The Incredible True Story of the Making of the Eve of Destruction
Page 14
Eve of Destruction became mainstream pretty fast, and I didn’t really know how they, as in the bigwigs in the “industry,” were going to take it.
“I don’t think Hollywood has seen this many black people since Roots,”64 joked Deidra to Jessica.
The plan was to intermingle, white-black-white-black-white-black. I bet they wanted to do the entire movie in black and white. A strange problem to have, but it was 1984, and life still hadn’t changed.
“We’re good. We’re good. We’re good,” the director repeated to himself. “This will be good. This will work. We will be fine.”
I didn’t see the problem, but if you’d been to the movie theater recently, you would understand. There hadn’t been a lot of black actors in recent major motion pictures.
“Okay, okay, okay,” the director said. “We need to rehearse.”
Which we did. All of us with no speaking parts just stood in lines and whispered nonsense.
“Shut it, extras. The whispering is hurting my ears,” Astrid screamed. “We’ve done enough practice.”
I wanted to go behind the curtain, grab the needle that the prop department was setting up, and stab her in the eye.
Self-control. I needed self-control.
The director came in and ordered us to practice one last time before we got it on film. Astrid moaned and rolled her eyes. He was calmer than before, when he saw all the extras. He didn’t say anything racist. He didn’t really say anything at all. There were rumblings about the budget, which was already tight and was about to get even tighter. Over budget by a few hundred thousand. Probably over a million by the time the big scene rolled around. I couldn’t comprehend that amount of money. I had five bucks to my name, and that was because Mom gave that to me just in case I needed some spending cash.
“I need more from you,” the director said to Astrid, who was getting frustrated with the direction he was giving her.
She was about to walk off set when he called for a five-minute break.
The director left to take a phone call, probably from a finance man.
I went over to the food service table and grabbed a banana.
“He’s in over his head,” Astrid said, standing beside me and grabbing a grape off the vine in a bowl.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Oh, I’m not talking to you. I’m just thinking out loud,” she said, smiling and taking another grape and popping it into her mouth.
“The light—we’re going to lose the light,” Mr. Edman yelled.
“Honestly, we’re inside,” Astrid said to herself, most definitely not to me.
I dropped the banana peel in the garbage.
The director was literally pulling his hair out. He was literally becoming bald before my eyes. “One take and we’ll film,” he said, yelling into his bullhorn, even though the cafeteria wasn’t that big. “Quiet on the set. Quiet on the set. And action!”
* * *
58 Joanie Loves Chachi was a spin-off of Happy Days. It only aired for two seasons. It starred Erin Moran and Scott Baio as Joanie Cunningham and Chachi Arcola. They tried their hand at a traveling rock band. The show was canceled last year.
59 A major motion picture that premiered on May 4, 1984. It was directed by John Hughes. It starred Molly Ringwald, Michael Schoeffling, and Anthony Michael Hall.
60 A major motion picture that premiered on July 20, 1984. It was directed by Jeff Kanew. It starred Robert Carradine and Anthony Edwards.
61 A major motion picture that premiered on August 13, 1982. It was directed by Taylor Hackford. It starred Richard Gere, Debra Winger, and Louis Gossett Jr.
62 A major motion picture that premiered on August 13, 1982. It was directed by Amy Heckerling. It starred Jennifer Jason Leigh, Brian Backer, Phoebe Cates, Sean Penn, Judge Reinhold, Robert Romanus, and Ray Walston.
63 A major motion picture that premiered on February 17, 1984. It was directed by Herbert Ross. It starred Lori Singer, Dianne Wiest, Kevin Bacon, and John Lithgow.
64 A 1977 miniseries based on Alex Haley’s book Roots: The Saga of an American Family. It stared LeVar Burton in his acting debut as Kunta Kinte. Usually I watch him on Reading Rainbow on PBS.
The macabre scene comes after they prick their little fingers to actually test their blood.
They’re given ID cards to carry in their wallets and clutches. Cards with their name, address, and blood type. The circle smeared with their blood. The students wait in line until their name is called.
“Next,” says Nurse Murphy.
Helen moves forward, her arms at her sides. She’s cold in nothing but her brassiere and skirt. She sits on a cot and waits for her turn, picking at the loose thread on her hem.
Nurse Murphy orders Helen to lift her arm. She wipes the X mark. Helen flinches at the coldness.
“Is it going to hurt?” Helen asks naively.
“Only for a bit, but don’t worry—the pain will subside.”
The tattoo gun buzzes as it comes toward her. She screams, but the nurse does not stop. The gun touches her skin. It tickles. She laughs, but the pain comes and she starts. Tears run down her cheeks, down her chin, onto her bosom.
“All done,” Nurse Murphy says. “See, it didn’t hurt one bit.”
Helen’s body, once pure, is now defiled with an O and a positive sign.
Eve of Destruction, Book, page 14.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The “congratulations; we made it one week” party was tonight. The temperature had dropped, but everyone was still determined to celebrate. So the school administration graciously opened the doors to the high school gym. The same gym where I got pelted during dodgeball last week.
