Jon Smithie
Tribune
Meatier
I am often inspired by stories (as with King Diocletian’s “Miss Berkeley’s Voyage” inspiring my own “Mina Berkeley’s Voyage,”) to add a sequel or to take a story in a different direction. In mainstream movies and books this can be, and usually is, a simple and inconsequential scene, or not particularly graphic, but is to me highly suggestive. That was the case with a two part miniseries I watched way back in 2009 called “Meteor.” I was inspired by a scene from the mini series that is pretty much a throwaway, and wrote an expanded version filtered through my own perverted imagination. That's why I think of my version as "Meatier."
The back story involves Imogene, a beautiful young scientist who has calculated that a meteor will impact earth and create an extinction event.
Through various plot contrivances involving dangers and high drama, including Imogene being kidnapped by desperadoes in a Mexican jail, (which oddly enough, was a more suggestive and graphic scene than the one that did get to me) she finds herself alone on a dusty, back of beyond road. In order to save the world she must relay her calculations to the military. To do so she desperately needs to find a phone.
She comes upon a convenience store, outside of which two men are unloading supplies from a jeep. One is young with blond frizzy hair, the other middle aged, a hard looking man wearing a wife beater, a sleeveless open shirt, and a camouflage cap.
"Fifty dollars," he says, when she asks to use the phone.
"That's ridiculous!" she sputters, and explains that she is a scientist who must contact the authorities immediately with critical info . . . He gives her a blank stare.
Angry, frustrated, she turns away, pulls a Glock from her waistband, spins back around and points it at the stubborn redneck.
There is a tense stand off. Then the young man, who’s eased himself out of the picture yells "Drop it!" He's pointing an AK at her. A cynical smile plays across the face of the redneck as Imogene leans over to put her gun on the ground.
In the movie the young man yells "Now go!" or some such foolishness and she scampers off down the road, but what if the scene had played out more like . . . this. . .
"Don't shoot me!" Imogene cries, "Please, I'll go!"
"Stay right where you are! Put your hands up!"
The older man approaches her and picks up the Glock. He waves the barrel at her. "Put that down!" he says, indicating the laptop she holds in her hand.
"You don't understand!" she says, "This computer has my critical targeting algorithms! I have to get to the Air Force Base! Please! We're all going to die!"
"Put it down, now!"
She complies, setting the toughbook carefully on the hood of the jeep. Before she can talk sense to him he says;
"One hand. Take off your shirt."
This is the second time today a man has told her to take her shirt off.
"Why?"
"You don't ask me questions. I want to see if you're carrying other weapons."
"I'm not"
"Let's see. Take off the shirt. One handed."
Grateful that she'd worn the camisole top over her bra, she delicately undoes the one button holding the shirt closed and shrugs out of it.
"Hands up, and turn around. George!" he yells at the younger man, throwing the shirt at him. "Check the pockets. And get the cuffs."
"Alright" he says to Imogene. "Turn towards me. Keep your hands up."
He looks her up and down. She is one hot little bitch, he thinks, with a college kind of pretty, a pretty that comes of good family and wealth. He could tell in the tone of her voice that she is used to getting everything she wants. She thinks she can get away with anything. He has no doubt that city boys probably go right along giving her whatever she wants too. God, what a great rack.
"One handed," he says. "Undo your trousers and step out of 'em"
"What! I'm not the Terminator! I don't have another gun! I don't have a knife! For God's sake will you get it through your head this is an emergency! I only need to use your phone!"
"I don't appreciate your tone, Miss, and if you don't get out of those trousers I will shoot you dead here and now."
After the day she's had Imogene isn't frightened as much as frustrated and angry at this redneck asshole who's delaying the only chance the world has to survive. For a moment she almost says fuck it, and reaches for the computer to walk away, but another look into the hard face of the man makes her hesitate. If she dies, if the data and calculations in the toughbook are destroyed or lost here, then humankind has no chance.
She reaches down with one hand and unsnaps and unzips her jeans. She draws first her right leg and then her left leg out of the jeans.
"I'm sorry I pulled a gun on you," Imogene says. "But please, hear me out. You have to understand how important this is. This is bigger than you or me. There's a meteor that's going to collide with the earth. It could wipe us all out. You, me, your son. Please, you have to help me. I wouldn't have hurt you, I couldn't have. Please."
