Pat Boone Fan Club

by Sue William Silverman

  All NASCAR races in Atlanta are postponed until . . .

  All classes cancelled . . .

  I should be pleased by this news. And I am, but only partially. Most of my students, in this rural Georgia county, are women, and most are the first members of their families to continue their education past high school. I admire and miss them. At times they good-naturedly poke fun at what they call my “Yankee accent.” I start saying “y’all” to humor them, to fit in.

  A few months ago one of the students asked why I liked teaching English. “I guess I like words,” I said, having finally recovered from typing my husband’s indecipherable book on ekphrasis.

  Marcee, a quiet student but a good writer, came up to me after class. “I like words, too,” she said, her voice low. “But I never heard anyone ever say that before.”

  A month later she switched her major from dental hygiene to English.

  Previously, I taught at another college here in Rome, one belonging to the Southern Baptist Convention. I attended church services on Wednesday evenings. I held hands with colleagues as we prayed over meals. Before Christmas break, I sat in the chapel scented with candle wax and deep-red poinsettias. The choir sang Christmas carols and hymns, warming the windows overlooking a gray winter sky. Loving God, help us remember the birth of Jesus, that we may share in the song of the angels. A Christmas tree, decorated with gold-colored crosses, silvery stars, and white lights, shone at the college entrance.

  But the job was temporary. Maybe if I still taught there I’d have believed in the fury of this storm, a storm of biblical proportions, instead of ignoring the warnings.

  Saturday night, before dark, I search the kitchen drawers for matches. I find an old matchbook from Thorne’s restaurant in Galveston, hunter green with white lettering. The cover is bent, the sticks crumpled, but I manage to light a few candles. Flickering flames reflect in the glass doors leading to the deck. I once read that, back before electricity, mirrors were frequently hung in houses in order to multiply light.

  My husband carries Quizzle down the hall to the bedroom. I remain by the kitchen sliders, long past midnight. In the glass, my face grays, ghostly, surrounded by licks of fire. As my eyes adjust to darkness, slivers of moonlight whiten the snow . . . snow blanketing all of Georgia, the whole East Coast.

  The last time I felt this cold was last August, a Friday evening in the bar at the Holiday Inn. The room was over air conditioned and frigid. Condensation formed on windows overlooking the parking lot, blurring the night. My husband and I were with a group of friends from his college. We all drank Long Island iced tea: vodka, tequila, rum, gin, triple sec, sour mix, a splash of cola. A variation: white crème de menthe, a splash of real iced tea.

  An Elvis impersonator.

  I danced with a man to “Suspicious Minds.” This man, who was not my husband, wore a black shirt and white tie, faux tough guy.

  I barely noticed my husband or what he was or wasn’t doing.

  The air conditioning chilled my skin, to say nothing of the layers slowly numbing beneath the surface.

  The bar was also packed with out-of-towners sentenced to a Holiday Inn on business.

  Why did I think that the scent of chilled air, the scent of skin sweating alcohol, was romantic? That an Elvis impersonator, whose career apex would be chain motels on the outskirts of oblivion, was romantic?

  Or was I the one on the outskirts of oblivion?

  Who was I impersonating that night? Who am I now?

  I glanced up. My husband sat at a round bar table, beside the window, gripping his drink. He wasn’t smiling. He didn’t seem to hear the music. His face was expressionless, his reflection in the glass, vague. He seemed to be staring at me . . . or, no, staring past me, or through me. How could he see me when I was barely able to see myself? I wanted to go to him. I wanted to apologize, apologize for dancing with someone else all night, apologize for not warning him, before we married, that I’d be a bad wife. A hollow wife. For not warning him that, in my previous marriage, I’d run off with a man whose biggest attraction was that he drove a blue convertible.

  But I didn’t.

  When Elvis’s simulacrum crooned “Always on My Mind,” I nuzzled my face against the neck of the black-shirt-and-white-tie man. I closed my eyes so I no longer saw my husband or so, magically, he—no one—could see me. But in my transparency, surely no one saw me anyway.

  Now, outside, the night is still, quiet. No cars, snowplows, or people. The houses surrounding mine are equally dark.

  Only disembodied voices on the radio calling for help, recognition, comfort.

  The radio itself is like the mother ship, the heartbeat of Rome, a solitary light burning in the universe.

  And I realize why people prepare for storms, even as no one can ever be fully prepared: the camaraderie of gathering in the supermarket to stockpile groceries; the camaraderie when plans fail, so neighbor helps neighbor.

