Squirrel Eyes (18 page)

37

How much should I say about this? I went down on her. At great length. And I don't even know how it happened.

Not entirely true, of course; I have
some
recollection of the events surrounding the oral portion of the show. It's just that I'm not quite sure how I made the leap from frantically trying to explain why
The Blue Man
would be better than
Terror Town
to burying my face in Mia's nether regions, as if I'd been hit on the head somewhere between "Cooler monsters!" and – well,
you
know.

 I suspected there would at least be a smooch or two when, as we were leaving Butters's house, Mia suggested that I join her at her apartment to further discuss the plans for shooting the movie – I'm not
that
stupid, for Pete's sake – but I didn't expect things to get too greasy, simply because Mia was due at Jiggy's later on.

I followed her to her place – a fourplex near UNM. The small one-bedroom was decorated in Goth-meets-Art-Girl; lots of blacks and deep reds, candles dripping over chromium vampire skulls, a couple of bizarre thrift-store paintings. It smelled great, all honey and butter, like a warm flaky pastry filled with cute Tiki waitress, but that décor was the sort of thing that hoisted all my red flags to the top of the pole. To make matters worse, after Mia kicked off her thick, clunky shoes, she spun up a CD – Tori friggin' Amos. 

Then she trailed her fingers down my forearm and shot me a smile, instantly causing me to forget I was surrounded by items from the clearance rack at Bed, Bath & Beelzebub. There was no helping that Tori Amos business, however. As Mia disappeared into the kitchen, I eyeballed the big neon-ringed clock on the wall. It was 10 PM. She'd have to leave no later than 10:45, surely. That ambiguous guilt was beginning to chew at the lining of my stomach.  

      Returning to the living room, Mia handed me a bottle of hard lemonade. 

"Your drink, right?"

      Sighing, I accepted the bottle. "Pathetic, isn't it?"

      "It's cute," she said, plopping down on the velvet-draped love seat. Looking up at me, she patted the cushion next to her. 

      I sat down very close to the girl, and she whittled away any remaining distance by shifting her lovely bottom so that her hip pressed against my own.

      "I think it's so cool that you've actually written a movie," she said.

      I stared at her for a second, thinking she was joking. "Boy, you are so sweet," I finally said. "
Terror Town
isn't exactly
Mean Streets
."

      "I've never seen that."

      My mouth fell open. "You've never seen – it's Martin Scorsese's coolest movie," I enthused. "You have to see it or you're banished from earth."

      "Hey now," she said, her back up. "I've seen a bunch of his other movies, so just cool your jets."

      "
After Hours?
"

      Mia nodded. "That one's secretly my favorite."

      "Favorite
movie
, or favorite Scorsese flick?"

      "Scorsese flick – I could give you a list of fifteen or twenty, but I could never pick one favorite movie."

      She was a girl after my own heart. Except for that goddamn Tori Amos album.

      "Well, you'd better get ready to have your favorite Scorsese flick toppled, because when you see
Mean Streets
it's gonna be all over for
After Hours
."

      We went on like that for a long time (at least I
think
we did; like I said, I can't remember all the details), rattling off the titles of various movies and pinpointing important ones Mia had yet to see (the girl hadn't seen
Halloween
, for God's sake!), my appreciation for her skyrocketing all the while.  

      When the subject turned to
The Blue Man
I tried to say something about the crushing obstacles
Terror Town
had in its way and how we wouldn't face any of that with our little movie, but beyond that I couldn't tell you, because the next thing I remember is Mia's tongue worming its way into my mouth in a blitzkrieg of slippery flesh.

      Look, I realize this sounds like a letter to
Penthouse Forum
, but for whatever reason, this shit has been known to happen to me. It's like a UFO abduction – I'm going along, just doing my thing, then there's some kind of missing time experience and the next thing I know I'm doing the underpants polka, and all I can think about during the sinful shenanigans is how in hell I found myself there and how badly I'm gonna drop the ball. 

