Disasters in the Sun

[fulselden]

So, I finally watched Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, which could perhaps be summed up as Werner Herzog DOES AMERICANA if it wasn't even more the story of Nicholas Cage SQUEAKING AND GIBBERING through a sun-drenched noir wasteland for nigh-on two hours. These are both ahem specialised tastes and I'm not even sure that they go great together - the whole film is stuck in this not-quite-pulp hinterland and, well, Nicholas Cage. And I haven't seen the original, which I think was a lot more blood-and-thunder serious about things. But, well, Herzog letting Cage gurn and twitch to his heart's content while steadily pushing the film out into full-on pulp-opera territory is GOOD TIMES as far as I'm concerned. I ... even wrote fic, which is something I may regret in the morning. Ah well!

Film: Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans
Characters: Terence; OC
Rating / Warnings: nothing very explicit except drug use. A very bad upbringing for Terence's daughter.

“Come on, princess,” says Terence. He crouches down in front of his daughter and holds out her lunch-box like an offering. It is pink plastic, showing white at the hinges with strain. Its contents shift, quietly; they are quite tightly packed; precisely picked. “Come on,” he says again, and pats her shoulder. “This is a very important job, princess. Very important! You don’t want to have to wait till next Sunday, do you, sweetie?”

 

His daughter pivots on one foot, lower lip caught between her front teeth. She is wearing a faded red sundress and pink shiny hair-bobbles. On one bare arm there is a leftover smear of sunscreen; Frankie is always careful about that stuff. Terence reaches out and rubs it in with his thumb. Behind his daughter, the suburban road stretches out into the sun, showing white with the light. Cracks slit down through the concrete.

 

“I want a soda,” says his daughter.

 

“Sure!” says Terence. “Sure, sweetie!” He jumps up, looks around. “We’ll just drive on for a little bit, huh. This place is for the job. They don’t sell good soda round here.”

 

His daughter hops back into the front of the car. “Can I make the lights flash?” she says.

 

“Knock yourself out,” says Terence.

 

They ride off down the middle of the road, engine knocking and purring, lights going red white and blue like a dance-floor. Tall bowing telephone poles race alongside them, wires strung on long limbs that curve out to the side like the legs of a skittery prawn. The wood is strained white with the sun.

 

 

Terence buys his daughter a soda and a big jar of sweet pickles in a corner store that smells of catfood and detergent.

 

“Peter Piper,” says Terence. “Huh? Huh?” His daughter fits both her sandaled feet inside one shiny white square on the corner store floor. “Picked a peck,” says Terence. He wipes his forehead. His laugh slits through the store like something just came loose inside him, like a coin in a slot has just slammed up the jackpot.

 

The pickle-jar has a soft bloom of white from the cooler and his daughter picks the pickles out with a white plastic fork.

 

A printed label on the jar says KOOL-AID PICKLES in a font like a party invitation. The pickles are bright cherry-red, like cheap lipstick; the pickle juice is a strawberry blonde kind of colour.

 

“Here,” says his daughter. She hands him the jar.

 

They are sitting on the hot concrete side of a bridge, legs dangling down over a dark cut of water, stringy trees overhead. Terence fishes for a pickle, hunched over the jar with his mouth drooping open; they are still quite cold. His spine pulls at his head like a fish-hook. The pickle tastes like old red sugar water, like a half-sucked sweet, and it snaps in his mouth like a big old prawn, pale and pinkish and sharp.

 

“Very nice,” says Terence. “Tasty.” He smoothes his hair back and smacks his lips. “You know how much I love you, princess?” he asks his daughter. “I’ll always protect you, I’ll always be there. You know that, right? That’s a very important thing in a father. At least every Sunday and on other pre-arranged dates. Princess.” He claps his hands together and rubs them on his knees.

 

“How do you get your hair to go like that?” asks his daughter. Her mouth is stained red.

 

Beside them, out in the sun, a slack-flanked iguana opens its mouth. Its neat little scales are bright white with the light.

 

 

Terence drives his daughter back to the drop-off point, the half-empty pickle jar wedged between her knees. He drives down the middle of the road under the bowing telephone poles, snapping sky-prawns; his knuckles are white with the strain.

 

“Now, just go where I said and give the box to the man, princess,” says Terence. “And remember, this job is a secret.”

 

“All the jobs are a secret,” says his daughter. “If I do this one, do I get my allowance early again?” She bends down and pulls up her white socks.

 

“Sure, princess,” said Terence, “Sure.”

 

He watches her set off down the road, pink lunchbox under one arm. He fumbles a hit, one-handed; with the other he snaps the seatbelt into place round the warm jar of red pickles. His daughter walks away down the middle of the road; her red dress is white like the sun.

 

 

Comments

[littlerhymes]

Oh hi - I've been waiting on Yuletide reveals to say that, YES, it makes my heart unbelievably gleeful and full that not only did you write Bad Lieutenant etc fic, but you did it so well. This has just the right sense of manic tension, and the same too-bright colours and textures of the movie, and of course this is how Terence would end up using his daughter. In short, it's awesome.

[fulselden]

Hi! And THANK YOU SO MUCH, I am so thrilled that someone else appreciates the world's burning need for Bad Lieutenant (etc etc) fic, and that you think I got the tone down - it's a matter of going overboard in the right direction, I guess, and I wasn't sure that I'd managed it.