor-and-toilet-stall model sex, and even if I ever did, it would probably kill me.

If I’m not doing it, I don’t need it rubbed in my face all the damn time.

You seem like good people, but Christ, there’s other shit to post and talk about.

Ambiguity

Jill, who has never watched The X-Files, has been working through the shows on Netflix (currently up to season 3, and holy shit there were a lot of amazing episodes this season).  One thing that is really impressing me with these shows, many of which I’m watching for only the second time, is that they are rarely tied up with a neat bow in the end.  Frequently, you have Mulder’s theory, and you have Scully’s, and you can decide which one you feel like going with.  Other times, you’re not really certain if anything at all supernatural even happened.

Some people probably feel like ambiguity is a sign of lazy writing, but in fact it’s quite difficult to craft an ambiguous story that still leaves the viewer satisfied in the end.  Truly lazy writing is the fanatical desire to explain everything, no matter how far it stretches credulity, and no matter how little desire the viewer has in having it explained.  I call it the George Lucas Approach.

For instance, we didn’t need to know C-3PO’s origin.  He could have just been a random robot.  But no, Lucas had to show us that he was built by Anakin Skywalker.  We didn’t need to know where Boba Fett came from.  He could have just been a bounty hunter.  But NO, Lucas had to show us that he was the clone of a man who wore the same outfit as him and shares the same genetic code as stormtroopers, who are revealed to be clones as well.  Indiana Jones COULD have just acquired his various acoutrements and eccentricities over the course of his life, BUT NO, Lucas had to show us that it all happened in one eventful afternoon.  We didn’t need to KNOW how Force-sensitivity worked, but…well.  I could continue this rant, but it would just shame us all.

This bullshit is the height of laziness.  A good writer will trust his audience to be able to make decisions and figure things out for themselves.  A lazy one will play connect-the-dots until there is no mystery left.

Stringio

The worst thing to happen to Anthony Hopkins’ career was playing a charismatic villain in a critically-acclaimed blockbuster. I speak of course of his role as McCandless in FREEJACK opposite Emilio Estevez and Mick Jagger. It was all downhill after that.