The Celluloid Heroes of New Jersey
Poetry by Jonathan Greenhause
I. Mario & Teresa Save the World
Snow covers signposts & port-a-potties, the sky as blue as Billie Holiday.
The engineering geniuses have lost control of their snow machines:
Mario shovels, convinces Puccini to possess the loudspeakers,
blasts his favourite arias while 2-stepping with Teresa. He slipped
into the muck of Venetian canals, then departed Italy at 25, now
sits Buddha-like upon snowdrifts as he & Teresa recall
cupping their hands ’round David’s marbled manhood. Here in Jersey,
they toil for minimum wage, carefully raise their daughter Giulia
above the snowline, waltz into the night
& out of it, sink towards the browned grass below, bodies disappearing,
their cries a battleground between ecstasy & agony.
II. The United States of Circusland
Mario hoists up Giulia to escape the murderous clowns
in this arthouse movie my wife & I are making in our spare time. It’s about
unfettered greed, reimagines America as an authoritarian circus,
the ringmaster an amorphous blob devouring a concept
loosely defined as “innocence.” We know it’s cliché,
but we keep filming whenever we have time, which is seldom because
our 2 sons can’t yet fend for themselves. Teresa duct tapes the steel door,
her pistol at eye level near holes she’s punctured. This is the U.S.
of Circusland, home to radioactive bloodthirsty mutants,
the President in this schlocky dystopia amassing power amidst
populist anti-immigrant fervour, in a political-science experiment
fled its test tubes. At the protest today, my sons march for their lives,
grasp signs asking “Is our sole real estate
a frying pan or a fire?” will hopefully never elect a saviour
itching to blow everything up. Giulia, of course,
defeats the murderous clown, becomes an idea best described
as “democracy.” This is how my wife & I
fill in the blanks when our narrative goes off the tracks: Mario
builds a cabin in the Pine Barrens, nurses a tomato patch, makes
love to Teresa once every 3 nights. We score the movie
with emo songs we don’t have the rights to play. We’re certain
the world will end, but we’re banking it’ll last long enough
for people to check out our film.
III. Cinque Terre
We lose our youngest son in the forest by Manarola, by a trail
of half-chewed cherry tomatoes & emptied coffee cups. The locals
lift flaming torches & life-sized replicas of Joseph
because it’s his feast day, & the tourist season hasn’t begun yet; plus,
a missing boy is negative publicity. My other son
seems unfazed, is sure Sam’s watching Italian game shows
in an elderly couple’s 70s-style den. My wife & I
have waited our entire lives for this moment
that we never wished for. In the apocalyptic aftermath of risen seas &
constant food scarcity, Teresa & Mario establish
a free-wheeling bartering state in Southern Jersey. Of course,
a few shrines to Springsteen remain, as do an assortment
of knickknacks from the set of The Sopranos, snapshots of
an idealistic past, when electrical grids still hummed
& the internet was a given. My wife & I direct this sequel
to our disjointed, but crowd-pleasing, The United States of Circusland.
Hours crawl by, our hands & knees blistered & dirtied
sifting through leaves as if panning for gold, unearthing bits of tomato,
pages from a comic book Sam had been reading. What happens
when love dies of breathlessness
& not because we’re through with it? Unleashed dogs
paw through debris, bring us the muted bones
of woodland creatures their own descendants can’t remember.
Towards the midpoint of the sequel, Teresa sobs to Mario
she’s not sure she loves him anymore, the murderous clowns
no longer a shared concern. For Mario, we’ve cast
the same likeable actor who struggles with emotional scenes,
who’s better suited towards action. This was when my wife & I
chose to take a break from shooting,
to travel with our kids to the place in Italy where I proposed to her
because everything has a purpose. Fate’s the glove we slip into even
after the other one’s lost. In the dark’s dizziness, we discover
Sam’s been following us this whole time, wished us
to use this anxiety, incorporate it into our screenplay. He’s right,
is punished with no more pasta, cries himself into a nightmare
about the U.S. of Circusland, my wife & I spending the rest of the night
staring at our golden boy.
IV. The Body Snatchers
The aliens arrive in oversized shirts emblazoned with “I Love USA”,
grasp chili dogs in their 6-fingered hands, scream “John 3:16” verses
like rabid believers, like they’ve landed to spread the gospel
to terrestrial heathens. This is the beginning
of our 3rd film. Setting: A farmhouse in the Pine Barrens. Teresa’s arms
are wrapped around Mario as she mutters in her sleep. Out of view,
a sonic boom, a spaceship crushing a cow grazing by moonlight.
They seem like normal aliens
’til we pan up & notice they’re splashed with clown makeup, blood-red
lips grinning mischievously. My wife & I have recast Mario
with an actor from Buenos Aires, a guy whose ancestors fled Italy,
who did underground theatre, starred in “La Funerala”
back in ’98, in Belgrano. He’s more cerebral than the original,
but will the audience feel betrayed? Mourn the loss of what’s familiar?
The film sheds its science-fiction skin, becomes
a love story we’ve seen a thousand tries before, yet each new love
can still feel like the first, each recycled life
a chance to cheat death, this plot of brain-devouring fascist aliens
a bit more poetry to keep us guessing.
V. Then, the Shutdown Hits
A blank movie screen anticipates the film’s birth, this pristine field of snow
not yet ploughed, our arts-funding fickle, a drip from a faucet
severed from the pump that feeds it. We now have no way to distribute
what’s half-formed, Mario & Teresa pocketing our trust
& the passwords to our bank accounts, vanishing from this Earth
as if beamed up by their 6-fingered alien antagonists,
as twilight tempts the stars to reemerge. Our sons remain unfazed,
immersed in this developmental phase
where their mom & I must know the secret to safeguarding their path,
as if our arms could raise them
above the coastlines’ ocean interloper. We wish them to be uniters,
to be a Walt Whitman for this society devouring itself,
picked apart by skilled vultures. America’s a floating assemblage of
good-natured believers sailing towards disaster,
all of us flung overboard, doggy-paddling with dolphins,
miraculously avoiding the blurred whirling of a ship’s propeller
like the brain-sucking malevolence of racist blowhards, but my wife & I
will thread a string of verses ’round our sons’ sprouting bodies,
an armour of linguistic firepower.
