by Tobe Hooper
FROM THE 2009 SANTA FE HIGH SCHOOL YEARBOOK
Farewell Loves
(Addendum)
by Megan Matthews, Yearbook Editor
July 7, 2009
My Fellow Students—
I begged Mr. Goriczek to stop the presses so I could include this note, because it is important. As awful as it will be, we must keep the horror of the last week in our hearts and minds. You see, as the great philosopher George Santayana said, “Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it.”
On June 28, our dear friend junior Gwenneth Bryer tragically took her own life. Before we could even grieve her loss, another dear friend, junior Diane “Dee” Rockwell, also took her own life. Sadly, heartbreakingly, that was only the beginning.
Over the next week, we lost eight other friends in similar fashions:
Justin Abrams, junior
Robert Beasley, sophomore
Philip Carrison, sophomore
Julia Gorley, junior
Irina Gretzic, senior
Donnell Hardaway, freshman
Francis Quinn, senior
Tucker Smith, junior
Up until last week, it was a wonderful year at SFHS, but now it is marred forever by this tragedy. I hope that you can take comfort in the fact that Gwennie, Dee, Justin, Bobby, Phil, Julia, Iree, Donny, Fran, and Tucker are all in a better place, because it was obvious they were hurting.
I know you are all feeling the pain that I feel, but it is very important to remember that no matter how bad things may seem, it will get better. If you feel like you are going to hurt yourself, reach out to a parent, or a friend, or a relative. If you are unable to find anybody, call Crisis Response of Santa Fe at (505) 820-6333. They are there to help.
No matter what, you must stay alive in the face of tragedy and terror. Because somebody, somewhere, loves you. Like me.
Love always,
Megan
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ERICK LAUGHLIN:
After Andi’s funeral, Janine had a bit of a breakdown, and I can’t blame her. She unofficially moved in with me—and I say unofficially because she still kept 90 percent of her crap at her apartment. She wouldn’t go back there, though, and whenever she needed stuff, she made me a list, gave me the key, and told me to get to work.
Her parents were awesome. Even though they couldn’t really afford it, they gave her a ton of money so she wouldn’t have to worry about working. They wanted her to spend the summer resting up her body and mind. At one point, Mr. Daltrey called me and gave me a lecture—a nice lecture, but still a lecture—about taking care of his baby. He said, “I know Cranford’s dead, but there are other Cranfords out there. You make sure they stay away from my girl, y’hear?”
I heard.
Austin was still fire central, and Janine didn’t want me leaving the apartment any more than absolutely necessary, so we started having band rehearsals at my place, which pissed off most of our neighbors. But, you know, fuck ’em. Desperate times call for desperate measures.
One night after a rehearsal—and this was the same night that that suicide bomber in Seattle drove into Safeco Field and took out most of the lower deck—Jamal said to me, “You know who you should call? You know who’d probably have some sort of insight on all this crap? Your pal Tobe Hooper.”
I said, “What do you mean ‘all this crap’?”
Theo said, “Dude, shit’s blowing up, and shit’s burning up, and people are getting the shit kicked out of them, and there’s all these people killing themselves, and there’s all that shit online about zombies, and shit ain’t right.”
Jamal said, “And there’s that little matter of your sleepwalking. Remember?”
I said, “Barely.” And that was almost the truth. I’d done a good job of compartmentalizing that little mess. I focused on fixing Janine’s problems, which meant I didn’t have to dwell on my own.
Janine, who’d snuck into the room at some point, said, “I’ll tell you why you should call him. Because all this crap started after they showed that movie of his.”
I said, “You’re blaming suicide bombers on Tobe? Give me a break.”
She ignored me and said, “Like Andi. She started losing it after the Cove.”
I said, “So what? What does that have to do with this?”
I must’ve sounded kind of harsh, because she threw up her hands and said, “Don’t snap at me, Erick. And I don’t know what that has to do with this, and I don’t know if that has to do with this, and I don’t know what or if anything has anything to do with anything. I’m just putting it out there. I don’t see you putting anything out there.” She wiped her eyes—I hadn’t noticed she’d started crying until then—then said, “But maybe that’s because you didn’t get beat within an inch of your life and watch your sister go bat-shit crazy.”
I said, “Hey, I had my own problems. Like the nine thirty-three thing—”
She interrupted me: “Which you’ve conveniently neglected to mention for the last month.”
Theo said, “Janine, didn’t that douchebag beat you down after the movie?”
I said, “Jesus, Theo, come on. Beat her down?”
Janine said, “No, he’s right, David beat me down. And yes, it was after the movie.” She paused, then said, “Call Tobe Hooper.”
I said, “Why? Tobe Hooper could not care less about me. Who am I?”
Jamal said, “Don’t say that, man. No self-dissing. I bet he’d at least listen. It’s possible he’s holed up in his room, working on a script, not even watching the news.”
