Innocents and Others (13 page)

PORTRAIT OF DEKE

480 minutes, Betacam video

TIME STAMP: 00:00

A young man sits on a couch. He is smiling. He wears a sharkskin mustard yellow suit jacket with skinny lapels over a white t-shirt. His chin-length black hair is combed neatly behind his ears.

DEKE

Is it on? Good.

He pours from a bottle of whiskey into a highball glass filled with ice. The rings he wears on his middle fingers clink against the glass. He lifts the glass and sips. He lifts a cigarette with his other hand, takes a drag, and leans back against the couch.

DEKE

Where should I begin? Wouldn't it be funny if I just ran out of things to say the minute you pressed record. Ha, ha. No chance.

MEADOW

Maybe you should say who you are.

DEKE

You know who I am. I am Deke Wicket. Let's start at the start. I was born in Johnstown, New York, in 1969, which makes me seventeen. I was born at home with a midwife, with, whatever, hot water and sheets, my parents moved up here to be natural people and go back to the land and get away from all the materialism and bullshit of the cities and the suburbs, so no hospitals or antiseptics for them! I was raised a dirty hippie kid in the middle of redneck country, like that was a great fucking plan, right?
(
Takes another sip of whiskey, lights another cigarette.)
Want to know how I was potty trained? Yes?
(
The back of Meadow's head nods. Deke laughs.)
Oh, for fuck's sake, you are nodding and not speaking? Okay, I can see how this is going to go. I am on my own. But it has always been that way. I used to sit in the tub and make up monologues. I liked the sound of my voice bouncing off the tub and the tiles. That's what this feels like. I just feel comfortable talking, it calms me down. Like opening a faucet and pouring all the me out. I talked to myself my whole life, and it doesn't matter who is listening or if anyone is listening. I can listen to myself. Like Deke, wow, I hear you, man.

MEADOW

You are your own echo chamber. That must make you feel very self-sufficient. Or self-contained.

DEKE

She speaks! It sounds crazy when you say it like that. That I talk to myself or to anyone who will listen. That I need to spew and spew. But I always think that if I talk enough, people will see me finally. Like I want you to see me.
(He stops and looks at Meadow in the foreground. The camera only shows the back of her head.)

MEADOW

Of course I see you. And filming you is how I see. An outpouring of self. I find it touching that you trust the world so much. But I should let you finish your story. Your life story, right? We were at potty training?

DEKE

So potty training was just me naked. No diapers involved. I walked around with nothing on. When I started to get into a crouch to shit, they would pull me over and sit me on the toilet. Needless to say, this resulted in some accidents. And it involved various people looking at my naked ass all the time. But it finally worked. I am proud to say that I am fully toilet trained.
(Grins, puts an arm across his waist, and bows his head.)

TIME STAMP: 01:37

Deke is now leaning back on the couch with his arms crossed in front of his chest. The whiskey bottle on the side table is a quarter empty. His hair is in his face.

DEKE

So I stopped taking the bus. I walked on a back street, I found an out-of-the-way long cut, I snuck between houses, whatever. But still the fucker found me. Mitchell Hammond, that prick. Actually, you know that shit shack off of Winston Street near the library, the gray house with the falling-down porch and roof covered in moss and the decrepit-looking dog chained to it who barks like a madman all the time? Just like a postcard of freakin' backwater architecture, a testament to the prosperity and opportunity of this town, this fucking place?

MEADOW

Yeah.

DEKE

He lives there with his mom. Mitchell. He would push me, rather than punch me. Just pushing. He would push me until I fell on the ground. And then he would hold me down, pin my shoulders with his knees. And then let fly a long dangle of spit in my face. Or rub dirt on my face. It was always my face. He would call me faggot or girl and then put a hand on my chin and push me until I couldn't breathe. But I never fucking cried. And by this time, by fourteen or so, my dad was long gone, back to the city. Ned came into my life.
(
Deke raised his eyebrows and gave a blurry grin.)
My evil stepfather, except not actual “step.” He hates me.

TIME STAMP: 2:47

Deke has removed his jacket and now wears only the t-shirt and black jeans. His legs are open; he leans forward, elbows on his knees as he speaks.

