I came up with “Nuns
That Kill” as a title for a short film, having no idea what
this film would be about. I just thought it was catchy, an attention
getter. I’m a stream of consciousness writer, which means
I don’t like to do outlines. This can be annoying for editors,
as my stream of consciousness tends to wander, with odd twists and
turns, often doubling back on itself. It’s the editor’s
task to get my story back on a steady course. Sometimes that stream
flows swiftly and surely to La Jerga’s pages. Sometimes. Jack
Kerouac sat down and wrote “On The Road” in three weeks,
from start to finish, upon one continuous 120-foot-long, scrolled-up
piece of teletype paper. I can’t do that. That many drugs
make me sick.
Lately, my stream has been a dry riverbed. Dry as a bitter salt
lick. So I decided to take my film title, just start writing, and
see where it took me.
I ran the title by a few friends. Most scrunched up their faces
and seemed skeptical. One said wherever this would take me, it would
probably be a bad place. Another accused me of picking on a minority.
 “Two
nuns,” I began to justify, “Out of all of them, there
are a couple of bad apples in every bushel."
“You’re misrepresenting a minority,” a friend
accused.
“Look at Indians.”
“Native Americans,” he politically corrected me.
“No, I mean Indians,” I insisted. “In Hollywood
movies, nobody ever says ‘Look out, here come the Native Americans
over the hill’.”
Making two nuns murderers is chicken feed compared to what Hollywood
has done to the people of the first nation.
My friend Toby had a punk band in Austin called The Motards. He
likes 50’s women in prison movies and recently spent an evening
in a bar in Mexico wrestling and boxing in a foot of green jello.
As a barometer of public opinion, he’s absolutely useless.
But, with his head bobbing in approval and eyes alight with interest,
he said, “Cool man, go for it.”
I decided to go for it.
First draft: Okay, so there’s these two nuns
who are karate experts walking down Lafayette Street in New York
and—No, karate nuns are worse than flying nuns.
Second draft: Two nuns go into a bar, the bartender
says to the nuns—Naw, been done already.
Third draft: Same two nuns, having decided George
W. Bush was right about the whole crusade thing, go to Iraq—No,
that won’t work either. The Pope said the Iraq war was an
unjust war. And nuns, good or bad, always side with the Pope. They
couldn’t very well support an unjust war.
When I was a kid going to the First Baptist church (I always wondered
how we got to be the first one) it was expected that you would do
a little preaching as part of youth fellowship. I did more than
a little.
Am I wandering here? Is my river taking a sharp left? The editor
will be pissed. No, I’ll pull it together. Got to go with
this.
 Anyway,
I was good at preaching. In Sunday school they taught us about how
Jesus and his followers forsook all material goods, wandered around
without a nickel in their pockets, loved their neighbors and turned
the other cheek. I tried that last part with the Italian kids next
door who were always kicking my ass. It didn’t work, not once.
Every once in a while the Baptists would haul me out to a mission
or shelter to preach to snotted-up old winos, now referred to as
the homeless. They would well up with tears as I tried to reach
into their hearts and bring them the message of peace, love, charity
and equality that Jesus once preached. I admit, those tears could
have been of born frustration and hunger. They had to wait until
I was finished before they got the soup.
Where am I? How the hell am I going to work the nuns into this?
Screw the nuns, I’m on a roll. Maybe they do go to Iraq after
all, telling the Pope where to go. Maybe God tells them to go. Psycho
nuns.
In Sunday school they talked about Jesus healing the ear of the
Roman soldier who got it whacked off by Peter. What a story. Jesus
said the meek would inherit the earth. That was me, maladjusted
really, but close enough. I loved the stuff about giving up all
your worldly goods. Reaping only what you sow, whatever reaping
meant. This never kept me from admiring the spirituality of the
message. Later in my life, Mahatma Gandhi would put into action
what Jesus preached. Gandhi.
 Despite
my admiration for Jesus’ teachings, I kept my grass cutting
and snow shoveling money. I never gave a poor person a nickel. In
fact, a poor drunk person once gave me $0.25 for helping him up.
Despite my complete failure to be a Christian I thought Jesus knew
what he was talking about. Person, God or Son of, it didn’t
matter. What he said was the important part. Remember, he was from
one of the most fundamental and radical forms of Judaism, a tough,
warlike tribe of people.
Jesus stood for peace.
Dropping 500-pound bombs on a city or suburb is not Christian. Or
at least I hope it’s not.
I have given up on “Nuns That Kill”. It’s not
funny anymore.
Maybe I’ll go with beggar women that kill. |
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