drive in 2.wps

by phuc

  I walked down the hallway until a Western backdrop caught my eye. I stepped into a dusty street and began walking between rows of clapboard buildings. At the far end of the narrow street, a tall fellow with a gun on his hip began walking toward me.

  I was dressed for the part, but I didn't like the looks of this. I turned around and walked back up the street and stepped back into the hallway.

  When I examined the backdrop, there was just an empty street, of course.

  The backdrops came to an end, and in their place were mirrors that distorted my appearance. No two had me looking the same. It seemed to me there was some great cosmic truth in this, but try as I might, I couldn't put my finger on it. I kept walking.

  The hallway became filled with a large red ball. It towered high above me and touched the walls of the hallway. I put my hand against it and it felt as if it were made of cardboard. I pushed and it rolled back to reveal a split that widened and showed me several rows of jagged, poorly painted, cardboard teeth.

  It was the comet that had smiled and turned the Orbit into a horror movie. I pushed the ball hard and 't went rolling down the long hallway very fast and disappeared into the distance like the sun falling down the dark shaft of the universe.

  I noticed now that the floor beneath me had changed and that I was standing on a dark rectangle and it was in turn linked to another and a series of these went on down the hall and disappeared into the same distance the comet had fallen. On either side and between the rectangles were gaps and out of the gaps poured a bright yellow light that hit against the ceiling.

  The light became stronger and warmer. It worked through the rectangle and it worked through me. I fell face forward, went stiff and was enveloped by the flooring.

  The light went out.

  Lines I remember from my father and his Bible:

  In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

  And God said, Let there be light; and there was light.

  I don't know about the waters, but there was certainly light, and plenty of it. It was stronger than before and warmer than before; it went through me like new blood. I felt as if I had never lived, except I had memories, and these seemed to belong to someone else and loaned to me. I felt as if I were a new creature in the eyes of the God (or Gods) of film; I was nothing more than a flat lifeless piece of celluloid with a great yellow light shining through me and the light was giving me life.

  In other words, I was on a filmstrip.

  I could hear gears grinding, sprockets turning, and the rectangle that was my home began to move. It rolled through what must have been a projector, because at some point the bright light became brighter and I hit a white wall and—

  I was animated, cartoon style. I held my hand in front of me, and it was black-gloved like it was supposed to be but the hand was puffy and silly, as if it were really nothing more than a glove filled with air.

  I was in a little room sitting on a stool, and all around me were white walls, and there were whisperings from somewhere, and occasional shadows, then in front of me was this little blue glow. The glow died down and in its place was a short, dumpy cartoon woman wearing a blue-and-white dress tied in back with a white cloth belt. Her hair was silver and done up in a bun. She was holding a wand tipped with a silver star and she was using it to scratch her ass.

  In a voice that had been worked over with Brillo pads, she said, "I think it's the riding around on the film or the light that gives you the itch, but whatever, it's some kind of itch.

  Lot of us have it. But listen, kid, I'm not here to talk to you about ass itch. We know what you want and we want you to have it. You're made for the part, and I ain't blowing smoke up your ass. You're perfect. You see, the Producer and the Great Director want a show down there and we think you're the one can give it to us. Kid, we're gonna make you a goddamn star."

  She took a pack of cigarettes out from under a roll in the sleeve of her dress, shook one out and lipped it, replaced the pack. "We give a man a job, we like to give him the full run of things, see, and while we're talking here, let me tell you something. You're ugly, kid. With a kisser like that if you was a chicken you'd have to sneak up on a pile of shit to peck a corn kernel out of it. But that's not your fault. It's something we can fix."

  She brought out a box of wooden matches and struck one on her hip and lit her smoke.

  She puffed and tossed the box on the floor. She pinched the cigarette between thumb and forefinger and held the flame toward her palm.