DEKE

I do fuck all the girls I can. It is
(he gestures with his hand picking fruit off a tree and laughs)
super easy, always has been. It sounds so conceited but it is just I think that I am a certain kind of pretty and not scary. So skinny and feminine, the girls always want to play with me. Plus I am not picky—I just wanted to fuck everyone. I want to fuck everyone. I don't care. Ugly girls, fat girls, stupid girls. A couple of moms. One teacher. Anyone. I will screw anyone. No offense.
(He winks.)

MEADOW

I'm not sure I buy it.

Deke shrugs. He picks up a cigarette and slumps back holding it. He is so thin that his stomach looks almost concave.

DEKE

I feel shitty about it. It got worse, like a kind of obsession. The worst was tenth grade. I don't know why I did it. I went to my neighbor's house once. Oh yeah, it is usually only once, you know? So it feels pretty gross after. I went to Mrs. Lamford's house because I was sick of school and sick of my stepfather. I knew she was home, and I knew Mr. Lamford was at work. But this was not erotic or a fantasy I had had. She was just a messy forty-year-old woman. She watched TV in sweats and had frizzy bleached hair hanging in her face. She didn't smell great or taste great. But I looked at her and felt this hot surge of need. You know I just invited myself in, and when she got me a glass of water I took her hand and held it. Then I put it on my cock. What can I say.

MEADOW

It is that easy for you. I almost believe it.

DEKE

Sure. But that was just her. Different girls make me do different things, different ways in. I just get a feeling for it, and I want it so bad that it happens. And then, whatever, it goes away after I have done it a few times or less than that. It is nothing to me after, it is like the cigarette I just smoked. I just want another one, and then I forget the one I just smoked. I'm a chain-smoker, chain-fucker, chain-drinker. I am covered in chains.
(
Deke starts to laugh and cough. Then he starts to sing.)
Whoa, whoa, these chains of love gotta hold on me, yeah. Chains, chains of love.
(
He stops singing.)
Chains of love for you, Meadow—

MEADOW

Tell me about the time—or times—you slept with men. Or your stepfather, or something.

DEKE

I like fucking you, talking to you, being with you.
(
Deke starts to get a catch in his voice. He sniffs, looks into the face of Meadow in the foreground.)
I want to do it over and over. There is only one other girl I felt that way about. In love or whatever. But it is more than ever with you; I get a feeling around you that makes me wanna lay down and do whatever you say.

MEADOW

(Quietly.)
Then tell me all of it. The part you don't usually talk about. The part you don't even whisper to yourself, not in your tub monologues, not in your drunken presentations you rehearse for me.

DEKE

What? I have already told you about being shoved in the dirt. What do you want? I told you I fucked my ugly neighbor.

MEADOW

You are comfortable with that story, your being bullied. Your helpless desire for women. Your compulsion for sex. But isn't that just a part of it?

She pauses. He looks at her, then looks off to the side, as though he is absorbed in thought. He doesn't speak.

MEADOW

What I think, Deke, is that every victim has a moment of trying out being a bully. You have done some things that you don't like to talk
about. Things that make this story more complicated. Some messy ends you can't make work for poor pretty Deke, all the boys beat him and all the girls love him. All this seduction and fakery.

DEKE

Am I supposed to talk or are you?

Deke shakes his head. Meadow hands him the bottle of Canadian Club. He grabs a handful of ice out of the bucket. He is muttering as he pours the drink, his gestures loose and slightly sloppy.

DEKE

I am not fake—

MEADOW

What? You are muttering.

DEKE

I am not fake! And fuck this.
(He waves his hand at her and the camera.)

MEADOW

No. You promised to go all night long. That's the deal.

DEKE

You are not letting me. You—

MEADOW

Tell me something, Deke. I will stop goading, I will stop talking, but you need to stop all this pretty wound stuff. As if the worst thing you have done is sleep with a middle-aged woman, you fuck
ing saint. Our Misunderstood Man of the Mohawk Valley, a Lily-draped martyr.

