Squirrel Eyes (10 page)

To everyone's amazement (or at least mine), Kelli proved to be a supreme ass-kicker – she must've been watching
Kung Fu
or something. She didn't have a real solid grasp of the term
make-believe
, however, leaving Mike, Davey and myself battered and bruised, but she was our own little Pam Grier, bustin' heads
Foxy Brown
-style. 

It was a great fight scene. It's a damn shame we never got to see it.

15

I dropped off the film at Jay's Camera Castle that night, then bought an Orange Julius and limped to a bench, where I sat watching mall girls and feeling like a million bucks. We only had a couple major sequences left to shoot, one of which was the big fight between the Blue Man and the mutant leader, and even though I had no idea how the hell we were going to pull that off when Taylor and I could barely walk, it still seemed we might actually make good on our boasts. 

I grinned at a pair of passing cutie-pies, who rolled their eyes in distaste. Even that didn't faze me;
The Blue Man
, despite all the problems along the way, was going to be a classic. Our masterpiece. 

After her fine display of athletic prowess, Kelli wouldn't leave me alone about shooting the next scene, but Taylor and I decided we should hold off a few days, let our wounds heal for a bit. We'd wait until that outstanding roll of film came back from the lab, marvel at our talent, then get back to work. 

I returned to Jay's five days later, still dragging one leg like Boris Karloff in
The Mummy.
Handing over my claim slip, I kneaded my hands in anticipation as the counterman (RAY, his nametag insisted, all fierce capital letters) went through the envelopes containing reels of processed Super-8 film. He flipped through the
B
section, then flipped through it again. Even though he already knew it (I was in there all the time), he asked my last name. He poked around under a few other letters of the alphabet, then asked my first name. 

As he went through the
A
s, I leaned over the counter, my stomach knotted up like a washrag. This had never happened before, and I'd sent a lot of film through Jay's. 

RAY turned towards me, shrugging. "We get our next shipment from the lab on Monday," he said. "It'll probably be in that." It was Friday. 

I struggled like mad not to think about that roll of film over the weekend, but it was hopeless. Kelli and I went out Saturday night, and I couldn't stop bitching and fretting even when I had her naked breasts in my hands. Tits I loved; film was
my life
. Especially
this
goddamn film. This attitude, as any sane person might imagine, didn't score any points with Kelli. I took her home early, then sat in my room and picked at my fingertip with an X-acto knife until it bled.

Sunday I watched a Three Stooges marathon on TV. Not a slap, eye-gouge or pie in the face sparked any laughter from me; I was in a waking coma, consumed by worry over that roll of film. Sundays have always sucked, in my opinion; you're dreading going back to either school or work, and the hours seem to tick by so fast you barely notice it happening. That particular Sunday, however, was like a prison sentence. When I finally went to bed what felt like seventeen days later, I was determined to sleep until two the next afternoon, when that shipment would arrive at Jay's.

I was limping around the mall at noon. The counterman at Jay's (STEVE this time) acted like I'd interrupted him during a blowjob when I shambled to the counter at 11:45 in hopes of an early shipment. He assured me there was no chance in hell of the stuff arriving before two o'clock. He was so cranky about it I was sure he was lying, but I didn't want to risk pissing him off any further. 

I gimped my way through the next two agonizing hours by window-shopping (and, as usual, checking out the girls), then returned to the camera store. The shipment was in, but STEVE took his sweet time going through the envelopes while I twitched like I'd been plugged into a wall socket. 

The film wasn't there. STEVE, who obviously had something better to do than make his customers happy, brushed off my worried questions by telling me the film had probably been misplaced at the lab (as if the thought of that would calm my nerves!), and to check back on Friday.

Friday!
For fuck's sake! I had barely survived the last
two
days – how was I going to make it through
five?

Then my dad went and died, pretty much taking my mind off of anything else.