  "Tell me what face you want, kid. I want to show you what we can do. Naw, don't tell me a thing. I know the face, and it ain't pretty and it ain't ugly. It ain't really a face. You want something everyone will look at. You want it so when you step into a room all eyes go to you. Well, in the name of the Producer and the Great Director, by the power vested in me, and all that stuff, I give it to you."

  She waved the wand. "The stuff dreams are made of, kid."

  I felt a rush of energy. I was a thermometer and I was overheated and my mercury was about to explode out the top of my head.

  Next thing I knew, I was on the floor, then I was coming out of darkness. I blinked and found myself next to the hole that let in the tip of the TV pyramid.

  I looked at my hands. They weren't animated now. A big-handled mirror lay next to me. I picked it up and looked at myself.

  What I had for a face was a TV, and that suited me fine.

  And my face operated like one. Inside my head was the mental switch, and with a twist of my mind I could tune into any movie, television show, commercial, or personal video I wanted.

  And I could play it on my face and see it at the same time.

  I was proud.

  I tossed away the mirror and started down. I felt like Charlton Heston playing Moses in The Ten Commandments. But I wasn't coming down from on high with the Ten Commandments. I had something better. Every movie, show and commercial ever made was tucked tight in my head, ready to explode onto my face at a whim.

  It took me some time to get down, of course, but when I did, the drive-in was full of people. They had been wandering in for a time. They had built a stage of TVs in front of one of the drive-in screens, and they were taking turns going up there and acting out scenes from movies, quoting dialogue they remembered. They also did sound effects and screams. They weren't too good at it.

  When they saw me they stood open-mouthed, and when I turned my face on and filled it with Night of the Living Dead, their expressions turned to rapture. I sat down on a TV set and crossed my legs and leaned forward and they gathered before me and squatted down and watched. And when Night was over, I gave them The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and then The Sound of Music intercut with Zombie. Now and then I gave them a commercial for GI Joe action figures and accessories, tossed in a California Raisins commercial, and one for some kind of shampoo. Things got cozy.

  They loved me, and it was then that I gave myself a new name. I was in Hopalong gear and I had a TV face and my idol had been the Popcorn King, so naturally, I came up with Popalong Cassidy. I told my audience that was what they should call me, and they did.

  They would have called me anything to keep those images coming; they had learned that the images were the reality and all else was an illusion they had to work to invent. My face did all the work for them. It gave them all the reality they needed to know, minus the effort.

  I found that I no longer needed to eat food. All I needed were the eyes and minds of those people on my face. That kept me full.

  In time, more people came to the drive-in, and they too sat before my face and worshiped it, and I pulled energy from them and felt fuller and stronger than ever before.

  I was loved. Loved by those who sat before me and ate the popcorn and candy that fell from the sky, drank the drinks it rained. Loved, goddamnit, loved. Me, Popalong Cassidy.

 
Loved and admired and revered.

  Course, there were some nonbelievers. They wanted to stay away from my face. They saw it as bad. They blamed the movies for what had happened to them.

  This was nonsense.

  I had my followers rip them open and eat their guts and act out Night of the Living Dead.

  Then the heads of those stupid dissenters went up on tall pieces of antenna and we placed them all around the drive-in as a warning to the nonviewers who might come, and as an inspiration to the rest of us.

  I had my followers strike sparks and set the TV pyramid's on fire. They would have no other gods before me. I was it, and I didn't want competition. No one else would be climbing up there to see my Fairy Godmother; no one else could have my prize.

  This kept the drive-in a happy place. A new era had dawned. I was its messiah. Offspring of the Producer and the Great Director, whoever they were, and it was my job to make sure they were entertained. And I planned to give my heavenly parents a really big show.

  Now let's pause for this brief commercial message.

  8

  GRACE TALKING

  All the while Popalong had been talking, images were flashing on his face. Clips from movies and television shows. Now a series of commercials went lickety-split across the screen; everything from exercise machines to Boxcar Willie's Greatest Hits. Damn if I hadn't always wanted to try Boxcar Willie's stuff, though I hated to admit it. If I ever got home, I was going to order his album.

