Joe Lansdale - 5 short stories

I could put the shotgun under my chin and work the trigger with my toes, or maybe push it with the very pen I'm using to create you, Mr. Journal. Wouldn't that be neat? Blow my brains to the ceiling and sprinkle you with my blood.

But as I said, I loaded the gun because it was something to do. I'd never use it on myself or Mary.

You see, I want Mary. I want her to hold Rae and me one last time like she used to in the park. And she can. There's a way.

I've drawn all the curtains and made curtains out of blankets for those spots where there aren't any. It'll be sunup soon and I don't want that kind of light in here. I'm writing this by candlelight and it gives the entire room a warm glow. I wish I had wine. I want the atmosphere to be just right.

Over on Mary's bunk she's starting to twitch. Her neck is swollen where the vines have congested and are writhing toward their favorite morsel, the brain.

Pretty soon the rose will bloom (I hope she's one of the bright yellow ones ' yellow was her favorite color and she wore it well) and Mary will come for me.

When she does, I'll stand with my naked back to her. The vines will whip out and cut me before she reaches me, but I can stand it. I'm used to pain. I'll pretend the thorns are Mary's needles. I'll stand that way until she folds her dead arms around me and her body pushes up against the wound she made in my back, the wound that is our daughter Rae. She'll hold me so the vines and the proboscis can do their work. And while she holds me, I'll grab her fine hands and push them against my chest, and it will be we three again, standing against the world, and I'll close my eyes and delight in her soft, soft hands one last time.

The drive-in theater may have been born in New Jersey, but it had the good sense to come to Texas to live. Throughout the fifties and sixties it thrived here like a fungus on teenage lusts and families enticed by the legendary DOLLAR NIGHT or Two DOLLARS A CARLOAD.

And even now-though some say the drive-in has seen its heyday in the more populated areas, you can drive on in there any night of the week-particularly Special Nights and Saturday-and witness a sight that sometimes makes the one on the screen boring on comparis-on.

You'll see lawn chairs planted in the backs of pickups, or next to speakers, with cowboys and cowgirls planted in the chairs, beer cans growing out of their fists, and there'll be the sputterings of barbecue pits and the aromas of cooking meats rising up in billows of smoke that slowly melts into the clear Texas sky.

Sometimes there'll be folks with tape decks whining away, even as the movie flickers across the three-story screen and their neighbors struggle to hear the crackling speaker dia-logue over ZZ Top doing "The Tube Snake Boogie." There'll be lovers sprawled out on blankets spread between two speaker posts, going at it so hot and heavy they ought to just go on and charge admission. And there's plenty of action in the cars too. En route to the concession stand a discerning eye can spot the white moons of un-Levied butts rising and falling to a steady, rocking rhythm just barely contained by well-greased shocks and four-ply tires.

What you're witnessing is a bizarre subculture in action. One that may in fact be riding the crest of a new wave.

Or to put it another way: Drive-ins are crazy, but they sure are fun.

The drive-in theater is over fifty years old, having been spawned on Camden, New Jersey June 6th, 1933 by a true visionary-Richard Milton Hollingshead.

Camden

, as you may know, was the last home of Walt Whitman, and when one considers it was the death place of so prestigious an American poet, it is only fitting that it be the birthplace of such a poetic and all-American institution as the drive-in theater Or as my dad used to call them, "the outdoor picture show."

Once there was over 4,000 drive-ins in the United States, now there are about 3,000, and according to some experts, they are dropping off fast. However, in Texas there is a re-emergence and new interest in the passion pits of old. They have become nearly as sacred as the armadillo.

The Lone

Star

State alone has some 209 outdoor theaters in operation, and many of these are multi-screen jobs with different movies running concurrently alongside one another. Not long ago, Gordon McLendon, "The Drive-in Business King," erected the 145 in Houston, a drive-in cap-able of holding up to three thousand automobiles. In fact, it claims to be the biggest drive-in in existence.

Why does the drive-in thrive in Texas when it's falling off elsewhere? Three reasons.

(1) Climate. Generally speaking, Texas has a pretty comfortable climate year round. (2) A car culture. Texas is the champion state for automobile registration, and Texans have this thing about their cars.

The automobile has replaced the horse not only as a mode of transportation, but as a source of mythology. If the Texan of old was supposedly half-human and half-horse, the mod-ern Texan is half-human and half-automobile. Try and separate a Texan from his car, or mass transit that sucker against his will, and you're likely to end up kissing his grillwork at sixty-five miles an hour. (3) Joe Bob Briggs.

Okay, start the background music. Softly please, a humming version of "The Eyes of Texas." And will all true Texans please remove your hats while we have 5 short discussion of Joe Bob Briggs, The Patron Saint of Texas Drive-Ins, He Who Drives Behind The Speaker Rows, and columnist for The Dallas Times Herald. In fact, his column, "Joe Bob Goes to the Drive-in," is the most popular feature in the paper. As it should be, because Joe Bob-who may be the pseudonym for the Herald's regular film critic John Bloom-don't talk no bullcorn, and he don't bother with "hardtop" movie reviews. He's purely a drive-in kind of guy, and boy does he have style.

Here's an example, part of a review for The Evil Dead: "Five teenagers become Spam-in-a-cabin when they head for the woods and start turning into flesh-eating zombies. Asks a lot of moral questions, like 'If your girlfriend turns zombie on you, what do you do? Carve her into itty-bitty pieces or look the other way?'

One girl gets raped by the woods. Not in the woods. By the woods. The only way to kill zombies:

Total dismemberment. This one could make Saw eligible for the Disney Channel."

Single-handedly, with that wild column of his-which not only reports on movies, but on the good times and bad times of Joe Bob himself-he has given the drive-in a new mystique. Or to be more exact, made the non-drive-in goers aware of it, and reminded the rest of us just how much fun the outdoor picture show can be.

Joe Bob's popularity has even birthed a yearly Drive-in Movie Festival-somewhat sacrile-giously held indoors this year-that has been attended in the past by such guests as Roger Corman, King Of The B's, and this year by "Big Steve," known to some as Stephen King. (If you movie watchers don't recognize the name, he's a writer-feller) "Big Steve" was given the solemn honor of leading off the 1984 ceremonies with Joe Bob's "drive-in oath" and arrived wearing his JOE BOB BRIGGS

IS A PERSONAL FRIEND OF MINE T-shirt.