The man slaps the woman’s hands from his penis. He yanks at his hair as sperm fly out in strange chunks and splat against the wall. “This is not professional!” he says, throwing fistfuls of his hair at the bouncing amputees.
The technicians yank and yank yank yank yank on the rubber ropes, looking to the director and waiting for him to say Okay enough. But Mr. Snake doesn’t say that.
He watches, eating another large brick of tofu from his messy hands – eating like a horse – his mouth going down and munching.
He doesn’t care if tofu gets into his nose.
I find that most disturbing.
The couple stares in fright as the man’s penis shakes like something weird and machineguns more white stuff. The woman cries out to Jesus.
“My contacts! They hurt me! It’s like when I’m driving and dirt gets in them!”
She stands on the bed and jumps up and down, hands covering her eyes. She gives a MIGHTY jump and flies over the room with a “Blahhhhhh!” She tucks and rolls across the floor, straight into the bathroom where she slides into the toilet. The door slams shut behind her, somehow.
The man complains, “Not my mess! Not my mess!” He runs to the bathroom and pounds on the door. “I love you! Not my mess, I says!”
Mr. Snake points at me, then to the bathroom. I understand and point the camera at the actors and their drama.
Is this all scripted?
Because I’m sweating.
Mr. Snake looks to the technicians and gives them the signal to stop yanking it.
And so they stop, breathless.
The amputees fall onto the bed and bounce into the air and then land on the floor. They rest for 5 seconds, dead-looking, their limbs tangled over limbs, and then rise as if nothing has happened. They stand around the monitors, analyzing the shot while scratching their itchy, naked parts. One amputee, with no legs, appears to have a rash. She scratches at her neck furiously, to the point where she pops a vein and blood streams into the air, sparkling under the hot lights.
A female teenager screams out in disgust and collapses, then stands right back up and vomits into her hands. She looks down on her filth and says, “What have I become, what have I become?”
She collapses and doesn’t get back up.
Two female-coworkers pick her up and carry her on their shoulders, like a log, and march off toward a room.
“HUT HUT HUT HUT HUT HUT,” they chant.
The women lock the door behind them. There are the curious sounds of a drill, ice cracking, and giggling.
I want to see what’s going on in there, but something in my stomach says, Please don’t do that to me.
The black man, standing naked at the bathroom door, gets down on his hands and knees and peeks under the door, his buttocks kissing sky. As I fear, Mr. Snake wheels his way next to me and tugs on my arm, then whispers into my ear something horrific.
“For the love of all that is good…get a close up.”
I exhale, depressingly, and do as told.
I put my hand to my mouth, trying to hold down the acidic vomit that’s rising and settling in my throat. Dear God, it burns so bad.
Mr. Snake massages the area between his thighs. He sees that I see him and puts his hand down. He smiles at me, waving, but I don’t smile back.
From under the door, the bathroom lights click off.
The door creeks open.
All is silent.
It’s dark inside.
The naked man steps inside, tippy-toeing.
HIS NAKED WIFE JUMPS OUT FROM BEHIND THE DARKNESS AND HITS HIM OVER THE HEAD WITH THE HEAVY LID THAT COVERS A TOILET’S INNER-WORKINGS.
She runs to the door and opens her mouth, wiggling her tongue at us and yelling “Blahhhh!” and making devil horns. She SLAMS the door shut.
We all listen.
Something is being torn.
Then it sounds like she’s eating something.
I remember Mr. Snake looking up to me and saying:
“Eating something?”
He then eats his nails, scared.
The men in film crew walk outside – some of them bow their heads as they leave, while many kick invisible trash. The women stay, out of concern.
From the bottom of the door, the lights flick on and off in a lunatic fashion.
Mr. Snake looks up to me.
“Broken light now?”
He bites his nails.
THE SOUND OF A WINDOW CRASHING.
I run to the door – camera still rolling on the tripod – and kick down the door. The entire room gasps!
The bathroom is empty.
The window has indeed been smashed to tiny bits.
Feet run behind me.
I hop over the tub and peek outside the window, expecting to see the woman running into the woods, meat jiggling.
But nay.
Nothing.
Just darkness.
And loud crickets.
I look down into the tub and see the naked black man. His tongue lolls out from a jagged hole in his cheek, and his stomach has been eaten out. His weewee is covered by a strange family of clear bubbles.
Eyes open, he gives a sharp yelp, followed by many short, sharp yelps (I zoom in on his face as he does this). The women try to stop his foolishness by punching him on the face and biting his feet, but it is no good. He is far gone.
Mr. Snake golf claps.
“Cut!”
I don’t remember much after that. Runaway images of alcohol…and praying to a giant tree…and flying on a swing. Now I’m waking up on the roof alone with a pillow and blanket, staring at the moon and smoking a roll’em up cigarette that I proudly made.
Over the black hills I see the blue & red rainbow of police lights. They are speeding down to the house. (Did all of that stuff really happen? Good God.)
