How To Not Notice A "Peacock"

by Thomas M. Pender

Finally, someone saw something in actor Cillian Murphy that I saw from his very first frame in Batman Begins: effeminism.  I may have just invented that word, but it suits Murphy’s role in the tiny film Peacock to a “T.”  He’s never impressed me much with his acting.  He’s tried to be mysterious and foreboding in Batman as well as Red Eye, but to me, he’s always seemed like the scrawny, scared little boy trying to act tough . . . with negative results.

Here, in a film that I’d never heard of before it appeared on a Redbox screen, Murphy plays a small-town citizen in 1930s-esque rural America, who lives a very different kind of private life.  Whenever he steps outside of his house, he is John, a working average Joe with a fedora and a briefcase, but at home, he sometimes becomes Emma.  With a wig, a dress, high heels and some makeup applied to Murphy’s feminine cheekbones and lips, Emma runs the household.  For apparently years, John has resided in this town without anyone ever learning of Emma . . . until one day, when a train car comes off a nearby track and plunges into John/Emma’s yard.  Townsfolk gather to see what the ruckus is about, and a growing crowd of locals see her for the first time.

Not bizarre enough for you?  Get this: one citizen assumes that John has up and married secretly, and the whole town is thrilled for the young couple!  The buzz begins, and not only does everyone in town want to meet the new bride, but a senator decides to use the train accident as his soapbox, and wants John and Emma to host the speech.

Not once, not in one single scene, does one single character in this film seem suspicious of the fact that John and Emma look exactly alike!  Are you kidding me?  All “Emma” had to do was correct the first near-sighted dope who assumed she was John’s wife, and say she was his sister, and at least that would have made some sort of cinematic sense.

Here’s another poser: In ‘30s-esque rural America, exactly how many cross-dressing multiple-personality types do you suppose there were?  And is it possible for friendly everybody-knows-his-neighbors types to never discover that there is a woman living inside a supposed single man’s house over what seems to be many years?  No one saw Emma wash a dish or make an egg in the windowed kitchen?   When the train hits, “she” is outside getting the laundry off the line.  Has she never done this before, or does she only go outside when the entire town is off the streets?  No one even looks at Emma with a “Don’t I know you from someplace?” wince.  Not once.

For a tiny film, the cast is impressive: Susan Sarandon (Thelma & Louise, Dead Man Walking) plays the senator’s wife, who befriends the kitten-shy Emma, Ellen Page (Juno, Inception) is a girl from John’s past (who apparently also never caught him in a dress), and Josh Lucas (A Beautiful Mind, The Lincoln Lawyer) is the local law.  Aside from Page’s obvious Canadian accent, everyone fits rather well into this town.  The direction is decent for this wanna-be Psycho non-thriller, but that one glaringly obvious question overshadowed the entire plot for me.

If you don’t want your cast of characters to know of one particular character’s existence, you keep the secret character out of sight.  If, for some bizarre reason . . . like a train plummets into a yard! . . . the cast does learn of the secret character’s existence, they should probably notice right away that not only does this character look identical to another who happens to live in the same house, but the two are never seen together, and each make constant excuses for where the other one is.

As with many films, two or possibly even one rewrite could have saved a whole lot of disappointment in the logic department.  Then again, if no one in a town of hundreds notices that two characters are identical twins, maybe it’s not so shocking that two Hollywood writers (one of which directed) didn’t notice their huge mistake, either.

Puss Gets His (Part 2)

(Continued from last week)

That cat was going to learn the error of its ways.  Today.  I didn’t care if I found a hammer, a belt, or a double-barreled shotgun.  I was going to put my hands on something that would get through that cat’s crushable skull.

Rubber-soled moccasins.

That would do nicely.

Picking up one of Mike’s moccasins by the toe, and wagging the heavy heel with anticipation, I entered the lion’s den.  And closed the door.  There would be no escape.

Knowing full well that the cat was under the bed, and that it was quite confident in its safety, I took great pleasure in throwing first the mattress, then the box spring, to the opposite wall.  One of the most beautiful sights I’d ever seen in my life was the raw, naked fear that shot out of that cat’s eyes when rude light slammed down on him in his darkened hideaway.  He froze with shock, and I took my opportunity.

I beat him.

I beat him.

And I beat him.

And it was goooood.

