Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (24 page)

“Now go on get the fuck outta here. I’m tired a lookin at your pussy ass. Crying and shit.”

I didn’t say anything or move. This caused Earl to get up in my face.

“God
damn
I’m sick and fucking tired a watchin you treat this girl like she some kind of, some kinda
burden
, when she the closest thing you fucking
have
to a motherfucking friend and she about to die on top of that. You know that, right? You dumb motherfucker. She home now cuz she
about to die.
That girl lyin there on her goddamn
deathbed
and you come to
my house
all whinin and cryin and shit about some irrelevant bullshit. I
want . . .
to kick your ass. You hear me? I
want . . .
to beat the
fuck
out of you right now.”

“Go for it.”

“You want me to?”

“I don’t ca , care.”

“Motherfucker, you
want
me to?”

I was in the middle of sarcastically but also tearfully saying,
“Yeah, Earl, I fucking want you to,” when he punched me in the stomach.

So. There I was, for the second time in a month, lying in the Jackson front yard doubled over in pain, with a diminutive warlike kid standing over me. But this time at least it wasn’t a kid with a socially unacceptable word tattooed on his neck. He also wasn’t repeatedly slapping my face as I attempted to relearn how breathing works.

Instead, he was muttering things like, “Man, get up,” and “I ain’t even hit you for real.”

Maxwell chimed in a few times with “Yeah! Hit him again!” and “BUST HIS CANDY ASS.” But his heart wasn’t really in it. I think he was disappointed that our fight was so lame. In fairness to us, the notion that we would have an interesting fight is absurd. It was like expecting a good fight between a wolverine and, I dunno, an animal made out of marshmallows.

Eventually, Maxwell went inside and it was just the two of us out there, and if Earl was still angry, it didn’t seem to be at me.

“Goddamn, you a pussy. Get hit once in the gut, act like you dyin. Goddamn.”

“Unngh.”

“There you go. Walk it off, son.”

“Jesus.”

“Come on, let’s go to your place. Get to work.”

“Unnnh shit.”

“That’s right. Come on. I’ll help you.”

For Plan E we didn’t even use Dad’s camera. We used the low-quality camera on my laptop. We were inspired by YouTube. God help us.

Like whiny boring people all over the world, we decided that the best way of expressing ourselves was just to stare into the camera and talk. No script, no camera movement, no special lighting. We decided to strip all the effects away and see what was left.

Was this a terrible idea? Please stand by while I forward your question to the President of Yestonia.

INT. GREG’S ROOM — DAY

GREG

So. Rachel.

EARL

Sup Rachel.

GREG

We’ve tried, uh, a bunch of different ways of making a film for you, and uh, none of them have really turned out the way we wanted.

If you don’t script your dialogue, first of all, you’re going to pause and say “uh” at least a billion times. So for starters, you’re talking as though you’ve just suffered a semi-serious head injury.

EARL

We tried to do somethin with sock puppets, and it didn’t seem to be very relevant to your, uh, situation.

GREG

Uh, we had everyone at school say get-well wishes for the camera, but uh, you’ve already had a bunch of get-well cards, and we, uh, wanted to do something more uh personal than that.

EARL

We tried to do a documentary about you. Uhh

GREG

Uhhhhh

EARL

There was a shortage of material, to, uh, work with.

GREG

We tried this, uh, complicated stop-motion, uh, animation thing, to get you fired up about beating cancer, but, uh. It ended up just really goofy and, uh, not what we wanted.

EARL

So, now we’re, uh, trying this.

BOTH

[garbled
]

GREG

You go.

EARL

Naw, you go.

GREG

Just go.

EARL

slowly, somehow painfully

Uh . . . All right. Uh. You probably don’t understand how grateful I am to have gotten to know you. Because first of all, the odds of that happening, normally, would be very low, because, speaking perfectly honestly, we don’t travel in the same circles, you and me. So it feels like . . . a blessing, to have had you in my life these past few weeks.

I admire a lot of things about you. I admire how smart you are, how perceptive, and observant. But, uh. What I’m just really in awe of, is your, uh, I don’t know how to put it. I guess, your
patience
.
If it was me, I would be angry, and miserable, and, and
hurtful
, and just terrible to be around. And you’ve been so strong throughout, and so
patient
, even when things aren’t going right, and I’m in awe of that. And you’ve made me feel, uh, blessed.

finishing, husky-voiced

So, uh, yeah.

How the fuck was I supposed to follow that.

The basic problem was, Earl meant everything he said, and I couldn’t say the same stuff without lying. Because Earl is just a better person than me. I don’t want to sound like a melodramatic jackass, but that’s the truth. I was pretty sure I couldn’t say
anything
sensitive, and reassuring, and touching, without it being a lie.

EARL (CONT’D)

choked up and now sort of angry

Your turn.