I run back inside to tell the others, but they already know about it. Appropriate, fast-drumming, Middle Eastern music plays from a room, LOUD. Everyone is in a panic – running here and there and nowhere. The amputees are lifted and thrown out a window, where people outside hold a mattress, awaiting their fall.
I make to slide my shoes on and find worms inside.
What the fuck, right?
Dumping them out, I put my shoes on and turn around and see:
A baby girl is crying on the floor.
I pick her up, due to bad memories, and run around, asking speeding faces about her parental unit. No one stops to listen. I manage to actually stop a few people, but they all seem to do a kind of panicky dance, running in place and flapping hands. This blasted kid is screaming in my ear now, but I keep my cool.
A Middle Eastern woman runs past me and snatches the baby away. Must be the mum – seeing how the baby stopped crying.
Polly takes my hand and we climb over the kitchen sink and jump out the window and bounce off the mattress.
We run into the van and zippidy dooda away.
I look behind us and see all the police cars in the tiny distance, parking at the house, kicking up clouds of dust that swirl in the headlights.
I notice something in the attic that frightens me.
Someone is standing behind the window: A still shadow behind licking flames.
I can’t shake the feeling that I’m being watched.
Why can’t I look away?
I FIND MYSELF frustrated by my old school chums. As for my current “friends”: It’s been a few weeks since I last saw Polly and Mr. Snake and the amputees. I’m lonely and again have my eyes on a girl that I enjoy being around. Unfortunately, my friends are prejudice to where she hangs out, and because I’m afraid of conflict of any kind, I don’t date her.
I don’t want my pals mad at me.
Sheesh.
I’m giving up my happiness for them.
I’m miserable! I can’t talk to them about it.
Because all I’ll get is: I don’t care.
Just be happy for me, guys.
All I want to hear is, “GO
for it. True, we don’t agree with your choice, and true she annoys us just in general, but you like her. She makes you happy, no? Yessm. GO for it. And if you happen to fall, we’ll pick you up.”
But something tells me I’m not going to hear that. So I feel that I have to distance myself from them, and have. I find myself very interested in other things now, in doing many things, creating many things…just enjoying life, dammit.
September 19th. It’s my birthday today. I turn 26. As I feared, none of my friends remember. I can understand if pals that I’ve only known for about a year don’t remember, but when it’s someone you knew since age 16…then it’s a tad sad.
Uh oh…depression sets in.
What am I going to do with them? Do they hate me now? Are they now starting to realize what an idiotic fool I really am?
(points to self)
Stop talking.
Man up.
Days later…
After the death of Mr. Snake, and hours of silence, we find a beach to film the last scene on. The place is called China Man’s Hat because it looks like a china man’s hat. Or a witch’s hat, in my opinion.
I throw out the option of filming during the day because it’ll be a bitch bringing in lights, and on a beach of all places, where it’s hard to run, let alone walk. And since I’m the director, Polly and all the tech-heads agree. None of them argue with me or anything. It’s amazing. I’m getting my ass kissed and not handed to me and it fells a little good, and tingly. Power is interesting, and like a great poet once said, “With great power, comes great responsibility.”
That’s from Spiderman.
I try my best not to let it get to me. I have a job to do. Time to grow up. People are depending on you!
Speaking of Spiderman, or in this case, Spider-Man, the movie was directed by one of my favorite directors, Sam Raimi (The Quick & The Dead, Darkman, A Simple Plan), who also revolutionized the horror genre with his film The Evil Dead, starring the funniest actor in the whole wide world, Mr. Bruce Campbell. And I stress on Camp.
Haha.
My all time favorite director is David Lynch. His films aren’t movies so much as they’re moving paintings with sound. If you don’t like looking at paintings, though, then stay away from his films – like Lost Highway or Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me – because you will fall asleep.
Earlier…
Polly drives me to the set and on our way I start to get the monkeys. A fight is in my stomach. What if no one listens to me? What if everyone LISTENS to me, but with empty eyes? What if I bend over to pick up a cute crab and my pants split. What if I start stuttering, badly, even more than I usually do? W-w-what if they look at me funny because it looks like a 16-year-old is giving them orders. Adults hate getting orders from kids because it’s embarrassing – although I really am 26 now.
To ease my stupid, stupid brain, I keep my mind focused on one thing.
Have FUN.
Later…
Everyone’s here, ready to go. I walk on the sand, barefoot, and pace back & forth, reading the scene. And this is what it says, seriously, word for word:
EXT. BEACH – DAY
Main character (lady) and man. Sex.
THE END.
I ask Polly if I can have the sex synopsis for this scene. Things will go a lot faster if we just follow what’s already written and not improvise, but she tells me that Mr. Snake urinated on all those pages because he thought the pages were laughing at him and then he burned the pages and then urinated on them and then ate the soggy ashes, just to show them who’s the boss.
I say something like, “Jesus Christ!”
Polly says that Snake didn’t like writers who tried to direct through their scripts, and that it made him mad and, in his own words, feel “devilish”.
My eyes are popping out of my head. What am I to do now??
“He seemed happy with the old scripts, that fiend.”
