Julie drags Pat to the golf course. not the muni one mind you, the one relatively kept-up and nice by Van Nuys standards. no, the school one. which is mini and long and a squeezed 18 holes and slender and chain-linked and on the corner of the school no one goes to cos they think it doesn't exist. the corner that is. by the bathrooms and lunch trays.
Pat: i am so tired.
the course looks piping-hot at night, slathered in surreal. the line where the hills start to roll and your own eyeline starts to roll is the same. and it blends into holes. and it's black all over. magical. the dew on the sandtraps dance and twinkle and reflect the whiteness of the sweat and cum sprinkled on the greens.
Pat, bedraggled and beleaguered with a soppy mouth: we have a golf course? we fancy. never noticed before. never HAD to notice it before. before i was forced to play sports...
Julie: yeah most high schools don't have their own golf course. but we froufrou and ritzy and hollywood. and i'm doing my darndest to make this not a high school but a school for the performing arts.
this is scary for Pat. he's never stroked before. not like this. he takes out the club from the bag---actually he only has the one club and no bag---never been to a club---and takes a practice swing at the divot and tee. he looks out to where the ball should be so far...and sees only darkness. there's no way to gauge perception and perspective and precipitation and distance.
Pat: i only know miniature golf. where Par is always 2. but this is Par 2 but the holes are fucking far. i guess our varsity team is good. should we be here like this when it's closed?
Julie: the only time school is ever interesting is when it's supposed to be closed. when it's night. when the adults go home and the adulting can begin in earnest. don't worry, Natalie will mark your progress in her green golf minipad notebook.
Natalie Nourigat eats a pink mini-pencil while in front of the clique's astonished eyes.
Natalie: swing batta batta batta swing!
Pat: shut up, short stack. here i go...i'm swinging! god i hope to say that when i'm adult and it counts.
Pat: what happened? where'd it go?
Natalie: you forgot to place the ball on the tee. you swung air.
Natalie punches Pat in the balls. which means Pat is one of the gang.
Pat: oof. what are you sketching over there, shrimp.
Nat: none you bees. i'm a rebel. i hate my parents. my folks told me they named me after a famous actress who drowned. i found out later through microfiche they named me after a gnat. i DEMANDED for them to tell me what nougat was. to this day, the world's top scientists have no idea what nougat actually is.
Michael Weiss: i'll remember that on Halloween. oh it's so glorious how we all can get dressed up and roam around the neighborhood grey sidewalks at night on Halloween. with dusk as our curfew, with a chain at Denny's, not with a virus tickling your internal alarm clock. eat a flailing falling orange leaf and stick your cock into with a hole cut out of your white candy bag to feel for where the chocolate bar is. feel the chill of the stars on your cheek as you cum out the window of the old abandoned glassed haunted house buried underneath the graveyard...
Pat: it's memorable. take a picture of it all with your mind, it'll last longer. you'll need it later, trust me.
Julie: your mission is not complete, soldier. finish! you have to hit your target or we'll be here all night. all morning! no sleep for the worthy.
Pat hits a rainbow ball which ricochets all across the trees and hits Nat in the hand, her notebook drops to the grass which Michael immediately scoops up.
Nat: oh my nads.
Michael: yeah, bitch! OMG! what the fuck are you drawing, girl!!! these are, like, sly kinky naughty naked sketch figure arts on the side. body frames with no clothes on! aren't you talented enough to draw clothes?
Nat: GIVE IT BACK!!! i want to work for Disney someday, okay? i'm still shaky when i hold a pencil in my hand, like someone i know when they hold a club. witches are teaching me how to settle my lines.
Pat tries again and with a white ball hits an unexpected target that was hiding in the branch of one of the invisible grey tall pine trees. a red tin mailbox springs up and out and delivers its goods by opening its hatchet door. a note falls to the wet grass:
WILL YOU GO TO FORMAL WITH ME?
Pat blushes so hard the red line registers from space.
Pat: OMG! seriously? really? as i lay on this course of course my answer is of course!
Pat hugs Julie hard then lets go before he rumples her dress.
not looking Pat takes a swing behind his back. the ball travels into a hole-in-one. on the 18th green. Pat looks down and sees he has traveled to the 18th green, his barefoot feet were dancing on the spinning globe of the tiny divoted golf ball along its fiery path.