I said, “I’m sure he watches the news. I’m sure he knows what’s up. And I’m sure he’d hang up on my ass if I called him, especially if I said that he had anything to do with this.”
Janine said, “Even if he thinks you’re giving him garbage, you should talk to somebody, just to get it off your chest.”
Theo said, “Hells yeah, you should. I’ve had nightmares about that nine thirty-three business, and I told my shrink about it, and I feel way better.”
Jamal said, “You’re seeing a shrink?”
Theo said, “Hells yeah. I’m, like, totally mentally healthy now. What, you don’t notice a difference?”
Jamal said, “Yeah, sure, Theo, I totally notice a difference. You’re a goddamn bastion of mental health.”
I said, “Listen, Tobe Hooper is not my pal. I’m a writer, and he’s a subject, and generally, never the twain shall meet. Besides, even if I felt right about calling him—which I don’t—I don’t have his number.”
Theo said, “Dude, seriously, J’s right. Hooper’s probably sitting in his mansion right now, writing a movie about this shit. He probably thinks about it all fucking day.”
Janine said, “I think about it all fucking day, too. It’s all I think about.” She turned to me and said, “Erick, when you’re not in the room with me, I stare at the TV and cry. You’re pretty much the only reason I’m still sane.”
It got really quiet and intense in there, and I actually thought I was going to cry, but then Theo said, “You may be keeping her sane, but you’re driving me insane.”
We all laughed, even though it wasn’t particularly funny, but in those days, you took your laughs where you could get them … even if they were shitty laughs.
Janine said to me, “Jamal’s right. You should call Tobe.”
Theo said, “Dude, if you don’t want to call Hooper, you could totally talk to my shrink.”
I ignored Theo and said, “I don’t know …”
Janine said, “I do know. Call some of your publicist friends, get Tobe’s number, and give him a ring. Or I’ll do it myself.”
I said, “Okay, fine.” Then something dawned on me, and I asked her, “You were at the movie. How come nothing happened to you?”
She said, “I was outside the whole time. I didn’t watch it.”
TOBE HOOPER:
It was after midnight, and I was lying in bed, sucking down a bottle of some brown, trying to figure out how I could keep the third act of my new script from sucking—which was turning out to be a losing battle—and ding fucking dong, the doorbell goes off. Now, a postmidnight visitor is weird for anybody, but for me, it was especially weird, because my doorbell never even rings during daylight hours, let alone the dead of night. Everybody in Hollywood knows that I don’t dig pop-ins. Hell, the UPS and FedEx dudes are well aware that they should always leave my packages on the porch without ringing the bell and without asking for a signature. And believe you me, they never forget. How could they forget? I mean, it’s amazing what a memory aid my fake little chainsaw can be.
So while all this ding fucking donging was going on, I reached under the bed for my gun, but, as usual, it wasn’t there. Still in my damn office in the coach house, still in my damn safe. But the doorbell didn’t care; it kept right on ringing. So without putting on a robe or anything, I walked downstairs, snuck out the back door, and went out back to rescue my firearm. It took me five tries to get the damn combination of that safe dialed in properly, a fact that you might blame on my minor buzz. And sure, the buzz might’ve had something to do with it, but that little lockbox was a piece of shit—you get what you pay for, man—so you can’t put it all on the drink.
At any rate, I finally got it open, and I reached in there, and there was nothing. Okay, not strictly nothing: My emergency five g’s were there in a big yellow envelope, but the gun was gone. The doorbell was still dinging and donging, and I was weaponless and wearing only my boxers, and you can imagine how freaked I was.
I ran back upstairs, went into my bedroom, got down on my hands and knees, and dived under the bed, just in case I missed the gun the first time. Nothing. I banged my head while I was crawling out. Raised a pretty good knot. A little trickle of blood, even. But just a little one.
And then it dawned on me: I’d gone to the shooting range the week before. That’s a can’t-miss, every-other-week thing for me, because you have to stay sharp with the trigger in case you need to protect yourself in a crisis. The thing is, it doesn’t matter one goddamn bit how good of a goddamn shooter you are if your goddamn gun is in your goddamn glove compartment.
The bell kept ringing and ringing, and I had a feeling that fucker wasn’t leaving, so I called 911 and told the dispatcher what the deal was. I thought I sounded calm, but apparently not: The dude told me to stop screaming at him and to lay low, and they’d have a man there in a few.
I lay on the floor for three or four or five or ten minutes, and nada. No screaming sirens, no tires burning rubber in my driveway, no bullhorns telling the doorbell dude to stand down. Just ding dong ding dong ding damn dong. Finally I thought, Screw it, you’ve had a nice life, Tobe, now go deal with this yourself. I tiptoed down the stairs; made my way through my living room, twice stubbing the shit out of my toe; then peeked out the front window and was greeted by a vision that weirded me out like a motherfucker.