I waited in line for food. BBQ and potato salad filled my plate, and a piece of Wonder Bread.
“It’s, like, so totally going to look like a mushroom cloud. I worked it to a T. It’s going to be so gnarly,” Skeet said, scooping coleslaw onto his plate. Skeet’s in charge of the explosives on set. He’s the one who’s going to be making the bomb look like the real thing.
“Gnarly,” I said as he was trying to explain it to me.
“Righteous.”
The last time I saw him—yesterday—he’d had a lit cigarette in his mouth. He was holding a stick of dynamite in his right hand and a brick of C-4 in his left. He could have taken out me and everyone around us that day. Unless he was holding props. It was hard to tell sometimes.
I found a table in the back for Max and me.
“They want to use my land,” he said glumly as he sat. He placed a chocolate cupcake on my plate.
“Thanks and what?” I said, licking the frosting that I had swiped with my index finger.
“For your death scene.”
“Cool.”
“Not cool. That’s my place, and my mom gave them permission to use it. Ugh. Annoying woman. She signed papers and everything.”
“But it’s going to be in a movie. That’s pretty awesome.”
“Ugh.”
I shook my head. “You’re being crazy.”
“Am not. But I’ll tell you what, I’m going to be there,” he said.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because I’m going to be in this movie if my land is going to be in this movie.”
“I thought you don’t care about this movie.”
“I don’t.”
“Well, I think you do.”
He rolled his eyes and dug into his fried chicken leg like a dog gnawing on a bone.
“Can I have everyone’s attention?” Mayor Hershott said to the crowd. His voice echoed throughout the gym.
A few people stopped eating and looked toward the stage, but most kept talking to who they were talking to and pretended that Mayor Hershott did not exist. I know I did
n’t go up to the stage.
“Thank you all for coming,” said Mayor Hershott. “What an awesome turnout.” Most people here had come for the food. “Everyone has been great this week. But we’ve got one week left with Hollywood, and let’s make it the best week ever. Who’s with me?”
Most kept on eating their lime-green salad and pickled eggs, but the kids cheered.
The director approached the microphone. Once again a piercing sound went through the speakers and made all of us, even the ones not paying attention, i.e., not me, place our hands over our ears and scream out in pain.
“Okay,” he said, finally getting the attention back on him—even the ones who hadn’t been paying attention to Mayor Hershott. “You all have been great with your turnout as extras this past week.” People clapped for themselves. “I’m requesting an even bigger turnout for this upcoming Thursday’s last but biggest shoot.”
Next Thursday marked the end of the world for Pikesville. As the bomb went off, I would be watching from the top of Crow Mountain. Blast. Heat. Radioactivity. End the Arms Race—Save the Human Race. Really, one big bang and we all fall down. Winning the contest meant I got to survive. Sort of. (Sorry, spoiler alert for whoever hasn’t read Eve of Destruction yet, but I died. The Red Warning from Mount De Soto and my death scene, the sacrificing my life for the boy I love. Like I said—spoiler alert.)
“I don’t know why this morbid stuff is so fascinating to me,” Freddy said.
“I think it’s because no matter how bad our lives are, it could be a lot, lot worse.”
“True. Where’s Terrence?” he asked.
“Um,” I said, looking around, “he’s over there by the tree with Rodney.”
He smiled, knocked his shoulder with mine, and walked away.
The director was still talking about what would happen after the bomb went off.
“I need smiles and happy faces. True, a lot of people are going to die, but it’s all worth it in the end. It’s going to be visually appealing. You won’t even know it’s fake. There will be casualties, and if any of you all are interested in being a part of the blast sequence and also the aftermath scene, we would love to have you. We need bodies—dead ones. For the ones playing live victims, we are asking for you to come in ratty clothes from the early ’50s—and surprise! If you choose to go the extra mile, a seventy-five-dollar bonus will be paid to those who shave their heads bald. Everyone will be covered in mud and other ways that our makeup department can come up with to mimic the effects of radiation. We will also be setting up the blast zone, and if you do live in the proximity of what we are calling ground zero, we need you to evacuate. For your inconvenience, every adult will be paid ten dollars and every child five. Starting at six a.m., we will be knocking on doors. The local police have agreed to help. Thank you for your understanding. And don’t forget what Mr. Beauchamp said in his great novella: ‘If you’ve seen one nuclear war, you’ve seen ’em all.’”
People clapped again, even more loudly. I didn’t know if it was the promise of money or the excitement of seeing an explosion or coming face-to-face with the postapocalyptic boogeyman, the nuclear boogeyman on the brink of destruction, but everyone was interested in being a victim.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Mr. Truitt was setting up the VCR. Movies were the greatest thing to happen to a class since the time we got to play Heads Up, Seven Up when we had a substitute teacher.
“Someone get the lights,” Mr. Truitt said.
“What’s going on, Teach?” Rodney asked, flipping the lights off.
Mr. Truitt didn’t answer. Instead, Rodney pressed play and went to his desk and sat down.
Dr. Doomsday or: How to Start World War III Without Even Trying—a play on the cinematic title Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb65—subtitle: History of Atomic Fusion.
