Only a handful of people had been in the audience anyway. Now the three friends found their car sitting all alone in the poorly-lit lot.
“Come on, Johnny, you know you enjoy seeing where the movie was filmed,” replied Kurt. “Besides, I thought there might be an extra clip after the credits. They certainly could've used one to explain what the heck was going on.”
“Same place as usual?” asked Tom as he opened the driver's side door to the car.
“But of course.”
There was only one all-night diner in the area, so they always ended up at the same place after catching a late film. Johnny stared out the window as the other two started discussing the movie. It was always hard to follow a conversation when sitting in the back seat – some strange peculiarity with the acoustics in that car. The diner was only five minutes away anyway. Just as they were pulling into the parking lot, Johnny remembered that he had forgotten to turn his phone back on. He slid it out of his pocket and was greeted by the words “18 new messages.” The movie had only been ninety minutes long. One call every five minutes, and apparently they were all from the same number. He did not recognize it, but he knew that it had to be them. It might be better just to keep his phone on silent.
“So what did you think of it, Johnny?” asked Kurt as he held the door to the diner open for him.
“I liked it. I mean, how can any movie with a climatic go match between a cyborg and a genetically engineered hamster not be a winner?”
“True, but what was up with that ending?”
They continued their conversation as they seated themselves in one of the many empty booths. They never understood why that diner stayed open all night, seeing as how there were never more than one or two other customers when they arrived. Surely they were losing money on those late-night hours. Still, they hoped the owner would never be smart enough to figure that out. They had discussed that horrific possibility on one of their many previous visits to that establishment, but the general disorganization with which it was run eased any fears of their becoming victims of a smart financial decision.
“Ten minutes, over or under?” asked Tom as they sat down.
“Over.”
“Under.”
Johnny always got stuck with the under, and the waitress never came to take their order within fifteen minutes of their arrival.
“Isn't ten minutes a bit short?” complained Johnny. “I mean, when was the last time the under won?”
“Quit your whining and start the timer,” replied Kurt.
Johnny pulled out his cell phone to set the stop watch. Twenty-one new messages! What was wrong with these people?
“You OK there Johnny?” asked Tom, noticing the sudden look of alarm on his friend's face. “If you need help setting the clock, just let me know.”
“Thanks, but I think I can handle it.” After a short pause he added, “I always forget, is it sixty seconds to the minute, or sixty minutes to the second?”
“Anyway, I hate it when they give movies those ambiguous endings,” said Kurt. “Why couldn't they have just shown who won the match?”
Tom replied, “Would you rather everything be spelled out for you? What's the matter with a movie that makes you think a little bit?”
“First of all, Saturday nights aren't meant for thinking...”
“Technically Sunday morning,” interrupted Johnny.
“Sure, whatever. As I was saying, I like entertainment where I don't have to think too hard. Secondly, I don't see how just showing who won the stupid match would have made the movie any less intellectual.”
“But don't you see? Who won the match was not the point of the movie,” answered Tom.
“Then what was?” asked Kurt.
“Well...something about the dangers of genetic engineering and technology becoming too powerful for their creators to control, I think.”
“You're just making that up,” countered Kurt. “I think the reason writers make their films ambiguous is to make themselves look smart. If someone sees a movie that doesn't make any sense, they assume it's just too clever for them, but rather than admitting their ignorance, they pretend to really like it. That way the film writer looks like some sort of esoteric genius and the movie gets great reviews even though it's just a bunch of nonsense. It's like the 'Emperor's New Clothes.'”
“You're saying that every seemingly intelligent film out there is really just a bunch of gibberish, and that writers can get away with it because no one has the guts to call them on it?”
“Maybe not every intelligent film, but a lot of them.”
Kurt and Tom continued with the argument as Johnny watched the minutes tick away on his phone. What really worried him, though, was not the prospect of losing a hopeless bet, but the mounting number of new messages. By the time the ten minutes were up, the tally had grown to thirty-two. Johnny was beginning to feel sick.
He decided to try to distract himself from the messages by listening in on the great debate. Johnny had always liked movies with clear endings himself. In fact he would often find himself replaying the stories again in his head, looking for clues to piece together any loose ends. There was something vexing to him about not knowing exactly what the writer had intended to happen to each and every character.
Maybe this was part of the reason he had always wanted to become a writer himself – of screen plays, novels, sitcoms, anything. He wanted to be the one in control. He wanted to be able to make sure that each character was fully accounted for. He wanted to see to it that each villain was fully punished and each hero was fully rewarded. There was something comforting in the idea of some alternate reality where everything worked out just as he wanted it to.
Finally the waitress arrived.
“Does anyone here want coffee?”
“No, water will be fine.”
“I'll be back in a minute with your waters, and then I can take your orders.”
They had fallen for that one once. Never again.
“That's OK, we're ready to order now,” they blurted out, almost in unison.
“OK, shoot,” said the waitress, pulling out a notepad and pen from her apron.
