2001
Thursday, August 23, 2001
⇒ Sevi’s first joke: picking up needles in the lean-to. I say no. She picks some up again and tries to put them in my mouth.
⇒ mathematician, recluse, tutors child
⇒ crawling over the tangled, dead grass, trying to get back to the house.
⇒ why was the house abandoned?
⇒ rich private school kids vs. town pub high kids
⇒ Christmas caroling at the house
⇒ a lost kit flies into the yard. – couple in nearby park confront nanny, who tries to lead kid off.
⇒ a malevolent man with scissors cuts the strong after being insulted—curses them.
⇒ retired cop couple have bought the place so start a B&B
⇒ whistle in the pines
⇒ boy chased in swamp by farmer’s hounds—drowns
⇒ couple follows kite to house—séance going on. Summoning ghost of drowned nanny.
⇒ Nanny drowned in pool—epileptic?
⇒ or Nanny was seduced or raped in woods by husband of house. Drowned herself in pool with cinder block tied to foot
Saturday, August 25, 2001
⇒ Three sisters convene after the death of fourth
⇒ ghost who died of ennui—wants some excitement in the afterlife
⇒ hearing the tennis balls on the court in the dead of night
Sunday, August 26, 2001
⇒ Sevi ate strawberries last night for the first time.
⇒ Simultaneity of all historical deaths on this piece of land.
⇒ The wall – an argument about where it goes
⇒ house built on site of Yankee graveyard
Monday, August 27, 2001
⇒ police couple
⇒ hidden history—like a mystery—archetypal—simple-strong emotion
⇒ progressive fright
⇒ obligatory scenes
⇒ operating on individual; no social reality—just bare trappings.
⇒ mathematician convinced time is an illusion which can be seen through with the right disposition—can see all previous episodes that left impressions there. Cops who own the property skeptical., Urban skeletons in their closet.
⇒ SKELETONS IN THE CLOSET
⇒ Real estate broker—unable to sell the place in light of its history
⇒ Herbal mogul—marking up spices, bragging
⇒ I’m a man thought up by a boy. Are you good people or bad? Think how many strangers there are in the world.
⇒ timelessness high concept?
⇒ can someone be staying there? in its decrepit state? That gives you the character.
⇒ What do the dead know? Do we want to hear? Too terrifying.
⇒ Muscle-bound on a weak frame—lordotic spine. Concave man
⇒ What happens when you give drugs to a ghost?
⇒ The uncanny—ambivalence about supernatural—possibly a rational explanation
⇒ abandoned house that local gilded youth use as a drug hangout. Cop couple buys it as B&B. Trying to edify the kids.
⇒ Original owner went to prison—some bizarre demise. Kept claiming he was cursed—other inmates kept clear.
⇒ Everywhere these humans bent on displaying their prowess at inane sports, ignoring the fast disappearing beauty of the natural world. Inclined to the greatest misanthropy…Ball up the clay and start from scratch, we’ve blown it. – the jock’s mock humility.
⇒ school scenes—weight training—taking a jogging detour to the house—getting stoned. Where’s the history, the secret?
⇒ who died? how do they find out?
⇒ nosey parent busts kids
⇒ typical slasher movie—punish the immoral, promiscuous…
⇒ the fear of diabolical capability—a malicious character knowing no bounds, and whose activities (or identity) hidden from view.
⇒ commune—mass suicide—crossing over to the next stage of existence Guru-diabolical personality.
⇒ kids come to school, wan, withdrawn. Parents suspect drugs…sex with ghosts.
⇒ he thought if he studied the life cycle of as many creatures as possible he would arrive at some final wisdom as to the real nature of life.
⇒ Unless you make the tragic incident back story, what’s hidden?
⇒ hounds overrunning a kid—forcing into swamp.
⇒ muscle-bound man afraid (and less powerful than, so justifiably) of a little lacy Victorian girl long dead
⇒ inquisition of some kind. overprotective father.
Wednesday, August 29, 2001
⇒ dramatic irony. that tension, suspense. Possibly playing into what the character admonishes him/herself for as paranoia
⇒ Rope dragging character by ankle toward the pool, where Nanny drowned herself
⇒ Diabolical man of the house, still alive—the real menace, until killed. Now in his 60s, still vital and terrifying—the broker. (He keeps alluding to his wife and kids—come on over and meet them, we’ll barbecue)
⇒ Glazing window on 2nd floor—sees ghost.
⇒ antique dealer
⇒ broker keeps referring to the couple’s intellectual concerns as way over his head
⇒ later revelation: someone in town tells the wife the broker has no wife and family. Didn’t you hear about the nanny incident?
⇒ Broker wants another family the only way he figures he can, by stealing that of another man. Have horrible accident befall the husband, then he could fill the role.
⇒ Ghost of the nanny wants justice—the true story known. This will come out in climax when we see broker’s diabolical plan to kill the husband, echoing the death by drowning of the nanny.
⇒ Broker red herring with tales of historical ghosts—the boy chase into the swamp, the two farmers’ argument over the placement of the fieldstone wall, the Grey sisters after the civil war (modeled after Fox sisters)
⇒ at first Broker tells them nanny was epileptic, then later makes fuller disclosure—apologizes, says he’s trying to sell the place.
