“On every street in every city in this country there’s
a nobody who dreams of being a somebody. He’s a lonely forgotten man desperate
to prove that he’s alive.”
As ache1 hurries from the cinema into the late spring twilight with Skunk in pursuit, from out the poster above them Robert de Niro looks to himself likewise emerge, his head down in monochrome, morose, and lost.
ache1: I don’t know why I came in here I don’t like these movies.
Skunk (ingenuous): I didn’t know you’d feel that way about it
ache1: Oh fuck off, I still have bruises you selfish dick.
They are neither one able to look at the other.
ache1: You were on your own in there, you were watching that on your own.
Skunk (hurt): That’s, no, that’s not
ache1: You watched that on your own.
the scratches on her belly seething beneath the cotton t-shirt.
ache1: What a fucking, that’s just grubby. Really grubby.
Skunk (embarrassed at even attempting to discuss it): Well that, that ambiguity is, that’s part of the
ache1 (emphatic): Jesus, at least if you’d taken me to see a porno I might’ve actually enjoyed it.
Barely an hour before, they had met up in town after his work.
ache1: Hi there.
Skunk: Hi, have a nice day today?
ache1: Not particularly.
Skunk (reaching into the hip pocket of his Levi’s): Got a present for you.
lifting two cinema tickets from out his wallet.
ache1 (visibly apprehensive): Oh God I haven’t been to the movies in ages, what are we going to?
Skunk: Have you seen “Taxi Driver” before?
ache1: You talkin’ to me?
Skunk (looks around): Well you’re the only one here.
ache1: No I was doing the
Skunk (laughing): So was I, so was I. Jesus.
ache1: I haven’t anyway, and that’s all I know. Is there more to it?
looking at the ticket
ache1: You gotta be kidding this is an 18.
Skunk: What?
ache1: This is an 18.
Skunk: And?
ache1: I’m just about old enough, do you think we’ll get in?
Holding hands through the town centre,
Skunk: The first time I saw it was in, I was staying at a friend’s flat and we ehm, there was a deal at the rental place where you could have four videos and a player for whatever it was, not much anyway, because it wasn’t like we had any money, but “Taxi Driver” was one of the films we watched.
ache1: Along with?
Skunk: The other films? God I’ve no idea,
trying to recall
Skunk: I’ve no idea, but I do remember we both thought it was brilliant, but that we’d never watch it again, ever. It was too much. God it was, it was... yeah, too much.
ache1: Too much what?
Skunk: Well you’ll, I won’t spoil it for you.
not thinking.
At the cinema, while ache1 goes to the toilet Brother Skunk buys them popcorn and Coca-Cola and then they walk on through into the auditorium, everything red and dark red in its subdued light, and an odd unplaceable smell of something burnt she attributes to the popcorn, even though she knows it isn’t.
Twice she mistakenly pre-empts the lights going down to herald the feature, each time taking his hand into both her own.
...
cog: All the animals come out at night - whores, skunk pussies, buggers, queens, fairies, dopers, junkies, sick, venal. Someday a real rain will come and wash all this scum off the streets.
ache1 (laughing, whispering): Did he just say Skunk?
Until a half hour in, when a teenage girl enters the cab, and is then forcibly removed,
cog: Bitch be cool.
and a twenty-dollar bill thrown through the passenger window onto the front seat,
cog: Cabbie just forget about this it’s nothing.
deleted name (whispering): Charon toll.
ache1 (whispering): What’s that?
Skunk (whispering): What?
ache1 (leaning in, whispering): What did you say?
Skunk (frowning at her, whispering): I didn’t say anything.
ache1 turns back to the screen, confused, a little hurt.
...
cog: You’re in a hell, and you’re going to die in a hell like the rest of them. You’re like the rest of them.
Absorbed as he is, still at some point Brother Skunk realises they are no longer holding hands, too that she has stopped reaching for the popcorn or the Coke.
Less than ten minutes later,
cog: Why are you writing? Don’t write. Put the thing down; just sit. I didn’t tell you to write I didn’t tell you to do anything. I just said pull over to the kerb. We’ve pulled over to the kerb and we’re gonna sit here. We’re gonna sit.
when a deranged character begins spitting his sick invective from the cab’s back seat, he can sense her become skittish, nervy, like an animal in whom the centre of gravity visibly lowers in preparation for attack, or flight.
She cracks her knuckles, interlinks her fingers; the distress coming off her like a scent.
ache1: I have to leave now.
standing up to edge past him and walking out beneath the ongoing insidious sound of the man’s voice, both of them on the pavement in front of the cinema before the scene has even played itself out.
Skunk (a fierce heat consuming his ankle): If you’d said something before we could have left earlier.
prompting her to finally face him,
ache1: Oh right so it’s my fault?
Skunk (gesturing): No, that’s
ache1: No.
nodding her head, and pointing at him
ache1: Correct.
walking all their way back to the hotel in her utter silence.
