TJ and Amal’s Adventures in Film Genre


Action

Amal doesn’t pull the gun out until the motel room door is good and locked. “I’d love to talk more about my problems with my parents, but I heard you got problems of your own,” he says.

TJ interlaces his fingers behind his head. He doesn’t turn around and face his driver-now-captor yet. He can see Amal in the mirror, handling the gun as gently as a Ming vase. It’s what beginners do. “When’d you hear ‘bout the bounty?”

“My friend Steve tipped me off yesterday on the payphone. We were at the gas station,” says Amal.

“You told him what I looked like?”

“I just happened to tell him about this guy I boned the night before, yeah.”

“I didn’t imagine you to be a bounty hunter kind of guy.”

“Neither did I until Dad said he wouldn’t be paying off my student loans.” Amal sighs.

It is during this sigh that TJ spins around and pulls the Glock G21 from the inside of his cargo pants. There’s a reason he keeps wearing the loose kind. They conceal more.

TJ is impressed that Amal doesn’t shit himself. Instead, bags beneath his eyes and eyebrows raised, he begins to grin. “Here we go,” he says.

“When’d you get the gun?” TJ asks.

“Weeks ago. A guy can’t be too careful these days if he’s out of the closet and looking for his own place.”

“That’s pretty damn smart,” says TJ. “But if you were really smart, you would have turned me into the police yesterday. This state probably has different laws ‘bout owning guns.”

“Maybe I wanted to fuck again you first.” Amal is still grinning.

TJ keeps his gun level with Amal’s as they face each other across a room that was last re-decorated in the early 1970’s. He realizes he likes that smile more than ever. That’s a problem.

“I’m gonna call bullshit on that,” TJ says. “I bet you were fuckin’ scared.”

“Of turning in an innocent man? Sure.”

“I mean of shooting someone you’ve been fucking.” TJ runs his tongue along his teeth. “You know what I think you’ve been thinking? I bet you’ve been thinking, ‘Man, I might love this guy. I might be thinking about throwing a guy I love in prison.’”

Amal laughs; it’s low and rough. And sad. TJ knows sad when he hears it. “You haven’t pulled the trigger yet, either.”

TJ looks at his gun and no, he sure hasn’t. Then he looks back up at Amal and right into his grin. “The money’s in my bag.”

“Yeah? You trying to bribe me?”

“Nah.” TJ smiles, too. “I’m sayin’ that, if you’re willing to drive me the rest of the way, we could split that shit up.”

Amal’s breath hitches and his grin disappears. “And?”

“And?” TJ glances around the room, with its lurid oranges and diamond wallpaper. “And we could spend every night in hotels a hell of a lot nicer than this.”

---

Fantasy

“The Palace of Midnight be where the Golden Planes end, sir knight,” says the wandering swain. “If I attend thee on the journey, surely I can point the way.” He has been traveling all day on foot and is now quite tired. He is very jealous of the knight and his horse.

The knight does not get down from his mount. He is dusky skinned and wears St. George’s red cross over his white armor. He nods curtly and says, “Only if you do not mind sharing my horse.”

“He is a mighty stallion and shall hold us both.” The wandering swain, whose hair is braided like a Nubian prince though he is pale and wan, climbs up on the animal and throws one leg over its rump.

“No stallion be this. She is a mare with the name of Clara for I have met no other lady with as clear a heart as she.” The knight taps his foot against her side and she begins to walk along the gravel path.

“Then who be the woman you wish to save from the Palace of Midnight?” asks the swain.

“The lady is my sister. She and the dragon are well-acquainted.”

“Ah! She is his captive, then! Is she kept in a tower where she sings all the day long while brushing her long raven hair out of the tiniest of windows?” The wandering swain pulls out the mandolin strapped to his back. He knows several songs along the very same theme.

“No, she is kept in shared chambers with the beast.”

“He has designs on her chastity?”

“My honorable father received a wedding invitation yesterday.”

“Ah! So the monster wishes to marry her and gain the wealth of your family!” The wandering swain is seized with inspiration and begins to strum the mandolin. “You shall rescue her from the unwanted fate!”

The knight remains glum. “She sent the invitation herself. It came with a long letter declaring herself very happy indeed.”

“Ah. Another sort of mission, then,” says the swain. “Care you for a song, sir knight? I know ‘Barbara Allen.’ It be a soothing balm to the distressed when they are put upon by the terrible decisions of siblings.”

“A lady dying for her man be not what I wish to hear, but the tune is pleasing enough,” says the knight.

The wandering swain begins to pluck out the music. The path becomes more overgrown as they travel along it, soon disappearing all together. Golden blades of grass leap up to lick Clara’s hooves. They pass by tracks, sharp right angles of wood and steel still left over from the world that came long before this one.

---

Porn

“So, do you want to, like, go out for a drink after this?”