⇒ Wife, a highly abstract mathematician. She and man not married, engaged—he leaves on trips to the city often—some desk job.
⇒ Essence of ALL European art film imports: Kindly, unambitious people in touch with simple pleasures of food and sex
Thursday, August 30, 2001
⇒ Sees self and daughter in the future. Kid interacting with self as an adult.
⇒ Someone with Alzheimer’s—soul inhabited by someone sharp as a tack
⇒ pilot light on the oven—bellows a sound of a voice when lit
⇒ some time warp machine wherein couple precipitates by their very intervention the tragedy that happened in the past—an endlessly repeating cycle. The monotony of endless recurrence is chilling in itself.
⇒ hugging the beloved in re-opened grave—skeleton cracks apart, skull falls to earth, jaw breaks off.
⇒ dim late afternoon light—blinds
⇒ the unbeliever who drives the most desperate tension in the story—does the foolish thing that terrifies
⇒ hay bales
⇒ horses—bridle path
⇒ like sounds awakening ones from the past—flashlight beam, echoes
⇒ carbon monoxide in the 3-car garage
⇒ ghosts of circus performers
⇒ Broker keeps talking about a barbecue
⇒ sight of Stephen Pearl Andres type utopian commune either routed out by neighbors, or by disease, or jealousies. Free love didn’t quite work out—guru sleeping with all women
⇒ Broker says local kids play games to scare you—best to get a dog to scare them off.
⇒ Mother’s love for her child.
⇒ Why would she drown herself—in the 70’s
⇒ hypnosis
⇒ creating a soul with chemicals
⇒ Broker says, oh, if there are ghosts they’re all friendly—just a bunch of young hippies and nudists of the 19th century.
⇒ finds a petticoat beside the pool
⇒ Late 1860s woman in commune has child—paternity unknown—could have been many. She wants to leave with her child, leave the life—none will join her. She is shunned by community—she drowns herself and child. Or community sets hounds after child who drowns, and she drowns looking for him.
⇒ 1970s commune resorted to snuff filmmaking
⇒ Piper—name of child—intense mother-child relationship. May have murdered her two younger babies out of intense jealousy. When Piper dies, she resorts to spiritualism to contact him. Charlatans string her along
⇒ Called Piper because he played pennywhistle in the woods
⇒ Broker is Piper—craving a mother’s love
⇒ killed a snake with a board that has a nail sticking out from one end.
⇒ the tune heard playing in the woods “The Bonny Bonny Broom”
⇒ something heavy dragging nanny down in the pool against her will.
⇒ the work must have a soul.
Friday, August 31, 2001
⇒ He decided that the reason for his failure was that he couldn’t come to a decision regarding his vocation. But that was a dodge, and he knew its superficiality wouldn’t suffice. His failure to concentrate, to commit, to be loyal to any course of action had a simple cause. Envy. He breathed the contaminant, fogging up the needed clarity, smudging with anxious fingers that dulled the world to their own grasping image. Envy owned him. He was a negative contour, tapered down to the consideration of measures he would have scorned only months earlier for their crassness and gimmickry. Unmoored, dis-confidenced, he was prodded by affronts and dread in each smiling face he met. The self-sufficiency of others stung and occupied his waking mind fully. And in the city, there was no escaping this flood of rebuke.
Saturday, September 1, 2001
⇒ Sevi got a hold of a thick piece of gray sidewalk chalk at the Garfield Tot Lot today, and wouldn’t let it go. Finally I got it away from her, but within a minute (while I was hiding it) she happened to fall on her face and started wailing. A concerned mother approached us and returned the chalk to her, thinking that was why she was crying. “Oh great,” I said “just when I’d gotten rid of it.” But I thanked the mother anyway, as it surely helped the hurt go away. It took me another 15 minutes before I could get it away from her again. She was getting ornery and overtired. I washed her hands with a wipe and took her off out of the park down Flatbush in the direction of the zoo, but she was beginning to nod off so I doubled back to the library, which was closed for Labor Day weekend, put my book in the outdoor book return, and headed back down the Slope. She woke up in the glancing sun just minutes later, ready for more. Three different people at the Tot Lot commented on her beautiful blue eyes. She gets this a lot. Aw shucks, what can I say, they’re right!
⇒ You see a one-legged man loping along on crutches. And be honest, something of the engineer in you sees the imbalance and moves that remaining leg to the center of the pelvis. Just briefly you say to yourself, “there, that’s better, so much more efficient.”
⇒ She had to steer any discussion of externalities into a justification for her being where she was, the way she was. Constant defense against the idea that maybe she had fallen short in life or taken a wrong turn.
⇒ A sudden report, a loud cracking sound underfoot made him jump. He’d stepped on the finger of a discarded surgical glove and popped it.
⇒ She gets an advantage, she presses it.
⇒ The kite takes them to the house—kids on the nearby school’s weight-training circuit smoking pot—broker arrives—sets up viewing for next morning with them and the B&B cop couple—next morning, odd requirements of the owner (kid or no kid) and scoffing at the cop couple for implying they would tear any part of it down. They hide their hand. – Broker goes with them—Strange closing of the house, not to meet owner—meanwhile kids trespassing divulge more of the history—They bring in contractors—confrontation with the Broker—husband banishes him from property—strange occurrences begin—contractor’s accident—kid’s accident—more backstory—visit to the kennel of stray dogs—more backstory.
