EARL's eyes bug out. He breathes hard through his nose.

MRS. WOZNIEWSKI.

Let's start with the one on the inside. What's another word for- EARL.

Ich bin der groe Verrater. [subt.i.tle: I am the great traitor.]

MRS. WOZNIEWSKI.

Hmmm.

EARL.

Die Erde uber die ich gehe sieht mich und bebt. [subt.i.tle: The earth I walk upon sees me and trembles.]

MRS. WOZNIEWSKI.

Earl, do you want to tell us what that means?

EARL.

glowering at cla.s.smates grrrrrhh MRS. WOZNIEWSKI.

Earl.

EARL.

standing up, pointing to MRS. WOZNIEWSKI, addressing cla.s.s Der Mann ist einen Kopf groer als ich. DAS KANN SICH aNDERN. [subt.i.tle: That man is a head taller than me. THAT CAN CHANGE.]

MRS. WOZNIEWSKI.

Earl, please go sit in the hall.

And then one day Dad bought a video camera and some editing software for his computer. It was to videotape his lectures or something. We didn't know the specifics; we knew only that the specifics were boring. We knew also that this technology had come into our lives for a reason: We had to re-create every single shot in Aguirre, the Wrath of G.o.d.

We figured it would take about an afternoon. Instead, it took three months, and when I say "it," I mean, "re-creating the first ten minutes and then giving up." Like Werner Herzog in the South American jungle, we faced almost unimaginable setbacks and difficulties. We kept taping over our own footage, or not hitting record, or running out of camera battery. We didn't really know how the lighting or sound was supposed to work. Some of the cast members-mostly Gretchen-proved incapable of delivering their lines properly, or staying in character, or not picking their nose. Also, we usually had a cast of just three people, or two if someone needed to hold the camera. The location we used was Frick Park, and joggers and dog walkers kept entering the shot, and then they would make things even worse by trying to start a conversation.

Q: Are you guys shooting a movie?

A: No. We're opening a mid-priced Italian restaurant.

Q: Huh?

A: Yes of course we're shooting a movie.

Q: What's the movie about?

A: It's a doc.u.mentary about human stupidity.

Q: Can I be in your movie?

A: We'd be stupid not to put you in it.

Moreover, props and costumes were impossible to replicate. Earl wore a pot on his head, and it looked ridiculous. Nothing we had looked like cannons, or swords. Mom said we weren't allowed to bring furniture from the house to the park, and then when we did, we had Suspended Camera Privileges for a week.

Also, our process was dumb as all h.e.l.l. We'd get to the forest and then completely forget what shot we were working on, or if we remembered it, we couldn't remember the lines, and how the camera moved, and where the characters started and where they ended; we'd struggle for a while to shoot something that we thought was correct, without success. Finally, we'd go back to the house to try to write down what we were supposed to do, but then we'd end up having lunch or watching a movie or something; at the end of the day we'd try to get everything on the computer, but there was always some footage missing, and the scenes that survived looked like c.r.a.p-bad lighting, inaudible dialogue, shaky camerawork.

So we did this for months, eventually realized how slow we were working, and gave up after creating ten minutes of footage.

Then Mom and Dad insisted on watching what we had done.

It was a nightmare. For ten minutes, Earl and I watched with horror as, on the screen, we wandered around waving cardboard tubes and Super Soakers, mumbling in fake German, ignoring cheerful joggers and families and senior citizens with beagles. We had already known it was bad, but somehow, with Mom and Dad there watching, it seemed ten times worse. We became aware of new ways in which it was c.r.a.ppy: how there wasn't really a plot, for example, and how we forgot to put in music, and how you couldn't see anything half the time and Gretchen pretty much just stared at the camera like a house pet and Earl obviously hadn't memorized his lines and I always always always had this stupid expression on my face like I had just had a lobotomy. And the worst part was, Mom and Dad were pretending to like it. They kept telling us how impressive it was, how well we had acted in it, how they couldn't believe we had made something so good. They were literally oohing and ahhing at the stupid garbage on the screen.

Basically, they were dealing with us as though we were toddlers. I wanted to murder myself. Earl did, too. Instead, we just sat there and didn't say anything.

Afterward we retreated to my room, utterly b.u.mmed out.

INT. MY ROOM - DAY EARL.

d.a.m.n. That sucked.

GREG.

We suck.

EARL.

I f.u.c.kin suck worse than you do.

GREG.

attempting to match the casualness with which eleven-year-old Earl can say words like "f.u.c.k"

Uh, s.h.i.t.

EARL.

f.u.c.k.

