Re-tools of ch. 1

In trying and re-trying to tool out a good "intro" to the first chapter, I ranted this one. It doesn't fit, OBVIOUSLY but the tone feels right

Episode-by-episode. You could see them falling apart episode-by-episode. The one where dad yells at Cynthia about the mayonnaise jar leads to the one where dad yells at Cynthia about fucking the cameraman and that leads to the one where the cameraman yells at dad about simply the way he's standing which leads to the one where Cynthia leaves completely, totally, gone--an empty zero at the center of every peopled shot--and that leads to the one where dad and the dogs are standing in the yard, gape-mouthed, looking out at a camera he no longer notices. And the dogs, animals trained to sniff out swine, seem not to notice either. Their eyes are empty. They nearly hum with forgiveness.

The camera.
It is like a first daughter sitting in an unlit room.
It can, with ease, be disregarded.

The light, out here. The light, the light! That’s what they’re always saying. Men carry silver umbrellas, point them toward the sun, and bathe our faces in the sought-after glow that comes of misdirections. They rove aimless, looking up toward empty skies, making the grandiose gestures of pizza chefs--kissing the tips of fingers, rolling round eyes toward the moon--amore, amore!

What is it they seek, at what times of day? The light comes throaty, like mustard poured through windows; it winnows on the backs of spoons; it catches in their mothers hair and stays there—netted—like a trumped seal, like some sort of abalone famed in Scotland. What are the things they want and don’t want? They want to see long spreads of wall-to-wall carpet, creeping up into the edges, infecting the world with softness. Carpet like a soft-fuzz lens. And they want to see swimming pools--thick, chalky as ice-cubes. They are drawn to water. They cluster at its edges in their black caps to seem, from the second-story balconies of neighboring mansions, like types of mold that grow near dampness. And then, of course, they want to see her face--poreless--her eyes empty as the lens itself, like a bicycle wheel with the sad spokes gone. Spokeless. When she opens her mouth, Leslie says, snapping shut the script, "It's just more of the same. Forever."

He's threatening to quit over her stupidity. As if that's not fuel. She's malleable. A pygmalion. He'd like to squeeze her throat in the same way he'd like to bang her. In the same way a grandmother, paging through a calendar of kittens, says, out loud, "They're too adorable" and thinks, momentarily, about an act of suffocation. Bosom, kittens. Bosom.