by Rob Kaniuk
“Know what movie that’s from?”
“No, Marty, I don’t. Why don't you use your own words once in a while instead of quoting the Coen brothers all day?”
Then Marty would tell me the movie and say, “you haven't seen that? Are you kidding?”
I’d have to tell him that I did, but don't remember all the quotes. This happened every day at work.
Truth is, I used to get as high as Jesus in Rio and watch movies. When I got my shit together, got clean, I’d revisit them with no idea how I knew the storyline and ending already. I’d call them predictable when my wife asked how I knew the storylines to all these flicks. I was a genius. I could figure out a plot in 10 minutes.
Then Netflix asked me if I wanted to watch Team Foxcatcher again.
I never watched this… why would Netflix pretend I watched The Office dude, Mark Ruffalo and Baby John Cena roll around in singlets. What’s his name?––Tatum––yeah, Channing Tatum. I never seen that. I know I’m about to watch it because I used to work with a guy who was hired by DuPont to dig indiscriminate holes along the perimeter of Foxcatcher Farms, looking for ‘CIA surveillance.’ I remember when the story broke on the news. It was 15 minutes from where I was living. Damn right I’m watching that.
After Baby John Cena and Steve Carrell started doing coke in the helicopter, I realized Netflix wasn’t pretending. I had seen it. I was in the middle of an oxymorphone disassociation when I saw it last. Delusional, hallucinating. On the edge of overdose. Everything feels like a dream when you take enough morphine. Not at all like the warm blanket of oxys or percs, which is the high I was chasing (with the wrong derivative).
The realization ruined the movie all over again, because now I was clean but all I could do is go back in my mind and count the other movies which I had now seen twice. Two completely different experiences, of course. Some of them I remember seeing high but couldn't tell you a goddamn thing about. Like Scarface. I’d seen that flick 20 or 30 times. Every time with an eight ball of coke. I know all the stupid clichés and that Tony dies, but I didn't know if I actually liked it. I watched it again. Besides the first half hour of the movie (bearable, at best), where Tony gets to Miami and starts making moves, Scarface sucks. I got clean and realized not only Scarface sucks, but Pacino sucks. Whoo-wah! That’s right. I wouldn’t cast Pacino in a biopic about Pacino. He’s a Whoo-wah! actor, at best.
When I watch a new movie now, I fall asleep the first time and try to guess where I left off. I usually figure out after watching ten minutes at a time before I fall asleep again. I have wasted a lot of money on 48 hour rentals.
Now when Marty quotes a movie and asks the same question he always does, I respond, “Yeah, Marty, but I was either as high as a giraffe’s asshole, or I fell asleep.”
About The Author
Rob Kaniuk is a union carpenter who loves spending time telling stories to his niece and nephew. He is also Creative Nonfiction Editor for the Schuylkill Valley Journal.