Heroes in Tutus are Better

 

Let’s make a movie called Heroes in Tutus are Better.
The Book of Henry meets My Sister’s Keeper meets Castle in the Sky.
There should be a kid wearing a rainbow Jojo Siwa tutu &
a Metallica shirt making rhino-shaped chicken nuggets for their
younger sibling, because rhino-shaped chicken nuggets taste better.

Don’t let this be about gender, because that is not the point. Focus
on a heroin addict in the freezer aisle at Tops, rocking back & forth.
Kid steps in to say sup’ & guide them to the rusted Buick crossing
Yellow Striper Premium lines that scream keep straight here or don’t belong.
Scream back at those lines with the curb & the weeds & the Pringles lids.

I want them to be a super__, but without the powers & the fame. Middle-class
kid treating apathy like it’s the Joker. I want a scene where they ride a John Deere
mower into the grimy glass of a Sonic to stop a bully. I want a scene where
they fight to breathe after falling from the playground tower, then get up.
I want a scene where they cradle Mom’s tear ridden face in their spindly arms.

I don’t want some happy, feel-good B film that children watch on Nickelodeon.
And I don’t want the audience in Regal Cinemas
asking what’s underneath that tutu. I don’t want any
“Proud Parent of a __” bumper stickers or any protesters.
This kid is not a statement. This is not the plot.

I want it to be serious, I want that kid to be taken seriously. I want
only reality, but without that systemic pickle jar keeping the film in an infinite circle. This
is not a movie for kids, but it’s about one. I want Billie Eilish’s album Happier Than Ever as the soundtrack. I want neighbors of Pine Community brought together by the kid to
defeat Decepticons in the form of humanity’s passive evil.

This movie can’t be about gender identity or identifiers. This
movie can’t be about youth or parenting or relationships. This
movie can’t be about what equity or equality or utopia looks like.
This movie can’t be filed under a category, dismissed in a non-existent genre.
& nobody can call this kid it. Not once, not a single, single time.

& the kid has Leukemia & dies because I wasn’t lying. I wasn’t lying & this is real.
& you can’t peek under the tutu. & you can’t peek under the tutu. &
you can’t peek under the tutu. But I only want to watch the parts where that kid
loves so hard. That love that makes them a hero,
& reminds us of our cruelty, brash & remorseless

of that love we relinquished long ago.


 

Harold Ramis Hobbles In The Psychiatric Care

 

Harold Ramis hobbles in the Barnes Jewish Hospital Psychiatric Care past my cell & I thought damn that’s kinda cool so I waved him over & said hello trying to ignore the Alert Wristband snaking up my arm & waggling back & forth saying look at me aren’t you glad your amygdala isn’t as swollen-like expanding under Splat Midnight Ruby Hair Dye ‘cause I thought it would make me look near Gothic-romantic sort of Edward in Twilight but he came over & didn’t look twice & reclined on the Ray Eames Ottoman Chaise & told me about this batshit crazy fraternity he joined at Washington University & that when he went through the hazing initiation he about cried like me in the middle of the night too pushing up gold spectacles that looked all high class like LensCrafters & they kept digging into the bridge of his nose & all I could think of was Egon & fungus & Ghostbusters & I was laughing & then I was scared so I stopped when remembering that my father hit me in the back of the head with a Bud Light that Halloween & fractured my skull & I wasn’t right & I’m still not right because I’m rocking on the Med-Resource 619 telling Harris I don’t believe in angels & he confesses he thinks being Jewish was a malformation of society & I feel better but my legs are strapped too tightly & the cotton’s rubbing up weird so I tell him & he says it’s okay but the Espresso Machine is done but I don’t know if he even drinks coffee so I say bye & watch him stand awkwardly with cricket legs twitching & it looks painful & I hope he’s okay & then start humming “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” while I wait for the meds to kick in but they don’t & I’m tossing & tossing trying to stop the corkscrew tears from dampening my fire hair when I think he didn’t even talk to me like I was a mangy mutt or Hannibal Lecter or shook his head like hey kid you couldn’t cut the American Dream out of a whole life like me & all the other cult members of Alpha Xi & I think maybe being pretty in my periwinkle gown is enough for a Koi fish in the Atlantic Ocean drowning ‘cause God didn’t give him gills & Mother Earth refused to hold something so pathetic in her bosom that I was raised with the voices in my head but there are no angels ‘cause we don’t believe in those & besides I want to watch Ramis’ new one National Lampoon’s Vacation.