The ending we know:

It seemed to Eastwood the cry of the perishing world. He held her in his arms and kissed her wet, tremulous face that was strained to his.

The twilight was gone before they knew it. The sky was blue already, with crimson flakes mounting to the zenith, and the heat was growing once more intense.

“This is the end, Alice,” said Eastwood, and his voice trembled.

She looked at him, her eyes shining with an unearthly softness and brilliancy, and turned her face to the east.

There, in crimson and orange, flamed the last dawn that human eyes would ever see.

The alternate ending:

“This is the end, Alice,” said Eastwood, and his voice trembled.

However, they they did not know that hundreds of scientists had predicted that the new sun would cause the end of the world, and had spent the past few decades creating deep underground, and advanced, bunkers.

Alice and Eastwood were the last to feel the fresh air and see the light from the sun, but many survived. It has been one-hundred years since the end, and it feels as though nothing is missing. Everyone may be underground, but they have farms, houses, even pools.

The bunkers have dramatically improved from when they were first created, and it seems as if they go deeper each time they are expanded to escape the heat even more so, but nobody pays much attention to that. Society was run much the same as it had been before, only now the “sun” consists of many lightbulbs that act as a sun, allowing plants to grow. There is a maximum population allowed, but the limit on children has not seem to have been a problem so far. Everyone is thankful to be one of the last humans on the planet, and nobody wants to break the new set of laws that were created with the bunkers.

The sun, moon, and sky are from another lifetime, similarly to how dinosaurs were not a reality for Alice and Eastwood. Everyone knows they existed, but has not experienced what it is like to live with them, so they are not truly missed. No human will ever step foot outside again, but not even a central sun can stop humans from surviving and thriving.

 

Ole Anderson looked at the wall and did not say anything.

“I know,” George said.
“You know? Are you going to do anything about it.” Nick said.
“One day. You can leave now,” George said to Nick sternly.

Two days later, as Nick was working in the restaurant, George came in, sat down and told everyone “Clear out.”

Five minutes later on the dot. The two men entered the room and everything came to a standstill.

“I told you not to come around here and bother my son,” George said.
“I’m your what? YOUR SON? YOU ARE MY DAD?,” screamed Nick. “Not now,” replied George.

The two men stared at the young boy and slowly started to put their hands to their waist. Everyone knew what was coming.

Nick reached under the counter and within two minutes it was all over. Everything went silent after a moment of extreme loudness. It was all over. The two men were not the killers anymore.

—

I did Write an Alternative Ending and I found this project to be difficult because it required me to think about how to re-write someone else’s work. Maybe because I don’t like Hemingway’s work (yes, I already said this and yes I already said you can judge me, go ahead) but it was really hard to 1) find a place to start my alternative ending 2) decide what direction to take it in (did I really want to have a happy ending? nahh) and 3) determine where the end should actually be. How do you decide how to end an alternative ending? It isn’t that easy. Overall, I thought this was a good project for experiencing noir and trying to write some of our own.

 

In Hemingway’s “The Killers” I was waiting for something to happen but nothing ever did. There was no ending to the story, it basically left you waiting and wondering if they were going to come back, or something going to happen to the men in the restaurant. It was very anticlimactic.

Noir-ness

This story was full of noir. There was no are in the way they spoke. They used the phrase “bright boy” a lot in reference to the workers in the restaurant. They also kept saying “What’s the idea?” and other phrases that relate to the noir dialect. The Description of their clothes an example of noir as well. Hemingway describes their dark overcoats, their hats;  even the way their faces are portrayed gives off a sense of noir. Setting is noir as well. The story begins with two mysterious men walking into the lunch-room, while it’s dark outside and a streetlamp comes on out the window.

 

Alternative Ending:

(This occurs as Nick is going to check on Ole Anderson at the Hirsch room).

Nick walk up to the Hirsch house and knocked on the door. A lady let them inside. She asked what he wanted and he said to see Ole Anderson. She took him to the room and knocked on the door. Ole Anderson answered and said to come in. As the door opened, in the past Nick rushed Max and Al. Ole Anderson rose up off the bed and socked Max square in the jaw. As Max lay unconscious on the floor, Al reach for his gun, but he was too slow. Mrs. Hirsch, who had let Nick in, pulled out her own pistol and shot Al in the back. They quickly tied up Max and told Nick he better get out of there.

