Midnight Movie: A Novel (28 page)

We didn’t say a hell of a lot over dinner. Most of the talk was of the pass-that-napkin-over-here variety. After we threw down several beers, Erick said, “I have a weird-ass idea.”

I said, “Talk to me.” I slurred a bit. I was buzzed. So was Erick. If you’re in a state of buzz, you come up with weird-ass ideas, and sometimes, those weird-ass ideas are the best ones.

He said, “What if it wasn’t
you
, exactly? What if the movie launched some sort of paranormal event, but it wasn’t your fault?”

I said, “What do you mean?”

He said, “Okay, stay with me here. What if, say, your leading lady Helen Leary was a Wiccan witch? Or what if your cameraman worshipped Aleister Crowley? What if one of your cast or crew people figured out how to curse your film?”

I said, “Yeah, sure, that’s an idea, but here’s another one: What if
Destiny Express
had
nothing
to do with
anything
? That’s
my
theory.”

He ignored me and bulled right ahead. It was like he decided that my movie made this mess, period, exclamation mark, end of discussion. He continued on: “Maybe Gary Church did something. I mean, he was on the screen for practically every scene. Maybe we should talk to him.”

I said, “Yeah, that might be tough.”

He said, “Why?”

I said, “When we pulled into the garage, did you notice that heap of green compost on the side of my driveway?”

He said, “Saw it and smelled it.”

I said, “Well, that’s Gary.” See, I hadn’t even gotten a chance to bury him properly. That dude’s body decomposed
fast
.

Erick said, “Excuse me?”

I said, “I tell you, brother, the shit that I dealt with last night makes your nine thirty-three problem seem like a walk in the damn park.” So I gave him the 411 about the Gary situation. After I was done, he looked like he was going to toss his pizza, his beer, and whatever he had for dinner the night before back in Austin. I said, “You don’t look so hot. You want some seltzer to settle your stomach?”

He said, “Only if you put a shit-ton of vodka in it.”

After a few drinks, apropos of nothing, Tobe asked me, “You like your girl?”

I said, “Yeah, man. She’s awesome.”

He said, “What do you like about her?”

I didn’t even have to think about it: “She’s smart as all get-out; and she’s amazingly courageous; and she doesn’t give a damn what people think about her; and she loves her family; and she calls me on my shit, but not in a mean way; and she’s the most gorgeous woman who’s ever let me feel her breasts.”

Tobe said, “Yeah, man. Yeah. That’s beautiful. Very sweet. Very touching. Wish I had something like that. Now, I ask you this: What if one night, you’re alone in your house, and it’s midnight, and your front doorbell rings, and there stands your girl, but she’s
not your girl, exactly, she’s a zombie version of your girl, a drooling, stinking zombie, all green and moaning, and she’s asking, no, she’s
begging
you to shoot her and put her out of her misery, and then you shoot her because your heart is being torn in two, and then, like, an hour later, right when you’re about to bury her, this douchebag guy you know calls you up and says, ‘Listen, I might know why your girl became a zombie, and I have a suggestion of a way you can maybe, possibly stop this from happening to anybody ever again, and it’s a half-assed theory, but there’s a chance, man, a
chance
that you can get, I don’t know, some sort of
redemption
, or
revenge
, or
something
, and all you have to do is meet me for lunch,’ and you meet him for lunch, and he lays it out there, and it sounds absurd, but it’s a starting point, and you want to do
something
, and you’ve got nothing else in your back pocket? What would you do?” Before I could answer, he said, “I’ll tell you what I’d do:
anything
. Even if I couldn’t make it right, I could go to my grave knowing that I at least
tried.
”

I said, “I agree, Tobe. Wholeheartedly.”

He said, “Glad to hear it, man. So. I like your plan. Let’s go round up the
Destiny Express
crew. Such as it is.”

I said, “Sweet. When? Where? How?”

He said, “It shouldn’t be hard. You saw the credits, there were only, what, six people who worked on it? And one of them is me. And one of them is dead.”

I asked him, “Are you in touch with any of these folks?”

He said, “Nope. Haven’t been for years. Shit. Maybe it
will
be hard.”