As ache1 hurries from the cinema into the late spring twilight with Skunk in pursuit, from out the poster above them Robert de Niro looks to himself likewise emerge, his head down in monochrome, morose, and lost.
ache1: I don’t know why I came in here I don’t like these movies.
Skunk (ingenuous): I didn’t know you’d feel that way about it
ache1: Oh fuck off, I still have bruises you selfish dick.
They are neither one able to look at the other.
ache1: You were on your own in there, you were watching that on your own.
Skunk (hurt): That’s, no, that’s not
ache1: You watched that on your own.
the scratches on her belly seething beneath the cotton t-shirt.
ache1: What a fucking, that’s just grubby. Really grubby.
Skunk (embarrassed at even attempting to discuss it): Well that, that ambiguity is, that’s part of the
ache1 (emphatic): Jesus, at least if you’d taken me to see a porno I might’ve actually enjoyed it.
Barely an hour before, they had met up in town after his work.
ache1: Hi there.
Skunk: Hi, have a nice day today?
ache1: Not particularly.
Skunk (reaching into the hip pocket of his Levi’s): Got a present for you.
lifting two cinema tickets from out his wallet.
ache1 (visibly apprehensive): Oh God I haven’t been to the movies in ages, what are we going to?
Skunk: Have you seen “Taxi Driver” before?
ache1: You talkin’ to me?
Skunk (looks around): Well you’re the only one here.
ache1: No I was doing the
Skunk (laughing): So was I, so was I. Jesus.
ache1: I haven’t anyway, and that’s all I know. Is there more to it?
looking at the ticket
ache1: You gotta be kidding this is an 18.
Skunk: What?
ache1: This is an 18.
Skunk: And?
ache1: I’m just about old enough, do you think we’ll get in?
Holding hands through the town centre,
Skunk: The first time I saw it was in, I was staying at a friend’s flat and we ehm, there was a deal at the rental place where you could have four videos and a player for whatever it was, not much anyway, because it wasn’t like we had any money, but “Taxi Driver” was one of the films we watched.
ache1: Along with?
Skunk: The other films? God I’ve no idea,
trying to recall
Skunk: I’ve no idea, but I do remember we both thought it was brilliant, but that we’d never watch it again, ever. It was too much. God it was, it was... yeah, too much.
ache1: Too much what?
Skunk: Well you’ll, I won’t spoil it for you.
not thinking.
At the cinema, while ache1 goes to the toilet Brother Skunk buys them popcorn and Coca-Cola and then they walk on through into the auditorium, everything red and dark red in its subdued light, and an odd unplaceable smell of something burnt she attributes to the popcorn, even though she knows it isn’t.
Twice she mistakenly pre-empts the lights going down to herald the feature, each time taking his hand into both her own.
...
cog: All the animals come out at night - whores, skunk pussies, buggers, queens, fairies, dopers, junkies, sick, venal. Someday a real rain will come and wash all this scum off the streets.
ache1 (laughing, whispering): Did he just say Skunk?
Until a half hour in, when a teenage girl enters the cab, and is then forcibly removed,
cog: Bitch be cool.
and a twenty-dollar bill thrown through the passenger window onto the front seat,
cog: Cabbie just forget about this it’s nothing.
deleted name (whispering): Charon toll.
ache1 (whispering): What’s that?
Skunk (whispering): What?
ache1 (leaning in, whispering): What did you say?
Skunk (frowning at her, whispering): I didn’t say anything.
ache1 turns back to the screen, confused, a little hurt.
...
cog: You’re in a hell, and you’re going to die in a hell like the rest of them. You’re like the rest of them.
Absorbed as he is, still at some point Brother Skunk realises they are no longer holding hands, too that she has stopped reaching for the popcorn or the Coke.
Less than ten minutes later,
cog: Why are you writing? Don’t write. Put the thing down; just sit. I didn’t tell you to write I didn’t tell you to do anything. I just said pull over to the kerb. We’ve pulled over to the kerb and we’re gonna sit here. We’re gonna sit.
when a deranged character begins spitting his sick invective from the cab’s back seat, he can sense her become skittish, nervy, like an animal in whom the centre of gravity visibly lowers in preparation for attack, or flight.
She cracks her knuckles, interlinks her fingers; the distress coming off her like a scent.
ache1: I have to leave now.
standing up to edge past him and walking out beneath the ongoing insidious sound of the man’s voice, both of them on the pavement in front of the cinema before the scene has even played itself out.
Skunk (a fierce heat consuming his ankle): If you’d said something before we could have left earlier.
prompting her to finally face him,
ache1: Oh right so it’s my fault?
Skunk (gesturing): No, that’s
ache1: No.
nodding her head, and pointing at him
ache1: Correct.
walking all their way back to the hotel in her utter silence.
