Midnight Movie: A Novel (8 page)

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve stood in the back of a theater during a
Chainsaw
screening, listening to the screams of the audience … and nothing else makes me happier. Knowing that I’ve given a willing crowd some nightmares is a beautiful feeling, man, simply beautiful.

The screaming that started halfway through
Destiny Express
wasn’t as gratifying. Actually, it scared a little bit of the shit out of me.

This knockout girl next to me at the bar hopped off her stool, sat down on the floor—that disgusting Cove floor—and started pulling on her hair, like she was trying to yank it out of her goddamn head. I knelt down and said, “Honey, stand up.”

She grabbed me by the back of my neck and gave me a kiss. A bolt shot from my stomach, to the top of my spine, right down to the tip of my dick. I was about to tear her clothes off when she pulled away from me and went back to work on her hair. The bolt went away, but my dick stayed hard. I adjusted my shirt to cover the evidence, stood up, and asked the bartender for another beer. He picked up a shot glass, turned around, and pitched it against the back mirror, shattering the entire thing into a collection of glass knives, then he said, “What the fuck did you say, old man?”

I looked around to see if anybody was going to come and settle the dude down. Nothing. They were staring at the screen, transfixed by my piece-of-shit movie. I turned back to the bartender and said, “What do you think of the flick?” I don’t know if he knew who I was. I hoped he didn’t, so I could get an honest answer.

He picked up a beer mug and threw it on the floor as hard as he could, then yelled,
“It’s fucking awesome, maaaaaaan! Fucking awwwwwwwesome!
”

Nobody even blinked. A small part of me wanted to knock over the projector, stand up in front of the room, and ask, “What the fuck is wrong with you people!” Another small part of me wanted to get the hell out of Austin and never come back. But most of me was paralyzed, so I just stood there.

Erick and I tried to go into the club, but one of the horror nerds was standing in front of the door, and he wouldn’t budge. After I asked him politely to move, he put his hand in between my boobs and pushed. Hard. If Erick hadn’t been standing directly behind me, I’d have fallen ass-first onto the concrete.

He caught me and said, “Are you okay?” Legitimate concern.

I said, “I’m fine.”

He said, “Good.” Then he stepped around me and threw the flat of his palm at the guy’s nose. I took that self-defense class, and I was well aware that if done right, that move could actually force a bone chip toward your attacker’s brain. Erick was an underfed indie rocker, and I didn’t think he had enough strength in him to break anything other than his own hand.

It didn’t matter. The guy caught Erick’s hand well before it made contact, then he twisted his arm behind his back and yelled right into his ear, “You got a problem,
motherfucker
? You want to go? You want to
bring it
? You think you can handle
this
? Go ahead,
bitch
. I’d
love
it.”

Just then, Dude McGee practically fell out of the door, and, just like that, the guy let Erick go … but not before giving him a backhand across the cheek. It looked less painful than humiliating. The guy shoved Dude against the door and roared, then head-butted the wall and walked into the club.

Dude kind of laughed and told Erick, “You know, this is one of those flicks that works better on the big screen. Maybe before it gets released wide, Mr. Toeb Hoopster can do it up in 3-D.”

Finally, finally, finally that abortion ended, and thank God. I wanted to be gone. People were breathing heavily, and the place
was a veritable bad breath factory. And that weird vibe was still here, there, and every-fucking-where.

It was the kind of vibe that you feel when you walk into an underground boxing match. There was a sense of anything-can-happen, and if something happens that isn’t good, nobody’s going to stop it, because nobody’s in charge. You can smell the boxers’ athletic sweat, and the crowd’s booze sweat, and you want to get the fuck out of there, but you’re afraid that if you make any quick moves, somebody’ll bash a folding chair over your head before you even get to the door, and then somebody’ll steal your wallet while you’re lying unconscious in the middle of the aisle.

If it wasn’t my movie, I’d have bailed out of that club in a heartbeat.

When the lights went up, things reverted to some sense of normality. The crowd went nuts … but in a good way. Nobody yelled. Nobody screamed. Nobody threw a beer mug. Nobody punched me in the stomach. It was all applause. Warm, appreciative applause.