Was Rachel inspiring to me? Did I really think she was smart, and perceptive, and patient, and everything else? No. I’m sorry. Look: I feel terrible. I wish that getting to know her had been this big inspiring life-improving thing. I really do. I know that’s what’s supposed to happen. But it
didn’t
.

EARL (CONT’D)

Dude. It’s
your turn
.

So what was I supposed to say? The truth?

EARL (CONT’D)

punching Greg in the arm

Your
turn
, jackass.

GREG

Right. Right right. Uh. The main reason we made this video is, uh. We want you to get better. And, uh. Look. The thing is: I
know
you can get better. I know you’re strong enough, and, uh. Yeah. I just wanted to tell you. Uh. I believe in you.

talking maybe a little too much now

And that’s, uh, I realize now, that’s why we wanted to make a film. To tell you that we believe in you.

just really driving the lie home at this point

And that’s why we, uh, made the film.

I spent an entire weekend listening to myself say “we believe in you,” and wanting to punch myself in the face. Because it was such an obvious lie. If we really believed in Rachel, we wouldn’t be rushing to make this film before she died. Plus, I mean, why the hell would we believe in her? She didn’t even believe in herself. She told me point-blank she thought she was going to die. She was stopping treatment and going home and waiting for the inevitable. Who were we to argue with that?

At the same time, there wasn’t really anything else to say.

Mom walked into the computer room late Sunday night.

“Honey.”

“Oh, hey.”

“Are you still working on the movie for Rachel?”

“Yeah.”

“How’s it going.”

“’Sgoing fine.”

“Oh honey. Shhhhh.”

“’
Sfine.
”

“Shhhhhhhh.”

“h hurnk.”

“It’s hard to lose a friend.”

“Tha , at’s, snot it.”

“It’s hard, honey.”

“That’s not , n not , , it.”

“Shhhh.”

Rachel the Film
(dir. G. Gaines and E. Jackson, 2011). This film, a loose homage to leukemia victim Rachel Kushner, is perhaps most noteworthy for its confusing mishmash of styles, incorporating documentary footage, confessionals, stop-motion animation, and puppetry in what can only be thought of as a huge mess. In fact, directors Gaines and Jackson begin the film with a grainy, pixilated apology to Rachel herself, admitting that the film is badly organized and basically incoherent. After that comes a pastiche of awkward well-wishes from high school students and teachers, sock puppets hitting each other, LEGO characters with incomprehensible accents, poorly scanned photos of Kushner’s childhood, and other absurdist one-offs with extremely limited relevance to the subject matter. The weepy, melodramatic conclusion, again featuring the directors, is frankly unwatchable. It is, however, a fitting end to what is almost certainly the worst film ever made.

The last time I talked to Rachel, she had seen
Rachel the Film
a few times, and I wasn’t sure how to talk to her about it. She was in bed, as usual, but not wearing her hat. She sounded the same as ever: kind of scraggly-voiced and congested in the nose. It occurred to me for the first time that that’s maybe what I sound like a little bit, too.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hey,” she said.

For some reason I wanted to go in for a fist pound, but I didn’t.

“I saw
Rachel the Film
,” she said.

“Mmmm.”

“I liked it.”

“You know you really don’t have to say that.”

“No, I did like it.”

“Uh, if you’re sure.”

“I mean, it’s probably not my
favorite.
”

It was somehow a big relief that she was honest about it. I don’t know why this relieved me. I think I might have a disorder where your emotions frequently malfunction and a lot of the time you’re sitting there feeling something inappropriate. It should be called Emotional Moron Disorder.

“Yeah, if it was your favorite, that would mean you had kind of questionable taste, because it’s really not very good.”

“It’s good, it’s just not as good as some of the others.”

“No, seriously. I don’t know what happened. We worked insanely hard on it, and then, I don’t know. We just couldn’t do it.”

“You guys did fine.”

“No, we
didn’t
.”

I wanted to explain to her why things had gone so horribly wrong, but obviously I didn’t
know
why. I mean, Earl and I are not expert filmmakers, but at this point in our careers we should be creating something better than the sickening depressing chaos that is
Rachel the Film.

“You’re funny,” she said. She had a bigger smile on her face than I had seen in a while.

“What?”

“You’re so hard on yourself. It’s funny.”

“I’m hard on myself because I’m a jackass.”

“No you’re not.”

“No, you have no idea.”

Maybe I couldn’t explain how we had made the Worst Film in the Entire World. But I
could
talk some trash on myself! I’m starting to realize that this is my favorite thing.

“No, you don’t have to live inside my head. For every, just, insanely stupid thing I do or say, there are like fifty even worse ones that I just barely avoid doing or saying, just out of dumb luck.”

“Greg.”

“I’m serious.”

“I’m happy we became friends again.”

“Oh yeah? I mean, yeah. I mean, me, too.”