Frozen in place, Nick asked what happened, and old Anderson explained how he knew they were coming. They had been after him for a while and he knew they would be there any day. He had got wind of them waiting for him at Henry’s and he knew all you had to do was wait for them to find him. Still confused, Nick asked how Mrs. Hirsch was able to shoot the man. She calmly explained that she wasn’t Mrs. Hirsch, she was Mrs. Bell who ran the house for her. Anderson had come to her asking to keep an eye out in case you saw anything suspicious. She explained that when she let him in the house, she noticed the men trying to be discreet but suspiciously standing out under the street lamp. She said that the knock on the door to Anderson was actually a knocking code they had agreed on in case something like this happened. Again, they told Nick he better get out before the cops come.

Nick, still a little fuzzy, headed back to Henry’s to share the details with George and Sam. Neither of them and could believe the story that Nick told.

After reading The Shadow, The Postman Always Rings Twice, and The Killers there are some common themes that I have noticed. Everything and I mean EVERYTHING is over dramatized to a point where it almost seems unrealistic (even for being a fictional work). The way the authors write some of these scenes makes it sound so unbelievable that I almost lose interest because I can no longer keep the story straight in my head or am able to relate in the slightest. It’s like when you watch really cheesy movie, you think it’s funny until a certain point. Then it becomes so obscure that you start to find something that is meant to be ridiculous almost unbearable. For example: 

The best way to describe my reaction to The Postman Always Rings Twice was me sitting there legitimately saying out loud “WHAT THE HELL?!” about every ten minutes.

Me in gif form:

I have so many questions….

1. Does Cora have a BDSM fetish or something?
2. Who, in their right mind, actually sits there and thinks, “lets kill my husband, instead of just running away together.”???
3. This new girl in the end, Madge Allen, just casually lets some STRANGE MAN package up her prized felines and drive them off into the night? No questions asked? Just like that? Ok then.
4. Could the author not have led into the sex scenes a little more gently or smoothly?! They are casually talking, yeah there is some sexual tension but not much, and then BAM! He’s on top of her. Like, really? You could have thrown in a couple more scenes where they were exploring this sexual tension before having them spontaneously pounce on top one another?
5. How did the husband not notice the huge bite marks on his own wife’s lips?
6. Frank: “Cora, I was sitting here thinking of ways I could kill you, but now that you said you’re pregnant with my child I love you so much. Give me kisses! And to hell with it, lets get married too.”….what. in. the. actual. world?
   1. Why does Cora not take offense that her own lover wants to kill her?
   2. Why does she ignore this fact as soon as he suggests marriage?
      1. Cora: “Hey, I know you just said you wanted to kill me, but you suggested that we get married and that’s super romantic so I’m going to forget all talk of murder.”

 

Another example:

Some things I could just not get past in The Killers:

1. So there are two maniacs on the loose looking for Ole Andreson. Nick and Sam get tied up by these hired hitmen, are told of their plan to kill the boxer. Are left alive after the hitmen leave. And their first reaction is to NOT call the cops? Ok.
2. Why does Ole Andreson take the news of his wanted head so casually?
3. Ole Andreson – “Two maniacs are out on the loose searching for me. Better make up my mind whether I want to go for a stroll tonight or not.” (instert “wut” gif here)
4. Nick, Ole Andreson refuses to listen to you about the headhunters, so you are just casually going to give up after five minutes of talking with him and be on your merry way…that’s cool.

 

So what I am trying to get at is that these noir script, radio shows, etc. all have the similarity of having outlandish occurrences. Perhaps that’s what it took back then (in the mid 1900s) to keep the audiences entertained. Maybe I am looking at this all wrong because I am viewing these works with a millennial type lens. Maybe everything was more dramatized back then.

 

THIS CALLS FOR A RE-WRITE: 

I think if I had to re-write an ending for one of our readings this week it would be for THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE. Just because that was the story I was most engrossed and simultaneously disappointed with. How I would have ended it was as soon as Cora got back into town and learned of Franks infidelities, I would want for her to get outraged. Frank of course would calm her down how he always does…by shoving alcohol down her throat and carrying out her sadist fantasies. Then after Cora was properly subdued, they would lie in bed and joke about how stupid they were to each other. How they both love each other so much that they are going to do what they always do after a night of good sex, which is forgive all their sins towards each other. Then Frank would wake up in the morning to the sound of the car starting out front. He would sit up violently in bed to discover Cora was no longer in it. Racing towards the window he would see the truck pull out onto the main road with Cora behind the wheel. He would know exactly what was happening. Cora was going to pin him for the murder! The story would end with both of them going to jail, after each confesses and blames the other. Cora of course gets out of jail much sooner than Frank, because she is a mere woman who did not realize the consequences of her behavior. And after she arrives back home, she drains all the money out of the bank and runs away to Brazil (why the hell not?!). Where she gives birth to their child and meets a big strong man named Paulo who takes care of her the rest of her life. Meanwhile Frank rots in prison. The End.

