I roll in bed – my eyes won’t close – I feel itchy all over.
I stay up the whole night.
AT 12PM I TELL MY mum I’m going to practice darts at Hawaiian Brian's and head straight to the bus stop, where I take the #2 bus.
I get off at the end of Waikiki and walk my way to DHV – the whole time thinking about being a rich, famous figure in the adult industry, yet somehow keeping my secret from everyone. Maybe I should use a fake name: Like Dingus.
Or maybe Stone Face. It would be a good name for a child, too. If the child was to ever fall and crack its face off, it’ll frighten off all the bullies and no one would want to steal my child’s lunch money.
I get looks as I walk into the adult aisle and it makes me nervous. Still, I head forth with my chin held high. For they can smell fear.
I walk to the shelf where I last saw the black cover.
It’s still there, although a little sticky now. The price shocks me.
$1o?
So cheap?
I purchase it (holding out my I.D. before the cashier can even ask) and head home.
At night, while my mum is out partying in Waipahu and my brother is partying at the church/school, I go downstairs and pop the tape into the VCR.
It rolls black for a long time, but I don’t want to fast forward because I might miss something interesting. My mind wanders and I begin to worry about my mum. She better not be drinking. She has dialysis tomorrow.
The screen flicks white…
DISSOLVE FROM WHITE FLARE.
The camera adjusts its brightness and focuses, revealing a bedroom.
INT. BEDROOM – NIGHT
The camera pans slowly to reveal the room as the TITLE dissolves onto screen as if under water. There’s sweet Hawaiian music.
SUPERIMPOSE TITLE:
Aloha Mannequins
The camera now picks up many mannequins, resting against the walls and on the floor. The screen SPLIT-SCREENS, so that the left side of the screen pans the walls, while the other shows CLOSE-UPS of the mannequins, of eyes and noses and lips and scalps…
BEGIN CREDIT SEQUENCE.
SUPERIMPOSE INDIVIDUAL CREDITS OVER MANNEQUIN FACES:
Starring…
Dia Golop
Kior Flagmaster
Erort Fannymay
Proppol Evertsonny
Dragon McGinnyot
Ragatony See
Wartpot Jackoer
Leslio Germo
Chinkytop Xtrox
Quiberton Siomon Jew
Foop Dingalinger
And…
Natfat Chacony Hojew
Camera
Melano V. Brighman
Camera zooms in on mannequin’s blue eye.
SUPERIMPOSE TEXT:
Directed by
Natfat Chacony Hojew
END CREDIT SEQUENCE.
INT. COLLEGE DORM – DAY
A YOUNG JAPANESE GIRL, clothed, sits on a bed. She smiles into the camera, which is being handheld by a geeky-sounding male. He zooms in and out occasionally from her face to her boobs, which are miniature.
The geek has a nervous crack to his voice. The young girl is calm and professional.
There is HAWAIIAN MUSIC.
GEEK (o.s.)
Tell us a little about yourself.
GIRL
My name is Wendy Jefferson Suzuki. And I go to UH.
GEEK (o.s.)
Oh, interesting, interesting. I am very interested in what you do.
WENDY
Thank you. I am very happy to be here.
GEEK (o.s.)
What’re you taking…here at UH?
WENDY
I’ll soon be getting my doctoral degree in microbiology.
GEEK (o.s.)
That’s very interesting.
WENDY
What are you taking?
GEEK (o.s.)
NO TALKING NOW!
Camera zooms in on her hair, then tilts down to her sock-covered feet.
GEEK (o.s.)
Wiggle your toes for me. Ooooooh, yessm, Yessm. That’s hot, for some reason. Oolala.
WENDY
I love wiggling my toes. It makes my vagina humid.
GEEK (o.s.)
Good.
(pause)
She wiggles her toes or else she gets the hose again. My friend should be here any moment now.
Camera pans past a mirror, where we see the camera operator for a split second before he SPINS AWAY, yelping.
GEEK (o.s.)
It’s okay. I can edit that out.
OTHER VOICE (o.s.)
You can’t edit out your mind’s eye.
JUMP CUT:
Zoom in on door. There’s a knock. Camera walks to door and opens it.
Natalie walks in, pushing in a large, human-sized box with a handtruck.
GEEK (o.s.)
Ah! Right on time.
NATALIE
Sorry I’m late.
GEEK (o.s.)
(whispering)
Do you have it?
NATALIE
(whispering)
You will love it so much.
GEEK (o.s.)
Good! Allow me to introduce you to my
good friend of many hours. Natalie, this is Wendy.
WENDY
Hello.
NATALIE
Ooooooooh.
GEEK (o.s.)
Wendy’s here for some fun, aren’t you, Wendy?
WENDY
I love wiggling my toes. It makes my vagina clammy.
GEEK (o.s.)
Silence, toad!
NATALIE
Thou shall utter the secret GO code!
GEEK (o.s.)
Sky Gimp!
NATALIE
Sky Gimp!
GEEK (o.s.)