There, on my porch, pounding my doorbell with both of his fists, was Gary Church, looking like he’d just walked through a minefield. As I walked over to the door, I kind of laughed at how freaked I’d gotten. I mean, just because someone unexpectedly shows up at your doorstep in the middle of the night doesn’t mean they’re there to kill you.
I opened the door and said, “Gary, what the fuck, man?” He didn’t stop punching the doorbell: ding dong ding dong ding damn dong. I had to yell at the dude: “Gary, what the fuck?!”
He didn’t answer. He moaned. And I was wrong about his appearance. He didn’t look like he’d walked through a minefield. He looked like he’d spent three years in the shit in Saigon.
When your stomach is bothering you, sometimes somebody’ll tell you that you’re looking a little green. Well, Gary was a lot green, like almost olive, the color of army fatigues. His hair—what little of it was left—was matted and clumped; it looked like he’d tried and failed to grow dreadlocks, or maybe like he had on a really shitty Medusa wig. His mouth was wide open, and he was missing most of his teeth, and his tongue appeared to have been, I don’t know, forked or something, as if he’d had a tongue piercing go really fucking awry. His right ear was dangling by the lobe, and his left arm was hanging off by what looked like a single piece of skin, but that wasn’t the worst part, if you can believe it. No, the worst part was the boils on his face. I swear to God, those fuckers were alive. They were erupting, like miniature volcanoes, and the shit that was oozing out of those volcanoes was steaming, and that steam smelled like roadkill to the fiftieth power.
I wanted to invite him in, but I didn’t want to invite him in, you know what I mean? This was Gary Church, but it wasn’t Gary Church, and I didn’t want the not-Gary to bring his bad juju into my living room.
He finally realized I was standing there and stopped ringing the bell. I said all quietly, “Gary, what’s happening, brother? Actually, what happened?”
He ripped off his arm and pointed it at his face, then moaned again.
I told him, “I don’t know what that means, man.” I gagged a little bit. The smell was getting to me.
He then hit himself in the head with his arm. Some of his facial ooze splashed onto my drawers, and I jumped out of those boxers quick-like, right before the ooze touched my skin. This made for one hell of a tableau: me, bare-assed at my front door, and my dearest childhood friend holding his dismembered left arm in his right hand, and some sort of molten pus leaking from his cheeks, and forehead, and nose, and chin, and his ear swaying in the wind like a pendulum. Wonderful, I thought, this is what you get for making Chainsaw, asshole. Ain’t payback a bitch?
Finally, Gary said something I could make out. Kind of: “Shoooooooot me.”
I said, “Um, pardon me? Could you repeat that?”
He did, except louder and longer. “Shooooooooooooooooooot meeeeeeeeeeeee.”
I said, “Brother, I don’t get what you’re saying.” I actually got what he was saying loud and clear, but I didn’t want to tell him that. I then continued. “Nine-one-one’s on the way, man. They’ll get you to the hospital. We’ll get you fixed up.” I didn’t know
if Cedars-Sinai had a treatment center for explosive face goop and leprous limbs, but they’d sure as shit be able to do more than I could.
Before I could go on, Gary tore off his own left leg and, while hopping on one foot, started beating himself on the chest with that damn leg. Each time he hit it, he’d say, “Shoot me.” He sounded like an Indian chanting around a campfire: “Shoo-hoo-hoot me! Shoo-hoo-hoot me! Shoo-hoo-hoot me!” The pus was flying everywhere, so I said, “Screw this, man,” and ran out to the car to get my gun. I mean, who am I to refuse a friend’s dying request?
Naturally, right at that moment, who rolls into my driveway? You guessed it: a police car and an ambulance. Great timing, right?
Two cops ran up to the front door, a big Asian dude and a bigger black dude, and what a scene they came upon: naked film director and almost-limbless actor. One of the cops pulled his gun—which I can’t say I blame him for; I’d have probably done the same thing—and asked to see some ID. I patted my pockets—or where my pockets would’ve been had I had some damn clothes on—and said, “I seem to have left my wallet in my other pants, detective.”
Before I could tell them who I was, Gary hopped over to the cops and, blurry-fast, used his dismembered leg to break both of their necks—two quick swings, pow, pow. After they fell to the ground, Gary decapitated the black cop with his bare hands, then stuck his tongue up through the cop’s neck and slurped, and slurped, and slurped.
My dude was eating the other dude’s brains. My dude was a zombie. A motherfucking zombie.
I wanted to run. I wanted to hide. I wanted to get a video camera. But mostly, I wanted to put on some clothes. As it turned out, I did none of the above.
While Gary was pigging out on the second cop, I said as calmly as I possibly could, “So, um, Gary. How long you been undead?”
He tossed the black cop’s head across the lawn, leaned over, ripped off the Asian officer’s noggin, and again said, “Shoo-hoo-hoot me! Shoo-hoo-hoot me! Shoo-hoo-hoot me!”