⇒ needs clock
⇒ the house has been abandoned for some time—why?
⇒ who knows the WHOLE story other than the Broker?
⇒ Some people are just born bad. Pickie was such a child. All the kindness and love he was given just nourished his evil.
⇒ needs protagonist – center of good
⇒ Broker: I’d buy it myself, but it takes money, and I can’t keep up with what the market will be bear these days, not to mention the maintenance etc.
⇒ Where’s the mother? Mother and son both dead? Then why not reunited, end of story? It’s the father who’s alive, guiltridden, haunted. If so, what’s he doing, what’s he protecting? Trying to get someone to live in the house and preserve it to keep the ghosts of his family members happy?
⇒ why doesn’t Broker confess he’s the owner?
⇒ CONTROLLING IDEA – nothing real – just escape the bad-ees
⇒ OBLIGATORY SCENE (Climax) – meeting the owner? Tearing down the house.
⇒ CLOCK RUNNING – none as yet
⇒ CENTER OF THE GOOD (One Protagonist) – The woman of the couple, or woman and child?
⇒ INCITING INCIDENT – the couple deceitfully buys the house in order to demolish it.
⇒ Father (Broker) was institutionalized following the deaths of his wife and son (and earlier two babies)—by the time he got out he was changed, bearded, became a real estate broker handling the estate. But when he came back on the scene his presence riled up the ghosts. Ever since then people have been in and out, and he’s always handled the listing. Folks in town say it’s his only listing. The husband of the couple say that sounds fishy to him, thinks it’s underhanded in some way. Selling to people, scaring them, buying it back at lower price, then selling again. He doesn’t know but he’s suspicious, and is proud to be breaking that cycle by demolishing the place and building his own house.
⇒ THE LISTING
⇒ Husband ambitious, wife wanting a child and he has no time for it. Keeps putting her off. We will, we will. I’ve got to get some progress under my belt first, something to show for myself.
⇒ Architect friend they invite up – will be dispatched.
⇒ If the wife is the protagonist, what’s her story? To have a child is her desire. What throws her life out of whack? Does she become attached to the ghost of this child? Maternal toward it?
⇒ Is the Broker “feeding” people to his family, or is he just trying to keep the house intact in the only way he knows how? Probably the latter. The retribution really comes as a result of trying to tear it down, as he warned.
⇒ husband’s an architect – thinks this house is an eyesore
⇒ Says he’s a builder—daydreaming in the park with his wife about designing his own city where they both could live. She intones her mathematical theories about the ubiquitous present, saying he’s already designed it and it’s already fallen to ruin, they’ve already had their two kids, grown old and died, she’s forever in labor, they’re forever making love, they’re forever dreaming, forever dying.
⇒ Because his compassionate nature was secure he felt no compulsion to display it, and actually felt free to act as nasty and distasteful as he wanted. The more outlandish the greater the irony. He was a free being, acting however he wanted, living a life full of rich warm humor and devoid of hypocrisy.
⇒ if there are ghosts, then there has to be a character who is sympathetic/vulnerable to them to be a surrogate for us.
⇒ When the husband arrives to get kite, goes around back—kid on balcony, asks to get kite. Kid is grinning, throws a stone down at him. Goes around house, pounds on the door to get in—door breaks open—he goes in—4 15 year olds in school jerseys come barrelling out various places, running. Meanwhile, wife finds “FOR SALE” sign.
⇒ boy opens his mouth – sounds of many yelping dogs comes out.
⇒ Wife to broker: Did a boy die here?
Sunday, September 2, 2001
⇒ Husband is sure that the whole provision about tearing the house down is so it can’t be sold again, and he thinks this must be a cash cow for this guy, his only listing. Something nefarious.
⇒ where is the mother?
⇒ what if the first child, Pickie, was killed in an accident. The mother tried to reach him through mediums etc.. They tried twice after that to have children, but each died crib deaths—smothered? Mother then drowned in pool, skirt caught on tricycle which fell into pool.
⇒ “The grave’s a fine and private place, but none I think do there embrace.” – Andrew Marvell?
⇒ If mother is dead, then where’s the longing on the part of Pickie? If mother’s alive, then where/who is she?
⇒ what about these two crib death children?
⇒ the mother will stay with the child until her husband joins them in death—until that time he’s got to provide for them, give them the house, but he can’t afford it.
⇒ Broker talks about supporting a wife and three kids—it’s tough, let me tell you. In his 50s. Would have been in his 30s at the time.
⇒ The consciousness of a ghost – vast stretches of blindness, utter darkness, illuminated for just the briefest moments of visibility, the familiar scene, enough time just to get from here to there, and grab a hold of something familiar before the light flickers out again for who knows long, minutes, days, months? There is no sleep, only the wait, and the ruminating over one’s past.