Pat: no wonder my toes feel ticklish. like a stepmom's pinprick on my hangnail. my answer is YES!!! a thousand times yes. and yes for next year, too! can you hear me from all the way over there? i cut myself on a blade of grass!
Julie: *shouting* want me to kiss it and make it better?
at Obec Hospital, a disturbed patient has just crashed through the swinging butcher doors. his pupils are dilated and he feels dilated. he is in the first phases of aphasia and has no idea what the fuck is going on since birth.
Dirg: hey. hey nurse, can i get the alternating wheels on this stretcher for my skateboard after all this is over?
nurse: you're bathing yourself. i can't touch you, remember?
Dirg: that's okay, i don't bathe. but why'd you have to wear the bodysuit? makes you look like we're in a bad sci-fi movie. with an alien babe who isn't green.
nurse: i'll alert the doctor you've been wheeled in.
doctor: son, may i hug you?
Dirg: no. am i required under penalty of federal law to wear a mask here? nobody has any idea which place you do and which place you don't. we're all in the dark here by the government, thanks government. just give it to me straight, doc, ALWAYS straight.
doctor: well i don't know how quite to put this. you have an easygoing pace to you which hides your malice. just what were you thinking, boy? i mean i know times are tough but no young man should EVER go out like that. especially one as you who has never experienced love.
Dirg: what. i drank bleach.
doctor: but you have so much to live for. suicide is like a temporary tattoo that never comes off. you put down on your insurance form that you have two best friends who fuck each other in a Burger King bathroom. you list their contact information as: CONTACT TRACING, THE FEDS ARE SCURRILOUS.
Dirg: yeah yeah yeah blah blah blah, doc, don't be elite, just tell me in simple plain Merican language. i'm cured of the covid, admit it.
the cast of Modern Family is crying.
Modern Family: NO ONE realized we ended!
Modern Family hugs Steven Universe and they both cry.
then Sean Hayes joins in the group hug. then Christopher Meloni kisses Sean Hayes...
Dirg: ...this is legal and allowed cos Meloni was in Fear & Loathing...
at The Treehouse Doryce is treated to a most magical sight!
Doryce: hey babe, come in here. what is this? the toilet paper by the toilet. it's all tied up in a beautiful knotty bow. quite quaint, like the cottage we used to go to and love in. and never leave.
Gladyce: oh how delightful! it's a reminder for you, dear, always honor the helpers. thank one on your way home to the bus because you never use your broom.
Doryce: okay okay i will, dear. but you see...…...i'm tryna take a shit and i can't get the bow loose!!!
Gladyce: *redfaced* my precious Katniss...
Yellow Ranger: ...so...
Dirg: okay okay i saw it. first of all, the best part was Steel in a dress. that made me feel warm inside. when the hell is Jason gonna show up already! it's been eons!
Laertus: oooohhhh! so close! but once again the draconian antediluvian Nickelodeon standards and censors for some reason don't allow a real kiss on the lips on their network. Fox did it but not Nick. not even for bots. tho they do allow butts. those two ALMOST kissed, until the inevitable hot water on her lap...
Eye Luggage: shame. i for one love that fetish on me, i love getting hot water down my jeans. washes my pussy good. Laertus and i role-play as you guys, Nate and the blonde chick uh yellow ranger, i end up in the glasses by the end of the night.
Eye: what were we talking about again?
Tyzik: can a gigolo make a good father?
Dirg: depends how early he comes. with the pizza. you know Elisabeth Shue should be brought up on charges to PETA court, you see how she had to win over the man racing horses on the beach and pushed her horse too far to win. dragging that horse to unnatural speeds. poor bit, poor horse bit, i'll make a call.
Eye: Steel Magnolias and go.
Dirg: okay FIRST OF ALL i better get SOMETHING for having to watch this. i mean really. like i better get a wife out of this.
Dirg: SECOND OF ALL, see? i told you the most important thing a woman has is her hair. a woman NEEDS to do her hair!!! it's a must!! good on Georgia for liberating all the hair salons...
Eye: ack. hair sure, paint it black. but the most important thing for a woman is NOT to go to prom! i hated my prom! i didn't go to my prom. you hear that, Pat?
Dirg: for Southern women it is. you know, real women. good old-fashioned Southern hospitality, real human love, caring, and compassion. hair and minor-league baseball. the smell of peanuts. fans in the stands.
