Pat Boone Fan Club (15 page)

I Was a Prisoner on the Satellite of Love

(Featuring Crow R. Robot, star,
Mystery Science Theater 3000
)

I slump beside my husband, M., barely speaking to him. We’re on the Northwest Airlines flight from Hartsfield International Airport in Atlanta to Grand Rapids with a layover in Detroit. In the Hartsfield gift shop I was comforted by familiar Braves baseball caps, Dawgs t-shirts, the drawl of slow, fluid syllables. Now, after landing in Michigan, I’m confused by foreign midwestern logos, sights, and sounds: Red Wings hockey sweatshirts, “M Go Blue” pennants, flat accents, heavy on my ears. I want to be home in Georgia. But my husband has a new job offer, so we’re flying here to look for a house prior to our move.

We wait for the realtor outside the terminal of the Gerald R. Ford International Airport. It’s Memorial Day weekend, and I’m wearing a sleeveless floral blouse and hot-pink sandals. Freez
ing, I might add, in sleeveless blouse and sandals. While it was over eighty degrees in Georgia, it feels less than fifty here, practically still winter. Indeed, everyone at the airport wears dreary tans, grays, blacks. All the footwear seems to be sturdy boots. Everyone looks as if they hike. I am the only one in floral, the only one in sandals, in pink. Is tan actually a color? All my boots have stylish heels. Besides, I hate ice hockey. I don’t know what “M Go Blue” means. [
“Get your shoes on,” Crow T. Robot quips from his front-row seat on this movie of my life. “We’re at the monster.”
]

Rich, our realtor, glides to the curb in a black Jaguar. He leaps from the car, enthusiastically welcoming us to west Michigan. I barely shake his hand before collapsing in the backseat, forcing M. to sit in front. Let
him
schmooze with Rich, listen to the glowing Chamber of Commerce sales pitch. Let
him
hear about this “perfect” house, that “perfect” neighborhood. [
“Hour after hour of heart-pounding small talk,” Crow says, in a mock-stentorian voice.
]

Just two years ago, after renting that log cabin, we bought our first house, only recently completing the redecoration.
That’s
the house in which I want to live. But now, because of this job offer, we must sell it. I must give up my adjunct teaching job. I must leave my therapist and my group. [
“Goodbye,” Crow calls. “Thanks for the Valium!”
] Worse, I fear I might also have to leave Crow—Crow, the robot, whom I think I love more than my husband. At least it
feels
as if I’m leaving Crow behind. Surely, though, I reassure myself, cable television stations in Michigan—just as in Georgia—
must
air the Comedy Central series
Mystery Science Theater 3000
(
MST
3
K
), in which Crow is one of the stars. But all in all it feels as if I’m leaving my life behind—or as if I’m being abandoned. [
“Does anyone have a copy of
Final Exit
?” Crow asks, innocently.
]

We’ve planned to buy a house in one of the lakeshore communities about forty minutes west of Grand Rapids. During the drive to the coast, I notice trees still leafless and bare [
“Enjoy
our bleak landscape,” I hear Crow say.
], whereas in Georgia, spring rains are funneling toward summer. I want to ask the realtor
to turn on the car heater, but I’m too exhausted to speak. The thought of finding a house during one long weekend seems impossible. Besides, Georgia is the longest I’ve lived anywhere. While initially, upon moving there, when I worked at the public library, I had a troubled relationship with the State of Georgia, now it finally feels like home.

To be totally honest, however, I don’t really want to live in Georgia either. Rather, I’d much prefer to live with Crow T. Robot (the letter “T” is short for “The”) on the Satellite of Love, a satellite floating, obviously, in outer space—or at least floating on the television show
MST
3
K
. Don’t get me wrong: even though it’s true I’ve only recently been released from a twenty-eight-day rehab program, recovering from my family of origin and other disasters, I’m not really crazy. Sure, okay, I have a couple of issues, just a bit of a skewed vision of the world. [
“This is my world and welcome to
it,” Crow crows.
] Nevertheless, even though
of course
I pretty much know the difference between make-believe and reality, still, Crow
seems
so real. I
want
him to be real. He and Joel, the human on the show and Crow’s creator, are the ones with whom I want to live, the ones whom I want for my family.