A few hours after my run-in with STEVE, Taylor and I were in my room trying to top each other in conceiving acts of vicious (but well-deserved) cruelty to be perpetrated upon the uncaring counterman. Convinced that our film actually
had
been in the shipment and that the clerk was simply fucking with us to be mean, Taylor wanted to return to the store when the night-shift guy would be there, see if we couldn't wrest satisfaction from him. It was a good idea, and we planned to hit the place just before closing (to give STEVE plenty of time to clear out of our hair). Bursting with newfound optimism, I hopped to the kitchen to grab a couple Cokes. 

My dad had only walked in the door a half-hour earlier. He and my mom were in the living room watching TV (this was before Mom got heavily into the quilting thing, but there was still plenty of smoking going on – my dad was a Pall Mall Reds guy). I grabbed a couple cans of Coke from the fridge, then started back down the hall towards my room. Figuring dad would want to know what was up with the movie, I spun through a turn, sock feet slipping on our dining room parquet floor, and limped to the living room. 

Peter Jennings was delivering the evening news. My dad used to constantly lament Jennings's Canadian heritage, frustrated because the anchorman couldn't run for President. I hated to interrupt their half-hour together, but this was damned important. I told dad about my visit to Jay's and how our film was possibly being held hostage, but that we intended to return later to deal with a more sympathetic clerk.

"Oh," dad said, a faraway look in his eyes. 

His skeleton suddenly left his body and he collapsed from his chair, sinking to the floor in a shapeless mass.

At first I thought he was kidding around. Then I noticed the blood trickling from the bridge of his nose where his glasses had cut him when his head hit the floor. 

"Andrew?" my mom said, rising from her spot on the couch.

"Dad?" Confused and frightened, I made no move towards his fallen body. I remember being mad at him for just lying there like that. 

Peter Jennings introduced a report on a man who intended to row a small boat around Long Island. I don't know if he ever made it. 

As Mom knelt beside dad, I yelled – screeched, really, in an embarrassing, girlish voice – for Taylor. I was fucking frozen on the spot. It seemed like forever before Taylor came hobbling into the living room (he told me later that he thought I was screaming at him to come check out some hot girl on TV).

Taylor did what I couldn't do, and without hesitation. Grabbing him under his arms, Taylor lifted the limp body of my father and yelled for me to get his feet. I moved then – ridiculously pausing to set the Cokes on the coffee table – and took hold of dad's skinny lower legs. Together, Taylor and I struggled my dad towards the front door, two crippled guys carrying a dying man. I couldn't help but use my bad leg. Spikes of pain shot from my knee down to my ankle, then returned to tear through whatever the hell was twisted up in there.

My mom raced past us, car keys in hand. As we maneuvered through the front door, my dad's head banged off the doorframe. I heard somebody far away saying "
Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck.
..." It was the first time I cursed in front of my mother, and I didn't even know it was me doing it.

The doctor, a young man wearing sneakers, said it was an embolism. Those sneakers really bothered me. How could you trust a doctor in shoes like that?

Dad wasn't dead when we reached the hospital, but he wasn't far from it. They jacked him into all kinds of horrible machinery – things I still have nightmares about – and gave him CPR, busting most of his brittle, old man's ribs. 

When they let me see him a little later, Dad was tangled in tubes and wires, his head lolling off the pillow, jaw hanging slack. His eyes were open, vacant and glazed. 

I yelled something at the doctor (I don't remember what), furious about those goddamn sneakers.

Mom and I were called back into Dad's hospital room soon afterwards (Daniel was out of town and Mom hadn't been able to reach him). Dad was about to shuffle off. 

The doctor left us alone. Mom brushed Dad's fine, gray hair from his brow. I stood at the foot of the bed, staring along the length of the scrawny form under the covers. The whole thing felt staged, unreal, a Halloween trick. I didn't know what I was supposed to do, what was expected of me, and I was still days away from crying. 

As the respirator gave off its final, terrible
thunk
-wheeze, I took hold of Dad's big toe and just clung to it. After awhile, that sneaker-sporting son-of-a-bitch returned, herding us from the room. 