Laertus: i gotta say, i remember the stirrings of this film as a young kid from my father's young stirrings, but at no time do i remember Dylan McDermott being a part of this!!! Dylan!!!? from Waterbury? Dylan McDermott, the The Practice guy? he's an odd choice for this. like, no, casting with the no. shoulda went with Matthew McConaughey or something as the country gentleman.
Dirg: i'll never forgive Dylan for what he did to those poor punk kids at that '80s club as that weird manager with the chest hair. those kids were monsters. party monsters. i'm jelaous of that chest hair. and velcro shirt. i'm sure his toothpaste smells of aftershave.
Eye: oh god! why must we go through this again! shooting birds off a tree ain't funny! NEVER will be!!! i'm covering my eyes now.
Laertus: mama. oh mama, mama i'm Julia Roberts and i look NOTHING like you, Sally Field! who is my daddy? my real daddy?
Laertus: okay, you see here? see Shirley MacLaine here!? she's kicking ass! she's schooling the other legendary broads. she's giving them a lesson in acting and life. those other belle dames don't know what hit em. her image is iconic dragging along the huge pitbull-vibe dog, the dog controls the leash, not the other way around. she wants to rip mustache's eyes out, that's real anger. why does Olympia Dukakis have that dopey grin on the whole film?
Dirg: thinking of painful political losses. you know what they say about people who are always smiling.
Eye: why wasn't Ouiser spelled like the band Weezer? ya herd? Air Jordans were JUST getting off the ground at the time.
Dirg: oh god that was messed up at the barber shop. all the ladies all gathered around in their gossip pink hot rollers and Julia just starts gagging. what the fuck is wrong! no one knows! at first i thought she was spastic.
Eye: the '80s, still the time when you could die from not regulating your blood sugar. all the '80s sitcoms had that one episode that dealt with hypoglycemic shock and the diabeetus. eating a cookie could literally save your life. C is for cookie, that's good enough for me.
Dirg: Truvy, groovy name. why is it that Dolly Parton is always saddled in these things with the dirtbag failed-country-singer husband? here and in 9 To 5.
Laertus: nah, Sam Shepard just needs space. he needs time. he just wants to live. in the country...the bigger country...and write his plays all day.
Eye: you know it's Nawlins Louisiana when you look at a two-storey building and see scaffolding on the balcony that is all many steel fleur-de-lis.
Dirg: WHOA! Daryl Hannah has never done anything for me---even tho Killing Hannah is my favorite band---but girl takes off the Hairspray glasses and TRANSFORMS like on Sally Jessy Raphael! now she's got religion! good girl! i was beginning to think the cherry-coke scene was gonna go the other way...
Laertus: HA! you see that scene? where Shirley MacLaine calls Olympia Dukakis ugly? that ain't acting! that's improv, bitch! MacLaine is hard. MacLaine is motherfucking hard.
Eye: called to the mat.
Dirg: MacLaine was unimpressed with all that bodacious baseball bare butt!!!
Laertus: men ruin women, you hear that, Dirg?
Dirg: who puts eggs in the trunk of a car? is that how The Store does it? you put eggs by your feet where you can watch them. why didn't this film open Easter weekend? it would have made a killing in the churches. millions from the '80s megachurches. i wish Julia Roberts and Lois Griffin had kept the short hair. Shirley MacLaine looks hot with white stuff dribbling out of her mouth.
Eye: moral dilemma here: do you let your daughter give birth for the experience of being a mother even for a short time? it's ironic that Julia is a nurse. it would have been too fried-corny to have her become a nurse only for her to discover her own cure.
Laertus: just call her Rosie the Remdesivir Riveter. i say yes, motherhood is a unique experience, motherhood is the glue which holds the universe together.
Dirg: i say no. think of the children! WON'T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!
Laertus: oh god, that filled my marrow with shiver. when that towhead baby kid screams, that's a BLOODCURDLING SCREAM! when he cries for his mama, i tore out of my pajamas in empathetic solidarity and couldn't help but pain with him.
Dirg: when i first saw the slack telephone coiled wire cord i thought the worst. that something else had happened...
Dirg: that is a high-tech ventilator. i see ventilators like that today in hospitals. you know, i gotta say, this film got to me. i mean i had heard whispers and ghosts that this was a five-hanky maudlin classic, but i wasn't sure what and when. that whole death is scarring and shocking and like i experienced it for the first time. which i did. the finality of it, you know. i took a whole box of tissues in with me, all the tissues came back gooey. never knew i had that much nougat in my nostrils. this was The Fault in Our Stars before The Fault in Our Stars!
