Local Color Page #9

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It's not personal.

Just take it a little slower.

I don't dislike you.

So far.

You treat me the

way men treat women.

Yeah, how do you like it?

What do you think

it means when you're

carrying on with your

boyfriend's married twin sister?

I think I love you.

I'll tell you what

it really means.

You like danger.

You don't love me, you

love us, Andy and Andy.

Holy cow it's late,

he's gonna be home soon.

You're gonna have to split.

You think I don't know?

It never had anything to

do with going on the stage.

Nothing like that.

I never thought I'd

be good at that.

You know, playing Hamlet

one night and then

Joan of Arc the next.

I took acting lessons for

a while but I could never

get into being the character.

I would always wonder,

for example, how would say.

Marlon Brando play

this scene or how would

Jean Harlow read this line.

And if I had to do a laugh,

I'd throw back my head

like Betty Davis playing

the evil twin who

killed the good twin.

I wanted to be the best

imitation of Brando playing

the scene I had to do for class.

Doing the scene was

important only if I could

play Brando playing Stanley

Kowalski playing the scene.

Everything I did had a

footnote and cross reference

attached to it.

Everything was removed

two steps away.

They thought I

wasn't serious enough

and asked me to leave.

Then I wanted to be James Dean.

Who didn't want

to be James Dean?

Only the best James

Dean was dead.

I don't know how it

started with Nijinsky.

I saw a book of pictures.

If there hadn't been

captions you never would have

known it was the same man

in all the different stills.

He was transformed,

completely made over

by the roles he was in.

Everybody said that off

stage he didn't look

like much of anything.

He never said much.

Maybe he was even a

little on the stupid side.

But on stage with

costumes and makeup,

he was a god, a creature

from another planet.

Exotic, both male and

female, animal and human.

But neither.

He was everything.

It was as if he realized

his true self in all

those different disguises.

Without them he would

have been an awkward

tongue tied kid that

no one would have

paid much attention to.

Only I'm leaving out the

most important part, right,

that he was a great dancer.

And all that stuff I

pay so much attention to

is just the accessories.

I know, I know.

He earned everything.

The fame, the prestige,

the adulation.

Because of his enormous talent.

He was already famous when I

took my first ballet class.

I'm just a kid from the

sticks who used to read a

lot of fan magazines

and thought he deserved

what the people in

the photos had because

it looked like a lot of fun.

And they didn't look any

different from other people.

I wish I knew what the

f*** to do with myself.

Waiting on tables isn't

all it's cracked up to be.

By the time he was

my age, you know,

he'd already stopped dancing.

The most famous dancer ever.

And a year or two later,

he was hopelessly insane.

Stuck away in a nuthouse.

This is your cue.

This is the part where

you're supposed to tell me

that you love me.

Look how open and

vulnerable I'm making

myself, damn it.

Say it.

Say it!

Okay.

Don't say it.

Someone asked him once

if it was difficult

to stay up in the air as long

as he did when he leaped.

And he said no,

no, not difficult.

You just leap up and

when you're up there

just pause a little.

He lived another 30

years bouncing in and out

of the booby hatch like a

rubber ball on a string.

Shock treatment, psychotic

episodes, catatonia,

the whole trip.

Sometime if you're bad

I'll do my Nijinsky

imitation for you.

Let's go to the bedroom.

From ear to ear.

(laughs)

Somebody help

me, please don't.

(laughs)

(yelling muffled by laughter)

[Lil] The gun.

Where's the gun?

My baby.

My baby.

It was just a game, I

thought we were both playing.

How was it a game?

Could you have stopped it?

If I knew it was

making you so unhappy.

You knew, you knew.

I want you to marry me.

Afterwards we'll go someplace

beautiful, romantic,

someplace we've

never been before.

Mexico, Acopoco.

Yes, a vacation,

go away, a rest.

Just the two of us.

No, just me.

We'll start over.

Yes but alone.

I'll make it up to you.

Without you.

What am I supposed to do?

What about me?

Lil?

What about me?

I love you.

I know I never said it

but some things don't need

saying, you must have felt it.

All these years together, they

must have meant something.

If you leave me, you b*tch.

(laughs)

Make it looser, it hurts.

It's supposed to hurt.

It's too tight,

Fred, it hurts.

It wasn't my idea,

you wanted to do it.

I thought it

would be more fun.

[Voiceover] A panoply of

saints paraded through her head.

Saint Sebastians with

arrows, headless Saint

Catherines, Saint Ursulas

broken on the wheel.

[Andrea] If only I

had paid more attention

in Sunday School.

[Voiceover] In a frenzy of

religious and sexual fervor,

it just might work but it

would have to be spontaneous.

Not premeditated slipknots

on the bedroom set.

Untie me.

Say please.

Come on, please?

I'm going to kill you.

If I ever untie you.

Does this really excite

you, I don't believe it.

You're warped.

Afterwards you

can do it to me.

I don't want to do it to you.

I thought this was

supposed to be play acting

at being in pain.

All right, spoilsport.

(grunts)

Aren't you taking your

pictures and photographs?

Keep them for me.

And your books and records.

They're yours

if you want them.

I've been a

monster, haven't I?

I've been worse than that,

I've been a spoiled brat.

You're very young.

You've had a lot of other

things on your mind.

No, I was always

rotten to you.

Both of us were.

He's such a sh*t, how did you?

Maybe someday we could...

I got you a present.

I didn't know what to get.

(dramatic music)

[Lil] How could I be

sure that my own daughter

would have acted any

differently than this girl

who was often so cruel?

Would it have been easier to

bear if she had been mine?

Now that I'm free of

her and she needs me,

it seems that she was

my daughter all along.

Say something nice to me.

Anything, tell me.

I wish I could say

something meaningful, give

you some words of wisdom

to carry around with you.

I'd be a fine one

to give advice.

Some mess I made.

Could use some

counseling myself.

How awful to be so young.

I don't envy you.

Well, first of all, don't

let anyone push you around,

fight, always fight,

don't let yourself become

your own worst enemy.

What else?

I feel like a cheerleader.

Keep your chin up, don't

take any wooden nickles.

Look both ways before

crossing and keep your

powder dry.

Take good care of yourself

You belong to me.

[Voiceover] Debbie felt that

Lil was holding out on her.

There was some magic

word that she could

but refused to give.

The secret talisman

that would save her the

trouble of everything

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