Now, just worrying about this move, I begin to imagine Crow as living only inside
my
particular television set in Georgia—even though, technically, I know this isn’t true. But suppose I can’t find him in Michigan? Comedy Central is, after all, a fledgling network, not yet carried nationwide. Even now, leaving Georgia for a few days, I’ll miss him. [
“The Bataan Death March was less painful than this,” Crow commiserates.
] I gave detailed instructions to a friend in my therapy group to videotape all the weekend shows, but suppose his
VCR
breaks? Suppose the timer doesn’t work? Suppose he forgets an episode by mistake? [
“Do not adjust your set!” Crow commands. “We can make it stupid.”
]

STAGE
DIRECTIONS
: Rich T. Realtor drives along the shore of Lake Michigan, the main selling point of the area. But this stage set of
Sue’s life should not be designed as a summery beach. The day is gray, cool, gusty. No trees or dense foliage, only a few sprigs of dune grass. No boats on the water. No one sunning on beach towels. No boardwalk or carnival rides. Miles of deserted sand. [
“Once a garden spot, now a playground of death,” Crow intones.
]

After a fade-out, the camera focuses on the Jaguar stopping beside the first house on Rich’s list, a mustard-yellow, wood-frame Victorian with purple trim. It is surrounded by evergreen trees, not loblollies like the ones in Georgia, I notice, sighing. I straggle behind Rich and M. toward the front door, while Rich gleefully details the pros of the house. To him, of course, there are no cons, even though the carpet is electric green. Pepto Bismol–pink paint drenches walls clogged with sad clown paintings. [
“When knickknacks ruled the world,” Crow groans.
] The kitchen is decorated in a heart-and-duck motif. [
Sue, sotto voce: “Country-psychedelic Victorian on crack.”
]

My head is spinning as if I’ve just staggered off a Tilt-a-Whirl. I sit on the green velveteen couch in the living room, thinking I might feel better if I put my head below my knees. Surely this technique cures both dizzy spells
and
nausea. [
“I’m up here, honey, with the
DT
s,” Crow yells. “Could you get the yellow lizard out of the bathroom?”
]

“I happen to know they had a professional interior decorator,” Rich says.

The remote for the television set is propped beside the screen. I can’t resist. I channel surf:
ABC
,
CBS
,
NBC
,
CNN
,
TBS
.
Comedy Central, Comedy Central, where are you? Do you read me?
Where is my favorite robot?
Right then I decide to refuse to buy a house without Comedy Central, without Crow.

SOLILOQUY
,
SUE
,
WITH
YEARNING
: Crow, I can’t live without you. Sure, even with your gold-lacquer finish, you’re probably not the most handsome robot. Your head is crafted from a lacrosse-stick
pocket with a bowling-pin snout attached. Your ping-pong-ball eyes have plus signs for corneas. You have rod-like arms and a thin neck. Your chest looks like two Frisbees glued together, while your lower torso is (more or less) an indented paint can. Nevertheless, dearest Crow, you stole my heart with your irony, your sarcasm, your lack of illusion, your intolerance of deceit . . . you, Crow, who are just the opposite of my deceitful father. [
“Bad movie?” Crow says of Sue’s life. “You’re soaking in it.”
]

Sue continues [
“As the God of Exposition rears its ugly head,” Crow laments.
], Crow doesn’t live alone on the Satellite of Love. His robot brother is Tom Servo, whose head is a transparent gumball globe with a small tin mouth. His Slinky arms are attached to a red-barreled chest that sits atop a hover skirt.

The robots aren’t orphans, however. Far from it. The head of this household is Joel, the human, who, both on
MST
3
K
and
in reality, is a low-key, sweet-faced, blue-eyed, blond Minnesotan. [
“In real life, your landlord is a butane addict who sneaks into your apartment and looks through your underwear drawer,” Crow warns.
]

Why do they live on the satellite? How did they get there? Joel, the janitor at the Gizmonic Institute in Minneapolis (or maybe it’s St. Paul), irritates the two mad scientists in charge. To vent their annoyance they shoot Joel into outer space to live on the Satellite of Love. There they force him to watch bad movies (mostly science fiction) from the 1950s and early ’60s, thus punishing him further. But their ulterior motive, in their twisted minds, is to discover a movie to inflict on the world that is
so
bad, they’ll be able to conquer the universe.

