Bad mood?

It had been one of those days where nothing goes right. The kind of day where a bad mood just floats above your head like a dark cloud. The kind of bad mood that hangs on you like wet clothes, like a massive throbbing headache, appearing without warning and unshakable.

I just woke up on the wrong side of the bed, I tell myself, trying to stay focused on work and having no luck. Henry and I bickered about writing an e-mail to a sound designer. I smoked a cigarette and walked around the block to cheer myself up. There was palpable tension in the office.

One of my favorite movies has always been “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.”

The film opens with Butch (Paul Newman) casing a bank. There is a consistent theme of change in the film and he is disappointed that what used to be a fairly easy safe to rob has been replaced with a newer more difficult one. Across the street at a local saloon, a Mustached Man (Robert Redford) plays blackjack. His hands deal the cards quickly and with confidence. He is winning.

I left work early and walked slowly up to Union Square. I called my mom and said all sorts of angsty things to her about being in a bad mood and not really knowing why. I was nervous about this and feeling sad about that. But, deep down I knew that I am skirting the real issue—the thing that had been weighing on my mind for the past few weeks. The thing that had made the office tense. The thing that no one was talking about. We were about to hear back from the Sundance Film Festival and find out if the film that we have all been working on for the past 16 months had been accepted. Like a pitcher pitching a no-hitter, afraid of superstition, no one spoke about it.

The Mustached Man is cleaning up in blackjack and the owner of the saloon accuses him of cheating. The owner stands up and points to his guns—challenging the Mustached Man to a draw. The Mustached Man is calm and collected. The owner asks the Mustached Man to leave. He doesn’t. Butch comes in. It is obvious that he knows the Mustached Man. Butch tells him that whatever the owner says doesn’t really matter and that they should leave before the situation escalates.

The Mustached Man refuses and says, “If he invites us to stay, then we’ll go.”

“We were going to leave anyway,” Butch says, exasperated.

“He’s gotta invite us to stick around.”

On the way home, I had a burger and a beer at a local bar and read some of my book—I’m still on my Swedish mystery kick. I felt like I was just waiting for the hours to pass, felt like I was watching a ticking clock, not quite sure when it would go off. My phone rang. It startled me. It was the office calling. Probably just to see why I have been in such a bad mood all day, or to talk about a mistake I have made, or to ask why I left so early—basically without saying goodbye. It was definitely bad news. I answered.

Henry and Rel were both on the other end. Their voices were bright. There was a slight tingling in my stomach.

“What are you doing at the end of January?”

“Nothing...” I said slowly. The anticipation killing me.

“We’re in.”

"Congratu...wow," I said and smiled for the first time in a long time.

And suddenly, the bad day is transformed into one of the most memorable of my life. Suddenly, everything was different.

Butch looks from the Mustached Man to the owner of the saloon. He starts backing away.

“Can’t help you now, Sundance,” he says to the Mustached Man.

That last word echoes. It registers. It means something to the owner. He hears it go round and round in his ears and he’s terrified.

“I didn’t know who you were when I accused you of cheating,” the owner stammers.

The Sundance Kid stares right through him.

“So invite us to stick around, why don’t you?” Butch says.

The owner can barely speak. “Stick around, why don’t you?”

“Thanks, but we have to be going.”

Butch and Sundance ride off into the distance and the adventure begins.