Anyway, when Fat Jimmy bust in the room holdin’ a new tape over his head like a bowlin’ trophy, we was ready to elect him Mayor and two council seats besides. Everybody slapped him on the back like he was a returnin’ astronaut, and then they grabbed a drink and a seat around the TV while he did the honors. It was just’ like meetin’ a new pretty girl, only without all the datin’ and food and stuff. A couple of the fellas even sat up straighter and ran their hands through their hair. The movie started, the credits rolled, and then all that hootin’ and a’hollerin’ that we had ready to go just stopped up in our throats because we was all too surprised to see that the girl on this tape was a real girl. I mean, those other’n were real girls too, but they was all made up and spiffed up and painted up and looked more like showfolk than anything else. Watching them commingle was entertainment, pure and simple. But this here was more like peeping, like watchin’ neighbors through their winders, and it was a whole different experience I can tell you. Apart from Bo Wilson I’m pretty sure none of us ever did that before, peeped I mean, and he swears he stopped it cold last Palm Sunday. We didn’t yell once during the entire production, we just watched it right through like little kids at the picture show and then we sat there, poleaxed. Fat Jimmy, he sez “Good God A’mighty,” and he picked up the video box to look at it. It said something like “Amateur Sex Slutz” on it, with a “z” for the “s” so’s you’d know it was real uptown, and the pictures on the box didn’t do justice to what we had just seen. Now I cain’t rightly speak for everyone, but this was the first ay-dult movie I’d ever seen that made me feel dirty, or got a rise out of my britches either, and friend, I wasn’t too sure yet what I thought about that. From the looks of the other men in the room I wasn’t alone, and all I could think of was that I was powerful glad I was married and had a chance to put this somewheres tonight, ‘cause otherwise there wouldn’t be a safe knothole for twenty miles around. I felt sorry for some of the fellers, I did, but it had just become every man for hisself and I had somewheres I needed to be and so I left without even grabbing my hat. My wife Junie was used to me stumbling home after a lodge meetin’ but I do think she was surprised at what I brung home with me, and we put it to good use as soon as we could get most of the way upstairs. I fell asleep tired and happy and didn’t think much about the tape until a few days later when Henry Vanderkin run me down outside Hattie’s Diner.
I had just brought the truck in to get the timing belt looked at and thought I’d swing by Hattie’s for a slice of one o’ her famous blueberry pies, when Henry calls out to me from down the street. Now Henry’s all right if you don’t mind him. He’s a mountain boy seven generations back, good-natured in an exasperatin’ sort of way, but ever since he got cable and the intranet he’s had wild ideas about how to do things. Cain’t rightly say he’s wrong, neither, but he does wear on a body sometimes. He catches up to me and he sez, “Ollie, can I talk to you a minute?” I told him I didn’t mind as long as he didn’t mind sharing my attention with a pie, and that sounded right good to him. We went into Hattie’s and bless her, she had pie waiting for both of us and with ice cream on the tops of each one without us even asking for it. I swear, if I ever get to Heaven and Hattie ain’t there, I’m gone turn right around and walk out and take my business elsewhere. We tucked into that pie like there was money at the bottom, and after things settled a bit Henry come out with his proposition. Henry sez, “You remember that tape we watched?” I allowed as how I did. He sez, “It strike you any different from them others we got?” I allowed as how it had. He just smiled and told me that it had burned a hole in everbody else’s britches too, and that in the three days since its debut that video had been run about thirty times and that some of the fellas without wives or girlfriends was watching it and lockin’ the door, which had always been against lodge rules on account o’ we don’t want to do any more floor-mopping than was absolutely necessary. I sez, “It sounds like that tape’s gone get wore out faster than Bo Wilson’s zipper, although that might be a close race, at that.” Henry sez, “I been researchin’ this on the intranet, and I got me an idee how we can make some money.” Now friend, I have to admit that money sounded right good to me just then. Farmin’ subsidies only go so far into a community and I didn’t have the best farm in the world to start with. Pretty near everybody in town got by, just like I did, but wasn’t none of us what you’d call well off. I figgered Henry had a mail-order scheme in mind, or maybe trying to sell everybody their own VCRs and porno tapes, but it turned out that I was guessin’ low. Henry come out with, “I think we can make our own ay-dult movie and sell it.” It’s a good thing he waited ‘til after I et my pie, because otherwise I’da smushed it when my chin hit the counter. I sez, “You want us to what?” He sez, make our own porno-type movie. “That’s what I thought you said, I just couldn’t believe you’d say it twice in the same day. Look around you, Henry, have you ever seen an ay-dult movie look like this?” This is where Henry got that big