SFX
Ha, ha, ha, or whatever sound effects you feel are appropriate for a room full of mean laughter.
Panel Five:
Jesse, red-faced, is leaving the cafeteria with his sack, his head hung.
PAGE ELEVEN
Four Panels
Panel One:
EXTERIOR HIGH SCHOOL
Jesse outside the school, sitting on the curb eating his lunch.
CAPTION
After that, Jesse ate his lunches alone.
Panel Two:
INTERIOR HIGH SCHOOL, HALLWAY
Jesse coming down the hallway, and everyone in the hall, including Marilyn, Ronnie, and James, have turned their backs to Jesse. He is walking silently right behind them. Hap is not present in this shot.
CAPTION (1)
The wicked trio came up with a new plan to torment Jesse. They decided to treat him like a ghost.
CAPTION (2)
Word was spread that when he was present, he was to be ignored. That if he spoke, no one was to respond.
Panel Three:
DAY, STREET IN FRONT OF THE PICTURE SHOW
Hap in the driver’s seat of a tan Impala. He has the window down and he’s looking at Jesse walking on the sidewalk in front of a movie theater with a marquee that announces the current film. ROSEMARY’S BABY.
CAPTION (1)
I had had enough.
HAP
Hey, Jesse.
CAPTION (2)
I decided not to continue with that trio’s meanness. But me and Jesse didn’t go back to being friends as before.
Panel Four:
Jesse is so happy to be acknowledged, he’s stopped walking, and is smiling awkwardly and raising his hand in a friendly wave as Hap drives away in his Impala.
CAPTION
Still, I was done with that bullshit.
PAGE TWELVE
Five Panels
Panel One:
THE SCHOOL CAFETERIA
Hap is standing in the lunch line with a lot of other teenagers, holding an empty tray, waiting to pick up his food. Behind him, coming through the door from a hallway, we see Jesse entering, carrying his sack.
Panel Two:
Jesse passing Hap, as Hap turns to look at him.
HAP
Hey, Jesse.
Panel Three:
Jesse has stopped and turned toward Hap. The look on Jesse’s face is serene.
JESSE
Hi, Hap.
Panel Four:
CENTER OF CAFETERIA
At a table, sitting together, our trio of bullies, Marilyn, James, and Ronnie. They are all sitting with their lunches. Jesse is walking directly toward them. Marilyn is really looking good this day, at her devastating, mini-skirt best, her long legs crossed.
Panel Five:
ANOTHER ANGLE, JESSE’S POINT OF VIEW
Jesse has his back to us, but at an angle, so we can see part of his face, and we can see his hand reaching into his lunch sack. He’s standing right by the trio’s table, in front of an empty chair.
The trio is looking up at him with a “what the hell?” attitude.
CAPTION
In that moment, Marilyn dropped their code of silence toward Jesse.N
MARILYN
Kind of lost, aren’t you, Skunk?
PAGE THIRTEEN
Six Panels
Panel One:
Jesse has pulled a revolver from his sack. Marilyn has jumped to her feet, and we can see her chair tipping over backward behind her.
JESSE
My name is Jesse.
Panel Two:
Gunfire in Marilyn’s face. A little blast of light and smoke.
Panel Three:
James, still in his chair, his mouth open in surprise, as he takes a full blast in the chest.
Panel Four:
Front view of Ronnie running toward us, but his hands are thrown out and we can see his chest bursting open as a bullet exits, and in the background we see Jesse pointing the revolver at him, a thin smile on his face.
JESSE
Bingo.
Panel Five:
CAFETERIA
Teenagers running in all directions, but in the center, calm as a fence post, is Jesse, walking, the revolver by his side.
Panel Six:
Hap is standing by himself, the tray dangling in his hand by his side, and Jesse is walking right up to him.
JESSE
Bye, Hap.
CAPTION
I don’t know for sure how I found my voice, but when I did, it seemed to be coming from some place cold and far away.
HAP
Bye, Jesse.
PAGE FOURTEEN
Six Panels
Panel One:
Jesse exiting the cafeteria, entering into the hallway. Behind him, viewed through the door, but still in the cafeteria, Hap is following.
CAPTION
I can’t explain it, but I walked out after him.
Panel Two:
IN THE HALLWAY
Jesse, and coming down the hall is the teacher Mr. Waters.
MR. WATERS
Jesse. What have you done, son?
Panel Three:
We are looking down Jesse’s gun arm as he fires at Mr. Waters, who is taking the shot in the head and lurching backward from it.
CAPTION
I guess Mr. Waters was just in the way. Wrong place, wrong moment.
Panel Four:
VIEWED OVER HAP’S SHOULDER AS HE STEPS INTO THE HALLWAY
At one end of the hall are two glass doors, and Jesse is using one hand to push one of them open. The revolver dangles in the other hand.
CAPTION
I think I knew what was about to happen. It might have been for the best.
Panel Five:
CLOSER ON JESSE As the glass door is closing behind him. We see him through the glass as he places the gun to his head and is pulling the trigger.
SFX
BLAM!
CAPTION
His head jumped to the right a little, and then he fell.