Sky Gimp!
NATALIE
Sky Gimp!
GEEK (o.s.)
Sky Gimp!
NATALIE
Sky Gimp!
GEEK (o.s.)
Sky Gimp!
NATALIE
Sky Gimp! Good. You have repeated it the correct number of times. Let us proceed.
Wendy is scared.
Natalie walks to the bed, looms over it, and grins at her. Wendy waves. Natalie licks the box she’s holding and throws it to the ground, angry. She makes love to the box for 5 seconds, and opens it quickly.
The camera operator helps her clear away the tiny, noisy popcorn balls. The camera ZOOMS in slowly onto the mannequin inside. It’s a male. Natalie stands it up. The mannequin is naked and so very white, like paper. Its head is turned to the right, with both hands on its hips.
Camera quickly looks to Wendy. She is clearly lost. Mentally.
Natalie holds out her hand to Wendy –
LOUD KNOCK ON DOOR.
SCARY MAN (o.s.)
Security! Open up! What you guys do’n ova thea!?
NATALIE
Jiggers! The fuzz!
GEEK (o.s.)
Hide!
JUMP CUT:
INT. NATALIE’S BEDROOM – NIGHT
Same set up: Natalie holds out her hand. Wendy takes it…and stands next to the mannequin. Natalie brushes Wendy’s hair with a metal comb.
NATALIE
Make love to it. Caress it. Want it. Feed it. Whisper sweet-somethings into its ears. Touch its penis.
WENDY
Yessm, master.
Natalie guides Wendy down before it. Natalie blocks the camera, so it tries to move around her. THEN –
WENDY BOLTS UP.
WENDY
Jesus Christ! Its thing is real!
NATALIE
TOUCH THE PENIS!
WENDY
Release me!
NATALIE
Rub it! Smack it! Let herrr attack it!
GEEK (o.s.)
Jesus Christ!
There is a struggle as they try to keep Wendy from running away.
WENDY
Mommy!
Mommy!
Wendy breaks free and trips and falls into the camera, face-first.
BLACK.
SOUNDS OF MUFFLED SCREAMS/A CHAIR FALLING/THUNDER/CANS BANGING TOGETHER.
CUE: classical violin music.
BED.
Wendy sits, motionless – her eyes are glazed over – she has been crying. She is naked. The geeky cameraman tries to focus in on her breasts.
Natalie walks into frame, fixes up Wendy’s hair for the camera, and sits down next to her – and pets her head. Natalie digs into her own hair and produces a needle and dips the tip into a glass of purple liquid and sticks its entire length through Wendy’s forearm.
She doesn’t move: Her eyes always forward.
The cameraman MOANS. Then the camera shakes. Then from somewhere far away, we hear the sudden roar of THUNDER. Natalie looks into the camera.
NATALIE
This is the new Age of Virgo Sheep.
The camera nods.
GEEK (o.s.)
Yesssssm.
FADE OUT:
…silence…
FADE IN:
INT. BEDROOM – NIGHT
Wendy is sitting on the bed – eyes empty. Natalie paints her body with a white, thick substance.
Natalie looks into the camera.
NATALIE
Now it is your turn, oh child.
GEEK (o.s.)
I wish to be immortalized.
NATALIE
So let it be painted…
JUMP CUT:
GEEK
sits on the bed, in the glowing nude, with his hands between his knees, next to Wendy. He appears to have been crying.
GEEK
(into camera)
So let it be done.
He turns to Natalie as she paints his thighs a shiny white. He begins to sob. Wendy begins to sing vowels.
CUT TO:
INT. BATHROOM – NIGHT
It’s very BRIGHT. The shower is on at full BLAST. Geek – now made frozen into a mannequin – sits on the toilet as Natalie, wearing a pink bathrobe, fingers his mouth like a jackhammer and sucks on his nose while making strange erotic sounds.
She takes her finger out from his mouth.
Geek Mannequin looks into the camera’s general direction (though his eyes are pure white) and opens his mouth to say something, but he sounds like a RACCOON.
Natalie claps her hands – slowly at first – and then HOOTS and HOLLERS.
NATALIE
Hurray! Hurray!
CUT TO BLACK:
CUT TO:
SAME SHOT – STABLE/ON TRIPOD
INT. BATHROOM – NIGHT
Natalie HACKS at the Geek Mannequin repeatedly with two miniature axes. Mannequin is frozen (has been posed) with his hands over his eyes – mouth agape in horror.
With three clunky chops, Natalie lops off his left arm; then with one, large blow, off comes his right. Red fountains out from his shoulders like two insane fire hoses.
The mannequin doesn’t move an inch: Its face scared stiff.
Natalie is covered in blood from hair to ankles, as if she just climbed out from a giant can of red paint. She fixes her hair and walks to the camera…the whites of her eyes shining through her red face.
NATALIE
I am the sponge, and I have been fertilized.
FADE OUT:
INT. BEDROOM – NIGHT
Wendy The Mannequin is on the floor, on her back, her arms spread out over the carpet. Natalie is videotaping her.