Eye: oh sensuous Ann Wedgeworth! with the faltering Southern hiccup of seduction in her voice. teasing tonsils. the way she shapes her hourglass figure with her hands. i knew i recognized her! making the Cookie Cats. was this during her seduction of Jack Tripper?
Dirg: she's from Joisey. why have a cake in the shape of a rat? was that a commentary on the growing Disneyfication of the civilized world?
Laertus: and Janine Turner! how bout that? ho ho howdy. well spit on me and call me an uncle's cob!
Dirg: what was with the whole cardtable scene? where they were ragging on him for all the aces. is that a gay thing?
Dirg: i was rooting for Sally Field. during her Oscar-winning performance of the dramatic scene at the outdoor funeral by the tombstones and trees. i was rooting for her to say this line:
Sally Field: after this i don't believe in God anymore. unless She's a woman.
Laertus: yeah-hea! see that? MacLaine don't respect Annelle till Annelle gives it back to her in sass! till she becomes a bitch like Shirley! and DO call her Shirley! game respec game. Clairee sounds like a type of tangerine. revivalists are scary anyway, the only revival i'm down wit is a tv-show revival.
Dirg: oh well. life goes on. cue Corky. oh wait that's next week...
Eye: aw, and Julia lives on in the upcoming baby being born right now. don't worry, folks, nobody's gonna forget Julia Roberts.
Dirg: let's see how that kid turns out, she's half-bunny. as in Easter Rabbit.
Dirg: folks, Julia Roberts is dead. but she's not a dead fish in her next movie, she just doesn't kiss on the mouth...
Laertus: Gretchen Whitmer?
Dirg: looking forward to when she does the Lifetime movie of Fargo. she's from Minnesota, right? this film is not to be confused with Balls of Steel. g'night, folks.
Taki: so...
Madame Pons: 1+1=
Taki: 3. wait. could be. three. i'm in a different plane than you, it works different here.
Madame Pons: nah. what are you going to do? you have to be a teacher now.
Taki: NO! i did not sign up for this! i'm an investigative reporter not a teacher!!! the only teachers i know have babies with their students.
Madame Pons: you have to transition, it's too tough on the front lines of this war. i don't want you to be a cold casualty. another soldier who takes her own life by her own hand. my girls are counting on you. i teach their soul, you teach their mind...
before, the clique decides to dine at Don's Plum:
Julie: so we can all be fat and happy and fed and satisfied to dance the night away. by the end of the night our tanks will be empty, it takes a lot of energy you know. mental energy.
Pat: yeah but i don't want to crap my pants while i'm dancing.
they see Tobey Maguire sitting alone under pale moodlight at the corner booth.
Julie: what up, Tobey. how's school?
Tobey: you know how hard the teachers grade. on a curve. i should be praised i'm flattening the curve!
Pat: so do the thing. we're all ready. climb the walls. stick to the ceiling.
Tobey can't. until Pat shakes Tobey's hand. then Tobey can hang on the spot where the chandelier used to be.
Tobey: DON'T EAT THE MEAT!!!
but it's too late. Pat has already digested the entire string of 15 joined links of sausage. he starts to convulse and goes into shock with his eyes open.
Tobey: YOU CAN'T EAT HERE IF YOU DON'T HAVE A GALL BLADDER!!!
quickly Julie sprints into action. she punches Pat's face but nothing. she Indian-burns his stomach area until a gall bladder forms and Pat spits out a pencil. she spits into her hand and fixes Pat's bowtie as she flexes her dimples.
Julie: you look so stirring in your tux! come on, let's go we're late!
at Formal, the dance is getting off to a slow start. then Marilyn Monroe walks in! oof. she lights the way, literally, the light emanating from under her pencil dress. everyone in the school has eyes glued to her except Pat, who is looking at a discouraged Julie. he hugs her slyly from the back, unintentionally undoing her bow in the back of her dress.
JUST THEN a huge black dog enters the basketball court and rips to shreds tons of dresses and tuxes and ice cubes. the students all away for their lives, all half-naked, all showing. but most survive. that ends Marilyn's night early.
Michael turns to Nat. and her notebook.
Michael: you better! let me see! what's in your notebook! you better have been drawing more naked humans!
Nat: what? i did what you said. i started drawing Disney animals.