SHMAEDRA: (weeping and shirtless with remorse) Why Don why? I was so selfish and in worlds beyond this sepia-tinted world I see before me we are still lovers and I have not rent my blouse with anguish! (she falls to her knees and stretches her imploring arms toward an uncaring heaven. ZOOM OUT/ CUT TO)

(INTERIOR SHRUBBERY: we see TRANSVESTITE KILLER licking his lipsticked lips and sharpening the metal prongs on a pair of YELLOW PLASTIC CORN-SHAPED CORN HOLDERS on a RAZOR STROP. He pushes his way through the bushes and we see SHMAEDRA’s back as she weeps on the bank of the tumultuous river. TRANSVESTITE KILLER emerges slowly from the bushes, and we can see that he’s planning on plunging the CORN HOLDERS into SHMAEDRA’s temples. CUT TO)

Don: (Riding suddenly between TRANSVESTITE KILLER and SHMAEDRA on a motorcycle) Not so fast, Mister Sister!

TRANSVESTITE KILLER: I’m a crazy bitch who will also kill you painfully, interfering guy!

(a brief struggle ensues, we see DON’s back as he quickly reaches out and snaps the TRANSVESTITE KILLER’s  neck with his bare hands, TRANSVESTITE KILLER falls to the ground, dead. DON turns, slowly, and we see the CORN HOLDERS projecting from the sockets of his eyes.)

DON: (staggering) AAAUUUGGHH MY EYES SHMAEDRA WHERE ARE YOU?

SHMAEDRA: AAAAAAAUUUUUGGGGHHH! DON! AAAAUUUGGH!

DON: SHMAEDRA I CANNOT SEE YOUR BEAUTY! AAAIIIEEEE! (he stumbles over the motorcycle. CUT TO)

(we see realistic life-size DON DUMMY fall into the water, and go over the falls.)

DON: SHMMAAAAEEEEDDDRrraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa….

SHMAEDRA: Oh God, Don…no…he…he could not see my beauty with those corn holders in his eyes...he could not…see…my…(cries. ZOOM OUT)

     That was how the scene was supposed to go, but things went differently. For one thing, Ron’s motorcycle wouldn’t start, so he was actually on an old borrowed mo-ped, which he did not handle with confidence. Then, also, Ron was thinking that this might be the last chance he’d ever have to see Phaedra’s breasts, as the movie was about to wrap. So he wasn’t as attentive to the controls of the mo-ped as he was to the breasts, with the result that he shot clean between Phaedra and the actor playing the killer, into the shrubbery and directly into me, knocking me into the rapids.

     I was pulled underwater directly to the edge of the waterfall. I still had the boom microphone, which was connected by a cord to a sound board, which leapt off the folding table it had been set up on and rolled toward the river, until it got stuck between a couple small trees. Under the pounding water, rushing toward the brink off the falls, I felt a jerk as the wire held fast. I angled my body back in the water and straightened my legs out, and popped up out of the rushing water like a waterskier rising out of the wake of a boat. Holding the boom with both hands, feet skittering wildly on the surface of the water, I had the roaring falls at my heels, and I knew I had only seconds to live. Ron and the other crew members were running for the cord, but I could see it fraying and hyperextending in several places.

     That’s when Vampirella first saw me. She happened to be driving by in her red convertible 1979 VW bug on the road near the top of the falls when her attention was attracted by the sight of a distraught young woman tearing off her shirt and weeping. She saw the whole episode unfold and, when she saw me there bouncing and skipping on the brink of the falls, she suddenly fell irrevocably in love with me, as never had she seen a man so utterly doomed. Everybody has specific criteria they look for in a prospective mate.

     She swung the VW around and knocked a small billboard over onto the safety barrier, making a sort of flimsy ramp. Then she backed up quickly, about 100 yards, and floored the VW directly at the makeshift jump. There was a tremendous crash as it hit the ramp and became airborne in my direction. The ramp collapsed slightly on the left side as the vehicle took flight, shearing off both tires on the drivers’ side. That caused the VW to rotate counterclockwise as it flew toward me, so that it was completely upside down when its trajectory took it right over my head.

     So that was my first sight of Vampirella: her red hair, white skin, beautiful eyes, spiralling VW bug flying right at me. Vampirella held both arms straight down for me and I did not hesitate to release the boom mike and reach up and grab at her wrists, to be yanked up into the air as we sailed together over the edge of the waterfall.

     The car continued to rotate as it fell, and as it came back upright I managed to drop into the passenger seat, where I absently fumbled for my safety belt. “Hey, thanks,” I said, gratefully, “Now what?”
     Vampirella looked back at me ruefully, “Rocks,” she said.

     The VW hit a huge boulder sticking out of the falls about two thirds of the way down. The engine was forcibly ejected from the back of the car, and the windshield shattered as the car bounced up in the air and then hit again on the left side, hard. Then we were underwater and the VW was rolling over and over with giant rocks and black tearing water all around. I reached over to make sure that she had gotten her safety belt off, and released my own, and we were quickly sucked out of the vehicle.

     The currents smashed us to the bottom of the river, rolled us over and spouted us back up into the air again. It was nice to breathe, but hard to concentrate on breathing while being pushed repeatedly into rocks and yanked back underwater. 

     After 15 long minutes clinging together through whirlpools and roiling waters, we managed to crawl hand-in-hand from the river onto a small rocky beach. Besides a lot of bruises, I had a broken little finger on my left hand and a shallow gash across the forehead. Vampirella had a black eye and a twisted ankle. She was really beautiful… we started  having sex then, for a couple of minutes, until I saw the police up at the top of the falls looking down, and as I anticipated some unpleasantness about how you’re not supposed to drive cars into the falls we stopped copulating and ran away.

     We bruised ourselves a little more scrambling quickly up the cliffs to the main street, and dodged, dripping, into a wax museum as the sirens grew close. The museum was deserted except for a surly codger taking admission at the front door, and we paused for awhile to complete our interrupted consummation right on Dr. Frankenstein’s lab table, as the monster stood guard, in the Dark Dungeon of Horrors, by the crackling light of a Jacob’s ladder. It was very romantic. Then we walked, in squelching wet shoes, to a cafeteria, where I bought her a hot cocoa and a blintz. We purchased a bottle of pink champagne and went back to my motel, and pretty much stayed there for the next 72 hours, with more of the sex.

     …Anyway, Vampirella was home with the kids. I made some sandwiches while she finished her planting, and we had lunch and then I grabbed some tools and headed up to do some work on the turret. Tibor and Natasha came along to hammer and saw on things which required neither hammering nor sawing.

     After a couple hours I figured I should make my end-of-day appearance at work, so I bid the family goodbye and got back in the Retro Cab. It wouldn’t start at first, but I knew enough about Monk’s maintenance to have parked on a hill, and I managed to spark the engine once I got it coasting. I tried to turn the radio on to drown out the sputtering, wheezing and intermittent shrieking of the tortured vehicle, but the only station that came in was a really loud crazy mariachi station, and then the radio wouldn’t turn off and the knobs on the radio were sticky because, I now noticed, Monk had replaced them with black licorice gumdrops. I looked in the cracked rear-view mirror and noted with alarm that the cab was spewing thick blood–red smoke from the exhaust. There was a curious smell like hot bacon in turpentine coming from the engine. It burst into flames a block from the office, and I left the cab burning and walked the rest of the way back. 

     I slipped back into the office through the window of the computer room, which Horst and I always left unlocked for easy escape and return. I walked out of the computer room holding an outdated computer manual and looking thoughtful, and sat back down at my desk. Nobody seemed to have noticed that I’d ever been gone, as usual.