Dennis Hollingsworth

"I'll be damned."

I just received Bradbury's book, Green Shadows, White Whale, about the writing of the screenplay for John Huston's rendition of Melville's Moby-Dick. It's also about his encounter with Ireland and the Irish, John Huston's home base while he was shooting the movie, written as if he were Ishmael himself. This is chapter 8 in its entirety and early in the story where Huston, like Ahab, seals a kind of supernatural pact with a key member of his crew, his lead harpooneer, the young lad Raymond:

"You know anything about hypnotism, kid?"

"Some," I said.

"Ever been hypnotized?"

"Once," I said.

We were sitting by the fire after midnight with a bottle of Scotch now half empty between us. I hated Scotch, but since John relished it, I drank.

"Well, you haven't been in the hands of a real pro," said John, languidly sipping at his drink.

"Which means you," I said.

John nodded. "That's it. I'm the best. You want to go under, son? I'll put you there."

"I had my teeth filled that one time, my dentist, a hypnodentist, he-"

"To hell with your teeth, H.G," H.G. was for H.G. Wells, the author of Things to come, The Time Machine, and The Invisible Man. "It's not what comes out in teeth, it's what goes in your head. Swallow your drink and give me your paw."

I swallowed my drink and held out my hands. John grabbed them.

"Okay, H.G., shut your eyes and relax, total relaxation, easy does it, easy, nice and soft and slow and easy," he murmured, as my eyes shut and my head lolled. He kept speaking and I kept listening, nodding my head gently and he talked on, holding my hands and breathing his mellow Scotch in my face and I felt my bones go loose in my flesh and my flesh lounge out under my skin and it was easy and nice and sleepy an at last John said: "Are you under, kid?"

"Way under, John," I whispered.

"That's the way. Good. Fine. Now listen here, H.G., while you're there and relaxed, is there any one message you want to tell me so I can tell yourself? Give instructions, as it were, for self-improvement or behavior tomorrow? Spit it out. Tell me. And I'll instruct you. But easy does it. Well, . . . ?"

I thought. My head swayed. My eyelids were heavy.

"Just one thing," I said.

"And what's that, kid?"

"Tell me-"

"Yes?"

"Instruct me to-"

"What, kid?"

"Write the greatest, most wonderful, finest screenplay in the history of the world."

"I'll be damned."

"Tell me, John, and I'll be happy. . . ," I said, asleep, deep under, waiting.

"Well," said John. He leaned close. his breath was like an aftershave on my cheeks and chin. "Here's what you do, kid."

"Yes?" I said.

"Write the damnedest, finest, most wonderful screenplay ever to be written or seen."

"I will, John." I said.

(Image: The Cheonan. ROKS Cheonan (PCC-772), that is.)