I Wonder What it's Like to Live in a Film Noir World

Do you remember the old detective movies? You know, Jimmy Cagney, Edward G. Robinson, the old black & white, film noir genre? Jean Paul Belmondo, perhaps?

In life as film noir it's always a little dark, a little gritty, with a skyline that's always foggy and a threat hanging in the air.  Where you'll find menace to be your best friend, fever pitch anxiety your constant companion, with death and desolation never far from your side.

You know there's a trainyard (probably freight) that figures in somewhere. There always is. It will be soft focus in the background with foreground details brought out in stark relief. Because that's how it is in a world like this. A world with tracks that you're on the wrong side of. 

The story generally will take you to an old warehouse park in a bad part of town at a time of night when the only people out looking are on the lookout for only one thing...Trouble...spelled with a capital T.

The only light is the light you see reflected out of stagnant pools of water left over from a too insubstantial rain that fell too long ago to accomplish anything but too much humidity on this still, sticky night. 

The bad guys all have flashy cars that sparkle in the moonlight like diamond inlays in a gambler's mouth, while the good guys work too hard on loading docks, owe too much money to shylocks, and drive cars that look too much like they belong in the junkyard instead of the driveway...and that's on a good day - a day when they run.

The shadows menace and dance through the trees, their branches naked of leaves and pointing like skeletal fingers into the night...pointing at nothing...pointing at everything...the point of every branch an accusation...an indictment...with all of them pointing directly at you. 

Your nerves light up like the slots at Barney's Speakeasy as you look first one way, then the other, up and down the darkened street, looking for anyone, afraid of everyone, knowing that nothing good ever comes in the night. 

About that time that Humphrey Bogart steps out of the shadows, streetlights reflecting on the cold steel in his hand, and as the start of a death rattle dies in your throat....

That's the end of the movie. 

The credits roll.

You go home.

This time.

Until next time....