  But I stockpiled nothing, nothing to ease me through the storm.

  All night, the radio spools out voices. I don’t turn it off.

  My pork chops are ruint.

  It’s an act of God.

  Drifts of snow press against the sliding door.

  If only my telephone worked, I could call into the radio station with my own emergency: My marriage is buried under cataracts of snow. I am encased in ice. I am ruint.

  I remain in the kitchen, hungry and cold, gripping the jar of almond butter on the Sabbath—a totem, a talisman, an artifact—among my Southern Baptist neighbors. Centuries hence, I will be discovered by archaeologists in this same position, beneath slabs of ice in the ruints of Rome.

  I Was a Prisoner on the Satellite of Love

  (Featuring Crow R. Robot, star, Mystery Science Theater 3000)

  CAST OF CHARACTERS (in order of appearance):

  SUE: a wife, a human

  M.: Sue’s husband, a human

  CROW T. ROBOT: a robot living on the Satellite of Love (SOL), the stage set for the television show Mystery Science Theater 3000

  RICH: a realtor, a human

  JOEL: a human living on the SOL

  TOM SERVO: a robot living on the SOL

  RANDY: a human therapist in Atlanta

  I slump beside my husband, M., barely speaking to him. We’re on the Northwest Airlines flight from Hartsfield International Airport in Atlanta to Grand Rapids with a layover in Detroit. In the Hartsfield gift shop I was comforted by familiar Braves baseball caps, Dawgs t-shirts, the drawl of slow, fluid syllables. Now, after landing in Michigan, I’m confused by foreign midwestern logos, sights, and sounds: Red Wings hockey sweatshirts, “M Go Blue” pennants, flat accents, heavy on my ears. I want to be home in Georgia. But my husband has a new job offer, so we’re flying here to look for a house prior to our move.

  We wait for the realtor outside the terminal of the Gerald R. Ford International Airport. It’s Memorial Day weekend, and I’m wearing a sleeveless floral blouse and hot-pink sandals. Freezing, I might add, in sleeveless blouse and sandals. While it was over eighty degrees in Georgia, it feels less than fifty here, practically still winter. Indeed, everyone at the airport wears dreary tans, grays, blacks. All the footwear seems to be sturdy boots. Everyone looks as if they hike. I am the only one in floral, the only one in sandals, in pink. Is tan actually a color? All my boots have stylish heels. Besides, I hate ice hockey. I don’t know what “M Go Blue” means. [“Get your shoes on,” Crow T. Robot quips from his front-row seat on this movie of my life. “We’re at the monster.”]

  Rich, our realtor, glides to the curb in a black Jaguar. He leaps from the car, enthusiastically welcoming us to west Michigan. I barely shake his hand before collapsing in the backseat, forcing M. to sit in front. Let him schmooze with Rich, listen to the glowing Chamber of Commerce sales pitch. Let him hear about this “perfect” house, that “perfect” neighborhood. [“Hour after hour of heart-pounding small talk,” Crow says, in a mock-stentorian voice.]

  Just two
years ago, after renting that log cabin, we bought our first house, only recently completing the redecoration. That’s the house in which I want to live. But now, because of this job offer, we must sell it. I must give up my adjunct teaching job. I must leave my therapist and my group. [“Goodbye,” Crow calls. “Thanks for the Valium!”] Worse, I fear I might also have to leave Crow—Crow, the robot, whom I think I love more than my husband. At least it feels as if I’m leaving Crow behind. Surely, though, I reassure myself, cable television stations in Michigan—just as in Georgia—must air the Comedy Central series Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K), in which Crow is one of the stars. But all in all it feels as if I’m leaving my life behind—or as if I’m being abandoned. [“Does anyone have a copy of Final Exit?” Crow asks, innocently.]

  We’ve planned to buy a house in one of the lakeshore communities about forty minutes west of Grand Rapids. During the drive to the coast, I notice trees still leafless and bare [“Enjoy our bleak landscape,” I hear Crow say.], whereas in Georgia, spring rains are funneling toward summer. I want to ask the realtor to turn on the car heater, but I’m too exhausted to speak. The thought of finding a house during one long weekend seems impossible. Besides, Georgia is the longest I’ve lived anywhere. While initially, upon moving there, when I worked at the public library, I had a troubled relationship with the State of Georgia, now it finally feels like home.