I brought the full force of my arm down upon that cat again and again and again, each time connecting that heavy ruber heel onto the thin fur shield around those tender cat guts.  When the beast got its muscles together enough to dart out of sight behind the discarded mattress, I didn’t waste one moment in throwing it aside and kissing the cat with that lovely weapon again and again.  The cat hissed at me.  It bared its teeth at me.  It squealed at me.

In fear!

My eyes were wide with bloodlust, and I don’t recall if I blinked the entire time I was in the arena with that cat.  It was the most fun I had had in years.  I wanted it dead, quite literally, and I didn’t care what the consequences were.  I wanted to spread that cat’s skull to the walls.  This would be my statement to cats around the world to steer clear.  Or else.

When I started to breathe again, and eventually blink, the cat had hidden himself for the fourth or fifth time, and I decided to leave.  It is the only reason that animal lived to see the next sunrise.

I did not clean up a thing in that room, with good reason.  Over the months, I had repeatedly told Mike that his cat’s attacks were getting beyond the line of irritating, and entering the region of unacceptable.  He immediately took action, and ignored me.  So they would both learn their respective lessons with this one messy room.  I closed the door, dressed my wound, and left.  I stayed away for several hours.

When I returned, Mike was in the living room.  His bedroom door was ajar, and the contents had been straightened up.

“Was there a problem with the cat today?” he asked me with genuine uncertainty.

“You have two roommates, Mike,” I said without apology.  “One of them pays rent.  Don’t forget that.”

We never spoke of the incident after that moment.  I’m not sure what effect, if any, the incident had on Mike.  I can tell you what effect it had on Puss.  He stayed away from me.  He left a room when I entered it.  In short, he learned his place, and who wore the moccasin in the family.  Or so I thought.

About a year later, Mike was sent by his company to spend the summer working in Guam and Hawaii.  He actually asked me to “look after” the spawn of Satan.  I accepted without glee or anger.  I knew I would have the power to keep the cat alive or let him die, and I trusted that he would know that, too.

He did not.

Mike hadn’t been gone 24 hours, and the hairy suicide candidate performed his famous run-by nipping.  He dove for the safety of Mike’s empty room, and I slammed the door.  I knew then and there how things would be run in the apartment.

I didn’t see Puss for more than 20 seconds a day for the entire summer.  Every afternoon when I came home from work, I’d chase him into the bedroom (which was fairly easy, since he ran at the sight of me!), and shut him in.  Every morning when I left for work, I’d open the door.  I put his food, water and litter in the bedroom, where he could go to them by day, and live with them by night.  The food and water were filled as needed, and the litter was replaced regularly.  I considered that more than fulfilling my promise.  I considered it more than the cat deserved.  What it deserved was to have my thumbs placed at the base of its skull, where they would press until they reached brain.  But cooler heads prevailed unfortunately, and I got to spend the summer in peace and solitude.

Just before Mike’s return, which was scheduled a week or so after Labor Day, I got word that I had been hired by a firm in a suburb of Chicago, which meant that I would be moving from Michigan, where I’d spent my life since the age of one.  Mike’s cousin lived a few miles away from us, and I arranged with her to watch the cat between my departure and Mike’s arrival.  When Mike called to see how things were going, I told him the news.

As the years passed, I saw Mike and his now-wife Mary, and eventually, their son Joseph, on occasion.  Each time I visited, Puss made an appearance.  It would come out to see who was visiting, make eye contact with me, and go back to whatever spot he’d come from.

This was fine with me.  It gave me joy to know that the sounds of heavy rubber heels echoed somewhere in that cat’s brain each time he laid eyes on me.  I imagined that I was a constant visitor in Puss’s feline nightmares, chasing him through eternal hallways with one gigantic moccasin.

At some point in recent years, Mike told me that either the cat had died, or was dying.  I don’t recall, as I try not to waste my time and energy on my enemies.  Still, whenever the cat dies, I’d really like to know where he’s buried.

There’s something I must do on his grave.

Five-Finger Discount, One-Finger Response

by Thomas M. Pender

This is one of those true stories that is so ridiculous, I have to preface it by saying “This is a true story.”

I work in a retail clothing and accessories store.  People come in, they browse, they try things on, they buy things, they leave.  It’s a pretty simple system that seems to work quite well.  Still, there are those who don’t seem to understand the whole “buying” process.  They want something for nothing, and are willing to attempt some daring means to get it.  A few weeks ago, in broad daylight, with several people just a few feet away, a woman stood calmly in the checkout line with a buggy full of clothes.  As soon as she reached the counter, she charged ahead to the front doors, where just outside, her accomplice was waiting at the curb in the getaway car.