⇒ Broker gets tested by psychiatrist, released – comes to house, fleeing kids, talks to one who threatens him says the place is haunted—Broker interrogates him more closely, scares him with his intensity—the kid scampers off—cut to him at night in the house—talk to me, come to me, talk to me–kicks at the for sale sign—meets banker, who explains he has no choice but to sell, he has no assets, no way to pay taxes, this will put him on sound financial footing to…to resume life, start a new…chapter—broker says, you mean until the day I might buy it back?.—talks as if others are around him when alone—apologizes to one and all. Cut to couple in the park—woman, kite etc.
⇒ For info, the husband or wife will go to the father of one of the children, who was himself a child when this took place.
⇒ It doesn’t come out until after the closing that the couple has a baby—this mortifies the Broker, who expresses great concern that they didn’t let him know this.
⇒ Mother ghost appears only during day – Pickie only during night.
⇒ Not satisfied with the backstory—what’s missing? Sure, there doesn’t have to be any ultimate explanation for the child’s evil, but the death by hounds and drowning, then the subsequent death of mother by his ghost, tricycle dragging her down into pool—not complete, doesn’t resonate with the father. What did the father do? He tried to have Pickie sent off for some kind of treatment or evaluation, and this set off the other calamaties, yes, but not the initial problem. Would he forgive this child, miss this child. Not as much, apparently, as the mother.
⇒ I guess I’m balking at this depiction of the devil child, demon seed etc. as not only cliché but unilluminating.
⇒ What’s the value at the end? Why?
⇒ Possible return to the party idea. Big social party. Mother puts Pickie in charge of the baby, Father drunk punishes Pickie for some reason, locks him in his room. Baby wanders to edge of pool and drowns. Pickie escapes his room too late, gets baby from pool, lays it down, traumatized, runs into woods. Cops are called, dogs are loosed, chases him into swamp, he drowns. Mother tries to contact him through seances. Failing that, drowns herself. But in this version, where’s the malevolent force? What specifically is keeping these ghosts from being at rest? The fear and guilt on the part of Pickie’s ghost—feels he is damned for being bad, doesn’t understand it wasn’t his fault. How do you effect a touchy-feely forgiveness session with ghosts?
1) Colin’s test at psych ward and release
2) Trip to area in rental car
3) Trip to house, finds pot paraphernalia in house, broken windows, dirty magazines. Throws this all away. “Well is that any kind of welcome?” Colin at Bank—banker tells him he must sell or they’ll foreclose—no income for…19 years?
4) Couple Martin and Cille at Park—talking about extensive architectural dreams as they look at clouds—brief encounter with Helene—kite unravels, chase it to the house. Exhilerating chase—watch where you’re driving! Goes around back, sees a kite up on balcony, thinks how to get up—meanwhile a pot shove heard, falls, crashes. He sees the face of a child in the window receded into the darkness. He rushes in—surprises a couple of 15 year olds on the second floor who scatter—seizes one of them on the way out. Asks him where his friend is, who shoved the planter. Kid says it was just him and Jim, his friend. Martin points up to the 3rd floor. Kid says you’re flipped dude, or Jim was right, this place is haunted.
5) Martin and Cille come out with Colin to see the place, very excited to buy. Colin talks about the owner as being concerned that the place found good people.
6) Martin and Cille talk about his plans for tearing the place down and building anew. Martin tells Cille best not to let the owner know.
7) At the closing—no owner present, Colin says he’s proxy for the owner. Martin asks him his percentage, he doesn’t answer. They conclude the deal, but uneasily
8) At the site of the house, surveying the place. Cille is around the other side of the house inspecting the patio. She hears splashing coming from the pool. This arrests her attention. She walks to the edge of it. Looks down in it. It is absolutely dry and empty, but for some dry leaves collected in one corner.
9) Martin has a contractor in—immediate run-in with Colin over his plans to demo. Starts to become a fight. He chases him off property, threatens to get the police
10) Meanwhile Cille is filling the pool, sees a child’s reflection briefly in the shimmering water. Rather than be terrified, she’s intrigued.
11) Cille ventures out – stops running kids, asks them about house. One says his dad knows everything.
12) Cille and Martin in the living room, candles, like camping out says Martin – goes on about how he was right about that crazy Broker. What’s he trying to pull? What does he care what we do with the property. This kind of a property, in this economy, he sees a quick turnaround, voila he gets to list it again. Cille says she think he has a deeper stake in the place. Tells Martin she’s going to seem far out to him, as usual, but she approached the kids running and there’s a rumor that someone died in this place. She’s going to speak to kid’s teacher when she can.
13) Martin hears something out in the woods—heads outside. Hounds approaching him, he drops his flashlight, hears “help me” in the dark.
14) Cille visits source (parent or teacher at school) who tells her the family that lived there about 15, 20 years back. They built the place and almost just as soon left—rumor had it that a child drowned, the mother got spiritual trying to contact dead son, she died somehow. Tragic all around.
⇒ Why does the mother summon the couple? I like this, but what is the reason? How can it make sense?
⇒ If a child’s told he’s bad, over and over again, he’s likely to turn bad.
⇒ Chekhovian self-pity
⇒ Pasta contained some property which triggered in him the genetic “gorge” reflex.
⇒ Like a fly rappelling off a computer screen in a dark room he was helpless to stop himself and mindless of the incessant repetition.
⇒ Broker and dead wife at odds? How?