Deke takes another sip and looks at her. Then he looks at the camera. He slowly stubs out a cigarette.

DEKE

You want me to be lousy. Okay. Let's talk about Mel. Mel is not his name, because I don't fucking know his name. He is just a desperate old dude, a gross, fat, ugly ordinary guy. And I have fucked a few men. It isn't my thing, but I had the chance and at a certain point the wind could make me hard. So the novelty or whatever, curiosity. There were a few boys I enjoyed fucking so that isn't what this was about. I was not feeling great, like getting pushed on the ground most days and pushed around at home most nights. I was fifteen. And it was so regular that he was beating on me—Mitchell, my tormentor—that I felt his body was more real than mine. It was a creepy feeling, to grow used to his shoving. I almost didn't care. But I did, it is just further in, it is there coiling and festering. A need to hurt someone grew in me and it lay right by the desire and the sex. The pleasure, even. So fucking Mel, just a helpless loser. I found him in a bar in Fonda. I was playing pool in a t-shirt, and I had my eyeliner on. I knew I could get beat up, and I didn't care. I was reckless. I felt so beat on that I was indestructible, 'cause that's how it works. You are looking for pain, and it sends weird things out to the world. Someone is always up for that. I thought that is what would happen. I would get beaten or even killed by some biker or redneck gay basher.

He has stopped looking at Meadow, who is unmoving in the foreground. He looks at his drink, and then he looks into the camera. He is locked there,
talking deliberately, like he wants to appear sober. His eyes are not amused or animated, just big and steady, looking in, and Deke now appears much older.

DEKE

But here comes fucking Mel, on his own destructive goddamned trajectory, like right into my out-of-control orbit. He picks me up, and like an idiot I let him. We go to his car, and I let him suck me for a bit. He looks so sweaty and ugly, which, I mean we all do when we are desperate and looked at with no feeling, I know that. Desire makes us ugly unless the other person is lost to it too, but I wasn't. I felt so disgusted by Mel. His sucking and his gripping of my thighs. He is in the well of the fucking car, like an animal. He would do anything. Oh god, the poor fucking guy. Oh god. His poor stupid face, like I think about him sometimes and I fucking hit my head to make it go away, I am so ashamed. I just wish I hadn't ever been like the way I was. I hate myself for this, and I don't even feel like me in this moment. It is like watching a movie. But it is me, I feel this disgust, and then I feel like I want to hit him. I have never ever hit anyone. But here is my chance, like the moment I get on top of this feeling. Not in the dirt, not with some hungry girl or delicate person, but with a big soft ugly man, like a slug he looked to me, like someone weak. So I pull him off me. I open the door and pull him outside the car. God. Really fast. I feel this adrenaline in my body. And I start to hit him. Punch him. First in the stomach and then in the chest. I punch his nose and there is a crack. It hurts my hand, but I feel no pain. I am only a surge of hate and power. Like a monster, like a real monster.

Deke is crying, and his nose starts to run. He picks up the bottom of his t-shirt and uses it to wipe his face.

DEKE

Of course he doesn't fight back, that isn't his deal tonight. He does say “No, no. Stop.” It isn't like he wants me to, make no mistake. No. He gives up and curls into a ball. Arms over his head and face. I kick him in the ribs, hard. I do. And then it is like I wake up. I see him again, this fucking mess. I just run. Just as fast as I can I run out of there. I run out of town and up the hill. Like miles. And so probably someone found him in the parking lot and called 911. Or maybe he took his broken nose and bruised ribs and just crawled to his car and drove home, ashamed, like I know how he feels, like when I am left in the dust. But not really, right? I don't know. I leave him bleeding and fucked up, way worse than anyone ever did to me . . .

Deke stops and brings his hands to his face. He covers his eyes. And then he sobs, a stifled, strangled sob. His mouth contorts as he sobs again. His nose is running and he sniffs. Uses his shirt to wipe his face again.

DEKE

I don't know why I did that. Well, I do know why. But god, I wish I never did that. You can never forget that you are this person ever again. And it is you, so you know I can see how someone becomes that kind of person. A bad person. It isn't hard to be that. It should be fucking harder.