I said, “Tobe, it took me three phone calls and ten minutes to get your home phone number. Trust me, it won’t be hard.”

I had a little bit of a crush on Tobe Hooper. But just a little bit. It might’ve been a bigger one, but he was … different. And different is sometimes scary.

I think part of the reason I was into Tobe was because he wasn’t into me. He was into movies, and there was something
so
cool about that. I also thought his single-mindedness was sexy. Not that I knew much about sexy back then, but you get the point.

We didn’t travel in the same circles. I was more of the prototypical popular girl, you know, a cheerleader, editor of the yearbook, that sort of thing. Tobe and I never had a serious conversation—we were always cordial toward one another but not friendly to the point that we’d talk for real. Which is why I was so surprised when he asked me to be in his movie.

A million actresses out here ooze sex, but unless you’re a casting director who wants to get laid, that doesn’t mean much in terms of the creative process, such as it is. But Helen Leary wasn’t like that. Helen oozed
it
, an indefinable something that made you want to screw her, then marry her, then have babies with her, then screw her some more. She was the ultimate in Madonna/whore, and brother, back in the day, I wanted a piece of that.

Now, I wasn’t what you would call a ladies’ man or anything, but I did have one thing to offer: my filmmaking skills. When I was in high school, you didn’t have all these little pishers running around with their camcorders like they do today, making their magnum opuses, and inviting their friends along for the ride. Back then, knowing a thing or two about film meant something.

So instead of asking Helen out on a date, I asked her to be in my flick.

I won’t lie to you. I’d dreamed about being an actress. But what teenage girl in Austin, circa 1959, didn’t? Who didn’t want to get out of stupid Texas and do something with her life other than get married at twenty-one, have a baby at twenty-two, have another one at twenty-three, then one at twenty-four, then hang it up? Who wouldn’t want to go to Hollywood and meet Lee Marvin, and Marlon Brando, and Steve McQueen? So when Tobe asked me to do his movie, I didn’t hesitate for a second. My thinking was,
Lots of people all over the world make real, true movies. Why not Tobe? He might just be obsessed enough to make it work
.

Even then, he was a pro. He made me feel comfortable, and talented, and pretty, and relaxed, and as I learned during my brief, less-than-successful film career, that’s not something that every director brings to the table.

When Tobe reached out to me in the midst of all that Game mess, I sure hoped it was because he wanted me to be in his next movie. If nothing else, seeing him would take my mind off the fact that my oldest son had become a zombie.

We flew to Maine the next day. Helen was waiting for us on her doorstep.

She looked beautiful, and she lived in a beautiful house in a beautiful town, and she had a handsome husband, and two handsome sons, and one beautiful daughter. No surprise there.

She seemed happy enough to see me, but she didn’t exactly welcome Erick with open arms.

Tobe was nervous and tongue-tied—something I never would’ve imagined from him—so I took the lead. I asked Helen, “Do you remember making a movie with Tobe?”

She snapped, “Of course I do.”

I asked her, “Did you ever see it?”

She said, “As a matter of fact, I did not. I wasn’t even sure it was actually finished.” Still very snippy.

Tobe piped up. “Helen, Erick’s a nice dude. Maybe you could answer his questions a little, I don’t know, nicer or something.”

She seemed to soften, then said, “To be honest, Tobe, I was hoping to spend some time alone with you.”

Tobe said, “Helen, I would like nothing better. I mean, back in high school, I’d have crawled over a mile of glass just to get a sniff of your neck.”

Helen blushed, then said, “Why, Tobe Hooper, you dog. I have to admit, I had a little thing for you, too.”

I said, “Guys, I hate to break up this lovefest, but we’re kind of in a rush here.”

Helen said, “But I thought you might be able to stay for dinner.”

Tobe said, “Sweetheart, I’d like nothing more than to run away with you to an island where none of this Game crap is going down, but me and Erick here, we’re on a mission.”

Helen said, “What kind of mission?”

I said, “A mission to save the world.”