  To be totally honest, however, I don’t really want to live in Georgia either. Rather, I’d much prefer to live with Crow T. Robot (the letter “T” is short for “The”) on the Satellite of Love, a satellite floating, obviously, in outer space—or at least floating on the television show MST3K. Don’t get me wrong: even though it’s true I’ve only recently been released from a twenty-eight-day rehab program, recovering from my family of origin and other disasters, I’m not really crazy. Sure, okay, I have a couple of issues, just a bit of a skewed vision of the world. [“This is my world and welcome to it,” Crow crows.] Nevertheless, even though of course I pretty much know the difference between make-believe and reality, still, Crow seems so real. I want him to be real. He and Joel, the human on the show and Crow’s creator, are the ones with whom I want to live, the ones whom I want for my family.

  Now, just worrying about this move, I begin to imagine Crow as living only inside my particular television set in Georgia—even though, technically, I know this isn’t true. But suppose I can’t find him in Michigan? Comedy Central is, after all, a fledgling network, not yet carried nationwide. Even now, leaving Georgia for a few days, I’ll miss him. [“The Bataan Death March was less painful than this,” Crow commiserates.] I gave detailed instructions to a friend in my therapy group to videotape all the weekend shows, but suppose his VCR breaks? Suppose the timer doesn’t work? Suppose he forgets an episode by mistake? [“Do not adjust your set!” Crow commands. “We can make it stupid.”]

  STAGE DIRECTIONS: Rich T. Realtor drives along the shore of Lake Michigan, the main selling point of the area. But this stage set of Sue’s life should not be designed as a summery beach. The day is gray, cool, gusty. No trees or dense foliage, only a few sprigs of dune grass. No boats on the water. No one sunning on beach towels. No boardwalk or carnival rides. Miles of deserted sand. [“Once a garden spot, now a playground of death,” Crow intones.]

  After a fade-out, the camera focuses on the Jaguar stopping beside the first house on Rich’s list, a mustard-yellow, wood-frame Victorian with purple trim. It is surrounded by evergreen trees, not loblollies like the ones in Georgia, I notice, sighing. I straggle behind Rich and M. toward the front door, while Rich gleefully details the pros of the house. To him, of course, there are no cons, even though the carpet is electric green. Pepto Bismol–pink paint drenches walls clogged with sad clown paintings. [“When knickknacks ruled the world,” Crow groans.] The kitchen is decorated in a heart-and-duck motif. [Sue, sotto voce: “Country-psychedelic Victorian on crack.”]

  My head is spinning as if I’ve just staggered off a Tilt-a-Whirl. I sit on the green velveteen couch in the living room, thinking I might feel better if I put my head below my knees. Surely this technique cures both dizzy spells and nausea. [“I’m up here, honey, with the DTs,” Crow yells. “Could you get the yellow lizard out of the bathroom?”]

  “I happen to know they had a professional interior decorator,” Rich says.

  The remote for the television set is propped beside the screen. I can’t resist. I channel surf: ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, TBS. Comedy Central, Comedy Central, where are you? Do you read me? Where is my favorite robot? Right then I decide to refuse to buy a house without Comedy Central, without Crow.

  SOLILOQUY, SUE, WITH YEARNING: Crow, I can’t live without you. Sure, even with your gold-lacquer finish, you’re probably not the most handsome robot. Your head is crafted from a lacrosse-stick pocket with a bowling-pin snout attached. Your ping-pong-ball eyes have plus signs for corneas. You have rod-like arms and a thin neck. Your chest looks like two Frisbees glued together, while your lower torso is (more or less) an indented paint can. Nevertheless, dearest Crow, you stole my heart with your irony, your sarcasm, your lack of illusion, your intolerance of deceit . . . you, Crow, who are just the opposite of my deceitful father. [“Bad movie?” Crow says of Sue’s life. “You’re soaking in it.”]

  Sue continues [“As the God of Exposition rears its ugly head,” Crow laments.], Crow doesn’t live alone on the Satellite of Love. His robot brother is Tom Servo, whose head is a transparent gumball globe with a small tin mouth. His Slinky arms are attached to a red-barreled chest that sits atop a hover skirt.

  The robots aren’t orphans, however. Far from it. The head of this household is Joel, the human, who, both on MST3K and in reality, is a low-key, sweet-faced, blue-eyed, blond Minnesotan. [“In real life, your landlord is a butane addict who sneaks into your apartment and looks through your underwear drawer,” Crow warns.]

