Squirrel Eyes (19 page)

39

      He wouldn't let us take him to the hospital.

      "This happens all the time," Boone reassured us, sitting up under a tree and nursing a cold soda. His mutant makeup had been peeled from his face during the fall; stringy bits of latex still clung to his features.

      Boone had probably been unconscious for less than a minute, but that's all it took to put the fear of God into me. 

      "We're gonna have to sideline you, big fella," I told him. "My heart can't take all this."

      "No way, man," Boone insisted, sucking down a whistling gulp of oxygen. "I told you, this passing-out business is standard procedure."

      "How the hell do you move
furniture?
" Taylor asked.

      "Few steps at a time. Or I wheedle a couple guys into helping me," Boone smiled.

      "I wish you'd let us take you to the hospital, especially if it happens all the time," Mia said, shaken.

      "I've been plenty of times. Wasted a lot of money on it. I just got carried away chasing Aaron, is all."

      "What causes it? Is it just your ..." I hesitated, not sure how to put it. "... Your size?"

      "Naw," he said, patting his enormous belly lovingly. "It's what's in there with me."

      "Ooo boy," Taylor muttered, looking at his shoes.

      Boone thumped his chest like a ripe watermelon. "My chest cavity's full of some kind of fibrous tumors, is what the doctors say. Actually, they say a whole bunch of other junk, too, but the fibrous tumor part was the only thing I can remember."

      Mia's face clouded. "Cancer?" she timidly asked.

      Boone shook his head. "Nothing so scary. The things just get too big and press on my lungs. They've gone in and done some weeding a couple of times – maybe I'm about due." He fixed me with a stern gaze. "But I'm making this movie."

      "If you say so." 

The thought made me nervous as hell. I tried to talk Boone into at least calling it a day, but he wouldn't hear of it. He insisted that he'd be fine to continue shooting after a little break – and besides, I needed to re-do his makeup, so that would give him some time to recover. 

      Mia fawned over the big man, busting into our sandwich supply and making sure he was comfortable. 

Taylor and I reviewed the footage we'd shot of Boone; he was incredible on camera, our own Tor Johnson. 

"It's the Curse of
The Blue Man
," I said. "Good footage, endless suffering."

"Oh yeah – how's your foot?"

"It's reasserting itself a little. I'm okay, though."

      "What are we gonna do?" Taylor asked. "I sure as hell don't want to kill the poor guy." 

      My mind was already doing an end run around the problem. "What if we just re-work it a little bit?" I said, "He's gonna get mad if we coddle him, but how about if we change the approach — he's pure force, like an industrial press. His underlings do all the footwork, bring his prey to him." 

      "That was Jabba the Hutt, wasn't it?"

      "Kind of, except Jabba was a big pile of wriggly poop. Boone's gonna be all potential, like Hannibal Lecter before he got out of his cell. He only moves when he has to – and when he does, it'll be bloody."

      Taylor dug it. He looked over at Mia, squatting next to Boone in those crotch-rending shorts. 

"It's kind of cool to be nineteen again, ain't it?" he grinned.

40

      Taylor and I were dangerously close to shitting our pants throughout the rest of the day, particularly whenever Boone would get up and move around, but everybody made it through alive. 

      The big man liked the changes we came up with for his character, and we were able to keep the footage of Noel's head being torn off by rethinking what came next. Instead of chasing after Aaron, the mutant leader bellows a command and I burst from the tree line, face covered in latex and cotton, and take the escaping food raider down (my one-and only appearance in the movie, I vowed). Meanwhile, the Blue Man stumbles across Mia, chained to a rack built from fallen tree branches (and I doubt I need to mention that everybody pitched in to help fasten the lovely girl's chains). I planned to shoot the rest of Boone's scenes in the shadows of the forest, using spooky, intimidating camera angles.

      Mia's performance, I might add, totally rocked. Seething with super-tough sexuality, she nailed every line, hit every mark, and already had me thinking sequel. Aaron and Noel handled themselves well, too, especially considering Noel's volcanic stomach. Taylor wrung promises from both of them that they'd return for the rest of the movie, then we wrapped for the day.

