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To: F + V PublicationsFrom: Rex Young
Subject: An excerpt from my “Beached Whale” manuscript. The genius of this particular scene lies in the uncomfortable tension created by the juxtaposition of a children’s game and sex. There is also some very clever oedipal symbolism.
INTERIOR - BEDROOM
SCENE: MAN and WOMAN have just had sex in bed. MAN is smoking a pipe. WOMAN is coughing intermittently. WOMAN’s eyes are closed. A worn poster of Back to the Future II is hanging crookedly over the left bedpost.
MAN
I had a strange dream.
WOMAN
While we were making love?
MAN
Making love?... No. Last night.
WOMAN
Was I in it?
MAN
No. I was on a beach [WOMAN smiles] and there was a giant sand castle. I wanted to stomp on it but it was too big to stomp on. And then ...
WOMAN
And then what?
MAN
... and then Biff Tannen from Back to the Future stepped out of the sand castle.
WOMAN
Biff Tannen?
MAN
Yeah. Biff Tannen. He was wearing a velvet smoking-jacket.
WOMAN
Strange.
MAN
And then Biff Tannen turned into a beautiful woman. We played beached-whale for a while in the surf and then started fucking.
WOMAN
Beached-whale?
MAN
Beached-whale. It’s where you lie where the waves crash and let them crash on you and try not to drown. You can’t use your hands or legs. You just lie there. I used to play it a lot when I was a kid. You never played beached-whale?
WOMAN
And then you made love to Biff Tannen?
MAN
Made love?... No, Biff Tannen had turned into a beautiful woman.
WOMAN
Before or after beached-whale?
MAN
Before.
WOMAN
Did you win?
MAN
Beached-whale? No. I don’t know. We just started fucking.
WOMAN
[Coughing violently] I never get to make love in my dreams...
MAN
And then the beautiful woman pulled out a permanent marker and wrote obscenities all over my body. But I didn’t mind because she had let me fuck her. And she was beautiful. And then I was back in the room I lived in as a little kid and my mom came in and got mad at me for having permanent marker all over my body. She said it was going to make me sick. I think I was naked.
WOMAN
Why do you always say ‘fucking’ instead of ‘making love’?
MAN
[Putting out his pipe] People in movies make love. Real people fuck.
WOMAN
I wish we could be in a movie sometimes...
MAN
So what does it mean that my mom got mad at me after I fucked a beautiful woman?
WOMAN
...our movie could be about a giant sand castle. I’m the queen of the castle and you’re the lowly serf that lives in a giant seashell down the beach. But I love you anyways. And everyday we play beached-whale for hours and then make love in the surf without using our hands or feet. And try not to drown...
MAN
A movie.... What if you turned into Biff Tannen?
WOMAN
I won’t.
MAN
You’d look sexy in a velvet smoking-jacket.
[WOMAN turns into Biff Tannen, naked]
WOMAN
I know.
[MOTHER OF MAN enters room, smoking a pipe]
MAN
Fuck.
END SCENE
Postscript: I will submit the rest of the manuscript once I have contractual assurance from your firm that, in the event that this manuscript is turned into a movie, F +V will make no such production deal unless I am cast as MAN. Maybe Lenore can play WOMAN.
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Rick is absolutely ecstatic about this submission. He thinks it will almost certainly appear in the quarterly review. He even said something about wanting to hire anyone who was capable of combining "Pop culture references, deeply psychological and nearly universally held sexual impulses, and "fun for the whole family".
I'm beginning to think that I have no taste for good literature. I was deeply disturbed by this submission. I'm not even sure how this author, Rex Young, is aware of my existence. Does he read the blog? Does anyone read the blog? Maybe Grandma is right about the words thing...