DAD.

offscreen, through the door Guys, dinner's in ten minutes.

after we do not reply Guys? That was really pretty amazing. Mom and I are very impressed. You both should be really proud of yourselves.

a shorter pause You guys all right? Can I come in there?

EARL.

immediately h.e.l.l no.

GREG.

We're OK, Dad.

EARL.

If he come in here and talk about that stupid movie, I'ma kick myself in the head.

DAD.

OK then!

Footsteps indicate that DAD has left.

GREG.

That sucked so bad.

EARL.

I'ma get that tape and burn it.

GREG.

still having trouble swearing convincingly Yeah, uh, f.u.c.k. s.h.i.t.

GREG and EARL are silent. CLOSE-UP of Earl. Earl is realizing something.

EARL.

Werner Herzog can lick my a.s.s-cheek.

GREG.

What?

EARL.

Man, f.u.c.k Aguirre, the Wrath of G.o.d. Werner Herzog can stick his face all up in my b.u.t.thole.

GREG.

uncertainly OK.

EARL.

We gotta make our own movie.

gaining momentum We can't try to make someone else's movie. We're gonna make our own movie.

now excited We're gonna make a movie called The Wrath of G.o.d II.

GREG.

Earl, the Wrath of G.o.d II.

EARL.

h.e.l.l YEAH.

In our creative partnership, Earl has always had the best ideas, and Earl, the Wrath of G.o.d II was one of his best. It never would have occurred to me, even though it wasn't that complicated or crazy of an idea: Basically, it was to remake Aguirre again, but this time, to change all the parts that we couldn't do, or even just the parts that we didn't feel like doing. If there was a scene we didn't like, in our version, it was gone. A character we couldn't recreate: sayonara. A jungle that we couldn't reproduce: converted into a living room, or the inside of a car. The best ideas are always the simplest.

So Earl, the Wrath of G.o.d II ended up being about a crazy guy named Earl and his search for the city of Earl Dorado in a normal family house in Pittsburgh. We shot it on location in the Gaines residence in Point Breeze, and we ad-libbed a lot of the dialogue, and Cat Stevens made some awesome cameos, and we set the whole thing to a funk CD Dad had lying around, and it took another month or two. At the end of it, we burned it to a DVD and had a secret viewing of the movie in the TV room.

It sucked. But it didn't suck nearly as bad as our first film.

Our careers were born.

So by October things were weird. I had a person, at school, that I was being especially nice to and spending time with and stuff. Could we use the word "friend"? I guess. Rachel was my friend. You should know that writing that sentence didn't feel good. It just didn't. Having friends is how your life gets f.u.c.ked up.

Anyway, I couldn't keep ignoring her in school when we were spending all this time together outside of school, so all of a sudden, in school, I was seen having a friend. I was seen by everyone talking to Rachel before and after cla.s.s, and often this resulted in her laughing kind of loud, and that got people's attention. And when it was time to work in groups, we were almost always in the same group. And people notice stuff like that.

So probably some people thought we were boyfriend and girlfriend, and perhaps even having s.e.x. And how can you fight that impression without seeming like a d.i.c.k? You can't go around making remarks like, "There's certainly nothing going on between me and Rachel! Especially nothing s.e.xual. I don't even know what her genital area looks like, or if it's in a different place than normal or something."

At the very least, people thought we were casually dating. And here's the thing: Most people, especially girls, seemed to get fired up about that. I have a theory about that, and the theory is depressing.

Theory: People always get fired up when an unattractive girl and an unattractive dude are dating each other.

No one came out and said anything to this effect, but I feel like it's probably true. When girls see two Unattractives dating, they think, "Hey! Love is possible even for unattractive people. They have to love different things about each other than their physical appearances. That's so sweet." Meanwhile, dudes see it and think, "That is one less guy I have to compete with for the most succulent b.o.o.bs in the b.o.o.b Compet.i.tion that is high school."

And, inevitably, spending time with Rachel meant being at least partially absorbed by her group, Upper-Middle-Cla.s.s Senior Jewish Girl Sub-Clique 2a: Rachel Kushner, Naomi Shapiro, and Anna Tuchman. Naomi Shapiro had this loud, bl.u.s.tering, sarcastic persona that she used at all times, and Anna Tuchman was OK but invariably clutching a paperback with a t.i.tle like The Meridian Sword or Cleavage of Destiny or something. A few times before school, I was roped into spending time with these girls. Their conversations were tough to be part of for a sustained period of time.

INT. BENSON HALLWAY - MORNING ANNA.

Ugggh. I don't want to go to English today.

NAOMI.

MR. CUBALY IS SUCH A PERV.