There were a few flaws in the thieves’ plan: 1) the buggies in our store have tall poles attached to them, designed specifically to prevent people from leaving through the front door with them, and 2) the getaway car driver had parked the car close enough to the front door for one of our staff to clearly read the license plate number, plus get the make and model of the car.

Columbo wouldn’t have broken a sweat over this one.  One call to Macon’s Finest, one DMV computer check, one trip to the driver’s address, and one one-way visit to the local penal system.

But no!

A few days later, I casually inquired of the employee who wrote down the license and car information, “So, did you call the cops the other day?”

“No,” he says to me.

“Why not?” I asked, rather shocked.  When his face contorted to a particularly irritated posture, my cynical mind leap-frogged his response.  “Let me guess: It’s against store policy to turn in thieves, because it’s bad public relations.  People poor enough and desperate enough to steal from us won’t come in anymore, is that about it?”

His somber nod told the tale.  When I got to the managers, I had to share my sarcasticity.  I have a friend who once told me that I was never funnier than when I was pissed off, and I was so irritated, I could have gone on stage on Broadway!  My managers, who were just as irritated by the policy as I was, giggled as I tiraded all over the office: “You realize that once these lowlifes get home and no cops come by, they’re gonna tell all their friends where to shop from now on, right?  ‘Go there, cuz you never get turned in.’  Hell, why don’t we put up a sign to draw more customers in?  ‘Everything’s free every day, as long as you have the guts to push it through the doors!’  In fact, since I work in customer service, shouldn’t I offer to help them get the stuff outside?  ‘Excuse me, ma’am, but will you be paying for these items today, or can I run them out to your car and help you avoid the headache of standing in line and actually buying them?’

This is another ludicrous example of letting the bad guys win, which I have no stomach for.  When my co-worker first told me he couldn’t call the police, I said, “Give me the details, I’ll call ‘em.  No one told me I couldn’t call!”  While I was there and did witness the event, I was a bit too far back into the store to actually give the police accurate details when asked.  I couldn’t have told them anything about the felons, because all I saw when I approached the ruckus up front was a speeding car.  Still, with the secondhand facts, I could have at least got our boys in blue on the trail of the culprits.  Being the son of a cop, nephew of a chief of detectives, and grandson of a two-time chief of police, crime kinda . . . chafes me.

Listen up, retail world: the people who would be hesitant to come into your stores once they learn that you actually track down and prosecute thieves are just the kind of people you want to keep out of your stores!  Also, if you’re not going to prosecute or even bother people who steal from you, you could save yourself a lot of money, and simply put up hollowed-out security cameras.  Why bother taping anything if you’re not smart enough to use the evidence?

When the good guys refuse to punish bad guys, the bad guys not only win, they multiply!

Think about it.  Meantime, I need some aspirin. . . .

Ten Popular Fall Rituals

by Thomas M. Pender

10) Late-night raking of leaves into the neighbor’s yard

9) Ignoring of chores . . . and phone . . . and spouse . . . ‘cause football’s on

8) Annual bikinis-for-sweaters drawer-and-closet swap

7) Hyperprogramming of TiVo for new season episodes

6) Earlier commutes for better parking spaces for shorter “brisk walks”

5) Return of the “warming the bed” flop-around

4) Baseball widows’ luncheons and barhops

3) Ignoring of church . . . and sleep . . . and showering . . . ‘cause FOOTBALL’S ON!!!

2) The kids-and-self-ready-for-school-and-work-a-thon

and

1) The immediate beginning of the nine-month wish for summer’s return

East Lansing Rain

by Thomas M. Pender

A true story from my college days . . .

I must be a poet to do this during a storm

                  God, I need to learn to play the guitar

                  And pull it out at times like this

But I lay a blanket by my window

And watch

The headlights the windshield wipers the lightning the thunder

I put on Elton John

And I smile

I hear screams

Happy screams and laughter

I peer into the gray rain

And I see a young man in shorts

Carrying his lover on his back and running

And he slips on the wet grass

They fall

Tumble over one another

And laugh harder

I hear curses

Angry curses and mumbles

I look into the gray rain

And I see a young woman in a wet and wilted dress

Carrying her books and her broken umbrella

And she slips on the wet grass

She falls

And the books scatter and the umbrella flies away

And she rolls on her back

And bursts into laughter

As the rain dances on her face

The rain slows

The rain stops

And the world that existed during the storm is gone

A shame

written by t. michael pender  12/28/86

copyright 1986 T. Michael Pender.  All rights reserved.