I never saw Mom cry once. She's much stronger than I am.

Taylor and I finally returned to Jay's Camera Castle the following Saturday. Our roll of film had arrived in Friday's shipment. 

It was
clear
. All traces of emulsion wiped away. Our supercool fight scene simply didn't exist.

An accident in the lab, RAY sheepishly explained. He handed us a new roll of film to make up for it.

We never used it. I never made another short film. 

The Blue Man
and all that went with it very nearly cured me of my desire to make movies. Now that Hollywood – and life in general – had finally done that, maybe it was time to kick the rotten corpse of the mutant-fighting bastard back to life so I could kill him off properly. 

Besides, despite my brilliant effort at fucking it up, there might still be life in my Grand Plan – and
The Blue Man
was gonna get me laid.

16

      There was one very important thing I needed to do if I was going to revive
The Blue Man
. I went to the living room, where Mom was enrobed in a halo of bluish cigarette smoke. On TV, Archie Bunker was complaining about the Coloreds.

      "How are you doing, Mom?" 

      Mom's eyes narrowed in suspicion. 

      "You look like you're losing weight," I said. "You feeling okay?"

      She took a drag on her cigarette. "I don't have cancer, if that's what you're asking," she said, haughtily exhaling smoke. "I'm losing weight because I have a son who worries me sick." 

"That would be me, I'm guessing."

She allowed herself a scornful laugh and returned her attention to Archie and the Meathead.

I had lots to do. Find a working Super-8 camera, for one thing. First, however, I took Mom's car and drove to the grocery store, where I spent a few dollars on a small bouquet of flowers. On the card I wrote "Sorry I'm an ass – and by the way,
you're on
." I left the flowers on Kelli's doorstep, planning to call her later to sort out the details.

While I didn't bother to defend myself at the time because I deserved the ass-chewing Kelli gave me, the truth is, I didn't blow her off for the record-store girl. I
did
pursue Yvette in my rather inept way (freezing my scrotum off walking to her house when I could've driven – for Christ's sake!), but it wasn't because I was more interested in Yvette than I was in Kelli, or any other girl, for that matter; it was because I was
nuts
. After my dad died, I went completely around the bend for a good two years. Other things I did while in the throes of this insanity:

Took skydiving lessons (I chickened out as the plane was leaving the ground; they couldn't have pried me out of that fuselage if they'd promised me I'd land on Ava Gardner);

Dated a psychotic but incredibly sexy stripper off and on for a summer (I helped her score some acid from an aging hippie college professor and once had to hide under her bed when her boyfriend showed up unexpectedly);

Attempted to pick fights with high school kids whenever I ran across them (this one I
still
can't make sense of, but fortunately I never managed to get one to throw down – those little punks would've handed my ass to me);

Worked for two weeks at a shitty fifties nostalgia bar, where I had to dance on tables during certain songs (I took to hiding in the walk-in fridge whenever I heard the familiar strains of
The Hand Jive
, but I copped lots of free booze and stayed drunk – not that it took much – for the duration of my employment);

And, craziest of all, I tried to free a gorilla from the zoo. Like everything else I've done, it was a piss-poor effort: while wandering the zoo in a funk one afternoon, I lingered at the gorilla enclosure, where a big silverback lounged near the ditch that separated the ape corral from the human onlookers. This hairy giant was, I swear to God,
staring
at me like he knew me. He casually worked his jaw, chewing thoughtfully at something. After a few moments, he reached up with one meaty paw and removed whatever it was from his mouth. Then he threw it to me. Fearing what it might be (you know our primate brothers and their poo), I stepped back, only to see a
quarter
, polished to an impressive sheen by the gorilla's tongue, clink to the ground at my feet.

Touched by the gorilla's offering, I felt I had to give something in return. I hid in some bushes until the zoo closed for the night, then tore a few fat branches from a tree. Laying these across the chasm that stood between ape and freedom, I waited for my primeval pal to join me on the outside. Instead, he grabbed up the largest branch and used it to beat on his smaller cellmates. Heartsick, I sneaked out of the zoo and hit a nearby bar. 