I looked over to Gary’s table. He gave me a big smile and a double thumbs-up, then mouthed, “We rock!” I polished off my beer, then, hoping I could get drunker before the Q & A, asked the bartender for a shot of whatever brown liquid was closest. He picked a couple pieces of mirror out of his hand as if it was nothing and said, “You got it, Mr. Hooper. That was a brilliant piece of work. I’m going to order the DVD of
Chainsaw
the second I get home.”

After he gave me my drink, I asked him, “Are you okay?”

He said, “What do you mean?”

I pointed at the floor behind the bar and said, “Brother, you’re standing in a damn mountain of glass.”

He looked around, then shrugged and said, “Just another day at the Cove, man. Just another day at the Cove.”

I almost said,
Another day at the Cove? Broken shit all over the floor is another day at the Cove
? But I held my tongue. It didn’t seem like the time for a philosophical discussion about the true meaning of fucked-up-ed-ness. All I did was throw down the shot, then, as I headed toward the other side of the club, the girl who’d kissed me gave me a chaste peck on the cheek and said, “I don’t like scary movies, but that was wonderful.” I felt nothing. It was like being kissed by my cousin.

I gave her elbow a squeeze and said, “Thank you, darlin’. Sorry about the … confusion during the flick.”

She gave me a smile that you could actually describe as virginal and said, “What confusion?”

I pointed at her beer and asked, “How many drinks have you had?”

She shrugged and said, “Three, I think. But that’s nothing for me.” She puffed up her big ol’ chest and said, all blustery, “Despite my tininess, I’m far from a lightweight.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “I believe you. Now I got to go to work.”

Many of the filmgoers touched me as I wound my way through the club. Nothing lascivious, mind you. Just pats on the back, and handshakes, and in a couple of instances, I got my hair tousled. I yelled across the club, “Gary, you’d best get your ass up here! I’m not doing this alone.”

Everybody laughed; then, when it quieted down, he yelled back, “Yeah, you are! It’s your night, Tobe!”

ScaryBarry
took a scary shit in the scary cove bathroom. i think i pooped out some of my guts.
April 1 12:48 AM
via
web

FarceCycle
@ScaryBarry You’re all class. Wish I could be there with you.
April 1 12:55 AM
via
web

ScaryBarry
@FarceCycle too late. gonna try and score some more blow before I split. j/k.
April 1 12:59 AM
via
web

I’d survived
way
worse beatings. The unofficial count: once in junior high, five times in high school, once in college, and four times after Massacre This shows. None of them were totally my fault—I’ll take some responsibility, because sometimes there’s a bit of a disconnect between my brain and my mouth—but I’ve never been randomly attacked. And it fucked me up physically
and
mentally … but I wasn’t fucked up badly enough that I didn’t stagger into the club for Tobe’s Q & A.

The guy who’d hit me was sitting at a table right by the door. He raised his beer at me, gave me one of those chin-nods, and said, “Sorry, man. ’Roid rage. It happens. Let me buy you a drink.”

I said, “Fuck off, asswipe.”

He laughed. “I hear you, man. Too bad you missed the flick.” He pointed at Tobe and said, “Can’t wait to hear what this dude has to say.”

I must’ve looked royally pissed, because Janine draped her arm over my shoulders, guided me to the other side of the room, and said, “What say we sit down and listen to your hero regale the masses?”

I said, “That sounds good.” And then I thought,
It’ll be even better if you keep your arm around me
.

In general, Q & A’s are either awesome or terrible, and what with most of my viewers off in Never Never Land, this one wasn’t looking good. I didn’t know what was going through those folks’ heads, but I was pretty sure it wasn’t a question about how I lit that alligator scene. There were other factors, too, factors that I personally will foot the blame for. How can it be a good Q & A if the dude who’s being Q’ed doesn’t know any of the goddamn A’s?

They pelted me with questions about how I got the dismemberments to look so realistic, and what kind of cameras I used, and how long the shoot was, and where I did my editing. After each question, I yelled over to Gary, “Do you know?” Everybody laughed. They thought I was kidding. I wasn’t.

Finally, after about fifteen minutes of this utter nonsense, I said, “Anybody want to ask me something about
Chainsaw
?”

Some wag yelled out, “Screw
Chainsaw
. What happened on
Poltergeist
?”

Ah,
Poltergeist
. Lot of rumors about my involvement with that one, and you’ll hear only rumors because nobody’ll talk about it, myself included. I said, “No comment. Next question.”