      But judging from Mia's squirmy reaction to my ministrations, I had things well under control. Peering along the length of her contracting belly, through the gently quaking valley of her breasts, I watched her face as it contorted in delightful agony. She lifted her head to watch me, opulent lips parted.

      And the sudden shock of the Alison flashback nearly caused me to bite down.

      Fortunately, I overcame the instinct, closing my eyes. The last time I'd seen this landscape, Alison's face had been at the other end of it. All at once my mind was aflame with the image of Chetchmire or whatever the fuck his name was and how he was now seeing Alison from this very same vantage point. Accompanying the pain, that fucking bizarre feeling of guilt slammed against the inside of my chest.

      Overwhelmed by the twisted scenario, I bore down on Mia, trying to force one more flurry of satisfied thrashing and yelping from her before I ran back home. Achieving success, I quickly withdrew my noggin from its position of honor, staggering to my feet. The lemonade was in there futzing with the wiring. 

      Mia, splayed back on the love seat and groaning contentedly, fumbled for the button on my jeans. I shot a cartoony double take at the clock, silently thanking the Lord for small favors: it was 10:52. 

"Jesus Christ – you'd better get to work, it's almost eleven!"

      "Fuck it, I'll be late," she slurred, tugging at my fly. "C'mere, you."

Not wanting her to discover that my erection had fled before I could, I stepped away, wrestling my pants from her grip. 

"No, seriously – I'd better get going," I said, desperately sorting through excuses. "I've gotta do some last-minute rewrites on the script, anyway." 

Yeah, that didn't sound too lame when there was an incredibly sexy naked girl sprawled in front of me trying to get my pants off.

Mia sat up, confused. 

At least she doesn't look hurt
, I thought. I could deal with her thinking I was nuts, but I didn't want to hurt her. My eyes trailed along the curvature of her breasts and the way her rib cage sloped into her belly. Her nipples were still hard, like fat gumdrops. What was
wrong
with me? Buttoning my pants, I awaited her withering verbal assault on my pathetic manhood.

"What about
you?
" she softly asked, shooting a questioning glance at my crotch. 

I just stared at her for a second, a smile slowly taking over my face. Suddenly euphoric, I leaned in and kissed her on the forehead. 

"Later."

Gazing down at herself, she surveyed the aftermath. "Look at me – I'm a sloppy mess." 

"Then my work here is done."

"Yeah, well, you'll get yours, mister." Grinning, she took a playful swing at me. I escaped unscathed.

As I drove home, I broke a small chunk of plastic off of Mom's steering wheel by repeatedly pounding my forehead against it. I was quite the man, all right: I'd lost Alison, hurt Kelli, freaked out on Mia – when things were going great, no less – and was foolish enough to tackle
The Blue Man
a second time. Not to mention breaking my mom's steering wheel. If I weren't in her car I would've been inclined to drive off a bridge, but it was that whole borrowed shotgun thing at work again; just didn't seem polite. 

At Mom's, I went to my bedroom and sat down, hoping I'd be able to suppress this most recent failure enough to get some work done on the rewrite of
The Blue Man
. Now that we were shooting on video, we'd be needing some dialogue, although I intended to keep it to a minimum – this thing was gonna be hard enough to pull off as it was. 

As I nibbled the end of the pen in thought, I realized that my face and hands were perfumed with Mia's funk. Then it struck me: that freakish guilt had risen up because being with Mia had distracted me from the pain of losing Alison – as if I were somehow
cheating
on her by not feeling shitty. 

Well, fuck a bunch of that. I practically snorted the delicious smell that clung to my fingers, luxuriating in the idea that, for the first time since Alison left me, I had forgotten to be crippled and useless. Mia and I had enjoyed ourselves, had a
nice evening
– there had been that flare-up of guilt and self-loathing, sure, but the fact remained that Mia wasn't drunk, or retarded, or just feeling sorry for the broken-hearted loser; she
liked
me.