Two Hours In Cinematic Sunday School

by Thomas M. Pender

Which is better?  To be beaten over the head with a golf club, or to be beaten over the head with a Bible?

Answer: They both hurt and irritate you.

I don’t have cable, so I missed any and all ad campaigns for the film Seven Days In Utopia.  I don’t know if it’s a big film or a little one in terms of release.  I first saw the title while searching local theatres online for something I hadn’t seen.  Upon investigating, it looked like a decent show to see: the cast is filled with actors I enjoy (Lucas Black of Friday Night Lights and Sling Blade, Robert Duvall of The Godfather, and Kathy Baker of TV’s Picket Fences), and the story seemed harmless, although a bit used: Golfer loses a big match, goes angry-driving through Texas, skids off road, damages car, has to spend a week in a small town no one’s ever heard of, and his life is forever changed for the better.

I could name five or six films that already did this, except for the golfer aspect.  Still, it seemed worth a look.  Sadly, it’s a poorly conceived two-hour sermon that just happens to have a great cast in it.  I checked to make sure this wasn’t a true story, as that would negate my criticisms of the storyline.  It’s fiction, so here are said criticisms of the storyline:

First off, when the very first thing you see on the screen is a Bible passage, you can be sure you’re in for a soul-pokin’!  Then, a golfer who goes driving with no destination (or “no direction” as the Christian uber-message would probably word it) ends up in a town of just over 300 people that happens to have a makeshift golf course in the cemetery?  Puh-leeze!  And the architect of this course happens to be a former golf pro who everybody wonders where he disappeared to?  Puh-leeze times two.  The senior pro convinces the junior pro to stay in town for a week, during which the senior will help the junior “find his game.”  Now, we begin the Karate Kid portion of the movie, where the junior pro is told to perform all manners of crazy seemingly-unrelated chores (catch a fish, paint a picture), but as we know ahead of time, each chore will help him on his path to greatness.

It would have helped my irritation level greatly if the junior pro had simply heard of this crazy golf course, and chose to drive there to see it, to get away from it all.  That’s believable.  But crashing his car across the street from it?  And the mysterious senior pro happens to find him?  I’m already sorry I bought the ticket.

Add to this the anvil-heavy Christian message.  Now, I’ve been a Christian all my life, and I’m proud of it.  I think stories that put Jesus into people’s lives are wonderful, but there is something to be said for subtlety.  Jesus himself told parables, which were cute little non-head-beating stories that led people to understand God’s message.  It wouldn’t have taken much to change the script into a pleasant, featherweight story that got viewers to think about God’s work in our lives.  Instead, the creators went for the Crusades-level teaching style, and lost me altogether.  I don’t think God would want to be an irritant to those He’s trying to win over.

Halfway through the film, I’m hoping it’s a short movie.  Three-quarters through, I’m checking the time.  At the end of the film, when they opt not to show you the end of the story, but instead guide you to a website in order to find out . . . I was livid!  The nerve of some salesmen.  I decided it was my duty (and, admittedly, my revenge upon the filmmakers) to report this on a public weblog, and wave people off from seeing it.

I’ll even go a step further: The golfer wins in the end.  In the meantime, read your Bible if you want to learn about God.  Now, you don’t have to see the movie.  There!  Take that, Seven Days!

Puss Gets His (Part 1)

by Thomas M. Pender

There are two kinds of people in the world: dog people and cat people.  Cat people should stop reading right about here.

I’m not kidding.  Stop reading now, and step away from the computer.  Now.

Make no mistake: This is not a warm and fuzzy story about a cat.  This is a story about a warm and fuzzy cat.  That I tried to kill.  That I tried with every fiber of my being to kill.

As a dog person, I have a theory about the origins of felines and canines.  It’s fairly simple.  God created dogs and Satan created cats.  Dogs have brains, understand human language, answer to their names, learn and perform stunts, protect, defend, wrestle, and work for the police sniffing out drugs.

Cats, on the other hand, come in only two brands.  Cats are either mean or they’re furniture.  Throw pillows, to be specific.  Little throw pillows that blink.  If you pet them, they vibrate and make noise.  Sort of an audible version of a snow globe, with about as many practical uses.

Useless furniture cats I can handle.  If you’re really bored, or if your hand falls asleep and needs activity desperately, you can pet a throw pillow with eyes, and it will purr.  Nothing much else, but it will purr.

