movies

This afternoon, I drove to Farmingdale for my weekly writing group. The weather was pretty bad, raining hard, and the visibility on the road was pretty low, but I wasn’t too worried about it until the empty gas tank light came on in my car.

I was already about halfway there, so I decided to risk it, knowing there was a gas station less than a block from the parkway exit. And I got to that station without any problem. I pulled my car up to one of the self-service pumps, got out and opened the tank, reached for my wallet…and realized I didn’t have my wallet with me.

Luckily I did have my cell phone. I called my friend (and fellow writing grouper) Maurice and asked if he could drive back a few blocks and do me a really big favor. I’m pretty sure I didn’t have enough gas to drive all the way back home, so Maurice came and lent me some cash so I could fill up the tank. It’s nice that I can laugh about it now, but nicer still that Maurice was willing to do that — and that I didn’t get pulled over or get in an accident without my driver’s license on the way there or back.

After all that, what I actually wrote at the free-writing group seems almost incidental, but here it is:

“So you want to be a genius,” Teddy says. “Okay. We can pump you full of adaptogens, a whole catalog of herbs, some we’ve only just discovered, and we can let the brain take over. We can let your body learn to heal itself, forgive the physical and mental abuses you’ve heaped on it over the years, and go the whole holistic route. You’ll think clearer, at least, I guarantee it.

“Or,” he says, holding up a syringe, “we can give you this.” The liquid inside is a thick, jaundiced yellow, and Teddy taps a finger against the plastic cap at the needle’s tip. “It’ll make sick as a dog, maybe kill you. It’s killed lots. But it’ll also rewrite your DNA, and if you survive the process, one of the perks is increased brain power. I won’t kid you, most of the people who take this don’t survive, but every one who does is card-carrying member of Mensa.”

“So,” he says, “which is it going to be: forgiveness or illness?”

Marcus hasn’t really thought this through. Teddy’s reputable enough, comes highly recommended; Marcus doesn’t doubt the man’s discovered new herbs or that the stuff in the syringe can do what Teddy claims. The people Marcus had to go through just to get this appointment are all the proof he needs that this is legit. But the man’s still a salesman, so while Marcus thinks he’s already made his decision, he feels like he should probably ask at least a couple more questions.

“When you say ’rewrite my DNA,’” Marcus says, “do you mean like evil genius lizard people?”

“Ah,” Teddy says, “you heard about that. That was this, I won’t lie, but the formula’s been refined since then, and Dr. Andersen — “

He sees the confused look on Marcus’ face.

“Professor Cobra?” he says. “Of the Evil Snakes Gang?”

“Oh, right,” Marcus says.

“Well, anyway, he wasn’t monitoring his intake. Took way too much, shared his needles. That’s a big no-no. If I had it to do over again, I’d steer him onto to the herbal route. Might still, if the those Redemption Society super-hacks ever let me near him.”

“Uh huh,” Marcus says, “so you’re saying that isn’t going to happen now?”

“Well…” Teddy says, “again, I’m not going to lie to you. Everybody’s different, but there’s always a risk when you throw alien pathogens into the soup.”

“Alien path — “ Marcus starts to say.

“Yeah. Ancient Martian stuff. Rumor has it, it’s what killed them off. In its purer form,” he adds, seeing the worried look on Marcus’ face. “This is a lot more dilute, and Martians weren’t the heartiest of stock to begin with.”

“No…” Marcus says. He’s seen the footage like everybody else, that army unit from Mars the Redemption Society accidentally unfroze at the North Pole. They turned out to be pretty easily defeated, but Marcus still remembers how tense those weeks were back as a child. “And this is from Mars?”

“Born and bred,” Teddy says, “then cultivated here on Earth, nurtured. It’s a living thing, and like I said, it might kill you, but if it doesn’t it’ll definitely make you smarter.”

This evening, I made a double-feature of Black Sundays — first the 1960 horror movie, which is a lot of bad dubbing but great atmosphere, and then the 1977 action thriller about the terrorist plot to commandeer the Goodyear blimp at the Super Bowl. It’s entertaining, even if there aren’t many real characters in it. (Robert Shaw and Bruce Dern do their best, and their best is pretty good.) They made for an odd double-feature, but for some reason I had my heart set on it when I noticed they were both available on Netflix streaming.

Yeah, I don’t get me either sometimes.