Writers’ Strike Filler: Take One
Got to Be Some Changes Made by the Staple Singers plays against a dark screen a full 30 seconds before a giant 1960s television set fades in with snowy fuzz cushioning flashing images lasting only seconds at a time: Bewitched’s Sabrina twitching her nose, Nat King Cole singing Moon River on Ed Sullivan, footage from the moon landing, Cassius Clay’s refusal to be drafted, beatniks in San Francisco at Golden Gate Park, then a slower, extended sequence from Dr. Martin Luther King’s funeral and that lingers on a final image of a grieving Coretta Scott King and her now-fatherless children.
The music fades as the volume increases for Walter Cronkite delivering his familiar refrain, “and that’s the way it is ….” as the camera pulls back to reveal a chubby girl slouching in a large Naugahyde recliner ten feet or so from the tv. The thin elastic cord stapled to a cone-shaped hat bursting with Flower Power blooms wraps around one of her wrists as she uses the other hand to yank a hair from the crown of her head. She examines it closely, checks for the root, and pinches the index finger and thumb of her hat-bedecked hand to peel the root away from the strand, then flicks both aside and starts the process again. The light of a low evening sun pours through the window behind her and glints off the tip of the hat. She sighs, staring at the long series of commercials (BIC pen, Wisk detergent, Texaco gasoline) on the tv. It’s clear she’s thinking.
At the quick blast of a car siren, the girl jumps to attention, slips her birthday hat on, and scoots behind the large chair. The creak of the door and the clomp of feet on wood signal her cue. “SURPRISE!” she yells as she bursts awkwardly from a squat, knocking the newspaper off the side table as she rises. The page-one picture of flag-draped coffins on the tarmac floats to the floor.
“Jiminy Cricket, it’s the birthday girl!” a slim man in his thirties in black slacks, white shirt, and skinny black tie exclaims.
The girl doesn’t know whether to step forward for a hug or to dawdle. She sees the gun still in its holster on her father’s hip. Little sister bursts in at the same moment. “Daddy, Daddy!” she whines, “Look what I got!” She flashes a paper doll book at him and presents a butchered paper doll with missing limbs.
“Oh, boy!” Daddy replies and holds out his hand to have a look at the amputated doll. “Where’s Momma?” he asks as he returns the doll and pats the blondie on the head. The younger girl scampers off camera deeper into the house with Daddy following.
The older girl turns off the television and stands in front of the mirror above the heavy wood desk where a display of birthday cards stands. You’re 12! a cute puppy beams, To a Special Granddaughter a watercolor bouquet announces, Happy Birthday, Niece a circus train complete with dancing bears proclaims. Gazing at her puffy face, she pulls the hat over her nose and mouth like a muzzle and sticks her thumbs in her ears, waving her fingers in a mix of jest and energetic angst.
Her mother calls from the dining room, “Birthday girl, where are you?”
She pulls off the hat and dumps it in the small waste can beside her. “I’m here,” she answers as she twirls her way to the kitchen.