TJ shakes himself awake. He didn’t think it would happen when he first took the job, but adjusting the boom mike over naked people every day gets boring. “Sorry, man. I was zoned out.”

“Just wanted to see if you wanted a drink some time.” The Indian guy looks away. He plays a minor role in the studio’s newest film. He and TJ started arguing about music and stuff between takes over the past couple hours, because why not? The dude was just standing around in his robe and TJ had nothing else to do but wait for the director to shout, “Hey! Get over here!”

“What? Uh, yeah. Okay. I’m up for a drink after work.” TJ shrugs. He’s never been asked out by the actors, before. This one seems sort of embarrassed about it; he’s probably a little newer, probably thinks anyone on the set will bite. “What do I call you? Your name’s not really Javier Spreadum, is it?”

The Indian guy bursts out laughing. It clears away the tension pretty quickly. He shoves his hands into the pockets of his robe. “I wanted a stupid name while I paid off my stupid school loans. I’m Amal.”

“Call me TJ,” he says. “And I’ve known about eight Spreadums in my day. You’re probably the nicest, far as I can tell. Where did you want to get that drink, anyway?”

The director says they’re ready to start shooting again.

Amal has to get back into position. “I’ll come back to you when I’m done, okay? But with clothes on.”

It’s TJ’s turn to laugh as Amal takes off his robe and lays it on a chair.

---

Romance

“His door was open when I left. You could see him lying in the front hallway. I had to close it,” says Darby when she comes back after band practice. She stopped at the 7-11 on the way home, it looks like, judging by the grocery bag she puts on the counter.

“Yeah? Drunk?” says TJ from the couch.

“He smelled like he’d been marinated. Poor guy. You said he broke up with his girlfriend before he moved?”

TJ shrugs and changes the channel on the TV. Their conversation was brief when the neighbor first appeared in the apartment next door. TJ remembers he was dressed in a wife beater and clearly hung over. “Sort of. I didn’t talk to him for very long. Said he ended things with his fiancée. He didn’t talk much about her, though, just about his parents being pissed.”

“Huh.” She puts away a bag of chips. “He’s kind of your type, I think.”

TJ snorts. “I think we’ve had this conversation twice since I told you I liked both.”

“Well it’s true, isn’t it?” She laughs.

TJ thinks of the man in the wife beater. He’s Indian and is built like “Streetcar Desire’s” Marlon Brando. “Doesn’t matter. You know I wouldn’t do anything.”

“Sweetheart, you’re mine when you’re with me, but your free time’s your own. I told you that.” Darby takes off her coat and sits beside him on the couch. She even lays her head on his shoulder.

“Yeah, I know. I’m still not doin’ anything.”

“All right, all right.” She closes her eyes as she gets comfortable.

TJ glances at the wall that separates his apartment from the Indian Marlon Brando. He wonders if the guy’s still drying out. He figures he’ll talk to the man again once he’s sober.

---

Western

“I’m lookin’ fer the son of a bitch who stole something from me back in Amarillo,” the stranger announces to the entire saloon.

Everyone, from miner to saloon girl, looks up except the piano player. He pauses from playing his own rendition of “Barbara Allen” to have a sip of his whiskey. Over the past year, his yellow muttonchops have grown out. He does not turn around. “Stranger, I was back in Amarillo, Texas last September.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Spent a night in jail there. Met a man who was put away ‘cuz he was the wrong color and starin’ down people funny on the street. He gave me his harmonica. We traveled together up through Utah.”

“Sounds like a familiar trek to me, sir.” The stranger ambles across the saloon’s wooden floor to the piano man. “I think I’ve gone through similar territory, myself.”

The saloon girls return to business; the miners continue to stare, waiting for the stranger to draw his pistol.

The stranger drops his voice when he’s close enough. It’s low, rough, and sad, and the piano player knows sad. “Why’d you leave me stranded in Ely?”

“I caught the train in Nevada when I wasn’t wanted no longer.”

“Where would a man like you get an idea like that?”

The piano player turns around. His glasses slide down the bridge of his nose. “I ain’t the sort anyone wants for long, campandre.”

That’s when the stranger sits right down next to him on the piano bench. Even the miners can tell now he won’t be pulling out his gun, today. “Who says I didn’t want you?”

“Are you sure you just ain’t mad ‘cuz I took your harmonica?”

“I didn’t travel to here from Ely for no damn harmonica,” say the stranger as he grabs the glass of whiskey. He downs the rest of it in one swallow. “You stole something worse. It was right out of my chest, too.”

“You’ll be wantin’ that heart a yours back then, I suppose?” The piano player taps out a couple notes on the ivory keys. He begins to smile.

The stranger presses his shoulder into the piano player’s. “Nah. I ‘spect it prefers to be where it is right now.”