After Point Break

I was down in the basement
wrestling
with the word and
getting my ass kicked
when
I heard loud,
booming laughter
coming from upstairs.

Sometimes,
genius spills forth like a
geyser and
there’s nothing I can do
to stop it.

Other times it
has to be teased
like a limp dick, and
I need peace and quiet.

This night was a
limp dick.

I went up to
see what the hell and
found my wife on the living room couch
watching
Point Break on HBO.
She was contorted with hysterics.

“What the shit?” I said. “What’s so
funny?”

“This movie,” she guffawed. “Are these really . . .

the best takes . . .

they could get?”

I hadn’t seen Point Break in
years, but
it was one of my favorites growing up.
It existed in my memory as a great
action movie,
featuring badass surfing outlaws
who robbed banks disguised in
rubber
ex-president masks, and
the cool FBI agent who
goes undercover to
apprehend them.
I remembered it as a subversive
and
morally ambiguous film about
meeting one’s dark side,
filled with dramatic, adrenaline-
pumping chase scenes,
rock star cameos,
shootouts,
skydiving,
and,
of course,
nudity.

It had everything to appeal to a
teenage me.
I’d seen it many times.

I didn’t remember it being
very funny.

Looking at the TV, I
saw it was at the part where
Gary Busey gets shot at the airport.
Keanu Reeves,
looking handsomely
anguished,
screams, “No! No!”
then runs over and,
awkwardly using his entire
palm,
checks for a pulse that
isn’t there
by slapping his
dead partner’s neck.

Seeing this, my wife fell into another
peal of laughter.

“Jeez! Keep it down,” I said, “you’re
gonna wake the kids.”

Alan ten-Hoeve lives in the woods. His writing has appeared in The Daily Drunk, 433 Magazine, (Mac)ro(Mic), and Versification. His music with The Multi-Purpose Solution can be found on Mint 400 Records. Twitter him @alantenhoeve