If Harpo wandered for long enough, he always ended up right back in this exact spot, the clearing outside the lodge. He loved it, looking at the lodgehouse from the outside at night, watching how the joint glowed warmly against the dark of the forest. He stopped and watched it and held tight to his notebook. So far, he hadn’t written any notes. But he did have script ideas. He had the beginning of the movie and the end—the crying girl to start, and the Marx Brothers and friends all falling out of a steamer trunk as the credits rolled. Now he just needed some scenes for in between. Maybe he should start with a story. Stories were doable. Stories were things he knew how to think about. Maybe he didn’t have time to think about them right now though. He had other things to worry about too. He