The mad scientists come close. They screen the worst movies ever filmed, the worst of the worst, emphatically bad:
Attack of the Giant Leeches
,
Fire Maidens of Outer Space
,
Santa Claus Conquers the Martians
,
The Pod People
,
The Killer Shrews
,
Attack of the Eye Creatures
,
Manos: The Hands of Fate
,
Eegah!
,
The Crawling Hand
, and
Monster A-Go-Go
. So Joel, lonely and depressed [
“The first step to recovery is recognizing you have a problem,” Crow reminds
Joel.
], missing his roots, his family and friends (this isn’t Minnesota anymore), and being something of a scientist himself, constructs the robots for friends. (In reality, Joel, as part of the creative team Best Brains, pieced together his ’bots using gizmos found in a Salvation Army basement.) Now, not only does he have company as he floats in space, he has companions with whom he can suffer the daily dose of bad flicks. [
“I’ve got a headache this big, and it’s got this movie written all over it,” Crow moans.
]

So now imagine me, Sue, in my ranch house in Georgia, the television set turned to Comedy Central. I sit on my couch watching bad movies at the same time as I observe the silhouettes of Crow, Tom Servo, and Joel
also
watching the movies, sitting in a mock theater. Lights dim. The opening credits for
Earth vs. the Spider
[
“I’m putting my money on the spider,” Crow guesses.
] or
The Castle of Fu Manchu
begin to roll.

Joel and the ’bots don’t just watch the movies. They riff, groan, make snide comments, combining literary allusions with references to both high and low culture. [
“I love the smell of lizard in the morning,” Crow says over the climactic scene of
Attack of the Giant Gila Monster
. “It smells like . . . chicken!”
]

STAGE
DIRECTIONS
: A close-up of Sue, still in the Victorian house, with the
TV
remote in her hand.

Rich T. Realtor: “What’re you doing?”

Sue: “Seeing if they get Comedy Central.”

Rich T. Realtor: “But this house is only
six blocks
from the lake.”

Rich informs M. and Sue that the goal of all homeowners in west Michigan is to move from one house to another, closer and closer to the lake, eventually buying a grand house overlooking Lake Michigan. “It’s climbing the ladder,” he says, authoritatively. “Our younger couples might begin in a starter home,” Rich adds, “before moving to a restored house in the older downtown area.” Beaming, he gestures at the green-and-pink Victorian nightmare. [
“There’s a fine line between surrealism and costume-
shop closeout,” Crow says, so loudly Sue thinks the realtor must hear.
] “Then, from here, you can move into a house even closer to the lake,” Rich says. “And soon, before you know it . . .” [
“Jupiter: America’s heartland!” Crow exclaims.
]

AN
ASIDE
: This is the place in the script where additional exposition must be inserted. It must be clear
why
Sue loves
MST
3
K
. The
what’s the motivation?
question must be addressed. Therefore, it should be clarified that, to Sue, the bad movies on
MST
3
K
are emblematic of dysfunctional families everywhere, such as hers. These families, after all, maintain the pretense that they’re perfect, that they’re
not
dysfunctional. Likewise, in these movies the actors pretend, for example, that a jolly Santa Claus
can
conquer the Martians. Or, in
Attack of the Eye Creatures
, the actors deliberately overlook the sneakers peeking from beneath the eye creatures’ costumes. No one notes the inconsistency of a character wearing Ray Ban sunglasses in a film supposedly set in the thirteenth century. In
Teen-Agers from Outer Space
the actors are, as Crow notes, “really
old
teenagers,” while their uniforms are decorated with what looks suspiciously like duct tape. The creature in
It Conquered the World
looks like a “giant Vlasic pickle with horns,” according to Crow. But the actors play it straight, as truth. No one winks. No one (except Joel and the ’bots, of course) inserts even a touch of irony into the films. No actors groan or smirk at inconsistencies. No one shatters these façades . . . in the way Sue’s parents’ friends believed her family was perfect, believed the façade . . . in the way Sue’s parents, themselves, knew the truth but lied: Sue’s father claimed to love her; he pretended to be the perfect father by providing his family with nice homes and expensive cars. Everyone played their roles with straight faces.