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| { The Stremph* of Living at a Country Club "in the Mountains" and Writing a Screenplay Right after You Quit That Job That "Paid Well" } Joe West
Woman 1: "...and then you know that Sarah was sexually abused." --- Businesses Represented by the Members of the Club (Guess Which Ones Are the New Members): Coal --- Joe: "I've quit my job and am now writing a script for a Hollywood feature up in the Lodge." --- The Newest Delight: "The BBQ Cats" At the BBQ stand up the road, there is a family of four cats—a mother and three meowy kittens of various colors and patterns—who are growing ever fatter on discarded chicken skin and who look more and more absurd dragging whole baby-back ribs into the forest. You try to get them to come, but they refuse, being mostly feral. They take well to big handfuls of chicken skin thrown in the woods. They search out chicken skin, these BBQ cats.Even the truckers at the picnic table next to me, even the motorcyclist and his homely wife, even the retired couple listening to "the game" through the open door of their aging Winnebago (and we're winning this game, it seems!), even the hirsute BBQ cook himself who will "kill" me if the secret of his sauce ever enters my head, were excited—but not too excited—by the prospects of the BBQ cats. --- Survey of Pictures Hung around the Club: Birds—mostly waterfowl --- Country Club Foibles One old WASP lady of seventy-five has a daughter who adopted a non-caucasian child. "She adopted a little chocolate baby," she says. "A little chocolate baby and she's vanilla herself. Now she's got two chocolate babies and one vanilla baby. It was very hard for me to deal with."She walks to her plate of eggs and bacon. "Very hard. But I got over it." --- Names of Fishing-Related Companies: Daiwa --- On Fishing in the Country Club Pond You have to walk there. If you have brought a fishing pole and tackle, you have to be careful not to get them caught in the trees. Do not carry a whole eight-foot fly-fishing rod through the woods. Someone threw away the bait—it was mealworms and grubs or redworms and mealworms or nightcrawlers and biting worms or bloodworms and leeches. Not sure. I have no bait. The tackle box is, however, full of lures designed for landing marlin and mako sharks. Should be sufficient for trout. ME: "Is the pond stocked, Mr. B.?"The smell of the pond is much like the smell of human waste, shit I mean. This might lend creedance to Mrs. G's observation that the pond is right next to "the septic system full of shit that used to spill out onto the golf course until we put up a bond to get it fixed. Now, you don't see toilet paper on the fourth tee. But, I still smell shit whenever I drive past." (She motions to the septic system, not the fourth tee.) Once you've grown accustomed to the smell, it is a great place to be. I thought that the drainpipe was an alligator snapping turtle (will tear a baby's neck in half with one bite) and had the heart hiccups for a few moments while I chummed the pond with my pee and some rotting bread. This really got a salamander psyched. I do not know how to use a fly fishing pole. The lure I selected seemed to be a kind of stingray with no eyes. It is the preferred lure for these waters. I did not "get the hang of" fly fishing. Once the lure was floating over the south half of the pond, I devised my lure strategy devisively. This would be a partially wounded, partially handicapped blind stingray. This really gets trout going. It is hard to figure out how to do the wounded part versus the handicapped part. I reeled the lure in and cast it many times, about every third cast, the lure would get caught in a small tree behind me.After ten or so minutes of fishing at one spot and having little luck, I decided that the other side of the pond was the side they stocked for Children's Week. I moved there and cast. I was very excited to catch: a stick, a dead fish's back half, almost the salamander. This was a good haul.When I returned to the Lodge, Mr. B. saw me. MR. B.: How was the fishing? --- Places Where the Children are Allowed to Play During Children's Week: 1. The children's clubhouse --- Spending Two Days Fishing—What I Caught Other Than Fish: Rocks --- Some of the Big, Actual Worries Up Here at the Club: "Is there hot spice in the barbecue beef wrap?" --- The World According to Mr. B: The Glowing Guru "The guru I've got is a Hungarian...like you. He's big in Boca Raton. He's working with colors, vibrations, you know. When I had a bad knee, he just shined the yellow light on it everyday and the vibrations healed. All the colors! And the dimensions we can't see—fourth, fifth, infinity. You can harness these dimensions, Joe, use that energy. A guy I know sleeps with all sorts of green herbs in a pillow. The aromat...aroma fixes just about everything. My guru is really amazing. He's just got it all harnessed. All the vibrations. Just the power coming off of him—you can see it. He glows. Joe, my guru glows. And you can just see him from across the conference. It feels so yellow and orange. Heals you, Joe, it heals you, Joe." ------ | |
Heard at Parents' Country Club by Group of Dowdy Old WASP Ladies