  Why do they live on the satellite? How did they get there? Joel, the janitor at the Gizmonic Institute in Minneapolis (or maybe it’s St. Paul), irritates the two mad scientists in charge. To vent their annoyance they shoot Joel into outer space to live on the Satellite of Love. There they force him to watch bad movies (mostly science fiction) from the 1950s and early ’60s, thus punishing him further. But their ulterior motive, in their twisted minds, is to discover a movie to inflict on the world that is so bad, they’ll be able to conquer the universe.

  The mad scientists come close. They screen the worst movies ever filmed, the worst of the worst, emphatically bad: Attack of the Giant Leeches, Fire Maidens of Outer Space, Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, The Pod People, The Killer Shrews, Attack of the Eye Creatures, Manos: The Hands of Fate, Eegah!, The Crawling Hand, and Monster A-Go-Go. So Joel, lonely and depressed [“The first step to recovery is recognizing you have a problem,” Crow reminds Joel.], missing his roots, his family and friends (this isn’t Minnesota anymore), and being something of a scientist himself, constructs the robots for friends. (In reality, Joel, as part of the creative team Best Brains, pieced together his ’bots using gizmos found in a Salvation Army basement.) Now, not only does he have company as he floats in space, he has companions with whom he can suffer the daily dose of bad flicks. [“I’ve got a headache this big, and it’s got this movie written all over it,” Crow moans.]

  So now imagine me, Sue, in my ranch house in Georgia, the television set turned to Comedy Central. I sit on my couch watching bad movies at the same time as I observe the silhouettes of Crow, Tom Servo, and Joel also watching the movies, sitting in a mock theater. Lights dim. The opening credits for Earth vs. the Spider [“I’m putting my money on the spider,” Crow guesses.] or The Castle of Fu Manchu begin to roll.

  Joel and the ’bots don’t just watch the movies. They riff, groan, make snide comments, combining literary allusions with references to both high and low culture. [“I love the smell of lizard in the morning,” Crow says over the climactic scene of Attack of the Giant Gila Monster. “It smells like . .
. chicken!”]

  STAGE DIRECTIONS: A close-up of Sue, still in the Victorian house, with the TV remote in her hand.

  Rich T. Realtor: “What’re you doing?”

  Sue: “Seeing if they get Comedy Central.”

  Rich T. Realtor: “But this house is only six blocks from the lake.”

  Rich informs M. and Sue that the goal of all homeowners in west Michigan is to move from one house to another, closer and closer to the lake, eventually buying a grand house overlooking Lake Michigan. “It’s climbing the ladder,” he says, authoritatively. “Our younger couples might begin in a starter home,” Rich adds, “before moving to a restored house in the older downtown area.” Beaming, he gestures at the green-and-pink Victorian nightmare. [“There’s a fine line between surrealism and costume-shop closeout,” Crow says, so loudly Sue thinks the realtor must hear.] “Then, from here, you can move into a house even closer to the lake,” Rich says. “And soon, before you know it . . .” [“Jupiter: America’s heartland!” Crow exclaims.]

  AN ASIDE: This is the place in the script where additional exposition must be inserted. It must be clear why Sue loves MST3K. The what’s the motivation? question must be addressed. Therefore, it should be clarified that, to Sue, the bad movies on MST3K are emblematic of dysfunctional families everywhere, such as hers. These families, after all, maintain the pretense that they’re perfect, that they’re not dysfunctional. Likewise, in these movies the actors pretend, for example, that a jolly Santa Claus can conquer the Martians. Or, in Attack of the Eye Creatures, the actors deliberately overlook the sneakers peeking from beneath the eye creatures’ costumes. No one notes the inconsistency of a character wearing Ray Ban sunglasses in a film supposedly set in the thirteenth century. In Teen-Agers from Outer Space the actors are, as Crow notes, “really old teenagers,” while their uniforms are decorated with what looks suspiciously like duct tape. The creature in It Conquered the World looks like a “giant Vlasic pickle with horns,” according to Crow. But the actors play it straight, as truth. No one winks. No one (except Joel and the ’bots, of course) inserts even a touch of irony into the films. No actors groan or smirk at inconsistencies. No one shatters these façades . . . in the way Sue’s parents’ friends believed her family was perfect, believed the façade . . . in the way Sue’s parents, themselves, knew the truth but lied: Sue’s father claimed to love her; he pretended to be the perfect father by providing his family with nice homes and expensive cars. Everyone played their roles with straight faces.