5.29.2008

What Happened

So here’s my great idea. And why we’re in repose at Chez Baylor.

Cecily, the cousin of Lars, was at his party. She’s in town this week from New York, where she lives. She lives upstate but is starting NYU film in the fall. She was talking about how she needed to have something started because everyone has some thing started...

Oh. I’m probably going to ramble. In addition to checking my vitals I got something funny injected into my IV. Yippie!

Anyway. The AFI was just in Dallas (she was here for that) and she said that there was all kinds of greatness and she’s so inspired but she has no plot. Then the conversation veered away to Hawaiian Barbie and her photographic editorialship potential...which is NOT going to happen. I have a plan. I have a broken leg, but that doesn’t change the plan.

So I’m stuck in Florida with my mom’s family for the long weekend. Half of them didn’t even show up because my mom’s youngest sister has decided that humidity just isn’t the ticket for her anymore and so she’s never going to be closer than ten miles to a body of water. I was the one on the phone with her. I dared her to come visit us here in a week. She wasn’t going to come, but now I’m here and my mom just told me that she’s coming to help them “take care of” me. Especially since Dad is traveling all next week. Yippie again.

Anyway, one night that really bad Faye Dunaway movie came on and I remembered that Madison is related to Bonnie Parker. Yes, that Bonnie Parker. And it hits me. So I call Cecily (her name has the emphasis on the “Cec” - like “cess pool”) and outline my plan. She talks to Rebecca, Lars, and Madison and when I got back to town on Tuesday morning it was all set.

We started out at dawn yesterday so that there would be “kick-ass shadows” and so that there wouldn’t be a ton of people around. Madi, Bec, and I are all in flapper-wear. Fringy dresses, funky shoes, tons of pearls. Lars is in a suit that even I will admit looked smashing on him, complete with fedora. They’d rented a classic car - something with space for a driver and 3 passengers and a suicide door, and picked up rubber Tommy Guns from some prop guy Cecily found.

Cecily set up across the street and gave us the signal. We drove into frame on Ervay - so she could get the timely Wilson Building in the shot while we were still in front of a building that is clearly housing a bank. Lars, Bec, and I jump out of the car and begin to run around in true Three Stooges style. We weren’t doing anything more than a complicated game of Dancing Tag, but when edited down with the correct music it would look as though a bank heist was being perpetrated. I even ran up to the door and paused for the camera, a wily look hamming up my face.

“Cheese it! The Cops!” Madi yelled from her place as getaway driver. We look at the door to the bank and there are two security guards with guns pointed right at us. A lot of yelling ensued. I was closest to the door and so I started talking, even bent my Tommy Gun at one point to show them it wasn’t real.

Unfortunately they were twitchy security guards because the next thing I know I’m in the back of an ambulance and I can’t feel my body. I got shot in the leg. My upper leg bone....I have no idea what it’s called and I’m on drugs so I have no motivation to look - is shattered. They told me I had to have a surgery and I might need another tomorrow. I’m on a lot of drugs.

Rebecca got hit in the stomach. I have no idea how she’s doing. And not for lack of asking, either. Lars has a graze on his arm, but the force of the impact spun him like a top and he fell down the marble steps and has a pretty bad concussion. Madi did what any sane girl would do: she slid to the floor of the car and dialed 911. Cecily turned the camera over the minute the cops got there.

She was just here - she’s the one who convinced my mom to give me my laptop. I then convinced her that she has to edit it down and use it somewhere. Maybe cutting the reality down a notch, though.

I’ll be here for another week before they’ll let me get up. There’s talk of rehab. Right now that funny stuff is making the screen go all wobbly. I promise this morning was a total blast, right up until Twitchy McTrigger Finger got involved, that is. Can't wait to see the footage.

Goodnight.

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