Amy Brashear - The Incredible True Story of the Making of the Eve of Destruction

In the end, Willie is stronger. He dashes ahead. Martha loses his hand and becomes one of the many engulfed bodies turned to black char. But the mushroom cloud in the sky is an indication—fallout is coming.

I awoke to light suffusing my room. As it faded, the ceiling fan slowly came to a stop. I squinted in the sudden darkness. It was quiet. My alarm clock was blank, not even blinking the dreaded 12:00. The dryer was off. Mom always did a load right before bed; I usually heard it rumbling if I woke up. The telltale sound of white noise or buzz of some sort of electronic appliance. Kind of comforting. Now nothing. The power did a fast whoop before shutting off.

My heart leapt. It had to be an EMP. [56] Electromagnetic pulse. Electronic devices will be shut down for a hundred miles in every direction due to the EMP generated by the blast. That includes cars, radios, televisions, clocks—anything, really, that runs on electricity. And they won’t start up ever again. Right? Which only meant I was awake for the apocalypse.

They, as in the people who were in charge of doing the unthinkable, said once you see the flash, you have less than thirty seconds before the blast. Flash. Blast. Boom . I lay there in my bed with the covers up to my chin, waiting for the blast, boom , since apparently I had already had the flash .

But did I really want to be here in bed when the end of the world happened?

My first stop was the living room and then the kitchen. No lights on the VCR and no humming of the fridge. I tried a light switch in the dining room to be sure, but nothing. I even opened the fridge to see if the light was on—it wasn’t. It was still cold, so I quickly shut it. We would need the food before the radiation came. Looking out the window, I saw nothing. The streetlamps that usually kept our cul-de-sac lit were out. It wasn’t just our house.

They said that a bomb fifty miles away sounded like a giant door slamming the depths of hell.

I peeked in to Dennis and Mom’s room, but they were asleep. Mom and Dennis asleep. Mom sprawled out all over the bed, leaving poor Dennis with a square inch of his own. Did they feel it?

We could have had the flash , but then it was too far away to see the blast . Even so, when was the fallout going to hit us?

Terrence’s room was down the hall from mine. I could hear the snoring from outside the door. I cracked it open just to make sure. If he was awake, we could experience the blast and boom together. But he was asleep. I went to close the door, grabbing the knob, but ended up stubbing my toe on the doorframe (Stubbing your toe. It hurts like an atomic bomb went off in your foot and you have no one to blame but yourself) and yelped, waking up Terrence. “What are you doing?” he asked, half asleep.

“I saw a flash of light and all the power went off,” I said.

“What?” he asked, rubbing his eyes.

“I’m waiting for the blast.”

“What?” he asked again. “Did we just get hit?”

“I thought I’d be the only one awake for it.”

“And?”

“And I didn’t want to be alone,” I said.

“Laura—” he started, but I closed the door before he could say anything.

I went back to my room but not before closing all the curtains in the house ( close the curtains, stay away from the windows, and do not look toward the light ) including in my room. My bed was by the window, so instead of getting back in bed, I made a makeshift one in my closet, and I might have hummed the entire Johnny Cash song “Ring of Fire” [57] “Ring of Fire” was written by June Carter Cash and Merle Kilgore. It was originally recorded by June’s sister Anita Carter. However, it was most known as a Johnny Cash song that was released in April 1963. It’s a mixture of country and rock and roll. to myself.

A little while later, there was a knock on my closet door.

“You want company?” Terrence asked.

He brought his pillow and comforter. He sat opposite me.

“I’m afraid of going to sleep and not waking up. I’m afraid that there won’t be a tomorrow. That sounds really corny. Like something Scarlett O’Hara would say—I won’t go hungry again, because I’ll eat those radioactive radishes,” I said to him.

He laughed. “Frankly, Laura, I don’t give a damn.”

“You had to,” I said.

“Sorry, but yeah, I had to.”

I kicked at his leg and he kicked at mine.

For the rest of the night, or morning, we contemplated whose fault it was—for the nuclear holocaust that would surely come, and for the one that never occurred.

The next morning, they said a transformer had blown, but seriously, I had my doubts.

Maybe that whole fictional life was creeping into my nonfictional life, but I thought we were all going to need psychological counseling after the movie wrapped.

We stayed late after school so we could be extras in the Operation Tat-Type scene. I, with my fellow castmates, would be getting fake tattoos under my arms.

Makeup and hair were done on the stage, and wardrobe was in the gym locker rooms. The gym was where the scene was supposed to take place, but the acoustics were pretty bad (thank you, Kathy’s dad, who donated the gym’s sound system. His name, Peter Baker, was on a plaque that hung over the light switch next to the fire exit doors, but he forgot that insulation was important to soundproofing), so a location change was in order. We moved the whole operation to the cafeteria.

Half the crew came in and moved the tables, the food-serving counters, tray cart, fork-and-spoon dispenser, and milk cooler out into the hall, while the other half moved in the cots, hung the white cloth partitions, and moved in tiny chairs for everyone to wait on.

Kitty went “plain” with the makeup. A lot of beige. And Raymond dressed everyone, at least the girls, in white bras and skirts and Keds. All the male extras and talent would be shirtless with slacks. Boys were instructed by many a production assistant not to gawk, and girls were instructed not to giggle.

There was something to say about how a man could be seduced and manipulated by just a quick show of boobs, even if those were protected by a thin layer of fabric—in the case of my choice of brassiere, lace. Personally, I liked more of a rounded cup, but this bra was more pointy—take-out-an-eye pointy.

“Does there need to be a point with boobs like this?” Astrid asked.

“The nipple. They’re the point on a bare breast,” I said.

“Good one, Laura,” she said.

She knew my name.

What were the ’50s like? I only understood the ’50s from the perspective of Happy Days and Joanie Loves Chachi . [58] Joanie Loves Chachi was a spin-off of Happy Days . It only aired for two seasons. It starred Erin Moran and Scott Baio as Joanie Cunningham and Chachi Arcola. They tried their hand at a traveling rock band. The show was canceled last year.

“I’m getting sick and tired of Hollywood portraying men as nothing but sexual objects. I know Hollywood does that with women, but that’s different,” said Owen.

“You can’t be serious,” Astrid said. “We’re the eye candy.”

“I wasn’t being serious. I was being ironic.”

“Oh, well, my point still remains,” she said, pulling up her bra strap.

“Point,” Freddy said, laughing.

Astrid mocked them by mimicking them.

There’s something about this decade in movies that has a fascination with women’s boobs. They’re not that special. They hurt when you run. They hurt when you sleep.