Last week a bunch of Moldy's friends got together to take him to see
what was probably the last available screening of "House of 1000
Corpses". Directed by heavy metal rocker Rob Zombie, it's an homage
film to 1970's sexploitation and slasher movies, and as one IMDB
reviewer put it, if you're not pointing at the screen every few
moments and saying "That's an homage to the graveyard scene from 'I
Eat Your Flesh'" then this probably wasn't the movie for you.
But it was the movie for Moldy, who has been an ardent fan of macabre films his entire life (we once went to meet Vincent Price at the St. Paul Student Center -- nice old man).
Unfortunately the only theater left showing it was up in Elk River, a good 50 minutes outside of town.
So at 6:00 p.m. last night, his wife Blondie had Moldy ready -- in his black jeans and T shirt he was Da man. They have a friend called Irish Dave who works as a bouncer at 1st Avenue (where Blondie works), and he's been a prince about helping move Moldy around (Moldy is 6' tall). He showed up, just a tad late, and we hauled Moldy into the shotgun seat of my van. I volunteered to drive my van which worked out very well, all six of us fit comfortably in it.
We got up to Elk River about 10 minutes late, Moldy already annoyed at missing the opening of the film. Getting him out of the van and back into his wheelchair was a bit of a trick, and then I went to park the van.
Well, as it turns out when their friend Bonnie got into the theater first (while the rest of us were unloading) we discovered that they had CANCELLED the showing of the movie... because nobody else had shown up! She spoke to the manager, explained Moldy's situation, and the theater agreed to run the movie! So we had a private showing.
The movie, well, it was a series of 70mm celluloid frames projected one after another upon a blank screen. Maybe an afficionado of 70's sexploitation films would have been in paroxysms of joy -- maybe Moldy was in paroxysms of joy for all I could tell -- but I was both bored and appalled. But it finally ended after the last gallon of fake blood had been emptied, and we loaded Moldy in the van for the long trip home.
It was during that trip, with Moldy fairly exhausted, that some of his deterioration became clearer. Yeah, he was in a wheelchair, yeah, his hands have started to curl up, and yeah he's a little slow now, but he'd seemed pretty much Moldy. On the trip back, however, he said, "You'd never guess how much the freeway weighs!" Apropos of nothing, it halted conversation while we all tried to figure out how to reply. Tim finally said, "You know, I'd never thought of that before," and we continued talking. Later Moldy blurted "The silly defense car drove through the onion!" and repeated himself clearly when asked what he had said.
The problem, of course, is that he's trying to say one thing, but his neurons are scrambled so that the ideas aren't connecting up to the right words. Imagine how frustrating that must be!
Then when we got him back to his apartment (Irish Dave having returned to await us), Moldy collapsed while getting into his wheelchair, his weakened legs unable to support him. Dave and Blondie (she's a strapping 5'11 herself) managed to get him up into his wheelchair, but it was clear he was exhausted.
So it was nice to get him out and about. I guess on Memorial Day nobody was available, and he missed a beautiful day of weather when he really really wanted to get outside. So it was nice to get him out for this.
Thursday night Tim and I stopped by to hang out with him for a while and we picked up Famous Dave's (as opposed to Irish Dave) barbecue. Moldy tucked into his with impressive gusto -- whatever else isn't working right, his appetite is sure on track!