Our title: What in the hell have we/they done?
The man’s voice was so robotic, rattling off so many statistics, one after another, and another, and another:
W-53 Titan II Thermonuclear Missile has a blast yield of nine megatons. Has been in service since 1962. It weighs over 8,000 pounds and is at least 600 times more powerful than atomic weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 at the end of World War II.
There are two types of assaults, that being Surface and Airburst. At the end of either, this is what you might expect in a generalized rural location.
Surface
3,100 dead; 9,460 injured.
Airburst
7,420 dead; 49,690 injured.
It is said that Airbursts don’t produce any appreciable fallout, but ground bursts produce a great deal.
Distance from blast: 5 miles. Fallout will begin in 20 minutes.
Distance from blast: 25 miles. Fallout will begin in 1 hour.
Distance from blast: 100 miles. Fallout will begin in 3 to 5 hours.
Victory to the country that recovers first after a nuclear war. However, the only creatures guaranteed to survive a nuclear war, we are told, are cockroaches. For humankind the problems caused by radiation and the fallout seem insurmountable.
The screen went white, then got brighter, then there was a blast so loud that I thought it was going to knock out the television speakers.
I screamed. I couldn’t help it. A shiver went down my spine, like someone was walking over my grave—as the saying went.
Everyone turned their head. I was having a panic attack. Mr. Truitt rushed toward me. He tried to calm me down. He grabbed my shoulders to keep me from shaking, but I kept struggling in his arms. I couldn’t breathe. I could see my reflection in his silver tie-clip. The look on his face made me just as afraid as he was. My face was bright red and covered in tears. Rodney ran to get the nurse, and she came in just as fast as he’d left with a brown paper bag.
“Laura. Laura. Laura,” the nurse said over and over again, “just breathe.”
Mr. Truitt stopped the tape and turned off the TV. Kevin turned on the lights and we sat quietly. What was there to say? I had nucleomituphobia.66 Like my teacher in ninth grade told us, “Don’t worry about the possibility of war. If it happens, the school will be a target in the primary strike zone, and our obliteration will be swift, instantaneous, and painless.” He was going through a divorce, and he was fired the next week after many of the parents complained.
Class was pretty much done after that until the bell rang. I kept breathing into my brown paper bag. I saw Mrs. Martin during gym class, where I talked about my feelings. I knew that I could never show my face again in chemistry. I was the girl who got freaked out over a fake nuke; what would I do if there was ever a real thing? A brown paper bag wasn’t going to save me.
I didn’t want to think about what happened in chemistry or Mrs. Martin’s assertion that if I didn’t come to terms with my nucleomituphobia, I would most definitely have a nervous breakdown. So I focused on the comic and how our superheroine looked. Max kept on talking about her boobs. I wanted something different, and it always went back to her breasts. Ugh. Human nature, I guess. Everything about life is about the human body and sex. Bombs are very phallic. War is very homoerotic. I probably shouldn’t be writing this. Future generations will read this and think humans were strange creatures obsessed with sex, but afraid of its destruction just the same. Oh, what complicated creatures we were/are.
Anyway, I couldn’t describe her right, and Max and I were arguing over whether he was going to make her a brunette, a redhead, or a blonde. When Terrence came home and saw us basically at a standstill, he suggested we make her black. “I’m guessing there’s not a lot of black superheroes,” he said.
“Besides Vixen, Monica Rambeau aka Captain Marvel, Nubia—you know, Wonder Woman’s twin—and Storm,” Max said.
“You know your superheroes,” Terrence said.
“I know my superheroes.”
“See, no matter what she has up here, it’s all about what’s down here,” I said pointing to my head and then to my boobs, for emphasis on my comic character.
“Gross! You’re my stepsister.”
Since Max wasn’t showing me any of his drawings for Big Sister, I decided to take a crack at it.
“What’s her name?” Terrence asked.
“I don’t have one,” I said. “Nothing seems right.”
“Destiny,” said Terrence. “That’s her name.”
I looked at her once again. She was Destiny. She had a destiny. It might have been too on the nose, but who cared. She was our Destiny. (Our goal was to finish our comic and show it to the producers, who had to know someone big in publishing.)
“So Rodney told me what happened in class today,” Terrence said, sitting on the couch next to Max.
“I don’t really want to talk about it,” I said.
“But it happened again,” he said.
Okay, yes, it had happened before. The first time was after gym class—a year ago. We played this game where we started in the middle of the football field and the teacher would blow his whistle and we all would run home, touch our front doors, and run back. If we could do it under fifteen minutes, the school would let us go home if the nukes were coming so we could die with our families. Kids ran around Griffin Flat, dodging traffic in the streets. If you couldn’t, you’d stay put in the fallout shelter in the basement. The second time was in English when we were reading about Orson Welles’s biggest practical joke ever, The War of the Worlds.67 During Halloween week, we listened to the radio broadcast, and I started having a panic attack in class. Mrs. Barnes had to stop the tape. Can you imagine thinking it was real when it wasn’t, and freaking out that of all the ways the world could end—this was it, aliens?
“Like I said, I don’t want to talk about it.”