While Erick gave me the
Destiny Express
backstory and his theory—that maybe the movie somehow launched the Game—Tobe just sat there and stared into my face with an expression that made it clear they weren’t messing around with me.

I said, “Why’re you coming to me? What do you think I have to offer?”

Tobe said, “No clue. We were hoping you could come up with something.”

I said, “What do you mean ‘something’?”

Tobe said, “Something about the shoot. Or about me. Or about anything weird.”

I said, “Okay, let me think.” I closed my eyes, and shut off my brain, and tried to transport myself back to that summer, tried to recall whether anything odd happened during the shoot. And then it came to me. “Remember when we were doing the alligator scene?”

Tobe said, “I don’t remember a damn thing about shooting that damn movie.”

I said, “Well it was really, really hot out. Gary was covered with makeup, just
covered
, and he kept saying he was going to pass out, and you kept saying, ‘You’re fine, you’re fine, drink some water, you’re fine. Next shot, next shot, we’re on the clock, we’re on the clock.’ ”

Erick said, “Sounds like you were already in training to be an indie director.”

Tobe laughed without humor, then said, “Yeah, that’s definitely the kind of thing I’d say on a set, no question.”

I said, “That fake alligator was amazing, Tobe. You made it yourself. I remember you stole a bunch of leather jackets from some clothing store or another.” Then, out of nowhere, it all came crashing back to me. I hadn’t thought about that movie in decades, but all of a sudden, I was back in Austin, sweating, rushing around, and, frankly, a bit frightened. I could practically smell it. “And then you sewed all the jackets together and stuffed it with roadkill.”

Tobe said, “I did what, now?”

I said, “You and the cameraman; what was his name?”

Erick said, “Darren Allen.”

I said, “Right, Darren, that nerdy kid who lived across the street from you. The quiet one. And there was one other guy who was around sometimes.”

Erick said, “William Marron. He did the special effects.”

I said, “My God, it’s like Old Home Week. Wow. Right. Billy Marron. He was a piece of work.” I asked Erick, “How do you know so much about this?”

He said, “Mrs. Leary, I’ve watched
Destiny Express
, what, ten or eleven times now. And I’ve only seen
Citizen Kane
twice, if that means anything.”

Tobe said, “And at the end of the fifth inning, the score is
Citizen Kane
two,
Citizen Crap
ten or eleven.”

Erick ignored him and said, “I know that movie better than Tobe does.”

Tobe said to me, “Hell, Helen, this kid knows
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
better than I do.”

I said, “At any rate, it was a Sunday afternoon, and I specifically remember what day it was because I thought it was funny I was going to shoot an alligator attack in a swamp right after I got out of church. I showed up before everybody else, which was weird, because Tobe was always the one waiting. Gary came next, and then here come Tobe and Darren, hauling this fake gator, looking like they were two cats who’d eaten a dozen canaries. They plopped the thing down right in front of me, then Tobe said, ‘What do you think?’ ”

Tobe asked, “What
did
you think, Helen?”

I said, “Looks-wise, it was really impressive. If you were even ten yards away, you might’ve thought it was real. But good Lord, that thing reeked. I remember I asked why it smelled so bad, and Billy gave me this weird laugh. Then you told me about the roadkill.”

Erick said, “Do you remember specifically
what
he told you about the roadkill?”

I laughed a little bit, then said, “Unfortunately, Erick, it’s all coming back to me.”

Tobe said, “Why’s that unfortunate, Helen?”

I said, “Because you two had apparently wandered up and down the highway for five hours, carrying a shovel and five shopping bags and scooping up every dead possum, and raccoon, and rabbit, and squirrel you could find. And then I guess you used that to stuff the leather jackets with.”

Tobe said, “Man, I was committed.”

I said, “You should’ve
been
committed.”

Erick said, “What could the point of that have possibly been?”

Tobe said, “The point of me being committed?”

Erick said, “No, the point of the roadkill.”

I said, “I believe it was actually Billy’s idea. I think he said something along the lines of ‘The stench of death will add a certain sense of
verisimilitude.
’”

Tobe chuckled, then said, “That sounds like the kind of thing Billy would say. He was always using those fifty-cent words.”