  I suppose there were subliminals at work under all that film stuff, but maybe not. I like to think it had no effect on me because I'm just too much woman to be taken in by a subliminal message; I like to think Mom and Dad raised a pretty stubborn girl and that my martial arts training allowed me to maintain my focus on who I was and what I thought.

  Course, maybe the only subliminal in the whole mess was for me to buy a Boxcar Willie album, and that seemed to be working. Maybe all those people who had fallen for Popalong's line of corn were just stupid. My dad always said, "Grace, most people are idiots."

  It was kind of cold-blooded, but life seemed to sort of be bearing him out.

  The commercials wrapped up, and in spite of myself I liked the last one. It had to do with these carrots, potatoes and bell peppers with stick legs and shoes and stick arms and gloves. They were hopping off the face of a box and dancing across a kitchen table on their way to leap into a pan full of water resting in the mouth of an open stove.

  "My message is simple," said 'Popalong. "There is pleasure in darkness and pain. The light cannot be appreciated without the dark. Entertainment is where it's at. At the end of the highway I have formed a humble Church of Darkness and Pain. Services every day. It all plays on my face. And when someone, shall we say, becomes a star at the church, like those nonbelievers I told you about, we record their acting and play it again and again for our pleasure. No special effects. No wooden lines. No one pretending to eat guts. The real thing. It's addicting, I kid you not"

  He leaned close to me. "Revolutionary, don't you think?"

  "It bites the moose," I said.

  "Now that's ugly," Popalong said. "After all I've shown you and told you, you're still an asshole. I'm afraid you'll have to be edited out of what you call life. But don't worry, I'll make you a star. I'll make sure your agony is recorded forever in the only way that really matters. On film."

  He turned to Sue Ellen. "Her, I think she's got potential. I think she can see the light of my face and know it for what it is, don't you? I think she's rather pretty. She might make me a nice queen. I'd like that. I mean I may be a messiah, but to hell with this Jesus stuff where you don't get any pussy. I'm a new kind of messiah, and I say hey, what's the point in being a messiah with all kinds of control, if you don't throw some pork to the women.

  You see, I can give them any face they want while I make love to them.

  Whatever star they want, man or woman, hell, Lassie or Rin Tin Tin, I can call them up on my screen, and presto, I'm who they want me to be."

  The rain had stopped and daylight was creeping beneath the tarp and poking through the holes where the rain had come through. The fires in the television sets were dying down and the smoke from them was thinning and becoming lighter, going as soft and gray as the cottony strands of an old man's hair.

  The shadows huddling against the back of the tarp were fading. Popalongs shadow was seeping into the ground at his feet like motor oil.

  "They're fraidy-cats of the light," he said. "Roy, would you please get the gasoline."

  The man who had cut me free climbed on the wrecker and came down with a five-gallon can.

  "You should feel honored," Popalong said. "Rare as gasoline is. You know, this will be our last trip out from the church in the wrecker. When we get back we'll be near empty.

  It's a pisser not to be able to go out and spread the word, but what's a fella to do?"

  "You're no fella," I said.

  "You know, you're right. Soak her, Roy.

  "Don't we get to fuck her first?" Roy asked.

  "Now that you mention it," Popalong said, "I do seem to be ahead of myself. Everyone for fucking her?"

  He held up his hand as an example. The four men put their hands up.

  Popalpng turned that sixteen-inch screen on me. "You're popular, what can I say. But you know, I'm going to pass. You have such a nasty disposition, I'm afraid I'd end up having to fake an orgasm. Roy, would you like to be first to crack open the box?"

  Roy smiled and put the can down. He got a pair of wire cutters out of his back pocket and went over and snipped what held me to the wrecker, but this didn't free my hands. They were fastened together by a separate bond.

  "You going to record this?" Roy said.

