Son of Sam on my Block

by Ron Samul - (this is all true except for the dream sequence.)

So, you remember my stories about the guy who spends the summer tormented by his lawn mowing neighbor, who has a snake problem, and a wife who wishes he would do something more than obsessing about the neighborhood. Well, I am currently working on the newest short story.

In my neighborhood, they're filming a movie called The Bronx is Burning which takes place in 1976 when the Son of Sam murders were happening and when the Yankees were playing ball during the blackout.

This guys is on the next street over!

I have trailers lining the streets, all night shoot one street over, complete with gun shots, and door-to-door searches. We have riot victims strolling around eating at the food tent, John Turturro signing autographs, and really who could make this shit up.

New London has become a filming mecca because of handsome tax breaks on filming in Southeaster Connecticut. Also coming is a huge movie studio in Norwich called (ironically) Utopia Studios. It will be movie studios, rides, tours, and some other shit to draw people in.

As an interesting side note, they had to bring in people to scum up our already scummy city, spraying graffiti and trash about to get a New York feel. Turns out my neighborhood looks just like the Bronx in 1970 - great. They are going door to door on the next street looking for the Son of Sam, yelling with a bull horn, rioting and shooting guns and then it all stops while they reset the scene. I live on the edge of the city and beyond the end of my street is woods that tracks off for five or six miles into the suburbs called Waterford. So, in between movie noise I can hear a pack of coyotes howling to the sound of distant fire truck sirens - and I think I am really dreaming. It might go something like this: I had this dream that John Turturro, ya know the guy from Brother Where Art Thou was walking around the neighborhood filming a movie about the Son of Sam but they were worried because of the coyotes in the woods. And there were these people all mangled from the riot, but they weren't hurt - they were eating sandwiches and smoking.

Come to New London, it's a riot! No Really!

By the way - if anyone has heard stories about how weird my town is - it's not so far fetched that The Son of Sam is on the next street shooting a shot gun into a windshield. The generators are on again and the trucks are moving the scene around. It will go on all night.

Don Stitt might make some kind of reference about how I am ready for my close up, but this is close enough for me. -- RS