Someone is in the background, on the ground…
SCREEN BLINKS OFF.
I turn off the VCR and run into the kitchen and vomit into the sink – into a frying pan with leftover tiny sausages, the kind with cheese inside.
I make a glass of water and set my tummy at ease.
Was it all real?
Couldn’t be.
I want to call Polly. I want to ask her. But what if it disturbs her and I don’t get the cameraman job? I can’t chance it. I need the job. Need to pay rent. I can’t survive in the real world with a real job – at least not forever. I don’t want to be a bum living in Ala Park. That’s the lowest of the low for me, I swear. If it ever did come to that, me having nothing AT ALL except for my own skin, I would split my wrists.
I decide to not make any waves with Polly.
I microwave myself some cold pizza and eat my feelings. I should be depressed more often. Then maybe I’d gain more weight and be a fattie. I should create my own weight gain system.
PART TWO
“Clean Water”
THE 1st DAY OF WORK is on a Monday. Polly calls me up at 6am and tells me to be ready by 6:1o. I say okay and hang up, then say obscenities at the sunrays creeping into my bedroom window.
“Obscenities!”
I can’t stand mornings. They tell me, “Yessm! Another day of hell for you! Another day possibly wasted!”
Well, dear Sun, maybe not today.
I shower for 3o seconds, shampooing my hair with Fructis, and get dressed and walk outside, hopping into Polly’s car.
We have to drive to Aina Haina, to the shoot location: Some rich house on the high hills.
On the freeway, Polly asks if I’ve eaten. I tell her no, and she gives me a lump of tinfoil. I open it up and eat the fried banana rolls inside. It’s yummy.
The fastest way to my heart?
My mouth.
And penis.
But it’s my mouth first.
Raindrops begin to splat against the windshield. We’re getting close to the house. I begin to get nervous. I want to do a good job. I don’t even care about what my friends or family will say anymore. I just want to work at a job that I find fun and/or interesting, to make enough money to buy cigarettes and go out drinking at Scores while we all play darts – then go out to Hawaiian Brian’s on BYOB nights and drink more beer and play more darts.
The great thing about Brian’s is that they’ve got a video arcade, pool tables (their main attraction) and 8 dartboards, and because there’s a club next door – Blue Tropix – you have eye-candy strutting in every now and then.
That’s good cake.
There are actually two clubs: Blue Tropix, where the hippidy hoppers go, and that Black Building, where all the Gothos & Depressos go.
They all come together at Brain’s.
The nexus of the universe.
Aina Haina makes me ill. My ex lives here – well, last I checked anyway. I don’t tell Polly. I don’t want her feeling sorry for me – no pity applause, please. Polly drives by my ex’s house and I can’t help myself but look.
No one outside.
Good.
If I did see her, oh I don’t know, raking or something, it would be a thorn in my mind that would take another 3 fucking years to dig out (exhales, depressingly).
That’s a good name for a band:
Exhales Depressingly
And it’s not that I don’t love her. I do. It’s just that she’s off and married and happy with someone else (who I’m sure is a good guy) that’s not me. I see her now and I feel used & abused & worthless. Just not good enough. Sorry Rubs, do not pass Go.
I miss feeling wanted.
Blarghhhh…
The good thing about the breakup was that when it ended, it ENDED. No phone calls, no possibilities. Wow. She’s “off limits” now. Doesn’t matter how much I care. Doesn’t matter what I think. Just gotta mooooove on like a sad cow. It’s hideous. Dark days ahead folks. Very dark.
Polly’s cellphone goes off, plays the ring tone “What’s this? What’s this” from A Nightmare Before Christmas. Irritated by the conversation, she hangs up, violently, and tells me that the address of the house where the adult movie is being filmed has been changed – for security reasons. Seems that someone on the inside has tipped the fuzz.
After an hour of driving and searching, we drive up to the two-story house. Other cars are parked, all close to each other. There is a large blue van – looks as if it time-traveled
from the 70’s. It is rocking back and forth, and muted tribal music can be heard inside.
The backdoors are opened by an obese woman with bad ankles and children on pogo sticks jump out and hop here and there and everywhere.
Polly and I climb the long flight of stairs, towards the cotton-filled blue sky, up to the front, sliding glass door. It takes our combined bulk to open it.
The place is one, large living room. People in orange towels loiter. They look at us and then go back to their conversations. A fat, white cat walks past us. It looks over its shoulder and gives me the old bug-eye.
I squint my eyes and give it the look back.
An older man – wearing white socks – walks up to Polly and gives her a big hug. He looks at me with those large, blue eyes and shakes my hand – introduces himself as Mr. Snake, the director of the project. He assumes that I’m the new cinematographer.
When I agree, he lets out a heavy “Huzzah!” and calls forth a waiter who lumbers out from the bathroom. He looks tired – dressed in a black, turtleneck sweater, holding a silver platter over his head. He yawns.