"Step back," he says. He picks up her trousers and throws them sideways to where George was. "George!" he yells, "hurry up!" Then he wags the barrel of the Glock at her. "Take off that top"
Imogene swallows her fear. She has been in some really tough situations today and she's gone about as far as she's willing to go. She shakes her head. "No."
The sound of the gun going off makes her jump and scream.
"Do it!"
Off comes the camisole top. She huddles in her underwear, holding her arms over her full breasts. She wishes she'd worn a bra with more coverage.
"Get on the ground, face down."
As she complies she looks up to see George returning. He has a pair of handcuffs.
"Hands behind your back."
Rather than simply cuffing her wrists behind her he twists her arms behind her and cuffs her wrist in a reverse prayer.
"Oh, they're too tight!" she cries. "That hurts! Let me go! Let me go, damn you!" She wails.
The redneck, Albert, pulls the young woman to her feet. "Shut your mouth," he says. "Or I'll really give you something to squawk about. Here's how this is going to work. I'm going to call the Sheriff. He's going to come and arrest you and haul your ass off to jail. In the meantime I'm going to make you regret you ever pulled a gun on me."
"The Sheriff's dead," Imogene says. "He was trying to get me to the Air Force Base when the car crashed. Don't you get it? In a few hours, there won't be any law, no civilization, no nothing!"
"Well, then, I guess we'll have to provide our own law. And right now you're under arrest."
Albert pulls her along to a large outbuilding where he keeps a Dodge Charger he's restoring, an old tractor that doesn't run anymore and miscellaneous farm equipment and building materials. He pulls Imogene to the back of the barn, and pushes her against a post.
"George, I want you to uncuff her. And you," he says to Imogene, "you're going to reach around behind the post. We're going to cuff you to the post. You aren't going anywhere for a while."
"You're making a terrible mistake." She says. Her eyes are wet with tears. Please, please I beg you, try to understand. . ."
"If you don't shut up we'll gag you. I just can't take anymore of your mouth."
George has been staring at the young woman's body. He's never seen anything so fine. Not in real life. In porn, yeah. But not in real life. And not handcuffed. Not in a bra that's a little too small for what it's trying to contain, and hip hugger panties. In bondage porn, yeah. And yes, he does know the difference between fantasy and reality. And this smoking little bitch, sweating and crying and now handcuffed to the post, she's as real as it gets.
Albert eyes George's crotch. "Don't get ideas boy," he says
"It's real, its happening." Imogene says desperately. "Look up in the sky. See for yourself. You have TV here, don't you? You have radio up here, don't you, you have newspapers, you can read? If you don't believe me, you can check for yourself. People are dying out there!"
"George," Albert says, "Go get me a couple a rags, should be some over by the Dodge."
"Please," the young woman says. "My name is Imogene. I'm a scientist, an expert in meteor trajectories. You have to help me."
George comes back with the rags. Albert takes one that is oil stained and dirty and rolls it up in a tight ball. "Open your mouth."
"No. No, you can't."
"I told you I've had all the shit I'm going to take from you. Open wide or I hurt you."
Then suddenly he punches her in the belly and jerks back on her hair. He jams the large wad in her mouth and holds her mouth closed as she gags and mewls. When she settles down a bit he twists another rag in into a narrow strip and pushes it between her teeth, cinching it tight in back of her neck..
"Maybe that'll keep you quiet."
George and Albert stand back from the helplessly struggling young woman. George and Albert are not father and son. George works for Albert at the store, but they are not really employee and employer either. George had started working for Albert a year ago, and Albert let him because he didn't have to pay him. George worked for ho hos and hamburgers, and mainly to get out of his house, where his father, when he was around, abused him. Eventually he just stayed at the store, and his parents didn't seem to miss him. There is another benefit. George's mother, when she wasn't drunk, had objected to his bondage porn collection. She said it was sick. Albert didn't. He had a collection of his own.
"Uh, Albert," George asks, "What's the Sheriff going to say?"
"If what she says is right, there won't be a Sheriff. Anyway, she pulled down on me, she deserves what she's getting."
"You believe her?"
Albert shrugs.
"Haven't I always said something like this had to happen? I always thought it was going to be terrorists or liberals. 'Course, maybe this meteor crap is just a cover story. Anyway, we're ready, so bring it on, is what I say."