Carsick: John Waters Hitchhikes Across America (6 page)

Officer Laddie begins mock-disco-dancing in his seat and waves to passengers in other cars, who oddly enough seem delighted, give him the thumbs-up, and start mock-dancing right back at him. I start laughing uncontrollably when I look out into the countryside zipping by my window and see cows looking up at the sudden noise of our siren. “Cows don’t get high,” I blurt out stupidly to Officer Laddie as the muscles in our bodies relax and our heart rates increase and the blood pounds through our veins in hilarity and chemical excitement. “They sure don’t,” screams Officer Laddie over the music before we both break into uncontrollable laughter in our joint amyl nitrite bond of lunacy.

As the popper high quickly vanishes, Officer Laddie pulls over on the side of the highway and we look out to an incredible vista, a scenic overlook of majestic America. He reaches into the backseat and grabs a box of donuts. “Hungry?” he offers, taking a coconut-topped Texas-style one for himself. Realizing it’s almost lunchtime and I can’t demand healthy food on the road, I eagerly grab a chocolate-frosted cruller. “Beautiful, isn’t it?” he says, and I assume he means the donut. “Yes,” I agree, but then I see way in the distance a moving mass of dark clouds and suddenly realize he means the storm. “Is that a tornado?” I ask with sudden alarm. “It sure is,” he says, smiling; “maybe we can get a show!” Since I’m not from this part of the country, I’m not sure how scared I should feel. “Are we safe?” I ask as I hear the faint wailing of the tornado-warning siren in the distance and see the now clearly formed tornado funnel zigzagging across the landscape. “Nobody’s ever really safe except in Mayberry, are they?” he asks with a grin. “But Don Knotts is deceased,” I argue, “and so is Andy Griffith,” figuring now is not the time for games. “Nonsense,” Office Laddie responds, “I saw both of them on TV just this morning.”

When the tornado suddenly switches course and seems headed straight for us, I panic, but Officer Laddie just yells out, “Dorothy!” in tribute to Auntie Em’s great line in
The Wizard of Oz
without ever considering the possibility I might not know the reference. With an abruptness that takes my breath away, the dark funnel turns white when the clouds part for a second and the sunlight peeks back in, lighting up the tornado and forcing a rainbow to appear at the same time the twister is churning through the farmland, miraculously missing houses yet gobbling up nature itself with a ravenous appetite. “See?” Officer Laddie yells over the roar of the tornado. “We’re over the rainbow on
both
sides of Oz!” Awestruck at the incredibly magnificent once-in-a-lifetime view of a tornado
and
a rainbow, I hold on to Officer Laddie as branches and limbs from trees become missiles hurled toward us. We duck each one just in time as the tornado veers slightly to the left and just misses sucking us up inside.

In the sudden calm and eerie silence following the storm, I can’t think of anything to say but “I’m really John Waters. I made the first
Hairspray
movie.” Officer Laddie looks at me with sudden recognition. “Oh my God. Of course you are,” he says with happiness, “and you’re not going to believe this, but I’m playing Edna in our church group’s production of
Hairspray
.” Good God, I think, the miracle of
Hairspray
never ends. “Come on,” he begs, grabbing both of my hands with enthusiasm, “let’s do ‘Timeless’ together. You know the words!” And even though I have to think for a moment, he’s right, I do, even though I didn’t write them for the Broadway musical version; Scott Wittman and Marc Shaiman did. “Styles keep a-changin’, the world’s rearrangin’,” I croon as Wilbur. “Fads keep a-fadin’, Castro’s invadin’,” warbles Officer Laddie back, playing Edna with the perfect lack of condescension. “You’re timeless to me,” we sing together while cars whiz by, honking their horns in applause as we shuffle along the side of the highway in perfect vaudevillian happiness with the ravaged, torn-up countryside behind us making the perfect backdrop for our shared musical madness.

GOOD RIDE NUMBER FIVE

YETTA

Officer Laddie has to get back to work, so we do our curtain calls to the applause of honking horns from oncoming traffic and then, like everybody else in showbiz, go our separate ways. I’ll always remember this lovely man and what a help he was on my cross-country trip; however, I have no time for elaborate goodbyes, it’s time to get another ride.

