personal

You know the nicest thing about a three-day weekend? Not having to go to work tomorrow, that’s what.

Today was mostly just a typical Sunday, spent working on the New York Times crossword, doing a little reading, and joining my weekly writing group. Afterward, we went to see the new version of True Grit. But, before I talk about that, here’s what I wrote today in our forty-minute free-writing exercise:

If she knew who had killed her, and the ruby wasn’t expensive, she could ask the old conjuring woman to cast one of the old book’s divination spells, to locate the bastard precisely, and then extract what Badger would have laughingly called her revenge.

But the truth was, Maria didn’t know; to her constant embarrassment she didn’t even know for certain that she was dead, not just stuck between realms, caught in this half-formed kind of limbo, and she certainly didn’t have enough in her pockets to buy the ruby the old woman said she was going to need.

And the woman wasn’t going to help her without payment. Maria could see, even now, the woman wanted her out of the conjurer’s shop. There was a glimmer of fear in her eyes, a frightened look Maria had grown all too accustomed to seeing in her recent travels, and she knew she would have to run if the old woman reached for the wireless or threatened to notify the local constable. Half-dead or not, Maria didn’t need trouble with the law.

Badger would have told her to make the most of her predicament, use the woman’s fear to her advantage.

If you’re going to look like a ghost, why not act like a ghost? That would have been John Badger’s philosophy. If they’re going to be frightened of you anyway, why not put that fear to good use? There wasn’t much benefit to being dead otherwise.

And after two hundred years at it, Badger should know.

Yet Maria couldn’t bring herself to act like that, precisely because, as she would have reminded him, Badger refused to act like that either. He talked a big game, and had even pointed at the council of wraiths they’d encountered in Toledo with a degree of admiration, respect. But she knew he clung to his humanity as fiercely as she clung to hers. The wraiths exploited fear, became fear, and, it was true, reaped huge rewards for it. They wouldn’t have needed the ruby, or the conjuring woman, and they wouldn’t have feared the local law enforcement. In Toledo, they were the law. But Maria also knew they were little else; they had sacrificed their humanity in ways that she — and even the two-century-old Badger — wasn’t ready to yet.

Even if it would have helped her find her murderer.

“I can get you the ruby by sundown,” she lied. “You just get the spell ready — cast your bones, whatever it is you do — and I’ll be back before dark.”

The woman sighed, but then nodded. She turned to walk to the back of the shop, with the understanding that this was Maria’s time to leave.

“If you return without it, half-thing,” the old woman said, not turning around, “know that I will finish you.”

I definitely think there’s a story there. I didn’t develop it any further this afternoon, but, in my head at least, Maria and Badger are interesting characters.

As to True Grit, it’s also full of interesting characters. (See how merciless I am with that segue?) And, while I really enjoyed the original, this one is more realistic and maybe overall the better acted of the two films. The exception, maybe, being Jeff Bridges; he’s terrific, as is everybody else, but John Wayne is a very hard act to follow. Hailee Steinfeld is the real standout in the movie, especially given her young age. (Kim Darby, in the original, was in her early 20s when she played the part.) I’m not so sure I love the ending, although it is similar to how the previous version ended, and I gather it’s the ending from the original novel, which the Coen Brothers were determined to adhere to. I think they deserve a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar nomination, if nothing else, and each of the three leads, including Bridges and Steinfeld, deserve acting nods.

And yet, I think I’d still give the slight edge to the original movie, if only because the new one doesn’t include this wonderful exchange of dialogue:

“When’s the last time you saw Ned Pepper?”
“I don’t remember any Ned Pepper.”
“Short feisty fella, nervous and quick, got a messed-up lower lip.”
“That don’t bring nobody to mind. A funny lip?”
“Wasn’t always like that, I shot him in it.”
“In the lower lip? What was you aiming at?”
“His upper lip.”