“Yes, well, that was before he was bald.”
Hey, Lord in Heaven, I don’t want to adlib directions – this’ll be like going to a stranger’s house naked and putting on their clothes in the dark. Lord, I don’t want to come out wearing a dress.
The sea is calm.
The sun yawns.
In the distance, I see a dark storm brewing, a growing ink stain in the sky. We have to go NOW. No time to dillydally. My mind races. The creative juices are flowing.
By God, I’m alive!
I tell Polly to instruct some of the techs, who seem to be just standing around, sniffing their salty arms, to circle the main (naked characters) with reflectors. They do, and the actors immediately complain.
“It burns, it burns!” they both say, hands covering their naughty bits.
I soothe them and say how great their tans will be. They take their hands off their genitalia and smile at me, then smile at each other, then bring their faces together and then open their mouths and eject their tongues.
They roll around on the sand.
I bring the camera closer and give them a single direction:
“Adlib.”
They give me the thumbs up and continue making love as the winds picks up and caress the palm trees and fling sand into the actors’ hair and onto their finger foods.
Actors like being free to do what they do best, their way. Isn’t that true of everyone?
If you don’t like how an actor is working the scene, then you shouldn’t have hired them. It’s no good controlling them. You end up with something, like, “How about you do it your damn self!”
The script has changed so much.
Central actors have gone missing (like Joann) and replaced.
The actors in this scene are Jack Payback and Master Bait.
At this point, I fear that the film will turn out to be nothing more than a compilation of cold, meat banging.
Or I could use the magic of postproduction and ADD IN a story with witty editing and seductive voice-overs.
Yessm, that’s the ticket!
Good!
I pan down and notice a red puddle.
Seems to me that Master is bleeding. Jack goes on green, but does Jack stop on red? I wanna say something, but the scene is going strong.
I keep rolling.
Jack Payback lies on the sand and stretches his arms out and yawns. Master gets up and sits on his face, scaring him. I catch my breath. Will he get mad? I wait for Jack to shriek out or something, waiting for him to say, “Eww, her vertical mouth is bleeding!”
But he says nothing.
I hear of people doing this, on the Interweb, but I never, ever, want to see it. Maybe you have to be in the moment.
I look around, at the crew. No one seems to care – all squinting from the heat. I’m sure they all just want to hurry and end this so they can pack up and skedattle.
The male actor gets up after having sex.
“Sorry, my dear, seems I have missed you this whole time. I was making love to the sand!”
All laugh.
He has no belly button, just like Alfred Hitchcock.
“CUT!” I yell, and excuse myself to use the restroom.
Written in a stall is: Open your eyes…never blink.
I flush and exit.
The world outside suddenly turns dark and angry.
It’s super windy. Is this rain or spit from the ocean? Wind BLASTS past my ears. I lean forward as I walk to the van. Everything’s gray. I squint and see Polly in the driver’s seat, yelling through the glass and pointing crazily at something behind me.
I turn around and jump out of the way as a surfboard flies by and sticks into a tree with a dull THUNGGGG. A dark-skinned woman runs up and tugs on the board, yelling angry things at me, but I can’t hear a word she’s saying. I try to help her free her board, but I’m skinny. She gives it one good kick with her naked foot and loosens her precious thing, but it doesn’t come out. She runs into the restroom. I can see her sitting in a corner, near the entrance, pulling out thorns from her feet, shriekin
g, staring at me.
The wind scoops me off my feet and throws me a good thirty feet back. Polly FLASHES the headlights and HONKS HONKS HONKS.
I pick myself off the grass and run to the van in slow motion.
As we drive off, trembling, I point out that the waterfalls on the mountaintops are moving backwards!
She looks at me funny and says that they’re flying skyward due to the strong updraft.
Days earlier…
It’s been a week since the cops raided the house. Mr. Snake and Polly and I have a little meeting on top a dangerous, pointy mountain, overlooking the Honolulu city lights. We talk about where we can begin filming to finish the movie. Mr. Snake is excited – very excited.
With crazy eyes he tells us that we’re all going to be very rich – that our film will knock all other adult films out of the water – that it’s going to rock the Porn World – that we’ll make so much money we’ll be able to buy all the porn we can eat.
The film crew arrives – all the actors and gaffers and amputees and carpenters. Mr. Snake and Polly applaud as they all walk toward us. Soon we find ourselves in a monstrous, large circle, drinking Budlight and taking Jell-O shots while the director plays on a guitar – songs from Rat and The Who and The Doors and Metallica and Michelle Branch…and even “Toxic” by the great Brittany Spears.
An hour flies by.
We’re all drunk out of our shoes and dancing like snakes to an acoustic version of Madonna’s “Like a Virgin”.
I don’t remember who – maybe Polly – but someone starts a bonfire. Many stick marshmallows and tomatoes and packets of raw noodles and chicken guts through long, sharp swords, holding them above the crackling flames. We sing over the loud fire. I notice that one man, sitting directly across from me, beyond the slithering fumes, is actually shrieking the lyrics – his face a constant flicker of shadows.
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