 

Outside the arc-light shone through the bare branches of a tree. Nick walked up the street beside the car-tracks and turned at the next arc-light down a side street. Three houses up the street was Hirsch’s rooming-house. Nick walked up the two steps and pushed the bell. A woman came to the door.

“Is Ole Andreson here?”

“Do you want to see him?”

“Yes, if he’s in.”

 

 

 

The woman showed Nick in the door and pointed to a staircase leading upstairs.

“Mr. Andreson lives in the last room on the right.”

Nick walked up the flight of stairs, down the corridor and knocked on the door.

“Ole? It’s Nick Adams.”

“Come on in.”

Nick opened the door and found Ole Andreson laying on his bed.

“I came here to tell you that two men were just down at Henry’s looking for you. They tied up me and the cook and they said they were there to kill you.”

Nick could see by his face that Ole Andreson wasn’t surprised by this news.

“I figured they’d be here soon enough.”

Ole Andreson sat up on the bed. He didn’t seem to be in any hurry.

“Don’t you think you should be leaving?” Nick asked.

Before Andreson could respond, the door opened behind Nick. He turned around to see Al and Max walking into the room.

“Good to see you again. See Max, didn’t I tell you my bright boy was gonna take us here?” said Al.

“Sure did, Al. He’s done us a real big favor. Helped us find Ole Andreson here.”

Al pulled the shotgun he’d been carrying out of the waist of his coat and pointed it at Ole Andreson. Nick turned away just before the shot went off. He turned back to see Ole Andreson laying down the way he’d found him, only with a hole in his chest.

“Thanks for your help,” said Al. “It’s a real shame we’ve got to do you to, being as you’ve made our job so much easier, but we can’t have you telling anyone anything.”

Al leveled the shotgun at Nick’s chest and pulled the trigger.

 

A man walked into Henry’s lunch-room the next day. He sat at the counter and looked at the menu before ordering ham and eggs.

“You hear about the shooting up at Hirsch’s rooming-house?” he asked the man behind the counter.

“Heard about it,” replied George. “Don’t know much about it.”

He walked back into the kitchen.

 

 

 

 

 

While I was reading about noir, one of the works I studied was TheWild Party by Joseph Moncure March. I really enjoyed this piece, but was a bit unsatisfied with the ending. The two romantic interests of the main character get into a fight, with one dying and the other ending up in prison. This seemed quite abrupt and stereotypical to me. This assignment ended up being perfect.

I rewrote the ending of the story. My ending starts on page 102, right when Burr is waking up from his drunken stupor.

 

 

[Burr] writhed out to the edge of the bed

And sat there hunched; Clutching his head.

He soon laid back down,

Sleeping as heavily as if he were dead.

 

Though the flat was silent, one pair still stirred,

Their bodies pressed together, not thinking of Burr.

Their minds were clear though their speech was slurred,

To sleep would be utterly absurd.

 

Queenie and Black

Chest to chest, hands on back

Passionately kissing in the pitch black.

Soon from Queenie’s lips came the warning,

“You’ll have to leave soon. It’s almost morning.”

Black was confounded.

“Why must I take leave?

If I should part now I’ll do nothing but grieve.

Come with me, my Queen,

Run away from this scene,

I’ll take you to Rome and Paris and between.”

 

She smiled softly, a tear painting her cheek.

“Please Black, don’t speak

Of such a thing; you won’t remember

My name by the end of the week.”

 

But he insisted;

He’d never seen his advances go resisted.

Finally he gave up.

“Queenie, you’re twisted.”

 

“Exactly, my boy,” she said with a sigh.

You won’t find a girl more twisted than I.

I live for the rush and the life of the city,

And I won’t be your bride, no matter how pretty

The offer, or how much pity

You hold for me.

I hope you see.”

Black was angry.

 

“You’ll surely regret

This rash decision when you’re neck-deep in debt,

And when your miserable pet

Of a roommate settles down

With someone much more attractive

to such an ugly clown.”

 

He stormed out of the room, necktie in hand,

Leaving Queenie to stand

Looking out at the baby grand,

Where the guests slept soundly

And the silence echoed profoundly.