Even after watching
Terror Town
.

38

      Only one of the two guys Taylor recruited was drunk when we got together in the morning; considering
The Blue Man
's history, I felt like we were off to a decent start. 

It was just before nine AM, and we were all standing around outside my mom's house. Mia hadn't arrived, but neither was she late. The morning was already hot and sticky. 

I took Taylor aside while Aaron and Noel stood in the street at the back of Boone's car. Aaron was shoving donuts and coffee down Noel's throat, with encouragement from Boone. 

"What's the story with this guy?" I whispered. 

"Aw, we were hitting the sauce some last night," Taylor explained. The boys worked the graveyard shift with him, and stocking shelves can be a dull pursuit. "Me and Aaron, we're pretty solid guys – we can absorb a lot more liquor than Noel."

I watched the spindly, bristly-haired Noel chomp down either his second or third donut – I may have missed one, so I wasn't sure. Aaron was definitely of sturdier build; he was also sporting the most simian-like skull I've ever seen on a human being, topped off with a pruned shrub of bright red hair. 

"I guess while me and Aaron were sleeping it off – not together, mind you – Noel went home and kept pounding them down until Aaron got there to pick him up," Taylor continued. He glanced back at his co-workers conspiratorially. "Don't tell him I said so, but he's really nervous about being in the movie."

Taylor nodded in response to my stunned expression.

"Jesus," I added.

      "No shit," Taylor agreed. "You need me to do anything? Otherwise, me and Boone are gonna read through our dialogue." 

Taylor was unshaven, his hair snarled from sleep; he was after that look of post-nuke hygiene. I was grateful to see him show so much interest in the movie.

I sent him on his way, script in hand. He and Butters sat on the curb and began reading lines. I didn't realize what garbage I had written until I heard them saying it out loud.

I went to the three cardboard boxes containing our supplies and obsessively sorted through the stuff, worrying that Mia would be upset with me when she arrived. What if she'd decided sometime after I'd left that she really was mad at me after all? Or worse yet, that she was so disgusted with me that she wouldn't even bother to show up? 

      I nearly squealed with relief when her car turned the corner, only to have the unstoppable tide of apprehension come crashing back in as she neared the house.

      As Mia's car pulled to a stop at the curb, Noel greeted our female lead with a geyser of vomit, launching donuts (looked like two to me), coffee and whiskey into the street, the splattering impact amplified by the tranquil morning air. I saw Mia's eyes widen behind the windshield.

      "Hey, those were perfectly good donuts," Taylor said.

      "Sorry," Noel spluttered, wiping chunks out of his sparse goatee. "I'm really sorry."

      It all seemed oddly familiar – but what would
The Blue Man
be without vomit? Anxiously, I hustled toward Mia's car as she stepped out. 

"Is that guy okay?" she said, nodding towards Noel.

"He's drunk," I said. It was incredible; she didn't seem mad at all. 

"Already?" 

"I've been working on it for many hours," Noel said.

I made the necessary introductions, then tried to probe a little deeper. "How are
you?
" I asked Mia.

"Mmm ...
sleepy
," she said, surprising the hell out of me by giving me a big hug. "But I'm ready to make a movie." 

"That makes one of us," Taylor commented. 

Butters waved at Mia, a half-eaten jelly-filled clenched in his fist. "Did you know we have dialogue now?"

"I'd heard rumors," she said. 

I must've mentioned it during that missing time I'd experienced the night before. 

I ran back to the boxes of supplies and rustled up a copy of the script. "You can go over it with Taylor and Boone while I load the car," I said, handing the script to Mia.

Aaron moved to help me, leaving Noel bent over in the street, forearms resting on knees. He expelled a moist burp, causing Taylor and Butters to pause in their donut eating and stare on in suspense. After a few seconds, Noel straightened, smacking his lips. The danger past, my lead actors continued to chow down.