      Later that evening, however, Taylor and I began to fear for our own health. Boone hadn't told us we were moving his pals from the first floor to the third floor – or how much goddamn furniture they had. We insisted that Boone take it easy and let us do the work, our excuse being that we couldn't afford to have anything happen to our biggest special effect now that we'd shot extensive footage of him. He bought it and settled for helping pack small items into boxes.

      The
Bismarck
we had to sink was a huge black vinyl couch with a hide-a-bed in it. Even with the mattress removed, the thing felt like it weighed seven hundred pounds, and there was nowhere to get a good grip on it – that vinyl is slippery shit. After an extensive struggle and several minor injuries – including dropping one corner of the monster on my sore foot – we managed to beat the couch into submission and wrestle it into its new home. 

      Boone, Taylor and I hit the Frontier for dinner, but Boone did all the talking, excitedly yammering about the day's accomplishments. While we were definitely surfing on the big man's wave, Taylor – due at work soon – almost nodded off in his enchilada plate, and I was pretty wiped out myself. Scheduled to head back into the mountains at 9 AM the next day, we called it a night.

      Fortunately, Mom was far too involved in a rerun of
Hunter
to ask many questions about my day. I staggered into my bedroom and fell into the bed. As I stared up at the ceiling, a familiar, ominous dorsal fin split the surface of my psyche, coming in hard and fast. Good old
Guilt
. 

      I got up and made a forbidden phone call. Kelli answered on the third ring.

      "It's Alvin," I said hoarsely.

      "I figured," she said. "Nobody else would call me this late."

      Neither of us said anything else for several seconds.

      "Okay then, I'd better go," Kelli said.

      "We started shooting today."

      More silence. Then: "Anybody hurt?"

      "Not really. A lot of vomiting, though."

      "Everybody, or just one person?"

      "Just one."

      "Did your Tiki Waitress show up?"

      
Your
Tiki Waitress. "Yeah. She was really good, actually."
Oh God, wrong thing to say
. "Not as good as you, though."

      Kelli let out a little snort. "Nice save."

      "I'm tired." 

      Again, several seconds passed.

      "So it went okay?" Kelli asked.

      "Yeah," I said. "We're getting some really good stuff." 

      I heard her draw a deep breath, the kind you take when you're gearing up for something. It made me edgy.

      "Y'know, Lydia never stops talking about being a mutant."

      I laughed, relieved. "We're shooting again tomorrow, if you want to come along. Nine o'clock, at my mom's house."

      "I suppose I ought to try and make my little girl happy," Kelli said. 

      "You're that kind of a mom."

      "You're not getting laid when this movie's done, I hope you realize that," she said. 

      
Says you
, I thought, visions of Mia frolicking through my head. "Just be here on time," I told her.

      Fast and merciless as it was, Guilt couldn't keep up with the warp-speed onslaught of Exhaustion. For the first time in six months, my sleep was relatively untroubled. 

41

      She continually went into hysterics every time she heard my name, but that Lydia was one maniacal little mutant when the camera was rolling. 

Swiping from the zombie-infected daughter in
Night of the Living Dead
, we decided Lydia would be a flesh-eater, lunging from the shadows to bite meaty chunks from her unsuspecting prey, the horror only amplified by her pigtails and cute sundress, bloodstained and threadbare. Afraid the latex might irritate her little-girl skin, I slopped unflavored gelatin on her face to simulate radiation scars. The gooey, jiggly substance motivated Lydia to throw herself into the role with cannibalistic aplomb, snarling and growling as she attacked. We first see her dining on the remains of Noel's decapitated body, then she scampers away to sit on the mutant leader's lap, blood and bits of stringy flesh clinging to her face as he strokes her greasy hair. 

"She'll probably have psychological problems for the rest of her life," Kelli said.

I'd been nervous about Kelli being there – especially after the whole Mia incident – but having her around just seemed to complete the picture. Taylor was positively gleeful, a mood I never would've thought he could pull off. He and I tried to convince Kelli to appear in the movie, but she wouldn't have any part of it, preferring to stand behind the camera and cheer everybody on. 

All in all, our second day of shooting was going even better than the first. Noel had gotten over his nervousness and was doing a fine job of playing a mutant war-dog, and, while Aaron was slightly freaked out by the discomfort of the latex and cotton on his face, he rose to the occasion and delivered some terrific grunts and snorts of mutated fury. 

