Slap Shot (1977)

Northline by Willy Vlautin (P.S. 2008)

 

Well, the lady fired me after the second time so I didn’t get another job or anything for the rest of the summer. I just laid around with the A/C on in the dark and rented movies. I saw Paul Newman first in Slap Shot, and I thought he was the funniest guy I’d ever seen. Plus he was so handsome. Then I started renting all his movies. When he’s young, like in Cool Hand Luke, he’s amazing. He’s really really handsome in that. Or in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. But if you’ve ever seen Fort Apache, the Bronx, then you’d understand him. You ever seen that one?’

‘No, I don’t think so.’

‘He’s older in it and he falls in love with a nurse. She’s really beautiful, but she’s a junkie and lives in a horrible part of New York City. But she’s a good person, she’s just had a hard life. Paul Newman is a cop and he’s tough and strong, but he’s also really nice. He’s just tired and worn out ’cause being a policeman in New York City is an awful job. Anyway, there’s this scene where the nurse and him are together, and she’s really exhausted so he makes her a bath. He puts bubbles in it and shakes the water so the bubbles get extra bubbly and he sits with her while she lays in the water. It’s hard to explain, but it just kills me. As sad as it is to admit, he’s probably the greatest thing that ever happened to me.’

‘Paul Newman?’

‘Any time I get worried or my anxieties start in, I just think about Paul Newman. Sometimes it’s hard to get him here, but most of the time he shows up. Ever since that summer, it’s been like that.

Fort Apache, The Bronx (1981)