travis flatt

Your suit is hot and tight in the waist. You’re constipated. The apartment looks smaller than you pictured it, all those times when you were you, watching Pulp Fiction.

Everyone’s really crammed in here. You wonder if they're all roommates?

It smells like hamburgers.

Samuel L. Jackson—or, Jules Winfield—black suit and Jheri curl, warns a boy who's squirming at a plastic table to stop saying “what.”

You wonder what’s out the sunny window above the couch. You look behind you, which feels weird but cool, to look wherever you want, free of fixed camera angles. Behind you is the closed door of the apartment. In one corner is a pole lamp, an overflowing laundry basket, and a pile of newspapers with an open copy of Conspiracy Theories and Secret Societies for Dummies resting on top.

You bend to examine the book and realize it's been quiet for too long.

Everyone's staring at you.

You remember you're supposed to walk to the half wall kitchen to look for your boss, Marsellus Wallace's stolen briefcase. As you pass the kid sprawled on the couch, the one with the bad haircut, he's picking his nose.

Robotically and forced, as if prodded, Jules says his next line: "Vincent—we happy?" although this should refer to the mysterious, glowing contents of the briefcase, which you're supposed to be inspecting.

"So, the briefcase," you say, grinning, and point at the kitchen cabinets, "You want me to get down there and take out Mr. Wallace's briefcase, right? Is it his soul? I bet it's his soul in there. Or is it just diamonds?"

Jules doesn't react.

“My, bad,” you say, and lean down to fish out the briefcase. Your actual line is: “We’re happy.”

You open the cabinets. The pots and pans are neatly arranged. It’s nice stuff, too, the Williams Sonoma Mauviel M’250 signature set, top of the line, but when you pause to admire, Jules loudly clears his throat, so you plunge your hands in to search for the briefcase, breaking a nail. You leap up, jam your stinging finger into your mouth.

Jules folds his arms and mutters something under his breath. The kid on the couch flicks something at the one sitting at the table, who’s dipping a handful of french fries into ketchup.

“Damn, Vincent,” says Jules, “are you high?”

You taste blood and ask for a Band-Aid. Jules looks as if you’ve descended from space.

Marvin, the ill-fated kid who waits in the corner opposite the lamp; the kid whom the camera is supposed to ignore until later in the scene, whom you will, further into the movie, accidentally shoot in the face, volunteers to go get you a bandage, but Jules barks for him to shut up.

Bad Haircut makes a break for it. Jules, startled and fumbling, draws his pistol and shoots, missing wide and shattering the window. The shot is terribly loud. You clap your hands over your ears. Jules’s furious mouth grows and shrinks, grows and shrinks. You try to apologize and catch a warning wave from the doomed Marvin, who nods at the bathroom door. You remember the assassin hiding inside.

“Shit,” you think, “gun.” Which you say.

Jules raises an eyebrow, looks at his own pistol, confused.

As if conjured, the assassin bursts out and opens fire, winging Jules multiple times and tearing both of his sleeves, staggering him several zigzag, pirouetting steps into the couch, where he does a spectacular ass-over-teakettle backward flip out the window, yelping, “Whoopsie!” which, despite the gunshots, your hand-covered ears, you do hear. Distinctly.

Assassin turns his gun on you, and you throw your hands up so hard it pops your shoulders. You shout, “Don’t hurt me!”

Vincent Vega’s life flashes before your eyes. Apparently, his first kiss, snuck under the bleachers at a high school pep rally, sent Lisa McMillan to the school nurse. Her lip snagged on Vega’s braces.

So vivid is the memory you suspect he still loves her.

Despite having you dead to rights, Assassin beats it through the open door, crying, “See you in the funny papers.”

Kid at the table has fallen, calls for help. You rush to his side, ask where he’s hit?

He hasn’t been. He needs his inhaler, which is in his jacket that’s draped over his chair.

You need a cigarette. He asks that you please smoke outside. You nod, step out the door. There’s a harsh white light, and

Your suit is hot and tight in the waist. You're constipated. The apartment looks smaller than you pictured it, all those times when you were you, watching Pulp Fiction.

Today, You’re Vincent Vega From Pulp Fiction in That “Say ‘What’ Again” Scene

travis flatt