Panel Six:
Jesse lying on the ground, a crowd around him that includes Hap. There’s one boy in the crowd leaning over Jesse, looking down on him.
BOY
What got into Skunk?
PAGE FIFTEEN
Five Panels.
Panel One:
Hap has angrily grabbed the boy by the shirt.
HAP
Don’t call him that. Don’t ever call him that.
Panel Two:
LATER THAT DAY
CAPTION (1)
When they went out to tell his parents what had happened . . . that Jesse was dead . . .
Sheriff’s car pulling up in front of Jesse’s home, the hovel.
CAPTION (2)
. . . that Marilyn was disfigured, James was dead, and Ronnie was paralyzed from the waist down . . .
Panel Three:
IN THE YARD
Sheriff and a deputy looking down at a dead dog in the yard.
CAPTION
. . . they found the family dog dead in the yard. I figured Jesse didn’t want him to go hungry.
Panel Four:
INTERIOR SHACK, BEDROOM
Jesse’s parents lying on their backs, with their heads missing for the most part. They are just holes where bullets have gone through them. There is something lying across the old man’s chest.
CAPTION
They discovered Jesse’s parents on the bed where he had shot them in the face, numerous times.
Panel Five:
CLOSE ON THIS SOMETHING
It’s the belt that Cletus used to beat Jesse with. It’s stretched out in full.
CAPTION
And across Jesse’s father’s chest, lying there like a dead snake, was the belt Cletus had used so many times to beat him.
THE END
Joe R. Lansdale Interviews
Hap Collins
and
Leonard Pin
e
Q. Hap, I’m going to start with you. You strike me as an intelligent guy. Why don’t you try and make a little bit more of your life?
Hap: Haven’t a clue. I keep thinking I will, but I seem to take wrong turns.
Q. Why not back off from the situations you get yourself into? You deserve a little better, don’t you?
Hap: I get into them before I mean to. It’s like they’re kind of lurking out there. I turn left to avoid them, there’s more trouble comin’ the other way.
Leonard: And he drags me in after him. Can I say something?
Q. Be my guest.
Leonard: Hap’s bright, but doesn’t fully believe it. He thinks because he hasn’t come up with the formula for something like Coca-Cola, or has done him some brain surgery, or cured a disease, he hasn’t lived up to his expectations. Problem with Hap is, he coasts. Ain’t sayin’ he’s lazy. He works hard. When he works. But he hasn’t got any rudder.
Q. Now, don’t take this wrong, Leonard, but what’s your excuse?
Leonard: I don’t make any. I’m doing what I want to do. That’s the difference between me and my brother here. He isn’t entirely happy being him. I’m damn ecstatic about being me. I work hard. I don’t worry that much about the future. A little. But nothing serious. Hap, he’s nothing but a big ol’ bag of worry.
Hap: I thought I was a love machine.
Leonard: You’re a love machine can’t keep a woman.
Hap: You’ve had a bit of a problem maintaining relationships yourself, my good man.
Leonard: Yeah. But, you know what? I think I’ve found a man finally.
Q. That’s another thing. Don’t the people you guys care about seem to . . . well, you know?
Leonard: Yeah, they seem to give us bad luck. We haven’t figured that one out yet.
Q. Well, they’re the ones get killed.
Leonard: Yeah. We haven’t figured that out either.
Q. This one’s for you, Leonard. Do you feel that as you get older you’re gettin’ your temper under control?
Leonard: What temper?
Q. Well . . .
Leonard: Hey, answer the question. I didn’t stutter. What temper?
Q. I was merely sayin’ . . .
Leonard: You haven’t said anything yet. You asked if I had a temper. I don’t have any damn temper.
Hap: Yes you do.
Leonard: Hey, you want a piece of me, brother? You want to wake up with a crowd around you?
Hap: Hey, bubba. You and me get into it, you better brought yourself a sack lunch, ’cause we’re gonna be here all night.
Leonard: Yeah?
Hap: Yeah.
Q. Let’s change the subject. You guys seem to survive through pure tenacity and a feeling of quarrelsome brotherhood. . . .
Leonard: Quarrelsome. Who you callin’—
Hap: You’re right. We do. There’s this, Lansdale. You can have all the money there is, every damn thing, and what it comes down to finally, like it or not, you got to have someone to lean on.
Leonard and I aren’t brothers by birth. But we are brothers. Like our lawyer friend Andrew Vachss says, “It’s the family you choose that counts.” We stand by that. It can be your blood kin, certainly, but it doesn’t have to be. Way we see it, we can argue and fight with each other, but no one else better think they can. Least not in any serious manner.
Q. All right. Let me ask this: What are future plans?
Hap: Hard to say.
Leonard: Charlie Blank and Hanson have some ideas for us. They’ve got a little private investigator’s agency, and we may be picking up a few jobs from them. Nothing technical. Just little stuff, you know. Hap here, he’ll still be looking for a date. Watching his weight. Sticking to nonalcoholic beer and losing his hair. I’ll still be cool and calm in my JCPenney’s suit.
Hap: You may be calm, but that cheap suit is enough to make anyone else nervous.