But I’m in the middle of nowhere—the border between Indiana and Illinois. I see poking up the road, at a ridiculously slow speed, a beat-up station wagon whose driver is putting on signal lights to turn onto Route 70W, so I excitedly stick out my thumb. I see what appears to be, from my quick glimpse, a very old lady behind the wheel. She pulls over on the entrance ramp and I’m not sure if it’s because she wants to give me a lift or her car has died. I run up to the door and peek inside. “Hi,” says the overweight lady with snow-white hair pulled up in some kind of goofy Pebbles Flintstone topknot. She is wearing a floral muumuu getup, jeweled plastic slip-on sandals
with
black seamed hose that have seen better days. Her face, although deeply wrinkled, is somehow familiar, but that seems impossible. I hop in and notice that even though she wears no makeup except for a touch of red lipstick that seemed applied by a blind person, she is featuring false eyelashes—the kind you buy in a joke store.

“Loco Moto,” that great honky-tonk hillbilly instrumental by Cornbread and Jerry, with the organ mimicking an approaching train whistle, is playing on the radio, which I think must be another good sign. “I’m only going to Hermann, Missouri,” she says with a chatty voice that also rings a bell. “Thanks for the lift,” I say as she pulls out at a ridiculously slow speed and merges into the interstate without showing any concern at the drivers who slam on their brakes behind her in the slow lane and then lean on their horn before angrily speeding around her. “Green tree. Pretty lady. Car. Car. Truck,” she recites, naming out loud almost everything she sees. “Don’t mind me, I’m a gabberbox,” she chuckles. “A gabberbox?” I ask, confused at her term. “You know, hon, I talk a lot,” she explains before breaking into a laugh that is eerily familiar. “Oh, you mean a
chatterbox
,” I say, and she just continues laughing, but then pops a giant cough drop in her mouth, one with a strong cherry odor. “I talk mental,” she announces with pride. “Are you from Baltimore?” I ask, hearing her use of the working-class white expression
hon
, which is still heard in certain blue-collar neighborhoods in Baltimore. “No, no,” she answers without any apparent geographical pride, “I’m from San Francisco, California.” The off-kilter lilt to her voice is familiar and I rack my brain:
Who
does she remind me of? “Do you miss the Bay Area?” I ask, wondering if she could have even read my San Francisco sign from the distance of her moving car. I try not to stare at this batty old broad but somehow I
know
this woman. “No, I’m real happy in Hermann, Missouri! I’ve got a secondhand convenience store called Yetta’s.” “You mean overstocked items?” I ask politely, trying to imagine what on earth a secondhand convenience store could be. “No, goofy,” she says in a nasal, singsong voice like some kind of dotty comedienne, “it’s just used products, like a thrift store. I get outdated prescription drugs, half-used deodorant sticks, recalled over-the-counter cold medicine … they still work! Sometimes it’s a bunch of bullshit when they say there’s some sort of health scare. I try ’em first, and if I’m okay, so are my customers!” “Is that legal!?” I blurt, imagining a store straight out of one of my old movies. “I don’t know, John,” she giggles, “but the local police are nice. They buy stuff, too!”

“John!?” I ask in shock. This woman recognizes me? It can’t be! “How do you know my name?” I wonder out loud. Suddenly she looks nervous. “Well … you don’t recognize me?” I stare at her quizzically and she smiles sweetly and then says the one word that explains it all. “Eggs!” she cries in the most identifiable voice in the world. “EDITH!?” I scream so loud, she jumps. “Yes, honey, it’s me…,” she shyly admits. “You’re alive!?” I shout, completely losing my cool at seeing the onetime star of many of my early movies. “Well, you don’t believe in ghosts, do you?” she chuckles with that famous off-kilter delivery. “But, Edith,” I stutter, “I thought you died in California.” “I didn’t really die. I just needed to get away, John,” she confesses timidly. “I wanted to retire from show business. Let my fans remember me when I was beautiful.” “Beautiful?” I think with ironic amazement before correcting myself—yes, she was beautiful and still is. “But your teeth,” I blurt, “who fixed your snaggletooth smile?” “I saved up money from the store and got them. You like ’em? Look, they come out,” she explains as she lowers her jaw and removes the bottom row. “No, no! It’s okay,” I beg, “put them back in!

“How did you know I was here, Edith?” I marvel. “Officer Laddie and I are friends,” she explained, “we sometimes sing show tunes together just for fun. He buys used shampoo from me, too. He called me and told me he left you off hitchhiking and I couldn’t believe it. I just had to see you one last time.” “But why didn’t you ever call me, Edith?” I cry. “All those years! I dreamed you were alive, I really did!” “I just was afraid you’d want me back in movies,” she says quickly. “It was too hard for me to memorize those lines.” “But you were a star, Edith!” I shout for the world to hear. “Well, not as big as Divine was,” she humbly argues, “and he deserved to have all the fame.” “But you and Divine were great together in
Polyester
,” I gush, and for once she is silent. “That was then, John,” she finally says. “I’m happy now, too.”