Fortunately, this period of madness passed without my getting married, fathering any children, or joining any branch of the Armed Forces. 

After leaving the flowers at Kelli's, my next stop was Taylor's house. Negotiating the obstacle course of cat food dishes that dotted the concrete steps, I rang the doorbell. A yellow kitten poked its head from under a bush, mewing softly. I made the universal cat-summoning noise (
pss pss pss
) and the kitten scampered away, probably terrified of the giant, freakish creature standing between it and food. 

The door opened and Taylor's mom looked up at me with a startled expression, the same look she'd given me without fail for the last twenty-four years. 

"There's that guy!" she said, grinning. 

Arms extended like Frankenstein's monster, she trotted out to give me a hug. She was only about four-and-a-half feet tall, so I had to hunker down or suffer the embarrassment of having her face buried in my belly, uncomfortably close to my crotch. Held firmly in place by a generous crust of Aqua Net, her hair swirled upward like a soft-serve ice cream cone, crunching as it scraped against my shirt.

"Hi, Mrs. Merritt," I said, trying not to completely engulf her in my arms. "Is Taylor around?" I always felt like Eddie Haskell when I talked to her. 

Behind her, I saw Roundup, Mrs. Merritt's oldest cat. The bony, wobbling feline was at least seventeen years old; its skin clung so tightly to its skeleton the thing could've been mummified. Letting out a broken, parrot-like
awrk
, the cat teetered dangerously as it rubbed against Mrs. Merritt's leg.

"Ooo — don't let Roundup out!" she cried. I nearly fell over the decrepit cat as Mrs. Merritt dragged me into the house and shut the door.

Roundup dogged Mrs. Merritt's every step as she led me towards the basement door. A few other cats of various colors and physical defects darted across our path. Despite the abundance of kitties, the house never harbored the slightest litter box odor; Mrs. Merritt had turned the attic into a cat restroom of James Bondian proportions, outfitting it with an ingenious network of fans, air fresheners and technologically advanced pooper-scooping devices.

As we reached the door to Taylor's lair, Mrs. Merritt turned towards me, smiling. There was a smear of lipstick across her front teeth. 

"Who's a big 'un," she said, playfully poking me in the belly.

I forced a chuckle and raised my hand to knock, but Mrs. Merritt grabbed the knob and swung the door open before my knuckles struck wood. 

"Go on in," she said. 

I started to say something about not wanting to interrupt Taylor (God knows, I'd experienced
that
unpleasantness before), but Mrs. Merritt shoved me onto the steps. 

"He's your friend – surprises are nice." 

Roundup trembled as he circled her ankles, his asthmatic purring amplified by the stairwell. Something about the scene felt vaguely Hitchcockian. 

      Hoping that our exchange had alerted Taylor to my presence, I started down the stairs. Mrs. Merritt grinned at me as I descended into the gloomy basement. Roundup paused in his continuous orbit of her legs and stared quizzically at me. 

      "Hey, Taylor!" I yelped, hoping to avoid anything unsavory. There was no answer.

      "I'll have pudding soon," Mrs. Merritt said. She walked away, Roundup at her heels. 

One of the other cats poked its head into the doorway for a second, then scuttled off.

Taylor's mom had always been a little odd, but somewhere around 1995, she let go of all pretense and just drove on into Banana-land. Taylor's dad took it all in stride; it helped, I imagine, that he slept with most of the women who worked for him (or so Taylor said). Mr. Merritt sold hot tubs, and he employed as many gorgeous women as Mrs. Merritt had cats. I must admit, if he was really banging all of them – or even one or two – I was impressed by his ability. Other than the cheating (and for all I know, that may be what sent her around the bend), Mr. Merritt treated his wife kindly, and kept her well stocked with all the comforts.

I hit the bottom of the stairs and stepped off onto concrete. My path was blocked by an old blanket slung across a rope, partitioning off Taylor's room from the upstairs world. 

