Tuesday, June 9, 2015

Ready To Die

Recently I heard a few stories of friends’ friends’ friends, all men in their 30s and 40s, who died instantly from aneurysms.  Fucking awful.  Freaked me out. 

I was driving home one night on the 405 thinking if I get an aneurysm and cause a major crash and delay traffic I’d feel so shitty.  LA traffic is bad enough without my aneurysm. 

Later that night around 2am, I had a pounding headache on the left side of my brain and I tossed & turned like a cold-spot addict searching for more cold spots in bed.

Then a sharp tightening in my upper thigh / groin region started up.  Nothing penile thank God, just the femoral artery.   But I’ve seen enough shitty horror movies and my brother is a doctor so I felt confident that if something severs the femoral artery it’s Kaddish. 

Then I thought what if I have an aneurysm and die in my sleep?  Nobody will find me for weeks and I’ll sit there rotting away and they’ll have to put together the pieces of my life like a Law & Order episode, the Criminal Intent one with Vincent D’Onofrio and Kathryn Erbe. Fucking loved them.
__________________________
Detectives Eames and Goren enter the one-bedroom apartment. 

Two female Paramedics are waiting inside.  They’re gorgeous brunettes, one looks like Emmanuelle Chriqui and the other like Rashida Jones, maybe it’s actually just them because I think they’re shooting something together some cool Indie thing in Silver Lake so they totally have time for this. 

Rashida tells the Detectives “this cute guy talked to his mother twice a day and she called 911 after he didn’t call the next day.  The property manager opened the apartment and we found the body an hour ago.  Why can’t I find a guy like this who doesn’t have to die?” 

Emmanuelle makes a sad face to Rashida, “Me too.”

Detectives Goren and Eames head straight for the bedroom, where the body lays.

EAMES:  For the apartment of a corpse it sure smells like lavender and fresh lilies. 

Paramedic Girls are heard off-screen, “Lilies are my favorite.”

Goren stands bedside, inspecting.

GOREN:  No signs of struggle, no strangulation, no entry wounds.  No evidence of a homicide and there’s no sleeping pills so doesn’t seem like a suicide.  He died in his sleep.  Probably an aneurysm. 

EAMES: What makes you say that? 

GOREN: One hand is clutching the left side of his head and the other his femoral artery.  Classic aneurysm.

Eames opens the closet and goes through a chest of drawers and opens a closet.

EAMES:  Everything is perfectly folded and organized.  His dress-shirts are color-coordinated.  And no wire hangers.

GOREN:  Clean linens.  Puffed pillows.  Trimmed nails.  He’s perfectly shaved and looks like he recently showered or is just the type of guy that’s always freshly clean.  (Intense) The aneurysm was the least organized thing in his life.  And his death.

Eames and Goren move from the bedroom to the living room.

Eames looks impressed, even inspired by the way everything seems to have its place in the apartment.

EAMESI’m impressed, even inspired by the way everything seems to have its place in the apartment. 

GOREN(Perusing bookshelf, picks up a book or two) Interesting.  Quite a diverse interest in literature.  Looks like he only read the 1st chapter in each book.  Probably had ADD but compensated best he could. It’s alphabetized by first letter of the title disregarding articles A, And and The.

Rashida sadly sighs to Emmanuelle, “Awww, I love readers.”

EAMES:  Any books on depression or anything?

GOREN No.  A few of the freshmen year existential must-haves and a truly Semitic collection on this shelf.  Not exactly the mind of a psychopath. 

Goren tilts his head toward the shelf of Jewish books.

GORENMaybe the guilt got him. 

Eames smirks.  Goren is funny when he wants to be, because he knows stereotypes.

GOREN:  Did you check the laptop for search history?

Eames opens a plugged-in, perfectly charged open laptop on the table.   

EAMES Nothing bad here.  No porn at all.  The last websites he visited are cutekittens.com, thehomelessdeservelovetoo.com, and howtobeabetterson.com.   And the only other history before that is researching charity websites about orphans in Jersey.  This guy was a saint.  

Goren removes a sharpened pencil from his coat pocket and uses it to pick up a tissue from the garbage and inspects it.

GOREN: Or was he?  Looks like some type of glandular secretion.  Could be evidence of a depraved sex act?

EAMES: It’s probably just a tissue from when this guy wipes stray kitten’s noses.

Eames points to a framed photo on the wall of a stray kitten in an alley and the deceased bending down with a tissue.

Goren tosses the tissues towards the trash as Emmanuelle and Rashida both quickly dash to catch it.  They each snag a side and engage in a sexy tug-of-war over the kitten-sneeze tissue.

Eames walks to the bathroom and opens the cabinets.

EAMES: Ritalin, lots of floss, and a few too many bottles of sunscreen, SPF 290.  Everything is perfectly arranged and this bathroom is so clean for a man.

Eames pokes her head behind the toilet.

EAMES:  It’s spotless.  Who is this guy? 

Eames walks to the living room and runs her finger over the table and bookshelf. 

EAMES:   No dust anywhere.  Marry me.   

GOREN(Intense, sooo Goren) It’s as if he stayed awake for hours and cleaned his entire apartment, knowing he was ready for death.  Like he foresaw the aneurysm.

Goren grabs a notebook from the kitchen table and gently tosses it to Eames.

GOREN:  Eames, look at this. 

Eames reads aloud:

Fuck all you hoes. Get a grip motherfucker. Yeah, this album is dedicated to all the teachers that told me I'd never amount to nothin', to all the people that lived above the buildings that I was hustlin' in front of that called the police on me when I was just tryin' to make some money to feed my daughters, and all the niggaz in the struggle, you know what I'm sayin'?  Uh-ha, it's all good baby baby uh…

EAMES:  Quite a poet.  Such struggle he experienced in his life.  Might be the beginning of a suicide note he never finished. 

EAMES:  Or a letter he was writing to his mother. 

Emmanuelle and Rashida stand at the window, arms around each other’s waists.  They peer out longingly and together they sing:

You know very well who you are.  Don’t let em hold you down, reach for the stars.  You had a goal, but not that many.  ‘Cause you’re the only I’ll give you good and plenty.















No comments:

Post a Comment