Monday, September 3, 2001 (Labor Day)
⇒ If we stay away from Colin’s POV, the whole OWNER issue is more intriguing, but it begs the question of how many times this cycle has happened and why. It makes it maybe easier to explain the ghost wife’s desperation to finally get this couple, who will destroy the house and be done with this. What you lose, is the candor of the other version, where Colin thinks he just has his memories, then the family makes it clear there is some question of haunting and his attitude changes entirely, wanting to protect the house, to protect his “family”
⇒ Bergman’s “Through A Glass Darkly” has some glancing relationship to The Seagull – the staging of the play.
⇒ Martin smells alchohol on Colin’s breath
⇒ Pickie responsible for the death of child in pool—father treats him as such, mother cleaves to him all the more. They have another child, Pickie desperate for mother’s love, smothers in crib. Father determined to have Pickie put away, Hounds, swamp. Mother seances, mother death in pool.
⇒ built a cage in the yard for Pickie
⇒ headstrong Pickie, always incurring his father’s wrath, climbing trees to look up at the sun to blind himself. Mother always coming to his aid.
⇒ during the party, Pickie with baby out by pool, plays game in poolside toolshed, gets locked inside, hears splash, can’t get out, paws the dirt to dig out, jumps in pool just as adults arrive, dead baby in arms. Father jumps in pool, kid backs out. Fears father’s wrath, escapes into woods. Father chasing into woods with hounds, Pickie terrified, goes into swamp, never recovers. Mother tries to contact through seances, thinks she has. Father wants this to end, have another child. Mother gets pregnant, but ghost of this child attends her—dies in childbirth along with her child, leaving father alone. He goes nuts, institutionalized, gone many years, comes back ten years later, and has been the “broker” ever since.
⇒ So I’ve got the premise and the backstory. What is the first act climax, second and third?
⇒ First Act Climax – Discover the history of a malevolent child who possibly murdered his family.
⇒ Second Act Climax – They suspect Mr. Green is the father, who possibly murdered his family.
⇒ Climax – Martin discovers his earlier life – reconciles with his dead son, finally, which frees the boy, frees the mother and earlier family to peace, and the house will be destroyed in peace. New wife accepts all that has happened, kid embrace. Martin less distracted, can be whole and compassionate etc.
⇒ Colin – “speak to me, damn you! I’m your father, speak to me!”
⇒ is the place haunted to the schoolkids or not – naturally it would be, but would also be a lure for that reason—once conquered, a great place to get high and maintain the illusion to keep the younger kids out.
⇒ When does the full telling of this backstory come out? Who tells it?
⇒ Colin keeps talking about his two children and another on the way.
⇒ Can Martin turn out to be the owner after all? His fervent desire to meet the owner, a desire to re-integrate his past tragic life with the present? Actually so split, that he plays both sides. Constantly on his cell phone conducting architectural business back in the city—has a big firm he built up for years. Talks about the hack job of so many architects who don’t know anything, don’t have any experience. It’s not a mansion, it’s “municipal” for crying out loud.
⇒ Mr. Green – real esate broker – has never met his client, has power of proxy bestowed on him by the bank as long as the thing is transacted meeting certain criteria. I’ve sold this place several times over the past 10 years, and my predecessor Mr. Schwartz sold it a few times too. Through one mishap or another, or bad timing with the economy, nothing particular seems to get done, there’s a…a buyer who keeps buying it back. THIS IS CONFIDENTIAL INFO he would never tell them, unless PUSHED TO under extreme THREAT. Colin (new name for protagonist, NOT broker) himself does this PUSHING, suspecting someone’s trying to rip them off.
⇒ Gets jogging kid to be yard boy, make some extra money, spend it on whatever you want—just don’t smoke it in my new house, okay?
⇒ Various reinactments that Colin gets drawn into – chasing in the woods to the swamp – something about the yard boy up in the tree
⇒ OUTLINE
1) Beautiful crisp fall day—driving by posh estates. — Couple Colin and Cille in backseat with baby in car driving through area looking at properties—Colin talks about wealthy areas, how he’d like to break into this kind of work, tired of work in the city—trouble is, everything’s already through the roof—we should move out here.. Cut to clouds, describing them—talk of building his city of the future up there. In park under an elm in the unmown border of the park, see a red haired woman very pregnant bends down to pick up child – tear in eyes, mother concerned, lady sets baby down in grass, takes an unsteady step or two away and sits down in the tall grass, shoulders heaving as if crying. The child looks on. The mother rises, approaches her. Husband shouts. Kite string has loosened, kite is up in the air, he starts running to grab it. Wife picks up baby (2 yr old) and woman is gone, just a hummock of bent grasses where she had been. Chasing kite, back to car.
2) Exhilerating chase—watch where you’re driving! Goes around back, sees a kite up on balcony, thinks how to get up—meanwhile a pot shove heard, falls, crashes. He sees the face of a child in the window receded into the darkness. He rushes in—surprises a couple of 15 year olds in school jerseys on the second floor who scatter—seizes one of them on the way out. Asks him where his friend is, who shoved the planter. Kid says it was just him and Jim, his friend. Colin points up to the 3rd floor. Kid says you’re flipped dude, or Jim’s brother Josh was right, this place is haunted. Cille talks to boys, who say they are on weight training circuit for sports at school—they didn’t mean to trespass. Cille has found FOR SALE sign.
