Hot Stove Confidential

I thought I had never seen the movie “LA Confidential.” I hadn’t seen it for so long and I had just gotten used to people telling me that I needed to see it, that I forgot I had seen it. Not seeing “LA Confidential” had become a bad habit. So when I joined Netflix, I put it in my queue right away. After all, I hadn’t seen it and it was supposed to be such a great movie. Everybody says so. I really should get on that.
When the movie came and I popped it in, though, I thought the story seemed familiar. I knew this. Kevin Spacey, fame-loving cop that got off on the notoriety. The young rookie. The crooked commissioner. It all seemed vaguely familiar. “Maybe I’ve just watched the beginning,” I thought. “I don’t really remember watching the whole thing. Maybe just this part.”
About two-thirds of the way through, I realized I had seen the entire movie. I remembered exactly how it ended. It took me a little while, but I finally got the whole picture.
That’s how it was with the Stove. The Stove showed up at my house one Friday night. We went out for drinks and he told me everything that I had wanted to hear when I was 19. Being in love with him was a habit and his confession made me forget that I had seen this movie before. I popped it in eagerly. But something just wasn’t right. I couldn’t put my finger on it. It felt like I had already seen this movie. “Maybe I’ve just seen the beginning,” I thought to myself. “I’ve never seen the end before. I should really see the end.”
Soon enough, though, I realized I had seen this movie before. I knew the whole story after all. By heart. I had just gotten so used to feeling like I never got a chance to see the whole movie that I had forgotten that I had seen the credits and everything. I had, in fact, seen every last scene.
I saw the honeymoon scene, where we couldn’t get enough of each other and everything felt so new and exciting and I never felt more beautiful and sexy and intelligent. I had seen the scene where he doesn’t return my call right away. I had seen the scene where he calls with a really good excuse.
I had watched the scene where he back-peddles and pulls away and tells me how he confused he is more than once. And I had seen the scene where I call repeatedly, pissed and confused, not getting any response as our male love interest disappears to parts unknown many times.
I had seen enough of the scene where our young ingénue, who had so recently felt so beautiful and sexy and intelligent, sits in her apartment, alone, chain-smoking and drinking cheap red wine, feeling ugly and stupid and unloved and wondering why it was that he always leaves her in the end as the credits roll over Sheryl Crow’s “Maybe Angels.”
The Return of the Stove was like “LA Confidential.” I had momentarily forgotten that I had seen this flick before. I got excited when it showed up at my house and I couldn’t wait to press play, see what happened. It didn’t take me long, however, to realize that I had seen this movie before. And it suddenly dawned on me how much I didn’t like the ending.