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, shrieking, 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.
A fight inevitably breaks out between two naked male actors. One shouts to the other, “This is truth! My penis is bigger than yours because I rub mayonnaise on it! This is truth! Here’s the proof! See? It works! Look at its stiff image in awe! This is awesome!”
The challenger is a skinny fellow from India whose dingle hopper is visibly much larger than the other gentleman. He shoots his hand out and grabs onto the other’s penis and squeezes like a loony person. The victim screams out and flails his arms in the air, mimicking a swimmer’s backstroke.
“Aiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!”
The Middle Eastern fellow tightens his grip and yells out.
“Sook sook the manuke!”
“Aiiiiiiiiiiii! Release your hold!”
“Hit me, you’re so tough!”
The pitiful man tries to punch him, but each throw of a fist results in a tug of the penis. Mr. Snake steps in and slaps the Middle Eastern man’s hand away.
“Stop this nonsense! We are professionals living in a material word!”
“No one slaps my hand! This is my money hand! I’m a hand model. R-e-s-p-e-c-t me, you will, Godfongit!”
Mr. Snake rips off his shirt and erects his chest to show that he’s not afraid. The Middle Eastern man gasps and takes a step back…then takes two steps forward.
Mr. Snake goes “Hmph!”
He stomps his foot to appear frightening.
“Mr. Snake erects his chest to show that he’s not afraid.”
Then he takes a sword and cuts an “X” across his chest and throws the sword into a tree.
“What are thou going to do? Bleed on me?? YOU slapped MY hand!”
“You drunk
ard.”
“Blasphemy!”
Middle Eastern man punches the director in the face and sends him flying through a thick, termite ridden oak tree. It explodes into splinters that get into people’s eyes. They run about crying and jogging into trees. They give up and sit on the pinecone-carpeted ground, weeping and drinking a beer, wishing to dull the pain in their eyes.
A fight breaks out over who drank whose beer. There is THUNDER & LIGHTNING, but no rain.
Polly hides behind a tree, praying, I think.
I stand up, confused, while people walk and twirl by me, their hands over their eyes. I don’t know what to do – where to go. I’m afraid that if I move, the angry Middle Eastern man will shoot a stern finger at me and say, “You sook sook the manuke, too, eh?!?!?”
Lucky for me, he is distracted: By the black shape of Mr. Snake’s bulk, slowly rising before the rumbling bonfire. What scares me is that Mr. Snake appears to be convulsing…and like with babies, I’m afraid of what I don’t understand.
Middle Eastern man sees this shocking, scary sight and points at Mr. Snake, asking in a fake, courageous voice.
“Are we rolling?”
Mr. Snake takes a kung-fu pose, as does his opponent. WIDE SHOT: They both stand in front of a mountainous full moon – bodies stiff and ready.
Mr. Snake opens his mouth slowly and says quickly…
“Action!”
The two, fully-grown men run toward each other, shrieking with their fists coiled back.
A weeping, wandering woman, rubbing her eyes, runs in front of the Middle Eastern man and he punches her without stopping, sending her flying right at Mr. Snake. He catches her and flings her up a tree.
“Grab!” she yells, and grabs onto a branch, swinging herself up to safety.
All the drunks are fighting, releasing lighting quick punches and kangaroo-like kicks. Sensing defeat, Middle Eastern man runs into the drunken brawl of fighters and crying people, who still have splinters in their eyes. He picks up random people and throws them at Mr. Snake, who ducks and jumps over each missile, running faster and faster toward his enemy. The Middle Eastern man YELLS out.
“Waaaaaaah!”
Mr. Snake jumps into the air and knees him in the forehead.
They both land mere inches from the scary bonfire.
Middle Eastern man crawls on the ground. He tries to get up to run away, but his bowels give way and he falls back down and gets a mouth full of dirt. He gets up a second time, visibly vomiting in his mouth a little, and takes one step forward. He falls down again, this time directly on his face, hands glued to his side. He doesn’t get up for a long time. Mr. Snake walks up and kicks him over.
The Middle Eastern man has a pinecone in his right eye. Mr. Snake jumps back and throws his hands over his mouth.
“Jesus Christ!”
Middle Eastern man SCREAMS OUT.
“BLARRRRRGHHHH!”
And kicks Mr. Snake in his belly, sending him flying up up up into the air.
My heart stops, knowing the inevitable.
Polly runs up to me and hugs me and says words that tumble out in slow motion; makes her sound like an old man.
“OH-SWEET-JESUS-NO!”
Mr. Snake sails into the flames and is never heard from again.
The moon smiles. The night wind soothes. The crickets laugh. I rest on a bed of grass and drown in the stars. Morning is coming soon.
The sun peeks over the hill. I didn’t realize that everyone else slept on the mountain. Why is it that when one wakes up and scratches and yawns, everyone else wakes up and scratches and yawns?
It feels like it has been raining.
Why do mornings have to feel so goddamn moist? I hate it with a passion of the Christ.
The fire has died out. Nothing left, but black goo. There’s a ton of it.
I dare not to think of the obvious.
No one says anything.
Not even Polly.
She has been crying.
All the actors and the rest of the crew put on their shoes and walk back to their automobiles and drive off without saying goodbye.