3) Colin and Cille come out with Mr. Green to see the place, very excited to buy. Mr. Green talks about the owner as being concerned that the place found good people. What are good people, asks Cille; Mr. Green says oh, you know types who want to change the place. Colin reveals that he’s an architect, Mr. Green says the original owner was an architect—Colin pooh poohs his taste to Cille. She tells him to behave. They walk around the grounds—to the tennis court—original owners big tennis players, had their son be ballboy, do you play? We could learn. Cille remarks a nice setting for a pool—by the dry pool—Mr. Green and Cille head to the pool, husband detours. He says it holds water, I’ve seen people swim in it. Cille tries the door to the toolshed with Mr. Green, can’t get it. He tries, finally crashes open—the hinge wasn’t put on properly. Just a bunch of rusty tools inside.
4) Colin and Cille at the hotel talk about his plans for tearing the place down and building anew. Colin tells Cille best not to let the owner know.
5) At the closing—no owner present, Mr. Green says he’s proxy for the owner. Colin takes issue with the right of first refusal clause. Colin makes a wisecrack about Broker’s percentage. They conclude the deal, but uneasily
6) At the site of the house, surveying the place. Cille is around the other side of the house inspecting the patio. She hears splashing coming from the pool. This arrests her attention. She walks to the edge of it. Looks down in it. It is absolutely dry and empty, but for some dry leaves collected in one corner.
7) Colin is on the hill overgrown lawn down from the house sketching, he’s sketching in the trees, the overhanging old oak, and the hill minus the house. As he let his finger go, he does a doubletake looking at the tree he’s sketched. He’s inspecting the tree. Mr. Green shows up, said he’s just checking up on them, would love to have them over to his place for BBQ. Asks him about his plans—clearly upset to learn that Colin is devising to tear the place down, says he simply can’t do that—it’s not part of the agreement. They part on civil terms, but Green makes it clear they’ll be back.
8) Cille goes to through the woods, sees kids jogging by, flags em down—talk about weight training, promise they won’t trespass, just his older brother’s place, it was a dare; they told us it was haunted, but we knew it was just so they could have the place to themselves. So they challenged us.
9) Cille and Colin in the living room, candles, like camping out says Martin – goes on about how he was right about that crazy Broker. What’s he trying to pull? What does he care what we do with the property. This kind of a property, in this economy, he sees a quick turnaround, voila he gets to list it again. Cille says she think he has a deeper stake in the place. Tells Colin she’s going to seem far out to him, as usual, but she approached the kids running and there’s a rumor that someone died in this place. She’s going to speak to the other kids when she can.
10) Suddently they hear on the tennis court a game being played at night. Martin says he’ll go out to investigate. Hounds approaching him, he drops his flashlight, hears “help me” in the dark.
11) Next day, she’s applying weed killer to the crack in the court, a ball rolls up. She looks back to the house, hears splashing in the pool again, looks back, the ball is gone.
12) Cille ventures out – stops running kids, asks them about house. SHOW THIS: Josh tells story of how they were always hanging out in the house, and there would always be this quiet kid who showed up. He never said anything, just pulled pranks all the time as if for their approval. Like what? Like one time he climbed up in the chimney and waved with his hand. One day he climbed up on that tree and was looking at the sun, just spent hours looking at it. One of us saw him and he turned and laughed at us. He slipped off a branch laughing and never hit the ground. We didn’t know where he went. We got out of there fast, and I don’t do pot anymore. Josh’s brother Marty is off to college now—figures his brother and friends made that all up to keep them out of there and keep them from smoking pot. I’m not afraid of anything. Josh says, I asked my dad, and he told me something that scared me good. He said he knew that family, said the kid used to shinny up the trees and scare his parents by saying he was going to look at the sun with his eyes open til he got blinded. My dad told me that story, and he didn’t know a thing about any ghost, nobody’d every told him we went anywhere near there or we’d catch hell. A kid died on that property like 19 years ago. He killed a baby and then his father hunted him down in the swamp is how I heard it. Then the mother went crazy. One says his dad knows everything, he was there when it happened. FIRST ACT CLIMAX
13) Cille decides to fill the pool, sees the red-haired woman’s reflection briefly in the shimmering water.
14) Colin has a contractor in—immediate run-in with Mr. Green over his plans to demo. Starts to become a fight. He chases him off property, threatens to get the police. Meanwhile, some gruesome accident with the contractor.
15) Cille suspects Mr. Green is the father, who possibly murdered his family. She tells her husband this and he scoffs—a thief maybe, probably, but a murderer, come on Cille. Cille leaves the house, leaves baby in care of Josh doing yard work with her husband.
16) Cille challenges him. Mr. Green reveals that he’s never met the owner, but that this was all set up in a blind trust 19 years ago.
