Kent Russell - In the Land of Good Living: A Journey to the Heart of Florida

FADE IN:

Three friendsGLENN, NOAH, and KENTwalk a SHOPPING CART loaded with hiking packs and film gear along the shoulder of a beachside highway. Occasionally, one or another steals a glance at the backward-facing CAMERA mounted atop their cart.

Trudging rightmost in its wide shot is GLENN, a blond, blue-eyed, dad-bodied man in his early thirties. Were it not a contradiction in terms, UNAPOLOGETICALLY CANADIAN is a phrase one might use to describe him. The puzzled smile permafrosted across Glenns face shows him to be too alive to nuance and contradiction to be American. He often fusses with the cameras framing, as he is the only one with experience in documentary film.

Pushing the cart next to Glenn is NOAH, a short, scowling IRAQ WAR VETERAN. Noahs formerly bulging muscles are swaddled with a layer of fat, as if the action figure of his past life has been packed away under Bubble Wrap. He would be more intimidating if the tattoos sleeving his limbs were related to anything other than DUNGEONS & DRAGONS. Written in two rows across the knuckles gripping the handlebar is the phrase I CRY OUT / FOR MAGIC.

Limping closest to the westbound lane is KENT, a PAUNCHY NEBBISH and the youngest of the three. Because he once contributed essays and reviews to magazines, Kent considers himself something of an ARTISTE and/or INTELLECTUAL. He grew a long and flowing mullet in anticipation of this return to his home state.

GLENN

(adjusting camera)

Okay, so. We open on us walking like this, only were arguing over what the tagline of the doc should be.

NOAH

Dudes, wheres our car.

KENT

We could riff on a real one. States tagline.

KENT (CONTD)

(scrolling through smartphone browser)

Weve got: The Sunshine State, obviously. The Orange State. The Peninsula State.

Inches away, an eighteen-wheeler barrels past the men, SHATTERING the stillness of the sun-dazed landscape beyond their shoulders. They dont flinch, but the lovebugs hovering about their faces scatter with the displaced air.

GLENN

We have to consider tone. What is the tone we wish to convey?

KENT

Elegiac. We want this to be the states swan song. The last, most comprehensive postcards from Florida as we know her. Before she takes the waters.

GLENN

What about a riff on that sign from Waffle House? You had a choice, and you chose us.

NOAH

Every buddy movie should begin at the Waffle House.

GLENN

Only its Florida: You had a choice, and you chose this.

KENT

Florida: Would we lie to you?

NOAH

Florida: Where America goes to die.

The friends fall silent for a few dozen paces. They pass tacky condos and T-shirt shops. The lovebugs return.

GLENN

What a saltwater-taffy shithole this is.

NOAH

(pensive)

What we should dois draw an n at the end of that Ramada sign. At the end of every Ramada sign we pass. And then film what happens.

KENT

Florida: If it werent true, wed have to invent it.

NOAH

Then wed get to the real-real about this place.

GLENN

(lifting camera from cart)

Hold up. Say that again?

NOAH

This has already gotten old, my dude.

GLENN (O.S.)

So, okay, Ill film you two

NOAH

Fuck outta here with that. We need to stop and eat first.

KENT

Then well come back and set it up. Yelp says that that auto shop over theres got good Mexican in the back.

GLENN (O.S.)

(resignedly)

Our heroes steel themselves with four-pound plates of chimichangas. Just like in the other grand adventure narratives.

FADE OUT

Weve been lying hereon drainage swales, mostly, but also in the beds of pickup trucksfor nigh on four hours now. Well be lying here when Ocean Drive is returned to its namesake, feels like.

Noah and I have grown stiff as marks in this mini-mall parking lot, where were waiting for Glenn to conclude his business with the Geek Squad. It appears as though Glenns laptop broiled inside his pack yesterday while we walked the seventeen miles from Wynnehaven Beach to the resort town of Destin. Or maybe these seventeen miles were the last straw, who knows. Weve walked (and filmed) seventy-three sweltering miles during this first week of our journey.

If Glenns computer is toast, we are well and truly boned. Lose that hard drive, and we lose what weve shot, sure. But we lose future footage, too, because what are we going to process it on? We have not the wiggle room in our budget for a new MacBook.

So to calm my nerves, I jot this while huddling in the shade of a decorative sapling. Im a freelance writer in my civilian life. This means, firstly, that I am a failure in the practice of ordinary existence. Secondly, it means that I get by on my wits. I make my living inside of language. What I cant control out there, I refashion in here.

But writings not writing unless its got a figure of address. An other, real or imagined, at the opposite end of the bargain.