Inferno Blues...

This was a film script I wrote many years ago...just after I left the police force.  It got a bit of attention...Film Financing Script development money, the script went from Bryan Brown to Russell Crowe to...all over the joint.  And then...it just died.   

It was basically about my experiences at a pretty tough station in inner city Melbourne.   Some of these bastards were so ugly...I thought I was in Hell.   Which was interesting...wandering into a hellish place like that full to the brim with rape, ultra-violence and corruption...

& this was just the cops.   

Funny also...it felt familiar.  It felt just like home.    

So...I wrote about it.   

I guess you could describe it as 'Training Day' meets the 'Exorcist'.   Or at least, that's how I see it.  For some reason, I've been thinking about this script a lot lately.  I have written many like it...but this one, for some reason, has been nagging at me.   

I keep seeing George Clooney as Cain; he'd be about the right age.   I can't get it out of my head.   & now I revisit it...I can't get something else out of my head.  In the script, there is an evil Sergeant Cain.  He is basically the devil.  The narrative is an attempt to convey that confusion that comes when you- through no fault of your own- find yourself in hell, and have no idea how to get out.   

It shows you things about yourself.   

I never blame the Germans during the war for allowing Hitler to do what he did.   There is a little bit of that in all of us...that cowardice, that comes out when we can see we are making the wrong choice...the bad choice... & we ignore it.  I know I did; I could have made the right choice- sure, I knew I would die in the process- but one should be prepared to die doing the right things in that kind of environment.  

That's how Mr T got in.  Good people doing nothing.  

We can only surmise what Trump will do next.   Seems that wall is going ahead... that's satanic enough in itself.  & the way he feels about women, and people with disabilities, blacks and mexicans...

It's funny.  This all reminds me of my own time in hell, when I was unable to differentiate fact from fantasy.   It was like a dream.   I never know, reading the script now, whether the protagonist is in actual Hell, or only a metaphoric hell.   I thought it was a metaphor; but now?  I'm not sure.

Nor can I tell if Sgt Cain and his ilk are the metaphoric devil... or a real one.   Nor can I tell that about myself.  Frankly?  I think the devil is me.

 

When I was there, in that hellish domain, I had no idea what was real, and what was illusion.   A bad dream, I tell you.  & god was NOWHERE in sight.   I know a little more now.    You see...I posted something about Donald Trump, and  the way in which he speaks to women.   

I think I should name and shame myself, in the interests of disclosure. when I was much younger...I used to speak like Donald Trump about women.   Particularly when I was a cop.   In fact...it was de rigeur in the force.   That doesn't make it right...it makes it...a systemic reality. 

& it was not just cops who spoke in this way. I knew a detective at Russell Street who proudly worse his t-Shirt, 'I'm not racist- I hate everyone equally.'  & most cops show this.  

 

Me?  My bark was worse than my bite.  Turns out...I didn't like violence much.  But...I spoke about women, and minorities in a fairly diminutive manner; which is just as bad as acting towards such people in a diminutive manner.

 

I  think I had to make an extra special effort to overcome all this. 

Having been raped and abused as a child does funny things to your brain.   But...rather than banging on about that, I decided to explore the possibility that I might actually be able to get out from under all that shit, and be my own person.   I'm a work in progress.   I make other choices now; I hope, better choices.   If i can't tell you the truth about all this...if I am going to swagger about saying how bad other men are...then I am just as disingenuous as them.  I will have learned NOTHING. 

 

I am nothing more than a walking talking LIE MACHINE.

 

I like to think I don't do that anymore.

 

So...if I'm going to act as though I don't know this kind of behaviour...in fact, all the racist and sexist bullshit like the kind my father brainwashed me with...& the patriarchal society re-enforced...then I'm no man, and no friend to you.   I AM Sergeant Cain.  I AM the devil. 

Age gives you a kind of perspective. & I think if I am going to be what i claim to be...an honest person...then I should come clean. 

 

This type of mongrel lurks in all of us. My vote goes to the man who keeps it under confinement. When I was younger...I failed at it.

 

I think i'm doing much better now. 

 

But it's about choices; thought words and deeds. every choice...every day...in the direction of, i guess...

enlightenment. 

evolution.

 

transcendence. 

 

end of the sermon.