grin, the one that always loses him all his money on poker night, and he sez, “Nope, I surely haven’t. And that’s why we have to do it.” Henry explained that amachure tapes like the one we saw had really blown the foam off the ay-dult film industry. Here they were, using these fancy sets and extravagant costumes and high-priced porno stars and expensive drugs and I don’t know what-all, and it turned out that people were more interested in a’watchin’ people what look like their neighbors go at it. No sets, no fancy cars, no fancy lightin’, and nuthin in the way of props that you couldn’t find in a kitchen drawer or a good hardware store. It just blew the ay-dult industry away, and they sat up and said, “we got to get us some amachures, fast,” and that’s why Henry had his grin. “Ain’t no one doin’ mountain porn, Ollie,” he sez. “We got the field wide open, and you saw the video. Ain’t nuthin’ happen on that video we couldn’t do ourselves.” He looked so happy you’da thought his pockets were full o’ cream. Me bein’ the natural pessimist that I am, I had to poke holes in his idea. “And just where do we get all the stuff for this, Henry? You got a movie studio in your boot?” Henry just grinned his grin and said that his cousin had one of them video cameras, and that was all we really needed, we could build or fake anything else. I sez, “And just where do we get our stars for this porno movie? You volunteering?” Henry allowed as how he didn’t think no one would pay to see him with his clothes off, and I had to agree, seein’ as how Henry did resemble a fella who had taken into his mind to swaller a couch. “No,” he sez, “I think they’d rather see someone like that,” and with that he grabbed my arm and pointed out the winder and across the street. There was Dolly Sue Magee, known far and wide as the prettiest and easiest girl in all of Cliffside County. Last year she won first place in the Miss Green Bean Beauty Pageant and from what I hear she personally thanked every single judge until they couldn’t hardly see straight anymore. She thanked one judge near on to death and he wasn’t even a beauty pageant judge, he was a judge for the hot dog eatin’ contest, but story goes that she figgered he’d be the man to accurately rate her technique. If there was anyone around who would get to it in front of a camera on purpose, it was Dolly Sue. “Okay,” I sez, “I’ll give you that one. But what about the fella? We got to have someone in there with her, unless you just want to film her lovin’ up on some produce, and I’m pretty sure Dolly Sue won’t go for that.” Not to worry, Henry told me, he had some thoughts in that direction. What he needed from me was the use of my barn this weekend. Oh, and he’d sure ‘preciate it if’n I could whip out a script, too. Afore I could say another word about it he was up off his stool and out the door, leaving me confused and a touch apprehensive. Also with the bill for the pie, but anyone knows Henry learns quick to expect that sort of thing. Payin’ happens to other people in Henry’s world. From what I could recollect of the other movies we had watched, along with the odd blue movie I had seen at friends’ houses, I didn’t think whomping up a script would be any too hard. ‘Here’s the pizza, lady’ and a coupla ‘oh gods’ oughtta do ‘er. But afore I could do the first word, I’d have to tell my wife Junie, and that scared me more than a little bit. See, I’m not a real old man, but I been married most o’ my life now and I’m just startin’ to get a handle on how this thing works. I wasn’t entirely sure convincing Junie that me helping out with any ay-dult movie was the smartest thing in the world, but I was positive down to my shoes that not telling her and then doing it anyway was the fastest way any man ever come up with to leave this world behind. I heard someone say once that it was easier to get forgiveness than permission, but they never talk about the mortality rate. I showed up at home all nervous-like and stammering, but it turned out Henry got to her first, and for once in his life he helped. Soon as I walk in the door she up and sez, “Ollie! You writin’ a ee-rotic movie! Henry just got off the phone with me, told me all about it. Honey, that’s so excitin’!” I can’t say I was unhappy with her reaction, but it sure weren’t what I was expecting, and I told her so. She sez, “Baby, you know I ain’t never been one of them biddies what get married and suddenly forget all about what they was up to in the woods just a month previous. I love you and I love what we do and if you can write that down and make other people see how beautiful it is then more power to you, is what I say. Besides, our Garden Club watched those movies a couple times when we met at the lodge and I know you can write something better than that trash.” I hugged her tight and sent a thank-you up to God for giving me the best wife in the world. After a minute she pulled back and sez to me, “’Course I don’t see any reason for you to include anything I usually say, or any noises I make or nuthin’.” I assured her that my dialogue would be original and the actors would be on their own as far as noises went, and that I would use one of them fake names so nobody’d know it was me what wrote it. I headed into the family room and found she’d already dug out my typewriter and some paper and set me up with enough coffee to irrigate the Sahara.