17) Colin has boy climb tree to get kite. Looks up, Josh looks down at him. He calls up, “stop looking at the sun, you think you can threaten me”. The kid looks down at Colin. “I’m not looking at the sun. There is no sun to look at”
18) The owner set this up before entirely losing his mind—he’s a bereaved man who was institutionalized for some time, and now lives in seclusion. I was first given the listing by my colleague Mr. Schwarz, who’d had it for 7 years before me until his death. There are many details I don’t know, but there is a directive, which is that the property should be sold preserved, not subdivided,, not destroyed, this had to be a condition of sale. Well without deed restriction there’s just no easy way to get that into law. Luckily this never came up. But there was also a directive that if it ever went on the market again, it should be bought again just in order to retain that control. We wrote in what’s called the Right of First Refusal. How many times has this property changed hands in the past 19 years? 11 times. And since I’ve been here I’ve had the listing, and the owner has bought it back every time. Why have people sold it back? Well, it’s been different for every case, all clients have their reasons, the economy didn’t do what they thought, or their plans changed. But I think in general you might say, they were AFRAID. Shows Super-8 footage passed on to him from the basement – Pickie playing, hamming shimmying up a tree, wife and another friend playing tennis while baby held by Pickie who also is playing ballboy, splashing around in the pool. Several architectural shots of the house, tilt down to some plans on the ground from the house, then back to the plans evidently done with some pride. Cille stops the projector, has him rewind, stop the frame—walks up to the screen; there is a glancing reflection off a glass poolside tabletop that reveals holding the camera, her husband—the stilled frame burns. SECOND ACT CLIMAX
19) OBLIGATORY SCENE – CLIMAX – Cille rushes home to encounter Colin, who’s been taking a sledgehammer to the windows of the house, toting gasoline, who’s curt and suspicious, wants to know where she’s been—colluding with Mr. Green, the neighbors, who’s side are you on anyway? Where’s the baby she demands? Never mind about the baby, why isn’t the place ready, don’t we have guests arriving? Or was that your prank—housewarming for a house that’s being destroyed. Hears a shriek down by the toolshed. She bites him, runs down to the pool, sees the boy Pickie rising from the water with his child in her arms, places the child down and runs. She grabs the baby up, he’s okay. Josh is climbing out a trench dug out of the side of the toolshed. Says the boy dug it. Colin sees the boy, “my son!” runs down, in black tie—on the terrace of the house Cille perceives a crowd of people with coctail glasses looking on, concerned. Colin and chases him into the woods, the sound of hounds in the woods, the swamp, he gets hip deep in it, grabs up the child, hugs him to him. – reconciles with his dead son, finally, which frees the boy, frees the mother and earlier family to peace.
20) DENOUEMENT – New wife accepts all that has happened, kid embrace. Colin less distracted, can be whole and compassionate etc., and the house will be destroyed in peace. Wrecking ball smashes the walls of house.
Monday, September 17, 2001
⇒ It bothered her the way he shook the popcorn into his palm then tossed his head back to receive it as if he were downing pills.
⇒ Short story called “Can You See the Orange” about Imagination sessions in the future.
Tuesday, September 18, 2001
⇒ The military response was nuclear—typo, that is, unclear.
Monday, September 24, 2001
⇒ While I fed her Sevi looked over at the clock (under which Panda sat atop a pile of newspapers on the radiator). She tocked her head back and forth with its pendulum.
Tuesday, September 25, 2001
⇒ Yesterday I was reading Sevi “Pat the Bunny” and when we got to the page with “daddy’s scratchy face” she scratched the black sandpaper patch, then turned and scratched my cheek with forefinger and thumb.
Friday, September 28, 2001
⇒ Sevi scampers away on hands and knees, then looks back “giving chase” She thrills at your clambering after her, laughing herself silly and bucking up on her knees with a squeal.
Thursday, October 17, 2001
⇒ To tell me to get mama, Sevi points a finger, then points to her chest and nods her head emphatically.
⇒ Sevi says maaamaaa often plaintively and papa almost like a whisper or with something like amused irony.
Monday, October 22, 2001
⇒ Sevi’s stood for 10 to 15 seconds at a time, and in the last day or so seems to be aware she’s doing it and smiles before crumpling back down to the floor.
Monday, October 29, 2001
⇒ Annoyance being the only stimulus he responds to, or with.
⇒ the line of gold light of the cracked door, at night in the bedroom
Sunday, November 18, 2001
⇒ something about fear vs. fearlessness
⇒ the sound of the laces slapping with alacrity on the tops of his new loafers
Wednesday, November 21, 2001
⇒ I’d say yesterday Sevi walked definitively. She walked away from me, not toward any person, all the way through the living room and into her nursery. She seems to get a big kick out of it now, and doesn’t collapse with a big smile after a few steps toward like it’s a side-splitting joke. Tonight she pushed the wagon back and forth from room to room.
⇒ If regions of the brain are like neighborhoods…the part that makes sales calls–bombed out, crumbs of glass crunching underfoot
⇒ oversees, seas, seize accounts
Thursday, November 22, 2001
⇒ Thanksgiving. We’re all at home sick, instead of going to PA. Got a Turkey nevertheless from the Coop. Sevi had her first few morsels of meat.
Sunday, November 25, 2001
⇒ Sevi points to things nodding, raising her eyebrows, as if to say “see what I mean?” She often accompanies this with “no?” or “doe?” (upbeat at the end, as if an interrogative)
⇒ Rebecca sucks the spice off bits of Tofu Scrambler before giving them to Sevi—like bird to chick.
