Chapters (55)
- Cover
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Dedication
- Acknowledgments
- Cast of Characters
- Part One
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Part Two
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- Thirty-four
- Thirty-five
- Thirty-six
- Thirty-seven
- Thirty-eight
- Thirty-nine
- Forty
- Forty-one
- Forty-two
- Forty-three
- Forty-four
- Forty-five
- Forty-six
- A note on the Author
Even before Mom started to leave, movies were nurture as well as nature. I saw things on the screen and saw my future. “One day I will say that line.” I constructed events in my life so that I would have an excuse to repeat what had already worked for Molly Ringwald. What would Molly do? She’d say “Screw it all” and go to Paris to make a film with Godard. I lived my life so I might be lit in the style of French New Wave. Even if it meant being less happy, I wanted sad lighting because happy lighting is so ugly. Happy lighting makes me feel ashamed to be American.
“This Breakfast Club is European in tone,” nodded Liev, putting on Un Bout de Souffle to prove his point. And I wondered, “Does everyone who watches French films grow into a pouting enigma?” Yes. Of course. You learn to pout, you learn to evade questions. It seems worth it for the longest time. Until you realize how long it’s been since your pouting lips were kissed by someone who didn’t smell of sulphur and sour defeat.
Are people who love movies scared of real life? Yes. Of course. Everyone is. But we’re brave enough to try to do something about it. Life is terrifying and we will seek not to cross uncharted territory by never saying anything that has not already been said by someone more beautiful, someone more dead. Someone who had their back teeth removed so their cheeks might appear more sculpted on screen. Now that’s entertainment.
“She’s a perfectly awful little girl,” I overheard someone say at one of our dinner parties, “spoiled rotten,” which made me laugh as hard as I cry because, as Liev said with indignation, “Who is there here to spoil you?” He got angrier and angrier. “Children should be spoiled. Little girls and boys, babies should be spoiled rotten, until their ears grow weary of constant demonstrations and declarations of love and adoration. That’s how it works where I come from.”
Since I was schooled at home, I didn’t really have the opportunity to play with little kids, to wear Band-Aids over grazes and pin the stupid tail on the stupid fucking donkey. I never had a chance to give head to a grateful teenage boy. By the time I met men that way, by the time they were passed to me, they weren’t grateful at all. They were spiteful about the sex act, expected me to be grateful that they deigned to put their dicks in my mouth.