Mean cats, on the other hand, have no purpose on this planet, save serving as bait for sharks and bears, or as target practice in the back yard for little Bobby’s new Daisy BB gun, or Daddy’s new bow and arrow.  There are mean dogs, I’ll admit.  The difference seems to be that if you have a mean dog and it hurts someone, the law states it must be destroyed.  If you have a mean cat and it hurts someone, the victim is given a Band-Aid, and the cat is fed and pet by the owner.  Mean animals in general should be eliminated, and I choose to start with the cats.  In fact, I attempted to start with the cats.

With one cat.

Puss.

After graduation, my college roommate Mike and I spent a few months populating my mom’s house, then we got our first apartment.  Thanks to my first adventure in professionalism, a $5.25-an-hour security guard extravaganza, I soon found I couldn’t afford rent and food at the same time.  I opted for the food, and moved back to Mom’s for a time.  When I moved on to bigger and better things (i.e. fetching for insurance company professionals), I moved back in with Mike.  This was fine with him, because he had grown rather bored in his one-man kingdom.

So bored, in fact, that he acquired a new roommate in my absence.

Puss.

Puss looked normal enough.  This means it looked like a mindless waste of oxygen with whiskers.  When Mike told me that he’d gotten a cat, I told him jokingly that he should name it “Galore” after Ian Fleming’s character Pussy Galore in the James Bond novel Goldfinger.  Mike loved the idea, but chickened out because he didn’t feel he could explain to people – particularly his parents – where the name came from . . . without breaking into a sweat, anyway.  So as a tribute to the name he couldn’t name the cat, he named it Puss.  When asked, he would point out the gray cat’s four white paws, and claim he named it after the fairy tale character Puss In Boots, but we macho insiders knew the real truth behind the name.

Puss and I established our relationship immediately upon my return to the apartment.  By this time, the cat had gotten used to his world, which included him, his adoring owner, and not a single other person.  When I came in, the cat slithered silently into the room, never taking his eyes off me, and never blinking.  I could tell right away it wasn’t a furniture kind of cat.  All they do is blink.  There was only one other choice.  This Puss had teeth, and was hungry to use them.

It started out in a simple, almost cute way.  When I talk, I tend to use my hands.  While I was telling Mike about some adventure I’d had in the dirty world that is office services, the cat pounced on my forearm like it was a live bird.  Only for a second, and no weapons of mass laceration were used.  It jumped, caught the offending object, and immediately disappeared into Mike’s bedroom.

Not a problem.  I continued the tale, and a few weeks later, moved my stuff back into the apartment.  I love my mom, but a 24-year-old man’s gotta do what a 24-year-old man’s gotta do.  I had to be free.  Free to stay up past my bedtime.  Free to eat my dessert first.  Free to keep a woman up past her bedtime!  But I undress – er, digress.

There was definitely an adjustment period for both Puss and me.  When he would come out of Mike’s room in the morning, there was always this little feline double-take when he first saw me.  For my part, it took me quite a while to not stare at every move the cat made, with my shields set to kill at the first sign of fangs.  Eventually, the tension subsided.  A bit.  The only remaining problem that I couldn’t ignore was the pouncing.

At first, the beast leapt on my arm only when it was in motion.  Then, the offensive limb needed only to be present in the same room with the creature to be deemed pounceworthy.  I could be laying on the couch, perfectly still, and the thing would rocket from the shadows, mark the arm with his Zorro-esque clawtrails, and disappear.  Whenever I chased the warlock into Mike’s room, it would dive under the lowrider double bed, and stay there for hours, knowing full well I could not reach him there.  This pattern continued for months.  Attack, retreat, burrow.  My only defense was to close the door the trap the bastard in his lair.  Of course, this only worked when Mike was out, but Mike was dating at the time, so I found myself alone with the demon seed often enough to get my door-slamming technique down.

Then, one day – one day which will live in infamy – that hellion crossed his last line.  While Mike was away for the day, I was attacked for the simple act of crossing the living room.  This time, there was bloodshed.  My blood.  Lots of my blood.  That thing sank his four fangs so deep into the skin and muscle of my calf that he couldn’t pull them out on his own.  I had to yank its head off my leg.  Immediately, it disappeared, thinking it would be safe.  Ignoring the warm sticky sensation oozing down my leg, I walked to the bedroom door, and I calmly closed it.  Then, I searched the entire apartment.

For a weapon.

(Continued next week)