As Aaron and I loaded boxes into the trunk of Butters's car, Mia began reciting some of my crappy dialogue. I turned to watch her. 

"A week ago, the mutants came out of the desert and attacked our settlements," she read, sounding cute and sexy. She shot me a sly wink. 

I felt like I could've lifted Boone's car over my head.

"I liked it better when it was silent," Taylor said.

We hit the road soon afterwards, headed east towards the Sandia Mountains. Originally, I had planned to shoot in the same desert locations we'd used the first time around, but thought better of it when I saw the weather report. Albuquerque was going to be the surface of the sun for the next week, so the tree-shrouded, breeze-swept mountains seemed ideal – even if they didn't exactly sport the post-apocalyptic look we might've wanted. Comfort over production design, that's my motto. At least when nobody's getting paid.

We took two cars – Butters, Taylor, Mia and I in the Boone-mobile, while Aaron and Noel rode in Aaron's Pacer. We were grateful for this arrangement when, driving along the winding mountain road that led to our first location, Taylor saw Noel spew more of his stomach's contents onto the dashboard of Aaron's car.

There was only a minimum of hiking required to reach the location from the parking area, but Butters was wheezing like the Little Engine That Could by the time we reached the place. He insisted he was okay, and Mia sat with him while the rest of us scoped out the site.

It was perfect. In fact, I was sure we could shoot the entire movie in that one place – a vast clearing at the base of a grassy hillside. Trees protected the entire area from sight of the highway, masking not only the view but the traffic noise. 

While Butters cooled it in the tall grass, I began setting up the opening scene: the food raiders chasing the Blue Man over the hillside. Taylor pulled on his dark goggles (have to protect those mutated eyeballs, after all) and other accoutrements of his costume, meanwhile guiding Aaron and Noel in the details of their own outfits (Noel wore a ski mask, since his head would be coming off later, and Aaron insisted on wearing a too-small Elvis Costello shirt that allowed his abundant belly to peek out. It was a terrifying sight, but I appreciate good showmanship). Mia jumped in with both feet, acting as my assistant. 

With their costumes looking about as good as I could've hoped and their weaponry at hand, I sent the three guys up the hill, staring on as if watching a scene from
The Omen
– certain that some mishap would befall one or more of them before they could reach the top. The only sound was the scrunching of the grass beneath their feet and the occasional muffled roar of a passing semi's Jake Brake. 

At the top of the hill, Taylor turned, throwing his hands up questioningly, waiting for direction. 

"Get out of sight," I hollered, waving him back. 

The three moved further along, then stopped. The top of Taylor's head still peeked out, gripped by his blue knit cap. 

"Another few feet!" I watched through the viewfinder of Daniel's camera until the blue noggin disappeared from view. "Perfect!" I shouted.

I took a deep breath and held it, glancing at Mia. She grinned at me. 

Thumbing the
record
button on the video camera, I waited a second for the tape to get up to speed. Then, fingers tightly crossed, yelled "Action!" 

Running like a striped-assed ape, Taylor crested the hill, frantically glancing back over his shoulder just as the script called for. As he scrambled down the grassy slope, Aaron and Noel appeared at the top of the hill in hot pursuit, waving their hatchets and kitchen knives in vengeful fury. The three drew closer and closer to the camera. I held my breath again.

Taylor blew past. Then Aaron, and finally Noel.

I gave it a few seconds, released that breath, and –

"Cut!"

I turned towards my actors. 

Incredibly, we had pulled off the first shot without incident.

Taylor and I just stared at each other for a long moment. In those few seconds, fourteen years melted away like nothing; then we exploded with boisterous laughter, shook hands, hugged each other. 

Caught up in the moment, Mia threw her arms around me and gave me a knee-weakening smooch. Even Butters took part in the rejoicing, albeit from a seated position, while Noel and Aaron merely seemed baffled.