Q. I have just a few more questions.
Leonard: Actually, we got to go. We borrowed the truck we’re in to get over here, and we promised to have it back. Our junkers are in the shop. Guy needs this one back to go to work.
Hap: And there’s a monster movie showing on channel 38 I want to see.
Leonard: Not that he hasn’t seen it about a hundred times.
Q. Well, thanks, guys. And be careful out there. Leonard: Hell, careful’s our middle name, man.
An Interview with Joe R. Lansdale,
His Own Self
Editor Rick Klaw sat down with Joe and discussed his writing, racism, violence, Texas, and, of course, Hap and Leonard.
RK: Your work has been called Texas gothic, gothic Texas fiction, Texas noir, mystery, suspense, crime, horror, western, and damn near everything in between. How would you describe your work?
JRL: Lansdale. I think of it as being Lansdale work. I try not to fit into any category. It’s not that I purposely try not to, but that I just don’t. I’m uncomfortable trying to force myself into a box. I write what I want to write. I also find that if I fit into a mystery or horror category and try to label myself or push myself as that, then if any one of those things becomes passé or not popular for awhile, then I’ve actually eliminated part of my audience. I don’t want people to pick me up and read me for a mystery writer or read more mysteries; I want them to read more Joe Lansdale and that’s not egotistical—although maybe it is a little, I don’t know—but it’s actually trying to find a way of expressing yourself and promoting what you do, instead of the general idea of a certain genre or a label. And I really hate labels like “splatterpunk” and things like that. Those to me, I think, actually constrict your audience.
RK: One issue that is common to all your work is racism. Why is that?
JRL: I think it perhaps is when I grew up—I was born in 1951—and in the South there was a lot of Jim Crow laws. I grew up in East Texas, which is considered part of the South, unlike most of Texas, which is considered the Southwest, so I saw examples of it. The separate water fountains, separate toilets, going around to the back of restaurants to get their food, theaters where they had to be in the balcony, general attitude that they were not as human as whites. I think, too, that a lot of it was just that my mother was very progressive for her time and I think she planted that seed there for me. Then the sixties came along and civil rights was a big issue as part of the sixties. I think that in those early years that it imprinted. I just always felt uncomfortable with segregation and didn’t understand exactly what it was about. I also felt that education and many things like that that had been denied blacks was the thing that prevented them being able to operate in society. I felt that these were things that should be there for everyone. And I didn’t feel they were, and it really struck me deeply. It runs throughout my work, civil rights in general, but I think especially my experience being with how blacks were treated and to a great extent with how women were treated in the fifties and sixties and what their roles were expected to be. My mother defied that and was certainly, as I said, very progressive. I don’t use the term “liberal” or “conservative” in that because I don’t think that matters, but I think she was progressive in her time. I believe too that put a lot of stress on her trying to do that because that certainly wasn’t accepted, because there was a lot of religious fanaticism against the idea of women even working. All the things we take for granted now and are very common were at one time taboo socially—not just in the South but across the United States. Perhaps the racism struck me more deeply being from this area because we had more blacks and there was this ill legacy of the Civil War and people were still fighting the Civil War even when I was a kid. Even though it was over, they were still fighting it emotionally.
RK: Your work is littered with the mixture of violence and humor. Do you find these to be essential elements to your work, and do you feel you always need the combination?
JRL: I don’t think you always have to. And I don’t think I always have. But I think that it’s more common in m
y work than not to have that. I think that’s because I saw a lot of violence when I was growing up. Not necessarily always murderous violence, but in school Gladewater was a tough town—people always gettin’ in fights, fistfights over silly things, and they fought hard. But there was a lot of humor in the way people conducted themselves and the way they saw things. I think that rubbed off on me a lot. I think everybody sees humor in violence, even those people who don’t think they do. Because even if you are watching Laurel and Hardy or any comedian, whoever it is on these old shows that we grew up on, people are falling off ladders and people are laughing. People have always laughed at those sorts of things. Sane people laugh when they realize that no one is actually hurt. It is intertwined. I think that humor and violence is nothing new. It’s always been intertwined. I think that Robert Bloch probably had a big influence on me as a writer because he always recognized that.
RK: In your books, the violence is very realistic. Why do you think you make it that way?
JRL: Like I said, I’ve seen it, I’ve been involved in it in the sense that I grew up with people who would fight at the drop of a hat over almost anything. I’ve been a martial artist all my life and I’ve actually used it in self-defense. I’ve also made a point of not using it a few times when I could have. I just controlled the situation either verbally or controlled them physically when they didn’t realize that they were being controlled. And though I’m not anxious to get involved in violence myself (I’m not very much a fan of violence), it intrigues me. It’s so much a part of the human condition. Some people try to deny it as part of the human condition. One of the things that martial arts does and writing this kind of fiction does is that they allow you to tap into that and let off some of that steam. Which is not to say that if you didn’t that you’d necessarily go out and be an ax murderer, but I do believe that in my case that I have somewhat of an aggressive personality to some extent. I am very physical, and I think all those things help me keep my life balanced—which is still not to say I think I was gonna flip out or be an ax murderer or anything.