⇒ Words Sevi recognizes and/or can say (very approximately) – ball (ba), toes (do), eyes (eye!), nose (no), light (hi), crocodile (chatters her teeth), banana (nana), cow (ooomm), kittycat (maow), fish (hssh), sheep (ba), duck (duck!), clock (tay tah, for tictoc), doggy (do, bow), socks (setz), lion (varied sounds). Recognizes Fettucini the horse, bunnyrabit, pandabear, Ida, Isabelle, Whiskers, diaper, belly button
⇒ Sevi likes bouncing around on the bed before dinner. She reaches up on the windowsill between the bedroom and living room and grabs cellophane wrapped cough drops, one in each hand, which seems to absolutely delight her as she bounces around on the mattress and comforter and pillows in punch-drunk mode.
⇒ Last night Rebecca asked me to try bouncing Sevi at 3:30am. I walked in with her and went to sit down, missed the ball (it must have rolled away) and landed square on my ass. Exclaimed loudly, Rebecca rushed in, Sevi was startled and had a short panicked breathing response. Rebecca laughed about this for hours. A half hour or so later I was bouncing her. She looks up and me and repeats “doe” to get me started crooning my standard “do-re-mi” to lull her to sleep. This put a big smile of pride on my face and rejuvenated the effort.
⇒ When consulted, a person bunches up their chin and bottom lip (making it prominent) to somehow relativize or humble the opinion they convey. It’s a courtesy to the asker. Often conscious though, and disingenuous.
⇒ epicene
⇒ short film updating Chekhov’s “The Kiss”
Monday, November 26, 2001
⇒ He had quick movements, such as a jerk of the neck and quick sizing you up from feet to hair. These were evidently meant to be anticipatory and challenging; not craving, as they actually came off.
⇒ Dreamt last night I was consulting Todd by cell phone about investing in a health club, while I was walking through it, out of the locker room and poolside, dodging dirt and construction.
⇒ Also dreamt one girl was explaining to another how to masturbate without her parents’ finding out. Looked around for material to do it, a little yellow fringed hanky, but that had given her away in the past. Instead, triumphantly, she took a jelly roll or sticky bun and put it in her pants and started massaging.
⇒ I say “up” and she raises her arms to be picked up. Said “up” herself today.
Thursday, November 29, 2001
⇒ He was an old middling comedian not quite up to the task of taking himself seriously, though he tried. It was like a waking dream, as if he couldn’t make a fist.
⇒ It was obscene in the way potatoes neglected will form eyes all over themselves.
⇒ There was an important distinction he knew existed. He had an operating knowledge of the difference, but none of the mechanics, such as that between using one’s esophagus and trachea for different and mutually exclusive purposes, but having no idea what happened once air and food crossed the threshhold of one’s mouth, how these things got sorted out and where lay the fault in choking or swallowing air.
⇒ stars harm
⇒ long life mellow – good long book
⇒ Sevi says hat “hat”, sometimes meaning hair and head as well.
Wednesday, December 5, 2001
⇒ Sevi says “wawa” for water. Thumps her chest on cue in “From Head to Toe” book. Hugs the giant polar bear over and over with supreme joy. Very excited to repeatedly open her little photo album to its (so far) only picture of Grandpa and GrandNina.
⇒ Sevi calls most lights “hot” since I had her touch the hot lampshade in the living room to give her the idea. “Hot” seems to have supplanted the word “light” (ight) for the time being.
⇒ crying because the food is almost all gone from the plate
Wednesday, December 12, 2001
⇒ For “whistle” Sevi says “zoose” or “ziss”
⇒ Sevi walks mama by the hand in a circuit from the nursery into the living room, around the coffee table and back again.
Thursday, December 13, 2001
⇒ There is always enough time to speak to the dead. They can wait til you’re ready. But who says death confers omniscience to them. How shall they know you better than before. Might they not be even more confused than in life? Such speculation is the springboard for the ghost story I suppose.
⇒ Sevi say “sotz” for rice. go figure.
Monday, December 17, 2001
⇒ He was used to doing the intellectual equivalent of stooping over so as not to make others feel short.
⇒ New York as the city of distractions, subjecting one to envy in all directions, a kind of elaboration on lust.
⇒ Sevi said “hibou” (ee-boo) for the first time this morning. Keeps saying “duck” (dutz) in reference to the shoveller species duck decoy (1893), gift from gramps to mom and dad in ’73.
⇒ In trying to conceive this script, there are moments when the “so what?” factor raises its head. Where’s the merit in this? Who cares about these rancid little details? What is there in them that appeals to anyone’s interest beyond mine to craft something good? Of what does the good consist if it can’t be stated by me? How do I even recognize it if I can’t articulate what I’m looking for? Is my head in the sand on this one too?
Tuesday, December 18, 2001
⇒ “What does money want to read? What does money want to see? These are the questions that preoccupy your sorry ass.”
⇒ For “arm” Sevi says “ahm”, for shoes “soose”
⇒ When Rebecca says “ahma” or “nurse”, Sevi toddles toward her, beaming, grabs a hold of the pillow that Rebecca puts in her lap for her to nurse on.
⇒ Sevi toddles across the nursery into the living room arms spread wide, beaming, staggering ever faster with joy, collapses onto my stomach.