I paused, listening. Somebody was breathing back there.

"Taylor." 

I heard a wet snort, followed by smacking lips.

"Hey, Taylor."

"Fuck!" Blankets rustled furiously. Bedsprings clunked. "Jesus!" 

I poked my head around the side of the hanging blanket. Taylor, shirtless and running fingers through his tangled hair, sat up in his narrow twin bed. He still had a good build on him – he'd gained weight over the years, but it was spread across his body in an even layer; however, it was still something I didn't want to say out loud. 

"What the hell are you doing here?" he asked, fingering a nugget of crud from the corner of his eye.

I stepped around the blanket. "Your mom told me to come down," I said, plopping into the chair at Taylor's drawing board. 

"She's out to get me," he growled around a wad of snot. "What time is it?"

"I dunno, eleven-thirty or so." 

Heavy fabric was tacked over the basement windows. I watched the dust kicked up by Taylor's movements swirl in the thin shafts of light that managed to sneak in.

"Some of us don't go to bed until six AM," he said.

He was gonna love what I had to say.

I apologized for waking him up and offered to buy him breakfast. He accepted both, and as he tugged his jeans on, I flipped through the sketchbook that lay on his drawing table. I was trying to find a way to couch what I'd come about. The sketchbook was full of drawings of masked wrestlers receiving oral favors from ugly yet strangely appealing women.

"Do you still have a copy of the script for
The Blue Man?
" I asked, unable to think of any better approach.

"Fuck no," Taylor said. He shuffled into the afterthought of a bathroom (the cats were far better equipped) and began brushing his teeth. 

Amidst the well-rendered depictions of filth, I came across a simple sketch of a cute, sweetly smiling girl. Scrawled at the bottom of the page was the caption
Heartbreak on the prowl
. 

Taylor appeared in the bathroom doorway, froth oozing from his mouth. "Whatta you want with that piece of shit?" he asked, barely intelligible. He held his toothbrush at attention, a ribbon of toothpaste and spit dribbling down the plastic handle and over his fist. 

"I'm gonna finish the movie," I said. "Remake it, really." 

He jammed the toothbrush into his mouth, working it feverishly and contemplating me as if I'd told him I planned to climb Everest in my underpants. 

"You're just chock-full of dumb ideas, aren't you?" he mumbled. A dollop of foam dripped from his sawing hand, spattering the concrete floor.

      I held up the sketchbook, displaying
Heartbreak on the prowl
. "Who's this?" 

      Taylor stopped brushing and stared at the sketch for a moment, expressionless. "Sadness," he finally said, disappearing into the bathroom again. 

I heard him spit, rinse, and clear his throat; then silence, for so long a time I almost went to check on him. After what seemed like several minutes, he spoke again: 

"What'd you do, give up on that whole banging-Kelli thing?"

      I filled him in on events of the previous night, careful to portray myself as less of an asshole, focusing instead on how wrong he'd been about Kelli's appearance and marital status. My nose threatened to sprout when I told him Kelli had casually brought up
The Blue Man
in conversation, and our nostalgic talk had set me to thinking about tackling the movie again.

"Yeah, but what happened when you tried to fuck her?" he asked, cutting to the chase.

"I haven't broached the subject yet."

"You never change," Taylor said. Sitting on his bed, he pulled on his boots and began lacing them. "That goddamn movie crushed our souls – what the hell do you wanna go back to it for? I'd just as soon never think about it again." 

"I don't know." 

I honestly didn't. Sure, there was the lure of Kelli, but as arousing as the thought of a tumble with her was, it wasn't enough.
The Blue Man
had left a brutal burn scar, and I hadn't a clue as to why I was ready to plunge my hand into the flames again. 

"I don't know what I'm doing," I said. "But I've gotta do something."

Taylor finished lacing his boots and stood up, looking around the cluttered basement room. "I've still got my camera around somewhere," he said.

I had him.