I rolled tape on the day's biggest action sequence, wherein Mia slugs it out with Aaron. They were to trade a few punches (during which Mia's lovely fist dislodges several teeth from Aaron's mouth in a shower of gore), then go into a clench before tumbling over a slight drop-off, where their battle would continue. 

As her fist connected with his mouth, Aaron beautifully spat teeth and blood, splattering Mia's chest and belly with crimson. However, as they went into the clench and hit the ground, Mia accidentally burst forth from one side of her bra. 

"Cut!" I hollered, secretly continuing to roll tape, a bastard to the end.

Mia looked up from grappling with Aaron. As one might expect, Aaron did not look up from where his gaze was focused. 

"What's wrong?" Mia asked.

"You, uh ..." I gestured toward her exposed boob.

Mia glanced at herself, then back at me. "Keep it. Production value."

Coolest girl ever. 

The fight scene continued with its new R rating;
The Blue Man
just kept getting better and better. 

Lydia had adopted Boone like he was a big stuffed animal. When we broke for lunch, she hung on him, peppering him with a barrage of questions on every imaginable subject. He did his best to answer each and every one.

Kelli walked over to where I was crouched, mixing a new batch of fake blood. 

"Remember that bottle of blood you made that fermented?" she asked, peering over my shoulder.

"Yeah. That was some nasty shit," I said. 

She stood behind me for a long moment, not saying anything else, just gently tapping her knee between my shoulder blades.

"I'm sorry about the other night," she said. Her knee stopped thumping against me.

"Don't apologize," I said. "You have every right to be pissed off at me – I acted like an asshole."

"No, no – I mean, yeah, you acted like an asshole, but what I said to you ... I sounded like I'd been sitting around pining for you for all these years, only to have you show up and break my heart all over again. That's not the way it is."

Whew
. Still crouching, I turned to look up at her. 

"I don't get out much, y'know? It's hard for me, with Lydia and everything. I don't meet a lot of people. Guys." She paused, considering her words carefully. "Something about the loneliness ... it just set me off, stirred up old feelings."

"The loneliness and my assholism," I said.

"Okay then, it's settled," she said, smiling. "I'm really glad you're making the movie, Alvin."

"Me too." 

"How much longer are you going to be shooting?" "Another few hours, I guess."

"And then you're finished
?
Completely?"

"No, just for today," I said. "Probably be another couple of days before we're through."

Kelli frowned. "Uh-oh."

I suddenly realized what she meant. "Lydia."

At the sound of her name, Lydia's head spun towards our conversation. "I didn't do anything," she protested, Boone's nose captured between her fingers. 

"Yeah," Kelli said, biting her lip. "I called in sick today, but I can't do it again."

I watched for a moment as the little mutant girl taunted Boone with his stolen nose. "We're gonna have to kill her off, then." 

      Lydia's eyes widened.

      After lunch, we set up for Lydia's death scene. Deciding Mia would be the one to kill the kid, we quickly sketched out a bit where the Blue Man takes a severe blow to the head from the mutant leader. While he's face down in the dirt, groggy, helpless, the little mutant girl moves in for a tasty meat snack – only to wind up shredded by a shotgun blast as Mia leaps into the fray, wielding the Blue Man's sawed-off. 

      The set-up for the death scene went perfectly. Boone swung a massive fist, Taylor hit the dirt, Lydia scrambled atop his fallen body. Time to ready the effects. 

      With the girl squirming and dancing in excitement, it was a monumental task to tape the baggies full of fake blood to Lydia's torso. Taylor and I were far too conscious of the perversity of it all to do the job ourselves and foisted it off on Kelli and Mia. They finally managed to secure the bags to the wriggling girl, attaching lengths of fishing line to pieces of electrical tape on each baggie. The fishing line was trailed through slits in Lydia's dress; when the line was yanked, it would open the baggies, spewing blood. 

      We all crowded around at the top of the hill, everyone taking their positions. I hefted the Blue Man's shotgun – an old BB gun with the barrel and stock sawed off – in order to show Mia how I wanted her to play the scene. 

      Taylor interrupted my direction, pointing at something. "Hey, there's a cop down there."

      Holding the shotgun in the air, I turned to look. 

I had time to register that it was actually a State Trooper before the man's gun went off. 

Then, as they say, everything went black.