French toast, pancakes, and potato pancakes – all ordered with extra syrup. The syrup was key.
As soon as she had gone, Tom and Kurt renewed their discussion of the movie while Johnny once more fell to listening and silently churning through his own thoughts. How did one gain the power to control a world of his own? Talent? No. He had read plenty of science fiction novels that were so poorly written as to be painful. To be sure, talented writers would most often rise to the top, but as long as there was an audience, knowing how to write was not necessary to getting published. That was the key. One had to have an audience believing in his fantasies for them to take on any real meaning. Otherwise, they were no more than a game of make-believe played by a child trying to escape reality.
“Why do people feel the need to put quotes around everything? I mean, 'It's a “great” deal'? There ought to be a law against that.”
It was Tom's words that roused Johnny from his contemplation. He and Kurt must have finished their discussion of the film and moved on to correcting the grammar in the ads on the place mat. Of course, only a truly high-class establishment had advertisements on its place mats, but it took the very best of even these to partner with businesses that could not be bothered to proofread their work. A quick scan of the low-quality paper in front of him revealed numerous cases of switched homonyms, misplaced commas, and gratuitous quotation marks.
“Hey, how have we never noticed this on the hot sauce bottle before?” exclaimed Kurt. “It's a 'compliment to any meal'!”
“Well hello Mr. Meal,” chimed in Johnny, “you sure are looking nice this evening.”
“Maybe we should call the questions/comments number on the bottle and ask them about it,” suggested Tom.
Johnny had quickly caught the giddiness of the other two; so much so that he scarcely noticed the forty new messages on his phone as he began to dial. Unfortunately, the food arrived before he managed to successfully navigate the maze of automated menus to reach a live human being. The quest took a brief pause as they set upon their meals.
The beauty of this diner was that the syrup was served in little glass bowls that resembled shot glasses. On one of their first few trips there, someone had commented on this similarity, which naturally led to them all doing shots of syrup. Over time this ritual evolved until downing all the left-over syrup as quickly as possible became the penalty for the loser of the “when will the server come to take our orders” bet. Kurt and Tom were using theirs very sparingly.
When the time came for Johnny to face his punishment, there were four nearly-full shots of syrup remaining. After taking a moment to focus, he quickly dispatched of them one after the other – it was the only proper way to do it.
Although syrup is a relatively cheap and easily obtainable commodity, there are few who have experienced the unique thrill of consuming a half cup of it within the span of five seconds. First there is the quickening of the pulse, which is so dramatic that one cannot help but worry that his arteries might burst. Then there is the surge of thoughts flying through the mind. Not only is the pace more rapid than usual, but there is a loosening of inhibitions so that thoughts normally discarded will make their way through. This deluge of ideas is often overwhelming, producing a sense of restless confusion in most. In a certain minority, however, this condition of having so many different viewpoints brought to the fore without any of the usual censors can produce a moment of clarity. Johnny was experiencing one such moment now.
“The cyborg won the match!” he exclaimed.
“What?” asked Kurt. A second later he recalled their earlier conversation and added, “The cyborg? How do you know?”
“Because cyborgs are just plain cool, and someone's got to stand up to those hamsters.”
“That's hardly a reason,” said Tom.
Johnny shot back in a state of great agitation, “It's the best reason! Why not? Look, it's a work of fantasy anyway, right? Who cares if the guy who wrote the thing wanted to leave it unanswered? Who cares if he wanted the hamster to win? Why is his fantasy any better than mine?”
“Because he's the one getting paid to write the script. You can't just go making up your own endings to things,” answered Tom.
“Why not?”
“Well, who's going to know about it? You need an audience to write stories.”
“Who cares if there's an audience? Why can't I write my own script even if no one else is ever going to read it? Does that make it any less real? I say Old Yeller lives. I say Ilsa Lund didn't get on that plane. I say Rosebud is the name of the city where Charles Foster Kane buried his fortune.”
“Those are the worst ideas I've ever heard,” said Tom.
Johnny continued at the same breathless pace, “That is so not the point. Should only people who are good at writing be allowed to write? Maybe no one will ever see my movies, but I don't see how a million people watching a piece of fiction will make it any less fictional. If you don't like the ending that's given to you, why not write your own? Hold on a second, I need to check my messages.”
Johnny pulled out his phone and found it silently ringing once more. He answered it.
“I'm ready.”
A scant ten seconds passed before the clowns came pouring through the door. There must have been at least fifty of them coming in all manner of ages and sizes – skinny clowns trapped in boxes that were not there, fat clowns tripping over their own feet, moderately-weighted clowns juggling brightly colored bowling pins, old clowns in baggy clothes, and young clowns carrying dogs with frilled collars. To be sure, no one could claim that there had ever been a larger or more varied group of clowns to visit that diner.
A clown with a giant red wig danced over to their table and wished Johnny a happy birthday. Johnny had not wanted anyone to make a big deal of his birthday, and so had been avoiding them all day. In the end, it turned out not to be nearly as bad as he had been expecting.
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