“We’re gonna ask you some questions now, H.W, ok?” says an older, hefty police officer, breathing heavily with overwrought concern.

H.W Plainview was pulled away from his family by two officers at the train station for reasons he couldn’t hear. Still furious at his father, he couldn’t imagine any other force in the world that would bring him here. He had been so close to getting away for good.

Bastard in a basket, he thought.

The words had reverberated through his head since storming away from his father’s house. He had told the grizzled drunkard with the oily-black soul that he was glad he had none of him in his blood. He thought this, knew this. But he didn’t feel it. For he was too an oil man. But a good oil man. Right?

That makes you my competitor

H.W had to leave, to finally begin a new life with Mary away from his father, away from the rock-strewn, barren Californian oil plains. No bread. Not for the average people, anyway. Just potatoes. The terrain can’t support the grain. Of course, H.W was never poor; but when he was a boy, he wanted to be.

 

“Uh, H.W? You there, friend?”

H.W stares blankly at the hefty officer from across a large, thick wooden table underneath a hanging lamp that glares in his eyes. He could see another tall, lanky officer in conversation through a window on the door to the room. The officer across from him had been motioning at him with his mouth and hands for a minute or two, but he was too tired and upset to try to explain why he couldn’t answer.

The lanky officer glances away from his conversation for a beat, looks through the window, and immediately opens the door and leans halfway in.

“Hey hold up a sec, Tom. We’re still waitin’ on the signer.”

“The what, now?”

The lanky officer nervously glances at H.W and then back at Tom, who’s looking around and squinting in confusion.

Hesitantly, under his breathe, he mutters “The man’s deaf, sir, I… thought I told you.”

“Then why the fuck’re you whisperin’ to me?”

At just that moment, a stocky, roundish man with a brown suit and square glasses pushes past the officer and bursts through the doorway.

“H.W, my God,” says the man, flicking his fingers quickly in his direction

Turning to Tom, “My name is George Callis, I’m H.W’s therapist and translator. Just what in the hell are we doing here?”

“Let me get this straight,” Tom says with dry confusion, “I talk to you,” pointing at George, “and you-ah, I see.”

“Well at least you’re the one who has to tell him, then.”

“Tell him what, exactly?” says George, concerned.

H.W, growing agitated and confused at the empty speech around him, blurts in an off-tongue “Whas gong on!?” resoundingly pounding his fist against the table. He only spoke when necessary, aware of the oddity of his voice.

All three men look over at H.W, his eyes nervously twitching and scanning back and forth between them.

Tom sighs and uneasily looks at the papers in front of him on the table.

“Ya ready to be the bearer of the bad news, Georgie?”

George solemnly nods in return.

“Look, H.W, we ran ya down on your way outta town because we got some bad news and we need your help.”

George flicks signs at H.W, who watches intently with concern.

He finishes signing and H.W immediately signs back. George quickly shakes his head and continues exchanging signs.

“Hey, Hey- what’re you two saying there?” Tom chimes in.

“He asked if you had taken Mary to the station,” said George, turning back to sign H.W.

Glancing back momentarily, “Mary’s his wife.”

“That’s…Mary Sunday is it?”

George, still communicating with H.W, turns back, “What? Yes, Yes. Mary Sunday.”

Christ, Tom thinks to himself, shaking his head a bit.

George and H.W continue to sign intently while Tom sits, staring idly into the distance, incessantly tapping his shoe against the leg of the table next to him.

Tension boils in Tom’s stomach as he watches the silent fingers flick about the room, dancing in impossible conversation. The ceiling lamp sways back and forth in off-patterns, creaking slightly at each pendulum-like sway through the middle of the table.

“Alright, damn it, I’m just gonna go ahead and say it, Georgie, so get your damn magic hands ready to woof these words to our poor friend here.”

Both George and H.W abandon their talk and look up at Tom.

“H.W, your father, Daniel Plainview, murdered a priest, Eli Sunday, in his home this mornin’ after you left. His butler found the bloody scene and called the police. Once Daniel learned this he killed the butler too. We found him bloodied and pissed drunk in his bowling alley.”

George’s eyes widen as he stares back at Tom.

H.W looks around the room in confusion and starts tapping George on the shoulder to get his attention. For a beat, George pretended not to notice.

“Well, George? I got more to say, so you wanna drop this first bomb or not?”

H.W confusedly darts his attention between the two men.

“Goege!”

George finally drags his eyes over to H.W and begins slowly, methodically signing him the news.

H.W’s face immediately goes pale and rigid, clenching every muscle in his body.