I start crying. I can’t believe Edith Massey is alive. “How old are you now, Edith?” I ask in amazement. “Ninety-four years old and still kickin’,” she answers with a coquettish giggle. “But how did you fake your death? I thought you were cremated,” I pry. “Weren’t your ashes illegally scattered by your friends in Los Angeles at the same cemetery garden where Marilyn Monroe’s were?” “Well, silly, you never
saw
my dead body, did you?” she asks with girlish mischief. No, I think, picturing Divine’s Alfred Hitchcockian belly peeking up as he lay in his coffin at the funeral home. “I never saw David Lochary’s body, either!” I suddenly blurt to Edith. “Is he still alive?” “I don’t think so, John,” she politely reasons, “but I don’t keep up with the Dreamlanders, so I wouldn’t know.” “But who helped you?” I grill her, amazed that she had pulled off her fake death with such aplomb. “Gene did,” she admits, mentioning her last roommate, who had called me from the hospital in Los Angeles where Edith supposedly only had a few days left to live. “But I talked to the doctors,” I remembered. “That was Gene’s friend,” Edith confesses with a titter. “But I still talk to Gene,” I wail, amazed that he’s kept this secret for so long. “It was my secret, John,” Edith explains with a sudden seriousness. “He kept it and I hope you will, too. But I missed you, John, I really did.”

I sob out loud. “Pull over, Edith, please! Let me give you a hug! I can’t believe you’re alive!!” Edith’s eyes get a little misty, too. “Okay,” she says as she veers over in front of another car, which swerves away in the nick of time. “But remember, I work. I gotta open my store at noon.” On the side of the highway, Edith and I embrace. “Would you ever be in another movie?” I ask with excitement. “No, honey,” she answers kindly. “I liked being in the underground movies. I’d be too nervous to act with real movie stars. Besides, our old movies are still playing, aren’t they?” “Yes, Edith, but the fans and the press would go nuts to see you again!” I try to convince her. “No, John,” she says with finality, “who’d take care of Lovey?”
“Your cat is still alive?!”
I yell in shock. “Well, not the Lovey you remember,” she patiently explains. “She died in my arms, but I have had six more Loveys since and I love them all just the same.” With that, Edith pulls back into traffic and for once it is a smooth merge. “Wanna see my store?” she asks, pulling me shockingly right back into the present.

Yetta’s is located outside St. Louis in the tiny town of Hermann. “Why did you pick here?” I ask as we pull into the “free parking” lot behind her storefront shop, located between a church and a sausage factory. “Well, Gene and I ran out of gas, so I decided to stay,” Edith tells me happily. “I was ready to work in the sausage factory. I
love
sausage, but Gene wanted me to be my own boss. He had some money, and he stayed with me for a few weeks and helped me open the store.” “But no one recognizes you?” I quiz her as we get out of the car and she opens the back of her wagon and I help her carry in a big, damaged carton of Sure deodorant. “Just once,” she admits as we struggle toward the shop. “A punk-rock girl asked me if I was ‘the Egg Lady,’ and I just said, ‘What do you mean?’ and she let it go. I changed my name to Yetta just because I always thought it was a pretty name. Remember you named one of my eggs Little Yetta?” “I do remember, Edith,” I say with astonishment and sentimental nostalgia at hearing her say this name from the outtake bonus feature from the
Pink Flamingos
twenty-fifth anniversary DVD. “You need some used cosmetics, John?” she asks as she fumbles for her keys. “I got Maybelline eyeliner pencils and they’re only about half sharpened down. No tops, but you can use tinfoil for a cap.”

Yetta’s is a jerry-rigged showcase of damaged products: toiletries out of their boxes and thrown into a 25¢ bin, makeup jars half-filled, shampoo tubes squeezed almost empty, loose Band-Aids without the paper wrappers, outdated sunblock, and a “pharmacy” section that is incredibly startling. Inside display cases with cracked, broken glass that must have been retrieved from a dump are prescription bottles with all the original patients’ and doctors’ names blacked out with a felt-tip pen. “You need a sleeping aid?” asks Edith, with the kindness of Marcus Welby, M.D. “We got all kinds—Ambien, Halcion, even some Percocets.” “No, Edith, I can sleep fine,” I answer, picking up a Viagra pill out of a “2 for $1” bin and then putting it back, remembering I was hitchhiking and loose pills without a doctor’s note might be trouble down the road. “Don’t you have trouble with junkies?” I ask. “I don’t know what they do with the pills, John,” she says with a shrug. “I’m not nosy. They’re always nice to me so I don’t say nothin’.”