Benny Jay: Snoring Through Horror

For our Saturday night movie, I rent "The Pianist," Roman Polanski's film about the Warsaw Ghetto. I didn't want to. I got this thing about unspeakable horror. I don't handle it well. I still haven't watched "Hotel Rwanda." Almost walked out of "The Killing Fields."

But with "The Pianist," my Wife insisted. She's been wanting to watch this movie for years. She says it's 'cause Polanski's such a great director. But I think it's cause she's had a thing for Adrian Brody ever since she saw him kiss Halle Barry at the Oscars.

Watching the movie with us is my good buddy Ed, who's in from out of town on business and is sleeping in the spare bedroom opened up when my Older Daughter went to college.

So the movie starts and within a few minutes I know why I didn't want to watch it. It's relentlessly disturbing -- thousands and thousands of people herded to death. There's no good guys rushing in to save them. Madmen rule the world. I close my eyes. I can't bear the sights and sounds. Oh, why, oh, why did I rent this?

In the midst of the carnage, Ed starts to snore. Not too loud. But you can't ignore it. I find it sort of reassuring -- a break from the slaughter. After about five minutes, he stops snoring.

Midway through the movie, its tone changes. The Adrian Brody character -- the pianist -- slips out of the Warsaw Ghetto. The parade of death stops. At least, we don't see it 'cause he doesn't see it. The movie, after all, is viewed from his perspective. It becomes less a tale about genocide and more a story about one man's heroic efforts to stay alive. I can handle that.

At the climax, when the central character's almost out of his mind with hunger, he finds, of all things, a piano. He starts to play. It's a moment of iconic heroism and triumph, a symbol of man's fierce determination to survive.

And right in the middle of it all, Ed -- my good buddy from out of town -- starts snoring. Only this time it's not a gentle buzz like before. Aw, hell no -- man sounds like a chain saw. Gzzachachazzzz -- like a parody of Curly in the Three Stooges. If you put a towel on his face, it would flutter up as he exhales.

"Ed, Ed," says my wife.

"Huh? Huh?" says Ed, lost in sleep.

"You're snoring...."

"Snoring?"

"Snoring....."

"Okay...."

He opens his eyes. Sees the pianist playing the piano. And falls back asleep. "I hear the TV," he says, "but I'm asleep....."

A few minutes later, he's snoring again.

When the movie ends, Ed wakes up long enough to go to bed. Pretty soon I'm the only one awake in the house. How the hell these people can sleep after watching the extermination of thousands of people is beyond me.

I look at the clock. It's two in the morning. I'm wide awake -- no sleep for me. I put on "Stony Island," Andrew Davis' classic flick about a soul band trying to make it big in Chicago in the 1970s. I love this movie -- takes me back to the time I moved here a billion years ago. Near the end they play "Ooh, Child, Things are Gonna Get Easier." Damn, I love that song. I sing along. I can't sing, but what the hell -- there's no one around but the dog. And the dog never complains: "Ooh, child, things are gonna get easier, ooh, oh, child things'll get brighter...."

By 4:30 I think I'm ready for sleep. I trudge up the stairs and climb into bed. I close my eyes. But I hear a noise. Sounds like a buzzing. Maybe an alarm clock. Or a rodent in the wall.

I get out of bed and walk toward the sound. It's coming from my daughter's bedroom. I walk closer. It's getting louder. I push open the door. It's Ed -- freaking Ed! He's snoring. Sounds like water rushing down an unclogged drain.

He's dead asleep. Oblivious to it all. Some guys have all the luck.