A monster. A devil. How could he do this? How could my father kill a priest? A friend? Why? Oh Mary…

“So did he get all that?” asks Tom

George studies H.W’s blank, pale expression, squinting his brow, analyzing his reaction.

“Yes, I believe he did.”

“How?” chimed H.W. The words blurt from his mouth, almost out of his control.

“Uh, how what, son?”

Keeping a blank face and without turning to George, he errantly offers a clarifying message with a flick of his hands.

George twitches his head to the side upon interpreting the message, squinting in concerned confusion. Without breaking his stare at the wall, H.W slowly closed his eyes and nodded his head, confirming.

“Umm,” George’s voice quivered with hesitancy. “How did Daniel do it?”

“What, now? That’s your first question?” Tom scoffed, shaking his head at George.

“It’s not my question, officer.”

Tom takes a deep breath and exhales, his body creaking like weary, old gears.

“Well, fine, I spose’, but it ain’t pretty.”

“Just tell me so we can move on.”

“Fair enough. I’ll just say it, and you’ll know I ain’t lyin’.”

He breathes through his nose a couple of times, looking about the room, preparing himself.

“He used a damn bowlin’ pin.”

“What?”

“We found him passed out in his bowlin’ alley surrounded by two bodies and empty liquor bottles. This was in his hand.”

Tom reaches under the table and pulls up a clear bag soaked in blood from the inside. Sure enough, sloshing within is a once-pearly white bowling pin, tattered not just with blood, but dark chunks of flesh.

“Jesus!” says George, turning away. “How is that even…possible?”

H.W’s expression doesn’t shift a beat as he stares at the bag, shaking his head. No sign needed to explain this.

The work of a madman. The work of my father. He doesn’t deserve to breathe.

“Alright, well believe it or not, we got bigger things to do here than to stare at bloody pins” replied Tom, attempting to steer the conversation.

Silence. Still in shock at the impossible murder weapon.

Waiting a beat, Tom starts to lose his patience.

“Alright, fuck the pin, boys. George, I need H.W to speak to Daniel. He was the last person to see him before the murders. Daniel’s barely said a word to us since he’s started to sober up. A man of his wealth and importance to the town, the state…we gotta know a motive. We gotta get something out of him.”

“I don’t know if-”

“Just ask him, Georgie.”

H.W had kept his eyes gazed on the dark, red bowling pin. It had dents on its base. Glossed wood against skin and bone. The wood wins in his father’s hands.

I should’ve ended him. Long ago. If only I’d known he wasn’t my own. In his stupid, drunken sleep, I could have killed off the fiend. It should be his blood on this pin, his cracked flesh and bone.

George repeatedly taps H.W on the shoulder, trying to break his trance.

“H.W, come on, look at me.”

“He’s deaf, ya know,” barks Tom, chuckling to himself.

H.W finally breaks his hellish gaze and turns towards George, who immediately signs to him.

Without hesitation, H.W responds “Yes,” nodding with a darkness in his eyes.

“Alone.”

 

 

The men had left H.W alone in the room with a pad of paper and a pen, the bloodied bowling pin hidden under the table next to him. A knock on the door, and it swings open. In walks Daniel Plainview looking like hell, cuffed, still stinking of booze in his bloody, grey cardigan. Without making eye contact, he nudges the door shut behind him then slowly saunters over to the seat across from H.W, plopping down with an airy grunt. He looks across the table and sees the pad of paper, still avoiding H.W’s eyes.

“Heh. I was curious what we would do without your dog here to bark for you,” finally looking up at H.W as he finishes the sentence. His voice sounds hoarse and dry.

H.W scribbles on the pad and slides it across the table.

“Well, let’s see what you have to say there, son,” heckles Daniel.

Is this yours?

As Daniel reads, H.W opens the bag next to him, pulls out the bloodied bowling pin and sets it on the table with an emphatic thump.

Daniel looks at the pin, expressionless, and then back at H.W, studying his dark, hollow-looking eyes.

“I’ve never seen you so calm around me, boy.”

H.W glares into the eyes of the paternal monster; eyes for so long he believed he shared.

I thank God I have none of you in me.

But was it true? Or something he wished for, convinced himself of?

 

H.W, eyes trained on Daniel, grabs the pin and quickly stands up, clenching it tightly in his right hand, causing the still-fresh blood to drip down his wrist.

Daniel’s face hardens, lowering his gaze like a preying wolf.

An oily, grizzled exhale;

“Do it, boy.”