Saturday morning we got blasted outta bed when Henry and Dolly Sue, and young Wilbur Tubbs works over at Fred’s Auto Parts, and Fat Jimmy and Tollie and Judge Jackson all pulled into the driveway, horns blaring and them hollerin’ and I don’t know what all, like to raise the dead. When we come outside they was already in the barn, movin’ the tractor out and clearin’ some space inside for the studio. Henry, he sees me comin’ and he grabs my arm. “You got the script ready?” he sez. I told him I did and that it was a humdinger, almost five pages, and that I even made some copies of it so nobody’d have to pass it around. Henry told me I was a true perfessional. Junie saw right away that Dolly Sue weren’t dressed proper. My script had her as a innocent young farmer’s daughter but Dolly Sue was dressed the way she usually is in tight shorts just coverin’ her butt and this teeny little shirt that didn’t disguise nuthin’, with lots of dangly jewelry all over her, and ain’t nobody in the world would guess she was innocent even if they had never met her before in their lives and was blind besides. Henry rushed over to show her the script, and it appeared there was gonna be trouble once Dolly Sue found out she’d have to read somethin’, so I lit out of the barn ‘til things cooled down. I heard a scream and a splash, which I reckon was my sweet lady wife introducin’ Dolly Sue to the outstandin’ makeup-removin’ properties of the rain barrel. Wilbur Tubbs was standin’ outside, reading the script. I hadn’t previously thought of Wilbur in this particular regard but I had to admit he was a good choice. Wilbur played football in high school, linebacker, and he’s got muscles on him he ain’t even used yet. Quiet boy, though, never heard much of him off the field. He looked a little peaked so I leaned on the fence next to him and asked him what was up. I sez, “You gonna be our porno star, Wilbur?” He blushed and ducked his head and nodded. I sez, “You sure you ready for this? Most fellers don’t do this sort o’ thing in crowds.” He grinned and blushed again, and I began to have doubts over our new media venture. “Wilbur,” I sez, “if you’re doin’ this to just get close to Dolly Sue it’s my understandin’ that you could buy her a burger and a orange drink and it’d work just about as well and twice as fast.” Well, Wilbur kinda went quiet for a second, or I guess quieter, like sound wouldn’t stick to him any more. Finally he up and sez, “Mr. Hanson? I don’t… I don’t do so well with girls.” And that was all he had to say, cuz Wilbur Tubbs, for all the bulgin’ muscles he had on his steelworker’s body, had a voice like Mickey Mouse. I clapped him on the back and told him not to worry; he couldn’t get turned down today if he tried ‘cause it weren’t in the script. We went up to the house together so’s I could get him outfitted. When we got back to the barn Junie was just finishing up Dolly Sue, and I had to admit she done a fine job. If I hadn’t personally seen Dolly Sue proposition a basketball team once, I’d have thought she was a Sunday School teacher who’d wear a coat in the tub so as not to scandalize the angels. She had her hair up in a bun and her makeup scrubbed off and she was wearing Junie’s old gingham dress but with the top buttons unbuttoned, and since Dolly Sue’s a handful where my sweet Junebug is a palmful, she was spilling out in such a way as to make sweat break out on the forehead of every man there.