Joe Lansdale - 5 short stories

As we drive along-we're about the fifth automobile in line-we see something move up ahead, to the right. A massive shape steps out of the foliage and onto the highway. It is a Tyr-annosaurus Rex covered in bat-like parasites, their wings opening and closing slowly, like contented butterflies sipping nectar from a flower.

The dinosaur does nothing. It gives our line of metal bugs the once over, crosses the highway and is enveloped by the jungle again.

The caravan starts up once more. We drive onward into this prehistoric world split by a highway out of our memories.

I'm riding shotgun and I glance in the wing-mirror on my side. In it I can see the drive-in screen, and though the last movie should still be running, I can't make out any movement there. It looks like nothing more than an oversized slice of Wonder Bread.

Fade out.

That's the dream. And even now when I go to a drive-in, be it the beat up LUMBERJACK

here with its cheap, tin screen, or anywhere else, I find myself occasionally glancing at the night sky, momentarily fearing that out of the depths of space there will come a great, red comet that will smile at me with a mouthful of sawblade teeth and whip its flaming tail.

Postscript The part of this article dealing with my continuing dream, eventually became my novel, The Drive-In: A B Movie with Blood and Popcorn, and later led to a sequel, The Drive-In 2: Not Just One of Them Sequels, and a third is in the mill, due whenever I get around to finishing it.

As to another matter, I have to reveal how poor a prophet I was concerning matters per-taining to the drive-in.

Almost immediately after I wrote my article, Joe Bob Briggs (John Bloom), was fired from The Dallas Times Herald. This was due to a scathing bit of inspired satire he wrote in his column. Satire that was taken literally, and led to him branching out on his own to become even more popular and successful than ever before, not only column-wise, but in books, and as a film-host. He also got a few bit acting parts out of it. So, sometimes, there is justice.

But for the drive-in, alas, there was no justice. Not even in Texas.

It wasn't making a comeback after all. It was merely screaming a death scream so loud I thought it was the voice of triumph. Video and cable gave it the coup de grace, and I have not driven past a drive-in m years that isn't closed or has been turned into some other enterprise, like THE REDLAND DRIVE-IN near me. It tried to hang on by showing porno movies, then finally, just said "the hell with it," and became a metal scrap yard. Probably best. It lost the spirit of the drive-in long before it ceased being one.

THE LUABEEJACK, formerly down the road from me, is also gone, and a new jail stan4s on the spot where many a lover got their first dose of wet romance, or perhaps their first dose of clap. Where once cars rocked, cons now pull their meat come late at night, or spend their time trying to figure on that big jail break.

The pole and sign that once held the humble LUMBERJACK drive-in marquee is still there, but instead of reading Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Night of the Living Dead, it an-nounces that this is the local jail, and buddy, ain't nothing show'n.

Kida sad, really.

But hey, the spirit of the drive-in is still with us. Even if it is in video boxes, or weekends at festivals celebrating the drive-in.

Joe Bob was right. "The drive-in will never die." Not really.

So, rent a low-budget gem. Turn out the lights. Get some popcorn. Get your best girl or guy, and one of you sit on the left side of the couch like you would if you were in the car, and the other, well, slide on over there close, and when you get to the slow part, like where the scientist is talking some bull about how the Z-ray works, maybe you could neck a little or do something a little more ambitious. Because, hell, even if you are indoors, if you've got the right movie on the tube, got the right state of mind about you, you're at the goddamned drive-in.

Enjoy.

And remember, when it comes to prophecy, Nostradamus, I'm not.