brockhon, eat your heart out

1. Opening
a. heaven quote on black
b. us slumped in chair, watching movie
2. Most people hear “heaven” the loudest…I hear “no.” Later, when I thought back to it, I found those famous lines about Iowa odd. I’ll write about Iowa, but I don’t have to be kind. I don’t have to politely compliment the place like a dinner guest does a meal.
{open to book with picture of heaven; dimly lit dinner}
3. {pan from dinner to garage; stop on garage, showing Eric walking out door, splice in party shots, hoedown music} Walking out, the faces of the people in the garage blur as I move quickly past them, until they settle into the image of one representative face, like a composite sketch, which hovers in my mind as we are assaulted by the Iowa winter air. The face looks suspiciously like Dustin or Justin, but then again I suppose that is appropriate. They all look very much like him—at least to me. I can’t really tell the difference, or rather don’t want to put in the effort. {eric walking on road, shot from ladder, lights approach}
4. {eric gets in car, car leaves; narration over car pan, then walking shots}

***
fence climbing, jump below camera, tilt down, panting (gelatinous silence); wind turbine to field of turbines; school hill; synchronized waldorf lot parking, pick up peter; lund garage; pond; soda machines, hot sheet; long main street shot; store (movies America) with closed sign
***
The best time to experience Forest City, Iowa, is after midnight. Everything has stopped by that time, everything that was ever going in the first place. We used to go on endless walks, epic walks, across the entirety of the barren city. The silence was gelatinous, like a glacier of vaseline slowly sliding over the town, smothering all life and sound and awareness out of it. Except for us. We were impervious. We were aware.
We would walk down the middle of Main Street, the street that my house was on. We would own that street, because there were no cars and no other sentient beings about to challenge our authority {empty street shots, wind sounds}
If it was summer it would be humid. Not “slightly moist humid.” We’d walk side by side—the two or three or four or five of us— as wide as we wanted, presenting the appearance of a force to be reckoned with.
***
“being a father is aard vark. Don’t overvark yourself.”
***
We would head towards “town,” which meant the courthouse and the few blocks of small shops and businesses that surrounded it. we would weave and wind our way towards the epicenter, sweat forging a bond between our clothing and our flesh, But sometimes it was winter. The smell of Iowa winter was pure, unadulterated, natural cold. The cold prickled in your nostrils like menthol, blasting open your sinuses and reddening your nose. If it was winter there was snow—that was one thing you could count on that town to provide.
Everything there used to be something else. The shops go out of business eventually, leaving an empty storefront or another business that will mark time until it too runs out of customers and money. The movie rental place used to be the Dollar Store, which used to be a store for children’s clothing. The bookstore used to be something else, and at one point there was a bakery, but I’m not sure where that went. Who can keep track?
Later, after the house had been sold, we had to reverse our route. No longer having a central location to base our travels from, we had to park my car in a random lot in the middle of town and make our way back towards my former home. This was after having all gone away to college and learned new things, become new people. We would occasionally share a single cigarette between us. None of us really smoked, but it reminded us of college friends, it comforted us, it made us feel important. We found it supremely ironic and amusing to sit and talk on my front steps, the steps where we had played as toddlers, the steps that my family no longer owned, the steps that were now owned by sleeping strangers a few feet away, the steps where we were now doing our adult things. We let the smoke we exhaled mix with the memories that already hung thick and visible in the air. {CHC song, FC map graphic wes Anderson, separate activity shots}
That place was too small,{pause on frame of person exhaling smoke, rewind footage, increasing speed and snap back to the map shot} too Iowa. You had to leave. But you had to come back. { collapse back onto person exhaling smoke, continue action where left off} You had to come back—you only realized that after you left. You had to come back, if only to go on these late-night walks with this place and the people who hadn’t left it yet. {walking off curb under streetlight, camera follows}


5. Vignettes
a. Renn Fayre — {shoot something in Oregon}
b. If I had grown up… — {badly photoshopped pictures in the different locations} leave in Greeley sentence, unexplained4
c. Interview {off camera voice questions us, split shot facing the camera, answer one at a time; digital camera interview footage; windturbines?}
Laura: “What advice would you give me about whether to attend college in Iowa or on the West Coast?”
Eric: “You should stay in Iowa if you don’t like mountains or trees or the ocean or culture.”
Peter: “I miss the wind. You’ll probably miss the wind if you leave.”

The End
a. It doesn’t matter what the place is like. For instance, I may have no desire to return to Iowa to make my own home. Fireflies can’t obscure cornfields and stars can’t ease claustrophobia. But as soon as I discard it from my history, I sense that I will feel a faint ache in the cavernous place where it had resided. Should I banish my hometown from my brain and wipe its residue off of my skin, I will feel a chasm inside. Iowa is something to me that new places and people and experiences can only coat with a thin layer. It’s like trying to paint over thick black with watery white—a hint of the original color will always remain. {narration starts over last walking shot; then succession of photos, stills of the three of us, polaroids, camera video clips, fade to credits}