Nicholas Cage is Dangerous
Friday, January 20, 2012
The first thing Collette heard that morning came from Puck, marching into the room to greet them, and then departing…
“Oh no,” he muttered. “Fifty calories?”
And with the dragging end of her cold, Collette felt that familiar low tenor tone emitting from the attic of her throat.
OLeif emerged to kick off the day with The High Kings from Ireland. Puck loved it enough to dance in the window while waving goodbye to his daddy.
The morning continued with ever-studies.
“Where do words go?” Puck asked.
“Where do you think?”
“Heaven?”
“Possibly…”
“What does ‘possibly’ mean?”
“Maybe.”
“Where do tiny words go when they come out of your mouth?”
“Into the air?”
“No…”
“Where do you think?”
“The couch?…”
During lunch, Puck chomped his square pretzels into little spaceships and very tiny…
“Baby b’s!”
He had excuses during Quiet Hour…
“Mama. I hurt the rib to my leg.”
And in the later afternoon into the evening, they read another seven chapters of Hugo Cabret, at Puck’s request.
Black brush against rose light. Winter evenings. But the skies had been gray throughout the day, and remained so into the evening. Grass-fed beef, courtesy of Gloria. A little freezing rain to accompany. Four more chapters of Hugo Cabret with Puck hurrying Collette past the drawings to get to the story itself. And OLeif returned smelling like motorcycle after revving up his bike, sporting his new ponytail.
Movie night was OLeif’s choice. He polled the viewers for their moods prior to selecting another horrible Nicholas cage… shoot-em-up. The kids arrived, minus Magnus, who had forgotten about several art shows he was required to attend for school, contributed half of a double-layered red velvet cake. Rose reported numerous crashes on her return from work. OLeif the same. Somehow they had all failed to realize that the weather had taken a treacherous turn.
It didn’t take long to get going on the perpetual Movie Night Mockery of Nicholas Cage, whose second wife had been Lisa Marie Presley, and whose third wife was Korean, whom he married a month before OLeif and Collette. He had also purchased an island in the Bahamas, the “Most Haunted House in America” in New Orleans, the castle in Bavaria, another castle in England, and a twelve-bedroom mansion next to a bird sanctuary in Rhode Island. The dinosaur skull of a Tarbosaurus he had bid in an auction against Leonardo DiCaprio, and won. Named his only child after Superman. O, the interesting world of Trivia…
“I’ve never seen anyone look so stupid all of the time,” said Rose.
As Nicholas began to burn a letter…
“’Dear Nicholas Cage… I love you sooooooooo much!’” Joe wailed.
And Joe provided further perfect imitations.
“Uyuck-yuck. Yuck,” said Rose, as the man appeared in sleeveless shirt. “I need to invent a new word for him.”
And, as on any other movie night, replaced dialogue was always very important…
Nicholas arrived at the pharmacy with a gash in his arm. One of the pretty young pharmacists came to help him. She was deaf.
“’I’m like Albert Einstein!’”
“’Hi. I have a cut. I need some medicine. Will you marry me?’”
“It’s not even a cut. It looks like a crayon melted on his arm.”
“’I think I love you. I think that I like that you have no voice.’”
“’But seriously. Will you marry me?’”
“’Could I name you No Voice?’”
“’Seriously, though, will you marry me?’”
“Wait. Is Nicholas Cage really trying to teach that Thai guy martial arts?”
Slap, slap, slap, slap, slap.
“’It’s called REPETITION! A plus B equals REPETITION!”
While Nicholas Cage enjoyed tiny tups of tea during a thunderstorm with his girlfriend and her hearing mother, he finally discovered her name. Which meant Rain.
Target practice for upcoming assassinations…
“What a waste of watermelon…”
Out on the town with his pharmacist girl picking up small plastic grocery bags of street food…
“What is that? Is that an elephant?”
“’Oh, I just carry around bananas with me in case there’s an…’ She did! She actually brought bananas with her!”
“’What? Do I throw the banana at it?’”
“Elephant goes, ‘I’m allergic to bananas.’”
“It looks like he has lazy eye,” said Rose. “The Buddha, I mean.”
As the surveillance camera picked up Nicholas Cage walking through a night-blacked barbed wire alley…
“Blob! Blob! American blob!”
Shoot, shoot, shoot.
“’Hmm… I could really go for some Thai food right now.’”
“How great would it be if he started running through there with the 1812 Overture right now, shooting at everything?”
“’Get me a candy martini!’”
“’I need my candy martini from my other movie!’”
“’Give me a martini glass of Skittles! Right now!’”
“But only the red ones and yellow ones.”
“’Fear me!’”
Guns, flashing red lights, storage shelves of bottled cooler water…
“If I plan my moves… if do my maths right… he’s going to be… right THERE!”
And they departed before ten, Joe coughing heavy, and Rose disoriented from another night of only a couple hours’ sleep.