Friday, January 10, 2014

The Movie That Nearly Ended A Marriage

Megan and Jason and I had dinner together last night and the topic of documentaries came up. I was going on and on about Walk Away Renee. A very depressing story of mental illness that I, of course, loved. Both Megan and Jason had horrified faces as I described the main plot. Woman gets shock treatments as a girl and is never the same. Son moves her all over the country to try and find the right facility to help her. It’s the feel bad movie of the year.
Anyway, I loved it.

This conversation lead to the story of “the day Jason was the maddest at me in our entire relationship”.

I had just found out I had to start chemo in a few weeks. I was still healing from surgery. Things were tough to say the least. All I really felt like doing was distracting myself with movies and Jason would patiently let me pick them and watch them with me. I was already sort of on thin ice for picking Up as a Sunday afternoon pick me up film. I was a hysterical sobbing mess about 30 seconds into it and it only got worse. Jason wasn’t much better. After it was over he just looked at me and said “JEEEZE CRESCENT!”

A week or so later I decided maybe documentaries would be better. We watched a couple that were just okay. Then I rented Dear Zachary and was nearly divorced by the end of it. Having been burned in the heart by Up, Jason sat me down and looked me in the eyes and said “before I agree to watch it….what is it about?”

“Well this guy gets murdered and his best friend tries to make a movie to show his still alive son what his dad was like. It’s supposed to be really sweet.”

“Hmmm ok I guess.”

If you haven’t seen it never do. NEVER! It’s not sweet. It’s the most depressing movie of all time.

Jason was already prickly about the murder part. He was angry that this crazy woman was still free and had obviously killed her husband. Then out of nowhere the woman kills the child. I know. I had no idea that happened AND refused to believe it. Jason slowly turned to me with rage in his eyes. “Are you kidding me?!” I said “wait…no. That can’t be what happens. I think it’s a twist.”

It wasn’t a twist. Jason was furious with me. It was hilarious. I felt like I had cheated on a math test and gotten caught, or stolen some lipstick from Walgreen’s or given my little sister that I don’t have a black eye from horsin’ around.

“WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?! WHY WOULD ANYONE WANT TO WATCH THIS AND WE ARE ALREADY DEPRESSED ENOUGH HERE! WHY WOULD I OR YOU NEED TO SEE THIS! Honestly Crescent…. I’m just really mad and disappointed.” I think we watched the end just for completion sake but he iced me out the rest of the day.

It still makes me laugh so hard to remember even though it was so not funny at the time. It was like poor J was just hanging on for dear life. Wife has cancer, she can’t have kids, starting chemo, just had surgery… but he always kept it together for me the best he could. He’d cook dinner. He’d drive me to appts. He’d let me cry so hard I sounded like a new born baby. He was amazing. Still is. But every man has his limit and Dear Zachary was Jason’s. Seeing something so horrifying and sad just lifted the lid off of his blazing hot hatred of anyone being treated unjustly. It’s one of my favorite things about him even though I have seen it break his heart a million times, the world being what it is.

Thankfully we did NOT get divorced that day. In fact I think that was right around the time I rented Old School and showed it to him for the first time as a peace offering. He laughed harder than I’d seen him laugh in years at that stupid movie. We spent the rest of cancer watching Anchorman, Step Brothers, Old School (basically three times a week) and every other 7th grade humor film we could find. We’d had our fill of real life and real injustice. It was time to usher in the era of fart jokes, prat falls and bits about darts in necks…and we’ve never looked back.