[joe-frank-list] 'Night', part 1

[rbell at alumni.caltech.edu]

	Joe describes Jacuzzis.
	1:00: Kevin cleans and maintains pools with Dave, the boss,
who listens to weather radio and surf reports while Kevin works.
	1:50: They clean the pool of a mansion that belongs to a
'young married couple who lived there were senior staff members of
Beth El, a popular new religious movement.'  (In 'Night, remix', it's
2 men who 'seemed effeminate'; Beth El isn't mentioned.)
	3:40: Joe says that cataclysm isn't remote, describes the
danger of earthquakes, fires, floods, storms from the sea.
	5:00: Joe tells of the aftermath of the flooding of Marble
Creek.  (Malibu Creek fits the description; there is no Marble Creek
there.)
	5:50: Joe tells of burglaries in the neighborhood, that they
seem to be done by neighbors, possibly because people were living
beyond their means.
	7:20: Kevin sees the police chase down a Jaguar XKE, shoot the
driver a dozen times: 'the driver was riddled with so many bullets,
there wasn't much of him left.'
	9:00: Kevin drives a Toyota Landcruiser with a rollbar.  He's
a fast driver, has driven drunk and stoned.  He has an angry encounter
with a driver in a Capri, who cuts him off.  He has another with a
fellow whose car he pushes down the freeway: 'Kevin threw his truck
into low, came up against the bumper of the car ahead, and pushed him
200 yards at 70 miles an hour.' (Can't go 70 in low.)  The fellow
turns out to be a Marine; the cop who arrives recognizes him as his
former Scoutmaster.
	12:40: 'A month later, he was working with the Marine at the
Marble Inn' (the Malibu Inn - goes with Marble/Malibu Creek; Aviator
Nation has bought the space and revived the club as 'Dreamland':
http://www.AviatorNationDreamland.com - note the Dreamland
coincidence) on the weekends.
	14:10: Saturday morning Kevin grinds the meat for burgers
('cut up a 25 pound hunk of beef put the chunks into an electric meat
grinder and stacked the ground meat in half pound balls' - only 50
burgers?) , prepares the other ingredients.  He plays darts in the
back for money after hours.  He snorts cocaine when it shows up.  One
night a man is shot in the parking lot.  Kevin encounters the man who
shot him, drives him off.  The guy drops his gun while running away.
Kevin picks it up, notes that a gun not registered or connected to him
could be useful some day.  (Apparently Anton Chekhov dropped it.)
	18:30: Kevin fantasizes about being a 'roving criminal,
traveling across the country, robbing and killing.', or 'a
professional assassin or a mercenary pilot running drugs from Central
America.', or a righteous president.
	22:30 'Two years before, he'd lost control of his life, and
had lived on the streets.', ended up at a mission in Seattle after a
freezing night out.
	23:50: One night the Inn catches on fire from the fat in the
burger meat, burns to the ground.
	24:20: Kevin's father, a pilot with Pacific Airlines
(fictional - the airline of this name is Vietnamese, started in 1991),
gets him a job as a line technician at the airport.  Kevin likes the
job, the action that happens, including the C-5 and SR-71.  (I think
this is a mistake: the SR-71 flies out of Wright-Patterson AFB in
Dayton; I don't think the runway at Burbank is long enough for it, and
the security certainly isn't high enough.  Lockheed built it and
they're based in Burbank, and used to operate the airport, but that's
all coincidental.  A C-5 could land and take off on Burbank's longest
runway, but I don't know why it would.  The cities of Burbank,
Glendale, and Pasadena own the airport.  It's mostly commercial
traffic.  The private traffic Joe describes sounds like Van Nuys
airport, but it's even less likely to have military planes.  It would
have that little Beechcraft Joe says NASA has there.  I think Joe
conflated the 2 for dramatic purposes.)
	29:00: Kevin crashes the airport's station wagon, keeps his
job anyway.
	31:00: Kevin explores a DC-3 owned by Beth El, with luxurious
appointments, including a waterbed; it has a collection of porn
videos.
	32:30: A nearby strip club, the Fabian, has a pictures night,
popular with horny old men.  Kevin attends, but doesn't take pictures.
The club also has peep shows.
	34:30: Joe describes a brothel, the Circus of Love, on La
Cienega.  Kevin gets a sauna and a massage, passes on the sex.  He
sees the same woman week after week; eventually, they talk.  Her name
is Donna.
	35:30: Donna was born in Springfield, Ohio.  She was a sickly
child.  Her father owned a bookstore.  Her sister was 9 years older.
Her father is cruel.  Racing down a hill on the back of a bicycle, her
sister tells her to stick her foot in the wheel; she does, breaks it;
her father does nothing for her.  The man who lent her father the
money to open the bookstore takes Donna to a physician.  (Joe mentions
the Maryland Hotel in Chicago on Rush Street, which is real.)
	She gets pregnant, marries Jim.  Jim beats her late in the
pregnancy, damaging the baby, which dies after a few weeks.  She
divorces Jim, works at a mobile home manufacturer.  She takes a job
emceeing a drag show.  She learns how to be a woman from them.  Her
boss at the manufacturer attacks her on a business trip; she files a
complaint, but they do nothing, so she quits and takes a job at a TV
factory.
	Donna's father passes out while driving; the accident kills
her mother.
	46:10: A famous stripper, Pearl, comes to the club, takes a
shine to Donna, hires her as her assistant.  Their first gig is at the
Silver Slipper in Washington.  ('Bawdy Silver Slipper Slips Into
History -- and Folklore'
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1981/06/29/bawdy-silver-slipper-slips-into-history-and-folklore/e496ac90-50b8-4ad2-a1bf-bedddb75a426/)
They become lovers.  The next club is lacking one of its dancers, so
Donna fills in.  The crowd boos her for her small breasts; she sasses
them back, which impresses the owner.  A group of old men form a fan
club for her.
	50: Pearl gives Donna a silicone treatment to enlarge her
breasts for her birthday.  A few years later they go bad; it turns out
that it's industrial silicone; she gets a mastectomy.  She leaves
Pearl, creates a fresh act.  Porn films drive down the prices
strippers can get; the clubs are dirty and roach-filled.
	53:10: A guy gets shot next to her at the bar she's working.
The bartender drags the body behind the bar, tells the cops he knows
nothing, then throws the body in the alley after they leave.
	54:00: The old strippers' circuit having been replaced by porn
films, Donna has to produce her own shows, provide her own music, hire
muscle to let the owners know she means business, lives out of her
car.

	http://jfwiki.org/index.php?title=Night_(Part_1)

russell bell