  "Whatever I see is recorded," Popalong said. "Bring her out from the wrecker, please, get her pants off, and get started. I'm sort of in a hurry to see her burn. Rest of you get that tarp down."

  The three in the back went straight to the tarp and pulled it up and flipped it over the antenna in the middle and tossed it onto the wrecker.

  Roy led me so that I was in front of Popalong's antenna. Popalong stepped up on his spokes and hung his arms in the rods. He looked at me and smiled his dials.

  "Showtime," he said.

  9

  There was no wind and the dead air had turned warm and humid. Sweat poured off of me and my hair stuck to the back of my neck. I needed to go to the ladies' room.

  Roy wasn't taking me real serious. After all, I was a girl. Maybe I was supposed to beg and scream like in the horror movies.

  What I did when Roy reached out to take hold of my pants was swivel on the ball of my left foot and whip my head around and get my hips shifting, and I brought my leg up fast and loose and snapped it back so that the heel caught Roy directly behind his right ear and made a sound like big hands clapping.

  Before Roy filled his teeth with dirt, I was moving. One of the men tried to stop me, but I jumped up and snapped out my right leg and caught him in the throat with the edge of my foot. I could feel something in his neck give, then I was down and running, hitting the jungle hard as I could go, keeping my balance as best I could, which wasn't easy with my hands tied the way they were. Then I was out of there, boys, prehistoric history.

  10

  At first I felt like Brer Rabbit in the brier patch, then I didn't feel so good. This was where the film crawled and sucked on you, where the bad storms blew shadows and trees moved.

  But nothing of the sort was happening then. The film lay still at my feet and still in the trees. There were no shadows and no storms. I supposed those things were reserved for night.

  I heard footsteps behind me and I only paused long enough to jump up and pull my knees to my chest and whip my bound hands underneath me.

  I saw that my hands were tied with a piece of wire that had been wrapped around them three or four times with the ends twisted together. I pulled at the wire with my teeth as I ran and got it loose. I crunched it up
and put it in my pocket so I wouldn't leave something on the ground for them to mark my passing.

  Eventually I didn't hear them anymore, but I kept running. I don't know how long I went, and I had no idea which way I was going. I followed the path of least resistance.

  When I felt certain they were no longer behind me, I stopped and found a tree with low branches and swung up in that and climbed as high as I could.

  I was shocked. I had looped back until I was almost to the highway. In fact, I probably wasn't far from where I had been captured. If I had kept running, I would have been out on the highway again in a matter of minutes.

  I could see the wrecker at the edge of the highway and I could see Popalong's antenna, but he wasn't on it. I could see the Galaxy too. I couldn't see Popalong, his men or Timothy or Sue Ellen. I could see some dark smoke, but I couldn't tell what it was coming from. Its source was near the edge of the woods though.

  I felt poorly, so I found a forked limb that had a lot of leafy cover and wedged my butt in the fork and put my back against a bigger limb and clutched a smaller one with the crook of my right arm. A wind began to stir, and that was all I needed to send me off to dreamland.

  When I awoke my back hurt and my arm was stiff, but I felt rested. I had no idea how long I slept. It was still daylight.

  I got out on the limb where I had been before and looked at the wrecker. Popalong's antenna cross was in the back of the wrecker, fastened to the wench post somehow, and Popalong was on it. He had this TV head turned in my direction, lifted slightly up, but I didn't think he could see me. One of his men was coiled at his feet like a house cat.

  The wrecker started to move. I watched until it was out of sight.

  11

  At this point, some of this is bound to be obvious. Yes, it was Timothy that was burning. I found the guy I had kicked in the head dead in the bushes. The one I had kicked in the throat had been impaled on a piece of television antenna. Popalong didn't like failures much.

  I guess I should have killed Timothy. That's what he asked for. But I got the keys out of my pocket and opened up the trunk of the Galaxy and took the gas can and poured it into the tank. I got my arms under Timothy and got him loaded in the backseat of the Galaxy.