Polly walks behind a tree with her head hung low and her hands tied to her back by invisible wire. She squats behind the tree and marinates the earth, noisily, on dry leaves.
Is she crying again?
I want to help her. Maybe when she has calmed down a bit.
I listen.
Yessm, she is weeping.
It’s soft at first, but then it sounds very angry.
She groans then growls.
Her urine even shoots out in strong, angry bursts while she COMPLAINS.
“Daaaaaaah!”
I can see her shaky hand come out from behind the tree and reach out for a cleansing, dead leaf.
Soon she’s walking out like a zombie and takes my hand and guides me to the van.
As we drive past Daie and down Kapiolani blvd., she tells me the plan.
She wasn’t crying for Mr. Snake, she was crying for the project. She was shedding tears for the CREW.
And me.
“Do you want to direct?” she asks.
It takes all my energy to hold down my excitement and remain cool.
I ask, “Why me?”
She looks at me, confused.
“Isn’t this what you’ve wanted your whole life?”
Afterward
I edit the adult film all by my lonesome on Warren’s computer. I do it whenever he’s asleep. My ass gets numb every night because his computer sits on the floor. It takes me a good week to finish the thing. Once, I was more than half way complete, when the computer crashed and I lost everything. A little part of me died right then and there.
One time the computer froze when I was saving.
What the fuck is that about?
So now the film, called “Aloha Mannequins”, has a voice-overed story line that I wrote to fill in the plot holes. The story, told by a mysterious, French woman, whose character may or may not be the devil, involves dreams and religion and nuns and truth and love. It’s so surreal. I get complaints from people that it’s like The Nundead, only sexier.
This is bad.
Because my 1st film ended up being, in my opinion, unmarketable, totally detached from the world. I vowed to make my next film salable. But now it seems that the same thing is happening all over again. I can’t change. I can’t escape who I am.
I’m happy with the film. I love it. Proud of it.
Polly hates it.
And she hates me now.
She watched a screening of “Aloha Mannequins” at Wallace Theatres in Restaurant Row that cost me $150 to rent out for a day. She got up and walked down, across the flickering screen, stomping her feet in an obvious way, staring at me. She walked out through that Exit, into the sun, and I never saw her again.
ALTHOUGH, I do believe I heard from her days later.
I think.
See, one early morning the phone rang – it was something like 2am – and on the other end all I heard was heavy, mean breathing. I listened for a full thirty minutes…listening to this heavy breathing, trying to figure out who it was, not saying anything to the stranger for reasons that even I don’t understand.
There was another crazy sound – this one in the background: Something like heavy bits, falling into a toilet.
Then there was the sound of a shower blasting on…and click.
Whoever it was hung up.
My male’s intuition tells me that it was Polly.
Three days later, in the morning, while my mum is at her dialysis appointment, someone breaks into the apartment.
I’m upstairs in the bathroom, brushing my teeth when it happens. The door is kicked down and feet rush in. I hide in the bathtub, behind the curtain. It all happens so fast. When all is silent, I go downstairs to find the place perfectly intact.
Nothing is broken.
What did they take?
My copy of “Aloha Mannequins”.
I don’t call the cops because I don’t want the attention.
Yessm, I work at *** now, in Ala Moana.
I soon find myself going back into the same, depressing routine.
I work…
I play darts…
I drink…
I smoke (though not as much, seeing how smoke nowadays reminds me of burning flesh)…
Not knowing where I’m going.
That’s not the way to go. An adult knows who they are. With that revelation they know what their strengths and weaknesses are and what they need to do to succeed.
With that being said…I guess I’m not an adult.
An adult that craves money, that is serious, that is narrow-minded, an adult that is power hungry, that needs a fancy car, a fancy house, that doesn’t play, that’s responsible for this and that and the other, an adult that stresses over bills, baby food, insurance, debt, back pains, anal pains. Blah, blah.
On second thought, to hell with being an adult.
Growing up sounds painful.
Thank You.
Raymund Hensley is the author of the humorous books Aloha Mannequins, A Revelation, How I met Barbara the Zombie Hunter, and The Zombie Hunter’s Bible. He lives in Honolulu, Hawaii.
https://raymundhensley.blogspot.com/
Special thanks to Nell for her editorial help.
Also by
Raymund Hensley
Aloha Mannequins
A moving comedy, Aloha Mannequins exposes the more interesting face of Honolulu, Hawaii. From Mannequin Pornography to insane dolphin activists that wear full-body dolphin suits, Aloha Mannequins will open the eyes of any “outsider”.
"Aloha Mannequins is a very funny story of eerie
inner circles of Hawaii...Great story, great humor!"
-Sterling Knight, www.macabremenace.com
The Zombie Hunter’s Bible
Hunters young & old have now relied on Raym C. Hensley’s humorous hunting guide for vital information, ranging from killing a zombie, bathing a zombie, to eating a zombie when necessary. Easy to understand, friendly and inspiring, The Zombie Hunter’s Bible will empower you with all the knowledge you’ll need toward capturing – and understanding – the walking dead.
“The attention to detail is mind-boggling!”
-Staci Wilson, About.com
How I met Barbara the Zombie Hunter
Aloha Mannequins Page 12