Monday, October 13, 2008

On Being Wrongly-Convicted, Shawshank, Santa Barbara

"So, what would your last meal be?" I ask, creepily. "Let's say you're on death row, and you've to send in your final food request. What would it be?" I clarify, more creepily.

"Oh, I don't know -- my tastes have changed so much over the years. You know? Like when I was a kid, it would've been ..." he responds, thoughtfully, as we shovel Santa Barbaran Mexican food into our fat faces. "Yours?"

"Pancakes, with scrambled eggs. And I'd want to eat as much as I could before I felt it all sink in to feel full and terrible. Then they could flip the switch," I respond, seamlessly. Yikes.

[Blink, blink]

"Hmm. Well, the real question is, Why did you end up on death row, Grice??"

The mind went aflutter.

Brother Grice has been shot dead. I find the villain and retaliate, vigilante-style. No. Little Morgan's been 'napped; I've found where they're holding her hostage and I snipe the perps, SWAT-style. No, no. Mama Grice has fallen comatose. The man whose fault it is is about to pull the plug in a stealth hospital-worker move. I knife him, saving her, of course; I'm found at fault for taking matters into my own hands.

No, no, no. None of these work -- I'd plea insanity (after having secured an un-securable top attorney) and probably would be left to rot in the jailhouse for all eternity. But no death row. Sigh.

I'd have to be wrongly convicted, I fear. Like Mr. Robbins in Shawshank.

One of my favorite Morgan Freeman scenes:

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1 comment:

Paramendra Kumar Bhagat said...

Mine would be Seven, but then that might also be one of my favorite Kevin Spacey movies, one of my favorite Brad Pitt movies. It is just a good movie, a well-made good movie. Also one of those movies about which I say, if there are serial killers out there, I want to know about them. And that very weight of seven is the weight of religion, and culture and history upon a people, pervasive in all cultures. We like the ring of repetition of the big symbols in our culture(s).