LUDIC LOG

Shot I (Eros)

She lurks near the back of the bar, never too far from beer bottles should the necessity to quench her thirst or cut someone's throat become evident; and her eyes (a bold and angry green usually seen only on traffic poles and Irish holidays) go to great lengths not to light on the young man at the front of the room who is singing a song she knows is about her.

She resembles him physically, a fact that chills most of their mutual friends (who are of the opinion that they resemble each other enough mentally): both are tall, sleek and thin, with sharp angles jutting out from elbow, nose, chin, shoulder blades, knees: a fight waiting to break out. Both are explosions of blonde, her hair like her body long and spiky and adorned in a gesture of either melancholy nostalgia or ironic absurdism with little girl's bows, barrettes, and ribbons. Both dress in clothes that have been perverted beyond their form into something meant to affront and offend. She shares his perpetual hostility, his taste for drink, and his suppressed but never dismissed craving for violence. She knows what kind of a man he is, and she alone amongst those women who share this mean blunt knowledge does not fear him, but seeks him out and provokes him, matches him and counters him. They sleep together periodically, they fight frequently, and often claim to hate each other but are never far apart. She knows him, and she alone makes no sound in the never-silent gap between songs.

Shot II (Philia)

"That whole show sucked. It fucking sucked." Not trying to convince, but stating an opinion nonetheless, knowing an argument will follow.

"What is your problem? There was a lot of people there, and there was a writer from New City, on a Thursday night. That's a good reading. You're just being a hardass." Determined to argue. The voice becomes hysterical and girlish when he is in vehement disagreement about something.

"Those people were all art fag poseurs. The New Sincerity crowd. They didn't understand shit. And I really don't want to have to deal with people like that and their half-assed opinions. Why couldn't we have left right afterwards, is what I want to know?" Pause, waiting for the bait to be taken. "And like I care how much publicity we get." Clearly not wanting to know why they couldn't have left right afterwards, but introducing the expected petulance lest the argument end too soon. The bait is still on the hook. "I just want to go home, okay?" Not ending the argument, just extending it to a different terrain.

"I know why you don't like those people. I know why you want to go home." Hostile, crossing out of the accepted boundaries of argument. Friendly hornlocking no longer, angry (angry that his friend is angry when he isn't, happy when their anger coincides but not this time -- now both angry but a different kind, two polar extremes, clashing wavelengths of anger) brings in a slap in the face, a no-joke riposte than cannot be ignored.

"Fuck you. You don't know shit." Fuck-you for some people the argument-ender, the last escalation, but for ones as casually vulgar as the two of them, not necessarily so: and yet here, it carries the hint of finality. For his friend to decide: fuck-you, I just don't feel like arguing any more, or fuck-you, fuck you?

"There is just no making you happy. We can't have a good reading. You want this, man! You know you want us to have performances like that, and yet every time there has to be some qualifier. Some reason, every time there's some reason why it sucks. Why do you go on? I mean, why bother, if this is the way it's going to be all the time?" Knowing the response, wishing it wouldn't come, now melancholy too soon, wishing he hadn't argued now, hoping it will end now but knowing it won't. Wanting his friend to shut up, wanting him to be his friend again, wanting him to agree vocally or disagree silently. Wanting for the night to be over.

"I'm the one who asked you -- look, forget it. I don't want to talk about it, okay? We have this same fucking argument all the time and I'm sick of it." Not adding and I'm sick of you. Tomorrow they'll both think this was funny, if they even think of it at all. Like an old married couple but without the sex and the tax break, he once said.

"Okay, fine." Glad glad glad it's over but stupid-stubborn enough not to want to appear to have caved. Counter-arguments that will never be spoken on the internal TelePrompTer. Forget it, forget itm he yells at himself, we have this same argument all the time and whose fault is that huh FORGET IT, okay? Jesus.

"You want me to take the 94 back?" Softer voice. He knows the tricks his intonation can pull even on even the clever. Appeasing but not defeated. Let's get out of here voice. If they were gay they'd be in bed together inside half an hour.

"Yeah, we're close enough. You think you can beat that light? Oh, shit, don't gun it, you'll --" Giddy with the funny-peculiar-not-funny-ha-ha hysteria that comes with risking your life. Laughter of a nervous sort.

"SHIT! Hey, ASSHOLE, why don't you not ride the fucking line like that, then maybe it won't --" Loud aggressive hateful voice often used when (a) the person you're talking to can't hear you and (b) you've just done something blatantly wrong and you're trying to detract attention from it b calling attention to the alleged misdeeds of others, both of which conditions in fact currently apply.

"Jesus! Watch out," concerned for self, concerned for friend.

"Ahhh, he didn't hit me. Anyway, if he had, I could sue. That was an expensive car." Cocky-funny, the cold passage of near-Death having cast, as it often does, a giddy shadow over a tense situation. Words are hard followed by the airy push of laughter as his foot mashes the gas pedal.

"Fuck you, man! You...you kill enough people with this car just from the emissions and your crappy parking. Don't exacerbate matters by cutting off every giant two-lanes-wide dinosaur we get behind." A jovial, comic fuck-you this time, a well-used and well-understood example of the splendid and serviceable phrase, a fuck-you that says: we're friends again. And they're friends again.

Shot III (Agape)

She is smoking, driving a nicely restored old junker, top up (it's eight degress out, and March already), tapping out a paradiddle on her steering wheel; she can do many things at once. She likes to speed, because she's got a car that makes it so easy.

Question: Why didn't she do something? She knew he was looking at her. And he was obviously wanting it, in a good mood, after all that laughing and touching and high spirits that come with closeness and success. Why did she just sit at the goddamn bar drinking and trying not to look at him?

Accelerating to seventy-two, still in that comfort zone before you actually think to yourself "I'm going too fast" (and this comfort zone extends for her to far greater speeds than it does for most people), crushing the cigarette in the tray, she turns the music up; it is one of those ancient car radios with the radioactive green tuning displays and dials that could probably be used as a spare hubcap should the need arise. She knows instinctively that there are no cops nearby.

Question: was it because her sister was there? She knows how her sister feels about him, and she loves her sister. But she wanted it, and what's more, he wanted it too. She can tell, she knows, and he was begging for her to say something. Was he disappointed that she didn't? She couldn't even tell if she was. Why is she so hung up about this?

Fast, and faster driving: for her there is nothing better to help her avoid the bad questions in her head. But the big wide turn on Lake Shore Drive is fast approaching, and the spark of self-interest that makes a subsistence living in her psyche dictates that she slow down for safety's sake. She does not listen, this time.

Question, not the real one: should she call in sick tomorrow? Closer to real: should she call him tomorrow? This is stupid, stupid: she tells herself how stupid this is. She will call in sick tomorrow, and maybe drive up to Madison to see her other sisterand stop worrying about him. This is her plan, the plan she formulates even as she knows it's going to fail. Speed. Speed is the key.