Encouraged, we shot some coverage of the scene – close-ups of feet thrashing through the grass; the Blue Man's haggard face, panting as he runs for his life; the food raiders yelping and brandishing their weapons. Still no injuries, but Mia created a bit of a distraction when she ducked behind some bushes to change into her costume, emerging in black bra (she had improved on Kelli's original costume by foregoing the tank top entirely) and shredded, cut-off military pants, the khaki fabric hugging her rump in a manner that leached all moisture from my throat.

Next up was the first fight sequence, as the Blue Man turns on his foes and slugs it out with the food raiders. 

Taylor, Aaron and Noel walked through some hasty fight choreography while I set up for a new angle. Mia strolled around nearby, practicing her lines and destroying my concentration. 

The half-assed stunts looked pretty good when they were accompanied by a little creative camera work, and once again, things went relatively smoothly, although Noel threw up one last time when Taylor got a little carried away with a fake punch and nailed him in the gut. After running the tape back and replaying the scene, we decided to keep the puking – it looked great on camera.

      It was time for the big man's first scene. I had planned things so everyone else could take a break while I did Boone's mutant makeup – a fairly simple latex and cotton job, just some radiation scars and patches of twisted, lumpy skin. Noel curled up under some bushes and fell asleep almost instantly, while Taylor, Mia and Aaron popped open Cokes and talked about what we'd shot.

      Boone, seated in the grass beneath a big pine tree, smiled up at me as I approached, carrying a box of makeup supplies. 

      "It's going great, Alvin," he wheezed. He was drenched in sweat, his face glistening, shirt soaked. 

      "Are you okay, Boone?" I put the box down and crouched next to him. "Let me get you something to drink, okay?"

      "Thanks – how about a Coke?"

      I dug around in the box, came up with some cotton balls and a bottle of rubbing alcohol. 

"I need you to clean your skin with this so the latex will stick," I said. 

His hands were trembling as he took the items. 

      When I returned with his can of soda, Boone was wiping the grease from his face. He gratefully accepted the can and guzzled a long swig. 

      "We don't have to shoot your stuff today if you're not feeling well."

      "Naw, I'm fine," he assured me. "Won't make any difference anyway – that walk from the road's gonna get me no matter when we shoot." 

      I sat down in the grass next to him. He was certainly putting on a brave face. "You sure you want to do this action stuff?" 

      Boone smiled at me, shaking his head. "It'll be great. I might have to take a few breaks, though, just take it kind of easy. Bruce Lee I ain't."

      "You could've crushed Bruce Lee like a bug," I said.

      "If I could've
caught
him," he laughed. 

When finished, Boone's mutant makeup was some scary shit: upper lip skewed in a permanent, threatening snarl, one eye nearly hidden beneath a sagging, gnarled brow, his face a roadmap of distorted flesh. Boone was very pleased, growling at himself in the hand mirror I held up for him.

Mia tucked Boone away in a thicket of bushes while Taylor and I set up for the shot. With everybody in place, I rolled the camera and the Blue Man raced past, the food raiders right behind him. 

As Noel neared the bushes, Boone roared out and tackled the little guy. Noel got the wind knocked out of him, but managed to keep down whatever was left in his belly. 

Holding Noel down, Boone tore his head off and flung it aside – a simple effect; I cheated the camera angle so that Noel's thrashing arms and legs were visible, but his head was obscured by Boone's massive shoulders. Boone acted as if he were straining against muscle and tendon and bone, finally jerking the prize free and holding it aloft: a Styrofoam head sporting a bloody latex-and-cotton stump and wearing Noel's ski mask. It looked cool as hell.

Boone was doing okay so far, and assured me he was ready to continue. We set up the shot where he leaps to his feet and chases Aaron down, slaughtering him in splatteriffic glory. 

I called action. 

Boone struggled some getting up, but took off like a grizzly bear in pursuit of his prey. Aaron looked authentically scared as the big man bore down on him.

After about fifteen paces, Boone collapsed on his face and lay still.